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420 THE LEADER. [No-. 371, Saturday
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MANCHESTER AND ITS EXHIBITION. The natio...
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ARMY EDUCATION. It may well be doubted w...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Sir James Brooke In Borneo. "We Must Go ...
to passion when he smote them with the edge of the sword ; he knew what ; lesson they required , what was due to the peaceful settlers , what was essential to the future safety of the province . Ask the Malay chiefs , whom he has conquered ; ask the Dyaks , whom he has constrained to forsake their old prejudices and pleasures ; ask the defeated pirates , converted by compulsion into traders , whether he these latter
be a cruel or a selfish man . In days , when every nondescript notoriety earns his testimonial , it would , perhaps , be audacious to suggest a public subscription to redeem the losses of Sarawak and to reward its Rajah , the highest and noblest type of an Englishman , the representative to our age of those men of genius and magnanimity who filled with lustre the reign of Elizabeth .
Two or three episodes of bloodshed to ten years of happy progress , —such has been the history of Sarawak . British relations are extending thence to all parts of Borneo . The British consul-general and commissioner at Brune periodically entertains the native princes and chiefs , and so good has been the effect , that although the only Englishman in that large , semi-barbaric capital , he is perfectly free from fear . Such influences , however , seem only to act upon the Malays and Dyaks . There has not yet been discovered in the west the secret of conciliating the
natives of China , especially that sordid , cunning , cowardly class engaged in the opium traffic—the class that sought , in darkness and by stealth , to murder Sir James Beooke and his brave companions in Sarawak .
420 The Leader. [No-. 371, Saturday
420 THE LEADER . [ No-. 371 , Saturday
Manchester And Its Exhibition. The Natio...
MANCHESTER AND ITS EXHIBITION . The national importance of the Manchester Exhibition is the reason why Prince Albert will attend to open it in person , notwithstanding the court mourning . He , as the head of practical art in this country , considers that the gathering in the centre of the manufacturing district is to have some great influence on the nation ; and perhaps the Prince is not wrong ; perhaps , for he is a far-sighted man , he foresees some of the ulterior political consequences . But to the multitude , high or low , the opening i ; ext week will be nothing more than a splendid holiday —a splendid holiday with splendid materials for it . The exhibition is of a kind which has never 3 'et been witnessed . It differs from that in London or Paris as much as the whole illustration of history differs from a monster ahop ; from the Exhibition at Sydenham as much as the collected heirlooms of a state from a combined museum and bazaar ; from the New York Exhibition as much as success from failure . It ia intended for the working classes especially ; it was designed to carry to them examples of the arta in combination with manufactures , at different periods , so that they might be enabled to improve their own handling , their own conceptions , by the
example of what others had done . It was expected that this would raise the character of the working man , give a now impulse to his self-education , improve the stylo of our manufactures , place in many a superior mind of the claBa that spark which would kindle into a lasting fire , and elevate the man above the level to which he was born . That was the intention , and to a certain extent it may bo carried out ; though other parts of the plan have expanded to excessive proportions . CTpon the whole , wo may consider that the didactic function of the display will bo far less than the holiday-makintr .
This will bo enormous . In population , Manchester ia the next town in tho kingdom to London ; it ia second only in intelligence ; it has even como to consider itself tho centre of English progress ; in mnny respects it ia
before London in the education movement ; and we may say truly , upon an intimate knowledge , that the average of intelligence is far higher than that of London . If you descend into the very humblest abodes , you will find a greater degree of perception , more sharpness , less absolute stolidity , than in the great metropolis ; and the working class generally have faculties and energies cultivated by much mental activity and discussion . The display of wealth will bring to them a crowd of ideas certainly not intended by the Council of Practical Art . All that every Lord can enjoy to his single self , the mass
of luxury , the elaborate refinement of decoration , evidences of the furniture which is requisite for the great mansion , where so little will serve for " the house part" even of a dresser ' s cottage , will be shown to the working man bodily ; and there is no study of such things like seeing them . Thousands upon thousands of the democratic men of Manchester will now , for the first time , understand what is meant by the three-piled hyperbole of luxury which is requisite for the English aristocrat . But we do not believe that the balance of the thoughts suggested in this display for their benefit will be invidious .
