REYNOLDS'S POLITICAL INSTRUCTOR. EDITED BY GEORGE W. M. REYNOLDS, AUTHOR OT THE FIRST AND SECOND SERIE » Of « ISM KT3TKRIES OF LOTOOH," " TUB MTSTMUffll O* TUB COOST OP LONDOU," & C. 4c. No. 16— Vol. 1.] SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1850. [ PRICE ONE PENNY. ME. W. WILLIAMS. THE name of the ex- member for Coventry has been so long associated with every measure of progress and re- form brought either before the people themselves or their so- termed representatives at St. Stephen's, that he may • with justice be considered one of the most advanced po- liticians of the present day. It is not however surpris- ing that the intimate friend thirty years ago of the late Major Cartwright should be himself a thorough and con- sistent radical reformer. Air. Williams represented Co- ventry in three parliaments, from the year 1835 to the dissolution in 1847. During that time he was one of the most regular attendants to his senatorial duties; and no division ever took place where the political, financial, or social interests of the people were concerned, without containing the name of the member for Coventry, and invariably on the right and popular side. The parliamentary career of Mr. Williams was marked hy several measures of importance which he endeavoured to pass through parliament; but, as is the usual fate • with all motions introduced by friends to the people, they were mostly rejected. He proposed that a probate and legacy duty should be imposed upon every description of property; also that the income tax should be abolished and a property tax established instead, and that all go- vernment salaries should be liable to taxation in the same • proportion as other property. Mr. Williams stood almost alone against granting public money to the Established Church; and he likewise seconded the motion brought forward by Mr. Sharman Crawford, that no supplies be granted until the nation's grievances were redressed. It is almost needless to say that the honourable gentlemen, the mover and seconder, found themselves in a most glorious minority of some half dozen members, when the question was put. Mr. Williams was a steady supporter of the principles advocated by Thomas Attwood, then known as radicalism; but when the doctrines of radicalism ripened into the more glorious ones of Chartism, and Mr.- Duncombe had courage sufficient to advocate the people's constitution in a House of Commons fetid with aristocratic corruption, the member for Coventry was again amongst the popular minority. As a constant supporter of Mr. Hume in his measures for financial re- form and economy in every department of the State, Mr. Williams rendered liimeelf conspicuous by the conclusive arguments, the startling facts, and the statistical evidence he brought forward to expose the systems of jobbery, extra- vagance, and recklessness pursued by government. Such matters being personally unpalatable to most members of the House. Mr. Williams met with much of that Aristo- cratic opposition,— displaying itself in cock- crowing and boisterous merriment— so frequently had recourse to when a subject of national importance is under consideration ; but he steadily persisted in exposing wrong, and in de- nouncing wasteful expenditure. During the last few years that Mr. Williams sat in parliament, Mr. Hume left nearly the whole burthen of financial economy upon his shoulders. By some extraordinary and unaccount- able delusion the people of Coventry at the general election of 1847, threw out their tried and trusty repre- sentative, thereby depriving the House of Commons of one of its most useful, constant, and disinterested mem- bers; but it is to be trusted that before long Mr. Wil-, liams will again occupy a seat in that assembly. As a member of the council of the National Parliamentary and Financial Reform Association the honourable gentleman has taken an active part in the proceedings of that body. A pamphlet, which he lately published, and which was noticed at the time in the Instructor, does infinite credit to the sentiments of Mr. Williams both as a politician and as a man. The following sentence in that work speaks volumes in its author's favour:— " I am unable to discover upon what just or reasonable grounds the elective franchise should be conferred upon me and withheld from the constructors of the steam- en- gine and the ingenious machinery it works, and from those whose mechanical ingenuity has invented and con- structed the complicated machinery employedin our manu- factures, whose capabilities are computed to perform the work of 600,000,000 of men, which have conferred upon our country a pre- eminence above every other nation; neither can I, for the same reason, see a just cause why the elective, franchise should be refused to the labourer, whose in,, dustry makes the earth yield her abundance— to the miner, who digs the vast hidden treasures from the bowels of the earth— to the artizan, who produces linen, silk, cotton, and woollen cloths; in short, to all whose skill and industry produce the necessaries and luxurie » of civilised life; while the placeman, the idle pensioner, and the unmerited sinecurist, not only enjoy, but are known to traffic their franchise with unblushing im- purity." . • . » 1 122 REYNOLDS'S POLITICAL INSTRUCTOR. THE " PARTY OF ORDER" ON THE CONTINENT. THB police- agents to that despicable mountebank, Louis Bonaparte, have been making an onslaught upon the Trees of Liberty and cutting them down throughout the French metropolis. Some slight disturbances occurred: tut no formidable attitude was taken by the Parisian people on the oceasion. They were resoloed to bide their time. One of the features of the trivial commotion which did take place, however, was the somewhat rough handling that the wolf- in- sheep's- clothing, General Lamorieiere, experienced from a knot of individuals, who abused and ill- treated him, so that even his life appeared for a few minutes to be in jeopardy. And now let us see what account the French Correspondent of the Times newspaper is compelled to give of the matter. He says, " The whole affair was got up by the Government with a view to a coup d'etat— the cutting down the trees was a defiance flung at the people, to bring the matter to an issue; the very men who struck the city- poliee were paid agents to help it on; and it is even insinuated that the outrage committed on General Lamoriciere was the result of a plan concocted by the police- agents." And yet it is the " party of order " which practises the rascalities so tersely summed up by the Times' cor- respondent,— that same " party of order" which the Times itself supports, lauds, and eulogises on all occa- sions. My dear readers, whenever you hear of a " party of order " springing up in any country, rest assured that it consists of the most infernal miscreants that ever disgraced the human form,— the most bloody- minded scoundrels that ever wore the shape of man,— the most sanctimonious, hypocritical, smooth- spoken villains that ever existed as a shame and a scandal to civilization. Look, for instance, at the conduct of the crowned demon, the Emperor of Austria— a mere boy « in years, and a veritable fiend in heart. What said Mr. Cockburn in the House of Commons the other day ? " After having by means of foreign invasion and domestic treachery overcome the Hungarians, the Emperor of Austria had an opportunity of displaying mercy, if not magnanimity: but instead of taking that course, he had decreed a list of the bloodiest executions that ever disgraced huma- nity." This detestable stripling- monster— this demon- hearted Emperor— feasted his ravenous maw upon the very vitals of the most glorious patriots of eastern Europe; and not contented with the harrowing cruelties and sickening butcheries perpetrated against men, his in- fernal appetite for a gory banquet sought the zest of varietyinthe blood of murdered women and children! Oh! ye who are husbands and fathers,— ye who love your wives and your little ones,— ye who can rightly and truly appre- ciate all that is excellent, humanizing, and angelic in the character of woman, and all that is joyous, inno- cent, and delightful in the artless prattle of children,— it is for you to hold up to execration the name of that imperial miscreant into whose breast Satan has infused his most hellish spirit. Nor let it be forgotton that this Austrian despot, not contented with having com- mitted all the horrors above glanced at, has recently carried his fiendish hatred of Liberalism and Liberals to such an extent as to employ agents to poison the great, the glorious, the admirable Kossuth! Yes— this state- ment was fearlessly mado by Lord Dudley Stuart last week in the House of Commons; and although a person ( for I will neither call him a nobleman or a gentleman) denominated Lord Claude Hamilton, endeavoured to laugh away the charge thus publicly made against the Emperor of Austria, there is no reason to doubt the truth of that accusation. Indeed, why should its veracity be suspected, when antecedent circumstances have so fully proven that the imperial butcher is capable of any treachery, however dark— any ruffianism, however vile, .— any atrocity, however brutal, ferocious, and bloody. Nor should the public be astonished that such a monster finds a ready champion in a scion of the British Aris- tocracy : for it is only in the aristocratic ranks— or in the columns of the newspapers subsidized by tyrants— that any defence of the Emperor of Austria could pos- sibly be looked for. As a matter of course the imperial butcher has the best and most heartfelt sympathies of the British Aristocracy: there can be no doubt upon this point— inasmuch as the Post, Herald, Standard, and other newspapers exclusively read by the Aristocracy, and written for the Aristocracy, all bestow their ap- proval upon the bloody- minded Emperor of Austria and the execrablo murderers who have carried out his inten- tions with such appalling fidelity 1 England, therefore, has the nucleus of just such a party of order " as that which is busily engaged in breasting the flow of democratic progress on the Con- tinent of Europe. On the memorable 10th of April, 1848, there was no doubt an ardent longing on the part of many of the members of the British Aristocracy to hear that the Iron Duke had mowed down the people wholesale, or cannonaded the half- million of human beings that day assembled on Kennington Common;— and when the result proved the pacific intentions which the Chartists had all along entertained, deep were the regrets in many high quarters that no disturbance had taken place in order to afford the Iron Duke an oppor- tunity of showing how soon he could put the people down ! That such were really the sentiments enter- tained by numerous aristocrats, undeniable proofs can be brought forward. The language held by the Tory newspapers, next day— the admissions which subsequently slipped into the speeches of certain " noble lords " in both Houses of Parliament— and a variety of other cir- cumstances which could be enumerated if necessary, afford conclusive evidence of the real feeling of the Aristocratic mind towards the working- classes upon the occasion referred to. Can we wonder, therefore, that Austrian butcheries and Russian atrocities elicit the applause and awaken the delight of the '' upper classes of this realm?— can we be astonished if imperial assas- sins and field- marshal murderers find champions and defenders amongst " noble lords" in this country ? Even the splendid exceptions which such men as Lord Dudley Stuart and Lord Nugent constitute with regard to the general rule, cannot rescue the Aristocracy as a class from the imputation of a savage instinct for cruelty in the exercise of political vengeance: on the contrary, those enlightened noblemen, by thus standing forth as the friends of humanity and of freedom, only throw into a darker and more sinister back- ground the great majority of the title- bearing oligarchs. The preceding observations have been chronicled with a view to establish the necessity of strengthening the democratic cause wherever its name is known. The " party of order" must be met by an imposing attitude on the side of the people. In France this party is en- deavouring to provoke a disturbance, with the hope that matters may thus be precipitated to such an issue as will enable the Mountebank President to change himself into a Ginger- bread Emperor. In Austria the party of order has not quite finished its bloody work: the Emperor whets his appetite from time to time with a few political murders,— while his agents are endeavouring to com- pass the damnable work of secret assassination! In Rome the party of order has flooded the prisons and restored the Inquisition; in Naples the Lazzaroni are paid by the King to traverse the city en masse, shouting " Down with the Constitution!" That miserable old man, the Pope, hesitates to return to the capital which his vile ambition has plunged into so much wretched- ness; for his day- thoughts and his night- dreams are haunted by the historical reminiscence that the Rome to which he himself has proved so great a curse, is the self- same city which centuries ago produced a Brutus to as- sassinate a Ctesar! Everywhere is the " party of order" pursuing its reactionary policy. The crowned miscreants who stand at the head of the system, have even been thinking of invading Switzerland, for the purpose of hunting out the brave patriots who, driven from their own countries, have found a refuge and a home amidst the republicans of the Alps. In fact, there is no atrocity too heinous— no treachery too fiend- like— no horror too abominable for the " party of order" to perpetrate. What, then, should the nations do to counteract the influence of this diabolical tyranny? The cause of pro- gress must be strengthened by all imaginable means upon the Continent of Europe;— and the English De- mocrats must never neglect any opportunity of display- ing a heartfelt sympathy with those who are struggling on Freedom's behalf, or suffering for Freedom's sake. Let us boldly and loudly express our ardent hope that the nations of Continental Europe will hasten to rise again, and that they will so manage matters as to make the next struggle the last. Not that I advocate the political scaffold. God forbid ! JL am opposed to the punishment of death in any case, and under all circumstances. But I do hope and expect that in the coming storm, the brave democrats of the Continent of Europe will seize upon their tyrants and oppressors— hurry them on board ship ind transport them, without delay, to some far- distant clime, where they may woik in chains for the rest of their existence. This is the proper way to treat the miscreants; and by thus clearing the continental nations of the reptiles whose very breath would impart venom even to the purest social atmosphere, the long- persecuted prole- tarians of Europe may hope to achieve their emancipa- tion. And while the storm is brewing,— that storm the ex- plosion of which shall overwhelm every throne, break every sceptre, and grind every crown to dust, upon the Continent of Europe;— while the clouds are gathering in the political horizon, and the social elements are ainal- gamatingtheir power and their energy for the approaching outburst,— let the people of England remain firm to their own moral, peaceful, and bloodless struggle;— and the result shall be that in proportion as the democracy of the continent advances through tempest and storm to the consummation of its glorious aims, the friends of liberty in the British Isles will progress along the sun- lit and tranquil path of Truth, guided by the hand of Intelli- gence, unto the everlasting gates of Freedom's Temple. GEORGE W. M. REYNOLDS. THE CONFESSIONS OF AN UNFOR- TUNATE GIRL. THE Morning Chronicle, in one of its admirable letters upon " Labour and the Poor," contains the harrowing revelations of a poor creature who wished to be virtuous, but whom tlie pre- sent vitiated state of society drove into the ways of crime. Mr. Mayhew, the Morning Chronicle Commissioner, thus in- troduces the appalling history:—" The statement whicn fol- lows, — that of a prostitute, sleeping in the low lodging- houses where boys and girls are all huddled promiscu- ously together, discloses a system of depravity, atrocity, and enormity, which certainly cannot be paralleled in any nation, however barbarously, nor in any . age, however * dark.' The facts detailed, it will be seen, are gross enough to make us all blush for the land in which such scenes can be daily perpetrated; but the circumstances, which it is impossible to publish, are of the most loathsome and revolting nature." Mr. Mayhew then states that it was a good- looking girl of sixteen who gave him the following awful narrative:— " I am an orphan. When I was ten I was sent to service maid of all- work, in a small tradesman's family. It was a hard place, and my mistress used me very cruelly beating me often. When I had been in place three weeks, my mother died; my father having died twelve years before. I stood my mistress's ill- treatment for about six months. She beat me with sticks as well as with her hands. I was black and blue, and at last I ran away. I got to Mrs. , a low lodging- house. I didn't know before that there was such a place. I heard of it from some girls at the Glasshouse ( baths and wash- houses), where I went for shelter. 