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political vicissitude and personal ^ f ^ J ™* nower all eyes are turned on . him as the natural leader of tlie Reform party . , He has but to reproduce to-morrow , amid general acceptance , the proposals that were treated with -mdifferenee when they were last made by him . Whether they be accented by ministers in the present House of Commons , or carried into ^ effect by Lord John Russell himself in a new Parliament , he will have equally won the prize on honour and of patriotism .
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THE JUSTICES ANDTHE HIGHWAYS . One of the distinctions between civil life and military life is , that in the latter the superior prescribes duties , and decides whether or not they be properly performed , while in the former the duties are prescribed by one authority , or are settled by contract , another judges whether they have been properly performed or not . The latter principle is much the most favotirable to justice and freedom ; and in almost all cases , such as the public offices , in which the master and the judge are often the same person , the interference of ^ some third party , arid wanting legal authority , the interference of the public is sought : To ensure as
complete justice as man can arrive at , the administrator , then , must be one person , and the judge another . In much of our modern legislation , how ? - eVer—all that concerns the police , for example—r this principle is departed from ; and the administrator andthe judge are—except so far as the public , by its unauthorised and yet most necessary organs ^ interfere—one and the same person . Justice ' s justice has passed into a proverb , and when the administrative power , as well as the judicial functions , of justices is surreptitiously increased ^ the people require to be put oil theirguard . Accordingly , we have to warn them that a Highways' Bill is now before the House of Commons which places in the
hands of justices . assembled in quai-ter-sessions the power of forming the whole countay into districts , for the management ofthe highways , and of determining the number of way-wardens to be elected in each district . They are to fix the time for the first meeting of the way-wardens , and are to be delegated creators of the whole organisation . When the justices have formed the districts , the ¦ oersohs in the parishes entitled to vote for guardians
of the poor are to elect the wardens under all the regulations made by the Poor Law Board , ¦ which may prescribe the qualification of wardens , and is to have the same control over them as it has over the guardians of the poor . T \ xe system for the relief of pauperism is now applied to the . business of the people 5 and the severe administrative rules supposed to bo proper for it are to be made the rules of our general lives . The wardens , under the control of the Poor Law Board , are to constitute
themselves into highway boards , each having a corporate seal , and all the property and powers now vested in existing surveyors of' roads , and exercisdble by them- ^ -a most Indefinite expression—arc to pass to the new highway boards . . -. AH the property , and power , too , whioh the parishes may have in the roads , are in like manner to pass to the way-wardens ,, the parishes rccoiving credit in the books of the boards for the property appropriated . The wardens being duly constituted , the justices at two consecutive mqctings of ( jparter-aessiohs may make any alterations they think proper in highway districts , or may make new ones at their pleasure .
The highway boards are-to appoint chairmen and sub-chairmen , clerks , treasurers , and surveyors , and will form in ovory disstrict neets of now officials , with good salaries , adding to the power and patronage oftho Poor Law Board aiulthc justices . All tho highways now under the parish authorities will bo under tlic . so lumrijp , which aro to make all the arrangements for keeping . them in order . They may contract with any local bodies for taking on themselves , and keeping in order , any roads formed under any local nets , including turnpiko roads . All tho expenses of tho now boards and of tho
roads are to bo paid by rates , and tho way-wardens are _ to have the power of demanding from tho parishos whatever sums they may tlunk proper , and the ovor « ocrs of tho poor wifl bo compelled to pay thesd sums , under tho penalty of distraint , And to moke quite euro of tho money—one principal point—the highway boards , tho members of which aro irremovable , are authorised to appoipt persons to levy the sums they require on any parish in default of the overseers . Thus England is now to bo divided into lrighway
districts , in addition to the numerous other divisions , lay and secular , ancient and modern , into which it is already most inconveniently and discordantly cut up . The legislature has a terrible repugnance to electoral districts , as something new and strange , but new districts of its own devising , complicating- all our affairs , and adding , to our expenses , seem readily to meet its approbation . - . They are accompanied , too , by a confiscation of the . property of parishes—great as is the horror professed by our Legislature whenever confiscation is mentioned . When all the new machinery is organised and « -ot into gear , the highway boai'd shall , on the application of any trustees or commissioners of turnpike roads , undertake the repair and maintenance of the said roads , the said commissioners to pay
the board such sums out of tkeir revenue as may be agreed on . This we believe , to be the main object for which all this new machinery is to be provided . In many places the turnpike Toads have fallen into decay since railways came into £ se , and these merely private speculations , Very often undertaken as much for private as public purposes , are now to be maintained by the public . When " the funds from tolls are insufficient , the _ public will have to pay the expense , and if any difference of opinion arise between the highway boards and the turnpike trusts , the justices at quarter-sessions are to decide hertwixt them . Now , these justices are very often commissioners of turnpike roads ^ have very o-enerally an interest in them , and will thus often
be enabled by this bill , shoidd it become law , to relieve themselves , by their , magisterial authority , of obligations they have contracted as private individuals . Two justices—also , not the boardswill have the power of directing any hi g hway to be discontinued , so that it shall no longer be kept up at the public expense . Thus this bill , as we read it , will enable the justices to determine in the end what roads shall be kept up , Avhat roads shall be abandoned , while the boards which they are authorised to form have the power of making the people pay all the expenses . In the last resorty too ; the justices who have , exercised . aR these powers as administrators , will have to decide all doubts and disputes as judges . This proposed law , then , violates , in a remarkable
manner , the great principle of our social life , and introduces into a very large portion of it the principle of military discipline , applying it to pecuniary matters , and making one and the same persons administrators and judges of their administration . It transfers power from the peop le to the justices , and leaves them without responsibility . By msidupus laws of this petty and wheedling description , the public liberties have been more frequently subverted than by open and bold attempts to and
establish despotism . The latter create alarm are at once resisted ; the forme do not eyeh excite suspicion ; and men are bound and habituated to their fetters before they become aware that they are enslaved . The bill is a Tory concoction , and bears on its back ifchp names of Mr . Walpole , late Secretary for the Home Department ; Mr .. Hai'dy , the Under Secretary for that Department , and Sir William Jolliffe , Secretary to tho Treasury and the whipper-in to the Conservatives .
