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News of the Wbbk— Page The Labour Market...
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No. 8. SATURDAY. MAY 18. 1850. Price 6d.
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Industry and its regulation have been fo...
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The Greek question is '• settled ; " yet...
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.
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. " Thb one Idea -which History exhibits as evermore developing itself into greater distinctness is the Idea of Humanity—the noble endeavour to throw down all the barriers erected between men by prejudice and one-sided . views ; and by settmg aside the distinctions of Religion , Country , and Colour , to treat the whole Human race as one brotherhood , having one great object—the free development of our spiritual nature . "—Humboldt ' s Cosmos . :
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News Of The Wbbk— Page The Labour Market...
News of the Wbbk— Page The Labour Market ... 173 Initiation of Socialism 179 Latnartine ' s New Drama ..... 184 Parliament 170 Incendiarism 174 Vital Religion 179 Life of Andrew Combe 184 The Church in Austria and Pied- Miscellaneous 174 Is the Suffrage a Right 180 Books on our Table 185 raont 171 Public Affairs— Love and Marriage 180 Notes and Extracts 186 The Greek Quarrel 171 Laissez Faire Patriotism 177 The Laws of Nature : Population .. Progress of Soibnce—German Congresses 171 The Tenant-Bight Movement 177 Reemigration from Canada 180 Ancient Bronze and Brass , & c . & c .. 186 The Protection Movement 171 The Royal British Bank 178 The New Marriage Bill 180 Portfolio—Metropolitan Interments Bill 172 Prison Discipline 178 Letters to Lord Ashley 181 The Apprenticeship of Life 187 The Church Movement 172 Socialist Tendencies 178 Literaturh— A Picture in Music 189 Lancashire Public School Associa- The Labour Market 178 Laing on European Social Life .... 183 A Gentle Hint to Writing-Women . 189 tion 172 The Rebellious Yeomanry 179 Buskin on Architecture 183 Commercial Affairs—Three Divorce Bills 173 Open Council— Merrivale ' s Roman Empire ........ 183 Market 3 , Gazettes , & c 190-93
No. 8. Saturday. May 18. 1850. Price 6d.
No . 8 . SATURDAY . MAY 18 . 1850 . Price 6 d .
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Industry And Its Regulation Have Been Fo...
Industry and its regulation have been forced upon the attention of the public and Parliament by the events of the week . The farmers who have come up to town under the pressure of distress , have waited in deputation on Lord John Russell and Lord Stanley . They received from the Premier de facto the cola comfort , of a suggestion that they ought to have accepted -the compromise which he could have obtained for them in 4841 ,.. , F « bm the Premier of their wish , they obtained a delusion—a speech of stirring accents encouraging to agitation as a thing that might fructify in the renewal of Protection ; while his argument , coolly considered ,
implies despair in the speaker , and involves the express avowal that the return to Protection will entail a crisis of greater and more extended suffering than the commencement of free trade did . Lord Stanley cautioned them against all disloyal movements , but implied that he should not take office until they had prepared for his use a much larger array of support . His answer to them virtually amounts to this—" You must agitate' stir up the country , only do it peaceably and legally—how I cannot say ; return me a large majority in Parliament , make me powerful ; when that time comes , I will cry to you , ' Up , guards , and at ' em '; and we will revel in ruin . "
While the farmers are in town to force upon statesmen a sense of the inevitable alternative , restored Protection or reduced rents , the working classes throughout the country are giving signs of some discontent , even in districts that are " prosperous . " In the farming districts they are conspiring against reduced wages , and in some places they have forced a rise by means more direct than incendiary fires . Passing towards the mining districts in Staffordshire , we see the smouldering agitation against the Truck system , which the masters have not yet had sense to abolish .
The Truck system is a compulsory trade profitless to the consumer , yet free trade cannot apply a cure without it be animated by a spice of the spirit which is condemned as " Socialism , " that is , the spirit of mutual regard , in contradistinction to pure self-interest . The honest and generous man , be he tradesman or not , will refuse to make a profit of you if it be at the cost of loss or suffering to yourself . The iron-masters who maintain the Truck system are moved by the very opposite spirit . In the factory districts we notice much discontent at Lord Ashley ' s abandonment of the short Time cause , not altogether without reason .
