REYNOLDS'S POLITICAL INSTRUCTOR EDITED BY GEORGE W. M. REYNOLDS, * " AUTHOR OJ? THE FIRST AND SECOND SERIES OF " TIIE MYSTERIES OF LONDON," " THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT OF LONDON," & E. & C. No. 21— Vol. 1.] SATURDAY, MARCH 30. 1850. [ PRICE QUE PEOTY. less than thirteen constituencies — some of them the largest in England— solicited him to represent them in the Convention. For various reasons he at first re- spectfully declined; but so determined were the people to have him in the Convention, that six constituencies elected him, notwithstanding his refusal to stand. For attending meetings and taking part in proceedings which subsequently grew out of that Convention, Mr. O'Brien was twice arrested and twice prosecuted,— first at Newcastle- upon- Tyne, asd again at Liverpool. On both occasions he defended himself, and that in such an able manner as to elicit from Mr. Justice Coleridge and the adverse barristers the highest encomiums upon his ability and straight- forwardness. At Newcastle his triumphant acquittal, after a trial lasting thirteen hours, was hailed by thousands with shouts of delight; but at Liverpool, owing to the non- production of his witnesses to refute the lying evidence of the prosecution, he was sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment in Lan- caster gaol, the whole of which time he served; and, on the very day of his liberation, held a glorious meet- ing in the town of Lancaster. Amongst the series of meetings following Mr. O'Brien's liberation, was a magnificent one at the Guildhall at Newcastle, with the Mayor in the chair— that same Guildhall in which, just two years before, he had been tried— and a still more magnificent one in Liverpool, the scene of his enemies' triumph. At the election of 1841 the generous men of Newcastle read the enemy a lesson, by choosing Mr. O'Brien to serve them in parliament, by the largest show of hands ever witnessed at any previous election, including a large portion of the enfranchised as well as the non- electors of the borough. Mr. O'Brien's doctrines would seem MR. J. BRONTERRE O'BRIEN.* ALTHOUGH Mr. O'Brien is only forty- five years of age, he may be said to have lived amongst three generations of reformers, having been known to Gale Jones, Thel- wall, and others of the men of 1794; and was afterwards the intimate friend of Henry Hunt and his compatriots. But Mr. O'Brien's life has been so chequered and event- ful, — especially since the death of his friend, Henry Hunt,— that a volume would be required to do justice to the subject. We must, therefore, stand excused if, within the narrow limits prescribed to us, we simply present to our readers only a few of the most striking and charac- teristic incidents of his career. Mr. O'Brien's family belongs to the Counties of Westmeath and Longford in Ireland, where they rose by their abilities, industry, & c., from the middle to the higher walks of life; he was born in the latter county, where his father carried on an ex- tensive business in the wine and spirit trade, as also in the manufacture of tobacco and snuffs. Young O'Brien received the rudiments of a good English and classical education in his native town, and when only thirteen years of age had made such progress in Greek, Latin, French, and Italian, and in the elementary sciences, moreover exhibiting such uncommon aptitude for versi- fication and composition, that a most brilliant future was predicted for him by the friends of his family. About this period he was sent to Edgeworth's town- school, where his abilities attracted the notice of both Miss Edgeworth and Sir Walter Scott: the former presented * The above portrait was taken from a daguerrotype by Mr. Mayall, of 433, Strand. him with a beautiful copy of Pope's works, and the latter with a handsome silver pencil case. The peculiar fea- ture in Edgeworth's town- school was, that all the teach- ing was done by " monitors," so young O'Brien's peculiar talents soon made him the first or principal of their number, twenty- one. In short, the boy O'Brien was no less famed as a teacher of languages, mathematics, & c., at Edgeworth's town- school, than the man O'Brien has since become, under the title bestowed upon him by Mr. Feargus O'Connor and others, " The political school- master of the age." Mr. O'Brien subsequently entered the University of Dublin, where he obtained premiums or academic honours in every year of his under- graduate course, and likewise took out the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Choosing the bar for a profession, he entered as a student of King's Inn, and two years afterwards of Gray's Inn, London; but, after devoting a year or two to the study of the law, he conceived such a violent dis- gust and hatred of it ( regarding it as little else than a sort of diabolical machinery contrived by landlords and capitalists, with the aid of priests, lawyers, and soldiers, to plunder, impoverish, and enslave the whole body of the people) that, to use his own words, he determined " to consecrate his whole faculties to the pulling down of the law, instead of bolstering it up, and seeking pelf or preferment through its advocacy or administration." This resolution he formed about the time the French Revolution of 1830 broke out, and from that hour to the present Mr. O'Brien has never ceased through good or evil report, to work out his perilous mission with the zoal of a primitive apostle. So very popular was Mr. O'Brien in 1838— 9, that when the first Chartist Convention was being convoked for the latter year, no ' Wi- REYNOLDS'S POLITICAL INSTRUCTOR. to be equally if not more popular in France and America than in Great Britain; this is owing, in America, to the great number of his disciples that the persecutions of " 1839- 42 and subsequent years forced to exile themselves and take refuge in that " home of the oppressed. When Mr. O'Brien, in company with his wife, visited Paris in 1837, nothing could exceed tbe cordiality and hospitality of his reception from the leading democrats of that noble country. Mr. O'Brien can boast of being one of the first British subjects who publicly rendered full and complete justice to the outraged memory of the illus- trious Robespierre, and we know that it is a source of much gratification to the subject of our sketch, the en- thusiastic manner in which that immortal patriot's name is now received and venerated in France. Mr. O'Brien was connected with the first and great struggle for cheap literature, and edited several publications. Much vile abuse has been heaped upon his head by the English press— his talent was considered too dangerous. The Liverpool Mercury called Mr. O'Brien a " ruffian incen- diary," and the Globe described him as a " scoundrel revolutionist. " Mr. O'Brien, though now depressed in health and circumstances by a twenty years' conflict with persecution, a conflict that has frequently involved him in the direst distress and privations, is, nevertheless, as ardent and determined as ever to prosecute his mission to the end. He still writes, lectures, and harangues with untiring perseverance; and, with the aid of the National Reform League,— a society of which he is President, and which his exertions mainly called into existence,— he is unquestionably one of the most powerful advocates of the people's liberties. THE " ROOKERIES." Wr, have lately had the opportunity of perusing a book written by a clergyman, in a kindly and humane spirit, which is ushered to the world under the above title. The writer has detailed here scenes of suffering and misery which would seem from their extreme horror to be merely the over- wrought phantoms of the brain were we not assured that they are drawn from his own per- sonal observation. Westminster, St. Giles, Jacob's Island, in the neighbourhood of Bermondsey, Field Lane, & c., are the chief subjects he has taken in hand. It may be said that these will consist chiefly of de- scriptions of what have been rather than of things that are; but if the reader will ask himself one moment to what spot or quarter of the globe the outlaws and exiles of those fceted spots have been driven, he must conclude that as matters have not mended with tbe poor, and as they cannot be absolutely annihilated they must still carry with them the germs of fresh rookeries, must form the nucleus of new associations of poverty, destitution, and crime, and that a book such as this amid many others was much wanted in order to describe fully, plainly, un- equivocally ihe frightful cancers that are hidden, but eating into the vitals of society. The letters of the correspondent of the Morning Chro- nicle have confirmed the truths of the statement by the his- torian of the rookeries, and by Mr. Cochrane, in that graphic report issued some short time back from the Guardian Society in Leicester Square. Long hours of unpaid labour, 110 labour at all, depravity, crime, death, and the burying of the dead in the streets of cities— demoralisation for the living, horror for the dying, and a grave in the green and festering bosomof parish charnels for the dead, are spoken of. And this is the prospect for the poor of England who live in great towns and ci'ies. Prospect! did we say? It is the actual reality. It is here where the impulses which all men and women— even the worst of them— to do good, if it be but for once in the course of a feverish life, are strangled! It is here that honesty goes forth shame- stricken, and bold, brazen dishonesty flaunts it and is applauded ! It is in these terrible lazar spots that the pure are polluted and the chaste are compelled to sell their innocence for bread 1 It is from homes skulking in the forbidding corners in these localities that mothers come forth and sell their bodies in order that their chil- dren shall live, and hence it is that the widows of labourers and artisans are forced to surrender every vestige of matronly dignity, to traverse the streets with drunken and delirious steps, and maddened with the remorse of crime for which they should surely he held guiltless, they consummate the deplorable condition of their existence by suicide 1 If it is said to us, " Well, you have told us this before, we reply, " In that case, has it been altered? Is this misery destroyed ? is it mitigated ? is it attempted to be so ? Because it is not the intention of a journal like this to indicate only, but to follow up, to repeat, to echo, to cry aloud till those who hear but dimly, impatiently shrug the shoulder and say, ' Yes. yes, we hear you, only in the name of patience— wait. Bye and bye these things will be all altered.'" But bye and bye we shall be dead, and this generation have gone with one last long cry of agony into its revolt- ing grave, and we have bequeathed no legacy of good things done, or began to be done, to those who shall follow us. We know the value of perseverance. We know that dropping water will wear away a stone, and that nothing but a constant attack will overcome a difficulty, however gigantic. To say that complaint is a repetition of weari- some truths is not answering that cogent fact, namely, that misery is repetition, a daily, hourly thing, changing its forms, killing off its old, and attacking new victims. In the absence of resistance what is it but despair that comes and completes the catastrophe; and we cannot agree with the principle of " let- alone," which has encouraged and fostered every monstrous abuse that, surrounds us. Every . phase of political life seems to embody a con- sideration for parties, classes, monopolies, anti- mono- jsolies, for thrones and potentates, for republican institu- tions and for freedom, but these arc all singularly dear from making mention of the misery of mankind, or taking the statistics of famine into consideration. Like that prisoner recorded to have been placed in a chamber by the machinery of which the walls kept closing in upon him, and each day he counted a window the less in his iron den. so does the world close more and more, in cold, and penury, and darkness upon those whom society has solidly closed its doors against. God has told us of these sublime words, " Repentance and pardon," and we turn from the dreary waste of life— from this limitless wilder- ness to the benigner imaginings of a home beyond death ; but in the noxious abodes we have mentioned— can there come to those hardened hearts repentance ? Can there come to men who have been spurned from the house to the street, from the street to the cellar— an idea of par- don ? Pardon! for what? For being poor ? For commit- ting crimes which circumstances— uncontrolablc circum- stances forced them to commit? Is it likely that the being you have made a ruffian— have brutified in every shape and way, will pray for pardon when he glares like a haggard spectre from amid the grim ruin in which he is enshrined— a horrible gem in a setting— a loathsome garniture still more horrible, and sublimely says," It is for me to forgive, not to ask pardon !" All this is'rendered still worse by the huge mass of unrequited labour which goes to make up so much misery. Talent, genius, gifts of manipulation, powers, and capacities, that make man godlike are all here, gifts of God dishonoured, degraded, and lost for ever. If there was nothing more to lament than this, it is a fully sufficient cause. Is it because vice and crime are the characteristics of the " rookeries" that it is all vice with them ? Alas 1 they were all of them good, honest, and industrious once, and want and neglect has overtaken them. There they fell and there they remain like revel- lers who fall around the table, and are dragged away suffocating with apoplexy. This is a crusade in which the human race must be engaged. Kings and nobles have paid no heed to the cries of those who die despairing and we trust in them no more! Legislators export our sons and daughters like a new commodity of commerce, and we cease to look to them for help : we must help our- selves. Self- help has a creative energy of its own. For our part, Hercules may snore on his club, we ourselves will extricate our own cart- wheel out of the mire and owe no thanks. ROYAL BOUNTY WITH PEOPLE'S HONEY. THE Is the Act of Parliament which so pleasantly gives Queen Victoria the sura of 385,000?. a- vear, produced by the workers and toilers, who are in rags, there are two clauses relating to the pensions of 1.2002. per an- num, which may be granted by the Queen:— " Clause V.— And whereas it is expedient to make provision, at the rate of one thousand two hundred pounds a- year for each and every succeeding year of her Majesty's reign, to defray the charge of such pen- sions as may be granted by her Majesty, chargeable on her Majesty's Civil List Revenues; be it therefore enacted, that it shall be lawful for the Lord High Trea- surer, or for the Commissioners of her Majesty's Treasury for the time being, to charge upon, and issue quarterly out of the said consolidated fund, as an addition to the sum [ 385,000!.] hereby granted for her Majesty's Civil List, such sums as shall be required to defray the charges of such pensions as may be granted as aforesaid, at the rate of one thousand two hundred pounds a- year for the first year of her Majesty's reign, and at the like additional yearly rate for the second and every succeed- ing year of her said reign. Clause VI, which contains the " Restrictions on Grants of Pensions," enacts. " That the pensions which hereafter may'be charged upon the Civil List Revenues, shall be granted to such persons only as havejust claims on the royal beneficence, or who, by their personal ser- vices to the crown, by the performance of duties to the public, or by their useful discoveries in science and attainments in literature and the arts, have merited the gracious consideration of their sovereign and the grati- tude of the country." Although there is no doubt, ' according to a resolution of the House of Commons of February 18,1834 ( having direct reference to these pensions, and which is embo- died in the sixth clause of this Act of Parliament), " that it is the bounden duty of the responsible advisers of tho crown to recommend to her Majesty for grants of pen- sions on tho Civil List such persons only as have just claims on the Royal beneficence," & c., it is well known that the Queen has in many cases selected the objects in virtue of her " prerogative." Shortly after the Queen came to the throne, the following hungry, rapacious, grasping leeches, who were her teachers while Princess Victoria, were placed on the pension list for the sum of 1002. each, " in consideration of the services rendered by them to her Majesty during her education." Rev. Henry Barez, teacher of German. John Bernard Sale, teacher of Singing. Thomas Steward, teacher of Writing. Frangois Grandineare, teacher of French. Lucy Anderson, teacher of Music. Sarah Matilda Bourdin, teacher of Dancing. The Queen's teacher of Italian, Giuseppe Guazzaroni, was pensioned at the same time, but only to the extent of 502. per annum. It was clearly understood, previously to the passing of the Act of Parliament, from a minute we have had access to, that " 1,2002. per annum may be granted by her Majesty in pensions, not exceeding 3002. each, to deserving persons having performed service to the State, or being possessed of high literary and scientific attain- ments, and being in such circumstances as may reason- ably claim the lioyal Bounty; the names and services, anci the amount of pension granted, being annually laid before Parliament." The Act, however, containing no restriction as to the amount of pensions " not exceeding 3002. each," tbe question remained open, and the extent of the amount left undefined, and perfectly under the control of the Sovereign and " the responsible advisers of the crown." The first pension granted under the Act, beyond the amount of 3002., was fhat conferred upon Sir John New. port, Bart, ( termed the " Newport Job"), of 1,0002., " in consideration of the zealous and c- tHcient services rendered by hira to the public during a period of nearly half a century, within which time he filled the offices ® f Chancellor of the Exchequer of Ireland, and Comptroller- General of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom." The conferring of this pension ( sweeping away five- sixths of the whole amount of the 1,2002. for that year,) created, at the time, considerable excitement, both in and out of parliament. The claims of many " deserving persons," who had " performed service to the State," and who were poor and needy, instead of rich and affluent, were thus, for that period, compelled to be cast aside; only 2002. being left for other far more pressing objects of the Royal Bounty. The pension, however, was nbt long enjoyed by the hon. and fortunate ( indeed we may add* and wealthy) baronet. The date of the grant was November 20th, 1839. Sir John Newport died in February, 1843. The remaining pensions, exceeding 3002. per annum each, granted in virtue of this Act, are as follow:— September, 24th, 1842.