1 went with them to have a halfpenny- worth of coffee, and they took me to the lodginfj- lieuse, I then had three shillings, and stayed about a month, and did nothing wrong, living on the three shillings and what I pawned my clothes for, as I got some pretty good things away with me. In the lodging= houSe I saw nothing but what was bad, and heard nothing but what was bad. I was laughed at, and was told to swear. They said,' Look at her tor a d modaat fool; — sometimes worse than that, until by degrees I got to be as bad as they were. During this time I used to see boys and girls from ten to twelve years old sleeping together, but understood nothing wrong. I had never heard of such places before I ran away. I can neither read nor write. My mother was a good woman, and I wish I'd had her to run away to. I saw things between almost children that I can't describe to you— very often I saw them, and that shocked me. At the month's end, when I was beat out, I met with a young man of fifteen — I myself was going on to twelve years old— and he per- suaded me to take up with him. 1 stayed with him three months in the same lodging- house, living with him as his wife, though we were mere children, and being true to him. At the three months' end he was taken up for picking pockets, and got six months. I was sorry, for he was kind to me; though I was made ill through him; so I broke some windows in St. Paul's Churchyard to get into prison to get cured. I had a month in the Compter, and came out well. I was scolded very much iu the Compter on account of the state I was in, being so young. I had 2s. 6d. given to me when I came out, and was foreed to go into the streets for a living. I continued walking the streets for three years, sometimes making a good deal of money, sometimes none, feasting one day and starving the next. The bigger girls could persuade me to do anything they liked with my motley. I was never happy all the time, but I could get no character and could not get out of the life. I lodged all this time at a lodging- house in Kent Street They were all thieves and bad girls. I have known between three and four dozen boys and girls sleep in one room. The beds were horrid filthy and full of vermin. There was very wicked carryings on. The boys, if any dif- ference, was the worst. We lay packed on a full night, a dozen boys and girls squeezed into one bed. That was very often the case— some at the foot and some at the top— boys and girls all mixed. I can't go into all the particulars, but whatever could take place in words or acts between boys and girls did take place, and in the midst of the others. I am sorry to say I took part in these bad ways myself, but I wasn't so bad as some of the others. There was only a candle burning all night, but in summer it was light great part of the night. Some boys and girls slept without any clothes, and woulddance about the room that way. I have seen thetn, and, wicked as I was, felt ashamed. I have seen two dozen capering about, the room that way; some mere children— the boys generally the youngest. * * * There were no men or women present. There were often fights. The deputy never interfered. This is carried on just the same as ever to this day, and is the same every night. 1 have heard young girls shout out to one an- other how often they had been obliged to go to the hospital, or the infirmary, or the workhouse. There was a great deal of boasting about what the boys and girls had stolen during the day. I have known boys and girls change their ' partners.' just for a night. At three years' end I stole a piece of beef from a butcher. I did it to get into prison. I was sick of the life I was leading, and didn't know how to get out of it. I had a month for stealing. When I got out I passed two days and a night in the streets doing nothing wrong, and then went and threatened to break Messrs. — windows again. I did that to get into prison again; for when I lay quiet of a night in prisou I thought things over, and considered what a shocking life I was leading, and how my health might be ruined com- pletely, and I thought I would stick to prison rather than go back to such a life. I got six months for threatening. When I got out I broke a lamp next morning for the same purpose, and had a fortnight. That was the last time I was in prison. I have since been leading the same life as I told you offer the three years, and lodging at the same houses, and seeing the same goings on. I hate sueh a life now more than ever. I am willing to do any work that I can in washing and cleaning. I can do a little at my needle. I could do hard work, for £ have good health. 1 used to wash and clean in prison, and always behaved myself there. At the house where I am it is Si a night; but at Mrs. ' s it is Id. and 2d. a night, and just the same goings on. Many a girl— nearly all of them— goes out into the streets from this penny and twopenny house, to get money for their favourite boys by prostitution. If the girl cannot get money she must steal something, or will be beaten by her ' chap' when she comes home. I have seen thetn beaten, often kicked and beaten until they were blind from bloodshot, and their teeth knocked out with kicks from boots as the girl Jays on the ground. The boys, in their turn, are out thieving all day, and the lodging- house keeper will buy any stolen provisions of them, and sell them to the lodgers. I never saw the police in the house. If a boy comes to ine house on a night without money or sawney, or something to sell to the lodgers, a handkerchief or something of that kind, he is not admitted, but told very plainly, ' Go thieve it, then.' Girls are treated just the same. Any body may call in the day time at this house and have a halfpenny- worth of coffee and sit any length of. time until evening. I have seen tlires dozen sitting there that way,, all thieves and bad girls. There are no chairs, and only one form in front of the fire, on which a dozen can sit. The others sit on the floor all about the room, as near the fire, as they can. Bad language goes on during the day, as 1 have told voif it did during the night, and indecencies too, but nothing like so bad as at night, ' l'hey talk about where there is good places to go and thieve. The missioners call sometimes, but they're laughed at often when they're talking, and always before the door's closed on them. If a decent girl g,; es there to get a ha'porth of coffee, seeing the board over the door, she is al- ways shocked. Many a poor girl has been ruined iu this house since I was, and boys have boasted about it. I never knew boy or girl do good, once get used there. Get used there, indeed, and you are life- ruined. I was an only child, and haven't a friend in the world. I have heard several girls say how they would like to get out of the life, and out of the place. From those I know, I think th3t cruel parents and mistresses cause . many to be driven there. One lougiug- house keeper, Mrs. , goes out dressed respectable, and pawns any stolen property, or sells it at public- houses." OUR BLESSED CHURCH.— The Established Church of England and Ireland is of tlie most extraordinary character. In the latter country it is the church of less than a tenth of the people; and yet the tithes, and immense quantities of property besides, are applied to its use. In England, most of the clergy are appointed by a few aristocratic laymen, who own the right of presentation, and the appointments are the subject of trafficking and even of public sales by auo- tion. ' Wi- REYNOLDS'S POLITICAL INSTRUCTOR. THE CIVIL LIST AND CROWN REVENUES.* THE civil list is the annual sum which has been granted by parliament for the personal support of the queen and regal state. It is fixed immediately after the accession, and is usually preceded by an inquiry into the expenditure of the antecedent reign, according to which the future scale of allowance is settled. The bargain made is held to continue during the life of the sovereign, unless an accumulation of debts or other embarrassment renders necessary a fresh inves- tigation and arrangement. Hence it might be inferred that any exposition of civil list expenditure must be useless, as the existing settlement cannot be distributed during the queen's life. But the contract was a mutual one, and if the sovereign be free to seek a new arrangement, in case of pecuniary diffi- culties, why not the people? After this preliminary the royal income may be entered upon. Apart from the income of the queen are the incomes of the queen's relations— uncles, aunts, and other members of the royal family— who are separately provided for by par- liamentary annuities. Prince Albert, as consort of the queen, has also a separate maintainance for life voted by parliament. The Prince of Wales inherits divers revenues as Duke of Cornwall and Lancaster, and which, pending his infancy, accumulate for his benefit Civil list contingencies form a cognate branch of expenditure, chiefly incurred in the travel- ling expenses of the sovereign, in the reception and entertain- ment of royal visitors, in the outfit of ambassadors and colonial bishops, in the making of presents to distinguished personages, investiture of the order of the garter, peerage creations, and other outgoings, the amount of which is uncertain, and which is annually voted by parliament according to estimate. In addition to these heads are the hereditary revenues of the crown, for which the civil list is a commutation, and out ol which formerly used to be defrayed the entire charges of civil government, and the management of which is now vested in the Commissioners of Woods and Forest. All these different branches form a vast aggregate of income and disbursements, which it may be requisite briefly to notice, but in this instance limiting ourselves to the civil list It was only under William IV that any practical limit was put to this branch of expenditure. From the Revolution of 1( 388, a fixed sum had been voted for the civil list, but so many other sources of revenue were left at the uncontrolled disposal of the crown, that virtually no check existed on ex- travagance. Other facilities for royal dissipation were left open in the ease with which a discharge could be obtained for any arrears on the civil list that might have been lavishly accumulated. The unreformed parliament of the borough- mongers formed the most indulgent of insolvent courts to apply to, and in case of pecuniary difficulties the royal peti- tioner was never refused his certificate. In this way were the debts of George III and the Prince of Wales repeatedly dis- charged ; but these frequent white- washings so aroused public indignation that an irresponsible House of Commons was constrained to make some attempts, real or otherwise, to limit the squanderings of royalty. The way it proceeded was this. First, the civil list was relieved to the amount of a quarter of a million of various extraneous charges, pertaining more to the general govern- ment of the country than the expenditure of the crown. These outgoings transferred, the next step was to fix upon a yearly sum, made strictly applicable to royal service, and so large that it could not easily be exceeded. For this purpose the lavish rate of expenditure, during the first three years of the regency, was fixed upon as the standard of the future out- goings of the crown. Upon this scale the civil list of George IV was settled, and from this period the public heard no more of royal debts and embarrassments; indeed, the result could hardly have been otherwise— the annual expenses of the Prince Regent had exceeded by nearly a quarter of a million those of George III, and of course by fixing the future outlay at this extravagant pitch, the royal gulf, insatiable as it had been in charges for upholstery, furniture, jewellery, robes, tailoring, perfumery, embroidery, & c., was at last filled up. On the accession of William IV, there was a further trans- fer of charges, and a reduction on some others by which the civil list was reduced to £ 510,000. On the king's death the subject was referred to a committee of the House of Commons, and upon its report the civil list of Queen Victoria was fixed at £ 385,000 divided into the following classes of disburse- ments :— 1. Her Majesty's Privy Purse . ... £ 60,000 2. Salaries of Her Majesty's Household . 131,000 3. Expenses of Her Majesty's Household 172,000 • 1. Charities and Special Services . , . 13,200 5. Pensions to the extent of 1,200 Unappropriated moneys 8,000 £ 385,400 The saving in the new reign is only in appearance, Queen Victoria being relieved of various charges for pensions and. secret- service money, to which her predecessor was liable Allowing for these, the income of the queen, though nominally less, is fully equal to that of King William, and from the differ- ence in the value of money intrinsically greater. An impor- tant inquiry therefore is, " Upon what objects of public use- fulness or grandeur a solid income of £ 385,000 a- year is ex- pended ?" Let us glance at the chief items. First is the privy purse of £ 60,000 per annum. Before the reign of George III, no such thing as a privy purse was known; the kin J s income was looked upon as a public provision, belonging to the office, not the person of the monarch. It is not applied to any house- hold or other regal expense; it is strictly the queen's private allowance, and the only part of the civil list in her absolute disposal, the rest being appropriated, and almost entirely, in the disbursement of the aristocracy of the palace. The next head of expense is the salaries of the royal house- hold, 131,000f. The household is formed on old baronial customs, and is distributed into four divisions. The Lord Chamberlain's department, which regulates etiquette and attends to the personal wants of her Majesty, and has the con- trol over all the officers and servants belonging to the Queen's chambers, except those belonging to the Queen's bed- chamber, who are under the Groom of the Stole. 2. The Lord Steward's, which has the entire control of the household, keeps the ac- counts, and looks after the carnal comforts of royalty and its servants. 3. The Master of the Horse, who has the superin- tendence of the Queen's stables and horses, 4. The Mistress f the Robes, whose department the title itself explains. - * This article is taken from Wade's admirable work entitled " Unreformed Abuses," published by Effingham " Wilson, Royal Exchange, The chief officers in these departments are the following:— £ Lord Chamberlain . . . . . 2,000 Vice- Chamberlain 924 Lord Steward ...... 2,000 Treasurer of the Household .... 500 Comptroller of the Household .... 500 Secretary to the Lord Steward . . . 800 Master of the Horse 2,500 Keeper of the Queen's Privy Purse . . 2,000 Chief Equerry ....... 750 Four Equerries in Ordinary . . . 2,400 Four Pages of Honour 480 Five Pages of the Back stairs . . . 2,000 Mistress of the Robes 500 • Eight Ladies of the Bed- chamber . . 4,000 Eight Maids of Honour 2,400 Eight Bed- chamber Women . . . 2,400 Eight Lords in Waiting .... 5,616 Eight Grooms in Waiting .... 2,685 Groom of the Robes 850 Yeomen of the Guard 7,100 Gentlemen- at- arms . . . . . .5,129 Master of the Buckhounds .... 1,700 Hereditary Grand Falconer of England . . 1,200 Poet Laureate. 100 Examiner of Plays 400 Surveyor of Pictures ..... 182 Master of the Tennis Court .... 132 Bargemaster and Keeper of the Swans . 400 Ecclesiastical Staff of the Household . . 1,236 Medical Staff of Ditto, expenses . . . 2,700 Master of Music and Band, salaries . . 