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Leader (1850-1860), 28th July 1860, Edition 1 of 2, Page 686, "S. G. 0." AND GREENWICH HOSPITAL.

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    • RECENT FRENCH HISTORICAL WORKS.
    • "S. G. 0." AND GREENWICH HOSPITAL.
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      Untitled Article

      than in the matter of extravagant personal and household expenditure . The hundreds , if not thousands , of cases which the Times has to record iu the year of ruin , destruction , and dishonesty , owing- to this cause alone , oiightto prevent it , if honest , frpmtaking anything like an " easy " tow of debt , or talking fashionable twaddle about gentlemen , being made bankrupt whilst taking their ' little tour on the Continent y or finding brokers in the house , and carpets hanging put of the windows , after a few month ' s absence at Ryde or Scarborough . When writers are driven to such feeble instances as these , it shows us the weakness of the whole case , and that there is a great deal more will than argument in their objections . People don't like making up their housebooks , or settling their little accounts regularly , that is the long and short of it ; and tradesmen like to get them on their books , and keep them therebut only if they are worth it . Till you are known , few people are sharper ' than the Western ! tradesmen;—rwhere you are known , few people more lax . We know this from experience : and let any of our readers try the experiment . Order an article at a strange shop , it will be at home with the bill before you are , and the bearer will , in many cases , refuse to leave the former except on payment of the latter . So far from disapproving of this we . should be glad to see it , not general , but universal . It is the other , and equally common line of proceeding , that is objectionable , namely , that ' when your probable solvency and respectability are once ascertained , you are insensibly and , as we firmly believe intentionally , led into extravagances by the difficulty of getting in your bilLs . ' VVhy . only tbe other day , a lady of our acquaintance , the wife of ah officer iii the riayy , had to send , after numerous ordinary applications , a lawyer ' s letter to her milliner , in order to get in her •' little account . '' Only to mention one other case which recentlv came to our notice : the widow of a clergyman , in Oxfordshire , on the death of her husband , called in the accounts which ^ was anxious to pay , and which she then had the means of paying . Some were sent in and settled , and she believed that all stood clear , but subsequently , and at such intervals precisely as suited the policy or t-onyenieiice of ; the creditors * other , and ^ unknown debts came tumbling in , till she scarcely knew when her liabilities were to be over : This evil is rife everywhere more pr less throughput the ebuntrv ; we have everywhere lamentations over insensible extravagances * but when a lancet is to be put to misehiefV " Np thank you" Sir R . Bethel is qiiite right in offering , at any rate , one form of remedy for the cunning of tradesmen ^ the carelessness of Jhe rich , and the shuffling and delays of those who overlive themselves , or swindle ; he thinks that a rough , trenchant , ; untemporismg law would do us gopd , and put pur domestic affairs in a safer and sounder condition , and he is in the right of it . It is the duty of ~ every honest Englishman , whether it is Ms pleasure or no , to accommodate his '' life's form " to his ordinary means , and once , at least , in every half-year he ought to be able to make good his obligationsi or leave in some respectable hands the means of doing so . So one denies that there are pressing years and occasions where an extraordinary expenditure is forced upon an honest mail . Still the demands must be met , and there should be > retrenchment as soon as possible , down to the inexprably necessary . If ruin is to come ,, let it come without spreading . For people who have a thoroughly good character , undeniable securities , really reasonable expectances , or' even" that known " honesty whictr ^ ilrn ^^^ l y ^ d ^ duet flwiu future ; what is imperiously called for in present expenditures , loans ai-e generally not . difficult to procure , and charitable societies would do well , on investigation , to relieve such eases . We fully believe we should all be in a far healthier state if no tradesman could claim his jiteoiint after the expiration of a year . For every really honest man that such a measure would distress there arc fifty careless and unprincipled ones that it would curb . As for the poor , they should submit to the same law as the rich ; but they are not , as it is , allowed much credit , and it is not out of mercy to them , but to be m the mode and curry favour with the fashionables , that this portion of Sir R . Beth el ' s Bill is disapproved by the ' Times .

