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3 t 0 form party , is the vast unorganized mass 'in . -reserve ; the fact that numerous men , of special authority and intelligence , are prepared to come forward when an opportunity arises ; the immense moral gain , that las accrued to the liberal cause through the destruction of old fallacies and apprehensions . ! For some years after 1851 the poison of . Imperialism seemed to corrupt our English blood ; but that epidemic has worn itself out . We have ceased to admire the con
centrated energies of despotism . It is . time , also , that we should cease to devote so exclusive an attention to foreign affairs , even to Italy and l ? rance . Their day will come . We cannot accelerate it . Our best boon to them will be the encouragement of successful example . In several of our towns , especially in the -midland counties , Committees of Foreign Affairs h ave sat for some months , collecting a considerable amount of -mystifications and not a few chimeras . Why not establish Committees on Home Affairs ?
Our foreign policy , as the result of home policy , is secondary and subservient to it . Take care of legislation , and legislation will take care of diplomacy . We shall "be , glad to see committees formed in the great towns , affiliated . to a central body or acting independently , to watch the conduct of Parliamentary and Administrative transactions in Xondon , for , while Parliament is uncontrolled , the Secretaries of State are uncontrollable . Surely , in Sheffield , Birmingham , Bradford , and other towns which evince so much
interest in Chinese and Persian questions , there are popular men sufficiently zealous to institute associations of this , character—to all of which we offer a free registry of their proceedings . Of what are the electors of Carlisle thinking , after waiting three years for J 3 ir . James G-eaham to fulfil his pledge ? A Carlisle Committee to remind that right honourable gentleman of his " radical" boasts , might be a useful estate of the realm . We are convinced that there is a vast reserve of
political vitality in the nation ; but it lies far below the surface ; at one point it is obscured by an Income-tax agitation , at another by Chinese , Italian , Moldo-Wallacbian , Persian , or Parisian sympathies—all meritorious , whether we share in them or hot ; but , whatever the national opinion on subjects of foreign policy , the national opinion is not adequately represented by the House of Commons . We do not say , and have never said , that our Liberal leaders should desert their special objects — -Sir " William Clay bis Church-rate Bill .
Mr . Miall his Church Establishment motions , Mr . Milner Gibson hia Paper-duty Hepeal , Mr . Williams his retrenchment—to take up the cold question of Parli amentary Representation ; but why not be faithful to these objects , and not unfaithful to the common object of all Reformers ? A few nondescripts there are who morbidly denounce the idea of purifying our electoral system , and gropo among mediaeval precedents for the
credentials of prerogative , and the powers of the Privy Council . J 3 ut they are exceptions , and we expect to see them return to the symbols of their party . U'horo is no reason for thinking that the prevalent indifference of the nation is everlasting ; our Avar accounts are not yet eettled in the Treasury , or in tho JScweign . Office . When these nmfctora have been arranged , we look for a political movement .
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worthless pauper . The test , like most tests breaks down on trial . It is , simply , no test at all . The theory is that wlen a man , not disabled by age , accident , or sickness , presents himself at the Union for relief , he should be required to show that he is not unwilling to work for his bread . Political economy having decided . —so they sfty—that "workhouse industry should not be brought into competition with working-class industry , oakum-picking and stoned-breaking are the experiments
resorted to—and they are reproaches to our humanity . They are vworse- than , inhuman , how-• ever , —they are illogical . The test of a watchfiuisher is , whether he woTild finish watches if employed , not whether he would pick oakum . You have no right to tell a bookbinder , ¦ whose earnings depend on his faculty for delicate manipulation , that he is an indolent vagabond , deserving to starve , unless he can break stones . One day of stone-breaking may incapacitate him for a month from bookbinding . You cannot expect a printer out of
employ to do work that requires the strength of a navigator , and , also , the liabit of bending the body . A poor man , last week , was laid on a sick-bed by a few hours of this manual torture , to which not even criminals are subjected . In prisons , there is a division of labour . The able-bodied , who have been accustomed to vigorous occupations , are set to heavy tasks ; others are directed , to mend chairs , or weave mats , or perform other duties consistent with their physical condition and their previous circumstances . Precisely similar should be the treatment allotted to the
temporary inmates of a -workhouse .- The test must be reformed—on the ground , firstly , that it is absurd , and next , that it is cruel . Supposing an unfortunate clerk reduced to pauperism ; to put a stone-breaking hammer into his hand is to render penal the consequences of poverty , to place him on a level with the Dartmoor convicts . And it is not less an outrage upon human nature to
subject men who have passed their lives in tasks of delicate . manipulation to the painful and brutal labour of the stone-yard , which must incapacitate them from pursuing their ordinary avocations . It is not to be expected that our unions are to be converted into industrial bazaars ; but quite as little is it to be endured than they ahould be degraded into penitentiaries .