2,961 The offices of the heads of departments are little more than political sinecures, the occupants of which are changed with each change of ministry. In addition to the above is a multi- tudinous classification under the heads of purveyors, mes- sengers, and ushers and gentlemen of the privy chamber— with a vast host of porters and state porters, clerks of the kitchen, gentlemen of the wine and beer cellars, almoners, yeomen of the crown, and what not. How much this immense establishment exceeds the require- ments of the kingly office may be instanced in the example of the regency. At that time the Regent discharged the_ duties of the monarch with only his establishment as Prince of Wales. It did not appear that under this curtailment there was any want of state or attendance to give dignity and effi- ciency to the first magistrate. Burke mentions that in his time one- half of the royal household was kept up solely for influence. Offices about the Court still continue among the most desirable of public appointments. The salaries of many of them are considerable, added to which are the baubles of a court and their theatrical exhibition, the frequent communi- cation with royalty, its real or supposed friendship, and the fashionable consideration they give. These inducements alone, it might be thought, without pay, would suffice to bring candidates enough for vacant offices. Surely the patricians of the west are not less munificent in spirit than the citizens of the east end of the metropolis ? In the city the chief offices are filled gratuitously, and lord mayor, sheriffs, and aldermen are always abundantly forthcoming. Why might not the state offices of lord chamberlain, lord steward, or master of the horse be filled on like terms! The quarterly pay can hardly be an object to a Duke of Norfolk, Earl For- tescue, or Duchess of Sutherland. Granting, however, that the labourer is worthy of his hire, whether noble or not; that the menials of a court have the same right to be paid as those of any other great household ; allowing all this, the public has certainly a right to be in- formed what labour or service is performed by the court magnates — what the Duke of Norfolk or Earl Fortescue may do for his salary; and not these only, but the long list of titled good- for- nothings, who crowd the palace with their insig- nificant persons. If the country be called upon to pay them, at least it ought to be furnished with some rota of their duties Let each keep his diarv— have a niche in that important record, the Court Circular, in which among the other tiny annals of the palace—" a walk on the slopes," or a " pony ride," is chronicled— the doings of the Lord Chamberlain be regis- tered— what time he rises in the morning, what mighty ope- ration he first enters upon, and with what splendid acts he fills up the day. When this has been fairly done let his perform- ances be compared with his salary, and let the public judge such momentous trivialities fairly entitle him to forty pounds a week. How and in what circumstances the inordinate love of money introduced itself into the Court we need not now pause to in- quire, it being undeniable that the thing exists tliere, and has been transmitted from father to son from time immemorial. Everything is sordid and beggarly about the palace. There is no disinterestedness in high or low, no patriotism, no desire to serve the country for the honour of serving it; but an inor- dinate craving after pounds, shillings, and pence, which infects the proudest grandees equally with the meanest lacqueys. A constitutional monarchy has been described to be a re- public. with the drawback of a civil list, and it may be the opinion of some that this branch of expenditure might be saved to the country. For proof, they might refer to the ex- ample of the United States of America, as a successful ex- ample of non- regal government Their king costs only £ 5,000 per annum, and other functionaries are had at an equally reasonable rate. As to court lords and ladies they have none, and the loss thereby has never been apparent. Their govern- ment has seldom appeared deficient in dignity or efficiency; and the duties of the chief magistrate have been discharged quite as well in England. Some of their presidents have not even failed in the mere accomplishment of royalty: the late Sir Robert Liston, a competent judge, declaring that " he never conversed with a finer gentleman than George Washington." The civil list forms only one. item of the cost of royalty. Her Majesty's relatives, direct and collateral, are provided for. The death of William IV, and the accession of an unmarried woman made no abatement of charge to the community; the creation of fresh auncities, or the increase of former ones, being more than equivalent to the nominal reduction of the civil list. Queen Adelaide exchanged her privy purse of £ 50,000 for a life annuity of £ 100,000, with Marlborough House and Bushy Park. On the same occasion the revenue of the Duchess of Kent was augmented from £ 22,000 to £ 30,000. Her Majesty's marriage brought another annuitant on the public in the Prince Consort, who was rated at £ 30,000 per annum. About £ 600,000 a- year is the aggregate charge to the public of the queen and royal family, exclusive of the household and revenue of the Prince of Wales. And why dwell on such a pecuniary presentment ? Why wail over the stamp duties, window duties, excise duties, or other vexatious imposts for which the civil list aud its collaterals might be a commuta- tion ? What has Jonathan to do with the matter if the British public is not dissatisfied, but tenaciously cherishes ancient prepossessions, in favour of the idol- worship and mediaeval barbarisms, that other European communities have contemp- tuously rejected. The cost of this old fashioned devotion is doubtless a consideration, and what that has been in past as well as present times, it may be useful to ascertain. The people are only imperfectly acquainted with the expensive- ness of their institutions; and the profuse rate at which theit incomes have been decimated for the perpetuation of tradi- tional notions or questionable utilities. Since the accession of George III to the present time, no less than £ 101,957,807 have been the whole amount of the civil list. Above one hundred millions expended in the maintenance of a single family, forms an enormous item in the national outgoings. But of this sum, it is fair to remark that the largest proportions has been disbursed by the aristo- cracy, not the sovereign. ==========~=~ 4 UNPAID MAGISTRACY. GENTLEMEN in " the commission" appear to entertain singular and vague notions in respect to the duties they have undertaken to fulfil; in most instances they seem to forget that their province consists in administering, but not making, the law. County magistrates have in- variably private codes of their own, formed from pecu- liar ideas on the delinquency of poverty, startling notions on the privilege of wealth, rather exaggerated opinions respecting the importance of their own position, and absurd delusions as to the amount of intelligence found on a county bench of magistrates. They are not placed upon the " commission" on account of their wis- dom, shrewdness, learning, or acquirements; neither, if we may judge by a certain gigantic railway speculator, who was at one time the oracle of the unpaid magistracy in his own county, by reason of their integrity. Money, rank, political influence and subserviency, are all that can be expected to qualify a lord or a squire for the duties of a magistrate; knowledge of the law or a fair proportion of common sense, is more than we have a right to expect from a member of either our aristocracy or our squirearchy. Clergymen are gentlemen of edu- cation, but they should find sufficient occupation in expounding the laws of God, without meddling or in- terfering in the administration of the laws of man. Be- sides, they are seldom more than'mere tools in the hands of the rich and influential, who, by promising fat livings or bishoprics in perspectivev control the acts and words of the clerical body. In short, the unpaid magistracy of England is the most incompetent, intolerant, prejudiced, and obstinate body of men that have ever been entrusted with the administration of justice, or who have presumed to dis- pense that law, of which every day proves them to be shamefully and entirely ignorant. Innocence or guilt on the part of the accused is a secondary consideration; the convincing evidences of faultlessness in the eyes of county Solons comprise, a regular attendance at church; a sneaking, cringing, servility to the rich; abstinence from all grumbling or complaint, however legitimate; a strong abhorrence for game of all description; a blind idolization for all corrupt, rotten, and tyrannical insti- tutions; and, in case of being an elector, to entertain no opinions excepting those held by the rich and power- ful. Such is a model prisoner before a county bench of magistrates: however heinous his offence, however black his crime, so long as it has left uninjured the mighty of the land, mercy, compassion, and sympathy will be displayed towards him;— but let an honest, independent, conscientious man, who cares not a dump more for a squire or a lord than he does for another, and has the presumption to entertain ideas of his own both upon politics aud religion, who goes either to a church or a meeting- house, as best suits his views, and is fond of game; besides thinking it a crime to monopolize the gifts of nature; but above all other iniquities reads tho Dispatch and Instructor on Sundays;— such a man, in the eyes of the " commission," cannot be else than a criminal of the most hardened and flagitious de- scription. A ridiculous instance of magisterial prejudice has lately come to our knowledge, and occurred at the Kent Quarter Sessions, before the chairman and a full bench of magistrates. It appears that a lad named Pitcher was indicted for stealing, at the parish of Ash, near Sandwich, several yards of fustian cloth, from his mas- ter, Mr. Robert Bubb, a respectable tradesman. The evidence went to prove, that so soon as this gentleman's brother discovered the theft, he accused the prisoner with committing it, which was admitted. He was tried for the offence, and the vicar of the parish employed a Mr. Russell as counsel, nominally for the prisoner, but we rather suspect the motives were less charitable and praiseworthy. The prosecutor's cross- examination by Mr. Russell must have been highly edifying, both to the bench and the audience. It was as follows: — " Q. Do you attend a place o? worship yourself!— A. Yes, I have attended. Q. Now, I ask you, are you a person who believes at all in the existence of a Deity !— A. Most certainly ; but I do not see what that has to do with the present case. This is got up for party prejudice and nothing else, and I am perfectly satisfied from whence it came. Q. Perhaps it has more to do with it than you are aware. I am instructed to ask you, are you not a person who disbelieves in a future state of rewards and punishments ?— A. Certainly, I am not. Q. In fact, are you not what is commonly called an atheist!— A. Certainly not. Q. Then you do believe in the existence of a Deity, and a future state of rewards and punishments!— A, Certainly I do; and I defy you, or those that instructed you, to prove the contrary. Q. You say, you have attended divine worship: what denomination of Christians do you he- long to?— A. I never belonged to any other but the Church. Q. Now, I ask you, do you attend a place of worship on Sun- days!— A. Yes, 1 have. Q. How many times, now, may you have attended church in the course of the year!— A. 1 cannot say how many times. I never noticed particularly. Q Have you been at all!— A. Yes, I'have. Q. How many times!— A. I ' Wi- REYNOLDS'S POLITICAL INSTRUCTOR. do not know how many times. I do not see what that has to do with the case. Q. Have you been to church once during the past year?— A. Yes. a Twice?— A. Yes. Q. Three times? A. Yes, I daresay I have; I have not counted. Q. I be-, lieve you went over to Prance with the deputation last June to sympathise with the Red Republicans ?— A. I went over to France. Q. To sympathise with the Red Republicans?— A. To sympathise with the French, and I went for my own pleasure. It was at Easter I went; but what has it to do • with the case ?* Evidence was produced in confirmation of the pri- soner's guilt, but with that question it is not our intention to meddle. We are only desirous of exposing the manner in which a man's conscientious opinions may injure him in the eyes of county magistrates,— mostly church- goers from hypocrisy, and loyal from selfishness. After a speech from Mr. Russell, suited to the capacity, and calculated to flatter the prejudices of the bench, the chairman summed up, and the following extract is a precious specimen of intolerant rigmarole. " Some of the questions put by the learned counsel might appear irrelevant; but if a master has so little regard for his own soul that he cannot say whether he has been to church within the year or not, or whether he has only been within that time twice, you cannot conceive that that man is in very great care of his future state. That is some reason to cast the doubt which the learned counsel did as to whether he did believe in a future state. If a man comes into this court who neither believes that he has an immortal soul, nor in a future state, are the lives of her Majesty's subjects to be entrusted to his care? Decidedly not." The prisoner was, of course, after this clear and logical summing- up, pronounced innocent. Now, we ask, would a poor fellow who had entrapped a hare for his day's meal have escaped thus easily? Would the vicar of the parish have employed counsel to defend him against the persecution of a wealthy or titled pro- secutor? We doubt it. But the truth of the matter was this: Mr. Bubb is a liberal- minded and intelligent inha- bitant of Minster, in Kent; he is secretary to a book- society, of which several other tradesmen are members; and in every way a respectable citizen. But in the eye3 of the clergy and magistracy he is a monster of ini- quity. Did he not go to France with a deputation and congratulate the republicans on their achievement of liberty? Does he not read a newspaper on Sunday? Yes. Is lie a constant attendant at church? No. How can such a man be credited on his oath? Impossible, exclaim the worthy bench of magistrates. Mr. Russell, a shrewd fellow, no doubt, weighing with accuracy the brains of the " unpaid," instead of sifting the innocence or guilt of the prisoner, entirely diverted the bench's attention by painting the prosecutor, Mr. Bubb, in such black colours, as working upon tbeir fevered imagi- nations, already dreadfully excited by the presence of a Bed Republican, ensured an acquittal for his client. The Kentish Solons may be taken as a specimen of tie great unpaid magistracy throughout the country. In the western division of Kent we hear of a noble justice of the peace and big- wig, one Lord Romney, whose favourite punishment is the cat- o'- nine- tails; this he causes to be inflicted upon starving adults, when they have committed the heinous crime of stealing in a moment of hungry desperation, a twopenny loaf ! THE ARISTOCRACY: ITS ORIGIN, PROGRESS, AND DECAY. THE insanity of George was contagious to his ministry. Immediately on the breaking out of the American war, our utter inefficiency in every department connected with the colonial administration was made apparent. Millions per annum had been voted by our Aristocratic parliament for the support of an army in America, but when the storm of insurrection burst forth the exposure was made, and it was demonstrated that the supplies voted for our military force had been squandered in gew- gaw ab- surdities, ridiculous pageants, and ribald revels, pleas- ing and satisfactory to noble governors and their dummy aid- de- camps, but disgusting and displeasing to the American colonists, and injurious to the English cha- racter and position in every respect. Colonel Barre proved in the House of Commons that during the American war, the ministers, their relations, friends, and supporters, jobbed in the funds at the nation's cost,- pillaged the soldiers, embezzled the supplies, and diverted them from the course to which they were destined into one that filled their own pockets at the expense of England's honour and reputation. " A series of debates," says Knight's history, " took place in 1777, on abuses in the commissariat; on the chartering of transports,— wretched vessels hired of merchants, in which our poor soldiers suffered all the horrors of a middle passage, in- stead of being sent to their destination in good commo- dious ships." These contracts for conveying our soldiers were given to persor^& recommended by some aristocratic influence, and it flSs well understood by both parties, contractor and lord— that a very handsome gratuity would be paid by the former to the latter for the exercise of his interest, and the consequence of such nefarious dealings were disastrous in the extreme; our soldiers, were drowned, starved, or suffocated by hundreds on- their passage. " Many aristocratic ruby faced gentle- men," continues the historian, " who sate on the minis- terial side of the house, sometimes speaking of king and country, but always voting with the treasury bench, had been allowed to get profitable contracts, profitable to them, but slow death to the poor soldiers and sailors who ate their meagre, sapless beef, their carrion pork, and their mouldy biscuits. The opposition affirmed that both at Boston and since, our brave soldieis had been destroyed by unwholesome provisions.'' When the war broke forth, we were found to have hut very few soldiers in America, excepting in Canada; al- though the nation had been paying sufficient annually, to support a large standing army, but instead of good, useful, and cheap soldiers, the colonies were infested with arro- gant, gold laced, stiff- backed noblemen styled " excellen- cies;" and these useless fellows invariably had long tails of be- plumed and be- spangled puppy sprigs of the Aris- tocracy who fed and clothed their senseless carcases upon the resources of the country. When questioned in the House of Lords on the cause of our numerous disasters and the glaring inefficiency of our costly army in Ame- rica, Lord North, with cool characteristic impudence, asserted that our resources in the colonies were fully equal to the occasion, and that the condition of our army was truly admirable. This brazen lie was uttered at tbe very time despatch after despatch was coming home con- taining intelligence of some fresh blander or mishap that had occurred to the king's troops. It is sufficient to state that