REYNOLDS'S POLITICAL INSTRUCTOR EDITED BY GEORGE W. M. REYNOLDS, AUTHOR OF THE FIRST AND SECOND SERIES OF " THE MYSTERIES OF 10ND0N," " THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT Off LONDON," & C. & C. So. 8— Vol. 1.] SATURDAY, DECEMBER 29, IS49. [ PEICE ONE PENNY.' V LOUIS BLANC. Louis BLANC, the illustrious ex- member of the Pro- visional Government was born in Spain, of French parents, in the year 1812, ho is consequently now thirty- eight years of age. His younger brother, Mr. Charles Blanc, is at present director of the fine arts in the French metropolis. Monsieur Blanc is the author of a celebrated work, entitled, " A History of the Ten Years," and in it he exposes the glaring corruption and the millions of abuses that were encouraged and sanctioned during the inauspicious reign of Louis Philippe. This clever work, together with Lamartine's " History of the Girondists," . vastly contributed to arou3e the French nation and cause the glorious days of February. Besides his popular prose werks, Louis Blanc is also the author of several clever poems, one on " Mirabeau" is a proof of great poetical genius. But the great object of Monsieur Blanc's re- searches, and the question which has enlisted his entire sympathies, is the all- engrossing and fearfully press- ing question of labour. His " Organization of Labour" is a work that should be attentively studied by every working man not only in France but throughout tho civilized world, as tending to ameliorate the whole con- dition of society. When the Revolution of February kicked out the old despot from the Tuileries, and the wretched Aristocracy of France was grovelling in the dust, true talent shone forth in all its splendour, and the author of the " Ten Years" became a member of the Provisional Government, and on the meeting of the Constituent Assembly, he was returned by Universal Suffrage as one of the members for Paris. The personal appearance of Louis Blanc is boyish in the extreme; his face is totally devoid of hair, and his stature is exceedingly diminutive." On rising to address the Assembly, a servant brought a chair to the tribune, upon which the hero of the people was accustomed to mount when he delivered his brilliant orations. The organ of Louis Blane, the Democratic Pacifique, one of the most popular - journals of the working classes in France, an- nounced, that a man with a heart— a man greatly loved by the working classes— had lent his hand to the formation of a programme dictated by the popular will, that the ideas treated as Utopian before were not required to be then discussed. The principles comprised in this pro- gramme were:— The rights of labour; a house of refuge for industry; the array to become an industrial body; public education equal and gratuitous for all; a universal reform of law courts with juries in all of them; abso- lute freedom of communication of thoughts; a progres- sive scale of taxation; a progressional tax on machinery employed in industry; a tax on luxury; universal suffrage; a national assembly; and annual elections by all. Such were the comprehensive and liberal ideas of the ex- mem- ber of the provisional government. His projects were nullified and his measures thwarted by the vacillation of Lamartine, and the treachery of Marie, the Minister of Public Works. When Louis Blanc discovered that the working classes were on the point of being betrayed, he summoned a monster meeting in the Champs de Mars, and the scene was certainly a most exciting and glorious one. Dele- gates of all the trades and guilds of Paris were assembled to the number of nearly two hundred thousand men. Flags and streamers were waving in all directions, and the exhilarated crowd filled about a third of the vast space; from thence they proceeded to the Hotel de Ville, and Louis Blanc, with his colleague Albert, became the object of popular adulation. The national workshops as established by Monsieur Marie, were only intended by him as a foil to the grand, feasible, and conprehensive ideas of Louis Blanc. The working classes discriminated between their true friendand the wolf in sheep's clothing; and had Lamartine at that period boldly seconded the views of Louis Blanc, France would have been spared the sanguinary daysof June, and now would have enjoyed the benefits of genuine and pure republican institutions. The working classes and their leaders were goaded on to des- peration by those who had alone profited by the revolu- tion; they were insulted and reviled by the very men who owed their elevation to the determined will of the work people so nobly displayed in the days of February. When they went to the minister to inform him that it was intended to hold a fraternal meeting in the forest of Vincennes on a certain day, they were met by the reply, that no day could be better chosen, inasmuch as that day was appointed for a grand review on the same spot, o£ all the troops in Paris. This was a threat to overawe the work- people. Louis Blanc remonstrated in vain, he protested that his plan for organization'of labour was stultified expressly by the Minister of Public Works. Deputations of work- men waited on the minister and represented f o him that 58 REYNOLDS'S POLITICAL INSTRUCTOR. 69 the popular plan for the organization of labour— the plan of Louis Blanc— was the only one that eould save tho country from anarohy and rebellion. Marie replied, that there was no longer any work for them in the capital, that their pretended labour was an irony of labour; and that the country paid them for doing nothing; that under the name of work they were anxious to eat the bread of idleness; aud that they should all be sent to the provinces, so as to rid Paris of their presence. This was the language of a minister elevated to power by the days of February. The storm was brewing, and the Minister of War, C. ivaigriae, was aware that a struggle was at hand: Louis Blanc remained in his place in the National Assembly, and fulfilled the duties of a representative. Paris be- came a battle- field of unexampled carnage; blood flowed in torrents through its streets, and the reactionary party were for the time victorious. It was said that Louis Blanc was hurried from his place in the Assembly and taken to the Hotel de Ville where, had the democratic party come off as conquerors, he would have been chosen ruler of the people. The reactionary party were in power and corruption again raised its head; Mole, Thiers, Montalembert, and other hangers on of defunct royalty, again showed their ill- omened faces, and the men of the future were shelved by the antiquated courtiers of by- gone ages. Louis Blanc, with his republican colleague, Marc Caussidiere, was tried before an Assembly pre- determined on find- ing them guilty, and sentenced to transportation and fine. Flight was the only safeguard for their persons and England offered the most convenient asylum to the persecuted patriots. His days of exile are not passed in idleness; for Louis Blanc is at present the editor of a monthly periodical published in Paris, called the " Nou velle Monde," and is also writing other works which we believe will shortly appear. Let us hope that France will not long be deprived of the able services, and the brilliant talents of the illustrious ex- member of the Provisional Government. KOSSUTH MAZZINI AND LEDRU- ROLLIN. THE newspaper press of this country has become a scandal and a shame throughout Europe. With a few honourable exceptions, the course it has pursued in respect to democratic agitations at home and revolu- tionary proceedings abrcad, has been diabolical, fiend- like, and atrocious to a degree. Not contenting itself with the basest misrepresentations and the most dam- nable lies that ever were concocted by an unprincipled set of hireling scribes, it has applauded deeds of an atrocity from which savages would shrink, and hounded kings and generals on to acts from which cannibals would recoil in horror. By the eternal God! I blush for the whole human species when I reflect that any individuals belonging to it could possibly become so depraved as to lend themselves to the support or justi- fication of some of the greatest monsters as well as some of the vilest hypocrites that ever Satan endowed with human shape and sent upon the earth to curse mankind. A yell of execration throughout the length and breadth of the land ought to salute any journal which dared to publish a syllable in favour of the dia- bolical butcher Haynau, or those crowned miscreants of Austria and Russia who sent forth the cowardly assassin upon his bloody work. The men who wrote in justification of those incnsters must themselves be of the most degraded stamp in respect to principle, although they have good coats upon their backs and gold in their pockets. But the lucre they have acquired by so iniquit- ous a prostitution of their intellects, can only be classed with the thirty pieces of silver for which Judas betrayed Christ. Freedom is the saving genius of men's physical nature, as Jesus is the divine instrument for the salvation of souls : and therefore the hireling scribes who have dared to write against Liberty, have crucified their Redeemer ! But let us look closely into what has been done by that portion of the press to which I am alluding. These base, venal, and blood- thirsty panders to the inU'. eats of fiends in human shape, have endeavoured to drag the noblest names in Christendom through the mire and filth which the foul imaginations and feculent brains of the slanderers themselves have spawned forth. It is one of the fictions which have been palmed off upon the people, that " gentlemen of the most honourable character as well as of the highest talent, are the con- ductors of the public press." But if the truth of this assertion were never suspected before, surely recent events must have staggered the national faith in this respect. Indeed, the course adopted by particular newspapers can lead to no other conclusion than that there must be some of the most unprincipled wretches in all England at present holding domination over, or having connexion with, certain editorial offices. For though men may differ upon points of policy— and honestly differ, too,— though there may be conscientious Tories, sincere Protectionists, and well- meaning Con- servatives,— yet it is utterly impossible that any indi- vidual can truly and faithfully believe that Kossuth is , a swindler, Mazzini an impostor, or Ledru- Rollin a sneaking coward. No: we may believe that Lord John Russell is the most perfect little humbug of a politician that the world ever saw— but wo cannot for an instant imagine that he is a burglar;— we may look upon Sir Robert Peel as the craftiest dealer in expedients that ever held the rein. s of power— but we cannot believe him to be a highwayman ;— aud we may regard Mr. Benjamin Disraeli as the most trumpery shuffler that ever displayed the chameleon hues of a political turn- coat— but we cannot believe for a moment that he goes about in the disguise of an old- clothes- man, passing off spurious coin. Indeed, were a Hungarian journal to accuse Lord John Russell of being a burglar— a Roman print denounce Sir Robert Peel as a highway- nan— or a French newspaper charge Mr. Disraeli with b^ ing a " smasher,"— we should all, as lovers of truth and fair play, feel deeply indignant at such atrocious ealumnies being levelled against any of our fellow- countrymen. And yet the names— the glorious names — of Kossuth, Mazzini, and Ledru- Rollin, have been treated by English journals in a manner as scandalous, as vile, and as cowardly as in the case whieh I have juit supposed. There is no possibility of misunderstanding tho cha- racters of the three eminent personages whom I have named. Any evil that is said of them, can be nothing less than sheer calumny and wanton lying. Even those who dissent from their policy, cannot honestly assail their reputation. Indeed, my firm opinions are— firstly, that any man who accuses Kossuth of embezzlement or fraud, is quite capable of all kinds of rascality and roguery himself;— secondly, that any man who dares to associate the term " impostor " with Mazzini, must be himself the rankest counterfeit and the most impudent humbug that ever lived;— and thirdly, that any man who taxes Ledru- Rollin with cowardice, must himself be the most sneak- ing poltroon and contemptible nincompoop that ever swaggered under an air of insolent assurance. The calumniators of Kossuth, Ledru- Rollin, and Maz- zini, do not understand what true patriotism is: nor can they comprehend the meaning of a laudable ambition. Their own minds are so grovelling, so debased, and so utterly unprincipled, that they oan understand no feel- ing save selfishness. Hence is it that they fall back upon the old, vulgar, and disgusting expedient of accusing great men of having no other aim than " filthy lucre " in view. The idea of accusing such a man as Kossuth of peculation! Eternal God! how little do those accusers comprehend the magnitude of that hero's mind!— how unworthy are they even tQ enjoy the right of passing a comment upon his character! Now, if they had confined themselves to such representations as that Kossuth was improperly ambitious— that he aspired to the throne of Hungary— and that he had plunged his country into civil war with a view to work out results favourable to the establishment of a dynasty of his own,— had such been the slanders, I say, there would have been in them some- thing which, if not wearing an aspect of verisimilitude, would at all events have been less impossible than the mean and paltry charge of embezzlement. But to have recourse to the dirtiest of all expedients for the purpose of blackening the name of Kossuth, was a proceeding which only the most cowardly and beggarly- minded of sneaking calumniators could adopt. It is calling into requisition the fish- fag abuse of Billingsgate, because manly argument is wanting: < : 3 raking in the puddle for filth and on the dunghill offal to hurl at an enemy from whose armour of proof the legitimate missiles of warfare glance innocuously off. One newspaper has rendered itself especially infamous in heaping up all the ordures of its foul imagination and all the spawnings of its loathsome venom at Kossuth's door. But why did this print so instantaneously jump to the conclusion that Kossuth was swayed by dirty ideas of pelf 1 Because its own conduct is based solely on those motives. Indeed, its yenality is notorious: it does not even support a particular party on such honest grounds as its contemporaries— but for money! It is constantly in the market— to be bought and sold like any other good or chattel. At one time ' tis tho Carlton Club that bribes: at another the Reform Club. And this is the precious print that dares invent a mote to place in the eye of a hero, when it has so real and unmistakable a beam in its own! Men who experience an earnest craving to advance the cause of progress,— . vho oppose tyrants because they hate tyranny, and who v.- ar against aristocracies because they detest monopolies,— who burn to rescue their fellow- creatures from serfdom and elevate the nations socially, morally, and politically,— such men as these are above all such vulgar considerations as pelf. They may be ambitious: but their ambition is laudable. They may have their pride: but it is a noble and an admirable sen- timent which thus inspires them. In small minds the most paltry and peddling ideas are ever uppermost;— and thus is it that these small minds measure by their own mean and miserable standard the great and glorious minds of such men as Kossuth, Mazzini, and Ledru- Rollin. The abuse of certain newspapers is the greatest tribute that can possibly be paid to the characters, intellects, and motives of individuals. To be applauded by those prints were to be classed along with the most damnable fiends that disgrace the human species. And inasmuch as these accursed ruffians occupy the extreme point to which the admiration of such journals can extend,— the other ex- treme, which obtains their hatred, is necessarily occupied by the most immaculate and estimable of men. But after all, what signifies this tremendous labouring on the part of an unprincipled press to run down great men and write down their actions? Does the base attempt succeed 1 No— ten thousand times No! The thirty- five thousand copies daily issued by the Times, and daily renewing the infamous calumnies against Kossuth, cannot crush the truth. Not one soul who reads the slander in the Times, believes it. All its subscribers- all who hire it far an hour or who see it at a Club or a coffee- house,— all know that it is propagating the foulest falsehoods. Does the Times require a test of its power to ruin by calumny a hero whose deeds shine forth as resplendently as if they were printed upon the noon- day sun?