The Press. — London, England, 1858-07-24 00:00:00

708 THE PRESS, THE WEEK. Parliament, as is often the case, lingers over the last few steps of its journey; and is likely, apparently, to sit until one of the latest days named for its rising—Thursday or Friday in the week after next. Possi bly, however, by an effort, the close may be reached a few hours earlier. A steam-boat is in preparation, to convey a large party of members of the House of Commons, to attend her Majesty at Cherbourg. The rejection by the house of Lords of the Bill for the Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister is an instance of the great good that may be effected by the Upper House of Par liament by the exercise of a little judicious obstructiveness. The abstract propriety of the proposed measure must be argued elsewhere than in the columns of a newspaper. Our own opinion upon the subject has been briefly stated upon several previous occasions. But, independently of that opinion, we see reason to congratu late the public upon the delay which the decision of the House of Lords has occasioned in the settlement of this question. There can be no doubt that the present advocates for the legality of this marriage are in a minority. Minorities lately have had far too much power. When an intellectual and educated minority, as we do not deny the advocates of this measure to be, steadily demand a reform, there is good reason for in vestigating its propriety. But it is pessimi exempli to concede to the loquacious activity of a clique what the solid, silent sense of the nation is utterly opposed to. We must wait and watch. We entertain no very strong opinions- upon the abstract impropriety of the proposed measure, though we honestly fear it might be fraught with many practical incon veniences. But this is eminently one of those measures which as soon as the nation desires the nation will have. Till it does so, we need not " fash our thumbs" about the matter. We still cannot help believing that it will be a long time before the English people begin to comprehend the boon that is offered to them under the guise of this alteration of the law. The wealthier classes do not, perhaps, thoroughly understand the extent of the temptation they would be thrusting on their poorer brethren were this proposal to become law. The rich can always keep a close watch, if necessary, upon their relations —can, if necessary, remove a relative from a dangerous atmosphere at a moment's notice. Not so the poor. Would you, even under the present state of the law, says the rich man, allow your young unmarried daughter if possessed of personal attractions, to make a long stay with her married sister ? Perhaps not, says Dives. But what says Pauper ? " I cannot help it." Well, then, the question arises, Is it not worse if the sist er an d brother-in-law know they are outside the pale of affinity, than if they feel themselves within it ? Any way, there would be one element of restraint removed by the change in question, and we must say we are thankful to the Prelates and Noblemen who recorded their votes against it. When will our leading journalists leave off calling everybody a "fool" or a "bigot" who happens to disagree with them ? Mr. BAILEY, the author of "Festus," was lately thought worthy, by Lord PsiatzusTox, of a public pension, as a man of genius. Mr. BAILEY, in his last work, issued from the press only a few days since, argues cogently, that if you would be a legislator at Constantinople, it would be taken for granted that you must be a Turk ;—that if you would conduct the Government at Rome, it would be inconceivable that you should be aught but a Papist; and, by parity of reasoning, one who would make laws for Englishmen, should surely be a Christian. Neither Mr. TRACKERAY nor Mr. DICKENS sit in Parliament, nor do we know their opinions on Jewish Emancipation. But woe unto either of them, if he found his way into that assembly, and ventured to hesitate a doubt as to the fitness of Jews to legislate for Christians. The author of "Ten Thousand a Year" ranks below neither of them as an author of power and brilliancy • yet in the Times and Daily News of yesterday he fi gures as a driveller, because he agrees in opinion with Mr. BAILEY ! The speaker, however, who most raises the anger of these writers is the unbending Member for North Warwickshire. There never was a man better abused than Mr. NEWDEGATE has been by six or eight of the Liberal journals this week. There cannot be a better proof that the bolt hit the mark. The Times confesses that it " does not know how to deal with that speech." It introduced one topic—the influence of the Jesuits— which Liberal politicians would fain ignore. But Mr. NEWDEGATE left them no room for this, for he took care to adduce the plainest and strongest proof of what he asserted. Hence, ridicule is the only weapon left them. But this weapon will only go a certain length. The sincere and earnest can always exhaust its strength. WILBERFORCE was un sparingly ridiculed ; so was SADLER, so was Lord ASHLEY, when fighting the battle of humanity in the House of Commons. And it is remarkable now that the same Times newspaper which is vehemently desirous of Jewish loan jobbing counsels in the Legislature, is also prepared to revive slavery and the slave trade. The fact which Mr. NEWDEGATE so strongly pressed upon the atten tion of the House, that all over Europe the Jesuits are Liberals wherever it answers their purpose, is one which Liberals dislike to be reminded of ; but it is not the less important that it should be kept in mind. And its bearing on the present question is surely obvious enough, when we re- 2 1 1 11 tlEisg ma& the eagerness and zeal with which every Papist in either Hone r ef Parliament has striven to carry this measure , . for stripping th e B its ritish Constitution, as far as possible, of Christian . character. Ca n any ega . not absolutely childish, imagine that all Card i nal WISEMAN'S humbl e wants are really and honestly turned into , `4l44ds of. civ4 and religio n liberty"? , mitt, ttpttl. wn e • wi•L! !to 11:11tilf :1 71f t ttbn of I. f 7i ..