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410 T H E LEADE H. _ [No. 423, May 1, 18...
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The Blessings of Mosotosy. — Some people...
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IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.
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ISfonday, April 26th. GOVERNMENT OP INDI...
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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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By Many Signs It Lias Been Made Manifest...
laxed is the Toelief in " well-informed" quarters : General Espoasse ., tlie representative of that state of tliiugs , giving way before a necessity stronger than a dictator ' s will . The policy pursued since the 14 th of January is fe . lt to have done more liann to the prestige of Louis Napoleon " than any act or acts of his Government since the Coup d'Etat , and a milder policy is to be inaugurated forthwith .. So be it .
But while the Preach Government is thinking of its duties to liberty at home , it is doing its best , or worst , to perpetuate the evils of slavery abroad . The notorious M . Hegis lias been working with great and successful activity in furtherance of the Imperial scheme for furnishing Martinique and Guadeloupe -with " free" negro labourers .. The latest advices from the West Coast of Africa inform us that he has shipped off some twelve hundred negroes in two ships , and that he was so fortunate as to carry one thousand safely to their destinations , the odd two hundred' having perished either on the middle passage , or in the
process of lauding them ! The whole affair is marked by the worst characteristics of the slavetrading , against which -we have waged such , a long anda as it would almost appear ; useless warfare . Stimulated by the demand for men , the chiefs are returning to their old trade of man-hunting ; and the lightly-rooted , but promising civilization of the last quarter of a century seems doomed to be torn violently from out the soil . Of course it is idle to forbid the Spanish , Portuguese , or American slavetraders ' to ply their calling while the Emperor of the French sends his ships with impunity for cargoes of kidnapped negroes .
In fact , there really seems no way of settling the ¦ uncomfortable question but to throw the trade completely open , as we have before advised , when the evil of slavery must inevitably work its only remedy . I'M all the countries demanding negro labour wit h negroes , and the time will not be distant when iheir numbers and their civilization will command tJieir absolute freedom as a social necessity . Meanwhile we go on disputing to no end with almost
every Power that has anything to do with slave labour . We have been interchanging a smart correspondence -with America on the subject of ships in the slave trade making use of the American flag . Our representative , Lord Napier , calls upon the United States to increase its preventive force on the African coast , and General Cass declines to accede to the demand , giving us one or two sharp retorts for our own doings with regard to
Kroomeii . The telegram which reached London yesterday afternoon gives us stirring news from Oude . We ha \ e had a great success , not counterbalanced by a small reverse which Ave have sustained . On tlie 22 lid of March Sir Hugh Rose invested Jhansi , and on the 25 th began to bombard it . On the 1 st of April , while carrying on the siege , he was attacked by 25 , 000 rebels with 18 guns , but drove the encrny off , with a slaughter of 1500 of them . By the 2 nd of April the chief fortifications of the place were captured , and on the night of the 5 th the garrison
fteel lrom the lor . tress , the latest account leaving them in i ' ulL flight , pursued by the European troops , and having suffered a loss of about 3000 men ; on our side six . officers had fallen . The reverse occurred at a place on the south-east frontier of Oudc , not clearly indicated by the telegram : a detachment of the 37 th had boen compelled to retire with the loss of its baggage , and on the 21 th of March was cut up at Assiinghur . Howcvor , until we have full pur Honiara , wo may hope that the affair has not beon desperately bad ; and meanwhile we have assurance tliat strong detachments had been sent from Lucknow , to the relief of the harassed little forco .
The news from China , is becoming exceedingly interesting , the diplomatic operations appearing at last to be really making progress . The four Comrnis--Bioners had' succeeded in reaching Sou-tchou-fou
a city nearly as large as London , and within easy communication with Pekin . The presentation of their credentials to the Governor of . the city and all the ceremonials had gone off ¦ extremely veil and important results were expected to follow the communications forwarded to the- Emperor . Meanwhile , poor Yeit , whose ohstinaoy has lost Canton , is sacrificed to appease the anger of the outer barbarians ; the Emperor has degraded him , aud placed , his office in the hands of Hwang Tsungiiat , a person said to be of very superior enlightenment . Altogether there appears a probability of our relations with these wonderful people rapidly ripening towards a real intimacy , barring only blunders of diplomacy .
