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brought self- government in sight ; a sustained , and constant , and intelligent effort will place it in their hands . A favourite fallacy with these persons is the break down of Chartism . Chartism did not succeed ; it left the people exhausted ; why combine again for similar objects ? Chartism was ruined by its leaders , who were ignorant , violent , and often selfish . It was a respectable cause disreputably supported , and the worst of the agitators were the most conspicuous , because they drowned the
voices of calm and judicious men . The working-classes had contracted a fatal taste for declamatory speeches , and the most frothy of the ranters who memthed from the platform were the most vociferously applauded . This was the sin of Chartism . Reckon up the objections of Whigs and Conservatives to the popular programme . You will find the most effective to consist of arguments deduced from the violence of working-class oratory . The sound and quiet men—there were many of them , but they were lost in the vapour—were never quoted by their opponents .
Some of the industrious classes have , to this day , a . false conception of oratory . They imagine eloqxience to consist in an interminable succession of phrases , poured forth loudly and vehemently ; abounding in high-coloured expletives , daring , fierce , and gathering towards the close into a storm of rhapsody . "We know , when they write about a Demosthenic speech , what they mean—it is an eruption , hot and furious , of magniloquent words .
In this matter there has been some reform lately ; we observed , gladly , in St . Martin ' s Hall , that a speaker who described liberty as " gashed , trampled , mangled , bathed in the blood of armies , heaped about with human bones , dragged out and hung tipon a scaffold , " excited , not a cheer , but a laugh . It is well . Popular oratory must be improved ; the people have not so much to reform in their principles as in their method of urging them . Above all—no antiquarian pedantry , involving loss of time , middle-class satires , workingclass dissensions .
When the war has ceased there will be a great field open to the working classes . The men who now stand aloof may arrive at power . At all events the basis of a reform agitation will have been enlarged . It would be interesting to explain how far the people of the various towns are keeping the future in view , and what organisations are in progress , with political objects independent of the war . The war is a great event , and men do avcII to study its complexities and its bearings ; but Englishmen , when they have conquered Russia , have not finished their task .
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FREAKS OP THE PENSION LIST . A case of great hardship , which has been made public within the last few days , directs attention to certain anomalies in the granting of pensions—anomalies which throw a suspicion of injustice over what is designed in a spirit of ' generosity . Many of our readers will recollect the name of Mr . Guy , the author of several sohool works , on such subjects as geography , grammar , history , astronomy , < fcc . —
mulating years and adverse fortunes ; and the Pension funds afford him no assistance . The story is a sad one . Mr . Guy petitioned Lord Aberdeen-, when Prime Minister ; but- — possibly because he was not able to write " Mac" before his name—he did not even receive the courtesy of an answer . He has subsequently written to Lord Palmerston , and has received a reply—though not of the nature he desired . The present Premier gives him no hopes , owing to the number of candidates for pensions , and the limited amount of the fund for meeting all demands . In the meanwhile , Mr . Guy is reduced to a condition the most painful . Tie is seventy-two years of age ; and the small school which he has for some time kept at his residence , No . 2 , Hollis-place , Camden New Town , is in danger of being broken up , on account of a distraint for rent which is threatened , and which will speedily be put in force if the money be not forthcoming . With a little pecuniary assistance , the few scholars might be held together . Here is a case of indubitable hardship ; and the questions which arise out of it are , whether the amount set apart for pensions ought to be limited , instead of adapting itself to the necessities that arise ; and whether , granting that it must , in this wealthy land , be tied down to £ 1 , 200 additional for each year , it is expedient or just to apply a large part of it to the mere conferrance of honour ? While Mr . Guy , at seventy-two years of age , stands in danger of starvation , Mr . Tenstysok—a man of independent property , with a constant inpouring of money from his very successful writings , and with a Government income of . £ 300 a-year for his poet-laureateship—is receiving £ 200 every twelvemonth from , those very funds which are unable to find a penny for the sharp necessities of the humble literary drudge . When Mr . Tennyson ' s pension was first granted to him , we believe there were reasons which no longer exist ; and far would it be from its to quarrel with the continuance of that pension even as a mere mark of honour to a poet who has circled the iron progress of our age with a halo of divine aspirations , and the " haunting music " of harmonious utterance , if the conferrauce of honour did not stand in the way of granting absolute relief in sore extremities . But look at the heaping up of " the sum of more" on the one hand , and the denial of the necessary mite on the other , and say whether the Pension List does not need reformation . Undcmbtedly there are many now enjoying the nation ' s substantial gratitude who have unimpeachable titles to that enjoyment ; but how many worthy claimants are there still beyond the pale ! There is reason , however , for believing that Government looks upon the amount as absurdly insufficient . Mr . Guy has been refused a pension , but we have no fear that he will not be effectually succoured ; for , while we arc getting up a subscription for one who is merely the goddaughter of Dr . Johnson , ifc would be strange if we neglected a worker , though a subaltern , in the field of letters . The well-to-do , this Christmas season , Avill , we are sure , shake some of their superflux to him , " and show the heavens more just . " But who will stir the sluggish waters of the Pension List , and show the-greater justice of the Government aud the nation ?