— To Louisa, Baroness Lehzen, 4001., " in consideration of the faithful services rendered by her to her Majesty during a period of 18 years." And so faithful were these services, that the moment Sir Robert Peel came into power, he bundled the Ger- man Baroness neck and crop out of the country— an achievement highly serviceable to the cause of morality and decency at the Court. November 16th, 1843.— To Dame Florentia Sale, 5002., " on account of the distinguished military services of Colonel Sir Robert Henry Sale, G. C. B., and, in parti- cular, of his gallant defence of Jellalabad." March 5th, 1843.— To Mademoiselle Augusta Emma D'Este, 5002., " in trust to Edward Majoribanks, Esq., and Sir Edmund Antrobus, Bart., in consideration of her just claims on the Royal beneficence." This Miss D'Este was one af the bastard children of tho Duke of Sussex. Her claims on Itoyal beneficence may, there- fore, be great: but what are her claims upon the people's money ? July 28th, 1845.— To Mademoiselle Augusta Emma D'Este, 5002., " additional pension, in consideration of her just claims on the Royal beneficence. In trust to Edward Marjoribanks, Esq., and Sir Edmund Antro- bus, Bart." THE SIDNEY HERBERT EMIGRATION SCHEME. THIS aristocratic conspiracy for the depopulation of the country, has just received a fine showing- up at the hands cf the Literary Gazette, the editor of which periodical takes the following matter- of- faet and business- like view of the practical working of the precious scheme ; " There are a thousand poor sempstresses to be picked out of London, and shipped to Australia. Who the Executive Committee for this delicate investigation are to be, has not been announced. No donbt the Standing Committee can furnish an efficient delegation with Mr. Sidney Herbert at their head as Chair- man, and we have only to glance at the list to fiad a ready quorum— say one Bishop, London or Oxford, for the sake of decorum; one Israelite, Baron Lionel de Rothschild, for the Jewish maidens, starved out by Moses and Son; one peer, Granby, Carlisle, Ellesmere for- the higher quality; one M. P., Duke, Masterman, or Walter, for the Commoners- five ore enow; but if two more are wanted, add Jones Lloyd, and Count de Strzelecki as eligible men or matrons to be upon this jury. Now to their operations for getting toge- ther this select bevy of a thousand virgins ( like the 10,000 of Cologne) suitable for their intended purposes. It is exactly like exporting a cargo of slaves, only they are free to choose and go or not as they please. Persons must be employed to seek them out and recommend them; medical assessors, to ascertain their health and fitness iu other respects. Their characters must be examined, and wo imagine tlieir good looks and personal endowments must bo taken into conside- ration., There is something exceedingly droll in this grave business, when you come to think about it in detail. What must the women individually and collectively fancy when they are called up to be examined; what must the chosen imagine about the end and result of their voyage? The report insists on their strictly industrious and moral habits, and declares that una scabies would spoil the whole flock. They are not to exceed 85 years of age; 30 would be a better maximum. Reading and writing, washing and cook- ing, a fortnight's probation aud instruction previons to em- barkation, aud examination by a matron conversant with colonial life, aud a surgeon, are the pre- requisites. The evils often re suiting from the long sea voyage are to be pro- vided against by discipline, the presence of married couples, and a chaplain I When the cargo arrives they are to be received by Government officers, barracked and provisioned for a while, aud committees of ladies arc preparing to look out for suitable situations, or matches, for them. Such is the brief outline cf the plan; but it is understood at home that the emigrants are most encouraged to look for speedy husbands; and, in the colonies, that the settlers are all 011 the qui 1live for the pick of wives thus providentially sent to mitigate their distressing celibacy. Transports are looked out for 011 this side, and transports are looking out on that: behold the difference. Would that it were really possible to laugh this heartless, this damnable, this hellish scheme iuto annihilation! Will not the poor needlewomen be warned? Those who yield to the tempting promises of the prospectus, will find in the long run how fatal it is to put any trust in Aristocrats and moneycrats,— the natural enemies of the industrious millions. The ' man after God's own heart,' himself declared that no confidence should be put in princes; aud the solemn warning applies to all those heart- less'few,' who level in indolent luxury at the cost of the ' toiling many.' Once more let us beseech the English needlewomen to avoid the snares which are so ruthlessly laid for them." ' Wi- REYNOLDS'S POLITICAL INSTRUCTOR. THE ARISTOCRACY: ITS ORIGIN, PROGRESS, AND DECAY. TUB lauds and property iu England that wero surren- dered by the crown for the consideration of a certain annual grant from the country were laid hold of, pur- loined, and appropriated to themselves by the Aristocracy. During the French war, when ministers required tlie powerful assistance of the nobility in corrupting the House of Commons, the crown- lands then served as baits to induce these rapacious cormorants to exert themselves with redoubled energy. Like ravenous wolves they fastened on the people's property, and portioned it out amongst themselves with an unparalleled and impudent audacity. We have, in former numbers, shown how tho spoils of the church fell to the noble and duc il houses of Norfolk, Bedford, & c., and it is now our intention, to ex- pose the wholesale spoliation committed on the lands and national property of England by others of, the nobiiity; remarking, however, en pabsant, that wherever plunder is partitioned, the noble house of Bedford is always oue of the first to open its ravenous miw. Credulous persons, unaware of the peculating and self- appropriating characteristics of our titled gentry, gape with astonishment at the stately London mansions of the nobility, and wonder how sufficient money could ever be amassed for the purchase of the lands and the building of the houses. We can, however, tell them that the land is mostly acquired by underhand, but legalised robbery; and the robbers are principally those who would transport a poor starving wretch for stealing a loaf of bread, whilst they, themselves, annually embezzle from the nation thousands and tens of thousands of pounds with impunity. The rental paid to the government by many of the nobility, occupying stately and magnifi- cent mansions in and around Piccadilly, does not amount to a tenth part of the sum paid by a small tradesman in the same neighbourhood to a private landlord. The fol- lowing process was adopted by the Aristocracy for lodging themselves at a cheap rate. When every vote was valuable in the House of Commons, a nobleman possessing considerable parliamentary influence through returning several members for his own rotten boroughs, might be desirous of occupying a suitable town- house at a comparative small cost, and was also anxious that it should be situated in the most salubrious and fashionable quarter, an important question was coming on; perhaps the ministry's fate depended upon its result; half- a- dozen votes might turn the scale; place, patronage, emoluments, everything was at stake; the wily borough- monger had watched his opportunity, and off he stalks to obtain an interview with the perplexed minister. That interview takes place; his lordship's nominees vote according to his wishes, and his lordship's family are a few days after installed in one of the houses belonging to the people, but entrusted to t'uv> n » oftg « mont at' ttvo Commissioner of Woods and Forests, with a fifty years' lease in his pocket at a yearly rental of sixty or seventy pounds for a house and grounds that are valued at, and would let for six hundred per annum. Some of the most fashionable streets in London, Charles Street, Hill Street, & c., have become such, because titled spoliators could plant them- selves at a trifling expense upon the nation's property. In 1815 more than thirty houses alone were let to the Aristocracy in the neighbourhood of Piccadilly for one hundred and twenty- five pounds each yearly; these in 1790, were separately valued at seven hundred per annum, and twenty years after must have been worth nearly a thousand! In Spring Garden Terrace three messuages, valued at eight hundred per annum, were all let for two hundred. The ancestor of a certain noble duke, enjoying a considerable pension for doing nothing, but whose descent can be traced back to one of Charles Il's favourite courtezans, was desirous of ob- taing a piece of valuable ground from the public at a ridiculously cheap rate,— for this purpose ho repaired to the minister's presence and bluntly made a proposal that called forth the following significant query, " But, your Grace, what would the public say if they knew how cheaply you held their property?" —" Say," re- plied the duke: " what can they say to a man who al- ways supports their minister?" This hint was sufficient; the land was granted at a nominal rental, the nobleman was satisfied, the minister contented, and the nation plundered. The impudent assurance of the Aristocracy when they threw the sovereign as a pauper to be quartered upon the nation, went to such a length as to declare that this arrangement was intended to " defray a part of the expense of government, and lessen the burthen of the subject by means of the preservation and im- provement of the crown lands." The preservation and improvement of these crown lands being left to the Aristocracy, it is needless to- say the people's burthens have never been lightened by any proceeds derived therefrom; and the pretence of the nation's obtaining a good bargain in granting a certain sum in lieu of those lands which, by a strange hocus- pocus, were called the property of the crown, ended by the people losing some hundreds of thousands annually, aud the Aristocracy appropriating to themselves the profits and emoluments of the lands obtained in exchange thereof. Dr. Davenant, in his " Treatise on the Land of England and its Produce," estimates the estates of the crown, in the time of James I, to have produced sixty- six thousand eight hundred pounds per annum; but taking the immense increase iu the value of pro- perty during the last century, with the compound in- terest that has been lost, into consideration, we cannot charge the Aristocracy of England wilh embezzling less from the nation than two millions and a half an- nually ; and that is a most moderate computation, for many of the lands iu and about London that were for- merly worth perhaps one pound, are now valued at ten or more pounds per acre,— so that within the last 1 century and a half our precious nobility have coolly ' i swindled the country out ofj in round numbars, nearly four hundred millions! We will now show how cunningly this fraud was managed. But it must not be supposed that the crown was the sufferer ; oh! no, it was tho people. The sovereign derived an income from vast lands obtained in a most questionable manner by forfeits, escheat, or otherwise. They were, as Blackstone observes, " capa- ble of being increased to a magnitude truly formidable." Now, thinking that it were better to enjoy for a cer- tainty and without risk or question, a large and fixed income from the state, our monarchs kindly and con- descendingly consented to restore that which they had violently plundered from us, on condition of receiving an immense annual revenue instead. The people con- sented, the Aristocracy settled the business, and tho nation has ever since had to pay for their sovereign's costly support, without deriving one farthing in return from the property disgorged by the crown. The country would have profited by declining such a bargain when tiie nobility had the transacting of this business. The ancestor of his present Grace of Newcastle, the man who does what he likes with his own, pounced ravenously and greedily upon the manor of Newark, in Nottingham- shire, consisting of nine hundred and eighty fertile acres of land, covered with habitations, fruitful in tolls, markets, fisheries, and many other sources of revenue; yielding to the holder an annual income of between six and seven thousand pounds, besides the power of returning two members to parliament for Newark. This property was leased in 1770 to the Duke of Newcastle for four hun- dred and eighty- two pounds a- year; in 1808 the lease was renewed for thirty years, and at its expiration the property was sold by government,— the Newcastle family having enjoyed this j ) b for the space of sixty- six years, and pucketted about three hundred and fifty thousand pounds of the public money! The magnificent park of Bowood, in Wiltshire, the lordly retreat of the Marquis of Lansdowne, was sold for four hundred aud sixty- eight pounds ten shillings! The manor of Spalding, yielding bettfeen four and five thousand per annum, was leased to the Duke of Buc- cleugh for the large yearly consideration of fivo pounds! and afterwards ontirely appropriated, without any in- quiry being instituted. Lot us here investigate the claims of the house of Buccleugh upon the public purse. One of the numerous left- handed progeny of Charles II, by a common strumpet, Lucy Walters, was created by his kind and considerate father, Duke of Monmouth, and, in proce- 9 of time, married to Lady Ann Scott, the richest heiress iu the kingdom: the king creating them, Duke and Duchess of ' Buccleug'n, Earl and Countess of Dalkeith, & e. When King James cut off his undutiful nephew, Monmouth's, head, the duke's honours were forfeited, but those enjoyed by the duchess in her own right remained unaffected by her husband's disgrace and death. The duchess's grandson married the eldest daughter of the Duke of Queensbury, whose titles and large estates have descended to the present man, the fifth Duke of Buccleugh; ho is said to enjoy an income of betwixt two and three hundred thousand pounds per annum! What shorter, surer, or more effectual method for raising a colossal fortune cun be imagined than such speculations as that of the manor of Spalding— returning five thousand for an outlay of fiva pounds! , Lucky de- scendants of the Merry Monarch! The Earl of Derwentwater's forfeited estate, pro- ducing nine thousand per annum, was sold to themselves by two Commissioners of the Woods and Forests, for the sum of one thousand pounds!! This was, however, too much of a good thing; and as t : e delinquents did not share the plunder with that proverbial honesty which is said to exist even amongst vulgar caitiffs, the old adage of " when thieves fall out," & c., was fully realised. The transaction was exposed, denounced— two members of the legislature were expelled, and t< vo others repri- manded, for the part they had taken in this nefarious business. The tenants of the government mostly belong to the Aristocracy: doubtless they have as easy a landlord as Lord John's ancestor. A lease of part of the surren- dered lands, the honour of Ampthill, witli other property, was granted in 1773, to the Bedford family, at the rent of fifty pounds per annum, the property estimated even then as worth five hundred and