— does the Times want to try its strength in this ignoble and wretched endeavour to write men down? Well, it will have that opportunity should Kossuth visit these shores: for in spite of all it has said concerning him, the Times may rest assured that never, never will any man have received so grand— so enthusiastic— so fervid a welcome as that whieh the British people will give to the Hungarian hero! And if the Times, on the other hand, be anxious to test its own popularity in the country, let its Editor get up a meeting, with himself in- the chair, at the London Tavern,— let him there enunciate to the assembly tho same slanders against Kossuth which he has dared to promulgate under the protection of the editorial " We " or through the scape- goat medium of " Our Own Corre- spondent,"— let him do this and see what kind of a reception he would experience. No: the characters of such men as Ledru- Rollin, Kossuth, and Mazzini, are not to be destroyed by a press devoted to the cause of tyranny and the interests of tyrants. And time will speedily show that I am right in making this assertion. For as assuredly as X am penning these lines at this moment, will the nations of Continental Europe rise again : yes— they will rise in their colossal power and their giant strength ;— from the Seine to the Danube will they rise— and the voice of Freedom shall echo from the heights of Montmartre to the Appenine mountains and the Carpathian hills. Then, whose names will be echoed on every breeze ?— who are the exiles that shall first be summoned home ? Ledru- Rollin will return to France to assume the reins of office under a veritable Democratic Republic: Mazzini will repair to Rome to accomplish the mighty work of Ita- lian freedom;— and glorious Kossuth will hasten hack to unfurl the orifiam of liberty in the land of the Magyar. Then— Oh! then, will tho tyrants of Europe tremble and become pale: for with France, Italy, and Hungary under the guidance of the noblest spirits of the age, Imperial- ism and Royalty areas certain to be banished from every nation in Continental Europe, as Democracy is sure to achieve a glorious triumph. The wretched impostor Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, — the cowardly but blood- thirsty and perfidious King of Prussia,— Austria's impe- rial stripling who has already feasted with such ravenous zest upon human gore, — the - cruel, heartless, and hypocritical old Pope, who beneath the garments of sanctity conceals all the worst vices and the most odious passions of Kings,— and then the monster- miscreant of the North, the Emperor Nicholas, — these will be the first potentates of Europe to fall before the popular wrath, when the clock shall strike the hour of retribution ! Be not disheartened, my dear readers, concerning the future. It is as impossible for Continental Europe to remain tranquil, as it is vain for Emperors, Kings, Popes, and Presidents to depend for any length of time upon armies. I would not give five guineas for the purchase of any throne in Continental Europe after the lapse of the next three years. Down they will all tumble the very next time that the din of revolution is heard upon the breeze. Then— back, back to thy native shores, thou true- hearted patriot, Ledru- Rollin:— back, back to the bosom of a regenerating people, thou fine Italian spirit, Joseph Mazzini;— back, back, thou glo- rious Kossuth, to receive the fervid welcome which shall greet thee in that native land of thine which thou hast loyed so well! GEORGE W. M. REYNOLDS. THE ARMED PEACE POLICY.— Nearly 1850 years have come and gone since the angels sang their song of" Peace on earth, and good will to men," over the manger- cradle of the Prince of Peace. And all the great and powerful nations of the earth have called themselves Christendom, because they profess to be governed by the principles of that Prince of Peace. Peace was to be one of the first fruits of Christianity, under whose reign " the nations were to learn war no more, to beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning- hooks." But just see what these nominally Christian nations are doing, from year to year, to bring in this blessed time. They are exhaust- ing all the revenues in working ouit a condition which they call a peace 1 an armed peace 1 Oh, how unlike the peace pre- dicted by the holy prophets of old, when " every man should sit under his own vine and fig- tree, with none to molest or make him afraid 1" They have taken 2,500,000 able- bodied men from the plough, and trained them, at the ploughman's expense, to cut and kill with the sword. The cost of this strange peace armament, accordng to Mr. Cobden's estimate, amounts, at the lowest calculation, to 200,000,0002. Let us see what might be done with this immense sum, if appropri- ated to agricultural purposes. According to well- authenticated statistics, there are 34,014,000 acres of arable, garden, meadqw, pasture, and marsh lands in Great Britain. Let us suppose that the fair average value of this land would be 50(. an acre; it would then amount to 1,700,000,000/. There are also 9,931,000 acres of improvable wastes, which we will set down at 251. per acre; amounting in all to 248,350,0002. Then there are 12,885,330 acres of unimprovable wastes, worth, perhaps, 51. per acre, amounting to 64,427,6501. If this be a fair esti- mate, then all the land of Great Britain, if sold outright in the market, would bring 2,012,777,6502. Now look at this faot I The nations of Christendom have paid for mere preparations for war, during the last ten years of an " armed peace," enough to buy the whole island ot' Great Britain 1 Since 1815, their " armed peace establishments" cost them three times the pre- sent value of all the acres of this great garden of the world.— Elihu Burritt. INDIRECT TAXATION.— The monster of indirect taxation haunts you as closely as your shadow. You cannot escape him. It is true, lie is an invisible agent, very often robbing you without your knowing it. When the poor seamstress, earn- ing 6d. per day, of fourteen hours, by making shirts at 3Jd. each, sits down to the only comfort her miserable earnings will afford— a cup of tea— two- thirds of its original cost have been taken by the lingers of this ubiquitous agen .- of the government. We talk about education and schools. Look at the poor mail— the stocking- maker of Nottingham if you like— Strug, gling at self- improvement, and reading his newspaper printed on taxed paper, and imprinted by a penny stamp. Why did not the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, with Lord Brougham at its head,— why did they not agitate for a repeal of all taxes upon knowledge, and allow the poor mail's child to have its spelling book untaxed, and the man himself to have his newspaper at its fair and legitimate cost. Look at the artizan of London in his small, wretched apartment, trying to read by the miserable light struggling through a taxed window, paying a high price for bad water, and a duty on soap. The writer of fiction, who painted the old man of the sea, drew his original from John Bull groaning, and sweating, and grumbling under the weight of Indirect Taxation.— Mr. ~ Speech at Cheltenham. REYNOLDS'S POLITICAL INSTRUCTOR. 69 TEN HOURS' BILL: ITS EFFECTS ON THE FACTORY POPULATION. « Goad sense is the genius of humanity." WHEN M. GUIZOT penned the sentiment we have quoted, he wrote a truth as profound in its meaning, as it is requisite in the everyday transactions of men. System- makers and theorists are unceasingly boring us with their specific reme- dies for all out- national ills. Que seizes on some dozen pages of Adam Smith, and swears point blault, here is the law aud the prophets,— free trade and free action, let everything alone and everything will regulate itself. Another philoso- phic poliitcian rails agaiust a metallic currency, aud writes a book whieh few read and fewer understand. A third declares that rag money is ruinous, and tells you that " Cobbett's Paper against Gold " is the most profoundly written book of the age. Amidst this Babel confusion of tongues and sys- tems, we are glad to claim as our sheet auohor, the doctriue of that old and useful commodity—" Good sense." The English parliament adopted that doctrine, when it exacted a law regulating the labour of women and children working in Factories to ten hours per day. Aud mill- owners would do well to abide by the law. Why was the Factory Act passed by our Lords and Commons ? Because humanity demanded it. What was the condition of our Factory popu- lation when there was no law iu existence to restrict Factory labour? Let us cast a glance on the past, and see. Mr. Hobhouse, in a speech delivered in tho House of Commons, Mayl6. h, 1825, thus describes the couditiou of the Factory population:— " In the best regulated mills the children are compelled to work twelve hours and a half a day, and for three or four days iu the week are not allowed to go out of the mills to get their meals, which they are obliged to take off the floor of the mills, mingled with the dust aud down of the cotton. In other mills they are obliged to work fifteen aud sixteen hours a day. How is it possible for children to live, who are daily suffering under an atmosphere, tbe temperature of which is warmer thau the warmest summer day? They scarcely bear any resemblance to their fellow- creatures after being long subject to this torture. Their skins are literally the colour of parchment. My honourable rrieud says, that if the Bill passes ( to limit the hours of labour), ' we shall lose two million* and a half of productive revenue!' But ought we to allow a portion of our fellow subjects to be rendered miserable for such a consideration? No 1 it would be better to give up the cotton trade altogether, thap to draw such a sum out of the blood, and bones, and sinews of these unfor- tunate children." Mr. Hobhouse was right: good sense and common huma- nity were on his side. The general axiom of the economists, laissezfaire, must yield to the right sense of man's reason. From a volume of evidence now before us, we have made but the one extract from the speech of Mr. Hobhouse; but it is ai& ply sufficient to teach most men that there are aud ought to be, higher considerations with statesmen than the mere accumulation of property. Granting that two millions and ft half of revenue have been sacrificed,— which we are much disposed to doubt,— tbe monied loss is more than compen- sated for by the saving of the flesh and bones, to say nothing of the improved morals, of tiie Factory population. Tue doctrine of free and unrestricted action is purely economical; and if all questions were to be settled like a cash accouut, it would be a sure and uuerriug guide to individual happiuess and national prosperity. It is very pleasant for a mill- owner or land- owner, to say, " Can't 1 do with my own as I like ?" The first grinding golden sovereigns out of bones aud flesh; the last turning his tenantry adrift to starve. Yes, do with your own as you like, if you use your own for the advantage of your fellow men,— those by whom you are surrounded; but that which you call your own, exists not for yourself alone, but also for the interest of others. If a conciousuess of mutual dependency, and the feelings of humanity control your actions, legislative restraint would be unnecessary. But, if iu your thirst for gold and power, you forget humauity- and mutual dependency, it is not only tho right, but posi- tively the duty of society to demand the government, that acts on its behalf, to step in aud restraiu your madness, Government should interfere as seldom as possible, we graut: but where the necessity for interference really exists, the interference should be prompt and unmistakable. The doctrine of free aud unrestricted action, so fashionable in high quarters, if carried out fully, irrespective of all collate- ral considerations, " would dissolve the unholy framework of society, and leave men to ihe tyranny of superior might, the trickery of superior acuteness, the oppressiveness of caste, the uncertainties of chance, and the vindictiveness of violence." So declared the writers of the Times newspaper on June 13th, 1818. Aud we at once confess the clearness aud foroe of their declaration. After an agitation of twenty years' duration, iu which men of all political parties took part, the Ten Hours' Bill was de- clared to be law. The meaning of the act of parliament was unmistakable. Michael Thomas Sadler, Richard Oastler, Lord Ashley, and John Fieldeu, all declared that they meant ten hours'labour per day. The opposing party; viz., Johu Bright and his supporters, declared themselves agaiust a Ten Hours' Bill. Good seuse triumphed, and we believed the question settled. Some four months since we found it necessary to make some inquiries as to the eflect of the Ten Hours' Bill in those districts in which the law was in force, and the general result was de- sirable. The operatives generally were satisfied, they said that short hours had a tendency to improve their health and the comforts of their homes. Some thought that its ultimate result would be to lessen wages; others said it would raise wages; but all agreed that they would even prefer ten hours work a- day with one- sixth less wages, to twelve hours work a- day with one- sixth extra. In times of bad trade, the Ten Hours' Bill will be inoperative, for then many of the factories will be closed or possibly running half- time. And this result is generally expected by the best informed circles on this subject. The women were loud in their praises of the Ten Hours' Bill. It has certainly had a desirable eflect in an educational sense, the youth have more time for instruction— tile adults more time for reflection. Many of the mill- owners have encouraged the desire for knowledge so generally mani- fested ; and lu this respect John Bright and his copartners are honourably distinguished. The popu ar representative for Manchester opposed the bill; it is due to his credit to say that he has lor years manifested a most laudable desire for the mental and moral improvement of his work- people generally, ^ Altogether, the condition of our Factory population has very much improved of late years; and the exertions of the friends of the Factory class have not been all made in vain. Assuredly there have been many important improvements made, since Mr. Ilobhouse delivered the speech we have quoted, and since Mr. Hunt said—" THAT NOT EVEN TIIE AMERICAN SAVAGES— NOT EVEN THE CANNIBALS WOULD suffer their children to be worked in this way. Indeed, I will go farther the brute creation have too great regard for their young, to suffer them to meet such treatment. A blow from that in strument ( the overlooker's scourge), is almost as bad as the flietion of the dreadful punishment of the knout, which is used to the criminals of Russia." No overlooker now dare use the scourge; no children are ducked in cisterns filled with water to prevent them from sleeping, when nature, weary and worn out, demands repose; these savage cruelties and horrible barbarities are no longer practised ; yet all is not as it should The law of good sense and humanity, written on tbe Statute Book of . our country, is sure to reflect a beneficial influence, if duly enforced by those in authority. In visiting a cotton factory at Bridgeton, near to Glasgow, we were delighted to see the girls during the dinner- hour busily employed sewing and knitting; and on asking a most intel- ligent cotton- spinner, if such a practice was common before the passing of the Ten Hours' Bill, his answer was, " It was not common as it now is; many of our lasses used to fall asleep, and only be awakened by the ringing of the bell."—" What do you think is the general tendency of the bill as a whole?"—" I do not need to think about it, sir; I know my three lasses, all " whom work in factories, do all our housework, and leave my wife more time to nurse the younger children. We are all the better for it; it should have been law thirty yeats ago." The domestic advantages accruing from limiting the hours of labour are incalculable; they belong to the cultivation of the heart's affections— those indescribable links in the chain of humau happiness— that make or mar the morals of a people. Legis- lators and statesmen are sometimes a little too prone to settle ail questions on purely economical grounds. A moment's re- flection on what constitutes the better part of their own lives; the real sources of their own happiness, would be of use to them in the senate- house. And, perhaps, such domestic reflections would yield good fruit for the nation's interests. Who can sum up the ultimate results of the cotton spinner's daughters doing the house- work, and their mother having more time to nurse the children? Will uot the improved home elevate the character of all, and bind the father more closely to his family, to morality, and country ? There are calculations which can- not be made at all times by actuaries or staticians, and are not taken into account in the yearly budget of Sir Charles Wood, yet are they not less real, nor of less worth than the Cus- tom- house returns of exports and imports, which are an- nually paraded by othe timber- headed Chancellor of the Exchequer. A most important result, arising partly from the Ten Hours' Bill, and partly from other causes, has been au increase of garden allotments in Yorkshire and Lancashire. Throughout these counties, we have marked with pleasure the rapid increase of garden allotments; aud these gardens are partly useful aud partly ornamental. Cabbages, peas, aud beans for the dinner; and roses, tulips, aud carnations for ornament. The profit and loss generation of philosophers say, tuat the vegetables and flowers cost more than they could be bought for from the mar- ket- gardener. Perhaps they do. But take into account, we beg of you, the improved health of the cotton- spinning gar- dener, who has stood for ten hours in a heated atmosphere, also say, if you can, how many pints of beer fewer have been drunk at the neighbouring ale house; how much sounder tbe operative sleeps over- night; and how much better a husband and father he is, because of that same small portion of garden ground. Yet it is notorious that despite of these and other advan- tages, this Ten Hours' Bill is openly evaded ill some parts of Lancashire. At Waterhead Mill' near to Oldham, we lately saw a factory lighted up, and at. full work, at half past- eight in the evening; we asked the hands employed at it, how long they had worked, and they said from six iu the morning. Next day we mentioned the circumstance on the Manchester Ex- change, to a Rochdale cotton- spinner. He said he knew it, everybody knew it. " Then why don't you inform the factory inspector ?"