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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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Here , then , we have it at last ! The eighty London clergy , after all their arguing and aU their speech-making , really object to opening the Sydenham Palace on Sunday , because it is an intellectual recreation , and because they believe that the process of refining the popular mind has nothing whatever to do with the Christian religion ! Here , in the nineteenth , century , under the spiritual rule of the Reformed Church of England , we have the monstrous old Popish blasphemy , that the education of the mind and the well-doing of Christianity are downright incompatibilities , publicly revived and restated by eighty
London clergymen , with an archdeacon , and , we may add , arch-pluralist , at their head ! Look well to that third paragraph of the address , my Lord Derby , when it is presented to you . If you want proof of the real profanit } ' of the principle on which the Sabbath Observance men proceed , you have it there ; and if you want a good reason , an unanswerable reason , for holding to your first resolution , and sanctioning the opening of the new Crystal Palace on Sunday afternoons , why , by every law of Christian logic , you may find it there also !
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THE CRISIS IN TURKEY . All fears respecting Turkey are to be dispelled upon the assurance of the journal which professes to be the ministerial organ . The Morning Herald avers , that " the gloomy predictions of the Opposition journals with respect to the late events in Turkey have been fortunately refuted by the manly and honourable conduct of the Sultan . " We fail , indeed , to discover in this assurance the substance of anything that is really reassuring . The principle of the statement in the Morning Herald seems to be , to abuse everybody who is in favour of the loan , and to praise everybody who opposed the loan . " His Majesty has refused to ratify the loan , " says the Herald , " which his faithless or incompetent Minister , Prince Callimachi , contracted under conditions utterly at variance with his instructions . Now , we doubt many items of this assertion . It can hardly be true that the error lay with Prince Callimachi ; for if it had , what could have been easier than , recalling that " faithless and incompetent minister , " to have caused the loan to proceed in accordance with original instructions ? It is , we believe , an utterly false suggestion , that the question really lay in
Paris ; on the contrary , we incline still to think , that the authority to negotiate the loan was given in Constantinople , to persons in Constantinople ; also , that the opposition to the project arose with other persons m Constantinople —to wit , the old Turkish party , which resented money dealings with the infidels , and with the Russian party , jealous of French accommodation for the insolvent Porte . To treat the subject of the loan only as a diplomatic error in Paris , is to deal with the ti p end of the subject . If anybody in Paris was to blame , it must have been Messrs .
Dcvaux , the agents ; and they would naturally refer back to their principals , the partners of the Bank in Constantinople . But that Bank , we have no doubt , had the full authority of the Sublime Porte ; and the revocation of the authority is a distinct change of policy in the Cabinet of the Sultan—a change of policy as distinct an the change of the Ministers themselves . Tho late Vizier , AH Pasha , was favourable to the
alliance with "Western ! Europe , and favourable , most assuredly , to raising the wind for the press ing exigencies of tbo imperial treasury ; but the Turkish Tories , who stood by Koran and Slate , threatened ; . Russia instigated and supported those Tories ; the Suit an wa « obliged to yield , and Ali Pasha was displaced by Mohammed Ali Pasha , a man of tins reactionary party . The denial , therefore , which refers only to Paris , goen
simply for nothing . Tho Herald vaunts itself that "tho Sulta . ii has been counselled not to ratify an iniquitous engagement , which would have fettered hiiunell and his dynasty for , atlonst , twenty-three years . " Awful fact ! A national debt of 2 , ( XX > , 0 ( N )/ . Hterling , to last for twenty-three yrn . ru ! Surely linh writer
this iH enough to alarm any Kng Colonel Rose has , we learn , contributed to rescue the Sultan from that ruinous position . Colonel IIohc , who enjoys the confidence of Lord Mnlmesbury . the Herald in careful to inform us , received his advancement froia Lord PahnerHton ; for the Tory writer feels he cannot Htand unless he drags in an old voucher of Lord Palmers ton'h for u
present act , which that nobleman could not have contemplated . The remainder of the article is made up of an attack on M . de Lavalette , the French ambassador . We are told that he has not asked for his passports , but that " he has compromised his Government and alarmed his colleagues by his language . " Who his colleagues are , we do not know ; but the context would imply that they are the diplomatic representatives of other countries . M . de Lavalette may have been too
impetuous , but the question is , Whether he is supported by his Government ? And that he is supported , at least in very high pretensions , is proved by the fact , that he entered the Dardanelles in the Charlemagne war ship , supported . by his Government in this flagrant violation of treaties ; and that he has upheld that domineering policy in the East which is illustrated by Louis INTapol eon's claim to be called the " Protector of the Holy Places . " The assurances of the Herald , therefore , amount to nothing more nor less than confirmations of all that has been said upon the subject ; namely , that France is making demands
upon the Turkish Government ; is supported by a local party , and has on her side the interests of the money dealers in London and Paris ; that she has been suffered to assume that position through the negligence , faithlessness , or incompetency of diplomatists on the spot ; and that she is resisted by a Tory-Turkish reactionary and Russian party , with whom England finds herself in a false alliance . This , we say , is outrageous bungling ; it places England in a position from which she could only act mischievously . Our attention is the more drawn to the subject , since we see signs of other movements menacing to Turkey .
The Emperor of Austria has just given his sanction to a new line of railway , to extend from Steinbruck to the Croatian frontier . Austria and Russia , we must remember , are competing for the master influence in Sclavonian Turkey ; that is , in four-fifths of Turkey . Russia already possesses the mouths of the Danube ; has a large force stationed on the other side of tliat river ; could cross the Pruth at any point ; has proved that she can cross the Balkan ; and could , in short , occupy Constantinople at the shortest notice .