eight pounds seven shil lings yearly, increased three- fold in value, and was en- joyed for between sixty and seventy years by the Rus- sell family, filching the nation of, on a moderate calcu- lation, sixty or seventy thousand pounds! The returns of the forests, up to the year 1832, actually display such gross peculation and mismanagement, that the expen- diture upon them annually exceeded, by one thousand pounds, the receipts. This singular balance- sheet was fabricated by the following cunning contrivances of the Aristocracy. Horses paid a small annual sum for pas- turage in the forest land,— a noble lord, a friend of the Commissioners of Wood and Forests, was desirous of turning his horse out upon the usual terms; but such a precious and wonderful feeder must this animal have been, that it was found necessary to appropriate five hundred acres of the best land as pasturage for its use! Butlers, grooms, pimps, and other hangers- on of the Aristocracy, were liberally quartered upon the public lands and forests, as woodmeu, keepers, overseers, & o., with certain salaries aud perquisites, but no work whatever. To such a ridiculous extent was this system carried, that on one occasion the office of rat- catcher, worth three hundred per annum, was bestowed upon a decayed gentle- man in the following manner: A nobleman possessing considerable parliamentary influence, on one occasion, when conversing with Lord Liverpool, then prime minis- ter, observed that he had a poor and infirm relation, fit for nothing; but, if his lordship could conveniently pro- vide for him in some way, he should ever feel grateful. Lord Liverpool, unwilling to offend a supporter of his | government, remarked that at that particular time there I was nothing he could find likely to suit him; except, ob- served his lordship, turning over some papers, " the situation of rat- catcher in the New Forest; a mere sinecure, with salary and perquisites worth more than three hundred a year." The offer was too good for refusal, and a poor gentleman became a comparatively rich rat- catcher. Rangerships were created and bestowed upon noblemen, with large salaries and handsome houses attached; every extravagance and embezzlement was encouraged; in fact, as we shall further show, the Aristocracy have been pil- laging the nation to an extent alarming to contemplate. ALPHA. ( To be continued in our next) WHEES LIES OUR STRENGTH? LBT the masses understand fully their position and their duty— they have no one to look to for assistance but themselves. Their's is the cause of labour; and by the labourers must it be upheld; for nearly every other class iu society, a? the receivers and profitters by that labour without paying for it at its full value, have a direct interest to cry down the demand for free labour, and hold fast their present villanous power over its products. The true source of all legitimate power, and the mainspring of national wealth, is neither powerless nor paltry— the knowledge of their resources and their destiny is the only want of democracy. Possessed of this, and all other things will be added to them. That knowledge it is our sacred duty to convey to them; that destiny it is our inspiration to foreshadow. After rising out of the deep, wild sea, were caught glimpses of a little cloud, which seemed like a speck of light on the gloomy horizon, so distant and obscure that the beholders deemed it rather a dawnin'g star than a rising constellation, and turned away their eyes to more palpable things. But a few, who had long waited for that promised ORION, fondly watched over the tossed meteor, and were gladdened to perceive it rising, and spreading, aud brightening all the deep. Onward it sped— heaven- sent, like the fire- pillar of the Red Sea, to cheer the hearts of such as were trodden down, and testify their deliverance was at hand. On- ward it roiled over the wide world, rousing the living to their duty, and flooding with glory the graves of the departed who had died for the truth. That rolling cloud is the Spirit of Democracy— that light which it pours forth is universal freedom— a spirit which will whelm the despot's pride— a spirit unknown heretofore, giving energy, constancy, and daring— exciting a thirst for knowledge— ever victorious upon earth, and com- bining, with the greatest gifts of physical nature, the sublimest attribute of the celestial essence— a laborious people, whose knowledge is their power. Where, then, lies our strength? for to know this is the corner- stone of our wisdom. IN NUMBERS CON- SISTS THE STRENGTH OF DEMOCRACY. To move the masses— to have the masses is the great secret of suc- cess. The strength of aristocracy is their money: the strength of the capitalist is his cunning and his calcula- tions; but the strength of democracy is their numbers. A million tongues— a million honest hearts— one mil- lion sterling and united minds, aud our victory is gained. / How much longer shall the Government be permitted to declare that the people do not want reform— and that if they did want it, they are unfit to have it? Gracious heavens! to think of the millions of England that wield the sledge and drive the hammer, the men of strong will and hard industry, who eat their bread as Gji> said man should do— in the sweat of their own brows — to think of these sons of honest toil being slighted and sneered at by the Premier whom they pay and tolerate, and their interests voted down by an aris- tocracy who enjoy the privilege of oppressing because their victims unite the folly of madmen to the cowardice of slaves. On the last day of February, one of those events which send the blood rushing to the faces of men, and rouse the spirit of a nation— which are at once the cause and the prophecy of coming revolution— was enacted in the English House of Commons. In the usual style of oppression, injury was justified by insult; and while the people were wronged out of an acknowledged right, the wrong was excused on the pretext of the people being unworthy of justice. Lord John Russell in one breath proclaimed that the men of England possessed neither common honesty, common sense, nor common indepen- dence of spirit. A bold taunt, we trow: but will the men of England justify the charge by acquiescing iu the deprivation of privilege for which Lord John Russell made it the direct apology? Will they, by consenting to the arrogant spoliations inflicted by parliament, acknowledge that they are neither honest, intelligent, nor independent? If they bear the opprobrious insult in silence, they prove that they deserve it, and that they are fitted for what- ever other degradation Prime Ministers or Cabinet con- venience may think proper to inflict upon them. Frenchmen possess universal suffrage. Austria has recognised the principle. Prussia has been driven to concede it. In the British Empire alone, of all the great states of civilized Europe, are the masses unrepresented and unrecognised ; yet Englishmen will be taught in litanies of loyalty to adore the perfection of their Con- stitution, and while the brand of the slave is flaring and red upou their burned brow, to bless GOD that they are not as other men. In Heaven's name, how are they other than slaves, serfs, and bondsmen? True, they are not the serfs of a siagle despot; they have the blessing of a multiplicity of tyrants. They are governed and mis- governed by laws, in the making of which they have no voice, and they are mulcted and taxed for a revenue over the expenditure of which they have no control. Let any sensible Englishman stand out and tell us, if these be not tyranny, what tyranny is. Let him define despotism, and we shall show him that he is the victim of it.— Irishman. mm ' Wi- REYNOLDS'S POLITICAL INSTRUCTOR. A VOICE FROM THE COAL USES. BY A SUFFERER. LETTER III. HAVING in the former letters reviewed the condition of the drawers, helpers, and trappers, I must now pass on to the miner himself, and expose the manifold evils that he has to complain of; and in doing so I shall consider first the tyrannies practised upon him by the COAL KINGS, as a workman, in order to rob him of his labour; and secondly, the reckless manner in which our mining ope- rations are conducted, whereby his health is destroyed and his life jeopardised; and lastly, impress upon the British public the necessity of their interference to compel the legislature at once and without delay to appoint properly qualified persons for inspecting the mines, in order to see that they are properly venti- lated, & c. The miners suffered and continue to suffer from t'he means which the Coal Kings have adopted to rob the working miner of his wages after he has, by extreme labour, earned them. Indeed, he never knows what he has earned until he gets out of the pit; and such is the system, that sometimes after a hard day's work, instead of having any wages for himself and family to live upon, he is in debt to his employer; in fact, there have been men who, after the toils of the day were over, have been five, six, and seven shillings worse than when they went to work in the morning. And this, from no fault of their own, but owing to circumstances over which they have no control, the masters having made such arrange- ments as enables them to rob the working- man at pleasure. One of the regulations is, that a corf or tub of coals shall not contain more than a certain quantity of small or slack on pain of forfeiture of the whole corf; and the quantity allowed is so small that it is all but im- possible to escape if the employer thinks proper to enforce the rule; or what is equally as bad, should the unfortunate miner offend in any way the bankman who takes the coals at the mouth of the pit, he is sure to have to pay for it by the loss of his coals, which is his all. Should a corf of coals, containing from six to seven cwt., have more than two quarts of small in it the whole is forfeited, and if double that quantity the miner not only loses the whole of his work in reducing the corf, bat is fined sixpence besides. The employers say that it is necessary to have these wholesome regulations in order to make the men do their work in a proper manner. But is it a wholesome regulation to demand from a workman what it is, under ordinary circum- stances, all but impossible to perform, thereby leaving him to the mercy, or caprice, or what is worse, the cupidity of the employer, who robs him of the rights of his industry whenever he thinks fit. That this ar- rangement is of such a nature cannot be denied; for, suppose the miner fills his corf perfectly free from slack in the workings, it is next to impossible that it will not have more than the stipulated quantity in it when it arrives at the pit's mouth. It must be borne in mind that after leaving the workings in the mine it has to travel, in some cases, several miles under ground, aud to be removed from one description of carriage to an- other several times before it arrives at its ultimate destination. Thus, from the tender nature of the mine- ral and the constant friction undergone in its journey through the mine, and then up the shaft three or five hundred yards in ascent, it is out of all reason to expect that it shonld not contain more than two quarts of small. " Why, if you were to fill seven hundred weight of coals into a cart with hard pieces alone, and then shoot them down again without any travelling, it would he seen that there would be more small in them than the quantity allowed by the Coed Kings to their poor slaves. It is perfectly clear, then, that under ordinary circumstances the miner is entirely at the mercy of his employer whether he shall have any wages for his work or not. But this is far from the worst part of such a system. Every one at all acquainted with the mines are per- fectly aware that at times there are certain impediments that come in the way of the miner in his hazardous avocation which he has no control over, in the shape of what is technically called faults, steps, hitches, or troubles. These assume the shape of waves, which throw the mine up or down a little, as the case may be. These cause the miner not only extra labour and trouble, but their general tendency is to make the coal on both sides of them for a short distance more tender and dirty than usual, and no care on his part will enable him to send coals in such a state as the require- ments of the master demands. Therefore he not only loses his coal, but likewise is fined in many instances to twioe as much as his labour comes to. Is not this robbery? For the master sells those very coals amongst the rest, so he not only gets them for nothing, but fines the man into the bargain, thus pocketting not only that day's labour, but perhaps a couple of days' to come, and the poor man has no redress, the bond requiring him to send them to bank as the system above states, and therefore he must submit to this gross injustice. For, should he resist and attempt to vindicate his right by applying to a magistrate, the bond is produced. In vain does he show the impossibility of fulfilling its un- just requirements; it is according to the regulations of the colliery, and the great unpaid, who is directly or by family ties interested in maintaining the flagrant injus- tice thus committed upon the poor workman, decides against him. This is not the only way in which the poor miner is filched of his wages. Should he allow a certain number of pounds' weight of stone to be in a corf, it is taken from him in like manner; and of this he justly complains, for there are times such cannot be avoided. On getting down the coal a portion of the strata comes down with it, and must bo carefully picked out from amongst the , coal; but should the miner not do so, the loss of the corf: is the result, if not fined into the bargain. The miners do not want the masters to allow them to: execute their work in a slovenly or unworkmanlike man- ner, but they do say it is unjust to demand from them impossibilities, and to require them under all circum- stances to send coals without having at times more stone in than the regulations allow of. But of the nature of this injustice no one knows but those engaged in min- ing operations. The miner cannot prevent the strata from falling amongst the coals, for he is not blessed with the light of heaven to enable him to make them perfectly clean. Ho is working with a safety- lamp, whi « ii gives little more light than the twinkling of a star. Let the reader imagine a man working several hundreds of yards below the surface of the earth, and in a hollow running some miles perhaps under ground, the only light he has to work by being scarcely equal to a very small rush- light, and that surrounded with a barrel of very close wire- gauze. Under these circum- stances is it just to demand of him to pick out of the coal e^ ery bit of dirt, more especially when it is con- sidered that this dirt is so very near the same colour as the coal itself, that persons unacquainted with it would mistake the one for the other? If the injustice of the system ended here, it would be bad enough. But no, every means are adopted that are at all calculated to leave the unfortunate miner at the mercy of the Coal King. Not content with the foregoing tyrannies through which should the unfortunate wretch dare in any way offend the man who is accumulating a princely fortune out of his labour, he can deprive him of his very means of existence. It will be remembered that some years ago the legislature made a law which compelled coals to be sold by weight and not by mea- sure, as thoy were heretofore. But notwithstanding this law, the coal proprietors still compel the miners to get the coals by measure, it being an undeniable fact that throughout the mining districts the tubs, or corfs, are a full one- fourth more than they are represented to be, and in some cases even more. Thus it will be seen that the employer only pays the workmen for getting a load of coal, when in fact he has got a load and a quarter. The master selling them by weight, clearly pockets one- fourth of the miner's labour without paying a farthing for it, and by this means accumulates a princely fortune by plundering the labourer of his hire. But, not satisfied with all these accumulated means of de- priving him of his all, should a corf not be full enough in the eyes of the banksman, it is taken from the work- man altogether, and he has no redress. When he comes up at night, after the labour of the day is over, he finds that he is a corf or two short, and upon making inquiry about them, he is calmly informed that they are forfeited for being short of measure, and yet, at the same time, if strict justice were done, they contain more than the miner ought to send up for the stipulated quantity. It is a remarkable fact, likewise, that the corfs are very liable to extend in dimensions, and yet it is done by nobody. If you say to the master you think they are getting larger, ho knows nothing absut it— he is not aware that they have been altered. If you question the blacksmith, he too, is ignorant of the circumstance— has done nothing but strengthen the irons— they have wanted doing so. The maker knows nothing of the increase in their dimensions; he receives the irons from the smith, and of course made