the Americans in spite oi" the wilful, obsti- nate, and mad opposition of the king, his ministers, and Aristocracy, achieved a glorious and triumphant freedom, kicked our lordly nincompoops forth from the seat of their mis- governments, and shaking off the trammels of monarchy raised a glorious free Republic, and laughed at old George's folly, and absurd waste of two hundred - and fifty millions of his people's money, in struggling for what all sane comprehensions considered as utterly hope- less,— the monarchical enslavery of America. This war, begun in obstinacy, injustice, and arrogance on the part of England, ended in ridicule, disgrace, defeat, and debt! New taxes could alone furnish means for paying the immense additional annuities, and the sums for every succeeding year's demand increased. At this period ( 1783) the Prince of Wales and his brother the Duke of York were associated with a knot of profligate noblemen and commoners in dissipation of every species; their excesses, in voluptuousness and indulgencies of all kings were sufficient to drain the resources of the coun- try. The Aristocracy, as usual, furnished panders and associates to royal vice, and even in the boyish days of George IV, we find one of the nobles of the land actually performing the degrading part of a sycophantic pimp to the lecherous passions of the profligate prince. This nobleman was Lord Maiden, afterwards Earl of Essex, uncle to the present peer. At the age of seventeen, the beautiful but ill- fated Harriet Vernon was one of the maids of honeur to Queen Charlotte, and she had not long been a resident in the palace before her lovely face and sylpli- like form attracted the attention of the royal voluptuary. Afraid to notice tbe young girl in public, George had recourse to the services of Lord Maiden, and that nobleman, proud of pandering to the vicious tastes of royalty, even at the expense of a young creature's happiness, reputation, and virtue, became a go- between to carry letters and messages from the prince to Miss Vernon, and thus aid his royal high- ness's project of seduction. Such an adept was his lordship in the task he had undertaken, and so admir- ably did he perform the part of Leporello, that a meet- ing was arranged between the prince and the maid of honour, the former was to disguise himself in one of Lord Maiden's cloaks, whilst the nobleman himself, kept watch to prevent interruption. Miss Vernon ceased to be an honourable maid, and a short time after was no longer a maid of honour; she was then neglected, deserted, and died of a broken heart. Lord Essex afterwards, again rendered himself odiously notorious by the pandering part he performed in obtaining posses- sion of Mrs. Robinson's person for his profligate master and employer. The molfto of the Essex family is " Fide et fortitudine," by faith and fortitude : it would be more appropriate, " By pandering and by servile vice." The Prince of Wales's income was fixed at fifty thousand a- year, exclusive of the enormous revenues derived from the Duchy of Cornwall; but notwith- standing this splendid allowance, the country was con- stantly being called upon to supply funds for the payment of debts contracted in vicious and demoralizing pursuits. Surrounded by a troop of dissipated nobles, such as the late infamous Marquis of Hertford, Lords Coleraine, Essex, and many others of the same stamp, the wicked George was constantly urged on to squander the monoy of a people, already borne down by heavy taxation and an accumulating amount of debt. Encouraged in his natural spendthrift notions by a set of reckless, scampish noblemen, the Prince of Wales only considered the English people as a means of supplying money for the gratification of his vices and follies, he laughed at their distresses, and ridiculed their complaints. At the time of the breaking out of the French revo- lution, the Aristocracy of England was at the summit of its magnificence and power; rapacity, blood, torture, plunder, and continuous tyranny to the lower classes had worked their purposes, and now hypocrisy, subserviency, and sycophantic loyalty were used as a farther means of aggrandisement. The glorious revolution of the French nation caused them to tremble with fear; they beheld in that country an Aristocracy neither as corrupt, de- based, or tyrannical as themselves, cut up at its root and overthrown with contumely; they knew the whole system, so long and tyrannically followed by the nobilities of Europe, would be exposed and stand forth naked in its glaring liideousness of slavery and crime; they felt that the resplendent glory of republican institutions would be reflected across the Channel, and that the tide of rege- neration would roll on and sweep from the earth the foul masses of titled filth that so long had preyed upon the vitals of mankind. How did they meet and oppose this much- dreaded result? The Aristocracy of England raised a cry of terror throughout the land; they asserted that the hearths and the homes of Englishmen were un- safe, and might momentarily be invaded by Republican troops. They denounced the patriots of France as men of blood; reviled, insulted, and outraged those pure institutions which had been erected on the wreck of debased monarchy. They affrighted the English people from their security, and working upon their alarmed minds, at that period not so enlightened as at the pre- sent time, raised up a generous nation to oppose their neighbours, struggling for liberty, honour, and purity. The Aristocracy of England was all- powerful and all- wealthy; it possessed everything: the mad king was always ready to second them in their wicked projects, either of oppression or aggrandisement; the state offices, taxes, pensions, and the church, with all its dignities and resources, were in its power; the army and navy were officered by their scions, and the whole patronage was in the hands of the nobility; the public charities and their great revenues were at their disposal; the colonies were a source of large profit to them; and, finally, the House of Commons was a mere reflector of aristocratic sentiments, feelings, and interests. The crown lands were in their possession, and they had planted the king and royal family upon the nation's purse, with an understanding, that as the usurpers of the country's property were omnipotent in both houses of parliament, the royal exchequer should always be well and right- liberally supplied. To render them due justice, we must acknowledge that, in this instance, their word has remained unbroken. This compact be- tween royalty and Aristocracy was mutually advan- tageous; the latter looks to the former as one source of dignity, wealth, and power; and kings consider their nobility as the millstone which, crushing the energies and intelligence of their subjects keeps them in- a state of willing but degraded serfdom. By surrendering the crown revenues, and throwing itself upon parliament, royalty lost nothing, but gave an immense influence into the hands of the Aristocracy, which is invariably used to foil the wishes and enslave the minds of the people. Horace Walpole truthfully observes of them, • " as jealous of and as fond of their privileges as the king of his prerogative; they are attentive to maintain them, and deem the rights of the people rather as en- croachments than as a common interest." In fact, to use the terms of an ancient author, the nobility always have been, still are, and ever will be, " a useless and profligate race of vagabonds, lazy and debased, eating their fill at the expense of their neighbours; and, in- stead of contributing to the public stock, devour with greed the produce of the industrious." But the revolution of France startled the Aristocracy, ; and they prepared to meet its threatened consequences, not with their own resources, but with the property of the nation, plunging a people into war without the remotest cause, reason, or necessity, and heaping upon us the greater part of that crushing burthen, a national debt, the interest of which we are unjustly called upon to defray. In 1793 a declaration of hostilities was an- nounced between the Court of Great Britain and the French people, and twenty millions of pounds demanded for a supply. To provide this enormous sum, of course fresh taxes were levied upon the people, and alliances were entered into with the despotic powers of Europe, whose princes and nobility we were called upon to subsidize; but the prestige of royalty and Aristocracy must be maintained at any cost, and the people of England must pay for kingly and imperial alliances. The manner in which Englishmen hare been bam- boozled out of their cash by foreign sovereign- leeches was once happly ridiculed by Sir Andrew Mitchell in an interview with the King of Prussia soon after the taking of Quebec. " Is it true," said his majesty, " that you have at length taken Quebec ?"—" Yes, sire," replied Sir Andrew," with the assistance of God." —" How!" exclaimed the king; " God is, then, one of your allies also?"—" Yes, sire, and the only one we do not subsidize!" smartly retorted the Englishman. A large amount of money was required for the assistance of Austria, and the people of England were called upon to furnish it. As we proceed in this remarkable and perilous period to trace the evil, sanguinary, and tyrannical motives that induced the king and his Aristocracy to prolong a ruinous, unnatural war, the dreadful misery they, by their selfish obstinacy, have occasioned, and the torrents of blood they caused to be shed, we shall be compelled to expose the most heartless and revolting intrigues, the most cold- blooded and san- guinary butcheries that ever disgraced the annals of the world. ALI? HA. ( To be continued in our next.) WHAT A REPUBLIC !— Lamartine, when a member of the Provisional Government, made the following speech to the people of Paris:—" What would you have said, citizens, had any one told you, three days ago, that you would have over- thrown the monarchy, destroyed oligarchy, obtained univer- sal sutfrage in the name of mankind, acquired ail the rights of citizenship, and founded the republic,— that republic, the distant dream of all those who felt her name hidden in the innermost recesses of their conscience like a crime ? And what a republic! no longer one, like those of Greece and Rome, containing aristocrats and plebeians, masters and slaves; not like the aristocratic repubucs of modern times containing citizens and beggars— men greater or less in the " eye of the lav, a people and a patriciate; but an equal re- public in which there is no longer aristocracy or oligarchy; neither greater nor lesser, patricians or plebeians, but a repub- lic iu which there is but one people, composed of the univer- sality of citizens, and in which public right and power are com- posed solely of the right and voice of each individual summed up in a collective power called the government of the re- public, and returning iu laws, popular institutions, and bene- fits to the people from whom it emanated. Had you been told this three days ago, you would have said, ' Three days t three centuries will be required to accomplish this mighty undertaking for humanity!' Behold, what you declared im- possible has come to pass! Here is your work amidst this tumult; these arms, these dead bodies of the martys to your cause. You would be unworthy of these gifts of Heaven, if you knew not how to contemplate and value them."— So- spoke Lamartine then: does he say " What a Republc 1" now? ' Wi- REYNOLDS'S POLITICAL INSTRUCTOR. A NEW HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAPTER XV. HENRY VI. HENRY VI, son of Henry V, was born at Windsor in the year 1421, and at the death of his father was scarcely nine months old. As his whole reign was a perpetual minority, personally his history would be confined to interesting episodes of the nursery. A boyhood passed in a course of rudimentary instruction, a young king petted on the laps of maids" of honour,— for questionless there was a court, and the Duke of Bedford was at its head,— cannot be remarkably eventful, we have therefore to relate the principal events of the period, which is after all as much the history of France as the history of England. The young Henry was formally invested in the sove- reignty of France by ambassadors sent over for that purpose, while in the meantime his uncle, the Duke of Bedford, held Paris with a doggedness that was irre- sistible; and the dauphin Charles, despairing of every hope, was reduced to a state of genteel beggary. The care of the young king's person and education was en- trusted to his great uncle, Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester. The young heir to the Scottish throne, ( subsequently released and raised to it) was still in Eng land, and the chief nobility of France, the prisoners of Agineourt, were here also. Few events of any conse- quence disturbed the tranquillity of the kingdom in itself, as the quarrels witb France were carried on upon their own ground, whither for a time we must lead the reader. The dauphin Charles was the undoubted heir to the monarchy; but Bedford held the North of France, and the English, powerful under the best, captains of the age, seemed to preclude all hope of his ever obtaining the crown. Many of the most powerful of the French nobles had done homage to Henry V at Paris, though with the few faithful to him ha still held out; but the disastrous result of the battle of Verneuil, fought in August 1424, almost annihilated his remaining army. Four thousand French and 1600 English are said to have fallen that day. This defeat is attributable to the headlong impetuosity of the French, and as in so mauy numerous instances, was ruinous to them. A difference which took place regarding Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and the Countess Jacqueline of Holland, who entered ( while she was a wife) into a con- tract of marriage with each other, was of the most timely assistance to the harassed French, because a war was kindled between the Duke of Brabant and the Duke of Gloucester, and the Low Countries became the theatre of a new conflict, which Bedford beheld with no little trepidation. The Duke of Brittany, who had been of great service to the English forces, went back to his allegiance, and Charles, day by day, by little and little, began to recover ground. The assistance which Dunois, the " Bastard of Orleans " gave him with his sword, was most important in its consequences; this brings us in 1428 to the siege of Orleans, from which day the course of events were completely reversed. Bedford thought it necessary to take this city in which the uncrowned French king was closely shut up. Every- thing, in fact, made them despair; and it was only by the daring intrepidity and true enthusiasm of the cele- brated Joan of Arc ( whose name will be immortal while true worth and heroism is admired by humanity), that n convoy of provision was brought to the city— the city itself saved, the English disgracefully beaten— utterly defeated, till finally, after almost miraculous successes, Charles and hi3 army, in number 12,000, accompanied by his court and Joan, were able to set out for Rheims, where he was to be crowned. In his way several of the chief cities, which he had at one time lost, again submitted to him. It required all the skill, energy, and prudence of Bed- ford to withstand the press of opposition which he now met from every quarter. The growing power of Charles and the scanty supplies sent him; the defection of the most powerful of the French nobles who had hitherto been faithful to him, were fatal to the English interests iti France: for this we feel no regret. Those who build upon a conquest, and grow rich upon the spoils of other people, have a right to lose in turn, and generally speaking, such an event becomes utterly ruinous to the hitherto victorious country. On the 25th of May, 1422, an event occurred which was almost fatal to Charles, for his great right hand, the " Maid of Orleans," was taken prisoner: the exultation of the English knew no bounds. The Duke of Bedford, to his eternal shame be it spoken, purchased the poor captive from John of Luxembourg, by whom she had been seized; and the usages of war, the rights of hu- manity, the privileges accorded to captives— everything that was even decent, wer « in her case most scandalously violated. The Bishop of Beauvais, a traitor to his country, be- cause wholly devoted to the English interest, instituted, by Bedford's sanction, a prosecution against her on the grounds of sorcery— a charge, which was utterly ground- less, but which nevertheless was universally believed. She was condemned to be burnt in the market- place of Rouen, and the sentence was put into execution. The English gained little by this atrocious act, for the de- fection of the Duke of Burgundy and the death of the Duke of Bedford struck the death- blow to the power of the English in France, which in 1443 led to a truce b'tween Charles and Henry, and was followed by the later " marrying with Margaret of Anjou; but, instead of receiving a dowry with his wife, he ceded the pro- vince of Maine to Charles of Anjou, his wife's uncle. The weakness and imbecility of the king, if anything, exceeded that