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680 1&t)e Heaiet* [Saturday,
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INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL AT BRIGHTON. Industria...
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EDINBURGH ANNUITY TAX. Evku since the br...
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TOWN AND COUNTRY BURIAL. Hamlet spoke bu...
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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.
No Peace. On The Part Of Austria, Russia...
the English people ; on the contrary , we expressly described that people as tolerating a Government which misses such glorious opportunities for elevating the influence of England to the highest pinnacle in Europe , and for establishing the progress of mankind beyond the power of absolutism to hinder it . But these considerations * do not apply to the Irish exiles . Their case is that of men who have resorted—whether they had arms in their hands at the moment or not , it little signifies—to open warfare against the Government of the country ; they
therefore incurred the penalty of defeat , with its consequences ; and we hold that it is to assume a very mistaken position if a defeated combatant asks , or even demands , any sort of concession from the victor . We hold that even harshness forms no ground for complaint . It may form a ground for renewed resistance , where that is practicable ; it may be a motive to vengeance ; but under no circumstances can complaint be otherwise than a puerility , under no circumstances can the vanquished ask concessions from the victor without courting indignity .
If we were to seek a parallel between the Austrianism of the Continent and the conduct of our own Government , we should find it rather in the case of Ernest Jones and his fellow-prisoners . We have not heard that M'Manus and his compatriots were subjected to anything that can be called cruelty ; Mitchell has expressly said that they were well treated ; Smith O'Brien repelled spontaneous offers of indulgence . The treatment of Mr . Jones and his fellow-prisoners was very different : it was a continuance of studied cruelty , not the less odious because it took very paltry shapes . When the gaoler employs bad shelter , bad clothing , and bad diet , —when he
harrows the natural feelings of man towards his family , —when he twists the rules of a prison to deprive the prisoner of his guarantees , then ^\ ve have cruelty and tyranny , —something more than the vengeance of the foe that gives no quarter . But even in this case we should deem it idle to complain . Justice may be demanded , because a denial of justice is not involved in the mere facts of the case . On the contrary , the authorities of the country profess to offer justice , and to challenge the claim for it . We have . a right to test them , and it is expedient to do so—to obtain justice , if it is to be obtained ; to establish the proof of deliberate injustice , if the claim be met by refusal .
The mistake o [ our correspondent , we suspect lies in the popular notion of Government as a certain thing that is to be based on ascertained truth , and , when once ascertained , fixed for ever more Now , man , with his partial knowledge and shifting view , never attains to absolute truth . Opinions will fluctuate ; and that opinion of the day which obtains the most adherents in number , influence , or strength , will be the ruling opinion , its adherents the ruling party . Government , whether Monarchical , or Republican , or Imperial , can never become
a final and fixed institution ; it must always be based upon the strongest force of the day , physical as vyell as intellectual . The business of every patriot , therefore , is not to struggle for some institution which shall be built for ever , never to fail ; but to cultivate to the highest possible extent the faculties , the sympathies , and the power of his fellow-countrymen ; todevelope the most enlightened opinions , to cultivate human nature to its highest point , and so to set going a generation of patriotic opinions , and of patriots to maintain them . Every Government is a force , the force —and the business
of the people who desire to be well governed is to develope that force from amongst themselves . We beg pardon of our correspondent for thus taking him back to a priori considerations ; but we believe it to be most important that thin fundamental doctrine should be thoroughly understood by the People . Government is a force subsisting in the conviction of those who uphold it—in their
numbers , influence , und strength . Any new Government must . be born in the shape of a new force , which must supersede the other , peaceably if possible , prrelmnce not peaceably ; but in any case , it must be a force , and in any cuse , to attain a victory it must bo the stronger force . From thin simple consideration it will appear , that no patriotic party can gain anything by petition or complaint to the force which it desires to supersede .
