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that great handmaid and engine of all progress the The so-cailed " Old Store " sales at the Government depots contributed largely to the miscellaneous receipts , which , but for this windfall would have exhibited a notable decrease instead of an increase of 612 , 839 /' .: but having regard to the iniquitous sacrifice of public property , thus perpetrated under the disguise of sales , we had rather see no more of such' additions to income . They represent , in fact , an atomic dividend upon an enormous preceding loss . With regard to the decrease of 8203 / . upon the . year ' s produce of " Crown Lauds , " the most casual inquirer' into public affairs will be apt to join in our rejoicing that it is only so little . True though it be that the estates of individuals have for some
time past been enhanced in value and yield , it by no means follows that Crown Land should be allowed to do so unchecked by the proper department . . The elepliant , then , who ( unless some " heavenborn-minister" of our day conceive an at present inconceivable budget , or have the hardihood to face the substitution of direct or indirect taxation ) , is to carry us through , must , we are compelled to say after consideration of the probabilities , be trade , or , in other words , the Customs revenue . Tor , compared with the probable deficiency of 1860 , already hinted at , the total aggregate increase whereof the other heads of revenue can be
reasonably imagined susceptible , can only be a bagatelle . The recent Board of Trade returns encourage the belief that export trade , and therefore , by parity of reason , tlie Customs revenue have not yet , as is frequently advanced , reached their maximum of de ^ velopment . It is true that America is approaching such an . independence of Europe as -with her vast resources of cotton , coal , iron , and water-power , she ought . No wonder , then , that comparing ? the first period of the present year with that of 1856 , we find that our export of cotton goods to the United States has fallen off about 500 , 000 / ., and of iron manufactures about 900 , 000 / . But , on
the other hand , -we have but scratched the " surface of Oriental trade , and even during a period when native industry might be supposed to be partly paralyzed , -we added 1 , 700 , 000 / . to our cotton exports to British India , besides large quantities of yarn . Of our China trade we can only predict expansion . That with the Eastern Archipelago and Siam is all to come . The probability of a new El Dorado iii the Oregon territory ; the suspension of tlie Brazilian duty on British iron ; aiid our increasing relations with that rising empire ( which may , nevertheless , have her own financial trials to experience )—all , in fact , that points to exchange of
commodities or . to new customers for ourselves ensures additional importing power , new internal trade , and increase of revenue from both Excise and Customs . But the hope that the movement of internal trade and the extension of our foreign relations' can , in the face of our present home extravagances and annually increasing war expenditure , make up for a vanishing income-tax , is a mere idle dream . A return to financial ease can be purchased only by Administrative reform , determined tranquillity , and the avoidance of dilettante interference with the sources of revenue npon which we at present depend .
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PARLIAMENTARY EQUALITY . The decision on Lord Lucan ' s bill by the House of Lords on Thursday night , is not only important to that class of our fellow-citizens to whom it more particularly applies , but it is remarkable and valuable as a proof of the genuine advance of Liberal opinions and true toleration . For twenty-five years there has been a constant effort to carry out religious emancipation to the uttermost point . First came the Catholics , then the Quakers and Moravians , and now we have virtuall y admitted the Jews to Parliament . On looking back ait the strucffle to lace all classes of British
p subjects on a political equality , we me at a loss to discover why their Lordships should have held out so long against this particular section of the nation . Surely a bigoted Roman Catholic is as obnoxious to a vehement Protestant ; and his attacks on the Church nnd State Alliance , would be as powerful , and his chances of success much Senter , than that of any Hebrew . Surely certain ishopa consider the doctrines of a Moravian or a Herphutter as dangerous to tho Established Church as any opposition can well be . Total difference of opinion 13 always safer than a mixed one ; for it is quite certain that no Christian assembly would
tolerate any theological or reli gious discussion with a member professing disbelief in the Christian dispensation . It is better to have open than concealed opponents . But it is not our intention to fight over again a battle which now may bo said to be nobly won , by the highly satisfactory majority of fortysix hi a House of 240 Lords . It is a great triumph for the principles of toleration , and it must be even satisfactory to those who imagined that the House of Peers could not move with the times nor advance with the age . They have by this vote not only done their fellow-subjects but themselves justice ; and in awarding a right have
added strength to their own privileges . Lord Lucan ' s bill , indeed , is not an absolute measure of justice , because > although the Jews or any other persons can hereafter be admitted to Parliament by a vote of the House of Commons , yet the power of admission is vested in the elected and not in the electing . The right of representaion demands that the electors should send whom they may choose , and it . was on this ground that Wilkes was so often returned for Middlesex , and in later times Baron Rothschild for the City of London . We shall not , however , quarrel with this slight dereliction from a constitutional axiom , feeling assured that after so much has been gained by patient argument , the entire principle will be by the same means ultimately wrought into practice .
