The Press. — London, England, 1858-08-14 00:00:00

. ~'a s • fr • °IP° V G"D T A \ 41 C n r LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUST 14,1858. No. 276.—V0L. VI. STAMPED ....SIXPFNCF. UNSTAMPED..FIVEPENCE. THE QUEEN'S SPEECH AND THE COUNTRY GENTLEMEN. Ix the Queen's Speech, at the close of the Session, the country members of the House of Commons had addressed to them the following advice : " Many of you, in returning to your respective counties, have extensive influence to exercise, and duties to perform, of hardly less value to the community than those from the labours of which you are about to be released; and her Majesty entertains a confident assurance that, under the guidance of PROVIDENCE, that influence will be so employed, and those duties so performed, as to redound to your own honour, to promote the general welfare, and the happiness of a loyal and contented people." This was just advice. Legislation is not all carried on at St. Stephen's. There is the legisla tion of local improvement, carried on by influence and example, to which we feel certain the country gentlemen of England will not be slow in giving their attention. But it may help to give a direction to their thoughts and exertions, if we take occa sion, from this passage in the Queen's Speech, to suggest some considerations to them in relation to these matters, and then point out certain amelio rations in the condition of those around them which they might with advantage make. TIT improvement of the condition, moral and social, of the labouring poor, is a subject to which our country gentlemen would do well to turn their attention. Even in a physical point of view this is of importance, since the health, and strength for labour, of this large class of the com munity must depend very much upon their moral and social habits. If in their childhood they are crowded into close houses or badly-ventilated schools, and have no open, healthful, sunny play ground; if they are badly fed in their young growing years, and are taken too early to hard work, the natural and necessary consequence is, that they grow up weak and spiritless, become sullen and sottish in their disposition, fall into premature decrepitude, and render not half that service to society which, under wiser treatment, they would be capable of rendering. What fanner knows not that if a horse be taken too early to work, or when young be overworked and ill-fed, it is injured for the rest of its days ? And shall we care less for our labouring men than for our horses ? There has been growing up of late years a widening distance between the different classes of society, especially between the class with which country gentlemen used to be surrounded and in constant intercourse, and those gen tlemen themselves. The patriarchal mode of life in which the lord of the estate lived formerly in the midst of his subordinate agents, and carried on all his operations directly through them, regarding them all as in some sense members of his family, is almost entirely gone out. Now he scarcely ever sees them except in flying visits ; and no humanizing inter- LA2EI3I EDITION. course, or cordiality of common feeling, subsists between them. This is owing very much to the railroad system of travelling, in which men are separated into three classes by three classes of carriages, and very seldom intermix, or confront each other, or have interchange of words, as when the master and servants all travelled toge ther on the old family coach. The effect of this separation must be to alienate them in feeling, and to cause them to regard themselves as diffe rent in kind, or as having totally different interests. Means should be taken to counteract this by our country gentlemen, if they would not suffer the consequences of it in its bearing upon their own social well-being. One very manifest evil arising out of this state of things is, that the labouring and middle class of people are rapidly imbibing radical and revolutionary notions. Their jealousy is excited of those in whose pursuits they have no share— whom they see only as elevated out of speaking distance above them, and know only as wide acred lords. Formerly a large number of persons' as stewards, gamekeepers, coachmen, grooms, asso ciated with their masters in shooting, hunting, and other country pastimes, and by associating with them on these occasions they acquired a respect for them, and viewed their masters' interests as in every way their own. Now, it is to be feared, their disposition would be to go against them ; and if any political crisis were to arise, would join in despoiling those who had been their paymasters, but had ceased to show themselves their kind protectors. The three principal things to be attended to, we think, in order to counteract or remedy these evils, are,—the dwellings of the poor, their do mestic habits, and their amusements. The dwellings of the poor in many parts of the country admit of much improvement. It is not sufficient to say that the grandfathers of the present families lived in them, and suffered no sensible harm. What is perfectly harmless in one age, when gross habits prevailed generally, may be full of moral mischief in another, when greater refinement has acted as a stimulus upon the imagination. ➢len may become insensible by habit of certain moral conditions as they may be of certain physical conditions of their being. But when education begins to act upon a people (and where does it not extend in the present day ?), and their mental powers become excited, certain safeguards are immediately required over their morals in a more restricted intermixture of the sexes in the same house. For this reason, more even than on the score of health, every labourer's cottage ought to have separate sleeping apart ments for the male and the female members of the family. The low state of morals that so generally prevails among the poor arises, there cannot be a doubt, in a great measure, from the social condition in which they are too often obliged to live in their own homes, with very little more of separation between the sexes than there is between the brutes in the farm yard. It is this that destroys all reverence for parents, all pure affection for brothers and sisters, all proper self-respect. Improved cottage dwellings is what is required. For this we must look to the large landholders of our country. And, to their credit, many of them have already done much to adapt the dwellings of their labourers to their altered social c3ndi tions. The Duke of NORTHUMBERLAND, we are told, has laid out many thousands in this way ; so has the Duke of BEDFORD ; so have many lesser proprietors. Let the country gentlemen follow their example, and we shall see England adorned with what is as much a beauty in its way as the nobleman's lordly mansion —neat, well built, commodious cottages, embosomed in honey suckles and roses. The domestic habits of the poor are very closely connected with the character of thei dwellings. If there is any one thing more than another which marks the families of the poor in the present day, it is the dying out of the do mestic affections. How little love of home—how little intelligent attachment to their parents—do we find among the grown-up girls and boys of the lower classes ! By the time they are twelve or fourteen years of age they have no more re gard for their parents, no more care for them, than a colt has for its dam. This arises in some measure from the miserable character of the houses which they call their homes—from the mere animal regard exhibited for them by their parents, which ceases altogether as soon as they get above the dependence of childhood or youth —and from the little they find to make home either lovely or beloved. How, then, are they to be trained to a healthier exercise of the affec tions—to more home-loving habits ? First, by making the home itself a more comfortable place ; and next, by making the village school a model building and a training-place for the future duties of after life. The parents, in too many cases, are regardless of their children after they reach a certain age, because they have never been in structed themselves in their own moral responsi bilities towards their offspring, or because their dwellings are such miserable pent-up places that they can have no comfort themselves but by driving their children out of doors. Improve the comfort of their homes, and the poor, both parents and children, will love their home more. One thing which acts back powerfully on the home is the school. Provide the children in every parish with a well-built, school-house—a building with taste about it ; let it ;be seen to always in a clean, orderly, tid:, they will soon imbibe a disgust orderly home : they will carry neatness and order, which they , graceful-looking h some marks 9f . ...., o that this . --N - -k r, ly conditio9; ',- ' l l \ ~..1 3 , . . 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