A truly enlightened Government will provide for the gnuiuul progress of the People , and will be ambitious to lead in the successive changes which thut progress implies . Such changes would then
be peaceable , and would be effected with the best possible apparatus existing in that country and that day . From the conduct of our own Government , —from its concession to Canada when it rebels , and the Cape of Good Hope when it rebels , —from its superciliousness to the Irish when they are scattered , —from the contempt with which it treats the claims of the working people in this country , —from the utter disregard and slight which it shows to the wants of immense masses among the People ; from these incidents we infer that our own Government does not desire the progress of the nation to be conducted in a peacearrest that
able manner . It can scarcely hope to progress : the attempt to arrest it only accumulates the materials for a more convulsive movement ; and on those who stop the flood let the consequences fall . Has Ireland no other exiles , but those made such by formal decree of the law ? Ask the census . And on what condition are that million and those hundreds of thousands ?—whither have they gone ? Some to the Colonies — some to the great Republic across the ocean—some under the sod . What are Irishmen doing for them , or for their children ? Shall we petition on their behalf ? or how act ?
680 1&T)E Heaiet* [Saturday,
680 1 & t ) e Heaiet * [ Saturday ,
Industrial School At Brighton. Industria...
INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL AT BRIGHTON . Industrial training for pauper children continues to make way . From the Brighton Herald we learn , that a committee has just presented a report to the Directors and Guardians of the Poor , making the subjoined recommendations : — " 1 . The sale of certain land belonging to the parish , which for building purposes it is estimated will produce £ 10 , 000 . " 2 . That the permission of the Poor Law Commissioners be obtained to effect that sale . " 3 . With the money thus raised , to erect an Industrial School ( a considerable distance , we hope ) , out of the town , capable of accommodating from 250 to 300 children . " 4 . It is expected that about eight acres may be purchased , and the necessary buildings erected for £ 9400 . " The report is to be considered about a fortnight hence . The Herald very properly insists on a real industrial training , and not mere " school learning . " In that respect , Brighton may well follow the example of Bedford . The Herald anticipates " objections to the experiment ; " but in Bedford , so far from being an experiment , the plan has been
well tried , and it has answered all the objectors . The pupils of the Industrial School find employment as fast as they can be trained ; indeed , the demand for them almost exceeds the supply . And although the different trades have not been " overstocked " by the process , an effectual check has been put to that ugly parish institution , hereditary pauperism . For the " lowest" extremity of the social scale can display its " tenth transmitter of a foolish face" as well as the highest , or rather worse .
Edinburgh Annuity Tax. Evku Since The Br...
EDINBURGH ANNUITY TAX . Evku since the breaking up of the Church of Scotland into two separate bodies , complaints have prevailed in all the large towns on account of the number of useless churches , and the multitude of ministers who receive large stipends for preaching to empty pews . In Edinburgh the ease is much aggravated by the odious and oppressive mode in which the funds for paying the clergymen are provided . Instead of ecclesiastical endowments of any kind , which they could receive quietly without
scandal , the Edinburgh ministers of the church depend for their living upon * a poll-tax , which has long been very unpopular , but which is now felt to be utterly intolerable by the great mass of the population . From a statement now before us wo learn that the Old Town of Edinburgh , with about : «) , ()()() inhabitants , is obliged to maintain twelve ministers , at an expense of nearly £ (>()()() per annum , although there are only six or seven hundred members residing in the Old ToG'n who possess seats in the ten churches in which those ministers
officiate . Before the disruption , the complaint aguinst the Annuity Tax , as the odious rate is termed , was chiefly among Dissenters ; but the grievance in now equally felt by the Free Church party ; and their secession from the Establishment has made the grievance ten times worse than it was before , by leaving most of the churches empty while the heavy tax is still exacted . Tho Minister of the Gospel of Peace succeed , however , in obtaining their salaries regularly by the help of tlio tax gatherer and the auctioneer , with the occasional aid of the police force and the military . It Bays very
against it ; and to accept the brunt of an opposition is always an onerous task—exposing him who undertakes it to pecuniary expense , and , what to many is much worse , most unpalateable criticism . But the work must be done ; and those who attempt it have a claim upon the sympathy , the gratitude , and the support of the public : we hope Mr . Robinson will lack none of these rewards in the warfare which he , chiefly , and some others are waging .
