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nisery into vice , and of equalising the level of crime amidst tlie whole : class . Many reasons , therefore , dictate tae removal of the Gasual poor , the iragrants , the homeless , to some place where they can be treated at once with more leniency , more rigour , and more discrimination . Charitable societies have hitherto furnished the home under conditions which secured an effectual regulation ; but charitable societies have no means of taxing the public ; and even the Field-lane Refuge , one of the most valuable of the kind , has been languishing for want of funds . Now , short of a Chancellor of the
Exchequer and a " committee of the whole , " there is no taxing machine more powerful than the Times , which signified its will and pleasure that persons should subscribe to the Field-lane Refuge , and forthwith obtained the requisite supplies ; but the necessities of the Refuge called attention to the existence of a class which is too numerous to be included within the walls of any charitable institution , and the Poor-law Commissioners put forth a document which proves that they have not been inattentive to the public want . . This is a circular letter written by Lord Courtenay ,, the Secretary of the Board of Guardians of the
Metropolitan Districts , proposing an entirely new establishment . The plan is to divide the metropolis into six asylum districts ; each to have an inexpensive building set apart for the reception of the homeless poor , the whole to be administered by officers specially appointed under a process of election by the several boards of guardians , the expenses to be defrayed by a rate levied upon the entire metropolis equally , the power to effect this arrangement is vested in the Poor-law Commissioners by the Act 7 and 8 Victoria , cap . 101 , which authorises the board to combine several unions and
parishes into one district for the relief of the houser less poor , to be managed as we have , described . Undoubtedly this arrangement would meet some of the difficulties of the present case . It might draw forth a better attention to the particular wants which are to be met . " We might have better rhanagement , and obviously additional funds would be provided , But we do not see how , in its nature , it would ensure any amendment upon some of ' -the abuses now existing . For examplej instead of introducing a better discrimination between the different species which form the whole genus of the homeless , it would , on the contrary , assemble under one roof the scourings of a much larger district ; would draw together a more clamorous herd of the reckless and the profligate j and would oppress the unfortunate and the feeble ihore severely than they ¦ *!
. ' ' ... -m v ¦ ' •' ^ 1 111 .. __ are at present . Much , indeed , would depend upon the management and the system of dividing the prisoners , for such they seem likely to become ; but how should we secure better management ? Unless the officers of the new refuges were selected from a higher class , unless the offer of payment were such as to attract more efficient candidates for the post , we suspect that the refuges would become nothing more than outlying departments of the union workhouses , and it is to be feared that they might give rise to all the inconveniences which belong to divided establishments , while they would unquestionably originate a new impost . Beyond these objections it has been pointed out that the plan would effect a material innovation on the principle of local self-government .
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THOUGHTS , FACTS , AND SUGGESTIONS ON
PARLIAMENTARY BEtfQItJtt . No . IX , An idea has been thrown out by certain speakers at recent public meetings , that we arc not to press for any very decided change in our electoral system just now , because it is likely that the amended Reform Bill of 1859 will bo followed , ore long , by another , which may be looked to for the supply of any omissions loft in the measure of this year . In one
sense this may bo true . Finality has become an odious word in popular ears . We all know that the nation has not stopped growing } and wo all feel that until it does , ana untu population and employment cease to shift from one district to another , it is idle to talk of a final and permanent settlement . In a former chapter of the present series , the necessity has been pointed , out or making provision for the gradual self-adjustment of the system to the fluctuating wants of successive periods l and it is hardly requisite to repent in this place the reasons
for believing that the absence of some such machinery would be a great defect in the forthcoming measure . But it is quite another matter to ask us to lower the tone of our demands , in the present instance , ' respecting the suffrage , Upon the ground that at some unknown and unnamed day hereafter the whole question may come to be reconsidered . The equitable claim of industry , loyalty , intelligence , and liability to taxation , to be included in the benefits of active citizenship , does not in any
way depend on those changes of population or property to which allusion has been made . If by some new discovery the woollen trade were to recover its ancient pre-eminence among our staple manufactures , and the currents of capital and labour were to set in towards the West Riding and Gloucestershire as strongly as they have done during the last twenty years towards Lancashire , that would not alter the great social and political question whether a weaver or a spinner who dwells in a rated house and contributes to the well-being
and support of : the state , ought or ought not to have the privilege of voting at elections . The monopolists of power are jealous of the cotton region just now beyond all others , because it contains the greatest concentration of manufacturing enterprise and skill . They will fight hard against giving many new seats to Lancashire , . and they would fight just as hard against giving them to other districts were they to become in the course of trade equally populous and wealthy . But the basis of representative right , the elective franchise itself , is not affected ' by the raw material out of
which a man earns 30 s . or 21 . a week . Great improvements may be made in machinery during the next twenty years ; new elements of industry may be discovered or developed whereby additional hands may to a large extent be employed without displacing those that are already engaged in the fabrication of articles of luxury or necessity ; villages on whose tranquil green may now be heard the hum of the bee or the song of the bird , may have grown into busy towns ; and towns now rarely visited by commercial traveller or tourist may expand into youthful cities . But justice -to the working classes , whose toil , and thrift , and inof all im