410 T H E Leade H. _ [No. 423, May 1, 18...
410 T H E LEADE H . _ [ No . 423 , May 1 , 1858 .
The Blessings Of Mosotosy. — Some People...
The Blessings of Mosotosy . — Some peoplemost people—in these run-about railway days , would complain of such a life , in such a ' narrow sphere '— -so they call it—as monotonous . Very likely it is so . But is it to be complained of on that account ? Is monotony in itself an evil ? Which Is better , to know many places ill , or to know one place well ? Certainly—if a scientific habit of mind be again—it is only by exhausting as far as possible the significance of an individual phenomenon ( is not that sentence a truly scientific one in its magniloquence ?) - —that you can discover any glimpse of the significance of the ¦ universal . Even men of boundless knowledge , like ¦ . Humboldt , must have liad once their speciality , their pet subject , or they -would have , strictly speaking , no knowledge at all . The volcanoes of Mexico , patiently and laboriously investigated in his youth , were to Humboldt , possibly , the key of the whole Cosmos . I learn more , studying over and over again the same Bagshot sand and gravel heaps , than 1 should by roaming all Europe in . search of new geologic wonders . Fifteen years have I beea puzzling at the same questions , find have only guessed at a few of the answers . What sawed out the edges of the moors into long narrow banks of gravel ? What cut them off all flat a-top ? What makes Erica c ' rfiaris grow in one soil , and the bracken in another ? How did three species of Clubmoss— -one of them quite an Alpine one- —get down here , all the -way from Wales perhaps , upon this isolated patch of gravel ? Why did that one patch of Car « arenaria settle in the only square yard for miles and miles which bore sufficient resemblance to its native sandhill by the sea-shore , to make it comfortable ? Why did Jlfi / osurus minimus , which I had hunted for in vain for fourteen years , ' appear'by dozens in the fifteenth , upon a new-made bank , which had been for at least for two hundred yeara a farm-yard gateway ? Why does it generally rain here from the south-west , not when the barometer fulls , but when it begins to rise again ? Why—why is everything which lies under my feet all day long ? I don ' t know ; and you can ' t tell me . And till I have found out , I cannot complain of monotony , -with still undiscovered puzzles waiting to be explained , and so to create novelty at every turn . — Fraser ' s Magazine . GkeatFire in St . Katharine ' s Dock . —A fire of a very serious and threatening character burst out at the St . Katharine ' s Dock about eight o ' clock on Tuesday evening . On the bank of the north quay stood a pile of warehouses lettered " E" Dock . The warehouses wera six floors high , and -were erected on arches . Each floor was filled with merchandize , among which were hemp , jute , coir , cotton , ropes , and , it is stated , also cotton and linseed . This building was about two lmudred feet long by sixty feet deep , and was faced at the eastern extremity by another pile of warehouses , equally lofty , termed the " P" Dock . On the south side wero riding at anchor n great many ships , schooners , and steamers , and so near were they to the burning property , that at one time their destruction appeared inevitable . TUe lire was discovered by one of the watchmen , and engines were soon summoned to the spot . By twelve o ' clock the worst of the mischief was over ; but ' the flamca were not entirely extinguished even then . The loss of property is immense , the vuluc having been calculated at 100 , 000 / . The extension of the flumes to the surrounding warehouses was only prevented -with the utmost trouble . Tins National Pkotestant Society . —Tho members of this society held a moling on Monday evening at St . Martin ' s ITall . The object of the gathering was to advocate tho . stricter observance of Sundays hy the entire cessation of business and amusement ; and a resolution to that oil cut was moved ; but an amendment , moved and seconded by members of tho National Sunday League , and expressing tho assent of the meeting to the priueipica of that body , which seeks to obtain ' for tho manses rational aimiscmeuton tho Sunday afternoon , was carried by an over whelming majority . Dihciiaiioki > Ckimixaix . —The inauguration festival of tho Middlesex Society for the reformation and Employment of Discharged Criininalu was celebrated on Thursday evening at St . James ' s-hall , Piccadilly , under tlie presidency of tlie Marquis of Salisbury , tho Lord-Lieutenant for tho county .
Imperial Parliament.
IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT .
Isfonday, April 26th. Government Op Indi...
