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st . John ' s columous . d Life of CJirittopher Columbus . By Horace Iloscne St . John . Sampson Low . Towards the close of the fifteenth century ( 1485 ) n majestic looking stranger , foot-sore and -weary , his hair grey before its time , his face lined with thought and anxiety , his eye luminous with the light of great thoughts , appeared at the gate of the convent oi Santa Maria cle Rabida , close to the seaport of Paloa de Morgucr , and begged a little bread and water for his child . It was given as refreshment was given in those days . At that moment , the prior , Juan Perta do Marchona , passed , and struck by the appearance of the stranger , entered into conversation with him . That stranger was Columbus , the visionary , whose hope it was to sail " Beyond the aunsot , and the baths Of all the western stars . *' Ridiculed by the wise men of Portugal , who , neverthelees , tried to cheat him out of his discovery , hi had travelled to Genoa in hopes that the republii would listen to his adventurous scheme ; but Genoi and Venice were deaf ; and he returned once mor < to Portugal , and was now on his way to Spain .
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paupers for no return , for worse than no return—for debasement , dependence , the bread of idleness , the abject and self-degraded consciousness of importunate beggary , and 15 , 000 , 000 acres of improveable soil left without a single spade in it !" Elsewhere he says : — " Is there no substance of self-help in our peasantry ? Let us see ; the unions cannot find paupers in food , fuel , and clothing , upon less than 2 s . lOd . per week , or 14 s . 2 d . for a family of five . Yet hundreds of these maintain themselves on 8 s . a-week , and pay house-rent ( Is . 6 d . or 2 s . a-week ) into the bargain . Hundreds more bring up families of six , eight , and ten children -without ever applying for assistance out of the rates . The heroism and virtue of these men is not surpassed in classic times , or in the age of heroes . "
He then turns aside to consider the state of the nation in a chapter which M'Crowdy will consider as altogether wanting in feelosophy r , but which thinking men not of the M * Crowdy school will be apt to ponder on , despite its " shocking radicalism" : — " Yes , " he exclaims , " we are civilized—the spindles whirl over Europe—and steam clouds the entire old world sky . All can boast their statistical prosperitytheir progress in Board of Trade returns—their millions of figures in tonnage , revenue , and exports . Look but at figures—believe Custom-house clerks—take up but
reports of trade and navigation , and the world seems to have shot past the millennium , and got to the meridian of the day of Pentecost , or caught the Greek kalends by the tail . Sugar , tea , tobacco , ships , bales , hogsheads , wines , silks , wools , cottons , oils , surplus capital , and railway shares , prove , if not a golden age , yet quite an age of gold . Alas ! for statistics and logical political economy . Mankind are running away from all this , and hiding themselves in the woods . Two millions of emigrants from this el dorado have left Britain for the New World prairies , oi to take up the Australian crook . Two millions of Germans have followed their example—and just as the wealth of the world is flowing in upon us the tide of human beings is flowing out . This same civilization of ours has ' fall ' n on evil days and evil tongues . '
Riots , rebellions , barricades , revolutions , are its interpreters . A universal upheaving of the mass , a fearful grounds well , founders every state ship , and sends it down head foremost to the depths , a total wreck . The masses do this , tea , and sugar , and cotton shirts at a penny a yard , notwithstanding . Louis Blanc and Fourrier are stronger than the steam engine yet . Communism and universal brotherhood are the gospel of the million , to the utter confounding of the best series of statistics , and a whole Sanhedrim of Prosperity Robinsons . Somehow we are highly prosperous , but very few manage to get their share . We are in the best abstract circumstances , but by some very perverse mischance we happen to be in the very worst concrete condition . In short , there are very loud complaints among the rabbble that they are not allowed to go snacks . "
Again : — " We obviously make money . Where does it go to ? Wealth beyond the desires of human avarice has been produced and flowed in upon us in this model year 1849 . What has become of it ? The report of the British Relief Association informs us that three millions of these workers in Ireland were fed on charity , by rations served out to them by the Government . The Poor JLaw returns exhibit an aggregate , in addition to those , of 3 , 561 , 600 workhouse paupers relieved at an expense of eight millions sterling . The new Poor Law , while it has failed to check pauperism , has , at least , served to prove that
beggary is not a sham , but that , workhouse test notwithstanding , while the cost of pauper maintenance has been reduced by open ports , the aggregate amount of rates has in eleven years increased thirty-three per cent ., a ratio even greater than our increase of apparent wealth . In 1837 the poor rates of England and Wales amounted to £ 4 , 300 , 000 . In 1848 to £ 6 , 180 , 000 . In 1849 the numbers relieved are 100 , 000 more than in 1848 , an advance of six per cent , within the year . In 1848 the rates were £ 881 , 978 ( or seventeen per cent . ) more than in 1840 . Misery , literally , seems to advance in the very ratio of our wealth—the more we get the fewer get