of his predecessors, and recent events, his marriage, together with several other things, so dis- gusted the English, that he was fain to renetr the wpr, and in consequence lost Normandy, and every inch of ' ground he formerly held— Calais being the only place in his possession. Henry was now about two- and- twenty years of age, half- witted and effeminate; in his person was the usurpation of his grandsire to be expiated. The House of Mortimer, in the male line, was extinct; but Richard, Duke of York, being descended from the sister of the last Earl of March, had a claim upon the throne. The assassination of the " good" Duke of Glou- cester was a fatal blow to the Hoa3e of Lancaster; and as the Duke of Suffolk is said to have been actively en- gaged in this deed, to appease the clamour of the people he was impeached for it in the House of Commons, sen- tenced to be for ever banished, and was murdered on his way to France. A consequence of much misrule on the part of the king and his government exhibited itself in " Jack Cade's" formidable insurrection. Twenty thousand men flocked under his standard, and he took the name of John Mortimer. Henry was removed, for safety ( the poor king!) to Kenilworth, and London opened its gates to the rude conqueror, who maintained remarkable order among his people, and punished with the greatest severity every act of violence or plunder that was com- mitted. As, in most cases of the kind, a counter revo- lution occurred, a price was set upon his head, and he was finally killed by Iden, a gentleman of Sussex, in whose garden Cade had been obliged to take shelter. In the meanwhile the Duke of York, who was in Ireland at the time, appeared with but a small retinue in Eng- land; but he found that it was as dangerous for him to be silent with regard to hi% claims, as it would be to put them forward. Choosing the latter alternative as being the most secure, the nation became thus divided into the partizans of York and Lancaster. These things became, in 1451, matters of parliamentary agitation ; and in 1452 the Duke of York raised an army of 10,000 men, and, advancing towards London, he demanded a reform in the government ( greatly enough needed), and the removal of the Duke of Somerset from authority. He found the gates shut, and retreated into Kent, where he was followed by Henry; but, by means of a plot, he was surrounded by his enemies, and, disbanding his army, retired to Wigmore, on the Welsh border. Henry falling ill, and becoming more and more idiotic, the York party gained the ascendancy. Somerset was sent to the Tower, and Richard, Duke of York, was made lieutenaut of the kingdom, fn 1455, on Henry's partial recovery, he assumed his authority; and Richard, dreading the danger, levied another army. The first battle between Richard and Henry was fought at St. Albans, in which the Yorkists were superior; but an accommodation was entered into; Henry nominally re- sumed the sovereignty, and an act of indemnity was passed in favour of the Yorkists. Quarrels and disturbances in various parts of Eng- land— jealousy among the higher nobles— the idiocy of Henry— the vacillation of Richard— all kept alive the flame of civil war, which was attended with the most disastrous family results; brother fought against brother, and father against son. The battle of Blore- heath and that of Northallerton, in July 1460, iu both of which the Yorkists were the victors, and in which latter Henry was taken prisoner, bring us down to a parliament which was held in the king's name at Westminster, on the 7th October in the same year, and Richard, who had gone to Ireland, once more came over in order to be present. In parliament Richard had never openly stated his claims to the crown: he had made general complaints, but nothing more; and his forbearance on this occasion, even when his victorious army surrounded all, may be applauded. On this occasion he traced his descent and its rights before the peers; and after waiting for a short time departed from the house. The peers then admitted Richard's right and title, but as Henry had worn the crown for eight- and- thirty years, it was also determined that he should continue king to his death; but that the administration should be in Richard's hands, also that the succession should be secured him. The duke assented to this, and Henry, who was still a prisoner, acceded with profound indif- ference to these conditions. In the meantime Margaret, Henry's queen, had, after the defeat at Northallerton, fled to Scotland with her infant son, and soon succeeded in raising an army of 20,000 men, with which she menaced Richard from beyond the Trent, to the utter astonishment of both enemies and friends. When the Duke of York was informed of this he in- stantly took prompt measures for opposing the aid that was so menacing to his cause. From the queen he well knew he had no mercy to expect, as he had already sought to banish her; and consequently he went to meet the enemy, at Wakefield, with only 5,000 men, not being aware of their numbers; but seeing the enormous force he had to contend against, he shut himself up in Sandal Castle, which was in the neighbourhood, and where he was advised to remain. A sense of the disgrace which would accrue to him, however, of being, as it were, defeated by a woman, and the possession of great personal bravery ( though he was very destitute of the art of following up his success) made him descend into the plain where he gave battle to the enemy, and which, by inequality of num- bers, alone gave the advantage to the queen. He was killed in the action, his head cut off, a paper crown fixed in derision upon it, and it was placed on the gate of York. Three thousand Yorkists alone fell in the battle, which was utterly destructive to them; and the duke was lamented as one who could have been worthy of the sovereign dignities, were it not, as we have before observed ( as an absolute condition of that state), an utter impossibility to do good, to be of service to his fellow- creatures. The lust of dominion will taint the finest heart; the temptations of ambition are inimical to hjiman happiness. We take it as an indestructible law, that such will ajways be the case, because it always has been so. Margaret, the queen, after this victory, divided hep array into two portions, the smaller of which she sent, headed by Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, against Edward, son of the Duke of York; and led the other division her- self to London, where Warwick held command over th& chief body of the York party. At Mortimer's Cross, in Herefordshire, Pembroke was defeated, with a loss of 4,000 men, and he himself barely secured safety by flight. His father, Sir Owen. Tudor, was taken and beheaded by Edward; a species of retaliation by which all suffered in turn. The vicis- situdes of war could not teach these men mercy. The victor of to- day was the victim of to- morrow; but this could inculcate no forbearance. The queen, however, obtained a decisive victory over the Earl of Warwick at St. Albans. The earl, on the approach of the Lancastrian party, aided by a strong body of Londoners, led his army from London, and joined battle at St. Albans. During the heat of the en- gagement a defection of a considerable body of the Yorkists decided the fata of the battle in favour of the queen. A great number were slain, and the person of the despicable Henry fell into tho hands of his own party, which did not mend his condition; for on either side he only changed his prison, and was treated with as little coreraony. Ultimately the York party were gainers by their loss. The young Duke Edward prepared to march against the queen; and having collected the remains of Warwick's army, advanced to London, when the queen found it necessary to retreat to the northern counties His army marched and encamped on St. John's Fields; and great masses of the people surrounded him. The question was publicly put, whether they would have Henry of Lancaster, or Edward, son of the late Duke of York, for their king; and the reply was unanimously in favour of tfaa latter. He was proclaimed Edward IV amid loud acclamations on the subsequent day. This ended tho reign of Henry VI, who was no more than a puppet in the hands of his party; and he who had been proclaimed king over Franco and England was repudiated of both people. A life begun amid the loftiest splendours that monarchy can spread over a man, ended in a disgraceful deposition. Henry, however, in the midst of all the disturbance and perils of the period, managed to escape into Scot- land, after an act of forfeiture and attainder had been issued against him, his queen, and Prince Edward. Lewis XI of France, the most politic, intriguing, and mysterious monarch the world ever beheld, sent a body of troops to his aid, on condition, i£ restored, that Calais should be delivered up. The battle of Hexham, on the 15th May, 1464, again sent the ejected royal family as fugitives over the land. Various struggles took place, in the midst of which. Edward was expelled, by the aid of Warwick and Cla- rence, and Henry VI restored; this was once mora reversed by the return of Edward, and the final expulsion of Henry, after which Prince Edward was murdered. Henry himself was placed in the Tower, after tho battle of Tewkesbury had utterly destroyed the hopes of the Lancastrian party, and there he died, after » short confinement. The means and nature of his death are buried in mystery. It is pretended that he was assas- sinated by Richard Duke of Gloucester; but as this assertion is unsupported by any authority, and as the character of the duke is of a totally distinct nature, it is more likely that he died from sheer exhaustion,— that his easy disposition could endure no farther fatigue. No violence was needed to destroy the life of a man w bo was already half dead with inanity. As the latter portion of his life is so intimately cou- pled with the reign of Edward IV, we shall be compelled to speak of him in our next chapter. Enwis RonBBts. CO- OPBKATION.— It is demonstrated that a number of persons having a common tie:— that is, the same religious belief, can enter upon a forest in its primeval state, and soon, convert it into a garden by their associated labours: that they can obtain alt the necessaries and comforts of life by' moderate exertion; and that each member is secured a com- petence in case of sickness and old age. That being so, the questiou arises, " Why has not the system of co- operatioa become more common in America f The answer is plaio, and perfectly satisfactory. It is difficult to fiud persons possessed of capital sufficient for the purpose, willing to un- dergo tho unpleasantness and inconveniences attending the first stages of the establishment of a social community, Under the present system of society, men are engaged is contending against each other, and not in acting together and men of capital, being iu the enjoyment of many of the comforts and luxuries afforded by the present system, audi especially enjoying the exercise of power over their fellow- creatures, are for the most part unwilling to engage is any social experiment, founded upon the principle of equality. This state of things, however, will not long continue; we have uo doubt that associations on a grand scale will soon be established in America, aud that they will be attended with brilliant success. Iu cousequence of the general equality of conditions prevailing amongst Americans, they are well adapted to form associations like those above de- scribed. The American farmer's family would not, even in the first stages of the association, have as much disagreeable work as they now have to perform, if the community were to take laud already cleared and cultivated, and supplied with the necessary buildings.— Russell. THE RESULTS OF THE CHARTER.— When the people are represented in the House of Commons, the landed aristo- cracy will soon dwindle away; their estates will be sold; the laws which practically hinder the division of property will be _ repealed j and all the public offices will be held by persons from the middle and lower ranks. The " peers of the realm * will be impoverished; and then their pretensions to the rights of hereditary legislation and lofty titles will be re- garded with universal disdain: they will perish of pure m. j anitiaa— aud no tear jrill bp d'opped oyer their tomb I ' Wi- REYNOLDS'S POLITICAL INSTRUCTOR. THE RISE, PROGRESS, AND PHASES OF HUMAN SLAVERY: HOW IT CAME INTO THE WORLD, AND HOW IT SHALL BE MADE TO GO OUT. LETTER XV. " WE promised, last week, some notice of Mr. Cruikshank's late mission to the King of Dahomey. That mission having reference to the slave- trade, and its results, and beiDg singularly illustrative of the effects produced by the two kinds of slavery— chattel- slavery and wages- slavery— we could not, with justice to our subject, dismiss this in- quiry without a word or two upon the leading facts divulged in Mr. Cruikshank's report of his mission. They at one and the same time exhibit the horrors which naturally attach to the system of chattel- slavery; and show how even those horrors may be aggravated, and are, in point of fact, rendered vastly more horrific by a connexion with the demonism of competitive commerce, and its hand- maid, wages- slavery. . Mr. Cruikshank, it appears, was deputed, on behalf of the government, by our Lieutenant- Governor of the Gold Coast of Africa, to visit the black King of Dahomey, and negotiate with him the basis of a treaty for the abo- lition of the slave- trade within his dominions. This mission toolc place in the course of 1S48, and from Mr. C's report it would seem to have proved a complete fail- ure. The leading facts of the mission are as follows: During a period of some twelve or fourteen years ante- cedently to Mr. Cruikshank's mission, there was an annual exportation of slaves from the territory of his sable majesty of Dahomey, averaging somewhere about 8,000 souls. We assume, of course, thatpthe negroes have souls ( as, otherwise, why send out missionaries to convert them from heathenism?), though judging by their conduct, it is manifest the men of rents and profit- mongering hold a very different opinion. In addition to the 8,000 annually exported, another thousand, at least, are annually brought down to the sea- board from the interior of the country, and are kept in slavery in the towns and villages along the coast, where " they enjoy," ( says Mr. C.) " when well conducted, a very considerable share of liberty, and all. the necessaries of life, in appa- rent comfort and abundance." They are, however, liable to exportation for acts of " gross disobedience," as well as for " social offences of an aggravated nature." It appears to be a general practice with the masters of these slaves, to permit them to prosecute their own affairs, and to receive, in exchange for this concession, a stipulated monthly sum derived from their labour. By this arrangement, an industrious slave is sometimes en- abled to acquire his freedom by earning a sum sufficient for the purchase of two slaves which, it seems, will gene- rally be accepted as the price of his redemption. A portion of these 9,000 slaves are supplied annually to the King of Dahomey, by the King of the Mahees, and other minor princes, who are tributary to him: but by far the larger number— more than three- fourths of the whole— are derived from a systematic course of SLAVE- HTJNTIKG in the interior, whiokis carried on with all the rigours and horrors of a never- ending civil war. The instigators of this horrid system are American, Por- tuguese, Brazilian, and other merchants ( Christians, of course!), who buy and sell the slaves as merchandise. The King of Dahomey, and his like, are but fighting agents, made use of to supply the merchandize; and, next to the infernal merchants who traffic in the victims, the parties most responsible for the endless horrors of the system, are the sugar and cotton- growers of Ame- rica and the Brazils, and our pious Free- traders and, Protectionists, who, however they may squabble about differential duties, agree marvellously in their preference of cheap to dear sugar; and still more on that system of agrarian or territorial monopoly by the few, which is the foundation of all human slavery— whether it be di- rect or indirect,— chattel- slavery or wages- slavery. The King of Dahomey ( and he is but one of a species) keeps up a large and well- appointed army for his slave- expeditions. This army he accompanies for three or four months every year in its slave- hunting expeditions. The miserable objects of this inhuman warfare are weak and detached negro tribes, inhabiting countries conti- guous to his dominions, or ( when a supply fails in these) the peaceable inhabitants of countries distant from his own by as much as from twelve to twenty- four days' inarch. Under circumstances so unfair, what might be called a battle rarely eccurs. The victims, taken at a disadvantage, have no alternative but to surrender them- selves, or get shot at once. The loss of life is, therefore, slight on the battle- field, as compared with what sub- sequently takes place in the " middle- passage," or by excessive labour on the plantations. In other words, where one slave