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the divine laws . If we are to have any release it must be by conforming in act to the divine rule , and making ourselves the instrument to carry forth the laws by which alone we can live . If love of lucre , indolence , complicity with ignorance , or strife with crude opinion , make , us continue to neglect these laws , it is but the mockery of piety to pray that we may be exempted from the consequences .
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USE OF NATIONS TO STATESMEN . " The fatal incubus which weighs heavily on the foreign policy of your Government , is not so much love tor the Czar , as fear and hatred of democracy . It would be vain to dissimulate that aristocracy and plutocracy , as leading elements , will always less fear the despot than popular liberty . " There is much truth in this assertion of Kossuth ' s ; although its truth was , perhaps , more evident some months back , than it is now . Certainly
there is no present fear of democracy in England . The quietude of the country , the general slumbering of political subjects , has not only lulled the energies of the working classes , but also the alarms of the Governing Classes . Nevertheless the feeling lies at the bottom of much that cramps the energies of our public men . To say the truth boldly , public men , who , in former times , used to claim the support of the people , are now afraid of the people .
It is not easy to understand the rationale of this fear , especially as applied to continental politics . There have no doubt been revolutions ; but , of all the revolutions effected within living memory , none have been so permanently deplorable , so sanguinary , so subversive , as the revolutions conducted ' by Absolutist sovereigns . The terrible upheaving of the French nation , at the close of last century , with all the confiscation of property and the terrorism that followed , cannot compare with the chronic rebellion , the sweeping confiscations of property , for the humble as well as the rich , and the constant destruction of life , carried
on binder the Absolute monarchs of Austria and Naples . They imprison thousands in dungeons , they confiscate property without mercy , they cause men to be slain by gun or gallows , or to pine away their lives in poisonous dungeons , by wholesale ; and they continue to do so year after vear ;_ crimes which the worst of revolutions cannot excel , and to which republican rule , in any part of the world , within the present generation , has presented not a parallel , but a contrast . "Why , therefore , the lovers of order should fear the people , and not these crowned atrocities , it is difficult to understand .
The more difficult , since experience , in our own country , teaches us how wholesome and safe is the reliance on an entire people . We have some reluctnnce to emplo }' , so freely as many writers , the word " democracy , " since it signifies a principle which tends to separate men into classes . Properly speaking there is no democracy , in an e xclusive sense , where the whole body of the nation has its full influence upon its own government , and upon the conduct of the State towards other States . All the supremo , victories of opinion
gained in this country , have been gained neither in the name nor for the benefit of a class . Magna Charta could not have been won by the Barons , if they had not been supported by tho people ; and the best enactment in that statute , which secures for every man trial by his peers , makes no distinction of class . That Bill of Rights , which secures many rights for the English people , and line been the great statute of our liberties , secures its benefits , without limitation to any particular classes .
It could not have boon attained by tho country gentlemen—the Jlampdens and Cromwells , who were the officers of tho long contest which resulted in its ratification , if they had not been nu \>~ ported by the great body of the people ; nor could tho peop ' lo have recorded that statute without the leadership of tho HampdeiiH and Crom wells in the field , and-. of a Somor . s in the Council and the Cabinet . These measures have been attained by national means , and for national advantage .
If wo , in England , havo learned to fenr tlio means by which wo achieved our own greatness , perhaps it is because wo have ceased to i \ 11 tho meaaiuo of tho armour which wo made for ourhoIvob . Wo have shrunk to something less than the liberties secured to us by tho Bill of Right . H . Feobleand partial statutes subsequently past have abridged the rights which that great statute secured . Our latest errand political achievement ,
although national in the ; movement that strove | for it , was , by a want of generosity in its ^ actiy . e ! authors , an abridgment of the rights that it j >* ° ~ ' fessed to confirm ; The body of t % . k people aidfed the middle class and the liberal leader ^ ' ! & ' # & ? $$ - ihg the Keform Bill ; . the Liberal : leader ^ responded to that natioiiai ihoviertierit , by granting the franchise to & limited class . ' ¦¦ ' No wonder that the excluded class felt ; th&t they ibere a class , and that they , like the leaders , ceased to har ^ e ; faith in the existence or influence of the ' whole t iation .