In an opposite direction , the Turkish authority is in contest . The Druses and the Bedouins have attacked the Turks in S } r ria . Communication has been interrupted , and the Turkish commander seems to have some trouble in maintaining his ground . It is at such times as this that France appears in the Golden Horn , defiant of treaties , with a
line-of-battle ship , bullying the insolvent Sultan , and almost forcing him to accept , at an exorbitant rate of interest , accommodation . And it i . s at such times as this , that England is seen diplomatically playing , through the hand of a subaltern agent of' all work , the game of that overwhelming power which can seize or " protect " Turkey at a moment ' s notice ; .
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A OIIKCK FOR RAILWAY / INSTRUCTION . A (; ain tho rail is stained with blood ! The collision on the Brighton line ; has added to the numbers of those who are convinced that " something must be done . " Indeed , the number of those in whom that conviction has been imp lanted , by shocking experience- of tlusir own , begins to grow formidable ; and various HiiggeHiionH are afloat for the coercion of Railway Companies into something like rational and decent , attention to the comfort and safety of the panHengei \ s . There have been exhortations . Railway Managers have been assured that if they
were to attend to the wants of passengers , they would be repaid for it in the increase of traffic . The total neglect of this incentive by Railway IYljiiuurer . H proves , for the thousandth time , that the law of " supply and demand" is not rfl'ectual in procuring the greatest amount of convenience for the public . Competition has been expected to do wonders ; but we hco Ww , fallacy of that incentive in the lust instance of competition . The Oxford and 'Hanbury line establishes competing railways from London to Birmingham ; nut tlio very opening of tho Hanbury line was signalized by a collision . Supply and demand and competition failing , Homo other motive is desirable . A correHpondent ; of the Times , for whom that journal vouches an really " One conversant with Railway affairs , "
suggested a system of fines . The Banbury acci dent was the result of the grossest unpune * tualitv ; and although , the Great Western , is fjj from being conspicuous amongst Railway Companies for dilatoriness , there is a general complaint that the arrival of trains is long after the appointed hour . More than one recent accident by which a quick train cut a goods train in half are also instances of unpunctuality . The primary cause of the Brighton ident is the atb
acc same , aggraved y inattent ion to orders . Railway managers put carriages on the lines to run fast or slow , with very little reference to the relations of time . Unl punctuality , therefore , is a fruitful cause of accidents ; and " One who is conversant with Rail , way affairs , " proposed to meet that offence by enabling railway passengers to claim the forfeiture of their fare when , the train shall arrive more than fifteen minutes after the specified time .
At the first blush this looks like a very promising suggestion ; but the Times made an alarming objection , that in their anxieties to save the fines , the Company would scramble overground even more perilously than at present . Certainly there is no occasion for that . It is not the slowness in locomotion , but the long and unexpected delays which contribute to unpunctuality . The objection , however , is powerful , and would very likely prevail . Leave other things as they are , and Railway Companies would be inclined to indulge delay as much as ever , while they would endeavour to make up for it by reckless speed .
Protected only by a political ceconomy , which takes little account of life , or by Lord Ly ttelton ' s Act , which allows an uncertain compensation for certain accidents , the railway passenger feels but little confidence in his own destiny when once he is handed over to the custody of the railway official . If the fine protected him in respect of Eunc tuality , it would expose him the more to eing dashed to pieces by another species of neglect .
We still , therefore , want something else . Government assumption of Railways is not probable under the existing circumstances , and the not unnatural prejudices against Government management . Railway Directors appear to grant themselves an irresponsibility wholly at variance with the duty to society , or to the passenger placing himself in their charge . It is difficult , however , to find out a method of coercing a kind of animal , like the Railway Director or the fox , that can ahvays turn on his own path . Mr . Glyn , for example , says that Railway Companies are forced into it by competition . Mr . Laing , of the Brighton Board , has made light
of accidents , treating them as things to be expected . Practically , all Railway Companies show that thev are not appalled by the chance of disaster . The grand fault then seems to lie in the impossibility of bringing Railway managers to a sense of their duty . Competition cannot do it ; argument cannot doit ; and while the Railway managers hold the highways of the king dom in their own hands , the passenger who must travel by their railroads , who has no appeal to their enlightened self-interest , or their philanthropy , is made to cast about for every plan of inducement . One indeed would promise to be yery effectual if it wore possible . It is the boast of those who oflidalJv cultivate Christianity , that it is tho
true doctrine of doing to your neighbour as you would be done by , and that it comprises all practical wisdom and philanthropy . It occurs to us , therefore , that this would be a good mode ot bringing Railway managers to a hcuso of their reason nnd to their duty—to convert thorn to Christianity .
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A CLIOIMCAIi WITNKSS TO CHURCH ANARCHY . " Tmesis are days which ncod plain language to set forth important truth . " Such is the opening sentence of a letter in the Times , signed by t »« notorious parson , " Sidney Godolphin OHborne , who takes a " common nenHC view" of Ohurt matters Ifw subject is the Bishops und Clergy » whose relations to each other ho farcically ucscribes , as they come out into strong , very fitroiif , , relief at the " visitations" and tho " confirmations . " Take a specimen of tho former : — " Once in thm > years wo lmvu a visitation : wo in « Hiiniinoiicd to a neighbouring town to ineet _ HiHlu >]>; wo follow him to a morning flervico m - church , and hear one of our brethren preach a con
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1064 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 6, 1852, page 1064, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1959/page/12/
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