little for the proverbial prudence of the heads of the Church of Scotland , that they should persist in maintaining so gross an abuse in these troublous times . Always a source of private complaint , this impost has of late become one of public oppositio n . Mr . H . Robinson , the most enterprising of Edinv burgh publishers , has opened a campaign a gainst it . It often happens that ten thousand people will put up with a wrong bef > re one will stand out
Town And Country Burial. Hamlet Spoke Bu...
TOWN AND COUNTRY BURIAL . Hamlet spoke but the feelings of the human heart , when , moralizing in the graveyard , he exclaimed , " Did these bones cost no more in the breeding but to play at loggats with them ? Mine ache to think on't . " With truth , he complained that the clownish gravedigger " had no feeling of his business ; " and even in the present day there are many who will cynically ask , " What matters it to the escaped spirit if we be ' knocked about the mazzard with a sexton ' s spade , ' when the body has fulfilled its office upon earth , and the
withered frame has returned to dust ? " Many instances may also be cited , in which the great ones of the earth have apparently despised any care for the disposal of their remains . Plato allowed no larger funeral monument than would contain four heroic verses , and he set aside the most barren ground for sepulture . Pliny derides care for the dead , as a weakness only known to men . Socrates told his friends they might burn or bury his body , if they would not think " thereby they had burned or buried Socrates . Solon desired
that his body might be carried to his native Salamis , to be burned and scattered to the winds . Diogenes directed that his remains should be exposed to birds and beasts of prey . Seneca would give no directions as to the disposal of his body , stating that the necessity of the case would provide for it . But all these are equivocal ; for the very fact of their having given directions respecting their-remains , evidences a certain anxiety on the subject . Our own Shakspeare exhibits more frankness in the matter in his well known
epitaph : — " Good friend , for Jesus' sake forbeare To digg the dust enclosed here . Ulest be the man that spares these stones ! And curst be he thut moves my bums ! " Whatever men may say , they feel a care for the future disposal of their bodies . In the moment of thoughtless revelry and idle jesting they may affirm their indifference ; but it is to no man a ple ; ising reflection that , perhaps long before the worm lias finished his work , the silence of the
tomb may be invaded by the sexton ' s spade ; that even in the grave will competition still be rife , and the remains of his neighbour jostle against his own ; that his bones while still corruptible may be cast once more into the light of day , to be gnawed by dogs or kicked about by the vulgar . No ! man as lie hopes for immortality for his soul desires a decent sepulture of his body . Amid the spasmodic . struggling * of this life , he looks forward to a freedom from cure—to a resting . place , where his body may peacefully repose , and where his friends may let fi . ll the tear of respect and sympath .
y Whatever carelessness , however , we may pretend to feel respecting our own interment , the heart asserts itself when we think of the disposal of those we hold dear . Their bodies are to us objects of veneration . That which to strangers is but a lifeless piece of earth , is the concentration of all our affections . With them we hold a sprit uul intercourse , und their memory is blessed in our hearts . To forget them were to commit sin , to be careless of their sepulture were sacrilege . The soul loves to materialize its idealities . It . is not
content with n dreamy memory of the departed . It will conjure up the accustomed look and figure , the last gaze which told of the spirit passing away , and the ciilm cold face fixed in the sleep of death . It calls to mind the spot where the remains of the loved object lie—where the last farewell was taken . It goes " to the grave to weep there . " It in holy ground , hallowed to tender recollections , to holy meditations , to virtuous resolutions , to an-
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 19, 1851, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_19071851/page/12/
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