the tubs accordingly. No one kuows anything of this increase but the miner, who finds, week by week, that it requires a greater quantity of labour to produce the same number of corfs than it did before; but ho is assured, with the most consummate impudence in the world, that he must bo mistaken. A remaritable circumstance of this kind took place at the last colliery in which I was employed, which will illustrate the manner how this gross fraud, for it deserves no other name, is carried on, and the extent to which it has been practised. In 1835 a man, by getting two yards in a board, seven feet and a half wide, could send twenty- four tubs of clear dressed coal, and the slack or small. In 1841 with j doing just the same quantity of work, in the same pit, 1 with the same thickness of mine, he could not send more than sixteen tubs, or corfs, and the slack. It will, there- fore, be seen that in the short space of six years, the miners' wages were reduced one- third, not directly, but by making him do one- third more labour for the same amount of money. During this time, one of the men said to the master, that the tubs were getting a great deal larger; the answer was that they were not. " Well," said the man, " we can soon decide that; we can take one to the machine and weigh it." What was the an- swer? Why this: " That machine is not for your use, and if you are not satisfied with the tubs, you can take your tools and go about yoHr business." This, of course, had the desired effect; the system was maintained, and the tubs continued to increase. But yet it was denied by the employer, until at last they struck in the pit, and would neither go up or down the shaft. Then what was to be done? Cut the tubs? Oh, no; that would never do for the employer. The result was, the workman's last resource— a strike in 1841; which, after seventeen weeks of extreme suffering, ended in a slight advance of wages; but nothing equal to the amount of what they had been reduced by the increase of measure which had taken place. I shall never forget that struggle of the working miners until I cease to exist; for such had been their suffering, that they could submit no longer ; and they entered upon this war of right against might with a devotion which was truly amazing, and worthy of the great cause in which they were engaged. They struck with- out funds, and had to depend upon the public for their support. It will scarcely be credited, that these men stood out for the rights of their industry for seventeen weeks, and the support which they received in the whole of that time was fourteen shillings per man, or about tenpencc halfpenny per week each! Whilst concluding this letter I have lying before me an address from the workmen of Marley Hill Colliery to its owner, Mr. W. Hutt, formerly a liberal member of parliament, and great denouncer of certain abuses, which, however, judging from his present treatment of the poor miners, wo may reasonably infer noways con- cerned his own individual interest. It appears that a month's notice was agreed to be given on both sides, workmen and agent, before the cessation of their con- tract; but, regardless of such a binding agreement, the latter only condescended to afford twenty- four hours' notice, and at the expiration of that period turned the miners out of their houses like droves of serfs. What redress for such a wrong have these poor fellows t " Oh!" answer, the admirers of our old and venerated institutions, " the law, thank God! knows no distinction in persons !" But sensible, thinking men, who enter- tain no respect, but profound, deep- rooted contempt and hatred for the rotten and unjust system by which we are governed can with reason reply, " the law not only distinguishes between persons, but likewise betwixt purses." What earthly chance would the lean, ex- hausted purses of the miners stand against the heavy banking- book of a great coal- owner? If Mr. Hutt be unacquainted with the brutality exercised by his sub- ordinates towards the producers of his wealth, I tell Mr. Hutt boldly and advisedly, that, unable to manage his own concerns in a proper manner, it was both im- pudence and arrogance on his part attempting to legis- late the affairs of a nation. If his heart be not harder than the coal by which he derives his wealth, the griev- ances of those poor fellows, whoso pathetic but manly address is now before us, will have been redressed, and the subordinate oppressor made to smart for bis tyranny. ONE WHO SUFFEREB IN THE MINES. WHAT THE PEERAGE COSTS. 49 Peers who are State Pensioners, dividing amongst them annually £ 2S2, i>: Mi 36 Peers who are Military and Naval Officers do. 51,948 34 Peers deriving salaries from offices aud places, dividing amongst them annually 131,810 16 Peers, whoso wives and female relatives are pensioned 10,165 20 BishopsintheHouseofPeers, dividingannually 218,000 8 Peers who are Clergymen, with livings at 1,000/. each 8,000 638 Immediate relatives of Peers, in the Army, Navy, & c , at, say 4002. 250,200 277 Immediate relatives of Peers, in the Church, at, say 500/. 138,500 67 Immediaterelativesof Peers, iu office and place 84,930. Hard cash annually divided among the Peers) aud their ralativaa £ ii. ll. a V5 There are only 47 of the Peers who have not relatives in either the army, navy, or church; and of these a consider- able proportion are new Peers. INFANTICIDE IN- TURKEY: THE EFFECTS OF MIHTAKI SERVICE.— Many of the poor Turks did not scruple to say that they could not afford to bring up children ; that daughters were a useless incumberanee; and that if they had sons the Government tore them away, just as they were beginning to be useful at home, to m ike soldiers of them. The conscription was the dread aud abhorrence of all the Turkish women. The Greek and Armenian matrons had nothing to fear from it, as acknowledged Christian Rayahs could not serve in the army. Again, though always borne down by a heavier weight of oppression, the Christian Rayahs by superior industry and intelligence, can always command more of the necessaries of life than the Osmanlee peasants, and will, speaking comparatively, thrive where their next- door neighbours the Turks are half- starving. It was no mysieryat all, or a mystery only covered with the thinnest and most transparent veil, that forced abortion was a prevalent common practice among these Turkish women. The dark horrible secret as to the means- to be employed was pretty generally known; and where ignorance pre- vailed, there were " wise women," old hags, professional abortists, paid Turkish Tophane, who went about the coun- try relieving matrons of their burdens for a few piastres a- piece; and it was said that these helldames not only de- stroyed llie present embryo, but prevented all chances of future conception. I was told of these practices at Constan- tinople by three Frank physicians of the highest standing there, and by two Perote doctors; I was told of them again at Brusa by two Frank doctors, by the English Consul, by one of the American missionaries, by the French Consul, and by others. John Zohrab said that the fact was notori- ous ; that everybody in Brusa and in the plain knew it, as also that the life of the mother was often destroyed. A young Turkish woman, recently married, and then healthy and handsome, though very poor, told Madame that she was determined to have no children; that no son of hers, after being suckled at her breast, and brought up with care and cost, should be taken from her to live far away in bar racks and be a soldier. While we were at Brusa, this young Turkish woman, gaunt and haggard, was crawling about the streets; she had no children, nor had she any heaith left. Confirmations of the horrible fact met us wherever we went. — Macfarlane. EQUAL ELECTORAL DISTRICTS.— This principle of the People's Charter is a point on which the common sense of mankind has only one decision. Legislation is to be re- ferred to an assembly chosen by the country. Is there, then, one portion of the country which is to have a great, comparative share, and another which is to have a little one? If sw, which part of the country are to be the slaves, and whence came the title ? B. ing forth your title- deeds, either by conquest or otherwise ! Yet this enormous folly, which it is hardly possible to put iu writing in a shape which any man will put his hand to, is - ubinitted to unuer the simple stratagem of arranging that two hundred drunken men, in one part of the country, shall appoint a 658th portion of the House of Commons, and two hundred thousand men else- where— too many to be made drunk, and too intelligent to be deceived— shall only elect another. ' Wi- REYNOLDS'S POLITICAL INSTRUCTOR. A NEW HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAPTER XVIII. HENRY YX I. HENRY VII, the first of the Tudor princes, was the son of Edmund Earl of Richmond, and grandson of Owen Tudor, who had married Catherine, the widow of Henry V. His mother, Margaret, was daughter of the Duke of Somerset, whose grandsire was John of Gaunt. At the time that Richard occupied the throne he was living at the Court of Brittany; and having arrived in England, the results of the battle of Bosworth placed the crown of England on his head. Great as was his hatred and dislike of the house of York, he finally, according to his compact, married the Princess Elizabeth, the heiress of that family. After some political objections had been arranged, and the dreadful sweating sickness which scourged the unhappy people had subsided, the attainders passed against the Lancastrians were reversed. Proclamations of pardon • were made, but the Earl of Surrey, though he submitted, was imprisoned in the Tower; as was also Edward Plantagenet, Earl ot Warwick, son of the Duke of Clarence. His marriage being over, and revolving in his sordid but politic mind how he might acquire popularity, either through esteem or terror, he resolved to make a " pro- gress " through the north. While staying at York, news came that the Staffords had raised an army, and were intending to besiege Worcester; while Viscount Lovel • was leading four thousand men in order to attack him at York. He ordered the Duke of Bedford, with a small body of men, to oppose them; the duke, whose forces were ill able to cope with the array levied against him, issued a proclamation of pardon to the rebels; and Lovel, • who dreaded desertion on the part of his men, secretly • withdrew, and finally escaped into Flanders. The Staffords took refuge in the sanctuary of Colnham, but • were dragged from thence; the elder was executed at Tyburn, and the younger pardoned. Henry was likely to become as detested as any of his predecessors. The Yorkists beheld every office of ho- nour or emolument given to their rivals; the people beheld the young Earl of Warwick in the Tower, where already so many had been slain, and daily expected to hear of his following the same path as the two young princes. The queen, herself, not only had not shared the honours of coronation, but was harshly treated even after having presented Henry with a son, whom he called Arthur; and there were not wanting men, bold and skilful enough, to take advantage of circumstances and profit by them. Richard Simon, a priest who lived in Oxford, had cherished the design of at least disturbing Henry's government, if not of unseating him; and looking about for a fitting agent, he chose Lambert Simnel, the son of a baker, of great natural talents, and but fifteen years of age. It having been reported that ono of the young princes, Richard, the Duke of York, had not been killed in the Tower, but had escaped and was wandering from place to place; Simon had instructed the youth to take that name. This purpose was, however, changed by another rumour that the young Earl of Warwick had escaped from his prison, and it was ultimately decided that Lambert should personate him. The youth exhi- bited an extensive and accurate knowledge of Edward Plantagenet's life; and the imposture was, in every re- spect, most remarkable for its fidelity in details. The queen- dowager, herself, countenanced it, as she found herself neglected by Henry, and now panted for revenge in any shape. Simnel went to Ireland and was presented to the deputy, Thomas Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare, and a revolt in his favour was the almost instant consequence, not one sword being drawn for Henry. He then ventured to land in Lancashire, and advanced as far as Coventry; but Henry having ordered Warwick to be taken out of the Tower and paraded about London, in order that men might be convinced by their own eyes that Simnel was an impostor, had its effect. The king then led an army and met Simnel's party at Stoke in Nottinghamshire, where a battle took place in June, 1487, in vf hich Simnel was totally defeated. Simon, the monk, was taken and imprisoned, and Simnel was made a scullion in the king's kitchen. With this exception, Henry's retaliation was of the most ferocious description, and he wrung immense sums of money by way of fines and commutations. Afterwards, as a show of magnanimity, his queen was formally crowned; and the Marquis of Dorset, who had been imprisoned on false charges, was liberated. The state of matters on the Continent at this time, induced the French court to atLempt the annexation of the duchy of Brittany to the crown. The French ambassador in London accounted for the invasion upon the plea, that the Duke of Brittany had given shelter and support to several French fugitives and rebels, and that their recovery was the sole object of the incursion. Henry listened with great gravity to these dissimulations, and being master of that art, he did not commit him- self, but secretly made preparations for counteracting the schemes of Charles, the French monarch. After having quelled another insurrection, which took place in the north of England, he turned his attention with great earnestness, apparently to an attempt upon France; and the boasting, the gasconading with which the king threatened to take and parcel out the whole country, was effectual in bringing round him the most powerful of his nobles. Nothing short of marching victoriously into Paris, and placing the crown of the Capets upon his own head, would serve Henry. He levied a large benevolence, upon the plea of its being an inevitable war; and carried away an army, with which he landed in Calais, in October, 1492. Now to prove the mean rascality of this proceeding, and to exhibit the boundless cupidity of this brave Henry, who said " that he came over to make an entire con- quest," which would not be the " work of one summer," while he was draining the coffers of his subjects, three months beforehand, secret overtures had been made by Charles, by which four hundred thousand pounds sterling should be paid him. Thus, like a skilful sharper, Henry fleeced both friend and foe, and retreated with his booty. The policy of his conduct was the theme of admi- ration with foreign courts. His authority being fully established at home induced him to cherish the belief that " Treason had done its worst; nor steel, nor poison, Malice domestic, foreign levy— nothing Could touch him farther " but he had yet to know that the instability of kings most secure in their possessions, shares in the mutability of human things; and while he was hugging himself most, was in most danger of losing all. The Duchess of Burgundy, who had, in these later arrangements between England and France, been the greatest sufferer, smarting under the ill successes which lad attended her past efforts, determined to do Henry all the injury that she could. The report, that the yoi » g Duke of York had not been killed in the Tower but had escaped, gathered strength daily, and found hundreds who put the most boundless faith in it. We have said that the truth or falsehood of this is a matter utterly unknown, and the subsequent confession of one of the murderers, that the prince was killed, does not in the least degree deserve credit. The Duehess of Burgundy seized upon this report, and in the person of Perkin Warbeek found one who was really the person represented, or another im- postor who with matchless skill sustained the report. Perkin Warbeck is said to be the son of one Osbee, or Warbeck, a Jew of Tournay in Flanders, who lived in London at the time of Edward IV. Edward is said to have been godfather to him; in fact, there is so much of dark secresy in the matter, that it becomes mere waste of time to speculate farther upon it. The duehess having already encouraged Simnel, dis- covered Perkin after he had sustained many remarkable vicissitudes of fortune; and, until the proper time was come, she sent him to Portugal, where he remained for a year utterly unknown to the world. His opponents say that here he was learning his lesson. It was at the time when the war between the two countries bore the most menacing aspect, that Perkin was sent to Ireland, where many of the Yorkists were to be found. He appeared at Cork, and calling himself Richard Plantagenet, wrote letters to various nobles, describing his captivity and wonderful escape, and was soon at the head of a formidable party. This news reached the ears of Charles VIII, the French king-, and