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Leader (1850-1860), 19th July 1851, Edition Town of 2, Page 680, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      the English people ; on the contrary , we expressly described that people as tolerating a Government which misses such glorious opportunities for elevating the influence of England to the highest pinnacle in Europe , and for establishing the progress of mankind beyond the power of absolutism to hinder it . But these considerations do not apply to the Irish exiles . Their case is that of men who have

      resorted—whether they had arms in their hands at the moment or not , it little signifies—to open warfare against the Government of the country ; they therefore incurred the penalty of defeat , with its consequences ; and we hold that it is to assume a very mistaken position if a defeated combatant asks , " or even demands , any sort of concession from the victor . We hold that even harshness forms no ground for complaint . It may form a ground for renewed resistance , where that is practicable ; it may be a motive to vengeance ; but under no circumstances can complaint be otherwise than a puerility , under no circumstances can the vanquished ask concessions from the victor without courting indignity .

      If we were to seek a parallel between the Austrianism of the Continent and the conduct of our own Government , we should find it rather in the case of Ernest Jones and his fellow-prisoners . We have not heard that M'Manus and his compatriots were subjected to anything that can be called cruelty ; Mitchell has expressly said that they were well treated ; Smith O'Brien repelled spontaneous offers of indulgence . The treatment of Mr . Jones and his fellow-prisoners

      was very different : it was a continuance of studied cruelty , not the less odious because it took very paltry shapes . When the gaoler employs bad shelter , bad clothing , and bad diet , —when he harrows the natural feelings of man towards his family . —when he twists the rules of a prison to deprive the prisoner of his guarantees , then we have cruelty and tyranny , —something more than the vengeance of the foe that gives no quarter . But even in this case we should deem it idle to

      complain . Justice may be demanded , because a denial of justice is not involved in the mere facts of the case . On the contrary , the authorities of the country profess to offer justice , and to challenge the claim for it . We have a right to test them , and it is expedient to do so—to obtain justice , if it is to be obtained ; to establish the proof of deliberate injustice , if the claim be met by refusal .

      The mistake of our correspondent , we suspect , lies in the popular notion of Government as a certain thing that is to be based on ascertained truth , and , when once ascertained , fixed for ever more . Now , man , with his partial knowledge and shifting view , never attains to absolute truth . Opinions will fluctuate ; and that opinion of the day which obtains the most adherents in number , influence , or strength , will be the ruling opinion , its adherents the ruling party . Government , whether Monarchical , or Republican , or Imperial , can never become a final and fixed institution ; it must always be '

      based uponthe strongest force of the day , physical as well as intellectual . The business of every patriot , therefore , is not to struggle for some institution which shall be built for ever , never to fail ; but to cultivate to the highest possible extent the faculties , the sympathies , and the power of his fellow-countrymen ; todevelope the most enlightened opinions , to cultivate human nature to its highest point , and ho to . set going a generation of patriotic opinions , and of patriots to maintain them . Every Government is a force , the force-and the business of the people who desire to be well governed is to develope that force from amongst themselves .

      We beg pardon of our correspondent for thus taking him back to a priori considerations ; but we believe it to be most important that this fundamental doctrine should be . thoroughly understood by the People . Government is a force subsisting in the conviction of those who uphold it—in their numbers , influence , and strength . Any new Government must he born in the shape of a new force , which must supersede the other , peaceably if possible , perchance not peaceably ; but in uny case , it must bo a force , and in any case , to attain a victory it jnuat be the stronger force . From this nimpie consideration it will appear , that no patriotic party can gain anything by petition or complaint to the force which it desires to supersede .

      A truly enlightened Government will provide for the gradual progress of the People , and will be ambitious to lead in the successive changes which that progress implies . Such changes would then

      be peaceable , and would be effected with the best possible apparatus existing in that country and that day . From the conduct of our own Government ,- —from its concession to Canada when it rebels , and the Cape of Good Hope when it rebels , —from its superciliousness to the Irish when they are scattered , —from the contempt with which it treats the claims of the working people in this country , —from the utter disregard and slight which it shows to the wants of immense masses among the People ; from these incidents we infer

      that our own Government does not desire the progress of the nation to be conducted in a peaceable manner . It can scarcely hope to arrest that progress : the attempt to arrest it only accumulates the materials for a more convulsive movement ; and on those who stop the flood let the consequences fall . Has Ireland no other exiles , but those made such by formal decree of the law ? Ask the census . And on what condition are that million and those hundreds of thousands ?—whither have

      they gone ? Some to the Colonies — some to the great Republic across the ocean—some under the sodr What are Irishmen doing for them , or for their children ? Shall we petition on their behalf ? or how act ?

      Untitled Article

      INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL AT BRIGHTON . Industrial training for pauper children continues to make way . From the Brighton Herald we learn , that a committee has just presented a report to the Directors and Guardians of the Poor , making the subjoined recommendations : — " 1 . The sale of certain land belonging to the parish , which for building purposes it is estimated , will produce £ 10000 . l 2 . That the permission of the Poor Law Commissioners be obtained to effect that sale . " 3 . With the money thus raised , to erect an Industrial School ( a considerable distance , we hope ) , out of the town , capable of accommodating from 250 to 300 children . " 4 . It is expected that about eight acres may be purchased , and the necessary buildings erected for £ 9400 . " The report is to be considered about a fortnight hence . The Herald very properly insists on a real industrial training , and not mere " school learning . " In that respect , Brighton may well follow the example of Bedford . The Herald anticipates " objections to the experiment ; " but in Bedford , so far from being an experiment , the plan has been well tried , and it has answered all the objectors . The pupils of the Industrial School find employment as fast as they can be trained ; indeed , the demand for them almost exceeds the supply . And although the different trades have not been " overstocked " by the process , an ef fectual check has been put to that ugly parish institution , hereditary pauperism . For the " lowest" extremity of 4 he social scale can display its " tenth transmitter of a foolish fact" as well as the highest , or rather worse .