—" It would be thought disgraceful to do so— spies, you know, are always unpopular." No operative at work dare complain, or his discharge was at liaud. It strikes us that the factory- inspector must have been very blind not to see what was well- known to hundreds of individuals; or is it just possible that Mr. Inspector sometimes puts his knees beneath the mahogany of the mill- owners. Such ail inspector should be punished for neglect of duty, and discharged forth- with. We- afterwards saw the circumstance noticed in a local periodical; with what effect we know not. These refractory inillocrats, actually find sympathy on the magistrate's bench, on the plea that the act of parliament does not provide against the employment of relays of hands. Everybody knows what the act was meant for. Lord John Russell voted for it, spoke in its favour, and confessed that be was convinced of its necessity; yet he admits deputations of cotton- masters to wait on him at Downing Street, to plead for an abrogation " of the laws; aud allow cotton- masters to sit as magistrates, to interpret the law iu opposition to the intelligence of the country, and the intentions of the majority of the House of Commons. Shame on such purse- proud law- breakers; and worse than shame on such a minister; but what of the poor slaves, who have no alternative but starva- tion or obedience. Truly enough,— " Laws grind the poor, and rich men make the law." The old and long established mill- owners fulfil the law; and in Yorkshire we have never heard of a single instance of violation. But a small knot of unscrupulous, unprincipled, avaricious Lancashire eoltou- masters, refuse to obey parliament or acknowledge humanity ;— and what is infinitely worse, they are protected in their crimes. Uplifted to fortune by cunning and fraud, they know no God but gold, and read no gospe but their ledger. Flattered because of their wealth, they thiuk themselves great and honourable; feeding their ambition on the lust of avarice, they climb up the ladder of fortune, and vulgarly ask ragged honesty to adore, and they are courteously treated by her majesty's advisers, although they refuse to obey the law aud to acknowledge that " Good sense is the genius humanity." GRACCHUS. THE BISHOPS.— The bishops, as a body, stand con- victed of hypocrisy in bewailing the spiritual destitution of tbe people, while they are themselves rolling in riches to which they cling with unrelaxing grasp : aud the idea of purifying the Establishment by reform within, is de monstrated to be " a mockery, a delusion, and snare!" THE DEATH OF THE PAUPER CHILD. THE direst physical evils may derive relief, however little that relief, from kindness. Wounded and lacerated hearts are soothed expressions of sympathy. He must surely be an ill- condi- tioned being who is gratuitously harsh to those whom misery has already used badly enough. Violent in invective, scowling of brow, grim and snarling as a roused tiger- cat, there are men such as these placed in authority who, instead of softening the penury of the poor by charity of word or look, and irompted by that heaven- born kindness which makes misery learable to those who would violate the sanctities of life, urge on their awful despair by harshness, and gratuitous unkind- ness, till the portionless man, impatient under the many ills fallen upon his head, is driven to the brink of suicide, though few suicides are numbered among the starving. There are outrages committed upon human feelings whieh, combined with destitution, add to the magnitude of that an- guish which corrodes the souls of the poor. There are things felt by them with more poignancy aud keenness that, while they share feelings common with people of more refined sen- timent, the latter never know the pain of foodless families. The heart of the mother is the same, all the world over. It throbs, it beats, it rejoices, and it is wrung with mortal fears for her offspring, when incidental illness falls upon it. None but the poor, however, know what it is to be bereaved of their children, not by the hand of death, but by the fiat of the parish guardians. None but the denizens of the workhouse are deprived of those they love. Strong walls separate the mother from the child, and the holiest sentiments, the maternal love aud the child's reciprocal endearments, are extinguished for ever within the union bastile. Who can j udge of the pangs of parting, the absorbiug fear that haunts the pauper mother regarding the infant that may be weak, sickly, or dying ? Here is what a mother says when giving evidence among a number of others before the Morning Chronicle correspondent. With a feeling of repugnance which speaks highly for the noble woman's feelings, after an order to enter into the workhouse with her children had been given her, she remained out five weeks, so great was her dread, her insuperable dislike to this alternative. At last au absolute state of starvation compelled her to go. She had three children, to them she sacrificed her refiued feelings. The first was seven, the secqpd three, and she carried au infant in her arms. " The children were taken and separated," says the poor mother, " and then, oh ! my God ! what I felt, no tongue can teU." The simple pathos of such ev. dence as this cannot be exceeded by a million of those gen- teel miseries which grotesquely mark the small powers of en- durance exhibited by so many in the upper class of life. We think there is something painfully affecting aud singu- larly inhuman in that harsh law which, as the only chance for food, stipulates that, husband, wife, and child, must be parted. The man who elaborated it must have been possessed of admirable insensibility to the pleadings of nature. It is not, alter all, so marvellous, that there are men to be found ex- cellently well adapted for carrying out this law to tbe very letter. These remarks have been called forth by our perceiving iu the correspondence column of the Weekly Dispatch not a month back, a letter addressed to the editor, and stating a case of such cold- blooded, deliberate, and unnecessary cruelty, that we think too much publicity cannot be given to it, and, not- withstanding that Mr. Chadwick, the advocate of" harshness" iu a workhouse, may approve of it, though we think even he would join in censure here, we feel bound to condemn in the strongest terms. " 1 Had three nephews," writes the correspondent referred to,' in the Union at Canterbury, whose mother died last August. Their grandmother hearing by accident that one of them, two years and a half of age was very ill, went to the union in hopes of seeing him, when she was told that the governor was at dinner, and she could not see him. After waiting an hour and a half, the beli of the union began to toll, and a man coming out, told her that it was tolling for her grandson. She then applied to see the child, but was told by the matron ( good worthy Soul, this we may say by parenthesis) that she could not until the morrow. She called agaiu, and was denied seeing the childI but was told she could see it when the funeral took, place! She begged to be allowed to see him." Imagine, reader, au old grandmother with those overpowering feelings of love struggling in her aged bosom, such as grandmothers so amply possess,— imagine lier weeping her old eyes blind, aud with folded bands entreating to see tlie little corpse, all that • was left of him, who must have been so dear to her, and the uuctuous politeness combined with official austerity with which she was heard. " She begged to be allowed to see him,— she being au old woman" ( a strong human's reason this), " and very troubled to get there, as she lived a mile or more from the place; but it was denied her .'" Further steps were taken by the correspondent, who went to the mayor, aud that gentleman, thinking as a matter of courtesy, that a note written to the governor might work the desired effect, wrote it. " We were treated worse than before," continues the letter. " The go- vernor of the union told my mother that he was surprised! She had been to the mayor,— that she might see him at the time appointed, and not before.'" The worthy mail 1 Yes, when the dead child was being borne to his sordid rest- ing- place, where he would again be resolved into the great universe, and claim kindred with the dust of kings, she might see him— but not before!— not an hour— not an instant! So exact was this man, who deserves promotion similar to that ot" Hainan, and who will be petted as a " model" governor of a workhouse. Thus do the social outcasts of life perish!— die— not on the bosoms they long for and love 1— not in the circling arms of friend, or parent, or kindred of any kind,— but on the grim and revolting bed of the parish workhouse do they yield the breath God gave them; with no soft and gende voice " breathing low" some solemn words of hope aud comfort in their ears, and lift- ing up the bruised spirit— overborne by the billows of death— with sublime cousolaiious drawn from the solemn scriptures,— no, not so: but like mere animals herding togetner iu one stye, brutified into oblivious recklessness— or appalled with the hor- rible dread oppressing those who die and make no sign— the pauper perishes, thus disregarded, and the parish is " re- lieved 1" Sad condition of things 1 Had this governor, with his heart of stone aud his sluggish blood, which could not be warmed by the genial heat of humanity;— or this matron, who became at last so far accustomed to see death busy around, that the best feelings of her sex were altogether petrified, every; human vestige swept away,— had they but thought for a moment that death might overtake them in a guise as dark, they would have listened to the old grandmother. CO REYNOLDS'S POLITICAL INSTRUCTOR. 69 A FEW WORDS ON THE NEWSPAPER PRESS. As one who has for some years laboured in the field of political redemption, I experience unmingled pleasure at the appearance of the " POLITICAL INSTRUCTOR," among the literature of the day. Tbe want ofa cheap, but at the same time, an able and fearless periodical, devoted to de- mocracy, has long been felt by the friends of that cause; and this desideratum is now supplied. Be it remembered that the weakest part of our agitating phalanx has always been our Press. For, with tbe exception of the Northern Star, ever our faithful and uncompromising ally, and occasionally an ephemeral and short- lived periodical, we have derived hut little advantage from this great power which might be converted into the mightiest engine of civilization. On the contrary, everything that unblushing misrepresentation and malicious calumny could devise has been resorted to, in order to render our aims odious and their realization abortive. We have had, in the pursuit of our holy purpose of human exaltation, frequently to bear the virulence of Whig and Tory Attorney- Generals; the blasting, the misery- engendering influence of their vile pimps and panders,— their Griffins, Powells, and Davises; we have had our ears stunned with Parliament- ary, Forensic, and Clerical phillippies, against our doctrines and practices; but these were as a mole- hill to Olympus, compared with the rabid and base antagonism of most of our would- be daily and weekly Mentors of public opinion. We must counteract the malversation of the Press on the part of our enemies, by a wise and truthful application of its powers on our own side. We must supply an antidote to that poison which it labours with so much zeal to instil into the public mind; and the most potent means of effecting this is through the agency of cheap and talented periodicals. The newspaper press of this country, generally, appears to me to be radically and irremediably corrupt. It is ever thwarting the path of progress, and throwing obloquy upon all who pursue it. It venally panders to the prejudice of . party and veers with the caprice of faction. We find it always prepared to palliate or justify every aggression made upon the people's rights, while it fulminates the thunders of its indignation against the demands of reason and justice. It is ever ready with outstretched hand to wreath with laurels the brows of the tyrant; while it evinces equal alacrity to goad with the lash the backs of the oppressed. There is not a good man in England who has read the Times, Post, Chronicle, and Standard, " cum multis aliis," during the last two memorable years of revolution, but must have felt himself disgusted with the ruffianism of their policy. Tbe requirements of truth, the dictates, of honour, and the impulses of humanity, were all thrown aside as so many lumbering impediments to their mendacious and infamous career. Nations rise in the grandeur of their might to subvert the hellish dominion of their oppressors: their motives are libelled, their conduct is maligned, and their movements are falsified. The peo ple triumph, and straightway the Press is plunged into weeping and wailing at the result. The tyrant triumphs, and the hallelujahs of that same treacherous, unprincipled Press, ring through the world 1 A holocaust of victims is offered up at the sanguinary shrine of a tyrant; our Whig and Tory press, with all imaginable nonchalance, represents it as a matter of state necessity, and an instance of that laudable promptitude and energy which should always distinguish the exercise of authority. Woman,— helpless woman,—" O Shame ! where is thy blush ?" is savagely and publicly scourged to appease the brutal cravings of the tyrant for vengeance; and our great Mentors of aristocratic mind and feeling, see nothing for reprehension in the atrocity 11 Thank God, although the Aristocracy of England may participate, with our great journalists, in entertaining these brutal notions,— the mind, heart, and s » ul of the British people shrink from them with loathing and abhorrence. These observations must not be understood as applied to the Newspaper press in its entirety. There are some honourable exceptions; amongst which I must particu- larise the Weekly Dispatch, the Morning Advertiser, the Sun, the Sunday Times, the Weekly News, the Standard of Freedom, & c., & c. But I think it maybe confidently affirmed, that for genuine sympathy with popular griev- ances and an ardent desire for their removal, by establish- ing the reign of right, we may look almost in vain to the newspaper press as it now exists. We find a portion of this press professing a belief in the truth of our political creed, namely: the People's Charter; but they invariably discover something in our procedure to condemn, and to warrant them in holding aloof from us. They secure for • themselves a sort of character for liberality by the mere recognition of our principles, but carefully abstain from the support of any movement calculated to carry them on to a successful issue. This left- handed, soulless support is worthy of no other consideration than contempt. We find also that another portion of our political tutors, who would be considered par excellence the friends of the people, never let slip an opportunity of throwing dis- paragement upon tbe sacred cause of Chartism and true I Democracy. There is a very bumble journal known by the very pompous name of The Tribune, the writers in which arrogate to themselves an importance to which I, for one, take the liberty of refusing them the right. I find in a recent number of this paper the deliberate false- hood stated that Mr. O'Connor foisted himself upon the recent Irish Conference contrary to his express engage- ment with the convenors of that body. Such dirty devices to injure a public man cannot be too indignantly repre- hended. The vigorous attempt now being made to revive • the agitation for the Charter has not escaped the gibes and jeers of these " wise men of the west." The sage opinion of these Nestors, recently delivered with oracular gravity, is, that Feargus O'Connor, G. W. M. Reynolds, and those who act with them, are incompetent to the task of leading or directing a political movement. Now I would suggest to these gentlemen the desirability sf their setting their own houses in order before they find fault with the arrangements of their neighbours. They would do more wisely in remedying their own notorious ineffi- ciency, than in reading objurgatory lectures to men, who, whatever may be their deficiencies, will not resort to the Solons of The Tribune for lessons of sound or discreet policy. JUNIUS. THE SOCIAL SYSTEM. THE NATIONAL REFORM LEAGUE. THB Association is founded for the advancement, by legal means, of the people's rights, liberties, and interests. The office is at No. 7i, Newman Street; and we are happy to be enabled to state that numerous members have al- ready been enrolled there. From the Prospectus