telligence constitute the great element - provement and prosperity , will remain the samethe greatest of considerations that can occupy the minds of legislators or statesmen . It is not desirable that this great question should be further evaded by our rulers . For them the season is peculiarly propitious for dealing with it wisely . There is no excuse of too great pressure from without . There is no irritation produced by defeat abroad , or distress at home * poisoning and warping the public mind . If Parliament will , it may approach the discussion in a temper of judicial calm , and a spirit of judicial impartiality . Even
party feeling is unprecedentedly torpid , and the voice of factious violence is literally unheard . The obstinacy of Toryism is slackened by the exigencies of its official position ; and the habits of courtiership into which the Whigs have fallen render them averse to rash biddings for popular favour . The Radical party in the House of Commons contains fewer men of influence out of doors or power in debate than at any former period within our recollection . The aristocracy have no decent pretext , therefore , for shirking the question . Will they try to do so P Wo have little doubt that all who advocate cxtromo
measures hope they may . We have as little doubt that attempts will bo made by some from party dud personal motives to thwart and embarrass any scheme that may be proposed by Ministers , not with any view of obtaining a better bill next yonr , but in the hope that they may have a finger in the making of the borough pie ana in the helping of it . But for the ruling class , as a class , there novcr was a clearer course or a plainer policy . To them it signiflos comparatively little who ' is Premier , or whioh of a dozen duchesses is Mistress of tho
Robes . They dwell on tho verge of a perilous chasm , and the consideration , which if they bo wise ought to be uppermost in their legislative thoughts , is , now may tho palpable and dangerous inequalities of tho surfaco bo . lossonod while the wcathor and time are favourable fo , r undertaking . suolx n work * There aro depths they are not oxpootcd to fill up , and heights of power and station which nobody asks thorn to break down . But ; they are mad if thoy do not peroeivo that their aotual position is every day becoming more and more anomalous and more ana more indefensible . Some flve or six hundred fanulios engross the wholo of one branch of tho
Legislature , and more than onerhalf of the seats in , the other . They keep amongst them nearly the entire profit and power of the civil and military administration ; and they confessedly make use of both as class perquisites , out of which the opulent members of their order are systematically fed , clothed , housed , and otherwise provided for . A revenue of sixty-five millions a year is raised by taxes on the industry of the people at large , and expended by
the Parliament , in which these few hundred families are paramount , as they think fit . Of the heads o £ households in the United Kingdom , which , by their unremitting toil , create this enormous annual sum and pay it over to the tax-gatherer , not one man in live has a voice in the election of the minority in Parliament , who are nominally the guardians of the purse of the nation . More than five millions of men are without vote or franchise , direct or indirect . Is this wise ? Is this just ? Can this last ? Then , if not , the sooner the subject is dealt with the better .
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BIOGRAPHIES OF GERMAN PRINCES ¦ ¦ : ' ¦ NO . IX . . . JOHN-NEPOMUK-MARIA-JOSEPH , KING OF
SAXONY . The Hoyal House of Saxony—a country pre-eminently Protestant , and whose fields served as the cradle of the Reformation—has belonged to the Church of Rome ever since the time of Frederick Augustus I ., who changed his creed to enable him to acquire the Polish crown . Great and powerful has been the support given by the Saxon rulers to Popery from the day of that unfortunate connexion with Poland . The late King , who was killed , it will be remembered , a few years ago in the Tyrol , by the upsetting of his truvelling > carriagc , ¦ ¦ " a .
fine specimen of these crowned Jesuits . Accomplished as a scholar , a literary connoisseur , and an enthusiastic student of natural science , the botanical branch of which he . had made his especial study , he yetj in spite of this versatility of intellect , forming such an exception among princes , was little better than an abject tool in the hands of the black-robed gentry . Year after year he continued in secret intercourse with such plotting Romanist gangs as , for instance , the " Fraternity of the Heart of Jesus . " The commands they laid upon him he submissively and faithfully obeyed . Sovereign over
a people professing the Evangelical faith , lie scrupled not to persecute every Protestant association that deviated in any minutiae from the recognised credos . Against the Neo-Catholic dissenter who ignored the supremacy of the Pontiff , he directed the most violent persecutions . Ay , he had no compunction even in spilling the blood of the citizens in order to prevent their forming Anti-Papal leagues . With the shaveling intriguers of the Swiss Sondcrbund he was also detected in having rather intimate connexions . Wherever , in . fact , Jesuit machinations were coiner on , some thread of the mesh might be
followed till it readied tho royal palace at Dresden . The education and the whole life of tho present Saxon King , who glories in the correct Catholic denomination of John-Nepomuk-Maiiu-Joscph , has been in perfect keeping with this Romanist sentiment of the Dresden Court . The King is tho brother of the deceased sovereign , and the son of Prince Maximilian by the Princess of Purina . Born in 1801 , ho received his earliest impressions from a number of tutors , the majority of whom were deeply wedded to tho Popish interest , lie was initiated into the mysteries ? of the Church of Rome by those pillars of Catholicism , the'Abbe do Sylvostrc , the Father Lofllor , and tho since . Bishop Manermann . Under their superintendence ) ho
acquired not only those cunning semi-religious , semi-politiQul practices peouliur lo tho system , but also that smooth polish and classic taste which has not unfrequently distinguished tho disciples ot Loyola . A solid military instruction was also , as a mattor of course , duly given him by Gonorals von Foroll and von WiitssUorf , by Liol . enuut-Coloiiul Fleischer and Major von Eppcndorf , who taught him how to make use of tho gmpo-shot , a ( science tho Princo aftorwards displayed his proiWiionov m by employing it against tho restive Protestants ot L ' oipzig . Tho dootrinos of publio luw—or , to spouk , perhaps , more correctly , of royal pnvilogu and right divino— -wore expounded to young . Mm-Nopoinuk by an AuUc Councillor of tho orthodox
school of Hullor . . . , These were tho rudiments of the right roynl ecliioritlon ho received . However , it must bo mud , no
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52 THE LEA DEB . [ No . 459 , January 8 , 1859 .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 8, 1859, page 52, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2276/page/20/
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