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CONTRABAND LEGISLATION . Due of the great evils under which our present system of legislation places us is a method of lawmaking which is indirect , and , as far as the people and their representatives are . concerned , may be called secret . How many of the laws which encumber the statute-book have been indiiectly and surreptitiously passed it would surprise any one not acquainted with the loose , but , at the same time , subtle manner in which important measures are slipped through the ' ' House of Commons , to credit . Many railway bills contain penal clauses which are at variance with the common law of the land ; and it has been said that in early times the Bank of England owed an important power to a private law , and certainly the Usury Laws were virtually annulled by the clauses ni a Turnpike Act . This indirect and unexpected style of legislation calls urgently for reform ; and we scarcely know of an arrangement where greater practical results would follow , than that which would be produced by the establishment of some tribunal which should thoroughly sift and expose both the direct and indirect operations of bills of Parliament , public or private . We have now before us a sample of this mode of smuggling laws through the Legislature , in that entitled " A Bill to amend the Joint-Stock
Companies Acts , 1850 and 1857 , and the Joint-Stock Banking Companies Act . " The sting of this bill lies in the portion relating to the joint-stock banking . It would lead us too deeply into another important question to examine the mode in which this bill purports to treat the mode of winding-up insolvent companies and liquidating embarrassed corporations . Our present object is merely to call attention to the particular and partial mode in which legislation is allowed to proceed . There can be no doubt that the real and immediate object of this bill is to regulate the liquidation of the
JNorthumbcrland and Durham District Banking Company , and in some way to screen the shareholders at the cost of the creditors . The bill , it is said , and we believe it , has been prepared by the solicitors to the liquidation of the bank ; and if clauses 5 , 9 , 18 , 21 , and 23 arc carefully examined , it will be found they arc specially detrimental to the rights of the creditors , greatly impeding if not depriving them of their legal remedies . After the stoppage of the bank , the directors registered the company under the Joint-Stock Companies Banking Act , 1857 . for the purpose of
obtaining a voluntary winding-up ; but Lord Justice Knight Bruce has since decided that this registration was , if not fraudulent , certainly of no legal avail . It is well said by the opponents of the bill that nothing can bo more inconvenient or unjust than partial legislation , for it leads not only to complication and confusion of the law , but to actual contradictory legislation and gross injustice . We have not so much cited this instance of attempted legislation on account of its particular application , us to show that every session laws arc rapidly smuggled through the Parliament which have a personal and local object , but which often contain
general clauses that materially affect all clas ses Some device must be found to correct this surreptitious -legislation , or we shall ultimately find every great principle of law gradually repealed , or , at all events , perverted by an insidious system which fevr notice , and no one seems to oppose , though all must lament . We shall revert to the subject-matter of the bill itself hereafter .
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PRACTICAL MORKONISM . A racy scene occurred at the Thames Police-courfe on Thursday . One Mrs . Hannah Brown , elderly was charged with scratching the face of a Mrs ! Elizabeth Watson , brisk and buxom . Both ladies , * with their husbands , had been initiated into the mysteries of Mormonism—for , incredible as it may appear in this vaunted age of " progress , " there are actual believers in the silly and sensual infamies of
the American prophet , Joe Smith , inventor-of Latter-Day Saintism , or Mormonism , and . a veritable church with all the burlesque panoply of " elders , " " saints , " and " inspired preachers , ' " in the heart of the British metropolis : but one of the ladies , Mrs . Watson , and one of the gentlemen , Mr . Brown , were " cutoff" from the "Holy Mormon Church , " for reasons best explained by Mrs . Watson herself in her viva voce examination before Mr . Yardlev , the magistrate : —
Mrs . Watson—I was a Mormonite three years . Mrs . Brown is a Mormonite . Her husband was ordered by the elders to walk with me , to instruct me in the principles of Mormonism , and to rob my husband and go to Utah , for the good of tbe church . I was cut off from the church because I would not rob my husband and leave him , and the defendant ' s husband was cut off from the church because he was not successful in teaching me how to rob my husband , and could not induce me to leave my husband and go to Utah to marry one of the elders there . ¦ Mr . .-Young : — -Those are the principles of Mormonism ? Mrs . Watson- *—Yes , sit ; I was taught that to rob my husband , leave him , and , commit adultery was to glorify the church . Mr . Young—The Mormon church , you mean ?
Mrs . Watson—Yes , sir . Well , sir , I found out the baseness of tlie Mormon doctrines , and I would not leave my husband or rob him , and the defendant has been persecuting nie ever since . Mr . Yardley—Did you voluntarily leave the Mormonites ? Mrs . Watson— -I did , sir ; the elders of the church wanted me to go into their apartments and be initiated into tlie mysteries of Mormonism , but I would not , and have been persecuted ever since by Mrs . Brown and her friends .
Tins is no romance—no clever invention of a caterer for prurient literary palates—it is a plain matter-of-fact report of what occurred in such an unromantic place as a police-court . It is nothing to our purpose , the defence or the denotement ; we simply desire to call attention to a condition of things among the working classes which seems to indicate that the schoolmaster has ( been indeed " abroad , " and has unaccountably forgotten to look " at home . " How does it happen that Mormonite doctrines and practices , which in the police case above receive a practical and undeniable exemplification , take root in a soil where countless millions
arc expended on a State Church , established specially to teach the poor " the way and the truth , " where hundreds of thousands are annually gleaned from tho pockets of enthusiasts to fructify in the treasuries of Bible Societies , propagation of Gospel Societies , and scores of other donationcollecting societies of whom Exeter Hall can alone furnish a correct account P We make full allowance for poor , gullible , and fallible human nature ; but the widest scope we can give to human short-comings hardly permits us to pity rather than
to denounce the quality and condition of that intellect which can imbibe and put faith in the monstrous , stupid , and immoral impostures which shelter themselves under the taking term of Latterday Saints . What can we do with such a filthy brood ? Wo must : nofc molest them by enactments , otherwise they will rise at once into the dignity of martyrs . We musl ; let the mischief die out ns did Johanna Southcotism and Irvingism , and must give the Mormonitcs , malo and female , every facility for taking themselves and their doctrines away to the new settlement of Sonora .
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6 * 0 THE LEADE B . __ IggLJg ?» J ™ , Y 3 , 1858 ^
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Tjik Diplomatic ! Skiivick . —Mr . Aloxandor Bower St . Clair lias been appointed unpaid Attacho * at St . Petersburg . Mr . Robert Edward Bulwor Lytton , first paid Attach ^ at tho Hague , has been transferred in tbe same capacity to St . Petersburg . Mr . De Norman , paid Attache * at Constantinople , has loft London for hia post .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 3, 1858, page 640, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2249/page/16/
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