owes his death to a slave- hunt, there are ten immolated by the merchants and sugar- growers. Indeed, it is the hunter's cue to catch, and not to kill, for the killed bring him no profit, whereas every captured negro is a prize. The royal army are therefore very wary and cautious in taking their prey. The ordinary plan is to send out traders ( profit- mongering devils) to act as spies. These carry their petty merchandise into the interior towns; and, while apparently intent only on their trade, make their observations as to the numbers, means of defence, & c., of the victims, and report accord- ingly. Sometimes these traders are employed by the Iving of Dahomey himself, sometimes by the merchants in the coast- towns,— not unfrequently by both. In truth, the affair is a regular joint- stock concern, in which hunter— kings, merchant- princes, colonial officials, and the feudal lords of the sugar and cotton plantations have a solidarity of interests, and go shares for the spoils. After a few months' trading and spying, the crafty trader leaves the territory of his unsuspecting victims, and returns to report to the King of Dahomey the results of his observations. He then acts as a guide to the king's army, conducting it to the scene of operations by the best roads, and instructing the leaders how they may best surround and surprise the unsuspecting inhabitants of the devoted land. The latter are thereby often cap- tured in the dead of night, while sound asleep, or fall into their enemies' hands the moment they awake in the morning. As resistance is punished with instant death, they generally submit to their fate without a bio w, and hence the king's victories are often bloodless. It is only where these petty African kings happen to be of nearly equal power, and are ambitious to monopolise the supplying of slaves ( to the exclusion of their rivals), that those wholesale slaughters take place, which only terminate in the extermination of one or the other of tho contending hosts. Such contests, however, are not of frequent occurrence; the royal slave- hunters having a much keener relish for an easy and unresisting prey, that may be at once converted into money, than for the glory of a victory which may be too dearly purchased. So, at least, it would appear to his Majesty of Daho- mey, who often returns to his capital with little or no loss of troops, and with almost as little to the enemy. According to Mr. Cruikshank, however, he has been more than once repulsed by the Akus tribes, and by the people of Aberkoutah; but in these, and similar eases, where a vigorous resistance is anticipated, his troops are generally led away before much slaughter has been done; for even in Dahomey the maxim prevails, that " discre- tion is the better part of valour." After the surrender of a conquered town, or district, the prisoners are presented to the king by their captors, who receive a suitable reward in cowries, at the rate of about two dollars value for each captive, who is thence- forth the king's slave, till he sells, or otherwise disposes of him. It is not unusual with him, however, upon the return from a successful enterprise, to distribute a num- ber of those unfortunates among his head- men, and at the same time, to bestow large sums as bounty to his troops. In general, a selection is made of a portion of the slaves, who are reserved for the king's employment, and the rest are transmitted to the slave- merchant " who not unfrequently has already sold his goods on credit in anticipation of their arrival !" What a system! According to Mr. Cruikshank's report, an export duty of five dollars is paid upon each slave shipped from the king's dominions, even although the port of embarka- tion may not belong to him. It is a frequent practice to convey them by the lagoon, either to the eastward, as LITTLE POPE, or to the westward, as PORTO Ntiovo, neither of which towns are in subjection to the king. He commands the lagoon, however, which leads to these places, and he must hstve the duty paid to him previously to the slaves' embarkation upon it. From this export duty alone, the King of Dahomey is said to derive an annual revenue of 40,000 dollars; but this is only a small part of his revenue. The native dealer who brings his slaves to the merchant, has also to pay duties on each slave at the different custom- house stations on the road to the barraeoons. The amount paid at those stations adds upwards of 20,000 dollars more to the royal coffers. Then there is the revenue accruing from the sale of the king's own slaves. Estimating the number of these to average 3,000 annually, and reckoning them to fetch the then average price of 80 dollars per slave. Mr. Cruikshank calculates from this source alone, an additional revenue of 240,000 dollars. Thus, putting these several items together, he estimates the annual revenue which the King of Dahomey derives from the slave trade to exceed 300,000 dollars; and as his Da- homey Majesty is but one of many royal personages en- gaged in the same lucrative trade, we are left to infer what ravages it must eostihumauity every year in those African regions, to support the state and dignity of these barbarians, and, at the same time, to measure the guilt and infamy of the commercial caitiffs whose lust of gain necessitates and feeds such a hellish system. We shall see, forthwith, what degree of credit we are to give our liberty- loving government for its so- oft- ex- pressed desire to extinguish the infernal traffic. By opening communications with the King of Dahomey, and authorising its agent to negotiate with him for its sup- pression, the world might suppose that our rulers ab- horred the system. We shall see; but first a word or two more upon the revenues of the King of Dahomey, that we may comprehend what degree of interest that personage has in not acceding to the terms proposed to him. We shall be thereby better enabled to appreciate the sincerity of the government from which the proposed terms emanated. Enormous a revenue as 300,000 dollr. rs may appear to be for a petty black savage king, it forms but a part of of his majesty of Dahomey's state income. Over and above that revenue he inherits, by the laws of his country, the property of his deceased subjects; so that his head- men, and others who have beer; amassing property by this traffic, have only been acting as so many factors for the king, who receives at their death the fruits of the labour and the risks of a lifetime. But a very small portion of each head- man's estate is allowed to the na- tural heir. This is paid him in slaves and cowries, and constitutes his capital wherewith to commence in like manner, his factorship. " Under a system ( quoth Mr. C.) so calculated to produce an apathetic indiffer- ence, the king contrives, by repeated marks of royal favour, and by appointments to offices of trust and emolument, to stimulate to industrious exertions the principal men of his kingdom. These appointments, moreover, become hereditary, and their holders form an aristocracy, with sufficient privileges to induce the am- bition of entering its ranks." How eternally and im- mutably the same are monarchies and aristocracies all the world over! Here, then, is a petty barbarian prince, with a court, an aristocracy, a standing army, and a revenue derived from duties alone of upwards of 300,000 dollars per annunj, besides a constant supply of slaves for his own I domestic service aud field labour, and ( if report speak true) with considerable windfalls from merchants and officials, given as rewards for occasional presents, in the shape of young and comely damsels supplied to order and hunted out with great care; here is this petty prince, having every possible motive for upholding the accursed trade of which he is but a mere kidnapping agent, and not one motive in the shape of love, fear, or duty, to induce him to discourage it. Clearly, there were but two ways of operating upon such a personage, to make him relinquish his diabolical agency. One was to com- pel him by force of arms: the other to bribe him, as it were, into good behaviour by guaranteeing him from other and purer sources a revenue and a station equal or superior to what he derives from the slave trade. Were our government disposed to adopt the latter and more lenient course, a tithe of the expense incurred by our blockade of the slave coast would amply suffice for the purpose. Nay, the payment of an annual revenue equivalent to the late Queen Dowager's allowance, with some local privileges attached, would be hailed by the King of Dahomey as ample compensation. And if, upon the other hand, the employment of force or coercion were deemed the preferable course, who does not know that our government had the means in Africa to extin- guish in a single campaign the whole race of royal slave- hunters, from the King of Dahomey down to the meanest of his tributaries. Did our government employ either of these agencies? — Nothing of the sort. The report of Mr. Cruikshank leaves the government without a shred of subterfuge or apology on this head. As to the employment of force, not a whisper is breathed about it; the negotiation, so far as it was proceeded with, went entirely on the basis of compensation. And what think you, good reader, were the terms offered by our liberal government, to bribe the King of Dahomey into the ways of humanity, and to save 9,000 human beings annually from all the horrors of slave- huuting, the middle passage, and the bondman's doom, in a sugar plantation, under a tropical sun ? We shall tell it you in the exact words of the government agent himself, that we may not be accused of malice or mis- statement. It was " ihe paltry offer of an annual subsidy of 2,000 dollars," or little more than 400?. a- year!— actually less than one- third of the salary allowed to one of our late Poor Law Commissioners! Talk of England's sacrifices in behalf of negro eman- cipation! Talk of our rulers' anxiety to abolish the accursed traffic in human flesh! No sane person who reads Mr. Cruikshauk's report, will believe that our government cares a rap, or ever cared a rap, about the slaves; or that it supported its costly armaments on the African coast for any purpose beneficial to the slaves. At the moment Mr. Cruikshank was negotiating with the King of Dahomey, we had a powerful fleet cruising near the Gold Coast; and we had a governor and a garrison in the fort of Whydah, which is within and com- mands that king's dominions. Yet not a gun was fired— not a bayonet raised, not a threat held out to impart force to the negotiation. And, instead of a revenue, something like an equivalent for what we wished the King of Dahomey to relinquish, wo magnanimously and liberally offered him a subsidy, about equal to the salary of an under- clerk. No wonder Mr. Cruikshank should despair, at the outset, of any success attending his mis-, sion,— no wonder we should find him so reluctant to undertake it, aud so ashamed of being an agent in an affair of such transparent hypocrisy,— no wonder we should find him, in the anguish of official pride, express himself thus in page 18 of his Report to the lieuteiiant- governor: " At no time before my arrival in his country did I entertain the faintest hope of his acceding to the proposal in good faith; and since I had ascertained at Whydah the amount of revenue derived from this trade, and had seen the rude and expensive magnificence of his state, I could not but feel that a repetition of my paltry offer of an annual subsidy oj 2000 dollars would only clothe me with, ridicule." In the account given of this affair » » have adhered strictly to the facts as given by our government agent, and almost to his very words. We have done so that there may be no misgivings as to the true character of our governmental interference, in the question of the slave trade. We wish our readers to see and know that everything connected with our operations by land and sea, in reference to that question, is hypocrisy, and nothing else,— a hypocrisy, however, which has cost this country many millions in fleets and armaments. At the moment we write we have a fleet in the Piraeus to com- pel the unfortunate Greeks to pay taxes to a crew of graceless usurers— the brood of Lombard Street. This fleet will experience no difficulty in compelling the pay- ment of interest upou " the Greek loan." As easily might a similar fleet have long ago disposed of the King of Dahomey, and every other aider and abettor of the horrible traffic of man in his fellow- man. But this would not comport with the interest of merchants and usurers ; and would, besides, deprive our aristocracy of the patron- age and appointments connected with the permament maintenance of a large fleet on the African coast. What a system!— what a system! A NATIONAL RBFOKMER. ( To be continued in our next.) THE BRITISH ARMY.— The army is remarkable for its aristocratic character. The officers up to a certain rank purchase their commissions; and it is a very rare thing for a mail of merit to rise from the ranks. The private soldiers, who have been enlisted for life, are subjected to brutal flog- ging, and other degrading personal punishments; their pay is mean, and the pensions allowed are inadequate for the soldier's support in old age. The sailors in the loyal navy are also flogged, aud merit is scarcely ever properly re- warded. Future enlistments in the army are, by a recent act, to be for a limited period only; but that period is by far too Ion" — Russell. ' Wi- REYNOLDS'S POLITICAL INSTRUCTOR. THOUGHTS ON ENGLAND, PAST AND PRESENT. To those who have favoured us by reading our letters on Home Colonization, it will to them be evident that we are not at all satisfied with the existing industrial arrangements and general tendencies of the present system. That something is wrong, radically wrong, is a very general confession, followed very often with the sad lamentation of nothing can be done towards putting matters to rights. With the affirmation we agree; from the lamentation we dissent This that is called the orga- nizing of industry is only a great difficulty, because those who have the power to accomplish it have never seriously thought of it, and those who have thought of it have not the means of accomplishing it. Do- nothings, speech- makers, and stupids are in office; big- bellied animalism, with full appetite, aud a disposition to doze after dinner, is in authority; and little busy chatter- box is bowing and bustling, scraping and gentlemau- ing ; and Mr. Editor is looking over debates to see what has been said by the sarcastic Israelite, and the man who always chooses one of three courses; and even the ultra- democrat begins to mistake words for things, and having risen from rag ged velvet and dirty shoes to a kind of " hand- me- down" dandyism, he, too, the man of many points, grows genteel in the denunciation of wrongs, and feels it necessary to talk against the excesses of democracy, and to look with an air of contempt on all men who have spoken out fully on the wrongs suffered by the many, and have honestly, if not wisely, talked and written of remedies. Such a combination of incapables may well cry out" impos- sible." To suppose that they would do otherwise, would just be as rational as to expect that ignorance, multiplied by indo- lence, would give intelligence as the result; or that dishonesty added to mockery would amount to earnestness and veracity. The first requisite, necessary to improving the times, is honest earnestness. Yes: honest earnestness, the first requisite necessary in all ages, and most of all, necessary in an age like ours, when plate- glass tailors call themselves patriots, and • word- bandying parliament- men cannot distinguish between national adversity and national prosperity. We have before hinted that all evils become dangerous and . troublesome before any remedy is seriously thought of; and the two systems of poor laws, the old humanity system of Elizabeth, and the modern persecuting system of Brougham, have both failed, and have been found to be inadequate to the necessities and wants of the times. The old poor law was based upon humanity, and its supporters have argued with good effect in its favour. They have said the poor must be cared for— they must be fed— they have a right to live in the land of their birth. Admirable pleadings; but yet it is undeniable that there were evils connected with the old system of poor laws. In some parishes the rates increased so alarmingly, that breeches- pocket philosophy stepped in and said, these poor laws encourage idleness, and they must be changed ; the literal reading of which was, the rates increase too rapidly for my advantage: they swallow up a great part of my rents, and it is necessary for my interests that a new system be adopted. Wages had fallen so rapidly in amount, and population had increased so rapidly in numbers, that vast masses of our popu- lation did not earn over ten shillings per week, and thousands of hand- loom weavers thought themselves blessed if they earned half that sum. To carry out fairly the principle of public charity by granting relief on rather easy terms to those who had a good moral claim to it, was, in many cases, to make the recipients of charity better off than those who