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November 8,1856.] THE LEADER. 1069
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THE NA.UGHTY BOAHD. PbobabIiY no public ...
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M. MAZZINI AND M. GALLENGA. Tub English ...
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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Transcript
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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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Robson's Ticket Of Leave. The Picture Of...
table , the merchant will assist him to get over his * difficulties * in connexion with the penal law ; but the punishment , the disgrace , the hair-cropping , overtake him when he fails to have the cash in his purse . The devices which bring him to transportation when they fail , will carry him on to the bench of justice when they succeed . Most men will study their morals empirically from the fact , and society may therefore be considered decidedly to make the Eobsoits whom it worships while they succeed , and kicks when they are down .
We are making a great fuss about the ticket-of-leave man who is abroad seeking whom he may devour ; but how much do the unconvicted outnumber the convicted—how much more is the devouring done by the unconvict , whose ticket of leave is , like Kobson ' s , another man ' s sovereign !
November 8,1856.] The Leader. 1069
November 8 , 1856 . ] THE LEADER . 1069
The Na.Ughty Boahd. Pbobabiiy No Public ...
THE NA . UGHTY BOAHD . PbobabIiY no public body has been subjected to such a rating as that which Sir Benjamin Hall administered to the youngest of the British municipalities , the Metropolitan Board of " Works , on Wednesday last ; but the remonstrance was more completely j ust in the case of Hall than of CromwelIi . President
Thwattes said that , in conformity with the provisions of the Metropolitan Local Management Act , the deputation came for the purpose of submitting to the Minister ' . " Plan B , " as that of which the Board approved . In the ordinary course of things , any respectable Board might have anticipated that the Minister would bow , would use some
expressions of courtesy towards * so important a body , * and would promise that he should ' give the subject his best consideration . ' Imagine , then , the feelings of a Board , when Sir Benjamin demanded an explanation of the whole scheme , ' from beginning to end ! ' Having had his explanation , he asked something more . How was it that they submitted to him this Plan B , once
rejected by the Board for further information , and subsequently rejected under a total condemnation ? "Why submit to him a plan as complying with the provision of the act which confessedly vould admit a reflux of the sewage within the metropolitan boundary , when the act expressly directs that no such reflux will be admissible at all ? The Board had no sufficient answer to make to these
questions . In fact , the Board has not complied with the act . And it has not complied with common courtesy to the Minister of Public Works ; for it lias permitted numerous delays to retard its own decision , and has then left the Minister but a few days to determine upon his approval or rejection of the plan . The next duty was to lay before him the plan forthe Oovent Garden improvements , with an estimated cost of 45 , 000 ? . ; and here again the Board had to undergo the chastisement
of questionings and reminiscences . On the 16 th of July the Minister called the attention of the Board to the subject , stating that he should prefer the Board to carry out the "WorkB . ELeven days afterwards Jie had a letter , thanking him for his plan ; and then he heard nothing more until the 5 th of November ! Four months did the Board take to consider its own decision , and then it allowed the Minister ten days to reflect upon " before giving the Parliamentary notices which must appear on the 15 tli instant ! If
the Board had declined the duty , it could have been executed by the official department of Public Works . In this case , therefore , the Board is nothing but a hindrance and an obs truction . ^ There was a third series of inquiries . On the 8 th of March last , the Board asked for information aa to the funds at its disposal for
the Southwark improvements ; and on the 13 th Sir Benjamin replied that there was nearly 84 , 0007 . for making a continuous line of street connecting the bridges . On the 15 th of April , the Board asked for plans ; on the 17 th they were sent . On the 31 st of July a letter was despatched from the office of Public Works , putting a specific
question ; and on the 7 th of August , eleven weeks after the question , the Board replied , that the subject was under consideration ; having done nothing since ! They have not , in fact , yet agreed to a plan , —so President Thwattes admitted ; but he promised that the Southward : improvement plan should be laid before Sir Benjamin HaIiE ' as a matter of courtesy . '
As Prince Albert said to the Merchant Tailors , representative institutions are on their trial , and the Board certainly has not done much to strengthen confidence in popular representation . It is quite evident that if the Minister had been unobstructed , tliose improvements which are still ' under consideration , ' with very great doubt as to a proper decision at last , would most likely have been begun , and probably on the best available plans . There are several
reasons for the unhappy result of this reference to a municipal body . In the first place , the subject is one rather for picked men of high scientific , attainments and deeided purpose , than for debate by a federation of parishes . In the second place , the subject was not fairly left to the Board by-the Legislature . The municipality was only permitted to execute that part for which it was least suited—scientific inquiry . In the third place , the Board itself is an evasion of duty on the part of the Executive and the Legislature .
