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and volunteers, professional and unprofessional persons, all which issues have sprung from the exhortations we have uttered, the lessons we have given, the facts we have adduced, the proofs we have instituted, and the healthy and enlightening circuit, as it were, of our judges of assize, who go forth, year by year, to set at liberty a legion of physical and moral truths, long and hopelessly despised or imprisoned by the ignorance or indifference of our forefathers. It is said in many quarters, The Congress has exhausted the subject; but, nevertheless, it has devised no cures.' The second part of the sentence thus refutes the first, for the whole thing then remains to be done. So far from having exhausted the subject, we have barely penetrated the outer crust, nor will our real difficulties diminish, as in the physical sciences, with improvements of knowledge. It is impossible for us to lay down our formule-as in chemistry, astronomy, and geology-to be obeyed and relished the moment they are reduced to actual demonstration. In our pursuits the moral and physical elements are closely, intricately, and inseparably combined. We shall probably break up this very session, having established to our heart's content, and that of all thinking people, the necessity and practicability of many things essential to the bodily and mental welfare, nay, safety, of millions, all to be set aside as ignored, as the phrase is, with some honourable exceptions, by vestries, boards of guardians, and every form, pressure, and kind of single or associated proprietors. To pause, however, in our career would, on the part of science, be a pusillanimous confession of defeat; but, on the part of humanity and morals, it would be a resolution no less perilous than disgraceful."

The noble President then discoursed on the prevention of infanticide, the education of the children of the working classes, the half-time system, the state of the potteries and the brick-fields, the climbing boys engaged in chimney sweeping, the difficulties of educating an agricultural population, public health and the dwellinghouses of the industrious poor, the social power of sympathy, our foreign relations, our colonies and the progress they are making, the influence of the press, the employment of women and children, and the aim and end of social science and divine law. The passages which follow are those on the homes of the people, and the peroration::

"The master-evil which nullifies every effort for the benefit of the working people, which leaves us no rest, and on which let us take good care that the public also has no rest-the evil that empraces and intensifies all the others, the hotbed of pauperism, immorality, disease, and drunkenness-drunkenness alternately the cause and consequence of disease-the evil that is negative in preventing every improvement, and positive in maturing every mischief, that lies at the root of nineteen-twentieths of the corruptions that beset our social state, and forms the crowning abomination of the whole, is the domiciliary condition of many thousands of our people. But we must look not only to the pestilential character of the actual dwellings, but to the unventilated, fever-breeding localities in which they stand-the dark, damp, and narrow alleys, never visited by a ray of the sun or a breath of fresh air. To describe these things is impossible. They must be seen, smelt, tasted in person. Diet and disrepair, such as ordinary folks can form no notion of, darkness that may be felt, odours that may be handled, faintness that can hardly be resisted, hold despotic rule in these dens of despair. There are hundreds where there should be tens, and thousands where there should be hundreds. The overcrowding is frightful, it disgusts every physical and moral sense; and the more so when we see it as a growing, not a declining evil. The numberless displacements,