put forth by the League, we select the ensuing passage:—" Society exists, and is maintained, through the medium and opera- tion of certain governing and binding powers and principles, to which authority has been delegated, or conceded, by the people at large. These powers and principles are com- prehended under the terms ecclesiastical, political, and social, economy— the three most important departments of human life; and, reasoning from the analogies of other departments of nature, it may be assumed that they are therefore the latest in reaching their allotted degree of perfectibility. It being, moreover, a law of nature, that humanity acquires truth aud wisdom progressively, aud that it is impelled to make the necessary efforts for their acquisition chiefly by the evil experiences of error and folly, all human institutions are necessarily liable to changes and alterations in the course of time; from which we infer that no people have a right to lay down, as irrevocable, the ecclesiastical, political, or social, principles of their own generation— far less, of the generations which shall suc- ceed them; _ even admitting that, at any given period of history, their institutions may have been suited to the particular phases of truth and wisdom developed at that period. It being, further, a law of nature that mind shall rule matter, the governing powers and principles in any age or country must be the true exponents of tbe aggregate mental and moral powers of the people in that particular age or country. From history, aud from present experi- ence, we learn that political and social institutions cannot be maintained without being more or less under the control or influence of ecclesiastical polity, and the dominant re- ligious sentiments of the people. But it is not necessary that a definition of political and social rights should ba preceded by the declaration of a religious creed, because no just system or political, or social, economy can be in opposition to trui religious principles— whether those principles be based upon* traditional, scriptural, or philo- sophical, grounds. Neither true religion, nor true moral- ity, can exist in practice under a false system of political and social laws; and religious, political, and social institu- tions must be considered as being mutually dependent upon each other in their capabilities of effecting their genuine purpose— the promotion of the happiness of man. The efforts of an enlightened people, aroused to a due sense of the evils and deficiencies of the present state of society, and anxious to improve their social condition, should manifestly be first directed to the production ot unity of opinion as to the precise nature of the reforms necessary to effect that purpose, and how best to secure them; because, without that unity of opinion, unity of action, in ulterior measures, cannot be expected. The COUNCIL OP THE NATIONAL REFORM LEAGUE have, there- fore resolved to publish the following FUNDAMENTAL PRO- POSITIONS, with a desire of testing to what extent the pub- lic— especially the unfranchised classes— are prepared to them into earnest and serious consideration at the present critical period of the world's history— a period fraught with imminent danger to all Europe; because that great problem, ' the relation of property to labour,' is yet unsolved; and because, as has been forcibly observed by a great authority— the Times newspaper—' Wealth and numbers threaten long aud fearful collision. The many are busy iu inquiring by what law of nature, by what behest of heaven, by what rule of common good, by what debt of antiquity, the soil, the money, the privilege, the dignity, the power of the State, should be shut up in the hands of a few, and those few so unworthy of the honour, and incapable of the trust.' Political and social anomalies, like those deplored in the above passage, canuot much longer be maintained by class- legislation, even with all its usurped power of the sword and dungeon; and how best to remove them become a subject of the deepest import to the existing generation." The fundamental propositions of the League may be thus summed up: — " That mere organic, financial, or fiscal reforms of society, even if founded on the most democratic or liberal basis, as already tested in Europe and America, have hitherto failed and must ever fail, to ensure the substantial comfort and well- being of the people— because such reforms are, of themselves, incapable of removing certain social evils consequent upon a false estimation of the principal rights and duties of man, con- sidered as an individual, and as a member of society. That nature has provided every man, in his normal condition, with physical and mental powers, by the free exercise of which, upon, or through, the spontaneous gifts of Providence, he is enabled to supply the physical requirements of his being: every individual, therefore, has a just right to protest against all political laws or social regulations, even if sanctioned; by a majority of his fellows, which may tend, either wholly or in part— either directly or indirectly— to interfere with the free exercise of his powers in the pursuit of the means of conserv- ing his existence, and promoting his happiness: provided that, ' in such pursuit, he duly recognise and respect the equal right of every other individual to the same privilege. That it being a natural ordination that the principal requirements of man's well- being can only be obtained by LABOUR, any political or social law which injuriously interferes to prevent the produc- tion, or the equitable distribution of wealth, or any conven- tional arrangement which partitions society into artificial castes, classes, or grades, and endows some of those classes with privileges by which they are enabled to participate in the wealth produced by useful industry, without being necessitated to perform useful labour or service in return,— canuot be re- cognised under a just system; because no portion of mankind can rationally be entitled to enjoy the fruits of the industry of others without yielding to them ail equivalent; unless such non- producing portion of society receive a special exempition on account of age, incapacity, or disease." THE wealth of a country is the product of the manual labour of its artizrans and peasants. The classes above them are en- gaged either in distributing or in enjoying that wealth. This country is richer than other countries, because it employs more industry on productive works. Now, it results from our de- fective social arrangements, that the more wealth is produced, the greater is the danger that distress shall fall upon numbers of those who have created that wealth. And this the political economists call " over- production." But the real test of over- production should be, not the state of the market, but the wants of the community. The object of all labour is to mi- nister to human wants. As long as any of these are unsup- plied, the assertion that too much work has been done is a sole- cism of the strangest kind. Thousands of ill- clad wretches are shivering in the wintry blast; and you inform them, that one cause of their misery is the superabundant manufacture of cloth! This, the self- complacent argument of opulence, finds ready acceptance with the affluent landholder, and the comfortable burgher; but sounds very like bitter mockery to the artizan with the workhouse in perspective. The science of political economy, in its present state, is an elaborate attempt to strengthen the actual social system, by representing the principles on which it is founded as im- mutable laws of Providence. But the uncontemplated result has been, the laying bare those principles in all their native deformity. Political economists, far from convincing men that the laws they so zealously expound are the laws of God, have- unwittingly brought oil themselves a crushing answer from facts themselves: for if the principles of their science; stern and inhuman as all but the interested must admit them, be really the inevitable results of the social system as at present consti- tuted, then the system itself is condemned in the eyes of all but those who flourish on its injustice; in the eyes of all to- whom it is stern aud inhuman : and these form the great majority. The ground is, therefore, now cleared for the moral struggle between the minority and the majority. The minority con- tending for the exclusive privileges ; the majority, for the uni- versal rights of man, and the happiness of all. The political economists are not the first advocates who, by proving too much, have saved the opposite side half the trouble of arguing. The discreetest pleader, undertaking a cause rotten to the core finds it very difficult to produce any but a damaging argu- ment. And such has been the case with tbe political econo- mists when arguing on competition, as well as over- production. Competition is good on a race- course; but very disastrous the foundation of a social system. The true end of union among men is not the institution of a lottery with many blanks and few prizes ; but tbe happiness of all. Competition is selfish; and a system founded on selfishness cannot produce good fruits. Competition crushes the weak, favours the strong. Its tendency is to deaden the kindly sympathies of human nature; to excite envy, ill- will, uncharitableness between man and man. In tiie community where competition reigns para- mount, Christianity can be but a meaningless profession; for Christianity is the abnegation, competition the apotheosis of selt; What can the precept, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," mean for the man whose whole soul is intent on the endeavour to snatch the bread from his neighbour's mouth f How can we love one another when acquisition by one is loss to another; when our whole social life is a battle, each for himself, and each against all 1 If Christianity shall ever be realized, it will be when mea have discovered that to be happy they must act on its pre- cepts, not merely repeat them by rote ; that love, not rivalry, must be the foundation of a truly prosperous society ; that union, not division, is strength. The strong will then use their strength, not to crush the weak, but to strengthen and to succour; the energies, now worse than wasted on a thou- sand clashing objects, will be directed to the accomplishment of one great end, the common good; aud harmoDy will reign where now all is discord and confusion. But, if this be nothiug better than a pleasant dream ; if the reign of competition is to be coeval with human society, then farewell all hope for the poor aud the toilworn 1 Free trade, constitutions, charters, all are powerless to reach the seat of the great disease. If men can unite to erect bridges, to construct railroads— aye, and to destroy one another in war, but not to make one another happy, then indeed is the history of human progress well- nigh closed, and the regeneration of man is a vaiu hope. Men must reap even as they sow. While society is founded ou selfishness, the results can be no other than mean, cruel, unchristian. And thus founded will society remain so long as the oligarchy holds the paramount influence in the State aud the millions are unrepresented. But sooner or later, the upper classes must resign them- selves to the surrender of their monopoly of political power. The main defence ot' this monopoly lies in the alleged ignorance anil debasemeut of the unrepresented. But, iu the- first place, this argument, like a two- edged sword, cuts mors ways than one. If the poorer classes are really ignorant and degraded, it is under the rule of the upper that they are so: out of its own mouth, theu, is the oligarchy condemned. In the second place, this plea, to be admitted, must be urged in good faith. If it be any other thau a subterfuge, the educated classes must prove their sincerity, by at onco- making the avowal, that they hold the monopoly of power- only until, by their exertions, the ignorance of the unrepre- sented shall have been dispelled so far as to render that safe, which now would be dangerous. Any other course must prove that danger to class privileges, not to the State, is the evil really apprehended from Universal Suffrage. But the education of the people is resisted and postponed; their demand to be admitted within the pale of the constitution, when peaceful, is treated with silent contempt; when more energetic, met by poiuting to a devoted army aud a well- drilled police. The ignorance of the people is made an argument against them; while nothing is done to. prevent that argument from being as good a hundred years hence as it is now. IRISH BISHOPS versus IRISH PAUPERS.— From a state- ment prepared in 18' 32, it appeared that ten Irish Bishops of the Established Church hud left in personal property, exclu- sive of real estates, 1,375,0001., or an average of 157,5002. each. The Bishop or Clogher went to Iruland without a shilling, and, after eight years, died worth 400,0002.1 This, too, iu a country where there are above two millions of paupers, and the wages of the mass are but sixpence a- day; aud to which, since 184.5, there lias been paid out of the Imperial Exche- quer iu various ways, for the relief of distress, 8,032,400/., of which sum 288,0002. only has been repaid. Well might Mr. Macaulay denounce such a church as " the most utterly absurd and indefensible of all the institutions now existing in the civilized world 1" REViNOLPS'S POLITICAL INSTRUCTOR. 61 A NEW HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAPTER. VII. JOHN. JOHN, born in 1166, was the youngest son of Henry and Eleanor, and succeeded to the throne upon the death of Richard, in 1199. Ia this case, the laws of primogeniture, as they are held valuable by some, and upon which such great stress is laid by English jurists, were not simply violated: they were broken asunder without the shadow of legitimate excuse. The true successor ought to have been Arthur, Duke of Brittany, son of Geoffrey of Anjou; but John, before Richard's return, had made the barons swear to recognise him as the legitimate successor; and Richard had afterwards taken no pains to settle this in- tricate affair. Arthur, who was only twelve years of age, was, from his want of interest, incapable of opposing John; but a few of the barons of Normandy and Brittany espousing his cause, and Philip, to further his own de- signs, taking the prince under his protection, it was sup- posed that Arthur would yet reign over England. After Richard's death, John passed over to England with so much rapidity and despatch, and his presence awing the refractory barons; while three or four great earls, archbishops, and the Justiciary Fitz- Peter deciding for him, he was put in possession of the throne. John having succeeded thus far, gave at first indications of promptness in following up his first advantage. He went at the head of his forces to France in order to con- duct the war against Philip, and to obtain those provinces which had accepted Arthur as their ruler. The selfish character of Philip aided John more than anything else ; for, while assisting Arthur, his cupidity forced it to ap- pear that his own interests were only the sole and real aim, and terms of peace with England were entered into, by which Arthur's interests were sacrificed. In erder to cement this the more firmly, John's niece, Blanche of Castile, was given in marriage to Lewis, Philip's eldest son, and eighteen barons of England and France became the sureties for this treaty— a mere cobweb ! John, in the plenary uses ef his powers, gave full play to his licentious passions. He had cast an eye upon Isabella, daughter of the Count of Angouleme; and that exemplary father not heeding that John was already married to one of the family of Gloucester, carried off his own daughter. John, having procured a divorce, wedded her, very much to the credit of a time that was full of every coarse meanness which such men as John stamped upon the age that produced them. During his stay in France on this occasion, quarrels, tumults, and bloodshed were things of hourly occurrence. It was the custom of John to carry with him a number of hiredbravoes ready to fight the duel with any of the barons who uttered any complaints against the good king's blackguardism, till the Count de la Marche aud others cried out against this as an affront on their nobility, and drew upon their heads threats of John's vengeance in most unmeasured terms. During the years 1201 and 1202, the time was occupied in wars undertaken against Philip and Arthur. The latter had joined the French camp, which began hostilities in earnest. Arthur was knighted by the king, was es- poused to his duughter Mary ( Philip's motives for ag- grandizement and of self- interest will intrude themselves . upon notice), and was invested with Brittany and several other French counties. Philip was a better soldier than John, because he was not a sottish drunkard, wassailing one night, and sleeping off his debauch the next day to hear of the loss of a garrison, or a few hundred men slain. Personal danger, however, rouses the courage of a coward. Even John advanced with an army of English and Bra- hancons, and came to the relief of his grandmother Eleanor, who was besiged at Mirabeau. This attack was so far fortunate for him, that he took Arthur prisoner, to- gether with the Count de la Marche, Geoffrey de Lusignan, and a number of his