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Leader (1850-1860), 27th September 1851, Edition Town of 2, Page 916, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      pleted in time to take its place among the marvels of the Exposition . We understand our Transatlantic cousins have east an eye on Mr . Kirkman ' s specification , and that on the representations of the United States' Commissioner to Mr . Abbott Laurence , the drawings have been submitted to that gentleman , who has thought them worthy of a direct communication to Washington on the subject . As in the case of all discoveries which supersede , or radically simplify

      more complicated systems , the present invention may remain a long time very sparingly adopted . It certainly promises a larger profit to the manufacturer and a cheaper and better article to the consumer ; but i * is impossible that a change which effects so large a saving in wages should not alarm the labour market and cause hesitation in employers . How can we escape the reflection that under a sounder industrial regime , science would cease to be the rival , in becoming the helpmate , of labour .

      Untitled Article

      REDSKIN ORATORS . A deputation of Chippewas were in Washington on the 4 th of September , when they had an interview with the authorities of the " Indian Bureau . " The facts are gathered from the National Intelligencer of Washington . These Indians arrived there in the early part of the week . They were six in number , including their interpreter . The object of their visit was not very clear , but might be drawn from their addresses to the Commissioner . It was announced by the interpreter , whose Indian title is Emmegahbowh , that three of the chiefs would speak . Accordingly , Iaskwekeshig , or Crossing-Sky , the principal chief , advanced , and , shaking hands with the Commissioner , said : —

      " My Father , —The business which brought me here , and which we talked of a little yesterday , I will now speak to you about more particularly . Before I left my country every Indian gave me counsel , and told me what to say to you and to our Great Father ( the President ) , and when I return they will look to me for a reply . I come here to talk to you because I feel that I have done no wrong , and committed nothing evil , either against the whites or my own people . I have come a long way , and have been very anxious to see you , my father , and my Great Father . These wampums were present before many chiefs , and the words that I now speak

      are the words they wished me to say . Our people have become much troubled and very anxious in their minds , for fear their Great Father is going to take away their land , and they look all around in every direction , and they look to the Canada side . We look around . We have no refuge , no shelter . We look to the ocean ; we must be driven to its shores ; perhaps we shall be drowned . Some of our chiefs have wished to go to Canada , and some have determined to die in their native land . They have a great expectation from me that I shall get a good reply from our Great Father . I am going to say a few words respecting payments . We were informed by our agent that we should be furnished a farmer , a blacksmith , and a teacher among our people . I have often asked for all these things . I have asked our

      father . It is now almost fifteen years since we have received annuities , and all this time we have had no teacher . I am very anxious . Before the time comes that we shall be driven from our country we wish to learn the ways of the whites . I have come a great distance , and wish to get good news from our futher . And about our timber L want to Hpenk . Last winter I went down to ask the Governor about our timber , and I got no satisfactory answer . I wanted to get white folks to come into our country , and to put up Bawmills in our country . We are anxious and ready to build , but we can ' t build without boards . lam weak and poor , trul y weak ; you have great strength . You can move great things . I leave this with you . " ( Spreading the wampum on the table before the Coinminsioner , and retiring . )

      Kapewenint , or Safe-guide , then rose , and , shaking hands with the Commissioner , said : — " My father , many head- warriors gave me the words I now give to you . Our last payment was poor . Every way you could hear wailing of children and women and men . We received what provision our Great Father Bent , but it was poor , we thought . There wen ; many deaths in our party . Afterpayment was over only one blanket was left to inc . After our people left the paying-ground many of our people were seen lying' flown and frozen to death . We are very poor . We received no inoiicy ; many of our people died . In our village Were many poor , very poor . " He then laid a calumet on the table and retired .

      NiUiiinegabowh , or Stand . Before , then rose , and with a stentorian voice addressed the Commissioner thu « - "My Father , Ave are in n strange country , hut I hop ' o you will listen to the faw words I have to Buy . Last Hiunmor we went down to St . liter ' s , and we had a council with . some other tribes . I he tribe was the Sioux tribe . We had a council with them last summer at Fort Snellmg . When we were all together we Haw our Oro . it Father , the Governor of the Minnesota territory , and wo talked with him . Wo are always ready id hdar 6 tir father . Whtm he sent