past, present, and to come, fill the poor people, and us too, with terror and perplexity. And, as though this were not enough, the countless hosts in London ejected from their homes, and endeavouring to find shelter in dwellings already occupied, and abounding with life far beyond every limit of decency, health, and comfort, are encountered by some 40,000 immigrants annually, who are seeking the same accommodation, and contribute, along with other causes, to heap family upon family in these bursting tenements, to lower the rate of wage, and yet raise the rate of rent, for the great mass of the unskilled labourers. Is there no remedy for this? None that I can see, except a new fire of London to sweep away all these filthy regions that must be destroyed to be improved, and then a vast and liberal contribution from all sorts and sizes of men to erect the city on a basis of health and humanity. Four-and-twenty years of experience in the matter have led me to no practical conclusions on a large scale. We have built model lodging-houses; and so far as they go they are a blessing to the people. But what are they among so many?' They yielded every return that a mere philanthropist can desire, but, financially, nothing could tempt the large capitalists, who seek a remunerative investment for their money. The price, too, of land is rising mightily, and the great increase of wages among carpenters, masons, and bricklayers is a very heavy addition to the cost of building, and, by consequence, to the amount of the rents. Houses are springing up around the cities, it is true, but they are altogether for workmen of large weekly receipts. Suburban villages are proposed, with penny trains, but the objections made to them are endless, principally by the women, who assign to me very sound and business-like reasons for refusing to quit their ordinary abodes; and, indeed, were they to do so, the public weal would be little served thereby, for the filthy tenements (unless a wholesome system prevailed to pull down in proportion as you built up) would instantly be seized by a herd of occupants, and all the mischiefs be perpetuated, and probably increased. It is necessary, moreover, that many classes of skilled workmen should have their dwellings within hourly reach of their principal and of each other. To these the suburban village and the penny train are of small use; nor, in truth, to any but those who have fixed hours, fixed places of work, and good and certain wages. To the labourer who lives from hand to mouth, hunting around for a job, hanging about the docks, the yards, the shops, the courts, always uncertain of the amount of his gains, and sometimes uncertain of any receipt at all, rising early and late taking rest,' the railways and the residences are utterly worthless; and yet these classes are the vast majority of the ill-housed population. For these our model buildings have done nothing, and can do nothing. No one of the schemes hitherto propounded, no one of the bills submitted to Parliament, holds out even the shadow of a promise. Suppose it be ordained that tenements shall be built, it follows, of course, that they must be constructed with everything that health and decency require. But who of this class of the people will be able to meet even the lowest rate of the new weekly payments for family houses? And if constructed on a plan of single rooms-the utmost that these casual labourers are able to afford,-we shall perpetuate by law a system of life subversive of every moral and physical obligation. I will refer to but one mode among the many which have been devised, for the amelioration of this state of things. A society, of which I am president, has executed several works in the way of the adaptation and conversion of existing tenements. Single houses, or entire courts and alleys, have been repaired, whitewashed, and ventilated-drains have been fitted to the main sewers, pavements laid down, and a due supply of water provided. The accommodation, no doubt, is not equal to that which is given by new buildings; but many of the happy issues are obtained by it, and the benefits are effected at about one-seventh of the cost of fresh constructions. This plan, though qualified to effect improvements on a large

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scale and at a cheap rate, has not, I am sorry to say, found many imitators-but hear the result in a single locality. I had long coveted a court in a sad part of London, because I knew it to be a hotbed of fever, violence, and immorality. One house alone had produced twenty-two cases of fever in twelve months. At last, by the liberality of a widow lady, I obtained possession of it. The society went to work and achieved its purpose. Turbulence and disease were banished. The medical man of the district writes, 'Fever is unknown in this once pestilential court;' the police officers assure us that, whereas in former days the constables never dared to enter it but in twos and threes, they now rarely find it necessary to go there at all. And the whole of this has been done in such a way that the inmates enjoy a vastly increased accommodation, with no increase of rent; and the society receives upon its outlay a return of at least nine per cent.

"It is now time to conclude. But there are some, I fear, who will reply that I have entered on a high flight of speculation, and have left terrestrial difficulties too far below. Nevertheless, 'it is good for us to be here.' It is good for murmuring man to see how much of the misery that he suffers or inflicts is due to himself, and how little to the decrees of a merciful Creator. It is good for him to see how the principle of self-control is the grand principle of all social and individual freedom; that the sense of responsibility to God and his fellowman, whether it be the sovereign on the throne or the labourer at the plough, is the source of all that is virtuous and dignified, and considerate and true. Neither

is there any hope of attaining excellence unless our aims be directed by our
highest standard, 'Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which
is in heaven is perfect.' Surely this was said by our blessed Lord rather
to elevate the efforts and the prayers than to declare the actual powers of
fallen man.
And have we no guide? When at night we lift up our eyes, and con-
template the peace and splendour of the host of heaven, how each one is conforming
to the law of its nature, and, as it were, rejoicing to subserve the universal order,
we recognize an omnipotent, yet gentle principle, that demands and receives a
willing and an exact obedience. When we turn our thoughts to the globe on
which we dwell, we see, in all the works of the Great First Cause, the same inva-
riable principle. It ruled at the creation, has prevailed throughout all time, and
will bless the countless ages of eternity. It is the law of kindness and of love, the
law that-

'Lives through all life, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent.'

Here, then, is the law for our ardent but humble imitation. It is rich in promise, joyous in operation, and certain as truth itself. Of such a law how can we speak but in the noblest language that ever fell from the pen of uninspired man ?—' Of this law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world: all things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power; both angels and men, and creatures of what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy.'"-(Hooker's " Eccles. Pol.," Book I.)

