The Press. — London, England, 1858-06-26 00:00:00

-- w , T H mirage; re - liretantlyOGS to stifrocrilion in preference to poisoning. TIM Templar wishes that he had chosen the Chancery Bar, and placed Fleet-street between himself and the Thames bouquet. The young " soupirant," who had hoped to urge his suit successfully during a holiday trip to Greenwich, sickens under his , fair one's eye, and in a faint voice begs for the salts, which it demands all her tenderness to resign. The hapless alderman, whom business has led within sight and smell of the banks of filth reeking under a tropical sun, droops his ample chin on his breast, and resigns a hope more Substantial than that of the lover. "11 y a mille maitresses—il n'y a qu'un diner," and for that one great event of the day he is utterly, hopelessly unfitted. Mat is turtle to a dizzy head and a greasy stomach ? But we must quit these heartrending details. Enough, that the grievance is universally felt—is the prevail ing theme of the daily prints, and is forced on our consideration as an inevitable subject of our weekly commentary. We have already pointed out the manner in which the Metropolitan Board of Works set about its special task of purifying the Thames, and the style in which Sir B. HALL contrived, after calling again and again for amended plans, finally to hang up the scheme which embodied the last amendments of the Board, and which might have been now far ad vanced towards completion. But we are bound to remind our readers that the incompetence of an individual in this matter does not exonerate the public. If John Bull were resolute, he would get his work done. But we procrastinate, we grumble, we theorise, while there is a pressing call for action. Not till some irremediable evil has been sustained do we bestir ourselves in earnest. Despite all the practical good sense for which we give ourselves credit, we are open to the charge made long ago by DEMOSTHENES against his unready countrymen. " You con " duct your campaigns," said the orator, "as the barbarians box. Hit them on one side, they turn thither ; on the other side, round go their " hands." To paraphrase his conclusion, with us, as with the unskilled pugilist, the attempt at prevention follows the blow. We made our selves ridiculous in the Baltic for want of gun boats, but then we had a glorious naval review after the war I We repaired our Crimean mis management, but not till it had cost us much pre cious time and more precious lives. Tne months wasted at the commencement of the Indian out break wrought us incalculable mischief—" cooled our friends, heated our enemies," and fatally over taxed the energies of men who, if duly supported, would have been equal to any emergency. The Thames question has thus far exhibited the same dangerous tendency to wait till we have been struck. In one sense, indeed, our measures can never be too late: let the purifying of the river come when it may, it will be a great national blessing. But it may come too late to prevent a visitation, compared with which all the daily annoyances to which we have alluded are but trifles. Unwilling as we are to seem prophets of evil, we cannot permit our readers to forget that by our neglect of an essential precaution we are inviting the cholera to this crowded metro palis—that it may be even now at our doors. We lay no stress on the single case of the dock yard labourer which has been reported—our alarm rests on wider grounds. We see in the midst of our city a great reservoir of filth and miasma, which is not even allowed to remain at rest. We eve a variety of minor outlets for noxious and pestilential effluvia which the insuf ficient supply of water for flushing our great sewers obliges us to leave open. We feel a degree of heat probably unequalled at the same early season since DM. And all these elements of mischief are at work M., the very time of the year when water excursions are most popular, and when, if there were no other causes to predispose to cholera, the temptations to indiscretion in diet arc most various and most fraught with danger. We have Ogg spoken with a single medical man who does Mak consider the conjuncture peculiarly . favour stoic _to the development of that Asiatic pest of fth the germs seem always to exist among us ; *alb, latent in ordinary seasons with ordinary preovestion. For the present summer it is too clear that pallia tives only are possible; especial cleanliness, the liberal use of disinfectants, especially along the sist i laing mud-twanks of the river, achlitiowil i • TarJHrTior.l.l) 1 31.11 d. ;. 7 ) •. • , 4 ,1 t rot PRESS, JUNE 26, 1858. publication of simple sanitary rules for the guidance of the ignorant. But we do earnestly trust that the adoption of these palliatives will not lead to neglect of the obvious duty of pro viding a permanent remedy. The Thames must be purified, at whatever cost; and the sooner the work is done, the cheaper will it be. Every year's postponement accumulates doubts and difficulties, whilst increasing the pressure of an evil already scarce endurable. The expense will be heavy no doubt; but it must be borne, be it ten, or even twenty, millions. Nor need we put off commencing the necessary works till it has been arranged in detail by whom and in what proportions the cost shall ultimately be de frayed. We do not see why the amended plan of Dec., 1856, should not be adopted in its lead ing features. If the point of outfall requires some further consideration (though, a ft er all, the great matter is that it should be far enough to seaward), that need not prevent the early com mencement of the suburban part of the main drainage. Above all things, we deprecate the appointment of a new commission on this ques tion. It is not merely that it would throw away the results of so much past labour (though we should greatly regret the final shelving of the plan so laboriously matured by the Metropolitan Board of Works), but that it would hold out so little substantial hope for the future. Two com missions had already been established, and had successively broken down, before the formation of the Metropolitan Board in 1855. Have we any reasonable ground for believing that a third would he more successful ? If not, why may not Sir B. lIALL's lathes of last year be now re paired? Lord DERBY would acquire an addi tional claim on the gratitude of his countrymen were this long-felt and (we earnestly repeat) most urgent need for the purifying of our once beautiful river to be supplied by the energy of a member of the present Government. DISSENTLNG GENEROSITY. Iv is refreshing, amid the general selfishness that pervades