      for us , we all came down . When all the wrongs are taken account of between our tribes , it will be found the Chippewas have done the least wrong . We had councils . We could not decide . We left it then to our Great Father ; he could not decide . He said he wouid send it to our Great Father here . He told us he would get an answer in three months , We expected after we got an answer to have had reparation for the wrongs the others had done us . We gave our hands to our Father . We did no damage ;

      we did no wrong ; we touched no man . We are always witling to obey our Great Father . As soon as we had got home to our wigwams the news came that the Sioux had stricken our children . It is the Sioux , the tribe that had stricken our children . " To these addresses Mr . Commissioner Lea replied . The Commissioner , being informed by the principal chief that they were entirely moneyless , said that it was not customary for the Government to pay expenses of Indians , but in this case they would consent to pay their way home .

      Crossing-Sky again addressed the Commissioner , praying for a sawmill , and asking if he might sell some of his timber to erect one . This , the Commissioner said , the agent in the territory would settle for them . Crossing-Sky concluded in a complimentary address , speaking of the pleasure he had derived from his visit , and how much gratified he would be to see his Great Father . They had seen so much that his people would not believe when they told them . Would not their father send a white man with them , that they might believe him ?

      The conference terminated in an arrangement to allow them an interview with their Great Father , the President , in a day or two , and a general shaking of hands all round .

      Untitled Article

      PRINTERS' ATHENAEUM . A most desirable movement has arisen among the large section of society who come under the denomination of Printers . It is no surprise to find the name of Mr . Charles Knight , the indefatigable friend of all connected with literature , among the foremost of the promoters of this movement . It is proposed to establish a Printers' Athenaeum , which shall be a club as well as a literary and scientific institution . A meeting was held on Monday , at Anderton's Hotel , Fleet-street , to forward this project . Mr . Knight took the chair . He delivered an appropriate introductory speech , from which we cull the following : — " But there was a startling and lamentable fact mentioned in the prospectus before them , and which he should not on his own authority have ventured to bring vinder their attention—namely , that a large number of the youths introduced into the printing trade during the last twenty-five years , not to go further back , had been found , when apprenticed , to be egregiously deficient in the simplest elements of their own language . ( Hear , hear . ) That was the fault of those who took such apprentices , and perhaps it was partly owing to the present state of society . Formerly , when there existed guilds , a master who took an apprentice , and solemnly engaged to instruct him in the art and mystery of printing , was bound to communicate to him a knowledge of general literature as well as of languages . But that state of

      society was past , and we were in a highly commercial and competetive state , which had produced deplorable evils , and sent young men into the business lamentably deficient in the rudiments even of linylish grammar . JNeed he , then , urge a stronger argument to induce them to found the Printers'Athenaeum , where they conld take such illiterate youths from their daily drudgerytake them from their case and from the imposing etone , and not allow them to wander at night about the town , learning nothing but evil , but invite them to a place of shelter and of attraction , where they could read the newspaper—itself the best teacher—and store their inind . s with the knowledge contained in a well-assorted library , so that at length they might become skilled workmen , and competent to deal with all the various subjects and technicalities which came before them . "

      The following resolutions were unanimously agreed to ; and we may fairly consider the Printers ' Athenaeum under way : — " That in the opinion of this meeting , the proposal to establish for the printing and bookbinding trades , and the callings in connection therewith , u literary and social institution , tinder the general name of ' The Printers' Athenncum , ' is a movement calculated to confer many estimable advantages upon , and be conducive to the mental elevation and social improvement of , the members of kucIi trades . Jt . is , therefore , highly approved of by those present , and is recommended by them to the favourable contudcration of all persons ,

      intereKted in the welfare of the typographical art , and the perfection of all departments connected with the same ; That the i cuolut ion . s of the provisional committee , whereby a fund in proposed to bo raised through the sale of imntial mid life , members' tickets , and by honorary contributions , previous to opening the institution in question , be adopted by this meeting , an a practical means for commencing the . undertaking free from pecuniar } - rink , and upon a scale compatible with the wants of it « HupporteiH ; and That , this meeting in of opinion that ' The Printers' Athenaeum * has claims for support upon all persons engaged in the literature of the country ; as upon the Ability and skill of the printer the acouraoy of the press i « greatly dependent . "