itis , as he says , of no use to prove progress in material wealth , if we also establish an encrease of real misery to a greater extent ; and he sums up with this fact : that in proportion to our numbers there are too many dependent upon wages , and too few their own masters . Rank Socialism ! Yet Sidney Smith warns us not to mistake him for a Socialist . " The gospel according to Fourrier , " he says , " is that of a fool , and the followers of Blanc are blockheads ; " hard words , my masters ! and elsewhere he says that " Red Republican Communism has hitherto developed itself simply in the line of seizing other men ' s goods and cutting rich men ' s throats . A somewhat unfraternal brotherhood . " Sidney Smith
ought to have been taught by journalistic experience that this calling of names and misrepresentation of doctrines is as mischievous as it is ungenerous : what has he thought of his political opponents who have used such language towards him ? We are at one with him when he says that people begin at the wrong end of Communism , taking hold of the tail of mere material arrangement before securing the head of moral adaptation . Indeed he is much nearer Communism , than his vituperative bursts would lead some people to imagine : —
"It is , indeed , demonstrable economically—nay , it has been partially practically proved , that by a wiser application of the resources of society , by a better distribution of its productions , by a more enlightened ^ arrangement of appliances , and a more intelligent spirit of cooperation and mutual help , crowned by philanthropy , virtue , and religion , the poorest may command the highest enjoyments of the richest , and the richest will lose not one of the advantages which he at present can command , sauced with perfect security for the continuance of his happiness , and with the precious condiment of neighbourly good-will . Who does not see that
one grocer or draper might distribute the wares needed by 1000 people as easily as five to two hundred , setting the other four at liberty for other pursuits , in place of cutting one another down and out ? Who doubts that Jenny Lind might warble to 10 , 000 eager listeners at 5 s . as sweetly as to 1000 at a guinea—or that , if she could command all the elegant appliances which now reward her genius without the guinea , she would witch the world for the love of her art , and the elevation of the rude ? We all see that colonization , which lifts up a neighbourhood from Devon and places them down together in the paradise of New Zealand , to help , and cheer , and cherish takthe hindmost
one another , is even in this * devil e ' dispensation far preferable to selfish individual emigration . Look at the one hundred provision retailers in a single street , each burning gas and life till twelve o ' clock at night to parcel out those commodities which one could do quite as easily . Take up a directorycount the number of tradesmen and shopkeepers in any town—London for example . It seems as if one-half of the whole population consumed the substance of the community in the profits of mere distribution , producing actually nothing , except , indeed , heart-burning , rivalry , envy of one another . What a fearful waste is here of the mind , the time , the industry , the skill of society . A dozen methodical , assiduous contrivers could do it
allor they might relieve each other , and spare time to the rest for relaxation , study , health , the country . When men have attained to the greater heights of reason , dukes and earls , millionaires , great landowners , will begin to discover that , after all , they cannot enjoy the best sources of elevated happiness by means of money or power—that their acres arc theirs only in parchmentthat the glories of air , earth , sky , and water , and sunset , and the majestical roof fretted with golden fire , are the property of all who have eyes , and ears , and nostrils , and lungs , and a sense of beauty and intelligence—and that the privilege of looking on and moving in the parks of peers is as much a property in them as their legal possession is . A duke can but ride one horse at a time , and eat one dinner—so can a drayman .
as the aggregate swells the proportion diminishes—and the greater our riches the lesser is the share of each . Nor is this the only test of our condition . The most precise returns , diffused over a long series of years , place the criminal calendar in juxtaposition with the average price of the quarter of wheat . From these returns it is demonstrable that the great exciting cause of crime is poverty—because , just as the price of bread rises offences increase , and as food becomes accessible the number of convictions diminish . Taking crime , then , as the test of the condition of the masses , we learn from Sheriff Alison that over the whole kingdom crime increases four times as fast as the population , and that ' in Lancashire population doubles in thirty years : crime in five years and a half . ' And all this while the sums spent in railway
« 'Tis not in them but in thy power To double ev ' n the sweetness of a flower , What , indeed , are our British Museums , our National Galleries , our public libraries , our royal parks , but a beginning of a sort of Communism , imparting to the whole community the rational luxuries which surround the great , without the anxious cares of their possession ? Machinery is but cooperation . The bible that cost £ 500 to the few is to be had for Is . by all . The gown and stockings of the kitchen wench are finer and more elegant than the wardrobe of Queen Elizabeth . Our cobblers fly from Glasgow to London swifter than the Flying Childers , and at a cost suited to the profits of mere shoemaking . Our weavers trip to Paris . Our farm labourers push their fortnnes at the antipodes . Our hod-men read
wages have added probably fifty per cent , to the whole payment of labour throughout the kingdom . The convictions in England and Wales uli > m \ in 18 ' 3 O , were 17 , 832 , in 184-7 they had increased to 21 , 582 , and 17 J per cent , above those of even 18-4 G . Iu Ireland the convictions alone , in 1817 , amounted to 15 , 257 , and the trials to 31 , 209 . The number of Irish poor relieved in London , Liverpool , and Glasgow alone , in 18 A 7 , waa 100 , 000 . With all our enormous encrease of apparent wealth also , insolvency and bankruptcy progress even faster . The Metropolitan Bankruptcy Committee have proved by good evidence that the amount of bud debts made in England and Scotland is quite £ 50 , 000 , 000 a-year . Where , then , does the money go to—what good docs it effect—what evil does it avert ?" On . this much-debated question of our progress it