revolted barons. Arthur was im- prisoned at Falaise. This was in 1203. Upon an interview which John had with his nephew, he found that the spirit of the youth was somewhat too dominant to be agreeable to him. Like the " best of cut- throats" as he was, he resolved upon despatching his help- less prisoner, diplomacy having failed. William de la Bray— we record this name because the reply ought to be commemorated, De la Bray said, upon being re- quested to commit a murder upon Arthur, that " he was a gentleman, not a hangman, and would not meddle in any such filthy business." Hubert de Bourg, John's chamberlain, was next assailed with a glittering tempta- tion, and replied—" Yes," but temporized. John could teach cruelty well enough, and his pupils learned their lesson well too; but Hubert was a bit of a politician, and imagined that it would be better, as the Bretons loved young Arthur, to lie to the king, and keep his hands clear of murder. This was discovered, and John removed his prisoner to ltouen. In the dead of the night, ac- companied by every tragic horror that could appal a young mind, Arthur was brought before John. Drunk, drivelling, and blasphemous, foaming like a wild boar, tbe monster stabbed him with his own hands, and tying a stone to the poor youth's body, flung it into the Seine. We remember that Shakspere gives a much finer version of Arthur's death than this— unfortunately we are not reading his wondrous pages : we are surrounded by several historians, and they say what we repeat. Shaks- pere is magnificent; but history is very austere. For our part we believe this account to be strictly true. This deed struck the hearts of all men with horror, be- cause Arthur was so well- known to all, and John was regarded with utter detestation— a detestation that clung to him through life, as being a merely gratuitous and mo- tiveless assassin. This murder brought him in no re- ward ; for the Bretons chose another for their sove- reign, ar. d showed such a determined front for war that John was appalled, and upon representation was solemnly summoned to cotne before Philip— he being a vassal to the French crown for certain fiefs— in order to be tried; but John dared not to appear: he was therefore declared guilty of felony and parricide, and was adjudged to for- feit all his French seigniories and fiefs, and finally to be expelled from the French provinces. In 1207, John, to add to his ill- luck, had a most serious quarrel with the court of Rome, but as this more properly belongs to ecclesiastical history, we omit any detail of it, with the exception of those portions which relate to the history of the realm. Hubert, Archbishop of Canterbury, being dead, the canons proceeded to nominate another, and sent him to Rome in order to re- ceive his confirmation at the hands of the Pope. Stephen Langton, a cardinal, was appointed; and John, enraged at this, as it thwarted his own designs, raved and stormed with great energy and force; but the consequence was — and a fearful consequence it proved to be to the people— that the Pope laid England under an interdict. The four rings, which Innocent the Pope sent him pre- viously, with all their wonderful allegory, failed to move John." John defied the Pope, as the Pope threatened, by ". God's teeth!" which was no more in effect than the mere drivelling of a drunkard who pours out his exple- tives in his cups, but stirs never a foot to ward off the danger menacing him. The consequences of the interdict we shall extract from the historiau's own words. The picture is one over which thoughtful men will muse. " The sentence of interdict was at that time the great instrument of vengeance and policy employed by the court of Rome, was denounced against sovereigns for the slightest offences, and made the guilt of one person in- volve the ruin of millions, even in their spiritual and enter- nal welfare. The execution of it was calculated to strike the senses in the highest degree, and to operate with irre- sistible force on the superstitious minds of the people. The nation was of a sudden deprived of all exterior exercise of its religion; the altars were despoiled of their ornaments: the crosses, the reliques, the images, the statues of the saints, were laid on the ground; and as if the air itself were profaned, and might pollute them by its contact, the priests carefully covered them up, even from their own approach and veneration. The use of bells entirely ceased in all the churches; the bells them- selves were removed from the steeples, and laid on the ground with the other sacred utensils. Mass was cele- brated with shut doors, and none but the priests were admitted to that holy institution. The laity partook of no religious rite, except baptism to new- born infanta, aud the communion to the dying: the dead were not in terred in consecrated ground; they were thrown into ditches, or buried in common fields; and their obsequies were not attended with prayers or any hallowed cere- mony. Marriage was celebrated in the churchyards; and that every action in life might bear the marks of this dreadful situation, the people were prohibited the use of meat, as in Lent, or times of the highest penance; were debarred from all pleasures and entertainments, and even to salute each other, or so much as to shave their beards, and give any decent attention to their per- son and apparel. Every circumstance carried symptoms of the deepest distress, and of the most immediate appre- hension of divine vengeance aud indignation." The consequences of this interdict were threatening to John. He endeavoured to alleviate it by expeditions against Scotland, Ireland, and Wales; and to a small extent succeeded, more by means of his mercenaries and the weakness of those he attacked, than from any love or aid his subjects afforded him. He was forced to come to the most abject terms with the court of Rome; for the interdict at last went on to Excommunication, and deposal began to be spoken of. He therefore tried policy, and made over the kingdom to Innocent, in order to receive it back again as a vassal to the court of Rome, by reversing the custom of investiture. He ac- cepted Langton ( who ought to be considered as one of the great fathers of English liberty, because he first gave men the idea of the Magna Charta) as primate, and finally, on the 20th July, 1213, he crawled in the dust before the Pope's legate and dignitaries of the church, — repentant, confessing, and swearing: and then fell back into his old courses, till the voices of his barons, calling out for their charter, called hiin back again from his path of riot and debauchery. Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, a man of talent and foresight— seeing the evils that in this most mon- strous reign were eating up the people, called the atten- tion of the nobles to a charter drawn up by Henry I, which he had found in a monastery; aud exhorted them to insist upon its renewal A confederation rapidly spread abroad among the barons, and a numerous meet- ing was summoned by Langton, to meet at St. Edmonds- bury tho next November. Here the Archbishop ad- dressed them with such zeal and eloquence, that the dread which they felt against John, as against some hideous monster, whose weakness being exposed, made him no longer feared, vanished. They took oath before the altar, to assist and be faithful to each other, and to make war upon tho king till their demands were granted. On the 6th of January, 1215, after the festival of Christmas, they appeared iu London— demanded of John a renewal of Henry's Charter, and a confirmation of the laws of Edward the Confessor. The king asked for a delay till Easter— gave sureties for the fulfilling his en- gagements— and the barons returned to their castles. As this proceeding was an innovation upon the ponti- fical power, and threatened to injure very materially the interests of the church, John thought that no better opportunity could offer itself than this, and he conse- quently sought aid from the spiritual arm. Pope Innocent, upon John's representations, wrote letters to king and nobles exhorting the one to be moderate, and the other, conciliating. It will be seen that Archbishop Langton in his zeal ou behalf of liberty, did some injnry to the unlimited rule which the church always assumed. He does not deserve our grateful remembrance the less for that. On the festival of Easter, two thousand knights and retainers, headed by Robert Fitzwalter, assembled at Stamford, and advanced towards Oxford, where John then held his court. From thence they sent a schedule of their demand to the king, who cursed, and swore, and foamed with impotent rage; but seeing that neither might or right was upon his side, he agreed to hold a conference with them at Runnymede, a place between- Windsor and Staines. On the 19th of June, the king signed and sealed the Great Charter, which has become the basis of civil and religious liberty to an extent un- known in any other kingdom of the world. To detail the whole of the advantages there granted to the barons, which advantages were perpetuated from generation to generation, each new admission forming a precedent to another— would far exceed the space allowed us: we may, however, generalize a few. Freedom of election was granted. The feudal laws- relating lo vassalge and serfage were in some cases ab- rogated and in others abolished. Humanity for a few moments seems to have dawned upon these bold, daring, though untutored men, and the people benefitted largely thereby. One weight and measure was to be established throughoutthe kingdom. Merchantswereallowed to trade- without being subject to these tyrannic proceedings whielr so much crippled commerce. All towns and cities were to preserve their liberties. No officer of the crown was to use a man's goods or cattle without leave of the owner. No freemau to be imprisoned or outlawed save by judgment of his peers. Every fine must be pro- portioned to the fault; and a rustic is not to be de- prived of his implements of industry in default of pay- ing such fine. * We must admire the moderation of these undaunted- men, who with swords in their hands, and now masters of the realm, that they did not demand more from one frightened into any concessions they chose. Goaded by oppressions, — insulted by a drivelling tyrant,— their families dishonoured by his amours, with many other causes of hatred and dislike, their forbearance in an age of retaliation, speaks well of the new and enlight- ened sentiment which hau been infused into them by their master- mover Langton. It would have cost them but a small effort to have deposed or beheaded John. They did neither. The passiveness, the facility, so mueh to be distrusted, with which John complied with all these demands, ought to have aroused the suspicions of the barons. John dis- sembled, even while lie sent orders to confirm all the grants he was compelled to make. Sullen, dogged, and reserved, he retired to the Isle of Wight, where he se- cretly concerted measures for making a bloody retali- ation upon those who had thus forced him to a submission he considered to be disgraceful and debasing. Nothing, however, could debase such a man lower than where he had plunged himself. Lost to the decencies of life, he seemed to wallow in its filth with more enjoyment than he felt beneath his kingly robes. He now engaged all the foreign cut- throats he could gather ou the continent by means of his emissaries. He sent a copy of the Charter to the Pope, who excommu- nicated many of his barons by name; and, finally, the barons having been lulled into a fatal security, he tra- versed the land from one end to the other, destroying, devastating, burning, and killing all before him. Reduced to a most desperate condition, the barons ia 1216 found themselves compelled to call in the assistance of the French prince, Lewis, son of Philip, as he was wedded to Blanche, granddaughter of the second Henry. The young prince accepted the offer; and his appear- ance in England was the signal for most of John's mer- cenaries to desert him, they refusing to fight against the heir of their monarchy. It was found, however, that though Lewis aided the English barons to a singular degree, his French prejudices were as likely to be inju- rious to them as John's tyranny was. John was there- fore beginning to regain his half- lost cause, but while determining to fight one more great battle for his crown, passing by the sea- shore from Lynn to Lincolnshire, he lost, by an inundation, all his ammunition, baggage, and regalia. Bloated and diseased with excesses, this vexa- tious loss aggravated his sickness, and reaching the Castle of Newark, lie died tkere on the 17th October, 1216, in the forty- ninth year of his age, and in the eighteenth of his reign; thus freeing the world from one who had been an incarnate fiend from his cradle to his grave. lie left two legitimate sons, Henry and Richard, and three daughters, one of whom married Alexander of Scotland; another was wedded to Simon de Montfortj and the third to the Emperor Frederick the Second. His illegitimate issue was numerous, but none became of any note. A complication of every vice that was mean aud base; his odious character stained with every atrocity, not to be outdone by the deeds of any mis- creant who has died the dog's- death on the gallows, he was the greatest curse to his people that, perhaps, was ever unfortunate enough to be possessed of power. Guilty of a thousand evil deeds, there is not the remotest ray of good to redeem the blackness of his inhuman nature from the most sweeping condemnation. John appears before us in no better light than that of a drunken ruffian, staggering in garments of " Cra- moisy velvet," all mottled with wine stains. From the time that his beard first began to grow, the grossest licentiousness marked his moral character, while cruelty, cowardice, treachery, aud ingratitude stamped those at- tributes, which, if we may be allowed such an expression, we call the physical. Sensual, and bestial, his seventeen, years'reign is a chronicle of vice and degradation. The Charter, for which we may thank Langton and the barons, is the only star shining in the murky gloom of the second Plautagenet's reign. EDWIN ROBERTS. : WHO PAYS THE TAXES?— Mr. Robert Montgomery Mai- till has calculated, that of fifty millions of taxes, two millions and a half of rich people nay 11,530,000?.; tight millions ot the middle classes pay 25,440,000!.; aud fourteen millions of, the workiug classes pay 18,030,000!. 62 REYNOLDS'S POLITICAL INSTRUCTOR. 69 THE RISE, PROGRESS, AND PHASES OF HUMAN SLAVERY: HOW IT CAME INTO THE WORLD, AND HOW IT SHALL BE MADE TO GO OUT. LETTER VII. HAVING seen how firmly rooted was the institution of direct human slavery in the public opinion of the ancient world, let us now inquire what was tbe potent force or combina- tion of forces which subverted that opinion, and which operated the mighty changes that afterwards took place, in the social relation of man to man ? By these changes we mean the manumission of the slave- class— the conse- quent formation of proletarianism— and in course of time, the universal substitution of indirect or disguised, for direct or personal slavery,— an order of things which has ever since prevailed; and which, at the moment we write, imposes upon the vast majority of every " civilized" country a bondage more gallingand intolerable than was the personal servitude of man to man under the ancient system. It will be readily comprehended what a potent agency was requisite, and what sacrifices must have been incurred, to subvert a social order so deeply implanted in the habits, prejudices, and even convictions of the whole world. To produce such effect, only the most potent causes, only the most powerful influences known to act upon human nature, could suffice. What were these? Religion and Sell- interest. For, not to encumber ourselves with subdivisions of causes, suffice it to say, that two overwhelming ones brought the change. One about the Christian dispensation, which gradually revolutionized public opinion amongst the slave- class, and among the pious and benevolent of the master- class; the other was of the gross and worldly kind, coming from quite the opposite direction, yet concurring to the same end : it was the force of selfishness. This force it was, which, operating by calculations of profit and loss upon the mass of worldly- minded slave- owners, taught them, if not instinctively, at least by practical experience, that their bondmen might be made more servile and pro- fitable slaves for them, without the name, than any that ever bore the name. The former, or sublime Christian cause, would, had it been allowed to operate freely and unalloyed with worldly selfishness, have extinguished human slavery of every form and degree from the face ot the earth. The latter, or less worldly cause, by turning the manumitted slaves into proletarians and mercenary drudges, only substituted a new and worse kind of slavery for the old. But before showing how the change was brought about, let us briefly compare the two kinds of slavery — the old and the new. Under the old system the slave was called by his right name— a slave. He was, to all intents and purposes, the property of his master. He was liable to be bought and sold, or otherwise disposed of, the same as cattle, sheep, bales of goods, oil, wine, or any other kind of merchandize. If he had