The Press. — London, England, 1853-12-03 00:00:00

722 may be relied on. Since the month of August last the Emperor of flesst‘ ha; witholrawn frotn English SOClWnit'l in t he Dank of Eng land and the city of Loet•lon. not a few hundred thousand leotniol.i. but a stun execed ing six millionA noel a holf stool lug. • ih ir i m o. , t h e mune period M. Kla4aLtilli, his %vitt/- dr:MI &OM the It ink of Franco a rather larger sum. A c.onsiaiorahle porsioa of there thirteen millions sterling and upwor,h, h ave been transmitted to Holland, where the Em peror potooemses w tretentre auperinw hss amount to both the Mania drawn frnin Linldnin and Paris. Nor are these by any n n alas all the personal resources of his Majesty ; and it tiliould be understood that these lire not trea sures of the State or nation. but of the man io t a th i 111 4 )Wirell. ' Clio Emperor eau carry otl two toiutp•tigits on a ;;seat scale without increasing the taxes of his sobjeets What other monarch in Europe or in Asia can say the same? With a regularly-increasing re• venue, also, the whole national debt of all the ftliaNi43 not nearly amount to double one year's interest ou that of the United Kingdom. We aometintes think that these crumpling-up " storie * of the resourees of Russia and its Prints are purposely circu lated by Ilassiaii agents to deceive the " Cock neys of Loudon uud Mascadins of Paris." RONIAN AGGRESSION AND ITS DEFEN ltS. A MINIsTrItIAL organ, tite MOrniati Chronicle of Thursday last, was at the pains of elaborating nu insult to the Protestant feeling of the coun try will shoek malty, end astonish some, but which no one will believe it ventured on unless it presumed it Was well advised. We wid not transcribe a specimen of the coutitine lions phrases which are the substanee of its leading article; sutliee it to say that Protes tuntimin in all its forms, and especially where itesocisteil for its own protection, was made the oldert of un attack as direct and compre hensive as enmity could dict ate or audacity embellish: The artiele to which we refer will be tunnel in its fifth page, and we invite our Protestiuit frieufl3 to read it at teotivoly, as an eVitiollee of the iiiiillllH. Minas the *Weil they will he called upon ere long to cope. So fr, indeed, as they have been over eontident it may serve to teach them prudence, or, if they are 'hesitating. it imty afford them courage; forth.. imputat ions of the 11oemir/pare impartially founded itpim t hat whieli is both their strength and their weakness. Among the signs of rel'elit o pi n i on none hay.' been more remarkable than the 14pontaiieolis and independent etiOrts to throw up a barrier against Humanism, and yet, these elf.arts sire sneered at for their want of combined aim, while the eommon impulse from which they sprung is held ofiioneemint, anal the peril they eontemplate4l is Hooka stiltieet f rrexnitattion. It. would seem that the chronic/0, in its elation at the temporary aseendaney of its friends, to whom the very name of Protestantism is 0111011 S. has littered sill inopportune vaunt. lie- HIV not the less impressed with the necessily of eoauillg to an miderst,miling in its behalf. if they are not as yet a greol npoll all the °Noels aif elotteerteil aetimi ; and the exhibitions which sire now taking place througin slit Elin pt. ace not caleulated to deaden their sells.' of this lieVeSSitY. \Ve have 11.1 opportunity at this moment to enlarge 1111111 l pllrtlelllllll4. fil l . the pretetimb tits of lionti►lh Rllll►itioll are in hi) ninny quarters that we lack space to estinmte them. In linden. for in s~ta►nec they have taken the fibrin of anathemas and excommunientions of the 44%11 floWel*, ami the Prinee who relied Upon► priestly supl►ort le BOW ansaileil with the weapons of IvNot•Exv or HII.I►t•:HIIAVLI. 'Phis opeetnele i. a proof that. Home ham not forgotten her aneient terrors. if she laic learnt to combine them with new arts of HMI that her polies' remains the• mains. though her expedients vary ►with the !mad requirements and vicissitudes of her position. We will not affeet to eoineide with those who believe that her influenee hits been in- THE PRESS. variably injurious. The Church as it once subsisted under the supremacy of Rome was not ohnoxions to till the imputations which at tach to the Runtish ('lurch in these days. If its tendency ids to yield to corruptions or al, act rine and its political intlutswe wait adapted. ia many respects, to promosb the harmony tat the aorta. There were tacos slims ales it Was virtually able to proclaim) its " Trace of God " upon at European Neale ; and, ba.4mre aliplonisey undertook the task a stiinssing a 'aslant* of power, there were tittles when the Chrktian opinion which was di mete,' by the ii' Sea curbed the ambition of kings snal emperors, or converted their rival forces into a scourge for the lawless and a terror to the barbarian. Dining those days, if its privileges were at times op pressivo. their possession made it a power eotupetent to produce cohesion, tool which at least prevented anarehy. lint, in strain lug its preteusions to the provocation of a European revolt, its sceptre was broken, and iu its collapse from a system to a sect its wale of action fur good or evil was irreparably changed. It Was no longer a combining, fusing, supetintending influence, but an ele ment in the discord and a party to the strife. Its targa nisation was not destroyed when its pre rogatives were abrogated ; but it retained its tra ditions without commensurate responsibilities, and exerted its energies without its authority. It has wade stupendous etliarts to regain its hold over the consciences of men; and with some it has succeeded—with enough to make it, in its altered phase, a permanent though a partial incubus ou society. It has had the option of a to iterated freedom ; but it is obtrusively refusing tolerance on the only con ditions which make its freedom possible. It might have abated its pretensions—have sus tained them without abatement, yet with a tack admission of compromise ; but instead of doing either it has remained separatist and hostile, and it has now in these latter days become tilfensively aggressive. It is even dangerous. We say this with no consciousness of impolitic tremors or excited fanaticism ; but, observing , these later proofs of its secret inten tions, we eamehole that it is now time to meet theta defensively. Rome has had its opportu