urged by the importunities of the duchess, as well as being induced to hope that by kind ling intestine wars in England he could rid himself of an odious obligation, he invited Perkin Warbeck to come to his court. He settled a pension on him, gave him magnificent lodgings, and treated him with the greatest honours. Many Englishmen of name and fortune went over to France, aud the youth appeared like a prince at the head of his court. When peace, however, was finally arranged, Henry demanded that Perkin should be delivered up to him; but Charles, with more magnanimity, demurred to give up one, impostor or not, who he Himself had invited: and resolutely refused, and the pseudo- Plantagenet retired to the court of the Duchess of Burgundy. She received him with rapture; but he was, first of all, sub- jected to a long aud severe scrutiny, which had a most satisfactory termination. An equipage was here as- signed him with thirty halberdiers. He named him the " White Rose of England." Throughout the Low Countries, where the influence of the duchess extended, he was universally acknowledged and received as the sole heir to the English throne. If it was an imposture, never was imposture more gigantic or more successful. The defection that took place among Henry's parti- sans grew alarming. . Men of the highest birth and quality fell away. Even Sir William Stanley, the Lord Chamberlain, who had been so instrumental in raising Henry to the throne, began to plot and revolt against his master. Others went farther, and were more open; and Henry, in order to obtain as clear a knowledge of his danger as he could, sent spies all over Flanders and England. Many arrests and executions now took place, among the foremost of which was that of Stanley, the Cham- berlain, being betrayed by Sir Robert Clifford, who was doubly a traitor. This made the partisans of Perkin Warbeck wince a little, and " further trials and rapidly following executions filled their hearts with dismay. Henry trusted more to the effect of striking terror into his subjects, than of conciliating them by well- timed for- bearances. Perkin, at the head of a motly assemblage, finding that he must strike a bold stroke or be forgotten, landed on the coast of Kent with six hundred men only while Henry was in the north. The gentlemen of Kent as- sembled troops to oppose him, but exhibited one of the most scandalous instances of treachery on record. They invited him to land, and take the command over them; but having only too good reason to believe that they intended to surprise him, he refused. They then fell upon such of his followers as they could, killed many, and took several prisoners, who were all tried and executed. Perkin then retired with the greatest expe- dition into Flanders; from thence he was driven by absolute privation into Ireland, and thence into Scotland, where he was favourably received by the monarch of that country, James IV, and who carried his patronage and liking so far as to give him in marriage Lady Catherine Gordon, daughter of the Earl of Huntly. Once more the fading hopes of Perkin were awakened; and when a levy was made in Cornwall, the men rose io threatening masses, and the fire of insurrection was spread through all the neighbouring counties; Perkin made his appearance among them, and three thousand men flocked to his standard, saluting him as King Richard the Fourth. Henry prepared to meet this foe, who was now begin- ning to grow very formidable; but at his approach the forces of Warbeck began to melt away like wax. Having marched on to Exeter, he retired to Taunton, and then secretly withdrew. His wife was taken prisoner, and finally, under a promise of pardon, the harassed prince, or impostor, whichever the reader pleases, was induced to deliver himself up under a promise of pardon. This took place in 1499. Though his life was granted him his liberty was denied. Impatient of restraint, he broke from his keepers and took refuge in the Sanctuary of Shyne; and through the intercession of the prior, a fresh pardon was granted, though he was compelled to suffer the most infamous indignities; to sit in the stocks at Westminster and Cheapside, and obliged to read aloud a confession of his impostures. He was then confined in the Tower; but the politic spirit of the king concocted an infernal scheme by which the victims whom he dreaded were led to the scaffold. The young Earl of Warwick, who was still prisoner there, was allowed to enter into communication with Warbeck, and a snare was laid into which they both fell. Perkin was hanged at Tyburn, and the earl was soon after tried and executed for attempting to escape; and thus the last of the male line of the Plantagenets was extinct, and a universal hatred and disgust was engendered in the minds of men; but Henry's power was bloody and tyrannical, and he discharged his debts of hatred by the death of his foes. Foreign potentates, however, including the Pope, beholding the manner in which his power was consolidated, paid him the pro- foundest attention, and esteemed him as a master- piece of political sagacity. While intermarriages with the Spanish monarch and the King of Scotland, were of great service to him in the abstract, and gave to Henry an additional in- fluence and importance in other cabinets than his own, he did not omit to wring forth the gold of his subjects under every iniquitous pretext, so that his own glitter- ing coffers were crammed to overflow. His wealth was enormous. Two lawyers, hard of heart, the truculent bravoes of their trade, assisted him. He was thus enabled to speculate, to undertake com- mercial ventures, and to lend out money on interest. An accident alone prevented his name from being asso- ciated with that of Columbus, instead of those of Isabella and Ferdinand ; but he employed Sebastian Cabot, a Venetian, to make discoveries for him, and that navi- gator found the Island of Newfoundland, and part of the North American continent. The few remaining years of his life present nothing of the slightest interest to the reader, and as there was now a cessation, at least of civil wars, the arts of peace began to flourish and the period of discoveries was commenced. The taking of Constantinople by the Turks spread Greek learning over the world; the re- vival of letters only preceded the invention of print- ing; and man began to emerge from his serfdom, his misery, and his ignorance, and to become conscious of possessing powers that would, at a future day, achieve miraculous things which would satiate the loftiest as- pirations. The decay of Henry's health put an end to all his indefatigable scheming. His dark, plotting, and am- bitious life was drawing to a close, and the horrors of his conscience were aggravated by his ruling passion of avarice, for while he robbed with one hand he made restitution with the other. He spent his days in cries and prayers, in giving alms and founding churches; and sought, at a sacrifice of a portion of his ill- gotten wealth, to propitiate his Creator whom his conscience told him he bad offended. Then, again, came his avaricious fit, and he fined aud impri- soned with additional rancour and exaction, for the very- reason that he had been compelled to refund, perhaps, the day before. Consumption, that slow but sure poison, was wasting the marrow in his bones, and the haggard spectres of his many victims, came night by night to shriek aud howl at his bed- side. He died at bis palace of Rich- mond, on the 22d of April, 1509, in the twenty- fourth year of his reign, and in the fifty- second of his age. His character is a conflicting one. Skilful and politic in dealing with courts and factions, he was boastful and arrogant in all his warlike attempts, which, in fact, were of a very mean kind. The greatest feat of his life was the gaining the battle of Bosworth, and the two chief things which occupied his reign was the opposing of a brace of impostors, who were evidently as well qualified for rule as he was himself. Suspicious and timid, his life was one long fit of jealousy aud dislike, aud he was so incapable of keeping the friends he made, that those in whom he trusted most were the greatest traitors to him. His heart was narrow and barren of every mild affection. He had an unctuousness of tongue, which increased his powers of dissimulation; but these talents he exercised iu the meanest manner. His ruling passion was avarice — an absorbing, unhesitating, insatiate avarice. No cruelty, or murder even, could deter him, as little also could fear, for where gold was concerned, he was brave as a lion. He neglected no shift, no scheme for carrying out his purpose, and his implacability was almost proverbial. In order to increase the power of the crown, however, he did much that tended to annihilate the feudal system aud break asunder the power of the nobles. The lavr of entail was allowed to be broken, and landed estates could be alienated. To a certain extent, the people benefitted by this, but their great good is yet to come. We yet want the Marius that'shall sit over the ruins of the colossal Carthage. EDWIN ROBERTS. | 166 ME. SIDNEY'S MOTION ON THE SO CIAL CONDITION 0? THE WORKING CLASSES: INFAMOUS CONDUCT 0? THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. THE British Constitution has been defended in almost every possible way that the ingenuity of man could suggest. Tories have defended it for its age, Whigs for its powers of change, Radicals for the influence the Commons have exercised in con- troling the lords. The next author who pleases to favour the nation with a treatise on the British Constitution, will, perhaps, take note that the great value of the British Consti- tution consists in the fact that members of the House of Com- mons do not require to take any interest in questions affecting the welfare of the major ty of the people. There can be • what is called popular debates on popular topics; Mr. Grantley Berkeley can command a hearing on the ballot, Mr. Hume 011 the suffrage. Important subjects enough it is true; but not more important and certainly not so instructive as Mr. Slaney's motion 011 the " Social Improvement of the Working Classes." Yet we read in the daily journals that Mr. Slaney more than once took occasion to complain of the inattention of the House. Now, what was trie subject under discussion? The life and death question of the people; but it is more popular to declaim about franchises, to talk for hours together about Protection to voters, than to calmly listen to a nation's woes. So honourable and learned members could not listen to Mr. Slaney. Let us examine into the nature of the case he made out, and see if it was really worthy of attention. Mr. Slaney showed that the social condition of the people • was not a subject of recent importance : that the attention of the house had been called to it on many occasions; and thatall men who had thought on the question, had agreed that the • poorer portion of tbe community were in a most depressed condition. " He ( Mr. Slaney) would ask honourable members opposite • whether a peasant of unblemished character and iudustrious habits were not an exception to the general rule if he had any prospect before him at seventy years of age, except that of becoming an almoner on the parish bounty ? If his wife lived with him, and brought up a family in industry and re- spectability, had she any chance, on the death of her hus- band, or on his inability to work, except becoming a reci- pient of parish relief? Well, was this the condition in which the iudustrious agricultural classes should remain ?" What reply can you give to a question so pertinently put, you fox- hunting, rent- loving place- hunting squires anil lords ? It is the labour of the labourer that sustains you all, that ploughs your fields, reaps your harvests. It is the la- bour of the labourer which not only gives value, but positively creates all you possess ; and what is his reward? To starve in a Union Workhouse at the age of seventy, when exhausted time and toil- worn nature is unable to produce more for your con- sumption. You could not even listen to a statement of his woes — you haughty, proud, scoffing, cold, cursed Aristocrats 1 Is such to be the inevitable fate of the industrious agricultural labourers? It will be for all you either ean or will do for his relief and improvement. Had the subject under discussion been the restoration of an import duty 011 corn, you would have mustered in your strength,— aye, and listened eagerly. Protection to corn is a great question ; but protection to the frail old labourer, whose industry sustains you^ all, cannot even command your attention. Your shameful inattention does not weaken but really strengthens the case of Mr. Slaney, and ought to rouse every working man iu England to a sense of his own degradation, and your utter worthlessness and heartless ingratitude. Mr. Slaney proceeds to narrate the condition of persons en- gaged in towns, and in mines, and in great cities, and he proves from a vast number of parliamentary documents, extending over a series of years, that there has been, and now is, a total disregard on the part of capitalists and local authorities to the health, cleanliness, and comfort of the work- people. Mr. Slaney's authorities were unimpeachable, and all proved what it has been our painful duty often to declare, that the health and comfort of the poor was the last consideration among the numerous and powerful class who live upon the industry of the labourer. No featuie in the progress of England as a nation is more to be lamented than the over- thronging of her large cities and towns, and the depopulation of her rural dis- tricts. Mr. Slaney hints at this bad sign of the present in these words:—" During the last fifty years the increase of working men in towns had doubled the number of residents in rural districts." Travel northward or southward and you will see on every side villages and small towns sinking into decay. The old parish church is deserted, houses are to let 011 every side, the saddler's shop is closed, the shoemaker's is empty, the linen- draper's is selling off with but few customers to buy his goods, and 110 one seems thriving but the auctioneer and attorney. Leave the village and travel over the fields by the bye- patns and footways, and here and there you will ob- serve the decaying walls of a tenantless cottage, the last rein- Bant of an uprooted peasantry. Our population increases rapidly, but the land does not find a proportionate employment for the increase of our population, and hence the congregated and densely crowded masses of human beings that throng the lowest and least healthy parts of our large cities and towns. In a few years the old English peasantry, such as Cobbett loved to write of, will nowhere be found. The following passage in Mr. Slaney's speech, when intro- ducing his motion 011 Tuesday the 5th, is full of important facts, and exhibits the true character of our much boasted- of civilization in its true light:— " The summary of the report of the Children's Employment Commission was, that in a large portion of the kingdom the moral condition of the people was lamentably low, and that no means appeared to exist of effecting any improvement in the physical or moral condition of the young children employed in factories. That report was made iu January, 1843, and since that period nothing effectual had been done. Another numerous body consisted of nearly 600,000 handloom weavers, dispersed through different parts of the country. They were reported to be, as a body, ill a state Cf distress, and the only tope of improving their condition was, that they should be- take themselves to other avocations, wherever practicable, and use as much economy and forethought as possible, when wages wire good. There were also 600,000 railway la- bourers at work in different parts of the country, for whose comfort and means of living no provision was made, and who • were compelled to live in close and unwholesome dwellings. What had been the effect of this neglect 011 the part of the legislature? That there had been an immense increase of erime, pauperism, disease, and discontent throughout the country, aud an excessive mortality among the humbler classes, whose expectation of life was in some towns only 20 years, while that of the upper and middle classes was 37 and 27 years respectively. The illness from preventible causes was doubled, and it was proved that for every person among the working classes who died three were ill, and their illness extended over a period of six weeks. Crime had increased in a rapid ratio. The committals in England and Wales had increased from 16,500 in 1821, to 30,300 in 1819, so that it appeared crime had increased six times as fast as the population of this country. The summary convictions in England and Wales had increased from 14,800 in 1837, to 35,700 in 1815. The nu'uber of prisoners brought before the justices in the second seaport of the kingdom, was in 1810, 17,100; in 1818, 22,000. The committals in the dis- trict of the metropolitan police had increased from 4,000 in 1810, to 5.900 in 1817. The number of persons accused of crime in France was, in 1825, 7,000, in 1835, 6,900, aud in 1845 about the same number