As president of the fourth department, Sir James Kay Shuttleworth gave "A Sketch of the Laws of Social Progress, illustrated by the Growth of the Freedom and Political Capacity of the Manual Labour Class in England." The following passage is elegant, eloquent, and important:

'Perhaps no regenerative effort is more important, or has to grapple with so formidable an evil, as the Temperance Alliance. Between sixty and seventy

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millions of money are every year spent in beer, spirits, and tobacco. Every intelligent inquirer is conscious that the eighteen millions of money which we annually apply to the support of indigence and the repression of crime are, to a great extent, absorbed by the consequences of the demoralization, misery, and want caused by intemperance. Our commercial prosperity will feed this frightful source of degradation so long as the evil is not combated by a system of obligatory national education, elevating the intelligence and the moral and religious principles of those classes who are now the victims of intemperance. Meanwhile 70,000 of the manual labour classes have enrolled themselves members of the United Temperance Alliance. They have created an active propagandism-assembling meetings characterized by the most enthusiastic outbursts of feeling. They establish local societies in almost every town or large village, circulate periodicals, and enrol members; they found benefit societies, bands of hope for children, employ missionaries and teachers, and have established about twenty county unions. There are several associations aspiring to national influence, whose aggregate annual income is about £15,000. There are four widely diffused temperance newspapers and about twenty monthly publications, two of which have an aggregate circulation of about half a million. By the influences of these agencies their members assert that the pledged or practical abstainers from the use of intoxicating liquors now number some millions, among whom are 2,500 ministers of religion, in England alone; and they trace the efforts of the association in the greater moderation in the use of intoxicating drinks, which is becoming a sign of good breeding and reputable life, and is rapidly spreading in all ranks except the lowest. Too impatient, however, to wait for the slow influence of education, and the gradual infiltration of better habits from the more intelligent classes to the mere sensual, the United Kingdom Alliance despair as to the power of purely moral restraint to resist the attractions with which the trade in drink combats, by an enormous outlay of capital, the influence of the school, the congregation, and the church, and makes the beerhouse, the gin-palace, and the tavern English institutions for the demoralization of the people, the spread of disease, the increase of mortality, and the promotion of pauperism and crime. They therefore in this despair appeal to the Legislature to transfer the power of granting licences for the sale of intoxicating liquors, from the magistracy and the Inland Revenue Department, to twothirds of the inhabitants of any parish or township. Whatever opinion we may entertain of the justice, expediency, or sufficiency of this form of interference, we must acknowledge that we owe to the upper portion of the manual labour class, apart from all religious or political feeling, the vigorous and persistent protest which, in spite of all failure in and out of Parliament, they have continued to make against the facilities afforded by the law to the unregulated sale of intoxicating drinks. It will be an auspicious day in the history of the United Kingdom, when the organization and enthusiasm of the Alliance are diverted from their hitherto fruitless effort to restrict or prohibit this trade in drink, and are applied with equal force and perseverance to demand from Parliament a national system of obligatory education, in order to create a power of moral restraint capable of resisting the temptations of a trade which flourishes by the demoralization and mortality of the people."

Our Collegiate Course.

THE LITERATURE OF ENGLAND; CHRONOLOGICAL, BIOGRAPHICAL, AND CRITICAL.

TABLE II.-HISTORICAL AND SCIENTIFIC WRITERS.

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[1400-1500.]

Events and Works.

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Prior of the Monastery of St. Serf, on an island in Lochleven, which office he is known to have held in 1395. The "Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland was begun at the request of Sir John Wemyss, and was completed some time after 3rd Sept., 1420, and before the return of James I. from England.

Son of Sir John Bourchier and Anne, daughter of Thomas, Edward III.'s youngest son. He succeeded his grandfather as Lord Berners in the seventh, and was elevated to the Order of the Bath in the eleventh year of his age. Educated at Balliol College, Oxford, and travelled thereafter. He was called to the eleventh parliament of Henry VII., and gained distinction by putting down an insurrection in Cornwall in 1497. He was a favourite minister of Henry VIII.'s, whose Chancellor of the Exchequer he became for life. He was Governor of Calais till his death, 19th March. His great work, "The Translation of Froissart's Chronicles," was undertaken at the command of Henry VIII., and printed by Pynson-vol. i. in 1523, vol. ii. in 1525. He wrote a medley of translations from French, Spanish, and Italian novels; also a comedy, "Go into my Vineyard"-which was performed often in the Great Church of Calais after vespers,which has not been preserved.

Born in the Weald of Kent; apprenticed to a mercer in London, on whose death he went to the Netherlands, where he gained a knowledge of the art of printing, which he introduced into England, where he was established in Westminster as a printer, prior to 1477. He used "black letter" type, and, having a good knowledge of Dutch, German, and French, was the translator of many of the works he issued from the press, amounting to not fewer than five thousand closely printed pages. Among these were Raoul le Févre's "History of Troy," "The Game and Play of the Chesse," "Reynard the Fox," "Esop's Fables," &c. He printed the works of Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate, &c. He was the printer altogether of sixty-four books.

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