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' We are happy to present to our readers the impressions of the present atate of Italy , gathered by an esteemed contributor from personal observation . ]
A STREET VIEW OF ITALY . —No . If NICE VIJULA-FRANgA—GENOA .-Winm you stand for tho first time on tho summit of Mount Vesuvius— -when- you have gazed your fill on that wondrous panorama , of sea and sky , of shore and inland- —as you crumple beneath your feet tho volcanic lava , under which the hidden fire smoulders eternally— % youi' first thought is to watch and discover for yourself some trace or symptom of tho coming eruption . Ho you pick up
a pebble hero , and poke into 11 crevice there , and note some cloud af smoke Moating skywards from a cleft in tho surrounding rodtB , au < I try to trace some sulphureous odour in tho air you breathe . It may bo , indeed tho chances aro , that your dilettante observations aro oi' little value . Tho hole may have been dug by human' hands , and tho pebble dropped by ' some preceding traveller ; tho smoko may arise from tho dinners tlmt your guides wo cooking , and the neighbourhood of Neapolitans may account fo , r unsavory fcinells without tho aid
of volcanic agency ; still , after all , it is very certain , that sooner or later an eruption will take placeyand your hap-hazard observations may turn out to be of more value than you are disposed to fancy . It has been so with us , as , doubtless , with Others , in our wanderings of late through this pleasant Italian land . As the marvellous beauties of the surrounding scenes lost their first charrii of
novelty , our thoughts have wandered in search of What symptoms we could trace of the changes that are like to come . Straws show which way the wind is blowing , and as straws we would _ offer such stray bits and odds and ends of observations as we have made—giving them only for what they are worth , as the roadside remarks of one passing amidst scenes which , ere long , may turn out to be memorable in the world ' s history ..
In crossing the Sardinian states , we . looked out eagerly for the great changes which we had expected to have seen there . It was close on sixteen years since we had last seen the hills of " Nizza la Maritima . " Those were the good old days , when Charles . Albert reigned supreme . Even amongst Italian states , Sardinia was not then pre-eminent for either freedom or enlightenment . Indeed * at that period , the future patriotic herO of Italy and freedom used to be stigmatised as a priest-ridden , persecuting , and despotic prince . Since .. ¦ then , a free pressrepresentative parliaments , civil and
, reli « ious freedom , have become Sardinian institutions . Yet we own with reluctance that ye failed to discover such symptoms of material progress as we should have hoped for from this moral development . * Nice itself has become a kind of Italian Brighton . The gold of Russians and English has covered the surrounding hills with villa residences , more or less dissightly . But in the native and commercial part of the town we could discover but little trace of progress . There were few new buildings . no new factoriesand but little increase
, iil the shipping . About the streets there were still crowds of priests ; tho peasants were as dirty and unsavoury as of yore ; the cottage habitations as squalid , and the country roads as villainous . The great signs of outward change were an increased number Of disreputable refugees , or-exiles , orpatriots —call them what you like—wandering about the cafes , and a small swarm of local newspapers pf most diminutive size and most extensive preten ; sions . They were all in French , and rejoiced in such titles as the Promised Land , the Future of
Italy , and the Hope of the People . Such bombastic eloquence , such reckless assertion , and such , vehemence of party feeling seem almost unin ^ telligible to us cold , stolid Englishmen . Fancy a grave calculation of the exact date ( we think it was about the middle df this month ) when the present English Ministry are to retire from office , and an enthusiastic populace are to bear into power a Liberal cabinet , ready to unfurl . the colours of Italian independence . To our minds the bitterness of personal feeling , is , perhaps , more accountable . Happening to talk with an Italian gentleman of singularly amiable disposition about
the then current rumour of the death by poison Of the King of Naples , wo were surprised at first to hear him express regret at the occurrence . " No , he proceeded , " I grudge him the case of a sudden death . I cannot bear the thought that ho should die without having first himself been obliged to feel tho ' pangs and horrors of coming death , " or , as ho worded it , " assopirane la inorte . " "We have no wish in these or other remarks to decry the imnienae advantages that Sardinia has gained by constitutional government . In the neighbourhood 01 inm
of Genoa and Turin you can wee signs . material progress which sentimentalists despise , but which is , novertheloRH , an essential symptom oi national hoaltli and vigour . -There is no good , however , in disguising tho pl"h » { net , that tno grov / tl ) of constitutionallrtin in Wnrdinut lias boon somowhat of a mushroom ono , and as yet the seeds of independence and jjuU-govonimonC liuro had but little time to tako root . The Sardinians have boon made wholesale converts to constitutional government in much the same manner as the Jesuits convortecl t-ho Chinese by promiscuous baptism ; and if ' any thing was to overthrow the present ruling powers of tho gallant little kingdom , w . osunpoct that tho'ffroftt bulk of the rural and mountain population would relapse under the old rtyf ima without much rogrot or vivid appreciation of tho change . Somo days ago we engaged a boatman to
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¦ ¦ ^ , q ^ , ^ Ta issa-T TfiB XEADEB . , 33 9
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), March 12, 1859, page 339, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2285/page/19/
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