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November 15,1856.] THE LEADER,. 1095
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HAVENSW01lT.lI. ON HEYELATION. The grand...
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THE AUSTRIAN TAX-GATHERER. The delegatio...
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A RicuiT of Way DisrtiTE.—Considerable d...
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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The Golden Family. Most Persons Desire T...
sympathy and charity ; som « say it rolls along , exalting and abounding , exactly as it rolled in Pagan eras , and that certain classes of people never loved the poor the more for haying heard them called " the blessed . " There , have been vicissitudes , however , in the sentiments of the modern human , race , and it may be true that our own generation is , as social critics say , particularly fond of money . We have no theory concerning this matter ; but it seems to us that we hear a little oftener
than of yore language which convinces / us that there are very few respectable persons inEng--lftnd . In fact , respectability is too dear . It means mansions and men-servants . ; Half the genteel criminals : in our penitentiaries andicemviefc settlements have been sent there for trying to keep up their respectability by a process which society does not recognize . The criminal calendar of next year will supply more cases ( the fruit is falling while we write ) , and men v ? ill stand in the dock -who were looking very respectable when John Dean Paul was sent to make chairs
at Milbank . If you desire to act upon principles of this kind , you must retain a legal adviser , in ; which case you may be a Member of Parliament . But the faahion has its more innocent forms , A family is , or seemSj opulent ^ having received in the course of trade much of the m oney th at is expended by gentlemen in search of
respectability—furniture , pictures , printSj jewellery , or the materials of respectable dinners . It . is necessary , therefore , that the family itself should become respectable . It is by- no means ostentatious , despises no humble friends , is deeply imbued with devotion , and holding "peculiar Protestant views as to ecclesiastical matters , fasts and feasts in season . Thi * ee fair-faced and
welleducated girls interest themselves in the Christmas decoration of the parish church , and go to midnight services with the most enraptured sincerity . But they must be attired in white , like saints in gloiy ; they must have lily-of-the-valley wreaths in winter- ; they must form beautiful tableaux as they move up the aisles , and stand by the flowery altar > Their fasts must be strictly observed . But , when it is allowable to eat , the table must' bear its Veiorht of gold and silver , its
lustrous salvors , its wines that would have J ) leased the Lord of Monte Christo , and the jly-crowned ladies must be served by footmen in embroidered liveries , and not one of them must marry under a thousand a year . It would be uncharitable to call this a display of "worldly pride . The people are conscientious enough . They only do these things because they think them right and proper . It is very unfair to impute motives . Why should you be called ostentatious when you are only trying to be respectable ?
Meanwhile , there are some poor persons who cannot , and some who «> j 7 / , live in the same way . Those who cannot are black-balled ; those who to ill embezzle , and are sometimes transported . ¥ e know- how difficult it is to obtain definitions . Tlie l < Venehman who & Ued . to define a crab was no singular examphs of incapacity in this respect . Our jnorality is so contused just now , that the W fails to tell us what is fraud ; and society , unable to dofino what is respocta-Mjty' geks up an expensive farce , and says ,
November 15,1856.] The Leader,. 1095
November 15 , 1856 . ] THE LEADER ,. 1095
Havensw01lt.Li. On Heyelation. The Grand...
HAVENSW 01 lT . lI . ON HEYELATION . The grand missionary of the day on moral grounds iB Lord HAVJaNswoRTn ' , who has deigned to be chairman of a Mechanics' In stitution in Blaydon , and has become tlio patron of a special working-man's nssociation to counteract the progress of tho Secularists
in that quarter . In his Exeter Hall sermon on Truth : its Counterfeits , and Tests , " Sir WiEiLiAMPage Wood tells us that the grand test of truth is its conformity with the Scriptures . Precisely the doctrine of Rome and of Archbisl op CttI / LEN " , who denounced th © Newtonian system of the planets , because it is inconsistent , with the . Old Testament . Lord RavenswobiTH ; goes further ; he tells us that to question the authority of the same volume is an offence at English law , and he
suggests proceedings at law as a means of carrying on the controversy against freethinking ; He : does this with the kindest motives , with the 'deepest commiseration ' for erring men , and so forth , after the fashion of the old inquisitors , who sat witnessing the twisting and writhing of shrieking men iipdn the rack , and assured the tortured wretches that their bodies were subjected to that severe surgical treatment for the benefit of their souls . Lord Rayenswobth would convince
men of the truth of writings which they questioned by fining them five pounds , or subjecting ; them to a course of treadmill , forgetting the fact that oppression always encourages rebellion . We venture to say that the Leader has done imiek to- open the road for religious teachers of every kind , by disarming the Eavenswobths , permitting reason to have its fullest scope , and thus enabling reason to convince itself that it cannot settle everything . The rack always left reason- —safe in its own estimation , untested by the difficulties of freedom— -a clear stage . . ¦ -. . ' : .. - . ¦¦ ' ¦ > . ' ¦¦ ¦ : . " - . : ¦ " ¦; ¦ . /; •¦ .