human society, to come now and then upon an instance of the purest and most unmis takeable generosity. It is like a spring of cool water to the traveller found in the midst of a sandy desert. It seems to prove that, corrupt as man is in his nature, there are some few sparks of genuine goodness left in him, which need only the conjunction of favouring circumstances to bring them forth in their pure brightness. A striking instance of genuine generosity is presented to our notice in the conduct of our Dissentins brethren just now in regard to Church rates. :No persons hold more thoroughly than they do the doctrine of the total corruption of human nature—its being "very far gone from " original righteousness"—and yet they would seem to belie it altogether by their practice. So unselfish are they, so anxious to do a kind thing for their oppressed neighbours, that they are de termined to get Church-rates abolished, nine tenths of which Churchmen willingly pay, and from which they have no desire to be relieved. Their charity goes beyond the range of recog nized ills, for they propose to relieve their fellows of a burden which is not felt. "An oppressive law," say they, "exists. It is essentially unjust. It affects the whole country. It is true that they that bear the chief pressure of it are insensible to its weight, and make no complaint ; but it is our duty, moved by the impulses of a loftier and more enlightened Christianity than prevails in the Established Church, to cut the cords which tie this burden upon the shoulders of our bre thren, and to let the oppressed go free." Let no one spa& or think ill of human nature after this! Here is noble-minded generosity We have emancipated the slaves in the West Indies : in this the Dissenters took a forward part. We have emancipated the Roman Ca tholics from civil disabilities : in this the Dis senters were not backward. They now propose to emancipate us Churchmen from the law of paying to the support of our own Church, in order that we may enjoy the Rill blessing, which they so much prize, of civil and religious liberty. " Many thanks to you, kind friends," we might say, "for your generous intentions ; but there is one question which as Churchmen we should like first to ask—Where is the justice of all this We bought our property subject to this impost ; we paid so much the less for it in consequence of this drawback. We do not quite like the idea of having this put into our own pocket. Change the mode of making or collecting the rate if you please, but pray do not seek to enrich us at the price of sacrilege. We have a conscience." " Conscience ?" we can imagine the Dissenter to reply, "your conscience is not enlightened. I conscientiously object to pay a tax of which I disapprove. I demand its abolition in the name of civil and religious liberty." "It is a part of my liberty," the Churchman may answer, "to be subject to law, as well as to be protected by law from the encroachments of others." Dissenters always take great credit to them selves for having been forward to help in break ing down oppressions. But when they remind us of the part they took in slave emancipation, and urge this as a ground for agitating against the general impost of Church-rates, we may re mind them, in our turn, that this was not done without compensation. And even in regard to the removal of Roman Catholic disabilities, in which they also took an active part, the State thought fit to provide certain securities, that the Church should not be perilled or injured. Nothing is more noticeable than the great advance which the Dissenters have made within the last few years in political morality. Time NFU when they, in the persons of their fore fathers, not only thought it the duty of the State to provide for the upholding of a National Church, but denounced as wrong-doers all who refused to pay its legal demands. And this they did as a matter of conscience, on the ground in sisted on by the Apostle :—" Ye must needs be " subject not only for wrath, but also for con "science sake. For for this cause pay ye tribute " also render therefore to all their dues: tribute "to whom tribute is due: custum to whom "custom," &c. The plea of "conscience " for the course they are now pursuing, is about one of the most absurd and self-condemnatory pleas they could possibly urge. For by urging this they are con demning thi very founders of their own several sects. Had they no conscience, or were they, poor men, in Egyptian darkness? They certainly recognized no such principles in regard to the State Church as those which Dissenters now advocate. Whence, then, comes this new light ? It will not be difficult to show, we think, that it comes from the region of essential darkness, and is itself only darkness under the name of light. Dissent, in the slumberous days of the Established Church, has made great advances within the last half-century among the po pulation. It has begun of late years to lift up its head, and to put on an imposing aspect, in the form of new chapels, almost rivalling our parish churches in their architectural grandeur. With this change in the outward and visible form of their profession, Dissenters have grown proud and jealous. As envy affects only those whose pretensions are nearly equal, they cannot endure any longer to see one Church in the country en joying immunities and distinctions from which others are excluded. To reach the social elevation of the Established Church, while it continues to be the Church exclusively patronized by the State, they see to be hopeless. To get on the same level, the only way is to bring the Estab lished Church down. They must disconnect it altogether from the State. This is not the sus pected—it is the avowed object of anti-Church rate agitation. This is but a beginning to an end; and that end is the overthrow of the Es tablished Church, in order to bring it down to the vulgar level of Dissent. It is vain to argue with men in a passion, or we should be disposed to argue with Dissenters on the dangers to themselves of the course they are now pursuing. In order to level, some certainly must be brought lower but to bring others lower is not really to elevate ourselves,. Neither is it the way to secure greater , A nection. To hew down the lofty wide-spreading tree that casts its ample shade over all the smaller trees and shruba and protects them from storms,is than to moregiliikeeltyhemto crush them to the ground g by rea t t h e e r m e se le l r e t N ion b . ut So as na t c he t;rin gs ea are protected others. This we verily believe to be the case with the Dissenting bodies, as antagonistic to t he nnotstabny d'