Nevertheless the virtue has hot gon £ frotii the English people . It has been remarked that , out of Ireland , the Irish are industrious , aii& it may be remarked that , out of England , the English people are once more national in thei * action , and prompt to recover the freedom and self-goyernment which they have lost at h 6 rne . If \ vas ' a national action in Canada , that ganged for the
colonists the fullest measure of enfla , hchikernfent and local seif-gbverhment . It was the saitie ttictye ihent , at the Cape of Good Hope , \ fhicn' dfefended the colony against convictism , arid hasSecuredto it an English constitution--English sifter the model of better times than now exjstfoi England herself . The English people , therefore , still retains its thew and sinew , atta its spirit , if only classes at home would cease' to niistrust bhe
another . This experience Of what the natural leaders of a people may do , \ by trusting the people and using the support of t&e people , deserves to encourage our statesmen io ^ depart from the narrow course of class government and secret diplomacy , and to have som& faith iii tlib sympathy arid the help of nations . '
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THE GRAYES O ¥ A CITY " . The disposal of the dead is difficult and delicate . People in grief are ever unreasonable ' ,, and it is with them we have to deal when we ep . mpass the putting away of a corpse . It may not . be blameable in lonely persons to cling fooUslily . to ' the body they once linked with loving thoughts : and the most cold may feel with those who do not like to see the form once clierjisheji done . a , way with speedily in a decisive way . But the wholesomeness of our daily life demands in all cases the quick and final removal of' the body from
the homes of the living . Our aim then should be to effect the removal by an easy and effectual process — not forgetting the olden habits and superstitious feelings of the people—but not unmindful of the more imperative necessity of caring for the public health . It is not a small or narrow topic . The city of London has black and busy streets , and life rushes through them daily all the year round ; but each year some three thousand of the citizens die in their houses . In many cases the dead bodies are kept too long . The wealthy keep them from a reluctance to part with the cast off garment" of their friend , and the poor havo the same feeling , and a wish to postpone the burial " until next Sunday . " In all
cases this delay of burial is bad—but in cases of contagious disease it is positively the manufacture of ready made death . It is hard to persuade the ignorant of this . In Lambeth the other day some low Irish friends of a person dead of cholera would not suffer the removal of the corpse , although infection was sure to spi'ead through the neighbourhood . And this flagrant impropriety is repeated in many localities in a form more or less mitigated according to tho intelligence of the people . It is calculated that at any moment you may say while walking through " tho city , " * ' There are now thirty or forty corpses lying in tho rooms whore living persons spend tho wholo day . ' ' The corpses of the poor are- closed up in thin colIins , and a week is the avemgo term of
retention . " Beside them in their sloop , before them at their meals , " is tho corpse—not inactive for it actually deals deadly poison around . More serious than the skeleton at feasts of old , for it reminds the people of death by slowly killing thorn on the snot . It was thought' a terrible thing in the Latin tyrant to bind together tho living and the dead—but if necessity , and . bad lawa do that to-day , in the city , the reality is tm fearful for us as it whs in days of old .