a harsh or cruel master he was liable to all manijjr of ill treatment, including corporal punishment, aud even death itself. Of liberty or rights, of course he had none but what his master mightchoose to confer. Whatever wealth he might hoard or scrape together was at the mercy of his master; for as slaves were themselves but the property of their masters, whatever belonged to them belonged, by the same rule, to their owners. It is need less to argue in condemnation of such a system. It is self- condemned, in the very fact that human nature recoils from such a state, and that it is only bearable by those who know no better, and only preferable to the sort of mockery of freedom to which it has given place. Let it not, how- ever, be supposed that the evils of such a state were felt as we should now- a- days feel them, who have enjoyed the rights of liberty and conscience. It was quite otherwise. If the condition of direct slavery had its dark side, it had also its bright side,— bright, at least, in comparison with what has followed. The slave of antiquity was not in- sured with the name or mockery of freedom when he knew he had none. He had not the shadow hypocritically offered to him for the substance. He had not to upbraid his masters with dissimulation and treachery in addition to the burdens imposed upon him. He had not to com- plain that his master had robbed him, or defrauded him of rights, and of a position which belonged to him by the satore constitutional law by which the master claimed his own. Of these he could have known nothing, simply because they had never existed in or before his time. What men have never had, they can hardly be said to have ever lost; and what men have never lost, they can better beair the want of, than they can the loss of that which was once their's, and which they know and feel ought still to belting to them. In these respects the chattel- slaves of ancient and modern times, have greatly the advantage over the starving proletarian drudges, falsely called " free and independent labourers." But the ancient bondsmen had other and more substantial advantages unknown to his proletarian successors. He knew nothing of the actual wants and destitution; nothing of the manifold privations in which the great mass of the labouring classes, now- a- days live, move, and have their being. The very fact of his being his master's property caused, him to be always well- fed, well- housed, well- clothed, and well cared for, according to his condition and habits. If he had no pro- perty nor the right to acquire any, independently of his master's control, neither had he any rent or taxes to pay. nor any other claims nor demands upon him that were not all amply provided for at his master's expense. Food clothing, shelter, firing, medicine, medical care; these and every other essential requisite for keeping him in health and in good condition were abundantly supplied him by his master, for the master's own sake. Indeed, it was tbe master's interest to do so; for whether there was work fo the slave to do or not, it equally behoved the master to keep him always in good condition, that he might be the better workman when there was work for him to do, and that he might fetch a better price in the slave- market when his services were no longer wanted. Besides, it was the custom in those days for masters to take a pride in displaying the goodly state of their slaves,— of both their prtedial and domestic slaves, just as our modern gentry and graziers take a pride in displaying the stock upon their farms, the studs in their stables, and, above all, the plump and portly figures of their butlers, footmen, grooms, and all the other paraphernalia of modern flutikeyism. There Was, in those days, none of that desperate competition in vanity or in trade, which, now- a- days, makes starvelings of the millions in order to make millionaires of the thousands,— which ofl'er premiums for fat oxen, and the union workhouse to lean labourers, and which award prizes for bulls, and rams, and superior breeds of every description of brute ( not excluding even the stye and the kennel), while it degrades the human animal below the lowest description of savage man, and maintains its anti- christian pomp of circumstances for tbe few at the expense df blistering the backs and pinching the bellies of those who St. Paul said, should be " first partakers of the fruits." This kind of modern science was wholly un- known to the ancients. Not a line is there in the works of Homer, Hesiod, Plato, Aristotle, indeed, of any of the old poets, philosophers, ot historians, to show that they know anything of our modern science of political economy. They believed in slaves and in slavery; but they had 110 idea of enriching a master- class by famishing the bodies of those to whom the masters owed everything, much less did they ever dream that the wealth and aggrandisement of the master- class were to be promoted by the expatriation, de- cimation, or diminution of the slave- class, If the ancient Spartans occasionally decimated their slaves, it was not because they looked upon them as a " surplus population," burdensome upon their estates, but because they feared their growing numbers, while their own ranks were being continually thinned by internecine wars with their neigh- bours. The idea of a slave being a useless incumbrance, a mere incubus upon the soil, was an idea utterly incom- patible with their established custom of regarding slaves, not only as property, but as that superior description of property, which alone gave value to every other. Ac- cordingly, though, amongst the ancient philosophers we find many strange schools and sects, and very many eccentric and incomprehensible doctrines taught; yet, no- where do we meet with any sect or school corresponding with our modern political economists. There is no such philosopher as our Parson Malthus to be found in the whole circle of classic or biblical lore. Had such a fellow as Malthus shown himself in the days of Alexander the Great, and gone about preaching that the gods had sent too many mouths for the meat and harvests they had provided, not even Diogenes would associate with such a lunatic; and if the slaves bad only got scent of the ten- dencies of bis theory, not Alexander himself could, in all probability, have prevented them from flaying him alive. Fortunately for them, however, there were no Malthuses in the world at that time. In the absence of such phi- losopers, slaves were not only free to marry ; tid to beget children, but their masters actually regarded every increase in their slaves' families as a direct gain,— a direct increase of the most valuable portion of their property. The idea that at nature's feast there was no cover for the new comer, was, at that epoch, an idea that would be as abhorrent to the master's notions of self- interest, as it would have been to the slave's instincts of procreation and self- preservation. It is true, the condition of slaves was a deplorable one when they had such brutes for masters as Seneca describes in the person of Vedius Pollio. But we are to regard such extreme cases, as rare exceptions. All historic testimony goes to show that the general rule was in the other direc- tion. Even Seneca's testimony proves this; for in speak- ing of this very Vedius Pollio, he says, " Who does not detest this man, even more than did his own slaves, for fattening the fish in his ponds with human blood." The treatment of his gladiators Dy Lentulus Batiatus, is another indirect proof to the same effect. Had Lentulus trained his gladiators to appear in the arena in the usual way, to be matched against others on some great occasion of public games, & c., they would not have complained, much less rebelled. They would, in that case, but have been called upon to exercise a profession which was as familiar to the Romans, and as little distasteful to the combatants themselves, as that of prize- fighting in England, or bull- fighting in Spain But the brute Batiatus kept his gladia- tors locked up, and was professedly training them to fight with one another, till they should die by each other's hands— a destination which, while it promised certain death, held out no prospect of honour, eclat, nor even safety to the greater number. It was this studied bruta lity, so much out of the ordinary course, which pro voked the slaves to mutiny and revolt. And the fact of of its being the only recorded instance of gladiators rising in rebellion against the laws, is the best proof, that such barbarity was unusual and not sanctioned by the public opinion of the time. Indeed, so general appears to have been the contentment of ancient slaves with their lot, that only one or other of three causes is ever assigned by history for the servile outbreaks it records. First, ex- cessive cruelty on tbe part of masters. Second, the non- execution of the laws, regulating the labour and condition of slaves;— and. third, the Chiefs of parties raising and em- bodying them with their insurgent bands, in times of civil war. The fewness of the servile wars recorded as arising out of the two first causes, sufficiently testifies that harsh- ness on the part of masters, and the non- execution of the regulations in favour of the slaves, were but exceptions to the ordinary course of slave life, and not the general rule. It proves also that it was not against slavery itself the slaves rose, seeing that it was only what they con- sidered an abuse of it, and not the thing itself they rose against, and that even when victorious, they never set about abolishing the institution. And as to the third cause of slave- insurrections, it proves still more forcibly the general contentment of slaves with their lot. For had it been otherwise, only three slaves out of the whole papulation would not have responded to Marius's appeal for a general rising of their order. Still less would they have failed to profit by the splendid victories of Spartacus when had they only felt the sentiment of equality or enter- tained any dissatisfaction with their lot, as slaves, they might have effectually exterminated the whole master- class, and established whatever form of government and of social order they thought fit. Indeed, they had fre- quent opportunities during the last sixty years of the Republic, and also during the first century or two of the empire, to make a successful rising against the master- class, had they been inspired, generally, with a hatred of their servile condition. But it was not so. As a general rule, the slaves both of Greece and Rome, were fully reconciled to their condition, and had good reason to be so, considering how profoundly ignorant they were of the political conditions upon which alone real liberty can exist for the many. With their ideas and habits any attempt to emancipate themselves would but 1 have plunged them into deeper degradation and ruin. Even their masters— much less themselves— knew little of the laws and institutions by which liberty, with security and prosperity, can be established. The proof of this is their interminable wars with one another, and with their neighbours all around them. A still stronger proof is, their egregious folly in allowing agrarian monopoly and usury to make such frightful progress amongst them, that " free citizens" became actually greater slaves to money- lenders and land- monopolists than the slaves so- called; till at last the Republics of Greece and Rome were brought to such a state, that a military despotism alone could save them from tearing one another to pieces. When such universal ignorance and barbarity prevailed amongst the master- class,— an ignorance and barbarity that vir- tually left civil liberty and equality without any solid guarantees whatever,— it would be madness to expect that any revolution, useful to humanity, could have been effected by a still more ignorant slave- class. They would but have made confusion more confounded, and by alto- gether suspending production, annihilated society itself amid scenes of indescribable carnage and cannibalism. At all events, the slaves knew better than to make any such attempt. They preferred bearing the ills they had, to flying to those they knew not of. Without land or capital, and freedom to use them in security, they were infinitely better off'as slaves than they would be by any re- volution, howsoever successful, that did not give them these essential requisites. And seeing how the poorer classes of free citizens fared ( who had to make shifts to live without the use of land or capital), it is no wonder they clung so tenaciously to their well- fed, well- housed, servile condition. In plain truth, the slaves of antiquity would have been mad to exchange their slavery for what is, now- a- days, falsely called liberty, unless, in so doing, they took good care that along with liberty they had the means of producing and distributing wealth on their own account. And as this supposes a species of politico- eco- nomical knowledge infinitely beyond what might be ex- pected from such a class in their day,— as it supposes such a knowledge of agrarian, monetary, fiscal, and other laws as are absolutely necessary to the preservation of even the semblance of liberty,— and which knowledge was almost as dead a letter to their masters as to themselves, we cannot but rejoice for their own sakes, that the slaves of antiquity chose to remain as they were. When men have but a choice of two evils, it is desirable they should choose the lesser. The slaves of antiquity had but a choice between direct slavery and the miseries of proletarianism. In our opinion they chose the lesser of the two. Had they been wise enough to understand their true political and social rights, they might have escaped both. Chris- tianity came to teach them; but man's perversity stept in between them and the light of the gospel. Even to this day, after eighteen centuries of gospel- propagandism, not one in a thousand of the slave- class,— whether they be chattel- slaves, or wages- slaves,— whether thev be prole- tarians, or the property of their masters,— understand* his political and social rights. The consequence is, the twe kinds of slavery prevail still all over the world; and of the two, direct or chattel- slavery is now, as formerly, the lesser evil of the two. In no part of the East, that we know of, would an oriental slave of modern times exchange conditions with one of our Wigan hand- loom weavers, nor with a Dorsetshire labourer. But to bring this question to a test that will make the difference at once obvious to every one, let us just com- pare the condition of a modern American slave ( so called) with that of " a free and independent labourer" in England. We choose these two countries because they are inhabited by the same Anglo- Saxon race; because they are at the head of modern civilization; and because, from the commercial intercourse between tliem, we know more of their positive and relative condition than of any other two known countries. First, what is the actual condition of a modern chattel slave as he is to be found in any of the southern states of the great American Union ? We shall give it from the lips of an eye- witness,— from one who has visited - that country and judged for himself, within this present year 1849— above all, from one who is a rank abolitionist, and so thorough- going a hater of slavery and of everything pertaining to it, that in the paragraph immediately pre- ceding the one we are about to extract, he buoyantly ex- claims,—" When we remember the ardour and persever- ance of the American character, and the intelligence ot their leaders, we must believe that the day approaches when the axe shall be laid to the root of this fell upas tree." The author of this sentiment is a Mr. Edward Smith, who early in the present year was deputed along with another gentleman by an influential body of capitalists in London, to make a survey and inspection of the north western part of Texas, with a view to some extensive plan of coloniza- tion projected by the parties. This Mr. Edward Smith has furnished his employers with a printed report of his travels through several states of the Union, and in that report he utters not a few jeremiads upon the curse of slavery, and not a few withering invectives against its aiders and abettors. If, therefore, any testimony in favour of slaves and slavery can be pronounced wholly unexcep- tionable, it is that of Mr. Edward Smith, the abolitionist REYNOLDS'S POLITICAL INSTRUCTOR. 