TEE WORKING CLASSES AND WOTUCHOUSlfi TESTS . When tho existing Poor Law was framed , its authors congratulated themselves upon the supposition ihat , by inventing a workhouse tost , they had discovered u security for the i ndependent labouviy . ngninfct the tlic ' hiKy imd
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eixee , so as always to turn up high aujnbers . Mr . Cujdyeiiwei / l — -a disinterested < p * i > fay , of course—knew nothing about all this ; but he obliged Mr . Sidebottom by discounting his bills . The trial , at which these facts came out , was heard at the Court of * Queen ' s Bencb , on the 26 th of November last ; we noticed it at the time , and the subject is revived by a pamphlet from the pen of "A Barrister , " who calls for more stringent laws upon such transactions : — -
"By an Act of Parliament passed in 1845 , ' Act to amend the law concerning games , ' -wagers , &c , 8 and 9 Viet . « .. 109 , ' . it is enacted that ' every person , who shall by . any fraud , or unlawful device , or ill practice , in . playing at or with cards , dice , tables , or other games . . . win from any other person to himself , or any other or others , any sum of money or valuable'thing ? by a . false pretence , with intent to cheat and defraud such person of the same , and being convicted thereof , jhatt be punished according ^ . '"
Under this enactment many an Artful Dodger has been brought to book . But from the case of SjuduEbottom :, the ^ Barrister infers that it is not stringent enough : there must be laws to put down the hells , to check betting , to visit individual delinquency with its legal consequences , " ne quid detrimenti respublica aecipiat " - — -which , means , lest the republic should be detrimentally swamped in accepted bills . But it needs neither * hells ' nor racecourses to pluck voluntary pigeons like Mr . Sidebottom . Even those who are more
defenceless are brought in through the aid of those laws designed to enforce the payment of honest debts . A strong impression is gaining ground that there is seldom much difficulty in recovering honest debts . Practically , indeed , it is found that if any honest man is in difficulty , and cannot pay his debts , his creditors seldom invoke the law . They come to an arrangement with him on
the practical grounds of his difficulty and inability . It ; is mostly dishonest debts that are recovered , or not recovered , by the operation of the law ; so that practically the existing law operates principally to protect the trade in dishonest debts . It is either used by dishonest persons to contract debts which they cannot pay , or by dishonest persons to enforce debts which they ought never to have booked .
Let us take another case , somewhat different from that of Sidebottom . There is no hell , no racecourse , at least ostensibly ; but there is a tailor . Mr . "Woulfe sought to recover 107 ? . from Mr . Pbopert , a student at Haileybury , for " clothes" supplied . The defence was " infancy , " and the rejoinder was that the goods were " necessaries . " It came out in the examination of the plaintiff" that he had lent money to Pkopjjrt , and charged it in the bill as " clothes . " The fictitious sums amounted to
TAILOHS' BILLS . Scarcely a week passes without some evidence that the law for the recovery of debt requires a very strict construction indeed , unless it is to be made a law for helping persons to obtain money on false pretences ! . Not long since we had the case of a Mr . Crr . LVEim . ELT . proceeding against a Mr . Side-. bottom for the recovery of money duo on accepted bills ; tho bills having been used by Mr . Sid-ebott . to psiy for losses which ho
incurred at tho Berkeley Hotel , in Albemarlcstrcet . The cash was furnished by Mr . Culveewele . Mr . CuXiVJDRAVELti had becu iii business for thirty years as a tailor , in Great Marylcbono-strecfc , Port ] and-place ; lio was successful ; ho retired in 1848 , and subsequently he discounted bills . Indeed , before he ceased to be a tailor ho was in tho habit of discounting about ( 1000 / . n year . In his
capacity of tailor he mndc clothes for Atictnh , tho keeper of the hotel in Albcmarle-strect . At that hotel Mr . Sideuottom , a young Lancashire manufacturer , lost something more than 25 , O 00 Z . a I ; hazard . It waa hazord to the gentleman gambler , but not bo to the other Bide . A penitent accomplice of tho establishment , deposed that they played at the houwo with loaded dico iind ' despatches , ' the latter : being dice with double lives and
thirteen guineas . It also came out that WotrxifE had held out to Pbopert tho hope of loans if ho obtained customers for him . The Chief Baron more than onco gave vent to his indignation . " The young man was not of age ; lie was contracting debts which are unjustifiable , for clothes which wero not wanted / ' —and for " clothes" which did not exist . Tho Judge told the claimant that ho had committed perjury , in swearing to an affidavit that tho claimant was indebted to him for " goods sold . " "A grosser and more abominable fraud , " exclaimed the Chief Baron , " I do not know of . " " Arc you aware , nir ( ho aslced ) , that if you had obtained this money from tho father you would have been liable to be transported for foiirteon yoaia ? " Witness : Indeed 1 am not , my Lord . " The Chief Huron : Or that you may even now bo proceeded against for a misdemeanour in attempting to obtain the money ? I think it right , as you confess the matter , to put you on your guard . " WitncHH ( with great Bclf-posaeflsion ) : I am much indebted to your Lordship , hiid shall profit , I liojw , by your LordHhip ' n advice -, but we have great dillieully in dealing with those young gentlemen .
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J ' EBBgAKy ^ l ^ 'lSS ^ . j THE LE . ABBS . J . 83
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 21, 1857, page 183, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2181/page/15/
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