      Untitled Article

      PUBLIC OPINION . No sect or no religion will henceforth prosper or even keep its ground , says the Daily News , by the old system of religious teaching , which seized on the child and neglected the man , which instilled dogmas and then trusted to exclusive society and closed ears to keep the grown man firm to it . " This is l ) r . Cullen ' s plan of faith and education "We ought to scorn any such old worldism in England " And instead of fearing mixed education , we ought to court it , give the young all the advantage of that acutetiesg and quick reasoning which secular learning besto ws and

      then create a religious teaching , simultaneo us and ap art which should have its science , its profession , and be equal to the task of combining religious belief with , the freest and highest activity of intellect . Seven centuries back there was really very little difference between the ideas the knowledge , the beliefs of the boy and the man . And the education of the man was precisely that of the boy . What vast difference is there now between all that a boy can know , and all that £ man must ? The teaching of everything has made strides , except the teaching t » t religion . ' ^ 8

      The Nottingham Mercury objects to the " scheme of double voting , " lately thrown out as a fe eler in the Globe : — " The scheme may be suitable for Hungary , or Aastralia , or many other places , for aught we know , —bat it is altogether un-English in its character as applied to the important affair of choosing men to legislate for the population of this country , and will not , therefore , the Globe may rest assured , be ever submitted to by them . " This scheme of franchise extension is condemned by the Dublin Commercial Herald as a " clumsy device , an inadequate extension of popular rights /' and as the *• hackneyed stop-gap for kings on the Continent , when they sought a compromise between Democracy and Absolutism /'

      The Lincolnshire Chronicle has a long article in favour of Protection , based on an American work on Political Economy of cognate views . Disraeli ' s abandonment of Protection is discussed under the head of " The Knell of Protection , " by the Preston Guardian . But by far the more useful article is an admirable expose of the county expenditure of Lancashire , with a view to Mr . Milner Gibson ' s bill . The Boston Herald , dealing with Disraeli's declara * tion , that he had no hope for the restoration of Protection , " until every class throughout the country shall be convinced of its necessity , " says : —

      " Nor have we ; nor can any reasonable Protectionist have . Upon our conviction that all classes in the country will ere long insist upon the reversal of thepresent Free Trade insanity , is based our donfident hope of the advent of better times . We have never advocated Protection as a class interest ; our cause has been that of all the industrial community ; and , however some may appear at present to be removed from the influence of existing depression , we are satisfied that ' the curse will come home to roost' even to the uttermost ends of the land . " The following cool statement of the state of the Protectionist question is made by the Exeter Flying Post of Thursday : —

      " The existence of agricultural distress is admitted . There is not a Free-trader , from the Land ' s-end to John o'Groat ' c , who will attempt to deny that thirtyeight shillings a quarter for wheat is a price absolutely below the cost of production ; and as the theory of high , farming , with a view to counteract the evil influence of Free trade , is completely exploded , the question arises , and it is one which must force itself upon the attention of the Legislature , what is to be done to secure to the occupiers of the soil a fair return for their labour and capital ? " Hacking the speech of Disraeli at Aylesbury , and accepting it as tho manifestation of a " clear and decisive line of tactics " (!) , the Wakefield Journal prophetically perorates : —

      " Here , then , we have a distinct repudiation of a return to Protective duties as a benefit to the farming interest , and we shall probably soon see some substantial relief volunteered to the agricultural classes , in order to enable them to meet the disadvantages in which they are at present placed . " " Early closing" is the subject discussed by tho Coventry Herald : — " We believe that the same organization that could

      effect early closing , could organize an attractive and useful method of employing the leisure hours of young men . The joint work should be immediately undertaken ; and if the correspondents who have recently addressed us go wisely and industriously to work—if they will invent time , faith , and energy in tho undertaking , they will assuredly succeed . " The Preston Chronicle winds up a grievous article on American and Continental Politics " with this

      enormous sentonce : — " The opportunity for reform , however , has , we repeat , been thrown uway ; and as the democracies of Europe are for tho present ciusheil beneath the iron heel of military power , and the demagogues of America have shown that mobn cannot bo trusted with ' Liberty , Equality , Frulernity / as tho controller of better-defined laws and restraints , the Sovereigns are determined to restore tho old despotisms with more than their former power ; and thus from their panic terror at the past , and at the disorganisation whioh they behold in the United States , tU « y nr * again ali * kiag * K > ci « iy to it « centre , and preparing

      Untitled Article

      916 ff |> * ILeatitt . [ SAtfUKOAir ,

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 27, 1851, page 916, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1902/page/8/