69 Now what says this gentlemen? We quote pages 83, anil 84 of his report. " From the slaves themselves, and from other parties, I have learned that with few exceptions, they are kindly treated, are not overworked, and have abundance of food, clothing, and efficient medical attention. We saw them lodged in small cabins, sometimes rudely built, and in other places, very neatly built, but always partaking of the character of the planter's, or overlooker's house near to which they stand. A slave, his wife, and family occupy a cabin exclusively, unless the family be small, when two or more families live together ****** The planters find it to be their interest to use their ne- groes well. They always permit, and indeed urge the slave to do overwork by planting a small plot of land set apart for his use, with corn, tobacco, or other produce. TTiis they do after the day's work is over, and also on Sundays, when the law does not allow the master to re- quire them to work, and wherefore we saw them clean and well- dressed, lying upon the bank of the rivers as we passed by. " When the produce is gathered it is sold by the planters, and the proceeds given to the slaves. Some slaves prefer to cut wood, which is sold to the steam- boats ; and all supply themselves with vegetables from their own garden. Many industrious slaves can tlms obtain from fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars per year for themselves, which they expend m the purchase of tea, coffee, sugar, whisky, and other luxuries of the table, and in clothing fit for any European gentleman. In large cities, as new Orleans, they hire themselves from their masters at an agreed- upon sum, and workfor others as they prefer, and thus earn twenty to twenty- five dollars per month for themselves. Very many slaves own horses, kept for their own use, and others twn lands ; and Captain Knight, of the New World, stated, that he knew a slave who owned four drays and teams and seven slaves. Indeed, when they are good servants, they are much valued, and obtain every enjoyment they desire.'' This extract is, we think, pretty decisive of our position; yet, there is another, just following, which is so strongly corroborative of what we have advanced in respect of the contentment with their condition which we have ascribed to the ancient slaves, that we cannot forego the temptation to quote it: " Free born Britons! indepen- dent labourers 1"— mark this passage:—" they ( the slaves) do not usually care to save money wherewith to purchase their freedom, feeling that the protection of their masters is an advantage to them; but there are those, as the stewardess on board the boat on which we descended the Mississippi, who have paid from one thousand to one thousand five hundred dollars for their freedom." Let those who have perused the revelations made in the celebrated letters recently published in the Morning Chronicle, on the state of the industrious classes in London, & c., " Look on this picture ! and on this!" A NATIONAL REFORMER. ( To be continued in our next.) THE ARISTOCRACY: ITS ORIGIN, PROGRESS, AND DECAY. CHAPTER VIII. THE whole country was in confusion and dismay at the atrocities of the king and his courtiers. Charles, finding he could no longer wheedle the parliament of supplies, prorogued it for an indefinite period. He came unex- pectedly into the House of Peers and sent the ushers to summon the Commons ; the speaker and usher nearly met at the door, when some members cried, " To the chair! to the chair!" Others shouted, " The Black Rod is at the door!" The Speaker was hurried to the chair, and the following motions made in all haste;— the king's counsellors were voted a grievance, war was voted a grievance, and the Duke of Lauderdale was voted a grievance and not fit to be entrusted or employed. There was a general cry of " question," and the usher, knock- ing violently at the door, the Speaker leapt from his seat, and the house rose in confusion. The French king, in order to bind Charles to his in- terest and enslave the British nation, sent over a certain Mademoiselle de Kerouailles, a beautiful, but profligate and intriguing woman. She was received with all due favour by Charles and his pimping Aristocracy, and ulti- mately attained such a degree of favour with the royal debauchee, as placed the affairs of the nation at her dis- posal, and raised her to the rank of Duchess of Portsmouth. In the boudoir of this woman was concerted that infa- mous conspiracy between Charles and Louis, the principal article of which bound the former not to call a parliament for a certain number of years, and that, during the whole time, ho should be supplied with money from France to enable him to indulge his vicious extrava- gances, and govern in defiance of his people. The amount of the sum was a matter of dispute, and Charles stated to Louis, that by complying with his wishes, " he would render England for ever dependent upon him, and put it out of the power of the English to oppose him." Sunderland, Arlington, Buckingham, and the rest of the vicious and accursed Aristocracy, lent themselves to this infamous bargain; thus binding their country in servile dependency, and making England nothing more than a province of France. The traitor nobles were licking the dust like cringing reptiles at the footstool of a foreign courtezan— the originator of this culpable and atrocious treaty. French money was lavished on all sides; the ministers, their wives, and mistresses, participated largely in the wages of this scandalous transaction; and the people of England were sold like a drove of cattle. The French minister, Barillon, wrote to his master, " Lady Arlington having offered, in her husband's pre- sence, to accept of the present intended for her husband, he reproached her, but very obligingly. Lord Sunder- land and the Duchess of Portsmouth" hinted that they expected gratifications from France;" and Barrillon farther tells the French King, that to secure the two latter, great sums of money were required. Louis upon this ordered ten thousand pistoles to be paid the duke, and five thousand to the Duchess of Portsmouth. The Duke of York, and Churchill, afterwards Duke of Marl- borough, the Earls of Darnley, Clarendon, and, in fact, all the ruling Aristocracy, participated in the proceeds arising from the nation's disgrace. In the meantime, the whole court was revelling in the most scandalous debauchery; the people were ground down by taxation, trampled on, and laughed at. Magnificence and profli- gacy reigned amongst the'courtiers; misery and want crushed down the masses of the nation. During the reign of Charles, the Scotch people were persecuted in the most barbarous and brutal manner by his vile tool Lauderdale, one of the most blood- thirsty miscreants that ever trod the face of God's earth. He had the Covenanters hunted by spies, informers, and sanguinary magistrates. He had ensnaring questions put to the people;— questions that would do credit even to the ingenuity of an attorney- general of our own time — and when the poor victims refused to answer, capital punishment was inflicted; women were gibbetted, and children slaughtered by this relentless duke. Thumb- screws, iron boots, and other excruciating instruments of torture were recommended by the king and his Aris- tocracy to subdue the pride and rectitude of the Scotch nation. A number of fugitives had spread a declaration that Charles was a tyrant. The privy council dispersed soldiers over the country, and power was given them to enforce every one to cry, " God save the King!" and upon refusal, the delinquent was to be immediately shot. Amongst other instances of cruelty perpetrated by the noble duke, was one at which every feeling of humanity must revolt, and every sentiment of indignation be aroused. An old woman and two young ones refused to cry " God save the King;" but fervently exclaimed, " God turn the King from his evil ways:" for this of- fence they were condemned to the capital punishment named, " slow drowning." They were conducted to the place of execution, tied to the stakes within the sea- mark at low water, a contrivance which made their death lingering and dreadful; even the officer who commanded was ashamed to put the youngest, a child of thirteen, to death. The elderly woman was placed farthest in, and, by the rising of the waters, was first, suffocated. The younger one, terrified by the view of her com- panions' death, and partly subdued by the entreaties of her friends, cried, " God save the King." She was re- leased, and the officer required her to sign the abjura- tion; this she however refused, and he forthwith ordered her to be tied again in the water until she was suffocated. To what pretty purposes has the favourite shout of the unthinking multitude been turned! Lauderdale declared that he would " turn all Scotland into a graveyard; but the king's spiritual and temporal prerogative should be acknowledged." Ho was en- couraged in his bloodthirsty actions by Charles, and idolised by the rascally Aristocracy. When loud com- plaints were made against this ruffian's career of spolia- tion and murder, Charles coolly remarked, " I understand Lauderdale has been guilty of many bad things against the people; but I cannot find he has acted in anything contrary to my interest." The interest of kings, then, lies in thumb- screwing, drowning, and robbing their sub- jects? Lauderdale's name still figures in the peerage, and his descendants rejoice in the motto, " By wisdom and courage!" But to return to the Court of Whitehall. Louis, sick of the constant importunities upon his purse by Charles, Portsmouth, and the nobility, threatened to withdraw their pensions and publish to the world the infamous treaty ex- isting between them and himself; one of the clauses being that Charles should never keep an army larger than eight thousand men, so that England might sink into en- tire insignificance in the eyes of the rest of Europe. To this proposal Charles exclaimed with his favourite oath, —" Cods fish, do£ s my brother of France think to serve me thus? Are all his promises to make me absolute master of ray people come to this? or does he think that a thing to be done with eight thousand men." Louis was also determined to seize on Luxembourg, the key to the Netherlands and Germany, a stroke of policy at that time most detrimental to the interests and derogatory to the honour of the English nation. To achieve his purpose,' fie bribed the Duchess of Portsmouth to use her influence and caresses so as to prevail on Charles to look on quietly whilst this blow against the faith of the treaties and the integrity of this country was perpetrated. Charles received three hundred thousand pounds; and an immense sum was paid by way of gratification to his mistress Portsmouth, for her exertions in this scandalous transaction. She ever afterwards boasted of the affair of Luxembourg as the best piece of service she had rendered the Court of France. " I have not overlooked the interests of my legitimate king," she wrote; " and have sold the dogs of English blindfolded to France. They hate and revile me; but the king and Aristocracy are the rulers, and both approve of what I have done." In the midst of these shameful intrigues the palace of Whitehall is described as a scene " of inexpressible luxury and profaneness,— gaming, and all dissoluteness," Bastards were running about in every room of the palace waiting their elevation to the dignity of the peerage! The progeny of the infamous Duchess of Portsmouth, the woman who had bartered the honour of England, must form part of its legislature; her son was created Duke of Richmond, with a grant of two shillings upon every ton of coals sent from the River Tyne to London. This imposition was afterwards, in the reign of George III, compromised for an annual payment of nineteen thou- sand per annum, which is still enjoyed by her descendant, and wrung from the hard- earned wages of the dogs of English. The pension was granted one hundred and eighty years since, consequently the round sum of three millions, five hundred and twenty thousand pounds have been filched from the people to support the bastard off- spring and the descendants of the woman who unscru- pulously sold the honour, interest, and welfare of the British nation to a foreign potentate. Tho last parliament summoned by Charles, was as in- credulous in royal probity as the preceding one had shown themselves. They voted him three hundred thou- sand pounds for the Navy, but positively refused to an- ticipate the revenue, or levy more taxes on the already overtaxed people. The Peers, indignant at what they termed a factious opposition to the king's will, and find- ing that the smallness of the supply prevented their wives and mistresses from reaping much of the plunder, counselled the king to dissolve the parliament: Charles forthwith prorogued it for a long time, much to the indignation of the nation in general, who found them- selves openly despoiled by their monarch and his prosti- tute Aristocracy, without having any means of redress within their reach. The warning of his father's fate was entirely lost upon the king; and the nobility, in revenge for their debasement during the glorious Protectorate, now laid their ravenous hands on every place, profit, or sinecure that fell within their reach. The nobles urged the king to commit acts of tyranny far more glaring than those which had brought Charles the First to the scaffold. Ministerial measures, with royal and courtly doings, often formed a subject of discourse in the coffee- houses; the Peers recommended a proclamation to be issued, ordering them all to be closed. This arbitrary step was immediately taken; and Lord Clifford remarked to the king, that in case this measure was not effectual, " they must hang up a man at every coffee- house door, to teach people how their mouths could be shut." During the infamous reign of Charles, by the assistance of his House of Peers, the Act of the Long Parliaments was abolished; this was an act compelling a call of the Parliament once in three years; and from the consequences of this arbi- trary suspension of a just and righteous law, we have not yet entirely recovered. The well known epithets of Whig and Tory,— by which political parties have been so long divided amongst themselves, but firmly united in cajoling, swindling, and openly plundering the people,— were first known in this reign. The court party re- proached their antagonists with their affinity to the con- venticlers of Scotland, known by the name of Whigs; whilst the country party found an admirable and true resemblance between the courtiers and the popish ban- ditti in Ireland,— called Tories. Whatever difference might then have existed between these parties,— wo know to our cost, that in the present day, they both re- semble any particular banditti on the earth that will strip a man of all he possesses and even afterwards covet tho skin of his body. A fit of apoplexy put a stop to the ruinous and dis- gusting reign of Charles II. The closing scene of his life was in accordance with the rest of his impious career. The wretch who had suffered his subjects to ba denounced, tortured, and murdered by ruffians like Oates, on pretence of their entertaining Roman Catho- lic doctrines, who had enjoyed in private the sham plots and the agonies of the condemned victims,— he who had hypocritically shed torrents of blood belonging to those of his own creed for maintaining his own faith,— this monster, in his expiring moments, gave the lie to the re- mainder of his life, by dismissing from his death- bed the Protestant ministers, and in the arms of his concubine Portsmouth receiving the last sacrament of the Romish Church. Soon after his death, the duchess returned to France, carrying with her immense sums of money and jewels to an almost incredible amount, the proceeds of many years' plunder. During the reign of Charles a prostitute and bastard Aristocracy was foisted upon the nation, and wa are stili compelled to support the descendants of a shame- less set of harlots, who betrayed the country for foreign gold, and revelled on the ruin of the people. Besides the two infamous exactions, which we have before men tioned as drawn from our pockets by such idle, blun- dering obstacles in the way of progress as the Dukes of Richmond and Grafton; we are likewise kind enough to support the descendant of an harlot actress, Nell Gwynne— the present Duke of St. Albans. His Grace is a child some five or six years of age; but the here- ditary pensions drawn from the hard- earned wages of the working classes are duly paid from the Treasury, and hoarded up for the fortunate infant. As holding the sinecure office of Falconer he receives fifteen hun- dred per annum, besides one thousand pounds yearly, as coaipensation for the abolishment of a situation in the Court of Chancery, granted to his ancestor by Charles the Second. Tvvo thousand four hundred pounds has thus been filched from the people's treasury annually, for the last hundred and eighty years, making a grand total of four hundred and thirty- two thousand pounds; a small amount in comparison with the Graftons and Riehmonds, but far too much for a family that has never rendered the slightest shadow of a service to tho country. Another branch would have been saddled on the public as descendants of the Duke of Monmouth, a bastard son of Lucy Walters, a female, whom Charles had known in adversity on the continent, but subsequently deserted, had not that nobleman been fortunately cut off by his uncle James. The people of England were dishonoured and de- graded in the eyes of Europe by the scandalous conduct of Charles and his Aristocracy: our ambassadors were laughed at and treated with contempt on the continent; we wer ® swindled by the king, who sold our foreign possessions and squandered the proceeds on his concu- bines; we were reduced from a first- rate to the level of a fourth- rate power; we had the burthens entirely taken from land— the property of the Aristocracy— and thrust in the shape of Excise upon the necessaries of the peo- ple; our national interests were bartered by foreign and other prostitutes; and, finally, we have since been, and are still, bamboozled out of a sum amounting in round numbers to thirty- five thousand pounds annually, to ' maintain in luxury, idleness, and uselessness, tho de 6 4 REYNOLDS'S POLITICAL INSTRUCTOR. 