as in 1835, so that while our criminals were increasing at this rapid rate, crime in a neigh- bouring country was almost stationary. If lion, gentlemen opposite believed that crime was confined principally to our great cities, the return showed that from 1808 to 1811, in six agricultural counties, with aii< ncrease in population of 55 per cent, the increase of crime was equal to that of six manufac- turing towns, where the increase of population had been equal to 92 per cent. He now wished to call the attention of the House to the cost to the country of this neglect of the welfare and improvement of these numerous classes. From a calcu- lation made by a commission, it appeared that the cost of crime was 11,000,000/. per annum. Tne poor- rates at that time amounted to 5,100,000/., and here he might remark that the poor- rates of 1818 had increased 10 or 15 per cent, on the former year, and had gone 011 increasing ever since 1834. The cost of hospitals, aud the loss from illness arising from pre- ventable causes, was 5,400,003i The cost of police, gaols, transports, and penitentiaries was estimated at 1,500,000/. Altogether the calculation, which was not in his belief exag- gerated, was, that crime, the poor- rate, hospitals, loss of time, and other causes which would ba diminished by the improve- ment of the condition of the working classes, cost the country 27,500,000/. per annum for England and Wales alone. The sum total, including Ireland and Scotland also, was, that there was an expenditure and loss of 40,030,000/., which was to be diminished gradually and effectively by taking mea- sures for the improvement of the condition of the working classes." Increased mortality, increased crime, increased pauperism, increased poor- rates, all follow in quick and mournful suc- cession. " Crime had increased six times as fast as the popu- lation of the country." Christian ministers of all denominations, what have you been doing ? Churches and chapels out of calculation you have built,— you have preached and expos- tulated in some cases very earnestly,— yet mark the onward progress of vice! You believe in the fall of Adam and the original sin ; but here is a rapid increase of secondary sin. It cannot be the first curse of God against man that causes death to rap twice as often at the poor man's door as it does at the rieli man's door. God cannot hate the poor for their poverty 1 No, good friends, it is not the hand of God alone that causes this fearful increase of human suffering— it is the ignorance and avarice of man. But where shall it end? Who can answer that question? Tile House of Commons cannot answer, for it will not even listen. This hideous aggregation of offences against virtue, decency, and the laws, is nor confined to our large towns. No : crime increases most rapidly in agricultural districts; the most melancholy fact of all. It is not the temptation of the gin- shop or brothel, the evil influences of association,— no, it is crime of resolution and quiet solitude. You pass the lowly cottage by the wayside, and associate with it thoughts of innocence and peace; enter it, and you behold the poacher, the gambler, the burglar, the incendiary, perhaps the highwayman. Nor can it be otherwise. Screw down the labourers' wages to a level inconsistent with humanity, and you open out tile road to the gaol, the penal settlement, and the scaffold. No societies for the suppression of vice, nor bene- volent institutions can make a people virtuous. A sermon is spoken in ail hour and afterwards forgotten; but the day- by- day wants of nature must be attended to. And if the reward for honest labour be not proportionate to the necessities of life, theft and robbery must become an every- day practice; and because of causes utterly beyond ihe reach of the purely hu mane and benevolent, the suffering many must become the source of misery, and in the eud the rod of correction to the oppressive and mistaken few. Sheriff Alison of Glasgow, and his brother, the benevolent Dr. Alison of Edinburgh, have given to us feeling pictures of the ruin of families from the rural districts, who have been located in Glasgow and other large cities. We have seen how the sons became dissipated, and the daughters ruined; but no writer can inform us of the thus; it is partly so, no doubt, but mainly because of the want of state physicians. Statesmen who have grasp of mind and energy of action we look for in vain. Mr. Slaney proposes no fitting remedy, but his moderate measure for the appoint- ment of a " standing committee or unpaid commission to con- sider and report on practical plans ( not connected with politi- cal changes) for the social improvement of the working and poorer classes" is rejected. We read the debate, and see clearly that the subject is not even thought of. One member ( Lord Robert Grosvenor) did . thank Mr. Slaney for " having performed the unavailing task which he had undertaken." And Jhe member for Shrewsbury withdrew his motion. The Greys, the Peels, and the Russells are not statesmen: they are mere party politicians who never contemplate the advanced freedom and social comfort of the masses. With them " What makes all things plain and clear, Is about six thousand pounds a- year." Yet such are the confidential advisers of royalty. If we look to the opposition among the Humes and the Cobdens, we find men who see the necessity of cheap government: so far so good. But what can financial reform do towards remedying the decaying tendencies of these times? It is merely formal to mention the name of D'Israeli. What will free trade and increased capital accomplish if men and women degenerate physically and morally I What will it add to the glory and stability of the future to know that " Wealth accumulates and men decay ?" We look around us in vain for any master- mind, or number of master- minds ta direct us for the future. We see much of aptness and what is called cleverness directed to a purpose; but there is a want of courage, a lack of heroism, and as we have just seen, a do6ire in high places to shun the consideration of the real interests of the working classes and the poor. Our labourers cease to labour; and in many cases are forced to steal or starve; our shopkeepers struggle on ill a strife that must end in their own ruin ; our merchants are content to buy and sell; our parliament men to look listlessly on, to mock and sneer, or to talk much to little purpose. Such seems to us to be our present position: a people great in riches and poor in morals,— a nation whose wealth the world covets and whose wretchedness no one can fathom— a state that talks of retrenchment and lets the few rich riot in luxury and tbe many poor starve in want GRACOUCS. PRISON DISCIPLINE.- NO. VII. ALTHOUGH it would be easy to multiply the cases, or to write volumes proving the evils, of the present system of " Prison Discipline," I think enough has been said to convince all who are disposed to investigate the matter without prejudice, and independent of private interests. I shall therefore now con- clude this branch of the subject by a most graphic description of the practical results which flow from the want of classifica- tion, and the futile attempts now made to prevent communica- tion between the prisoners in the penal establishments of the country. The account is from the pen of the Rev. J. Clay. He says: —" Whether led astray for a moment by bad companions, or assailed by overpowering temptations, or driven by distress and hunger, or trained to vagabond and thievish practices, and ill all cases with- a mind totally unformed by education and uninfluenced by religion.— the child of fourteen, or ten, or even eight years old, is now turned into a yard or day- room, tenanted by forty or fifty ( or in some prisons many more) old criminals. Once here, his terrors of a prison soon vanish be- fore the levity and merriment of his new companions; he soon finds the objects of envy are the plunderers who can relate the most attractive histories of daring and successful robbery. Excited by these tales, he soon becomes ambitious of imitating the heroes of them. He is instracted in the arcanum of the dreadful calling which he has entered upon by some adept in the craft, and thus a few weeks, or even a few days, before trial, have sufficed to convert the child, who until the verdict pronounced at that solemnity was accounted innocent in the eyes of the law, into a hardened profligate, prepared and tutored for a course of iniquity, and determined to run it! There is no exaggeration in this sketch; alas, no! I could furnish a hundred histories of misery and crime, springing from the pestiferous society of tile untried felons' yard." I wish, before endeavouring to point out the remedies for evils which I believe all who are cognizant of them must de- plore, to call particular attention to this fact; that supposing I the present system of silence and classification to be theoretical, ^ iters I good, and calculated to effect the object purposed by those who process by which the inmates of tbe lonely cottage progress in support and have introduced it, yet is it so inefficiently carried . U ...... V. I M. H ... I. MN NNII., I.,:<-!, NN • • .1.... - II .' UL- - .1 — UL- I. T^ LL^. N the satne fatal course. Yet our gaol returns point with an unerring finger and teach us that such things are. Many of us have been in the habit of pointing the finger of scorn to France, and talking of tile immorality and looseness of French society. Again, we have reason to blush for our own and our country's shame i crime is stationary, or rather decreasing ill France, and in England— moral England — the increase of crime to population is as six to one. What can our political economists say to this degenerating and immoral state of society? They affect to sympathise with the good intentions of Mr. Slaney, but say, he and others are contemplative physicians who merely feel the pulse of the patient, announce the disease, but do not look to the strong natural constitution of the invalid. See the increase of real property, the increase of shipping, the inexhaustible productive power of our country, they exclaim. We know it all, but what will your wealth, your capital, your revenue do for pos- terity ? Aye, what can it do for yourselves? An increase of riches and an increase of deaths— a smiling revenue and an increase of crime! Churches oil one side, and gaols on the other. A repressive military and constabulary force, and an aggressive and rapidly- increasing army of unwilling idlers and criminals. IIow long shall you, the rich, be able to remain the gaolers of the poor? You talk of the glory of your country, your successes in trade, your command of the seas 1 You boast that you have subsidized every state, that you buy and out in practice that all the possible good which might follow its strict enactment is stultified by the incapacity or negligence of those who are entrusted with the power of enforcing it. Tills may probably be doubted, but a very short space will suffice to establish the truth of the assertion. A paper written by one of the prisoners is mentioned by the in- spectors as having come under their recent observation, in which it was stated that lie not only had learnt from a fellow- prisoner, whilst under the discipline of the silent system, the best modes of breaking into houses, and the instruments necessary for accomplishing that object; apd also the names and addresses of houses where gangs or housebreakers as- semble, and the signs and passwords by which admission may be obtained to them, as well as the names and addresses of the receivers of stolen goods, where all kinds of plunder may be disposed of. In another case it was stated to the Rev. C. S. Bagshawe, chaplain of Salford Gaol, by a prisoner confined under the silent system, " That he had learnt more in prison than ever he had learnt in any other place in his life ; that lie lie had known six or seven depredations planned in prison, and committed them himself when he went out." At an in- quest held before Mr. Wakley, at Coldbath Fields' Prison, it was elicited duritig the lengthened examination of several of the prisoners, which was taken before the magistrates, that these criminals who had been kept under the silent system, knew the deceased prisoner, how long he had been in prison, sell in every market, that you have coined the coinable blood how long he had to serve, the complaint he had been suffering of Europe into gold! Look round, we beseech you, and be- from, how long he had been ill, and when he died. The coro- hold industry in rags, and patience in despair. Your triumphs are written ill fever hospitals, and registered in churchyards I You cry for peace, when skulls and cross- bones pave your Exchanges, and the war of capital and land against labour is desolating your country. We are not alarmists, and have no wish to prophecy of the future decline of our country ; but we should fear less from foreign aggression and the wars of allied powers than we do from this disease of the h art that seems to eat up the very vitals of the state, and leaves the extremites to sutler. It is not the mere existence of the disease that makes us write ner very naturally inquired how they became acquainted with all these particulars; they all replied that they had been told them by other prisoners. It would be useless to do more here than refer to the general incompetency of the prison officer.-'. The class of men from which Lliey are for the most part selected, is a sufficient proof that they are not likely either to be able to comprehend or to carry out any really eulightened system of discipline, having for its end ihe reformation of offenders. Under the present system of mismanaging prisons, a better class of men would not submit to the harassing arid dis ' Wi- REYNOLDS'S POLITICAL INSTRUCTOR. agreeable duties they have to perform, alike derogatory to them, and useless aud irritating to the unfortunate victims under their charge. I have heard a gaoler declare that if there were a warder to every prisoner it would be impossible to prevent their communicating. The subject of my preceding remarks, and the evidence I have adduced, has been to show the utter nselessness of the present system for any corrective purpose; and likewise the complete fallacy of supposing that even the most corrupting communications are not made to one another by the prison- ers, notwithstanding the expensive attempts to enforce silence, as a means of preventing the acknowledged evils which must necessarily follow from this kind of intercourse being possible between the inmates of a gaol, whether it takes place by authority or in defiance of it. If, as asserted at the" commencement of these papers, it is true, that we mast look for the cause of the existing evils of the system in the ignorance of the legislators and authori- ties of the country, who are entrusted with making and executing the laws, I mean their ignorance of the moral and intellectual principles of man's nature, however they may be learned, as it is by courtesy called, in much that is perfectly useless for all practical purposes. If this truth be admitted, it is quite evident that the only way to remedy the abuses and errors which have continued so long, aud still continue to exist, is to ascertain the laws relating to this portion of man's nature, aud applying the knowledge in a scientific manner to the traiuing of all the members of the human family, even from infancy upwards, and in correcting those who are called criminals, or rather, I should prefer saying, those individual members of society who have offended against the person or property of othersl In attempting to esta blish the fact that all successful legislation upon criminal jurisprudence, must of necessity be based upon certain fixed principles; although prepared to hear many exclaim against all such new- fangled doctrines, I am also prepared to answer, in the first place, that . it is not new; and secondly, that if it were new, that cannot of itself be any objection to it. That the principle is not now every one who reflects for a single msrnent must be satisfied; ' tis merely extending to man the same principle which we already apply to all other objects. No one is entrusted with the charge of anything of an inferior nature, whether animal or vegetable, mineral or mechanical, who is ignorant of the subjects he has to deal with or manage. All, and especially the Clergy and Aristo- cracy of all lands, are ready enough to join in one universal cuckoo cry, about importance, divinity, & c,, of man's mind: but who knows anything about it? or who knows distinctly what he really means when talking about the mind of man ? Whether it resides in the heart or the head? Is subject to material laws, orcanonlybeworkeduponthroughtiiemysterious agency of the Holy Ghost, or some of the supposed inferior spiritual agencies » I suppose it will not be disputed that all men's character, and all the actions they manifest, are the effects, or the consequences of the state of their minds; or, as I should say, speaking in a more rational and comprehensible language, the state of their organization. Then, I ask, what is there new in requiring, with regard to man's mental powers and qualities, just what we require in regard to the qualities of a vegetable, or the powers of an engine ? That is, that the parties undertaking to train, manage, or conduct them, should understand this principle upon which they depend for vitality, and proper or healthy activity. Admitting that my views may appear new to many, its that nn objection that i: sane man would venture to urge against anything in the present day ? I know there are old ladies, in and out of breeches, who can- not help regarding every alteration as an innovation, and to whom a thing becomes valuable in proportion to its age aud uselessness; and without any better reason than the very ec- centric colonel who, some portion of the electors of Lincoln sends up to parliament to make laws for this mighty nation, — he, in all the effuigency of his wisdom, opposed the intro- duction of the ballot in this country, because it was found to act well abroad. Here we have a sapient legislator voting, not upon any principle, but from a mania under which he hap- pened to be labouring, one symptom of which is, an equal repugnance to anything foreign, as a mad dog has to the sight of water. What is there, in the world of arts and sciences, that was not once new ?