•",t ib,•. %•, 0 Mr. F. 0. WARD is a clever man, but a. thorough • doctrin s i ie. He is perpetually getting hold of a single idea, the truth of which j e 80 strongly impressed on his mind as to shut out from his vieer ail the balancing and countervailing fhcts, which 'precasts!: ii li' knifrie:,itid '6e essential to a correct notion of the whole case:::', Pik, I. : f ici tn years ago, he actually published in the Morning, 4iranic ~ tyro or thre e t* letters, extolling the Parisian system of" licensed tradem",lw ;which only just so many butchers, or so many bakers, were permitted to exist in that city—a system which naturally worked well for the Ineleded and favoured few, but quite the reverse foi"t l he excluded and f forbiacn many, Within the last year or two the French Govexnment . haa had to abandon this same system—a system which, if good ihmouty, ought to be good for all, and which ought to impose upon the. itPtiternal Government" the duty of permitting or forbidding marriages, and almost of prescribing the number of children. In the same vivid, and we have no doubt sin cere, view, Mr. WARD has now seized hold of one or two notions con nected with the drainage of the metropolis, And these, ,potions have some truth in theM—Just as it was unquestionably tree, that 2,000 .. bakers might make a good living in Pirta, - iibile 5,000 0,1401 t he half starved. The doctrines in question he thus states : i , , i j • I , , 1. All the rainfall which visits the whole m,tropelitam 4lisiri .. ct is dice to the - river, and to divert it from A* ,giger i mi,tq,4aroduea -itu injurious and Perilous result. .. ,i ii :-- , '11:141M teoin If '11:141M illi'S 2. All the excremeitliiioas matter. mlatti is dot•'to ibefflowl,l and it is a fatal blunder to Omit itinto the rivet.? . ,I, 1 .1.),1mi•4it 0 These two doctrines idad to this practical result, that the meetepofis ought to have a double erten of drainage—one for the rainfall and another for the water-closets; the rainfall being at once sent into the river by the shortest road; the manure being saved and used, upOn the land. Now, these two notions have und s abt e d)r 00111e* , frdA 'Meat them ; but Mr. WARD has shut out, as his =sutler Wa:tieslit of other filets which greatly modify them. For instance :'. 4461 II " l i' r • '' l '.' ' ' . 1 ''' • 1. We have been, for the last thirty"yisfesiltaougli t lin proving the water-closet provision of the', nicht poliii, n'aholishing cesspools, so that we have nearly got the " exeretlientithibe) Matter" of the human race into a manageable condition. But what have we done towards providing water-closets for our beasts?' 'rlie iiiiijmals' of the metropolis are reckoned by scores of thousands, and their ordure by daily scores of tons. All this is at present mixed with the rainfall, a large portion of it being scattered about the, streets. Supposing we created a distinct house-drainage ibr the ' 4 excrettientitibus' 'matter" of 2,500,000 human beings, what is to be done with the hundreds of waggon-loads of that produced by the beasts ? How is this to be got into the water-closet drainage? 2. To remove manure, itself a heavy matter, we must have some kind of motive power. In some cities (as at Paris) it is carried off in carts and waggons. But London would not submit to this. In London it is carried off by a large flow of water, the rainfall being continually needed to cleanse and scour out the sewers. Should we, then, withdraw the bulk of the water, and require the manure to " move on " by the mere aid of the house water-supply, mightnpt :this prove insufficient? The practical difficulty is this :—At present we carry off the ordure by a large mass of water mixed with it and bearing it along. Withdraw this, and we may find the movement of the "excrementitious matter" too slow. We may be blocked up with, and imbedded in, inanure. Our choice appears to be this. At present, we float and carry off an enormous mass of valuable manure ,by means of a still more enormous mass of water; but then th e re su l t is that the manure is loott by reason of the dilution. Stop this great dilution, and you may stop he motion of that matter which we need to have removed. ONO Mr. WARD show us how the manure is to be carried off without, oirts dr wheels, and yet remain undiluted and therefore valuable? Still, we must admit that he has presented an important question to the Government and the Board of Works. And we have no doubt that this question will receive an earnest, painstaking consideration. Doubtless, the saving and the using of such an enormous and valuable mass of manure is an object of prodigious moment, if it can he shown to be,reak sracticable. .1 ~1114'0 . 1 / .1 ;. • ..t , ► • 'lii bnn :Korb.. •,t... • itf • iii ot , i nip v:m7=flyi ihtft It may be definitely announced, upOtt• viery litanthFq,, i that the age of sentimental legislation is passed; , - .7 - - begun. Lord Tit t• Ro has pronounced jndgitietiii to' hat -, 7. iik . tse House gad 'a u ' '",.,'. 1 . .. .i. era is of Lords; Mr. Herr, who has heard legislatiiilii 'Utter th eir oplons in a public capacity, and, what is more important , has attended to their ex pressions in a private capacity, is convinced, by comparison, of the fact ; and the Times, finding itself every day less potential with men who think and discern, annoyed at its repeated mistakes, and anxious to conceal its real want of information, fortifies itself ii well-known principles of trade, and supplies average articles, which may just meet bet never exceed the average demand for facts or reasons. The age no longer cares about abstract princi ples; we have passed out of the pupillary state of disti • • between right and wrong. A ny pu bli c recognit i on of a ores " . of more iarfri7 ) Lyr