nities, but they are passing away. It has ra tified no Concordat with the genius of civilisation. An authority which vacillates but never retinas. tin allay Which disappear!: but does nut dish:null, an organisation which threatens even when it does not domineer, is an object of political vigilance, and may be proved by investigation to be fairly a subject for political control. The science of govern ment is essentially experimental. It' it en - (-mtter a polity which pursues without cu 111- promise its limited objects, which disturbs organised governnwnt without promoting liberty, anal avails itself of the facilities of eivilisation to raise obstacles to progress, that polity is ripening for u day of retribution ; and it will be no reproach to those who ulti mately restraiu it that, bbim; an automnaly, it is open to the application of new principles. REPORT Ok"I'llE MEDICAL OFFICER OF THE CITY OF LONDON. WK invite the particular attention o f our readers to the admirable report of the City Medical Officer, an abstract of which will be found in another part of this day's impression of our paper. Wo hold it a noble course, and worthy of professional imitation, for a practitioner of the healing art, like Mr. Stmos, to preach openly the superiority of drains to drugs for the pre servation of the public health ; and to show, as he virtually does in this respect, how the quickened flow of subterranean water may ex tinguish hundreds of those coloured lamps (symbolic of red inflammation, yellow fever, and blue cholera morbus) which are fed with the life of plague-infected patients. Standing, armies have acquired in the progress of civilisation less anal less of an (*noire. and more and more of a de:to/sire. character, till at last (so tin•, at least, as the Western States of Europe are concerned) they may be regarded rather SATURDAY, as a sort of international police, than as institations in the old sense. Just so should our medical and snrgieal armies be eome less and less the direct combatants (too often worsted) ot' disease and death, and more and worn the defensive watchmen of health and life, substituting a house-to-house inspec tion, continually mew frequent and more close, of men as yet whole, for the tardy visi tatiou of the sick. In the struggle to which this suggestion gave rtae, during the cholera plague of 'V, Mr. Slues bore a distinguished part. While the guardians of the metropoli tan parishes, resisting the orders of the Hoard of Ilcsalth, and refusing to undertake a pre ventive inspection of the dwellings of the poor, who were perishing by thousands around them, had to be summoned by scores before the magistrates to answer for their infraetiona of the law, the City Medical Officer was en gaged in organising, amidst immense opposi tion, a staff of sanitary inspoctors, to whose exertions we owe the unexpected revelation of the innumerable fever-nests and plague-springs which are now in course of gradual abolitio n . This was the sanitary triumph of 10; a w l, whatever mistakes or shortcomings may have been exhibited in other sanitary departments, the author of the report before us is entitled to the highest praise. STRIKES AND POOR LAWS. Ix the sweat of his brow shall man earn his bread, and, so long as he is willing to work, bread he may Attila as a right. This right we recognise by our Poor Laws, and the amount of relief they are intended to afford, whilst sufficient to preserve health, is less than could be procured by the wages of lahenr. It is only in periods of great distress, or when there is something wrong in our soeial condition, that the workhouse can be voluntarily resorted to by men able to labour. In Lancashire the workmen out on strike have, to seine extent, applied for parochial relief, and it has been granted, whilst threats have been uttered that this is only a commencement, and that they will enter the unions en VIIINV, for the double purpose of sustaining themselves and of raising the rates. Now, it may well be a questi whether, under the eireum stances, these weavers and mechanics can claun to be maintained at the masters' expeake if the masters will not raise their wages. It is clear that if a person chooses to live at another's cost, that other has a right to require his services in return, and, if they are not given, to withdraw the support granted ; there fore, if the weavers execute their threat and resort to the unions in thousands, the least they can expect is that they should be compelled to work. But suppose the work selected should be that in which they are skilled—suppose it should be their own trade—suppose they should he allotted or assigned in gangs to the master manufacturers, — where would be their ten per cent. then—where their weekly wages—where their honest independence? Nor is this supposition a vain assumption without substance. To this it must come at last; and many of them must remember when it was a system widely existing in England. Under the vicious working of the old poor law, when a majority of the lailumring classes received parochial relief, wages were, in effeet, paid in rates. The evils of this sys tem were monstrous ; the men were idle and de grit,leol; gaining little by their labour, they dill not work with a will," whilst the amount of rates ex ceeded what wages would have been, because in the workhouses the waste was universal. But bast as this system was, it is clearly better than to have high rates and no labour in return ; and the men on strike may depend upon it that if they execute their threat the consequences we have indicated will follow. e are not now expressing any opinion on the IMAM question, but only on one isolated act by which the men threaten to carry on the contest. But when wo read that one D. Nrrren demanded an advance (.f *IL per cent.,—" not because he thought the trade . •• would allow it, but because lie thought the state la society wanted renovating,"—and when we Inrther learn that Mr. D. NUTTER is one of the leaders of the . movement, we cannot but suspect the prudence of those who act under such guidance. To renovate . society by demanding an impossibility—why , oil ity—why, what stuff is this! In Burnley and its neighbourhood are fifty seven firm s:whose action on this question is united. The population of 'hitt tthitrict is nearly 110,0011, of whom at least 0111.000 heretofore rotund employ ment in the mills. The number of looms is about 50,000, the ' Mill