      Untitled Article

      686 The Saturday Analpt and Leader . [ JutY 28 , 1860 .

      Recent French Historical Works.

      RECENT FRENCH HISTORICAL WORKS .

      "S. G. 0." And Greenwich Hospital.

      " S . G . 0 . " AND GREENWICH HOSPITAL .

      Untitled Article

      A SSOCIATION hari strange links , and the owner ot these XX three initials , and the reader jn general may wonder what is the connection between " S . O . O . " and the Man-of-War ' s Man ' s retreat . . Ciceuo , in his book on the " Nature of the Gods , " say . s that the kitew and crows aro in the habit of peering sp itefully into each others' nests , and cracking the eggs ; so do Whigs and Tones , ho do High and Low Church " Parties ; " they delight to crack each other * ' eggs , or to proclaim them addled : " S . G . O . " is a great proclnimer of addled eggs , when he cannot crack them . He is occasionally truo and useful , occasionally troublesome and incorrect . Ono society , we believe , has already proved him wrong in . scent . Also ho hus a habit of sometimes assigning eggs to wrong birds , and lately , becauso ho found a rotten charity he thought it must ¦ r ~ have - beeiisat _ upon . ljy ^ an _ aYan pr elic al JiQbleinaji ^ whijnx&Q ^ &fi ^ i 16 ^ --. in no very courteous terms . " What does Lord Shaftksbuky know about me P" or words equivalent . With all excuses for natural partv bitterness , this style of language is hardly gentloman-liko . ' S . ' G . , O . "has no businessto challenge and complain against his own 11 notoriety * he knows that he is known , and spares no pains to make himself * so , that is , as a public man ; as to private memoirs , the history ' of one "G . C , " as it has appeared lately , is enough at a time . We wish both Lord Shaftesbury and "S . G . O , " long lives , and useful ones , each in their way , without that clashing on the stream of life which is exceedingly likely to prove " S . G . O . ' to be the weaker vessel of the two , though he assumes the position of wishing certain