69 scendants of the most infamous, and degraded, and mer. cenary harlots. We have now traced the Aristoeraey through a career of blood, rapine, and devastation,— we have fol- lowed their progress through a course of unparalleled infamy and oppression; aggrandizement has been their sole object, and to elevate themselves above the rest of mankind, they unscrupulously pursued a sanguinary career of crime the most horrible, and vice the most disgusting and detestable ! ALPHA. ( To be continued in our next.) THE CIVIL LIST. SIGNS OF THE TIMES. IT having been admitted that the present expenditure is excessive, it is necessary to look in what direction retrenchment and curtailment can be made. By an act of Parliament passed the 23rd December 1837, the allow- ance to the Sovereign was made £ 385,000,, which is appropriated as follows :— The Queen's privy purse £ 60,000 Household salaries 131,260 Tradesmen's bills 172,500 Bounties, charities, & e 13,200 Unappropriated 8,040 £ 385,000 Besides this, there is an amount of £ 1,200 per annum_ at the disposal of the Queen, for pensions. It will be in- structive to look at these matters a little in detail. The Lord Chamberlain's Department.— The Lord Cham- berlain receives a salary of £ 2,000 per annum. It is the duty of this officer to superintend the removal of ward- robes, beds, and tents ; the getting up of revels, and the performances of musicians, comedians, & c. & c.; to look after artisans, chaplains, apothecaries, and physicians; to inspect tho charges of coronations, marriages, caval- cades, funerals, & c., and a multifarious list of duties, which he is never called, upon to perform. The Yiee- Cliam- fcerlain, which is a political office, receives a salary of £ 924. A long list of dignitaries follows. Many of these have mere nominal duties, and others hang as " barbarous appendages" upon the skirts of royalty. For example, there are eight Ladies of the Bedchamber, each of whom receive an annual salary of £ 500, for visiting and dining with her Majesty about twenty- one days in the year: and there are sixteen Maids of Honour and Bedchamber Women, each of whom get annually £ 300 to give their company to the Queen, and dine with her, a few weeks in the year. There are eight Lords in Waiting, each of whom has an annual salary of s£ 700, and eight Grooms in Waiting, each with £ 335. These appointments are entirely political, and the office is itself a sinecure. They are all filled by members of noble families or dependants upon them. But the number of appendages is not yet exhausted. There are sixteen Gentleman Ushers, whose duties are performed by the Pages of the Back Stairs. There are, alsft, fourteen Grooms of the Privy Chamber, and Great Chambers, whose duties are suppositious. The dismissal of these, alone, would save no less than £ 3,000 a year. Besides these, we have ten Sergeants- at- Arms, whose duties are, " to hold watch outside the King's tent, dressed in complete armour, and armed with a how, arrows, a sword and the mace of office." Now, can any specification ofcduties appear more ridiculous than these, in the nineteenth century'? These are still succeeded by other salaried officers, who altogether absorb £ 05,499 a year of the public money. £ 41,000 more for tradesmen's bills has to be added to this department. The Lord Steward's Department.— It will scarcely be believed, that the butter, bacon, eggs and cheese, con- sumed in this department, in one year, amounts to within a few pounds of the salary of the President of the United States of America; whilst the butcher's bill gets up to £ 9,472, which is a thousand pounds more than the half of the combined salaries of the Executive Government of the United States! Tha chief of this department, the Lord Steward, also, has a salary of £ 2,000. The duties of his office are mainly performed by the Master of the Household, who has a salary of £ 1,158. The greater part of the duties are performed by the Clerk Comptroller of the Kitchin, who receives, £ 700. In this department there is an array of treasurers, clerks, and storekeepers ; comptrollers, cooks, yeomen of the kitchin, and confec- tioners ; a gentleman and yeoman of the wine and beer cellars; table- deckers and yeoraen of the pantry ; in short, such an assemblage of menials, that one hardly can con ceive liow tho Palace can find room for their accom- modation, far less for their employment. The annual amount expended in the salaries of the kitchen depart- ment alone, is £ 9,983, and a view of the way in which it is apportioned gives additional evidence of the reprehen- sible lavishness with which the public money is distributed. The Chief Cook, alone, has a salary of £ 700 a year, which is nearly £ 200 more than the salary of the Paymaster- General of the United States. There are three cooks HUME prophesied that England would either become a Republic or an absolute monarchy, and to all appearances bis predictions may one day be fulfilled. The following peremptory announcement has caused considerable sur- prise to many persons. The word employed in similar cases to the following has usually been " expected;" at present we are commanded:— GENERAL MOURNING. College of Arms, Dec. 4. " The Earl Marshal's orders for a general mourning for her Majesty the Queen Dowager. In pursuance of her Majesty's commands, these are to give public notice, that upon the present melancholy occasion of the death of her Majesty the Queen Dowager, all persons do put them- selves into deep mourning. " NORFOLK, E. M." Perhaps the Earl Marshal is prepared to furnish suits of mourning to those who are not prepared to purchase them ; and under such circumstances we should recom- mend all persons who may he placed in that unpleasant predicament to send their tailor's measure to his Grace's residence. Again, we read that, " By an Order in Council of the 3rd of December the Clergy are { directed to pray henceforth for her most sacred Majesty, Queen Victoria, the Prince Albert, & c." Since the time of the Stuarts the term " sacred," thus applied, has been omitted, and why we should, in the nineteenth century, return to the objectionable forms of the seventeenth, we are at a loss to discover ? The Hon- ourable Artillery Company has fallen under royal dis- pleasure, simply, we believe, because they did not turn out in due form when the illustrious, hut most peaceable Fieli} Marshal Prince Albert opened the Coal Exchange. Being perhaps tenacious of their warlike renown, tbe Hon- ourable Company felt littleinclination to display themselves before one whose exploits have been confined to the harmless plains of Hyde Park. Be that as it may, the worthy citizens have passed a resolution to the effect that their illustrious Colonel, the Field Marshal, shall no longer interfere in their arrangements. Arbitrary pro- ceedings of any description engender distrust and unpo- pularity ; amongst other instances we will quote where the sovereign's name has suffered by impolitic attempts to thrust a stranger down the throats of the nation,— we in- stance a late dinner given by the Agricultural Society at Penycuick, a large[ manufacturing village near Edinburgh. When the sovereign's health was proposed it was refused to be drunk, as foreign from the duties of the meeting, and when the prince's health was proposed, the chairman, Mr. Graham, replied, that the toast would be taken inf consideration when the prince paid his poor rates! 1 ther to the Earl of Pembroke, a man who derives an immense income from land, and spends it all on the continent, amongst French cooks and dancing girls. We do not wish to throw any obstacles in the way of a really philanthropic plan ; but we require to be enlightened by the aristocratic committee managing this business, as to the ulterior object before we can sanction a scheme that savours of nothing but wretched and unprovided exile. THE TRIAL OF QUEEN CATHERINE. In consequence of the renewed demand for this splendid Wood Engraving, we have been induced to send it to press again : but as this proceeding entails upon us a very con- siderable expense, we are compelled to charge for this Re- priut the sum of THREE- PENCE. The Reprint is however upon a very superior paper, so as to render the Magnificent Picture all the more suitable for framing. It is issued this Saturday, along with No. 76 of the MISCELLANY. A Few Proof Copies are printed on a very thick and superior paper, Price One Shilling. MISCELLANEOUS. AMBASSADORS.— The ambassadors have salaries atnount- ingaltogetherto 140,0001., besides pensionsand superannuated allowances, 39,9382., and still further charges for ambassa dorial residences, which cost this country enormous sums. The house or palace of our ambassador at Paris cost us 30,0002., and 6,0002., have been spent in repairs on it during the last three years. That at Constautinople cost us last year 12,0002., and it cost us 12,0002. more this— 24,0002. in two years. The one at Madrid cost us last year 3,0002. And of what use are the greater number of these offices ? Clearly to find splendid appointments for members of noble houses. They appear in these various countries in such princely state that complaints have been made of it by different Govern- ments, as on a scale casting their own princes of the blood into the shade. While our ambassador at Paris has 11,4002. per annum, and a magnificent house, his outfits, his journeys, and all sundries paid for, with a salary for life of 2,056?. on his return; while our ambassador at Vienna has 12,5062.; at Petersburgh 9,0002.; and so on with all similar perquisites and pensions; the United States of America pay their Minis- ters Plenipotentiary at European Courts 9,000 dollars, or 1,9502. per annum ! j A vast reform is needed iu this depart- ment— perhaps, rather, the abolition of the whole, sending only an envoy to a foreign court on some particular occasion the post being the ready medium of all other regulations between Governments. If we are to judge of the case by our late experience in Spain, the whole ambassadorial es- tablishment is very questionable. While have an am- bassador at Madrid with 7,5502. per annum, we had only trouble and insult. Since we have had none there, the Spanish Government has re- arranged its commercial tariff much to our advantage. — Liverpool Financial Reform Tracts. THE CHOLERA.— The Gloucester Journal has taken the trouble to collect the opinions of several " eminent persons" on the causes of the late visitation of cholera. " The Rev. Dr. M'Neile," says our Gloucester contemporary, " thinks that the cholera is a judgment on this country for favouring Popery;— the Rev. Mr. ' l'oye, of Gateshead, that it is to deter people from marrying tbe sisters of their deceased wives; the Rev. Mr. Gutch, of Leicester, attributes it to parliamentary | ERATERNAL FESTIVAL. A SUBSCRIPTION SOIREE, consisting of TEA 11 PARTY, CONCERT, and BALL, convened by the FRATERNAL DEMOCRATS, will be held at the LITE- KARY and SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTION, JOHN STREET, TOTTEN- HAM COUBT ROAD, on New- Year's Eve, Monday, December 31st, 1849. The Advocates of Democratic aud Social Re- form are hereby invited to take part in the proceedings. The full Choir of the Appolonic Society have kindly consented to give their powerful assistauce at the Fes- tival accompanied by the Organ of the Institution Tea on table at six o'clock precisely. # Single Tickets Is. 6d. Double ditto., ( to admit Male and* Female, or Two Fe- males) 2s. 6d., may be had as follows:— James Watson, 2, Queen's Head Passage, Paternoster Row; Richard Moore, 55, Hart Street, Bloomsbury; John Pettie, 62, Theobald's Road; John Milne, Union Street, Berkeley Square; Richard Parkes, 32, Little Windmill Street, llaymarket ; John Mc Veigh, 66, Dean Street, Solio; James Grassby, 96, Regent Street, Lambeth ; Edward Miles, 56, Great Suffolk Street, Boro' Road; H. Side, 5, Pepper Street, Union Street, Boro'; Edmund Stallwood, 2, Little Vale Place, Hammersmith Road; John Goodwin, 11, Little Queen Street, Edgware Road; John Arnott, 11, Middlesex Place, Somer's Town; Charles Utting, 5, Sandwich Street, Burton Cresent; Samuel Boon- ham, Land Office, 144, High Holborn; Thomas Brown, 46, St. John Street, Smithtield; Fowler, 28, Golden Lane, City; James Ivnowles, 15, Baker Street, Commercial Road, East; Edward Truelove, John Street Institution; " REYNOLDS'S POLITICAL INSTRUCTOR" Office, 7, Wellington Street North, Strand; and G. Julian Harney, " Northern Star" Office, Windmill Street, Haymarket. On the First Saturday in 1850, will be Published ( PRICE ONE PENNY), No. 1, of a Weekly Periodical, to be entitled rtOOPER'S. JOURNAL; to be conducted by Thomas ^ Cooper, Author of the " Purgatory of Suicides," and devoted to Intellectual, Moral, and Political Progress. It was a saying of Napoleon that " a name was a programme of ideas and opinions;" and the name of the Editor of the New Cheap Periodical is so well known as that of a " Plain Speaker," and an advocate of the broad rights of mankind, that professions, in the present instance, becomes unneces- sary. The new periodical will be octavo in form, and con- sist of Sixteen closely printed pages each Number. The First Number, will be ready for the Trade on New Years' Day Published by James Watson, 3, Queen's Head Passage, Paternoster Row, London; and to be had of all Booksellers and News- Agents in Town and Country. THE FUND FOR THE WIDOWS OF SHARPE AND WILLIAMS. The following subscriptions have been already re- ceived :— Baron Rothschild 5 5 Mr. G. W. M. Reynolds 5 5 Mr. Luke James Hansard 5 0 The proceeds of a Concert in Edinburgh ... 5 0 The Proprietors of tbe Weekly Dispatch ... 3 3 Sir Johua Walmsley, M. P. „. 2 0 Lord Dudley Coutts Stuart 2 2 Mr. William Williams 1 1 ___ Mr. Pront ... 1 1 While" we have'an'am. i Er', W'.' 1' Hai' , 1 I Higby Arms Locality 1 O with a salary of £ 350 each, with the privilege of taking i .. ,. Tv , , T . , , -,. apprentices, with a premium of £ 150 to £ 200 receivable ' ect, ors , votIns lorwRenters and Jews instead of Church ot ^ ^ vv,* I um„ , „ I P - ~ P Tof this department are £ 128386 Knghnd nien; whilst others again a tribute it to the omission { Leith) Bls. ja, ies Davi'Sj He ^ tubb & j'. New. aepaitment aie 0j , Del Gratia'from the new florin." So much for theopimons \ ^ ewtl) n> . w. Pearson, 3d.; W. Bench, 1 IhncQ vnfln tirnnca hnrnTvir TO enor/ » oltr ivinvn niefYiictiiirv rlvm I .. - . : .... ' ' . . from each. Tho expenses annually! i0f these men, whose bigotry is scarcely more disgusting than The Master of the Horse's Department.— The chief of their ignorance is lamentable. We, of the Instructor, fancy \ this department has £ 2,500 a year, and he has under him j that cholera was a natural malady, terribly aggravated by the a host of equerries, pages, postilions, coachmen, grooms, 1 scandalous, cruel, and heartless neglect, shown by the govern- i and footmen. The domestic establishment, alone, of this ! ment, aud the upper classes generally, towards the dwellings, Public Meeting at Derby 0 17 Proceeds of Rail in the Tower Hamlets ... 0 10 The persons iu Mr. G. W. M. Reynolds's em- ployment 0 10 0 Collected at the Meeting at Cowper Street ... 0 16 6 J. W., 2s. 6< 2.; per Mr. Illingworth, Is.; Mrs. aud Miss Eagle, is.; Anonymous Correspondent of REYNOLDS'S MISCELLANY, Od.;" Ditto, 0d.; G. W. 6d.; a Youth, 3d.; J. H. ( ShoreInch) 2s. 0( 2.; Mr. Ruffey, 5s.; E. H. 2s. 6d.; one of . Mr. Reynolds's Wood Engravers, 2s. Od.; William Trowsuale, Is.; A Shoemaker ( Liverpool), Is.; J. J. Manbv, Is.; a Labourer ( Leek), Is.; Mr. D. Forsyth, 5s.; ill'. Dennis ( Pickering), Is.; R. R. and J. A., 2s.; Harmonic Meeting in Foley Street, lis.; C. H. R. ( Cardiff), 5s,; J. W. department receives wages to the amount of £ 12,503! Into the distribution of this enormons sum we shall not enter; but there is a Master of the Buckhounds, with £ 1,700, and a hereditary Grand Falconer, with £ 1,200 wants, interests, and health of the poor. This was the cause of the appalling havoc made by the cholera; and it is not therefore necessary to accuse Almighty God! SIDNEY HERBERT'S EMIGRATION PLANS.— We deem both of which can, at once, be done away with, for there : necessary to caution our readers against lending themselves with their duties the any way to the furtherance of a scheme full of obscurity is happily no mystery connected Queen having nothing to do with buckhounds, and not heing possessed of a single hawk! This department ccsts annually £ 07,550. and abounding with elements of suspicion. The names ot' so many " reverends" are ill calculated to command public confidence; the premier's name, as a private individual, is ominous of no good; Mr. Herbert is only known as having filled subordinate situations in Peel's ministry, and is bro- Collected at the Whiitington and Cat, 3s.; 3( 2.; R. 2d.; Mr. Drake, Os.; Fox and Hounds, Is. 01( 2.; J. 0( 2; Liptrot, 4d.; 8even Stocking- makers of Leicester, 3s. 6( 2.; G. J. N., 5s.; Miss Mary Anil Campbell, Is. 6d.; Mr. Cook, Bookseller, Bristol, 0( 2.; Mr. E. F. Roberts, 5s.; Mr. Cook ( Second Donation), 0( 2.; T. E. G., Is.; Friends at Birmingham, 3s. 3d.; Mr. G. Hare, 5s. WILLIAM DAVIS, Chairman. G. W. M. REYNOLDS, Treasurer. JOHN J. FERDINANDO, Secretary. Dec. 15th, 1849. LONDON : Printed and Published, for the PROPRIETOR, by JOHN DICKS, at the Office of REYNOLDS'S MISCELLANY 7, Wellingtuu Street North, Strand.