ISfonday , April 26 th . GOVERNMENT OP INDIA . In the House of Louds , The Earl of Ai . ri ; maul , k presented a petition from Birmingham praying for a better system of Government in India , and objecting on many grounds to the Government India Bill— -objections in which the Earl coincided . His Lordship - withdrew his motion for certain returns connected with the Indian Civil Service . Tlie House then adjourned . BRITISH TROOPS IN INDIA . In the House of Commons , In answer to Mr . Macartney , General Pekij said that every farthing of the expense of the increased British forces in India would be paid \ ty the East India Company out of the revenues of India , and not one farthing -would be charged upon : tho Imperial revenue . As regarded the cost of sending tho troops , the expense in the first instance was paid by the Admiral tv , and then , through the " War Department , it was charged to the Directors . THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA . On the motion of the Ciiancelixjr . of the Exchequer , it was agreed to postpone the orders of tlie day until aftei the motion respecting the Government of India . The Chancellor op the Exciieqver then rose aud moved that the House should , on the ensuing Fridav . resolve itself into a committee , to consider the Act of the 16 th and 17 th Victoria , c . 95 , " to provide for the Government of India . " He reviewed the historv of the two bills before tlie House . Two schools had " laid , two plans for the Government of India . " One of them boasted of its simplicity , and it was an argument that the simpler the form of government of India the better , and that they should establish a Secretary of State with undivided
authority , for that any assistance he might require in the undertaking could be obtained from the permanent clerks in office . lie would say at once that he -was at issue with that school . He denied that India could be governed like any colony of the country ; for , in legislating for India , they were legislating for a country consisting of many kingdoms and many nations , inhabited by a population living under different laws , with a . different religion , and with a difference greater in other respect ? than exists in any country in Europe . Therefore , he was unwilling to concede that any man should be appointed to the Government of India on account of any Parliamentary knowledge he might possess . " The advocates of the measure of the late Government also said that India
must be chiefly ruled in India ; but , if that principle were adopted , the Governor-General would be placed in a position of power of which the constitution of this country has hitherto been ignorant . The more he reflected upon " the simple plan , " tlie more he was convinced of its danger and impracticability . " His bill had been stigmatized as complicated in its character ; but in hi . s opinion the charge of simplicity was one that -would bo considered more objectionable by the supporters of the measure . In some particular institutions which had arisen during tin * last half-century in Europe , and which were numerous , novelty liad been introduced ; but what was 1 lie fate ul these new institutions—where wero the } - at tho present time ? On tlie contrary , what was the position of our
own constitution , ami was not that constitution , whii . li worked so well , a \ cry complicated one ? ( Hear , hi-ur . ') He was not prepared to assert that constitutions , though in existence for centuries , nii ^ ht not . be impracticable under certain circumstance . lie was prepared to go further , and admit that this constitution , which might be considered as the oil " - spring of our Parliamentary existence , might , on certain principles , bo demonstrated to be the most absurd in existence . { Hear , hear , and laughter . ) Let them only think of making a man a Prime Minister because lie was connected with the aristocracy , or making « man a member of tho Crown because he could make a good speech . ( Laughter . ) It might bo said that a council
composed of such heterogeneous materials as he proposed could not possibly work well , lie believed , notwithstanding the statements made on a previous occasion , that this majority of tlie House were in favour of a council ; but it must be a real council . " " Was tlie House prepared to yield the nomination of eighteen Indian Councillors to the Crown ? The country would not approve of such a proposition ; and accordingly recourse must be hud to the elective principle . Thin , however , was objected to us unconstitutional ; but he ro . allv did not know how to encounter such an object ion , which battled discussion . No doubt ; , tho application of Hie
principle- in tho pmmit instance was anomalous ; but tho Mouse was dealing with ono of tho great anomalies of the time . " It might be said that , in adopting the plan he ; proposed , tlicy might exclude groat men ; but . ( boy should remember tho peculiar cireumstiuuvs of the case which they avcto considering , aud that they were called on to legislate ) Cor an exceptional . state of tiling . Was it not of vital importance that in tho council proposed there should be members who could givo accurate information in rolorenco to Scindo , or other subjects where personal knowledge ) is required ? The number of those distinguished persons from whom they would make their selection would amount to not less than
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 1, 1858, page 410, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/ldr_01051858/page/2/
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