were living exclusively on their wages, unaided by any other source of income. Upstarted Brougham and his friends, loudly declar- ing that the existing law encouraged idleness; that all charity was wrong in principle; and that if pauperism was only ren- dered odious and unpleasant, the labourers would trust to their own resources; habits of self- reliance would be encouraged, and England would shortly become a paradise. Politicians of yesterday's birth, who have scraped sentences and smart sayings together, gleaned from the speeches of men not wiser than themselves, may turn up their noses and sneer contemptuously at the past adversity and past prosperity of England. But to those who have seriously thought on the changes our country has undergone during the past half- cen- tury of our history, who have marked the effects of the introduction of self- acting machinery, the centralization of capital, the depopulation of our agricultural districts, the feverish fits of activity ( miscalled prosperity) that return and collapse like distempered blood in the veins of a fevered in- valid, sometimes making the suffering patient feel more than a giant's strength, and at other times sink into that lowness of spirits that gives to the medical attendant hints of coming dissolution; to those who Ijnow these things, the present posi- tion of our country cannot be satisfactory. England has, within fifty years, undergone more effective changes than any other nation of Europe. France has had her revolutions fearful, terrible, and convulsive; her kings have been beheaded, or been glad to escape with head oil, stript of regal honours, not even daring to stand on " right divine," but packing up shirts, collars, aud waistcoats, like auy otlier poor fellow on tramp, aud getting a passage any- how, and anywhere, only too glad to escape. Nobility has sometimes fraternised with peasantry, and given up the long standing propertied arrangements of ages. Although these fraternizations have always seemed to us to be more frater- nizations of necessity than of love, springing rather from a desire to preserve life than a patriotic wish to benefit coun- try. Queens have wept over the fate of fatherless children, and marched in turn to the scaffold. Princes of the blood have shaken hands with the gaoler to make friends with the guillotine, and, in these latter days, orators have harangued and gesticulated, as if words could feed the hungry. We, of England, have looked on with wonder and aston- ishment, and have supposed that because there was no barricades erected— no royal captives in confinement—- no unfortunate queen to weep over— no fat old monarch on tramp, with carpet- bag in hand and boots unbrushed,— that we have had no revolution, and we take credit to ourselves for being a staid and settled people of quiet habits aud wondrous proper morals. We, of England, do not like re- volutions ( so we say), and we affect to pity the French, " that flighty unsettled people who do not know what they want, who are at a loss to know what would be good for them." Good- natured John Bull hates revolutions, although he is every day getting revolutionized. Causes, unostenta- tiously but surely at work, are every day changing his pro- spects of the future aud his claims ou the past. First, as regards the labourer, he is a serf, the mere slave of money- wages, and has no claim for support but such as a few metal coins can buy, and these metal coins cauuot always be had. Chancellor Wood and Sir James Duke were talking the : other week about national prosperity. We heard the fol- lowing speech spoken at a meeting of operatives which, we wished, could have been spoken in another place:— " lam a house- carpenter, aud am quite capable of doing as good a day's work as any man in London. I can fit up any second- rate house in the kingdom, from the foundation to the roof, so far as my branch is concerned. I was always reckoned a useful man, and was never afraid of work, I have been three months out of employment at this turn, and have not earned a shilling. I never stole. I cannot steal, though I often look round and see food that might be easily reached. I am every day on the look- out for a job; but I see no hope of finding any work. How can it be otherwise ? A boy, by the aid of machinery can, in one day, do as much work, say at making panel- doors, as I or any other three men can do by hand- labour. They say bread i3 cheap — what avails that to me if I eannot get the money neces- sary to buy it. If bread were as cheap again, and I still without work, '." hat would your cheap bread do for me? I served an apprenticeship, and my father paid to my master a handsome premium. I was bound for seven years. My father thought, when he gave me a trade, that so long as I was in good health, I was provided for. I leave home in the morning, and return to my wife and children every night to tell the same tale, aud to see them all die slowly before my eyes. Aud this they call prosperity." Fifty years ago would an industrious operative have made such a speech as was made by that house- carpenter; if he had, out- door relief would have been found him by the parish; but he could not have made such a speech. Panel- doors were not then made by the aid of machinery, and every skilled operative could make sure of profitable em- ployment. Had it been otherwise, his father never would have been able to have paid a premium to the tradesman with whom he served his apprenticeship. The case of that carpenter is the case of tens of thousands of operatives all over England. What change ot crowned heads could have more effectually altered the prospects and position of those unemployed operatives ? What will speeches about pros- perity do for such operatives?— even what will financial re- form and a reduction of taxes to the amount of ten millions sterling per annum do for men who cannot find employ- ment? To get the steam up, Mr. Agitator, is. a very capital thing in its way; but you will have to agitate for some change more organic than financial reform before England can hope for much even from your success. " We have said that the speech we have given as spoken by a carpenter, ought to have beeu heard elsewhere. Why do we have a parliameut? Of what value is it to the Jsbourer? It serves to keep up the coercive machinery of the state, and maintain, as far as a parliament can do, the present iniquitous system— legislative, judicial, and administrative; but labour has no voice within its walls. We have a board of trade, but no board of labour. Land i3 represented, capital is represented, East India and West India interests are represented, the law, the church, the army, the navy, are all represented; but labour, the root of all, is unrepre- sented. What can we hope for from such a parliament ? aud, seriously, what can we expect from a people that allows so outrageous a monopoly to continue for a single day ? Lord John Russell has just assured the House of Commons that the ministry do not intend any alteration in the represen- tation of the country. It would have been more honourable for England if her people could have assured the noble lord that they dispensed with his lordship's services for this session. If we look from the labourer to the shopkeeper, or retail tradesmen, what do we see ? A race, a struggle, a strife for gain, all respect for honour and honesty is con- sidered to be frivolous, childish, and weak. The common motto is " Everything is fair in trade." Think of it, chris- tian reader: sis days out of every seven ( and sometimes all the seven days), are devoted to cheating you; and, there- fore, be not particular— only cheat and be cheated. Do it with a grace; of course be grave and serious, and swear by your honour, a most excellent oath, and fitted for the times. When a retail tradesman orders goods from a manufacturer, he wants things " cheap and showy." What a meaning is in these words. Articles of a genuine quality are seldom wanted. Cloth made to look at— not to wear; razors to sell — not to use; flour and yarn. dignified with the name of calico. " CHEAP AND SHOWY" goods made from bad ma- terials, requiring extra care and labour from the workman, but no extra pay. Oh, no. Things must be cheap, or they won't sell;— cheapness means low prices; low prices means the substitution of infant for adult labour; men against women; the labour of children against both premature old age and death. Competition, that charmed word of modern times, means, thai the capitalist worth twenty thousand pounds shall ruin the capitalist worth five thousand, the capitalist worth five thousand ruiii the capitalist worth one thousand, and so on. And this is called " no monopoly," that gives increased value and power to capital, and de- creased value aud power to labour. If a persevering manu- facturer is in distress from unexpected and unlocked for calamities, he narrates his case to a merchant, explains to him all his difficulties, tells what is the value of the stock he has in hand, cost of raw material, the sum paid for wages; an offer is made for the stock by the merchant, who bids not more than half its acknowledged worth. True enough it is • worth more; but I cannot bid you a penny extra. It is the privilege of capital to buy cheap. The stock is bought, the offer is accepted, the manufacturer relieved and ruined. What matter, everything is fair in trade. " Do unto others as we would they should do unto us." Excellent command- ment; if it were but obeyed we would have no injury done to others; for we would desire that none should be done unto us. But how stands the practice among men? Is there any such law recognised among our shopkeepers and manufacturers? Do we, as a nation, practice it? Alas I no— it is used on Sundays as part of our church formalities; but few, very few, interpret its spirit by the practice of their lives. Is there a solicitor in Chancery Lane who tells his clerks to abide by that law? Is there a barrister who pleads in our law- courts, who remembers that law when he bargaius for a fee ? Is there a broker on ' Change who makes it the rule of his life? Is there a tradesman in Leadeuhall, or Oxford Street, who tells his shopmen to remember the golden rule ? If there be any such, name him; for he shall be famous among men. " Do unto others as we would they should do unto us," may never have been the common practice of all men ; but the citizens of England fifty years ago more nearly ap- proximated to its spirit than do their enlightened children of the present time. We are no blind admirers of the gast, and have noticed the extinction and decay of many evil habits and brutish practices. We also observe the decay of much social and brotherly feelings; the uprooting and an- nihilation of many friendly relationships among men; the in- culcation of an ignorant and all- engrossing selfishness, and a distrust of the fine old doctrine of mutual regard and mutual interest. It has certainly been reserved for these times in which we live to proclaim to all men, that no man need care for his neighbour; and to educate a numerous people so efficiently in cunning and fraud, that the most unprincipled and unscrupulous are the most successful, and the most simple- minded and honourable the dupes and slaves of crafty scoundrels and trafficking rogues. An en- viable position for an enlightened and intelligent people to arrive at! If we look from the labourers and tradesmen to the aristo- - cracy of land, what do you behold ? the descendants of an old order turningoverthe leaves of the book of heraldry, to prove: the greatness of their ancestry by way of contrast with th& feebleness of themselves. What are our English aristocracy this hour ? the mere ghosts of men- compared with what they might have been. Every writer aud thinker who has thought for the people, have appealed to them times out of number to save England'schildrenfrom the hoof of the cotton lord and the heelof the Jew. Have they listened to such warnings? No: they have entrusted the management of their local affairs to middle- men and attorneys, who, like true Jews, have exacted the bond. They have in many cases mortgaged princely for- tunes, and are only nominally the owners of estates that bear their family names; they have kept up game preserves and race horses, while they have pinched the farmer and starved the labourer. Can such an aristocracy save a people ? As- suredly no; they cannot even save themselves. They may, like actors in a country theatre, do a little business in the general line, and favour the visitors of St. Stephen's with aa occasional representation of the ruiued farmer, looking, drearily on sunk capital aud short returns, the company sing- - ing in chorus: " God save Protection." But can they giva to disturbed elements a settled rest ? can they re- bind the loosened matter that floats around their heads, and drifts like a quicksand from beneath their feet ? Not they : they might as well think of stemming the rutming river with their hand or speaking loud enough to be heard in a thunder storm. England, a^ a nation, requires many remedies; as a nation, she has loug refused " to do justly and love mercy." The people are destined to suffer much; they have already suf- fered ; are now suffering, aud destined to suffer more in the future than they have done in the past. We have now the two great sections of producers arrayed in hostile front against each other: the laud slave against the factory serf. We will shortly have the operatives of Manchester and Yorkshire arrayed against their employers. We have not forgotten the feelings manifested in those districts in the winter and spring of 1848. The same deadly antagonism and deep- rooted hatred of classes then manifested will be manifested again, more pressing in demand ami me- nacing in appearance; then those generals of peace, who have of late talked so loud, will become emissaries of war, not for the suppression of landlords, but for the suppression, of outraged factory operatives. Disguise it as you may; hide it amidst a cloud of words' if you can; roll yourself baek in the easy arm- chair o£ plenty, and give your politics in keeping to a journalist, your religion to a priest, you will one day discover that; property has increased, and that poverty has increased; that churches have increased, aud immorality has increased. Believe in your bible, or disbelieve in all bibles, the stera necessity of earth's revelations will remain unchanged, and not move out of their course one jot for all of you. Oh I no, men of Manchester: there are other things to be thought of than cotton bales and chambers of commerce; others plans of national regeneration than cheap government and even low- priced bread. Depend upon it you will shortly have to give an account of your stewardship. You asked the landlords how they had discharged their trust; they have rendered their account and are insolvent. Labour will ask of you to render unto it an account of your stew- ardship, and are you prepared for a settlement? GRACCHUS. PROTECTION AND STARVATION. DURING this last vacation of parliament, when statesmen have been enjoying a relaxation from their duties— so we will suppose,^ many of the members of the " House " have been going the round of the country, stirring up the. minds of one class and another, rousing up that moral expression of their faith, their hope, their desires. Oppos- ing interests have been fiercely placed in antagonism, the one against the other, and the grand rallying cry of the " better" order, the wealthier class has been " protection." Of this protection we have before now spoken, and somewhat disparagingly. We have explained its dark and narrow meaning in as few words as possible. It is a sordid, selfish, and inhuman policy which, looking upon the working population writhing in its misery and degra- dation still with unpitying heart studies that first law of ( artificial) nature, self- preservation, will give little heed to their groans, but says, " Care for me 1" protect and cherish me, I beseech you, and when I am comfortable, when my interests are well conservated, then, if you can, — if you like, spare a little protection also for the poor— not else. In the meantime, as a sublimely better satire upoil this principle, the stern, gaunt, horrible reality of starvation has been marching on also. It has kept pace with im- provement with the progression of the arts and of the sciences; it has grown with the growth of palaces, and the comforts which have surrounded so many, have been con- trasted by the starvation which killed men and crowded the squalid graves of the overgrown city : starvation has become, not the exception, but in the cases of some classes of men, the rule ! It seems to be a wild, strange, and even unnatural anomaly that we should cherish among us a principle which is to re- act upon ourselves in so murderous a manner, that our agencies for doing good, should perpe- tuate those awful horrors which awe and alarm us, and which are seemingly so incredible. By what means is it that amidst our wealth, our luxuries, our overflowing plenty, the seeds cf destruction should be nursed, that this bane should haunt man in midst of feasting and riot, we cannot well make out. Certain it is, that such is the case, and the