— and how many of the greatest boons to the world at large are recent discoveries, and have had to undergo the ordeal of prejudicial and interested opposition from those whose duty it was to have kindly fostered, aud to have brought into notice the great truths, the grandeur of which have been proved by their triumph over power and might, thus pointing a gigantic moral to the world. But tyranny, however encased in steel, or surrounded by myriads of hired assassins, although it may for a time with impunity destroy, mutilate, or banish a fellow- creature, yet can never confine an idea, or imprison a truth. In spite of them, it will go on increasing in power and force as it progresses, rill at last those who have vainly strove to oppose its onward course, are either crushed in their vain efforts to resist what is irresistible, or passed by men of prin- ciple and left in the rear- guard, and gradually sink into the insignificance for which ihey alone are fitted; and from which they have only ever merged by spoliage or outrage. The reception accorded to the great truths propounded by Galileo, Harvey, Newton, and Jenner, are well known ; all the men have been declared infidels, and their doctrines declared by learned assemblies and institutes to be heterodox and op- posed to the Scripture. Galileo was imprisoned and tortured for declaring the earth rotated round the sun as a centre,— some of his judges refusing to examine his experiments, lest they should be convinced and turned from their faith. Harvey lost his practice, and was pronounced by his professional brethren to be i sane. Newton was persecuted. Innoculation was de- clared by the Academie Hoyale de Medicine to be murderous, criminal, and magical; while vaccination in our own country was preached against,— one reverend gentleman in his pulpit declaring that ihe discovery had not even the merit of novelty; for he asserted it was an old trick of the devil's who had inno- culated Job. Peruvian Bark, at its introduction into Europe, was, after a pretended examination of its effects by a learned society, declared to possess no virtue save what it derived from a compact which the Indian who discovered it had made with the devil. It is related of an old philosopher who was in the liabit of accounting for certain phenomena bj^^ jyourite theory lie had devised, upon being told by a fruiHhttiic facts were opposed to his theory, exclaimed^^^^ He most perfect coolness, " Then so much the worse lQHp'acts." This appears very ridiculous no douDHn an old philoso- pher ; but has not the same spirit pervkded the miuds of men in respect to the most recent discoverers ? If we turn our at- tention to the introduction of gas, raiiroads, the application of steam power to locomotives and for propelling vessels, the applieation of electricity to agriculture, telegraphs, & c., all have been judged and retarded in the first instance by those who were ignorant of them, and consequently in no ways qua- lified to offer an opinion for or against. The friends of Sir George Stephenson, previous to his second examination be- fore the parliamentary committee, rela' ive to the Manchester and Liverpool Railway Bill, advised him to stick to being able to travel at the rate of ten miles au hour, he having asserted the day before that he believed it possible to go at the rate of fifteen or twenty miles an hour, aa assertion which caused the grave senators, who had to decide the ques- tion, to burst out into loud laughter, and had Sir G. re- peated his assertion, there is no doubt the introduction of railway travelling would have been postponed till the dis- solution of the parliament or a change of ministry. W. J. VERNON. { To be continuedm our next) REVIEWS. " THE DEMOCRATIC REVIEW."— The March number of this bold and clever periodical abounds in matter of a startling and usrful kind. Mr. Harney's " Letter to the Working Classes ' continues its interesting description of tlie cheap literature movement, and its partial success. He calls upon all advocates of real progress to rouse up and support the London committee, established to pro- mote the abolition of all taxes on knowledge, and thus com- plete the good work. The " Ten Hours' Question" is ably handled, and the grasping, scheming, " Manchester School" deservedly denounced. " Letters from France and Germany" are, as usual, interesting. We shall look forward with impatience to the April number, which will, doubtless, contain a true and full description of the state of public feeling in France, after the late glorious triumph achieved by the Social and Democratic Republicans in Paris and the departments. We extract the followingfrom Mr. Harney's letter, alluding to the period when govern- ment, finding itself beaten by the indomitable energy of Hetherington and others, was obliged to give way:— " At length iu the summer of 1838, Mr. Spring Rioe ( now Lord Monteagle) Chancellor of the Exchequer, proposed a measure to parliament for the reduction of the tax of four- pence on newspapers to one penny. In his speech be made the following acknowledgment:—' Government had done all that was possible to enforce the law, but the law was unable to put down the evil. In the course of a few weeks 300 per- sons had been imprisoned for selling unstamped papers in the streets, without, iu the slightest degree, repressing the sale.' A small minority in parliament attempted to procure the total abrogation of the stamp, but failed. In a great measure that failure was owing to the opposition of the stamped journals. A secret conclave of newspaper proprietors held constant communication with the Whig ministers and their supporters, and fought hard, and not iu vain, to retain their monopoly. The continuance of a stamp of one penny ensured that mono- poly, and deprived the unstamped victors of the full triumph they had struggled lor— a free and totally untaxed press. The new law came into operation on the 15th of September, 1836, and caused theimmediateextiuctionof the unstamped papers. Those papers would inall likelihood havebeeu continued could the pub- lishers have encountered the tremendous penalties consequent on a violation of die new enactment. It is necessary that these panalties should be understood. Tiie Whigs have always pro- fessed to be advocates for a free press, and their leaders in the lime of Sidmouth and Castlereagli denounced the " Six Acts" with as much fervency if not with as much talent as Cobbett himself. Bat the laws affecting the press enacted by the gang of traitors and enemies of the commonweal, who voted " aye," or " no" at the bidding of " J'arh the Fourth" and his ministers, were jast and gentle compared with the Russian- like edicts of Russell, Melbourne, and the precious set of knaves, who, with sublime assurance, thought fit to dub themselves a Reformed Parliament (!) The 17tb clause of Spring Rice's Act imposes a penalty of 20Z. on any one who possesses a single copy of an unstamped publication ' containing any public news, intelli- gence, occurrences, or any remarks thereon.' The 18th clause inflicts a penalty of 501, on any one who distributes unstamped newspapers. The 22nd clause enacts that, upon information given by any informer before any justice of the peace that there is cause to suspect any printer of having been engaged in printing any unstamped paper, the said justice shall be em- powered and required to grant a warrant to search the pre- mises of the suspected person, and if, upon search, any un- stamped newspaper is found, the officers of the law shall be authorised to make seizure of all presses, engines, types, machines, implements, utensils, and materials for printing, which shall be forfeited to the Crown. The 23rd clause em- powers constables to break open doors for the purpose of search. What a commentary on the vain- glorious vaunt that ' every Englisman's house is his castle 1' The definition of a newspaper is entirely at the option of the Board of Stamps. The law defines every publication to be a newspaper which is published oftener than once in twehly- six days, and contains news, intelligence, occurrences, or comments thereon. Strictly enforced, this law would extinguish a number of existing pub- lications. Of course it would be enforced were any man, like the late Henry Hetherijigton, to atteaipt to establish an un- stamped news- paper." " The Democratic . Review" is published by Watson, Queen's Head Passage, Paternoster Row. " MADAME C- ASTELLARI'S CASE."— We have before us a pamphlet published by Madame Castellari, widow of an Italian gentleman whose name is perfectly familiar to all who are interested in antiquarian researches. This gentleman, whilst engaged in his professional avocations in Egypt, at a time when he was known to possess wealth, suddenly died, or is reported to have died, in what his widow with considerable reasoa considers a most sus- picious manner. The English consul at Cairo, although lie appears not to have known the exact place or time of M. Castellari's death, was, singular enough, acquainted with the fact that he died without property. Not satis- fied with such an inconsistent story, Madame Castellari very properly represented her case to Lord Palmerston, j praying him to interfere and obtain authentic details j from his public and paid agents abroad. His lordship, with usual official courtesy, promised compliance with her request; but after a long period of suspense, and upon the lady's father addressing him a letter on his daughter's ; behalf, his lordship suddenly discovers that having married a foreigner she is no longer entitled to the assist- ance of her majesty's consuls 1 Mr. Anstey brought the ! case before the House, and the Secretary for Foreign Affairs was then obliged to acknowledge himself in the wrong, and by confessing that Madame Castellari was en- titled to the privileges of a British subject, proved his pre- vious ignorance of the law. Lord Palmerston promised to make farther inquiries, but it appears they have been no more satisfactory than the former ones. During a long period, owing to the off- hand and courtly ignorance of the noble secretary, Madame Cestellari was kept in a state of painful suspense, and even when his lordship, by con- straint, does his duty, she is unable to obtain any authen- > tic details of herhusband's death. We have seldom read a case where so much heartless indifference lias been dis- played even by a member of her Majesty's government, and this towards a helpless widow left with a child depen- dent upon her for support. The pamphlet, containing the whole particulars, together with Lord Palmerston's and other correspondence, is published by Madame Cas- tellari, 43, Museum Street, Bloomsbury. " EQUALIZATION OF POOR RATES." — The author OF this admirable work, Mr. Hutchinson, has ably accom- plished the heavy task he undertook. He has afforded statistical details of a most valuable, interesting, and rare description upon the subject of pauperism, and has exposed the vile system of separating the poor front their friends and relations by sending them to some dis- tant union, bandying them about from place to place, at the caprice of relieving officers and lawyers, and thus adding greatly to the burthens of the rate- payers. Mr. Hutchinson quotes the following dreadful case of cruelty in proof of how inhumanly the poor are treated: " An application was lately made to the magistrates of Whitechapel, by the master of a parish apprentice named Elizabeth Smith, a native of Birmingham. It was stated that the poor girl had been seduced, and become pregnant. The girl was an orphan, and nne master, unwilling to keep her ia his house in that state, applied to the officers of Shoreditch parish for her admission into the workhouse. The relieving overseer, however, refused to have anything to do with be£ and abused the applicant in ihe most violent language for bringing her to him. The girl was at the very time of the application to the magistrate sitting on the steps at the work- house door in a very dangerous state, and momentarily ex- pecting her confinement. The magistrate issued immediately an order upon the overseer for the girl's admission. Oa the return of the officer who had to execute the warrant, he told the magistrate that the girl had been seized with the pains qf labour while at the workhouse door, and she had therefore been taken in. One of the trustees of the parish had come forward, and after speaking of the magistrate in the most con- temptuous manner, in reference to the course he had taken, loaded the officer with abuse for his share in the transaction. There cannot be two opinions upon the atrocity of this case; here is a poor friendless orphan girl, in the hapless hour of childbirth,—' the great martyrdom of maternity,' as George Sand calls it— refused admission into a workhouse, because she belongs to another parish ; and it is only at the last mo- ment of nature's throes, and when the fear of a searching coroner's inquest ( should any fatal effects result from his brutality) is before the eyes of the relieving officer, that lie admits her. But supposing that he had still refused, and Providence had taken special care of the poor unfortunate one, what would have been the punishment to the heartless overseer?— just £ 5.— about as much as a fashionable roue would have paid for wrenching off sundry door- knockers! Who after this can doubt that our laws are the perfection of wisdom, or always just?" This clever book, abounding with interesting research, is published by Davy and Sons, of Long Acre. TRUE PROGRESS. THINK not your labour dene, Whatever good is won, Ye who the world of hope and danger tread; For many a loftier peak, That mortal man may seek, Uplifts almost to heaven its towering head. Though dim in mist and clatid, And hid in snowy shroud, There is a path that patient toil may keep; Though often beaten back, And lost the dangerous track, The conquering flag shall crown the highest steep. The mighty minds of old, With step serene and bold, Advanc'd, though all the world in scorn derided; Without a doubt or fear, Unheeding danger near, They to the power of Truth their cause confided. With wonder and with awe, The heaven- born things they saw, Though years of toil, and oft through life, tbey gained; And woke the dreaming world, In deadly slumber curl'd, To purge each thought and hope by error stain'd. The paths before unknown, Which oft they trod alone, We in admiring crowds may press to see; Yet, as we wondering gaze, On once untrodden ways, Content to live in sloth we may not be. For yet the mountain height, Its crest above our sight Rears up, while myst'ries strange are hid between,; We, too, must higher climb, Or truths still more sublime Than those our fathers won will lie unseen. Then gird the loins, and toil To break the rocky soil, And pierce through all that bars our upward way; Let wisdom lead the van, While faith recounts to man, That, once beyond the mists, there shines a cloudless day. And when the heights we gain, And doubt no more remain, Each shall view with joy the paths be trod; And we, too, shall behold, Like Moses, as of old, High on a holier mount, the face of God! ' Wi- REYNOLDS'S POLITICAL INSTRUCTOR. all its just reward, is to increase in the same proportion the ability to purchase, and to lessen the weight of pauperism and crime. The recoil of our experiment then will move you, and if you rightly estimate its importance, it must be regarded as the pioneer of a new order of things in which all the advantages of skill, industry, and integrity, will redound to the possessors of those qualities, and yet not all to them alone, for there are no real blessings but those which are shared by all. The period, we hope, is not far distant when, by unity of purpose, and enlightened direction, Labour will bid adieu to its foes, and to its ceaseless repining, weary life_ and death struggle of strifes and combinations, and find time to say once more « Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good will