" Exactly so ' . " exclaims Lord Havensworth ; , - wherefore I forbid you to reason on Scriptural subjects . " But here Ea-VENSwoiiTH assumes that his interpretation of divine law is better than the rival interpretation . He sets his unreason above reason ; and telling us that reason cannot settle everything , he makes the policeman the final arbiter on . the point of controversy .
The Austrian Tax-Gatherer. The Delegatio...
THE AUSTRIAN TAX-GATHERER . The delegation of Brescia is one of the most important of the Austrian possessions in Lombardy . Not to speak of its historical memorials—of the Broletto , the palace of ancient liberty , the cathedral that Tintohe'I'to adorned , the churches and colleges of middle-age . . own—ithas for several centuries enjoyed a high reputation for its iron-works , its manufactories of fire-arms , cutlery , silk , woollen and linen goods , leather , and paper .
In the Gazetteers its invariable ' affix' is the word ' flourishing ; ' but who shall learn from a Gazetteer one point of historical , political , or social importance ? Ever since the ingloi'ious acquisition of the . province by Austria , it has gradually decayed , industrially nnd commercially , and the secret . of its decline has been — excessive taxation . The policy that ruins Egypt ruina Lombardy . The policy that forces the Arab to affect
beggary , and to hide the profit of a harvest in an earthern pot , persuades tho poor Lombard to abandon his shuttle or plough , and to forsake that industry , the entire fruit of which goes to the tax-gatherer of an alien Government . Styria and Carniola have been devastated by thia paternal authority , and Cavalier Poroelxi told our readers last week how the work of civil devastation procoeds in Brescia . Tho facts are worth
repeating . When tho Provincial Colleges were sum " unoncd in Lombardy there was much talk of Austrian wisdom ; but tho Austrians , since that event , liavo governed as if they were not responsible , even to the creditors of the Slato , for their financial extravagance . Tho tradesman who robs his customers , tho
farmer who plants corn in the same field for ten successive years , or the greedy simpleton who kills the goose for the golden egg , scarcely supplies a parallel to this policy of blind and abandoned avarice . The entire income of the province of Brescia , derived from , , all sources , amounts , in round numbers , to , 12 , 000 , 000 Austrianlivres . The taxes amount to the same . That is to say , the territory of Brescia produces enough to pay the tax-gatherer , and no more . The
consequence is that , as man cannot live upon tax-gatherers' receipts alone , the taxes are not paid , and the inhabitants are deep in arrears . Every month large masses of debt are accumulated ; every month numerous plots of land go out of cultivation ; every- month ruined families forsake -their old pursuits of trade and agriculture ; every month the numbers increase of the destitute and the unemployed .
. The province contains a population of three hundred and thirty-four- thousand individuals . Of . these , upwards of fifty thousand persons , of an age to obtain their own livelihood , are without any industrial occupation whatever . Nothing lias > been done by the Austrian Government , which allows no Italian subject to do anything for himself , to develop ! the natural resources of the soil , or the activity that in old times fermented around the Brescian borders . Instead oi
this , without mines , and without railroads , heavily taxed , and poorly encouraged , fettered by monopolies and restrictions , the manufacturers discontinue tlieir occupations , and every now and then an iron , gun , paper , leather , wool , or thread factory is closed . The Municipal Councils are forced to contract loans which they have no prospect of repaying . In the course of the present year almost the entire Indian corn crop , and part of the wheat crop , has been destroyed by a tremendous hail-storm—and the vines have been
blighted . The Austrian tax-gatherer , it may be said , has nothing to do with this calamity ; but he has dried up the channels of public economy and private benevolence , so that such a disaster , which would be injurious to any population , is ruinous to the population of Brescia . The silk manufacture has dwindled to
onesixth of its former proportions . The landowners are dismissing their labourers ^ selling their live stock , leaving their farm-houses and agricultural implements to decay . The public lands are sold to pay the public debt ; loans are raised by the Municipal Councils to pay the current taxes ; the capital of tho province is threatened with annihilation .
This is the picture of Austrian government in Italy which the Provincial College of Brescia has ventured to lay before the Austrian officials themselves . Of course , no Lombard press has circulated it among the Lombard people ; indeed , the statement has appeared nowhere but in our columns ; but is it not a testimony to the value of paternal
government , and to the reality of those reforms which Austria pretended iu 1850 wero about to be introduced ? The sincerest and the least excitable ot politicians— -the politicians of the Morning Star—would not deny that the Brescian people have a right to deliver themselves from such oppression when they can .
A Ricuit Of Way Disrtite.—Considerable D...
A RicuiT of Way DisrtiTE . —Considerable dissension exists at present in tho neighbourhood of Walworth , owing to the stoppage of on ancient right of vray from that neighbourhood to Kennington . Park . One of the landowners thought proper to build a wall across tho road , Avhicli goes across some of hia private property . The wall was thrown down in tho night , and a wooden barrier subsequently shared tho same fato . Tho polico have . " had to mount guard on tho spot . A meeting of tho inhabitants has been lield , and tho law will be resorted to for a decision .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 15, 1856, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_15111856/page/15/
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