      " noblemen '' to be prosecuted as impostors . But summa diesveniet for both of them ; and if it is vouchsafed to the spnJs . of the departed to view their own funeral honours , we predict , that ,, for any good they have each done , Lord Shaetesbubt will be found to be a good deal the , better " known" of the two . " S , G . O , . may . not " know" what we believe we are quite right in asserting , that -Lord Shaftesbuet never gives his name without giving Ins money , and that consequently he does not give the former without £ ue ^ investigation . His name , it seems , ' was inserted by a Mutual Benevolence Association , " and "S . G . O . " without exercising the courtesy of inquiring whether the name was used justifiably , recommends a certain nobleman to the notice of the police courts . ^ It is to be desired that every party should look thoroughly into what they themselves consider unexceptionable _ chanties . If evangelical secretaries are in any cases overpaid , and expenditure not clearly and satisfactorily accounted for in these associations , they are far from being the only offenders , The idea of rummaging into high-and-dry , orthodox , old-fashioned charities of royal or ancient foundation , never or rarely occurs to the likeof ,, S . G . O ., asit noblemen and gentlemen , guardians and governors could not now and then turn a penny or perform an act rather more in their own interest than that of the charity with whose funds they are intrusted . When Low Churchism was a thing almost unknown in England , the jobbing with and malappropriation of old charities and foundations was notorious and universal ; as Southet says in one of his Quarterly Review Essavs : " Let the reader examine into the state of the charitable foundations over the kingdom , where the same number of poor persons are now maintained in the same manner as when the Institutions were endowed centuries ago , and the increase of the rents—which in some places is twenty , fifty , and even a hundred fold—is swallowed up by chaplains and trustees . " How much time did it require to rectify even one of these , Dulwich Hospital ! Even Lord Buocgham has not swept quite clean . Where one pound has been mal-apprppriated in Low Church Charities , or Missionary Societies , we will undertake to say that the old highand-dry have , directly and indirectly , misused and mis-appropriated a hundred ; but "S . G , O . " and his clique have no notion of swindling or hvpocrisy , except , as it would seem > in connection ^ with Exeter Hall , and a nobleman who has taken personal trouble m sounding the depth of misery in this city , when many , of those who abuse him were only talking about it . CarCyi ^ who is certainly not an evangelical , but who , to use /•¦ hi * own language , " knows a man when he sees him , '' says , "Honour to the name of Ashley , that faithful Abdieij , " and weecho the praise gladly . Greenwich Hospital is one of our fine old-fashioned orthodox institutions , and " S . GO . " prbbahl y would have considered it a kind of prpfanity to pry into its proceedings ; but its management has been so bail ^ that the very Admiralty themselves cry " Shame ¦¦!' . If any of our contemporaries wish to make play upon the subject , we recommend them to Lord Ekskine ' s famous speech on its villanous maladministration in . the time of Lord Sandwich , in 1779 , when he dilated uppii the " clerks of clerks in an endless subordination of idleness , " atid when he'told the Court that " the hospital might as well have been under the tuition of the fixed stars as so many illustrious persons in different artd distant departments . " We have given too much space to ' : ' S . G . O" to dwell on the affairs of Greenwich -Hospital , whicbrlikralmOT as we have often shown , only a re-appearance for those Avho are familiar with the history of the past . Our only comment is , that our hospital for retired sailors has been waiting for thorough reform nearly a century , if we date only from' -Lord Ekskine's speech ? how much " longer , it might be arduous to inquire .

      Untitled Article

      WHILST Louis XIV ., deceived by the evil suggestionfl 01 Madame de Maihtenon , Louvois , and the Jesuils . was giving full play to his ambitious designs , nndhurrying on France Lo the brink of tliw precipice , a powerful opposition had » naen within the very Paluce of Versailles ; untlei * tlio shadow of the throne , schemes we reprepared for tlie purpose of upsetting the entire system of despotism which the Cardinal de Richelieu liad organised and bequeathed to le Grand Monarque . The centre of the opposition , tlie man around wl > om the French Liberulwot tho Reventeentli century ftatliered tog « ther , was the fiimous Due tie Bourgogno , so eloquently pourtrayed by Saint Simon , nna who , if he had been spare * I to reign , would most probably liave anticipated the greut national movement of 1789 , and prevented altogether the terrible catastrophe of 1793 . The Dues de Beauvilliers and < le Chevreuae , Fenelon , Archbishop of Canibray , and Saint Simon himself were the leading men in the movoment we have just been alluding to ; -an opposition , the programme ot which still exials in that beautiful prose poem , " Telemaqiie —a work , which , containing the princi p les of the most enlightenea form of government , faintly concealed under the mask of n 0 * " !"' could scarcely escape the notice of a prince like Louih XIV . ^ VlIiiecTwrili tlTe FoyHrcIiipleiliulNBliar&bet ~ eapriFchi 7 ? wtqitejr ~ F « n « loh xvua bni » iahed to Ills diocese ; but this measure proved ineffectual , because the tUflsutisfaotion had become universal ' tuul the prelate , in describing the happiness <> f Sft'euS "'" ' hml ouly oxi > ressed the feelings , the longing * , ot tne whole of IVuuce . Tho Comte de Boulainvilliers , tl » a Abl « S de Suinfc Pierre , 'drew up several schemes for tne anticipated reform : the Dauphin himaolf had a desk ; full oi MS . memoirs on the finances , the administration , the magistracy ; and it is well known that the father of the unfortunate Louis XVI . had discovered , and caused lo be copied , another important

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), July 28, 1860, page 686, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2358/page/6/