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than a street crowd . Several persons amongst the mob fell ,, and it is said that some of them were ' innocent . ' Perhaps so ; but it is the law of the United States , as well as of England , that if innocent persons are present at public tumults—if , as the Erench significantly express it , they ' assist' in such conflicts—the peril is their own . They are bound to get out of the way , not only because they should not aid and abet the mob , but because they must leave the authorities free to
exercise the proper measures for coercing the lawless . On such occasionstlie idle curiosity of the bystanders becomes a crime against the state , and if a man falls he cannot plead innocence ^ The deadly weapon has not been levelled at him , he has placed himself in front of it . The occurrence , however , shows that the local officers of New York were not prepared to surrender the authority of the Republic , even to a mob with the formidable name of the ' Plug-uglies . '
Some other occurrences hare indicated the same energetic determination to maintain the Republic , to uphold the Federal laws against encroachment on either side , and thus by a wise conservatism to maintain for the whole commonwealth the power and opportunities of progress . It has been assumed that one party or other must get the upper hand in Kansas , and appropriate the loeal authority and resources of that embryo state in order to inflict some injury upon the other party in the
Republic . Now , we believe in no such result . Every Governor hitherto has been a Northern man , coming to his post with Northern prejudices , but quite unable to cope with the difficulties of enforcing those prejudices upon an alien soil , and thus each has acted almost in an ultra-Southern sense . The new Governor , Mr . James Walker , may be said to belong neither to the North nor the South . Like the President , ho is a native of Pennsylvania ; but instead of sympathizing with
the extreme opinions of the JNortb , he has rather shared the conservative opinions of the South on the subject of slavery . He perfectly understands the economical as well as the political questions of slavery and of settlement . He is a statesman and a business man ; above all , he is a man for enforcing rigid justice , and for seeing right done , happen : what may . He knows that the right in Kansas is to maintain the authority of the
Republic , overruling faction-a or local rebellions against the Federal or State power ; and that , by sustaining the authority of the entire Republic , he will equally defend one party against the other . He will secure Kansas , not for the disunion of the Republic , but for the Union . Here , again , ¥ 0 see the conservative effect of an energetic policy ; for it is already obvious that the appointment of Mr . "Walker lms gone far to quell the extreme action on both sides .
The same principles are even more conspicuously exemplified by tho lust appointment—that of General Habney to the chief command in Utah - Another person had been designated as a probable governor , General M'Gullooh ; but in every respect it is satisfactory to know that the appointment did not ultimately fall upon that gentleman . He is a bold and an able man ; but his training has better adapted him to be a leader of Texan h
Rangers than governor of a territory , muc more a territory so disastrously circumstanced as Utah . General Hahnky ia tho man . Ho is a cavalry officer , excelling Washington in height—for he iw more than six feet tall , — fearless , cool , and full of resources . General Harney distinguished himself in the Floridas before the Semiuoleswore carried off to the wewt of the Mississippi . Ho contributed mainly to the success of the buttle at Sierra Gorda , tho first field fight of the Americans
in that war with Mexico . But independently of his capacity in the field , bis moral character renders him especially adapted to the position in Utah . He is a . man always to execute the orders entrusted to him ; and his orders , it is understood , will be of a kind that will make short work of the Mormons if they attempt for a moment to resist the Federal authority . From these transactions and these appointments , the vigorous character of the present administration in the United States may easily be inferred .
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EQUALIZATION OF POOR RATES . The reply of Mr . Bouvueie to Mr . Axbton's motion was no answer . The fact that a large number of members of the House of Commons are engaged or pre-engaged on select committees , is no excuse for setting aside the interests of the poor , or for postponing the proper order of the metropolis . The plea that all the information exists already is nothing , if it is not before the representative legislators . The existing division of the metropolis into thirty-eight poor-law districts , some parishes , spine unions ,- —the gross amount of the population , 2 , 500 , 000 ,- —the gross amount of the expenditure , 875 , 0002 ., —the rateable value of the property , nearly 11 , 000 , 0002 ., may be great facts , but they do not in any degree meet the question put by Mr . Atbton , —How shall we manage to remedy the injustice "which at present makes the poor of the metropolis support the poor , and leaves the rich exempt ? Mr . Botjvebie has another argument of a still more singular kind . The poor-rate in Chelsea is Is . lO ^ d . ; in St . George ' s , Hanoverrsquare , 6 fd . ; but as a house in Chelsea does not brine : in so
much rent as in St . George ' s , Mr . BotrvEBlE insists that the landlord pays the poor-rate , not the occupant . This is a wonderful plea . According to that , every man who has a lower income than another pays something that the rich man does not . The shopkeeper in Chelsea who takes less money bhau . the shopkeeper in St . George ' s , Hanover-square , contributes
more towards the general interests of Chelsea than the other does to the general interests of Sfc . George ' s . Now there is no doubt that the gross amount of property and income in Chelsea is less per capita than it is in St . George ' s ; so that , after all , we have the poor of Chelsea living chiefly upon the poor , while the rich in St . George ' s escape .