In town there is a strange contest waging between the Sanitary Reformers and the traders in morbid customs . At the public meeting in support of the Metropolitan Interments Bill , there was an irruption of undertakers , who vowed that they ^ e the most inexpensive , salubrious , and bene-[ Country Edition . ]
ficent of mortals . Listen to them , and you will fancy that never again shall you have a chance of being made " a very pretty corpse , " nor find " comfortable lodging " anywhere but " in the Abbey , " or the old-established graveyards , which boast such overflowing houses . , Under a quiescent Government , however , the Sanitary Reformers established in office are pursuing their course with vigour . They have just induced Parliament to reject two bills for supplying the metropolis with water by imperfect plans ; the board intending to bring put a grand scheme for a copious , . constant , and cheap supply to the whole metropolis . From the demeanour of the House of Commons in re ^
gard to these two bills , it is easy to perceive that a corresponding firmness in pressing the Metropolitan Interments Bill would be met by a willing activity in the Legislature . The doubt , suggested by bitter experience , lies in the sincerity or the courage of the Government . We dread those dismal undertakers and their effects upon the great
Whigs . Who knows what terrors may be struck into Premier or Secretary of State by a deputation of mutes with appalling hatbands and staves ; or the respect whicn may be commanded by proofs of the enormous tribute drawn from the moribund and mourning public by dealers , lay and clerical , in funerals and grave grounds ? The public ought to take its share in seeing justice done to itself .
But the public is the most supine of creatures in things that do not affect its dogmatic prejudices or its immediate material wants . It has little foresight , little activity for future contingencies , however frequently they may occur ; it has , for example , tolerated through many generations that exclusive state of the law which concedes to the
aristocratic and wealthy , like Lord Lincoln and Colonel Cautley , the power of obtaining release from unhappy matrimonial connections . It might be supposed , from the state of the law and the demeanour of the public in this behalf , that mistakes in forming matrimonial alliances were accidents peculiar to the " upper" classes ; or else that any sensitiveness to the miseries of misalliance was unknown
to the poorer . It is notorious that the very reverse is the fact—that in proportion as you ascend in the scale of society , the opportunities of evading the more intolerable effects of unloving bondage increase , and with that the indifference to an alien home increases . The evidence itself , in the cases that do come before the high courts , shows what facility the customs of " good society" and the possession of money confer upon those who desire
evasion . In most instances , as in the Cautley case , it is this facility and the heedlessness of ease which lead to detection . The middle class has at this very day begun the attempt to filch for itself , as it were , some share in these facilities of r elief , by the case of Chippendall , in which the prosecutor appears in forma pauperis—an unprecedented fact ; but it is notorious that irregularities of conjugal life , somewhat suppressed , perhaps , among the middle
class , resume their frequency and excess among the poorer classes , especially in certain districts . The pressure of suffering is often aggravated by the brutality of the companion who struggles most against the unblessed bondage . But the bondage may not be broken . Instead , therefore , of normal proceedings for divorce , in this class we have the criminal evasions of bigamy and poisoning .
The poison case of the week , however , is not a matrimonial murder , npx , indeed , does it seem like a real « ase at all . It illustrates a different phase of domestic misery . The father who tries to convict his daughtec-of being a Lucretia Borgia of humble life seems to be a sort of parental bloodman , getting up a fictitious accusation against his
own child : at least so the jury must have thought , when they acquitted the daughter . It is an example of parental austerity that altogether distances the well-intended brutality of Mr . Kenealy , who has been convicted of an aggravated assault on his son . This latter example , perhaps , may serve as a stimulus to a domestic reform which is rapidly advancing , to substitute the loving coercion of moral influence for that lude instrument , the
rod . On Wednesday night London blazed with an illumination to celebrate the birthday of Queen Victoria , which comes round for the thirty-first time on Friday next . In Elizabeth ' s time , such occasions were sometimes celebrated by decking London with flowers , making the conduits flow with wine , and so forth . It would not be a bad idea to celebrate some birthday of Queen Victoria , at no distant date —( it must be done , of course , during her life)—b y making the conduits flow for the first time with pure water , and rendering the metropolitan atmosphere at least neutral in respect of perfume .
The Greek Question Is '• Settled ; " Yet...
The Greek question is ' settled ; " yet we can scarcely call it terminated . While Lord Palmerston arid the French Embassador were arranging it amicably in London , Mr . Wyse was forcing a settlement in Greece ; Lord Palmerston ' s courier not being able to reach Athens in time to stay Mr . Wyse , that is to say , requiring a week longer for his journey than was required by the French courier . Which arrangement is to be ratified seems uncertain . That made in London was rather more favourable to Greece , and so Lord Palmerston gets
the credit of a shabby endeavour to " mystify " the ambassador . M . Drouyn de Lhuys has asked for his passports ; the Russian Embassador stays away from Lord Palmerston ' s official dinner ; and English officers are ordered to join their ships in the Mediterranean . There is a warlike look in it ; but nothing very serious . Lord Palmerston will hardly risk a war on so discreditable a ground ; and France , or rather the French Government , cannot afford to have England for an enemy—just yet . In France , if there is to be no fighting , it will not be for lack of provocation . If the peace be kept
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 18, 1850, page 1, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_18051850/page/1/
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