towards men!" But this is not to be done by dreaming of it, but by working for it heart and soul, day after day, life after life, through never so many checks and struggles, disappointments, aud, if nee: d be, failures. Work for us, then, as we will work for you. For you we work iu every sense; for our promoters are pledged to devote whatever capital we repay to them to the formation of other associations on the same principle; so that by helping us to pay oft our debt, you do but create a fund which may necessarily benefit many a Working Man's Association iu other trades. Work with us, then, as we even now work with you. In addition to your custom, you may greatly conduce to our success by advertising us. ft is hardly to be believed what enormous sums of money are thus spent under the present system of trade, all of which must often come out of the wages of labour. Neither you nor we have any real interest in this expenditure, and you can save it to us first, and to yourselves in the end, by using every opportunity of making known to the world the existence of " The Working Tailors' Association," and the objects it has in view. If, therefore, we do not fill, day after day, the columns of a highly taxed press, nor send monstrous advertising eccentricities to per- ambulate the streets, be you, every one of you, our walking advertisements. When you meet with friends and com- panions, tell them what is being done for the emancipation of labour; use every seasonable opportunity of drawing at- tention to our operations: we cannot east bills into every dwelling, but to many thousands have you access; we can- not haunt the doors of public meetings to thrust the lure of cheapness iuto men's hands; but you are the public meetings — give us, then, publicity wherever you go, wherever you are, in every shape, by every means. " Tradesmen pay heavy sums for the privilege of advertising their business at places of resort, Refreshment Rooms, Cl » rt) s, & c.; you meet at Benefit Societies, Coffee Rooms, Reading Rooms— let it be known that you are interested in our welfare, and a pro- spectus of " The Working Tailors' Association" will be welcome at all such places. Our patrons in every home, our advocates in every place where men meet, nothing will be able to resist such an application as you can make of a cherished principle to the every day concerns of life; and we believe that it is only by working for each other thus that the world will be saved from the thousand tyrannies, named and nameless, which now afflict it. And, now, a word to the high- paid artisan, though we be- lieve that that class is becomiug less numerous each day. You may even yet be only on the skirmishing ground of this great battle of Competition, and in confident security that you can hold your own against the world, you may imagine that you are interested in this experiment. Ah! this is a great mistake. It is true that the labour- market may still afford you the comforts, and, perhaps, some of the luxuries of life ; but it is a market, nevertheless. The reason why you obtain high wages is not because you are skilful and industrious, but that there are fewer of you yet than are wanted; the supply does not exceed the demand. If there were ten of you where there is one, instead of ten skilful and industrious artizans, each as rich as that one, the ten, if all employed, would receive each but a tenth of what the one now gains, or if not employed, still less. The supply exceeding the demand, your wages would fall lower, and lower still, the difference passing ever more and more into the hands of capitalists aud merchants, flung away to the foreign pur- chaser, or absorbed by a public whose cupidity is constantly appealed to by those who trade upon it, until that turning point which we have endeavoured to point out, at which cheap labour becomes dear labour to the community, and grows dearer and dearer from that moment, by all the en- hanced cost of workhouses, brothels, hospitals, prisons, penal colonies— and all the harsh surgery, the bluudering quackery under which suffering society now groans. We have attained to this knowledge through suffering; why should you not avail yourselves of our experience, and avoid our suffering? Save your order! save, perhaps, your own children, from passing through this dreadful ordeal to the means of cure! Help us, theD, help us, while yet you can. On the part of the Association, WALTER COOPER. LIST OF PRICES, SPECIALLY ADAPTED TO WORKING MEN. THE COMMITTEE OF THE FUND FOE. THE WIDOWS OF SHARP AND WILLIAMS. The EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE beg to give notice that they propose to hold A TEA- MEETING, ( TO BE FOLLOWED BY A PUBLIC MEETING,) AT THE NATIONAL HALL, HOLBORN, ON WEDNESDAY EVENING, APRIL 10TH. Tea- Tickets One Shilling Each : Admission to the Publie Meeting, Body of the Hall, 2d., Gallery, 3d Tickets may be had of J. J. Ferdinando, Secretary, 18, New Tyssen Street, Bethnal Green; at, Reynolds's Miscellany Office, 7, Yfellington Street North, Strand; at the National Hall, Holborn; and of all the Members of the Executive Committee. 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 ba held in the Hall of the Literary and Scientific Institution, John Street, Tottenham Court Road, on Tuesday Evening next, March 26th, for the purpose of reviewing the proceed- ings in Parliament during the past week. Chair taken ai Eight o'Clock. Admission Free. NATIONAL BENEFIT SOCIETY. Enrolled, pursuant to statute 9th and 10th Victoria, c. 27. rTHE ABOVE SOCIETY, as amended and legalized, was J- formerly know as the NATIONAL CO- OPERATIVE BENEFIT SOCIETY; the managers of which have long seen the necessity of legal protection for the security of its members. In framing the new rule3, care has been taken to equalize the expenditure with the receipts, so that the permanent success of the Society should be beyond all doubts. The Society is divided into three sections, to meet the necessities and requirements of all classes of mechanics aud labourers, from eighteen years of age to forty. THE FOLLOWING IS THE SCALE OP PEES TO BE HAD AI ENTRANCE:— Age. 1st section. 2nd section. 3rd'section. From 18 to 24 . — 24— 27 . — 38- - 36 s. d. s. d. 8 d. . 3 0 .... 2 1 0 6 0 ... 4 0 .... 2 0 . 9 0 .... 6 3 0 . 12 0 .... .... 8 0 .... 4 0 15 0 ..... 10 0 .... 5 0 18 0 .... 12 0 .... 6 0 ? I 0 .... 14 0 7 0 WEEKLY ALLOWANCE IN SICKNESS. S. d. First Section 15 0 Second Section 10 0 Third Section 5 0 MEMBER'S DEATH. WIFE'S DEATH. £. s. d. £. s. d. First Section 15 0 0 7 10 0 Second Section 10 0 0 5 0 0 Third Section 5 0 0 3 0 0 MONTHLY CONTRIBUTIONS. lst Section, 3s..( id. . 2nd Section, 2s. id. . 3rd Section Is. 2d. The. Society meets every Monday evening, at the Two Chairmen, Wardour Street, Soho, Middlesex, where every information can be had, and members enrolled. Country friends, applying for rules, can have them forwarded, by en- closing four postage- stamps. Members of the late Co- operative Benefit Society, who have paid all dues and demands up to the 25th Decem- ber, 1849, can at once be transferred to either section of the National Benefit Society, without any extra charge. Agents and sub- secretaries of the late National Co- operative Benefit Society, are requested to immediately in- form the General Secretary of the number of members likely to transfer to the National Benefit Society; and parties wishing to become agents, or to form branches of the new society, can be supplied with every information, on ap- plication to the Secretary, by enclosing a postage- stamp for an answer. JAMES GBASSEY, General Secretary, 96, Regent Street, Lambeth. ADDRESS OF THE ASSOCIATIVE TAILORS TO THEIR BROTHER TOILERS OF ALL TRADES. FELLOW WORKERS,— The time has arrived when the working men of England can help each other against the many ills and distresses incident to the lot of those who have nothing but industry and skill to give in exchange for the means of life. Enough, too, it might be thought, seeing that without industry and skill there is no real wealth; but that it is not enough is evident from the daily increasing poverty of large masses of the industrious population of this country. We have reasoned long and thought much, some- times in sorrow, sometimes in anger, on the anomaly involved in a comparison of the resources and condition of labour. Those, exhaustless of real good to man; this, wretched, with every day a deeper and a deeper shade of want and suffering. We believe that the cause of this is that labour has been under the direction of a competitive principle of individual selfishness, which has cheated it of its full reward, and that to secure opposite results it must be organized on a principle of associated effort for the common good. With this view we have united together under the designation of " The Working Tailor's Association." We have extensive and healthy workshops, and business accommodation suffi- cient to enable us to execute with facility the largest orders, and we now appeal to you, fellow workers, for your intelligent sympathy, your hearty support. We have found that there is in what are termed the upper ranks of society, a real feeling for the sufferings of labour, which only wants a healthy direction to work mighty effects, and you will be rejoiced to hear that it is to kind and gene- rous assistance from thence that we are indebted for the means of thus associating. All true- hearted people will be happy to become our customers, because they see that they are helpingus on a right principle to the great duty of helping ourselves. Grateful for this sympathy and assistance, and • with high resolve to be worthy of it, we, nevertheless, feel that our great concern is with you. From you, above all, we expect, that steady adherence which results from identity of interest and conviction of duty. Let us speak faithfully to you. Here are we, fellow workers, associated for an end common to us and to you— the means of life, and ultimate freedom from the effects of a murderous competition. It is your battle we are fighting, and your custom is the weapon which, in our hands, will enable us on an ever- increasing scale to maintain a successful struggle with an enemy as formidable and aggressive to you in your separate depart- ments of toil as to us. Continue this custom to our antago- nists, and you will be denying to us personally, the means of life, and blast our glad hopes for the elevation of labour. Will you thus arm unconscientious capitalists against us 1 Will you furnish the degrading and horrid slop system with life and sinews? It is but the skeleton of a dreadful iniquity if you hold back,— with the profits of your custom in its mighty hands; it, is a living giant able to crush every- thing which opposes it.' Let there be no mistake between us on this point. In spite of plate- glass shop fronts and royal arms, two- thirds at least of the slop- sellers' custom lie with the working men. In most cases it cannot be otherwise, as well we know. In the fierce struggle for a maintenance, the working man must deal in the cheapest market. High prices exclude him from the " honourable" tradesman's shop. Justice to his brother workman is a luxury beyond hii reach. But if we offer you our goods at slop- sellers' prices, and from selfish indifference, indolence, servility, you still continue to patronise our tyrants and your foes,— fellow- workers ! will you be guiltless ? Shall you not have to answer to God and man for the good you have neglected to do— for the wrong you have done? Shall it ever be said, The Work- ing Tailors' Association failed because the working men did not support it? A calm calculation of the elements which compose the profits of trade will satisfy you that you can deal with us on better terms than those which you are now permitted to make with the slop- seller. We have all the advantages of being our own capitalists, and have access to the best markets. We constitute in ourselves an undivided master- ship, and Brotherhood is its name; display and luxury, or bankruptcy, which is worse, have no place among our hopes and fears. We are determined that our works shall bear a higher impress than the tasker's scrutiny, the impress of good faith aud common interest between producer aud con- sumer, and by reference to our List of Prices, and an esti- mate of the cost of cheapness, you will find that humane principles of trade are the best guarantees for a judicious outlay of your money. We have made allusion to the great aim of associative efforts, and we ask, how long will any trade remain in bondage after the Working Tailor's Associ- ation has emancipated its principle from the thraldom of individual interests ? The success of our Association will surely be the signal for all the oppressed sons of toil to com- bine for peaceful and harmonious labour in their respective crafts, and thus a demonstration of the vitality of associative principles in us will be the first step in a great moral revo- lution of the trade and industry of England. From the mo- ment that associated labour can deal with associated labour, progress will be rapid and easy, because a healthy and powerful stimulus will be given to consumption by means of a true, and not of a false, cheapness. For that cheapness alone is true which results from the taking off one or other of the burthens which heighten prices, as in the case of cus- toms and excise duties; that cheapness is false, which is made up out of the maintenance of the workman. The for- mer really extends the sale of commodities; the other must in the long run diminish it, by lessening the power to pur- chase throughout the most numerous class of the population. The fair maintenance of the labourer is no burthen upon prices, for it is labour which often gives the article its whole available worth. Nay, if these penny- wise and pounu- fool- ish economists would look into the heart of things, they would find one burthen upon prices, the very result of their senseless competition and which we claim to remove,— the weight of the starvation of the disease, of the vice, of the crime, of the operative ! You will not pay living wages ? Look to see your poor- rates increase, and your streets swarm with prostitutes and beggars I Would you shut up your work- houses ? Count first the cost of police and soldiery, of the gaols and of the hulks; of a war, perhaps with some distant colony which refuses to receive the overbrimmings of home wickedness. And mind, that all these things have, sooner or later, to come out of prices, so that you do but add to the expense of production on the one hand what you take off on the other. So delusive is the search after cheap- ness when divorced from justice and humauity. But we, on the contrary, maintain that to secure to labour Fustain Jackets from . . £ . . 0 s. 11 d. 0 Good ditto Trowsers from . . 0 9 6 Ditto ditto Vests from . . . . 0 6 0 Ditto ditto Coats from . . . . 0 15 0 Doeskin Trowsers from . . . . 0 14 0 Black Cloth Vests from . . . . 0 8 0 Ditto Dress Coats from . . . . 1 15 0 Ditto Frock Coats 2 0 0 Ditto Paleto's from . . . . 1 10 0 Silk Vests, and other Fancy Goods, in like proportion. WORKING MEN'S OWN MATERIALS MADE UP: N. B. If purchasers will examine, and take into considera- tion, the quality of our workmanship, we pledge ourselves to compete with the Sweaters and Slopsellers. NOTICE.— Mr. 11 raider re O'Brien's Letter on " SLAVERY"' & C., is unavoidably postponed until our next. NATIONAL CHARTER ASSOCIATION. The Provisional Committee of the NATIONAL CHAR- TER ASSOCIATION hereby give notice, That they have taken an Office at No. 14, Southampton Street, Strand, where the General Secretary; MR. JOHN ARNOTT, will be in attendance daily from 9" to 2 o'clock ( Sunday excepted), and ou every Monday Evening, from 7 to th.. WORKING SHOEMAKER'S ASSOCIATION. THE Strong Shoemen's Society beg leave to inform the Trades and the friends of Progress, in the Metropolis, that they have taken the premises, No. 151, High Holborn ( six doors from the Land office), which they will open on Satur- day, March 16, 1850, with an entirely new stock of goods of their own manufacture, of a first- rate quality in material and workmanship, and of description suited to all classes of the community,— more particularly working men. Circumstances having forced us into the position we now hold,— of endeavouring to dispose of our labour to the con- sumer instead of the capitalist,— we trust that we shall re- ceive that support from all our friends as they shall find we deserve. Our goods shall be sold for cash, at the lowest price, compatible with paying fair wages, using good ma- terial and meeting necessary expenses. All articles warranted in material and workmanship : fail- ing in either sh^ jMkmade good without charge. The price pli^^^ fc- ked upon each article, and no abate- ment can be m^^^ Hany account. Any of our nMHs residing at a distance, who may be willing to form shoe qjubs, shall be waited upon by a member of the society for the purpose of conducting the same, should it be desired, by sending a line directed to Thomas Hawson, as above. LONDON : Printed aud Published, for the PROPRIETOR, by JOHN DICKS, at the Office of REYNOLDS'S MISCELLANY, 7, Wellington Street North, Strand.