greater the cry for " protection" the more- strenuous the exertions have been to keep up the value of lands, houses, and estates, the greater still has been the starvation among the working and labouring population. ' Wi- REYNOLDS'S POLITICAL INSTRUCTOR. By and by we will illustrate this the more clearly, be- cause we contend that assertions are not proofs, and that to impress great truths, however distasteful, upon the people, we must be prepared with evidence that shall not be doubted for a moment The " Protectioni « ts," that is to say, that class of men • who are desirous above all things of keeping up the price of bread, and who will persist in trying to convince the poor man that it is better to pay eightpenct than fivepenct for his loaf,— these, we say, number among them the loftiest— the lordliest of the land. They who can afford to be liberal and humane, who ought, by their very posi- - tion, to be more generous than any others, are the very first to enter into confederation together against those leas' able to aid themselves. What if their cry of fear ba true! what if it be absolutely necessary for the conser- vation of their Order and its privileges, it can only bo done by protection in its extremest sense, is it Justin any sense that this should be done at the sacrifice of the poor, and the pauperized, that men at the last stage of misery should still find bread as difficult to procure, as high priced as ever t What gigantic absurdity! For very shame'B sake let us be rid of this infamous stigma which clings to ue, which will become a national blot. Do not let men famish, die of hunger and neglect. You, 0 bishops! of a luxurious fold,— you, Oevangelists! you who are so stentorian on behalf of heathens lying in darkness, where they had far better be left till your remarkably clear and shining lights have dispelled a little of our gloom,— all of you we implore to look at home first 1 For behold one case out of a thousand. In Buckinghamshire, that " happy land" ofplenty, that no plus ultra where every man ie a Corydon, where they sing under the shade of trees the praises of some village " Phillis " or " Daphne," in this delicious retreat of the pastoral deities to which the " bucolics" of Virgil alone apply— in this sylvan retreat the following happened. We would desire that every " Protectionist" in England should be made acquainted with the case. Here it is:— William Gibbs, an " agricultural labourer," young, strong, and active, died lately a death so pitiable, so re- volting to human nature, that we trust iu the very strength of the sympathy of the very sternest protection- ist that he will say, " This shall continue no longer." This man wanted bread— his wife and his six children wanted bread. Are we to be told that if the loaf had been at the Protectionists' most favourite price, it would have been more available ? If this poor wretch could not give even firepence could he by any possibility have given eightpenee ? In fact he could do neither. This man when in good health could earn the prodigal sum of eight shillings a- week. Two boys could earn a shilling each, " having to travel to their seat of labour two miles every morning;" probably they were driven back in the evening by their worthy employer in a light market- cart: more likely not; but ' tis bitter jesting after all. A few weeks ago, Gibbs fell ill, and for a fortnight • was without medical aid. There is no question but that the man's illness was severe, or he would not have moaned on his pallet for so long: men do not generally love this sort of thing. The wife applies to an overseer at Biddle- den, near " Syresham," the pleasant Arcadia we have spoken of, and she is blandly referred to Mr. Bartlett, a uardian living two miles off. She is by this worthy in- ividual referred to the overseer of the parish where she dwells. Thither the foot- sore, heart- heavy woman went. From the latter she is referred to Daniel Curtis, relieving- offlcer, living seven miles further 1 Are we to think nothing of the anguish, the mere anxiety only of this poor woman's soul during all this heartless transference, this refined brutality, which we will fairly saddle on the Protectionists altogether ? It is the infamous extortions of landed proprietors that had generated and elaborated this perfection of human misery! The seven miles more did this courageous creature go. Her heart was doubtless in the mean cottage all the while — all the while absent in the soul, she sat wiping the dews from the brows of him who must have been dear to her. An old loving time might come back to her memory with a strength and power to irresistible, that she turned to look upon the lover of her youth, now the father of her children, and what a contrast, oh! what a contrast! filth, penury, despair! All these little trifles force themselves upon us; but then the Protectionist, the politician, has nothing to do with " tenderness." Pshaw !" love," " affection!" Drawing- room sentiments in the rural district! The passions of Shakspere moving in the hearts of pallid ploughman, of a gaunt, hollow- eyed, hungry woman! What next, I wonder! We hear men talk thus. The unmitigated brutes! She has walked two- and- twenty miles to obtain an order from the union doetor. The next day the doctor comes, and the case is pronounced hopeless. Let any one for a moment try and think, for he cannot altogether compre- hend it,— let him fry to calculate the gigantic despair which fills that woman's heart on hearing this— on beholding the terrible toil of twenty- two miles' walk useless, on be- holding six more wretched beings preparing to beg, or starve, or to go to the thrice accursed union, that place synonymous with all that is horrible, revolting, and loathly! The man lingered a day or two. The poor fellow felt death gradually creep upon him. He begged his wife to go down stairs and to bring up something to warm his feet: they were growing cold. She obeyed him, and when she came back— he was dead! Perhaps we have exaggerated upon the feeling of the woman: upon the facts, most certainly not. She might have been harsh, hard, strong, unfeeling, apathetic, drunken, anything, she might: generally speaking, women are not so; mothers of six children are not so;— but if she was the latter, who and what made her so? Protectionists, you are responsible for this, and all your laughter and derision will not avail you. What! shall you starve thepoor and hope to profit ? It is creditable to our forbearance that we have submitted to you for so long. $ THE FAMILY GOVERNMENT. Lord John Rustett. — First Lord of the Treasury, 5,000?. A brother, Lord Charles Russell, who is in the army, was, last session, made serjeant- at- arms to the House of Commons, 1,500?.; another brother, aide- de- eamp to Lord Elgin, governor- general of Canada; an- other is in the army; one ' in the church; and two more in the navy: an uncle, Captain John Russell, R. N.; a cousin is Viscount Torrington, governor of Ceylon, 7,000?. The premier is son- in- law of the lord privy seal, 2,000?.; brother- in- law of the Hon. J. E. Elliott, M. P., one of the secretaries of the Board of Control, 1,500?., — just provided for by the removal of Mr. Wyse, an ex- cellent man in all respects. See Minto. Earl Grey. — Secretary of State, Colonial Depart- ment, 5,000?. A brother, a colonel and queen's equerry; another a captain in the navy, in the House of Commons: a third in the army: an uncle, general, colonel, and governor of Jamaica, 6,000?.; removed from Barbadoes, salary being only 4,000?. Lord Grey's brother- in- law is chancellor of the exchequer; his cousin secretary of the home department; another cousin, Sir Francis Baring, is the newly- appointed first lord of the admiralty; is the notable governor of Ceylon, and ci- devant lord- in- waiting: but his favourite ward is the premier's first cousin. Sir George Grey. — Secretary of State, Home De- partment, 5,000?. Cousin of Earl Grey, and connected as above. Son of the late resident commissioner of Portsmouth dockyard, and son- in- law of the Bishop of Lichfield. A barrister; Viscount P'Mmerston Secretary of State, Foreign Department, 5,000?. Married late in life, and without near affinities to provide for, the sister of Viscount Melbourne, and widow of the fifth Earl Cowper, an hereditary pensioner on the Excise. Lord Cottenham Lord Chancellor and Speaker of the House of Lords, 14,000?., with immense church and judicial patronage, to which he is fondly attached and far from wise always in the dispensation ( in the Prin- cipality, for instance), and which has been largely increased by the county courts and other legal changes. Marquis of Lansdowne. — Lord President of the Council, 2,000?. His son, Earl Shelburne, a lord of the treasury, 1,200?., and M. P. for the marquis's borough of Calne. Earl of Minto Lord Privy Seal, 2,000?., a pension besides. A son in the army, and another in the navy; a third son, who is M. P., and has been in the civil ser- vice of the East India Company, is the new secretary to the India Board; three nephews in the army, and two in the navy; a daughter, left a widow, with a large family, has been providently espoused by the premier. Sir Charles Wood.— Chancellor of the Exchequer, 5,000?. Brother- in- law of the home secretary, who is cousin of the first lord of the admiralty, who is cousin of the colonial secretary, who is uncle, brother- in- law, cousin, nephew, & c., as above. Henry Laboucltere.— President of the Board of Trade, 2,0001. Connected, by blood and marriage, with the Barings, who are connected with the Greys, who are connected with the Russells- Elliotts. Sir Francis Earing.— First Lord of the Admiralty, 4,500?. Married a cousin of Earl Grey, and afterwards a daughter of the first Earl Effingham; ha3 been a lord of the treasury, and was a chancellor of the exchequer from 1839 to 1841. Sir John Cam Hothouse President of the Board of Control, 3,500?. Son of a late commissioner for the payment of the debts of the Nabob of Arcot, and united by marriage with the Greys and Lord Dalhousie, the governor- general of India. THE GENERAL COMMITTEE OF THE FUND FOR THE WIDOWS OF SHARP AND WILLIAMS. The EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE beg to give notice that the GENERAL COMMITTEE will meet at Auderton's Hotel on Monday evening, March 11th, instead of March 4th, as originally proposed. The EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE likewise give notice that they propose to hold A TEA- MEETING, ( TO BE FOLLOWED BY A PUBLIC MEETING.) on Wednesday, the 10th of April, for the benefit of the Fund. The Committee have fixed upon the Tenth of April, thai being the second anniversary of the memorable day when the Chartists held their Grand Demonstration iu spite of the tremendous endeavours made by the Govern- ment to excite the middle- class against the working- class, and suppress the legal, constitutional, and moral manifesta- tion of the sentiments of the masses. The EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE take leave to recommend their Chartist friends throughout the provinces to hold similar festivals in their respective localities, and for the benefit of the Fund. The Committee earnestly hope that this suggestion will be acted upon, inasmuch as it will soon be necessary to close the subscription- books and appropriate the amount to its destined purpose. *** Further particulars relative to the Metropolitan Tea- Meeting above announced, will be given at an early day. Signed, on behalf of the Executive Committee, WILLIAM DAVIS, Chairman. PROCEEDINGS IN PARLIAMENT. APUBLIC MEETING convened by the Provisional Committee of the National Charter Association will be held in the Hall of the Literary and Scientific Institution, John Street, Tottenham Court Road, on Tuesday Evening next, Feb. 19th, 18- 50, for the purpose of reviewing the pro- ceedings in Parliament during the past week. Chair taken at Eight o'Cloch. Admission Free. NEW TALE BY G. W. M. REYNOLDS. IN this day's fortnight issue ( Number 89) of REYNOLDS'S MISCELLANY will appear the commencement of A NEW TALE BY GEORGE W. M. REYNOLDS. Tire Tale will be of a domestic character— the plot belong- ing to the present age, and the scene being laid in England. The objeot will be to expose, through the medium of a tale as interesting as the Author can possibly render it, one of the most fertile causes of oppression, misery, and demorali- zation which belong to the many abuses characteristic of the social system. All classes of society will feel— or at least-, ought to experience— an interest in the topic to be thus dealt with: the fair sex in particular will accord their sympathy to the subject of the New Tale. It may be as well to observe, for the information of new subscribers, that Mr. Reynolds's romance of " THE CORAL ISLAND ; OR, THE HEREDITARY CURSE," commenced in No- I of the present Series of the MISCELLANY, and terminated in No. 38. It was " also in No. 38 that " THE BRONZE STATUE ; OR, THE VIRGIN'S KISS," was commenced ; and it it will concluded in No. 88. Neither tale experienced any interruption in the hebdomadal publication of the average quantity: not a single week was missed iu respect to the regular continuity of those tales. The first 80 Numbers of the MISCELLANY form Three Volumes, price 4s. each, wall bound in dark green cloth and lettered at the back. BY THE AUTHOR OF THE FOUR P's. Penny Publications for the leading thoroughfares, back streets, lanes, and alleys. THE CHURCH OF HUMANITY. In Christ and all Good Names. Which Church will ulti mutely contain the Universal Religion of Human Nature. 1850, ITS WOMEN, MEN, AND MANNERS. Also THE FOUR P'S. Also DAVID'S SLING AT PRIESTCRAFT GOLIATH. Also SHAMS. The above Publications are One Penny each. London: W. Strange, Paternoster Row, and all Booksellers ( by ordering). THE FUND FOR THE WIDOWS OF SHARPE AND WILLIAMS. The followiug subscriptions have been already re- ceived:— £ d. Baron Rothschild ... ... ... 5 5 0 Mr. G. W. M. Reynolds 5 5 0 Mr. Luke James Hansard ... 5 0 0 The proceeds of a Concert in Edinburgh ... 5 0 0 The Proprietors of the Weekly Dispatch ... 3 3 0 Sir Joshua Walmsley, M. P 2 0 0 Lord Dudley Coutts Stuart 2 2 0 Mr. William Williams 110 Mr. Trout ... ... 110 Mr. W. J. Hall 110 Digby Arms Locality 10 0 Public Meeting at Derbv 0 17 0 Proceeds of Ball in the Tower Hamlets ... O 10 0 The persons iu Mr. G. W. M. Reyuolds's em- ployment ... 0 10 0 Collected at the Meeting at Cowper Street ... 0 lti 6 J. W., 2s. 0d.; per Mr. Ilhngworth, Is.; Mrs. and Miss Eagle, Is.; Anonymous Correspondent of REYNOLDS'S MISCELLANY, 6d.; Ditto, Or?.; G. W. Gd.; a Youth, - id.; J. H. ( Shoreditch) 2s. Gd.; Mr. Ruffey, 5s.; E. H. 2s. Or?.; one of Mr. Reyuolds's Wood Engravers, 2s. Gd.; William Trowsdale, Is.; A Shoemaker ( Liverpool), Is.; J. J. Manby, Is.; a Labourer ( Leek), Is.; Mr. D. Forsyth, 5s.; Mr. Dennis ( Pickering), Is.; R. B. and J. A., 2s.; Harmonic Meeting in Foley Street, 5s.; C. H. R. ( Cardiff), 5s.; J. W. ( Leith), Is. ; James Davis, Is. ; Henry Stubbs, 3d.; J. New- ton, Gs.; — Newton, 3d.; W. Pearson, 3d.; W. Bench, Gd.; Collected at the Whittington and Cat, 3s.; 3d.; B., 2d.; Mr. Drake, fid.; Fox and Hounds, Is. C£ d ; J. Gd; Liptrot, id.; Seven Stocking- makers of Leicester, 3s. 6d.; U. J. N., 5s.; Miss Mary Ann Campbell, Is. Gd.; Mr. Cook, Bookseller, Bristol, Gd.; Mr. E. F. Roberts, 5s.; Mr. Cook ( Second Donation), fid.; T. E. G., Is.; Friends at Birming- ham, 3s. 3d.; Mr. G. Hare, 5s.; A Constant Reader, Is.; Egalit< 5, Gd; Frequenters of the Windmill Tavern ( per Editor of Weekly Dispatch), II. 8s.; Mr. Suter ( per Mr. Brown, bookseller), 6s.; Mrs. S. M. Layfield, 2s. Gd.; W. Stall- wood, Gd.; J. Saunders, Junior ( Colchester), 13s. Gd. Two Friends at Tardebigg, Is.; Ormsley ( at the London Tavern Meeting) Is.; E. Stacey, Gd.; J. Giles, 3d.; J. CUrk, Gd.-, H. Baker, Gd.-, B. Hoare 3d.-, J. Powell, 3d.; W. Meade '. id : W. Thompson, 3d; J. Lock, 3d; J. Poultuey, 3d.; G. Edmonds, 3d.; T. Foster, 3d. ; E. Davis, 3d. ; W. Martin 3d.; J. Malas 3d.; G. Jones, 3d.; J. Morgan, 3d., W. Shard, 3d.; J. Smith, 3d.; W. Bennett, 3d.; R. Lewis, 3d.; W. Hollingworth, 3d.; A Wilkinson, 3d.; W. Eldridge, 3d.; J. Eacock, Gd.; H. Morgan 3d.; J. Giles, 3d.; G. Hoare, 3d.; G. Lees, 3d.; G. Harrison 3d.; J. M. Askie, 3d.; W. Cranbery, 3d.; J. Rigby 3d.; W. Slade, 3d.; W. Scott, 3d.; O. Hoges, 3d.; J. Pilkington, 3d.; R. Kinsilla, 3d.; S. Brierby, 3d.; W. Street, 2d.; G. Hobday, 2d.; C Norman, 2d.; S. Forth, 3d.; J. Hart, 3d.; W. Eldridge, 3d.; H. Aspenbon, 3d.; W. Tate, 3d.; T. Wardley, 3d.; C. Wheelright, 3d.; P. Morris, 3d.; H. Gilchrist, 3d.; R. Wil- kinson, 3d.; H. Foster, 3d.; W. Garrett, 3d.; H. Baker, 3d.; Workmen at the Messrs. Beaumont's Snuff- mills, Hudders- field, 6s.; A Friend, J. B., Is.; A Few Friends, Bowling Dials, Bradford, 5s.; A Bermondsey Youth, 3d.; Henry Smith, Is. 6d.; Edmund A. Simpson, 5s.; H. H., Comptoa Street, Soho, 3s. Gd. WILLIAM DAVIS, Chairman. G. W. M. REYNOLDS, Treasurer. February 8th, 1850. JOHN J. FEKDINANDO, Secretary. *** The Third Letter on " PRISON DISCIPLINE," is un- i avoidably postponed until our Next. LONDON : Printed and Published, for the PROPRIETOR, by I JOHN DICKS, at the Office of KEYNQLDS'S MISCELLANY, | 7, Wellington Street North, Strand.