On the contrary , they aviII be pleased . Pleasure will be the order of the day . The Manchester lads and lasses have a great genius for holiday-making . Life goes fast among them , and if it is sometimes wasted , they . learn how to seize the transitory occasion ; the spin of the machinery , the rapid passage of the Sunday , have taught them that trick . They will receive hosts of visitors from
all quarters of the globe—from London , irom Edinburgh , from the Land ' s End , from the Highlands , Wales , the Channel Islands , Prance , America , " . Russia , the East , Brazil , and India . Manchester will be a huge hotel ; lodgings will go up tremendously ; monster excursion trains will be daily pouring their numbers into the town ; which by its extent and general distribution is not so ill suited for such a visitation as its manufacturing
character might make one suppose . The gentry near Manchester are hospitable to a degree excelled in 110 part of this hospitable country , and they will strain every nerve to do justice to this summer , when Manchester is to out-do London for the season . The manufacturers are accustomed to make their money fast ; they are go-ahead fellows with a hearty spirit ; and every house in the town will be overflowing . The same
geniality characterises the whole body , the Million , in that spinning county . Besides the exhibition itself , there will be everywhere a ferment of friendly enjoyment , such as England in modern days has seldom seen . It is Old Eugland in its newest dress ; for after nil , great as it is , the exhibition will bo only a peg upon which to hang all this holiday
gaiety . One thing is wanting : wo perceive the absence of the roc ' s egg . Manchester cannot contain the whole of industrial England for whom this exhibition is designed . It will not be possible to collect all that is to be gathered simply from one day ' s visit , or two , or three . The admission will cost
something ; and lodgings are at a premium . How is tho working man to meet tho cost ? How will tho crowds from Birmingham , tho Potteries , tho Collieries , tho "Woollen districts , tho Silk districts , be able to do more than take n scrap from tho great fenst ? If this exhibition ia intended for industrial England , it ought to be peripatetic ; and carried from one place to another . As it is sot down in Manchester this yoar , it should in the future year bo placed in Bristol , for tho benefit of Southern England ; next year Warwickshire , for tho benefit of Birmingham aud the iron
districts ; at a later date in Glasgow , for t he good of cotton ; afterwards in Newcastle , for the solace of the coal and fishing ; and so on unless Lancashire is to be the exclusively favoured child of England . Meanwhile , something of course will be done to mitigate the favouritism . Railways will seek to turn an honest penny by opening the largest possible amount of traffic ; and excursion trains will be virtually addinomany towns to the precincts of Manchester
But by a very simple process this U 3 e of excursion trains might be largely extended . One difficulty in the excursion train ig , to know how to provide for the number at the specific time . If precise numbers could be ascertained nnd properly distributed over the day , it would be possible to convey immense numbers from Liverpool , Leeds , Sheffield , Birmingham , and Macclesfield , at a charge so low that several visits would be within the
compass of the humblest working man and his wife or sweetheart . Now this object might be effected by issuing excursion tickets for particular trains some days after date . For instance , on this 1 st of the month might be issued a limited number of tickets for the 8 th ; another limited number for the second train , on the same day , the 8 th ; and a third limited number for a third traiu ; in each case with the return . On the 2 nd the
same process would be repeated for the 9 th . By this means , Railway Companies would be able to distribute an immense multitude with something like evenness ; and the issue of these tickets , at a very low price , would still leave a large mass of free traffic at the ordinary prices .
Army Education. It May Well Be Doubted W...
ARMY EDUCATION . It may well be doubted whether Lord Panmuue is really in earnest as an army reformer . We have previously expressed our doubts on this subject . They have just received fresh confirmation from an unimpeachable quarter . Dr . Vattguan ' s letter , on which we made some remarks last week , has drawn forth a most important statement from Mr . GriiEio , the Chaplain-General of
the Forces . It appears that he made a report on the military schools of Continental nations so long ago as 184-7 , and that Lord Panmure , then Mr . Pox Maule , Secretary at War , kept back the report from the public and the House of Commons . Happily , it ia no longer possible to keep these things in the dark corners of the War Office ; but for this we have not to thank Lord Panmuue .
There are also , it seems , three plans at present before the Government : one drawn up by Colonel LEintoy , Inspector-General of Military Schools , and embodying the views of Lord Panmuhe ; another framed at the Horse Guards , and signed by the Duke of Cambridge ; a third from tho Chaplam-Genoral of tho Forces , sometime Inspector-General of Schools . - Mr . Gleig ' s
suggestion is , that these plans and the criticisms upon them should bo made public , and we heartily concur in the suggestion . Wo shall then bo able to gauge tho intentions ot tho Government , which we can only do at present by tho inadequate general order on ataff appointments . Wo havo already commented on this order should be
but it ia necessary that tho subject kept constantly before tho public . It is obvious that as things stand , tho future cmciency of our Htan ' -oifieora will depend on tho olHcionoy of tho examination aa a tost of military qualifications . It will bo remarked that tho blot in the scheme is the retaining of tho old plan of nomination ; and that the romotly for that defect would bo the introduction ot tho principle of competition into tho proposed method of providing an oflbctivo etuil .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 2, 1857, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_02051857/page/12/
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