Mr . Knight argues that because the average rate has not increased in the metropolitan parishes since 1815 , there is no grievance ; or , if there has been an increase , he says it has been exceeded by the increase in tho property . JBufc again , this does not meet the case , or rather it helps to answer Mr . Botjverie . The ' property' has increased in Bethnal-gr / een , in St . George ' s , Soufchwark , and other poor parishes , partly for the reason that tlie clearing of the rich
quarters , and the change of house-building in those parts , has forced tho poor to seek abodes in the poor parishes ; from the demand for rent which they create , the demand for an humbler style of abode is raised ; and thus , by the present state of the metropolis , they have to confront at onco high rates and high rents . Mr . Botjverie , however , has another argument ad c apt and wn . If you equalize the rating over tho whole metropolis , you
create * a common purse to be dipped into by the local authorities , ' a purse derived from the 11 , 000 , OOOZ . of property , and to be clistributed ^ ainongst the poor of two millions and a half of people . This would force you to have * one great poor , law administration for tho entire metropolis , ' and who , ho nsks , would act as unpaid guardian in such a board ? There would be no control , nor
would there be any step between that and a national rating , " of which , " says Mr . BotrvEBiB , " we have had two examples in recent times . The first was in Ireland , ten years ago , and the other , that of the Ateliers JNationaux , in Paris , 1848 . " Now this last argument is a condensation of special pleading such as we have seldom seen .
What was the national rating in Ireland ' about ten . years ago ? ' It was a very peculiar assessment upon the whole country for the purpose of meeting the national famine which followed the failure of the national crop—the potato . The disaster , then , had nothing to do with the manner of rating . If there were abuses in the mode of rating , it was because the whole administration of
that special poor relief was exceptional . The country was is a despairing condition ; the great body of the people were reduced below the level of rate-paying ; and , in short , famine had introduced something like chaos , from which Ireland was only relieved by commanding the assistance of England . What has this to do with a question of distributing the charge between rich and poor in London ? ationaux
The allusion , to the Ateliers jS m Paris is still more dishonest . The national workshops were established during a period of revolution . In that revolution , some members of t he Socialist party attained to power . It was expected that they might infuse 'their principles into the institutions of the country ; and their enemies endeavoured to defeat them by forestalling . They found ready to their hand M . Mabie , who set up the cry for ' national workshops , ' -where
labour might be provided for the industrious poor . Leading Socialists protested against the crude and inopportune scheme ; M . Louis Blanc did so emphatically ; but the workshops were set up . Thus the measure of the Socialists was forestalled , and the enemies of Socialism seized the advantage of an experiment made in the name of Socialism , but designed to disparage the principle . What can . Mr . Boutebie mean by citing such a case as that ? What does it prove ,
except that M . Mabie had an opportunity for vamping up a false experiment , in order to produce a false impression upon the public mind . All this appears to leave the metropolitan case exactly as it was before . As Mr . Atkhon says , the weavers of Spitalfields work there , and . are kept there , to gratify the ladies who reside in St . George ' s in the West ; the intermediate persons between the wearer and the weaver reside in Bond-street . The wearers of the dresses live in May-fair or Belgrave-square , the sempstresses in
Lambeth , Chelsea , or Somers-town . The poor clerks , the messengers , and portera of the City warehouses , live probably in St . George ' s in the East , the merchants [ in St . George ' s in the West ; so that there is regular division between the rich and poor . It is not like the case of country towns to which Mr . Bouvbeib refers , where there may be many of one class in a town , like Wolverhanaptou or Boltoa . But all of those that are better off in the same trade still reside there : but in many of the London
parishes about Bethnal-green there are scarcely any persons of superior means ; an enormous preponderaoacy of' the very poorest labourers just above the verge of pauperism , with a large number below it . In some respects London may be called a collection of provincial towns ; but it difters in these particulars . We have no other town in the country where classes are so completely divided ; we have no place with a population almost exclusively gentry , another tradesmen , another with an immense crowd of moruhauts and stockbrokers , and a tourth
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June 20 , 1857 . ] THE LEAPEB . 591
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 20, 1857, page 591, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2198/page/15/
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