      Untitled Article

      EDINBURGH ANNUITY TAX . Ever since the breaking up of the Church of Scotland into two separate bodies , complaints have prevailed in all the large towns on account of the number of useless churches , and the multitude of ministers who receive Jarge stipends for preaching to empty pews . In Edinburgh the case is much aggravated by the odious and oppressive mode in which the funds for paying the clergymen are

      provided . Instead of ecclesiastical endowments of any kind , which they could receive quietly without scandal , the Edinburgh ministers of the church depend for their living upon a poll-tax , which has long been very unpopular , but which is now felt to he utterly intolerable by the great mass of the population . From a statement now before us wo learn that the Old Town of Edinburgh , with about : »() , ()()() inhabitants , is obliged to maintain twelve

      Ministers , at an expense of nearly £ o "() 0 O per annum , although there are only six or seven hundred members residing in the Old Town who possesH seats in the ten churches in which those ministers officiate . Before the disruption , the complaint against' the Annuity Tax , as the odiouw rate i « termed , was chiefly among' Dissenters ; but the grievance is now equally felt by the Free Church party ; and their secession from the Establishment has made the grievance ten times worse than it was before , by leaving most of the churches empty , while the heavy tax is still exacted . The Ministers of the Gospel of Peace succeed , however , in obtaining their nalaries regularly by the help of the taxgatherer and the auctioneer , wil . li the occasional aitl of the jiolice- force and the military . It says very

      little for the proverbial prudence of the heads of the Church of Scotland , that they should persist in maintaining so gross an abuse in these troublous times . Always a source of private complaint , this impost has of late become one of public opposition . Mr . H . Robinson , the most enterprising of Edinburgh publishers , has opened a campaign against it . ' It often happens that ten thousand people will

      put up with a wrong before one will stand out against it ; and to accept the brunt of an opposition is always an onerous task—exposing him who undertakes it to pecuniary expense , and , what to many is much worse , most unpalateable criticism . But the work must be done ; and those who attempt it have a claim upon the sympathy , the gratitude , and the support of the public : we hope Mr . Robinson will lack none of these rewards in the warfare which he , chiefly , and some others are waging .

      Untitled Article

      TOWN AND COUNTRY BURIAL . Hamlet spoke but the feelings of the human heart , when , moralizing in the graveyard , he exclaimed , " Did these bones cost no more in the breeding but to play at loggats with them ? Mine ache to think on't . " With truth , he complained that the clownish gravedigger " had no feeling of his business ; " and even in the present day there are many who will cynically ask , " What mattery it to the escaped spirit if we be * knocked about the mazzard with a sexton ' s spade , ' when the body has fulfilled its office upon earth , and the withered frame has returned to dust ? " Many

      instances may also be cited , in which the great ones of the earth have apparently despised any care for the disposal of their remains . Plato allowed no larger funeral monument than would contain four heroic verses , and he set aside the most barren ground for sepulture . Pliny derides care for the dead , as a weakness only known to men . Socrates told his friends they might burn or bury his body , if they would not think thereby they had burned or buried Socrates . Solon desired

      that his body might be carried to his native Salamis , to be burned and scattered to the winds . Diogenes directed that his remains should be exposed to birds and beasts of prey . Seneca would give no directions as to the disposal of his body , staling that the necessity of the case would provide for it . But all these are equivocal ; for the very fact of their having given directions respecting their remains , evidences a certain anxiety on the subject . Our own Shakspcare exhibits more frankness in the matter in his well known

      epitaph : — " Good friend , for Jesus' sake forbeare To digg the dust enclosed here . Blest be the man that spares these stones ! And curst be lie that moves my bunts ! " Whatever men may say , they feel a care for the future disposal of their bodies . In the moment of thoughljess revelry and idle jesting they may affirm their indifference ; but it is to no man a pleasing reflection that , perhaps long before the worm has finished his work , the silence of the

      tomb may be invaded by the sexton ' s spade ; that oven in the grave will competition still be rife , and the remains of his neighbour jostle against his own ; that his bones while still corruptible may be cast once more into the light of day , to be gnawed by dogs or kicked about by the vulgar . No ! man as he hopes for immortality for his soul desires a decent sepulture of his body . Amid tlie spasmodic smugglings of this life , he looks forward to a freedom from care—to a resting-place , where his body may peacefull y repose , and where his friends may let fall the tear of respect and sympathy .

      Whatever carelessness , however , we may pretend to feel respecting our own interment , the heart" asserts itself when we think of the disposal of those we hold dear . Their bodied arc to us objects of veneration . That which to str . mgers is but a lifeless piece of earth , is the concentration of ill our affections . With them we hold a Nprituul intercourse , and their memory i , s blessed in our hearts . To forget them were to commit sin , to be careless of their sepulture were sacrilege . The soul loves to materialise its idealities . It is not

      content with a dreamy memory of ( he departed . It will conjure up the accustomed look and figure , the lust gaze which told of the spirit passing away , and the calm cold face fixed in the sleep of death . It calls to mind the spot where the remains of the loved object lie—where the last farewell was taken . It goes " to the grave to wee ]) there . " It w holy ground , hallowed to tender recollections , to holy meditations , to virtuous resolutions , to nn-

      Untitled Article

      68 ffftt ILea&etV [ Saturday ,

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), July 19, 1851, page 680, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1892/page/12/