A public officer has drawn up n plan designed to destroy this evil . To each corpse ho would give twenty-eight square feet of ground for twenty years . In twenty years a corpse has quite turned to common earth , and a new body may bo put into tho grave . Ah sixty-four thousand London citizens die in twenty years , sixty-four thousand graves will bo remihod : and instead of tho
monotonous rows of jlain : head Btones , the burialgroiind [ qf : one hundred acres will be diversified with inpunda , tr , ees , walks , and varied monuments . It isalsoi intended that the body acting as a Burial Board should > iindei'take the conveyance of the corpses by ; rail to this cemetery outside the city and include in ; one charge for the grave the price of .: suchi : service * ; , Through this agency and by proper tact , the authorities could compass the ready , burial . of the : dead . Decent buildings for religious ^ itesyroul ^ , also satisf y the superstitions of the . people , and reconcile friends to the
business-like ; removal of the body by . officials . The projector of this , plan is Mr . John Simon , a gentleman of rare intelligence and public merit . There is great need of an institution o n this ¦ plari .. " Cholera corpses are ko dangerous , that for them alone we require an organization for the tlmeiy burying of the dead put of our sight . But the details of tile system will be -minute and complicate ' d m tli 0 cairying out . To find out and put down alt . the corpses 4 f the citizens will require a minute local agendy , having a nice sense of the delicacy of the duties . To make tlie citizens protlieir dead would
perlyvhury ovm be the best systeinii ' It would suit the public usages of the country , and habituate the people to that useful education , the doing of their own work . No npnsense , hp ' wpver , must be allowed . If an Englishman is a fool , his house is not his castle . If any citizen keep a corpse too long , his rights as a piari must be put do \ vn , that ; the neighbours may not suffer hurt . It would reconcile the poor very much to this encroachment on their bad , but old , habits , if there were the same law for the . rich and poor . Evert if a body is covered up in a wellsealed coffin , one i'lile should be enforced , and its
deposit in the ground cpnipeTled within a fixed number of days . Touching the construction of the burial ground , hints might fee . - ¦ taken froin the Necropolis of 'Glasgow , built with varieties of arcliitecture , oh the side of a , steep hill , and thus easily drained , while tlie airiness of the elevation giye § to the usual associations of the grave a thoughtfulness , having less of pain and more of resignation . The Roman Catholic cemetery at Cork , with its flower-grown graves and pretty little tombs , is also not unpleasing . Akin to a sanitary and convenient system of
burial is the question of funeral processions . Good taste should cut short their extent and pomp . It is a habit , induced by human envy , that reserves for death its loudest tribute of respect . The friend to whom we seldom spoke a kind word , is followed to the grave with an expensive show ; and we speak his praise when he is no longer our competitor . When Peel lived , Whig politicians were reticent of their admiration ; when he could be no longer " sent for , " they praised him to the skies . This morality has led to our long trains of funeral followers . A man whose marriage , or other happy event of life , we scarce attended to , is honoured at his death by a crowd of friends , free to confess his virtues . In Germany and France , weddings and and
christenings are made more of than with us , the good fellowship of the people is thus happily shown . We reserve our resources to come in at the death . Why should we thus honour the surrender of life ? Why celebrate with any show the fact that a man has gone away , and is actually worthless ? And why should living and lively people be bored with slow bodies of black peop le treading along suburban pathways , or stopping " our highways with gloomy coaches ? When a man is active and useful amongst us , let us l ° and honour him ; but when he leaves the house of his body , let us look on it aa coldly as on any houso " to let , " where onco we dined and chatted around a pleasant table , with a friend still living in our memory , although we see him not .
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LORD CLARENDON BELIEVE S IN SPA IN AGAIN ! Tiusrk is one country whose relations towards oui own havo been but too notorious . Spain hns accepted from us a monarch , national independence , political freedom , loans Qf money , loans of armies , and friendly aid of other kinds . She has promiseu to reciprocate our friondlinesB—to pay us , to Uoip us in suppressing tho elnve trade , nnd in snort be our friend , our ally . She has herself traded in tho smuggling of slaves ; her court has P ™" " by the fees of that illicit commerce ; our ofttcow havo been insulted by her officers . blio «» broken her word in the court , on 'Change , at boo , nnd has marked her bad faith more esp 001 ? " ^ ° , tho coasts of that island which her Minister I > ogg ««
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950 fflE / £ mfEl . jM- - ^ vit ^ TO ^
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 1, 1853, page 950, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2006/page/14/
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