That which -was demanded by the circumstances of the day , was an incorporation of the whole metropolis , with the ancient corporation as its nucleus , and with powers to legislate and administer on purely local subjects . If a municipality had been ereetied , it would have had before it a large amount of real business . Its members would have been engaged in duties sufficient to engross their attention , and to stimulate their faculties ; and instead of attempting to , justify their existence by a show of talk , they would most likely have taken the natural course of referring : this
inquiry to a select committee and certain appointed officers . But the Executive and the Legislature shrank from constructing a metropolitan municipality , in the paltry fear lest that body should become so important as to vie with Parliament . To account for the present absurdity is not
to remove ifc . The fact remains , that the Metropolitan ' Board of Works' is nothing more than a sounding board , which prevents the execution of the ' works . ' It is a machinery , not for assisting the consideration of the Minister , but for hindering and baffling him with inadmissible propositions and idle discussion . If we desire a
municipality for the whole metropolis , the Board does not furnish what we want ; if we desire metropolitan improvements to be carried out , the Board is a bad substitute for "the City of London , which has promoted improvements , or for a Minister , who could execute thorn , with the aid of the best scientific advice , on a comprehensive plan , with energy and despatch .
M. Mazzini And M. Gallenga. Tub English ...
M . MAZZINI AND M . GALLENGA . Tub English public has long been kept systematically in ignorance with respect to the state , the history , the prospects , and tho projects of Piedmont . Tho energy and ingenuity brought into play in order to effect an object apparently so unimportant , suggests that great interests are in reality at stake . A
conspiracy to flatter is as significant as a conspiracy to calumniate . It is a vulgar artifice to draw attention to the pretty ankle on that side of the street to shield from , curiosity the lovely face on this . The truth is , that as long as we believe in the possible triumph of Liberalism in Italy by means of the constitutional Government of Piedmont , we shall not turn for that desired consummation to the * democratic party ; and until a democratic movement takes place in Italy , there is not much danger to despotism in any part of Europe .
An enumeration of the means and the agents employed in England for the propagation of false notions , and the stimulation of false hopes with respect to Piedmont , would considerably startle the public . They would hear of many fugitives , with the democratic stigma upon them , becoming gradually converted to constitutionalism , rising to favour and employment in . England , and using their newly-acquired positions in order to influence opinion , and ultimately return , either permanently or as ' distinguished visitors , ' to the land whence they fled as exiles . The
English governing classes are glad to bring about these conversions and make them profitable , for every foreign Liberal corrupted is a new pledge to the cause of Order— -and we know that order , which means the gagging of the press and the destruction of all liberty individual and political , is in high favour at present with all who have any pretensions to statesmanship , or know those that have . You cannot go into a drawing-room without meeting some old lady who deplores the excesses of liberty , and says , " Serve them right , " when anything happens to anybody who is no friend to Napoleon III .
Tor the present , however , we have only to notice the close of the career of one of the principal agents employed to spread misstatements in England with respect to Piedniontese affairs—we allude to Signor Antonio Gtallenga , otherwise known as Luiai Makiotii . That gentleman has been very active under various signatures in the press in lauding the present Government of
Piedmont , and vituperating those who have attempted to enlighten the public . His influence has been very great , because he writes tolerable English for a foreigner , and knows , when necessary , how to assume a candid tone ; makes admissious not particularly damaging to his friends ; and imitates pretty well the English way of asking for ' fair construction' when acts are too evidently immoral to bo directly defended .
Success , however , aeerns to have bred audacity . Having published in English a rather clever , though shallow and not amusing history , in which he shows great contempt for old facts and dates— -making Cromwell alive and active , for example , three yeara after his death—ho " reserves the right of translation , " iind actually brought out an Italian version . This was too
much . Criticism , whicli had spared him until then , came down upon him with a fell swoop . Every line of his chapter on recent events has been , analyzed , and found to contain " as many mistakes as words . * They call these tilings hxigie in Italian : " TTn bra-no di storia che contienG piu bugie che parole , " says Signor I ' isderioo Campatsella . For example , there is in a dozen lines a narrative of the expedition to Savoy , attempted in 183-i , under command of Kamorino . See how it has been analyzed at Turin , not only , be it observed , by the political friends of Mazzini : —
" A column of a thousand adventurers [ 230 at most , all noblo young patriots ] entered Savoy from Carouge [ no : fromPlan-los-Onates ] andmarched upon St . Julion [ no : exactly in the opposite direction ] , under command oF Mazzini himsolf and Rnmorino [ no : of Ramorino ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 8, 1856, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_08111856/page/13/
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