books , it is true , of no great pretensions , neither exhibiting nor demanding any original or profound genius , bufc supplying a corfcain necessity in an able aud industrious manner , attd perhaps exercising a considerable influence on the minds of many thousands of our ootintrytneri at the precise time when the bx * arn ia most capable of receiving and retaining impressions . The gentleman to whom wo are indebted for these humble contributions to educational' literature is at this moment in a condition of poverty , resulting ft-om accu-
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Stoum in tub NonxH ob" Scotland . —The north of Scotland has boon visited by a severe snow storm . It commenced on Wednesday -woolc , and continued several _ days . The snow was lying to n considerable depth in tho country ; , and some of the roads wore nearly iuajjaasablo . Tho wind boing- from tho N . W ., tho shipping on tho coast woa not in dnngor ; but a few losses have occurred .
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THE JLAW OF PARTNERSHIP . BY AKTHtlB SCBASDCHXBY , M . A . The various forms under which co-partnerships , or a number of persons associated together for the purposes of trade , commerce , or manufacturer , the conduct of large undertakings , or the assurance of life and property , are now established , originated in that inventive genius and spirit of competition and enterprise which so eminently distinguish , the British character . Every step made in civilisation , every advance in our national and commercial importance , whether by
an amelioratiop of the social condition of the people , or by the development of new principles in political economy , has , it would seem , tended to indicate the superior power and applicability of associative over individual capital , and energy , in all undertakings devoted either to a wide and perpetual Bphere of action , or to an union of public with private advantage . The isolated energy of a single person , however gifted and persevering , and the limited extent of individual capital , appear to be unequal to the task of rearing and consolidating any scheme of magnitude .
With the increase of trade and commerce , and the consequent demand for greater facilities of transit aud intercommunication , the legislature have , from time to time , been engaged in framing lawa and regulations by which every species of enterprise sought to be jjromoted by individuals , by private or public partnerships , should be governed . The legislative functions have , however , been directed , as it might be expected , rather to a settlement of the rights and responsibilities of the co-parfcners , and of third parties ( except where it was deemed necessary to restrain the authority in respect of the hours of labour of the employers over the employed ) , than to the processes of manufacture , or the economy of the institution to be matured in the undertaking to be completed .
The regulation , up to a recent period , of commercial or other concerns , conducted by the way of private partnerships consisting of whatever number of co-partners , was at the will ' of the partners left to be arranged by the provisions of deeds of co-partnership suggested by personal experience ,, and was , with very slight exceptions , unaffected by , the Statute in Common Law . When , however , during the last quarter of a century there arose an intense anxiety for the formation of bank ? , the establishment of assurance , mining and coxutneroial companies , the making of railways , the extension of inland navigation , the organisation of maritime companies , the development of steam and electric power , and not
the least important of modem inventions , the manufacture of gas and ita applications to public lightB , culinary purposes , &c . &c , speculation became altogether uncontrollable , aud necessitated the immediate interference of Parliament , so as to provide as far as possible for the pecuniary security of the thousands of adventurers embarking in rival schemes . Ifc was thought necessary to reduce their constitution , management , aud supervision , to a system which , if not effectual in the positive limitation of their expenditure , might afford to the public some knowledge of the persons and character of the promoters , and therefore act as a check on the misappropriation of the funds so largely placed at their disposal .
Confining our views to institutions , undertakings , and businesses established or carried out by a number of persons associated together as . a corporation , such ns the Governor and Company of the Bank of England , empowered by royal charter ,, or a company , such as an Assurance Company registered under the act 7 and 8 Viet , cap . 110 ., being a quasi-corporation and having some of the privileges of a corporation ; or a Joint-Stock Banking Company established under tho acts 7 Oeo . IV . c . Mi , or 1 and 2 Viet . c . 96 , or a Mining Company which may be said to bo a jpure partnership , established on the cost book principle ; or a quasi -partnership , suoh as a Building- Society ,
an Industrial Provident Society , or aJMondly Society — we will now proceed to enunaerato tlio statutes or other legal authorities , by or under whicU they may be constituted , and also to oxpldin so much of their peculiar features as may not be uninteresting in an introduction to tho rules and regulations which arc in tho following pages suggested for the guidance of industrial partnerships . The legal import of a Joint-Stock Company may bo best understood by first defining its attributes and its relation to a common partnoiship , and next by briefly / considering the duties imposed on Joint Stock Companies and the regulations to which they have boon aubjocted by late acts of Parliament , especially tho Act 7 and 8 Viet .
cap . 110 , passed for their public registration . A . Joint-Stock Company ia an association trading or otherwise operating upon a joint-stock , or capital divided into transferable Hharos , oach member participating in tho common profit or loss in proportion to hia shares in tho joint-stook . Some qualification , howover , must , from tho nou-limitatiou at law of tlif liability of tho shareholders , bo placed on in this » uppoaed freedom from more than a proportion ( iw share ) of loss . Because , though in equity , a flhuiv-
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1202
fHE LEAD E R . [ No . 299 , Saturday ,
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 15, 1855, page 1202, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2119/page/14/
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