the news of the whole world as early as the foreign secretary . The public And the vulgar see , and hear , and enjoy the best of everything . The cheap library of the artisan is superior to ihc former literature of kings . In fact , the great possess no such luxuries as those they have to share with the million . And what is Communism but carrying out these economics to a larger application , with more searching frugality of material , and ^ a more fraternal mutuality of kindliness ? To consider the matter curiously , the groat rich man is but a distributor , like the rest of us . He cannot eat or drink , or wear £ ! JOO , 000 a-year . When ho gets it , it is but to Ret rid of it . All his superfluity of possession , above the comfortable supply of wants , is of no use to him , but to part with it . The rest is more fancy—a delusion—a disease . If he puts it in the bank it is there no more than an
entry in a ledger—if he takes it out he but scat tera among flunkies and fiddlers , and artists , tailors , and gamblers , wine merchants , cooks , and authors , what he has collected from farmers , or gathered from tenants , or merchants . Could he be surrounded with all these without possessing them , reason , when it mounts higher , will tell him that individual property in them can add nothing to them or to him—and as for his parks , his gardens , and his house , what can he do more than look at them , like any stray
sight-seer , or poetical view-hunter , that perhaps envies him of that which he can enjoy as thoroughly by the mere use of his eyesight ? It is poverty , dependence , and hunger which make men avaricious , and covetous , and strong in the sense of property . When Cook discovered those happy Pacific Isles , so blest by Nature that man had but to stretch forth his hand and get food for the gathering , and needed no clothing or house , but the kindly circumambient air , he found the sense of property dead within them—
-• Monarchs are but the beggar ' s shadows , ' « for behold the kingdom of heaven is within you . ' Even Art , of which Wealth used to be the only patron , is coming to depend more and more upon the half-crowns of the many—and if Art could live handsomely without the half-crowns , it would begin to love itself for itself , and for the gratitude and admiration of its fellows . " We would direct especial attention to his chapters on Peasant Proprietary , Entail and Primogeniture , Taxation , Free Trade , and Religion . From the lastnamed we extract this picture of
THE CHURCH—IDEAL AND ACTUAL " "We set a high political and social value upon religion . We think the institution in society of a priesthood of incalculable benefit . That there shall be in these realms twenty thousand educated men , eminent among their fellow citizens for moral worth , social respectability , and superior intelligence , whose functions it shall be , weekly , to call the people together , and remind them of their moral duties , instruct them in their conduct , lead them upward to the thought of God , immortality , and the infinite significancy of their own souls—who shall daily be among them , healing the breaches of families , comforting the distressed , and consoling and helpingthe poor—if ever there was an office worth paying for it is that . Righteousness exalteth a nation politically—the
more moral a people are the more orderly , great , and rich they will become . A policeman and a soldier sitting in a man ' s own heart , and whispering to him the decalogue—is it not the cheapest and best of constables ? " Yet of all the forty thousand sermons preached weekly in our churches and chapels , how many are worth , the hearing ? What virtuous actions do they inspirewhat vice do they repress—crime and pauperism are more rampant than ever . How many homilies will bear a reading of the many which are printed ? The fault is not in the neople . If a preacher be but tolerably
eloquent his church is crowded . Of the noblest institution in the world we make the very meanest use . ^ We repeat a single prayer five times every Sunday morning . We are told to enter into our closet and shut the door when we pray . In place of that we weary heaven with prayers ' in public congregation . We are informed that we shall not be heard for our much praying . Our answer to that is a book full of Act of Parliament matins and vespers , which so gnaw the tympanum and wear out the very spirit , whose physical organ cannot sustain too long the ecstacy of devotion , that at last an appeal to Heaven palls upon the sense and weighs upon the auditory
nerve—* Like % twice told tale . Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man . ' 41 In fact , we endow theology—not religion . We busy ourselves with what men should believe , rather than with what they should do . We stereotype opinion . We are worse than papists . They at least have a living infallible interpreter of the Bible , who can change the tenor of its meaning as greater intelligence sheds more light upon it . But we have made choice of 300 dead popes , who , two hundred and fifty years ago , declared what we were to believe , and what we # ere to deny , and put it into an Act of Parliament , and proclaimed that that alone should be the religion of the free people of E ngland in scecula steculorum . Amen ! *'
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Oct . 5 , 1850 . ] « £ !) £ fL ******* 66 S
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 5, 1850, page 663, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1855/page/15/
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