The Press. — London, England, 1857-08-08 00:00:00

778 Bathurst to Swift, " can't long afford alienos paacere num mos ; but I have four or five that are very tit for the table. I only wait for the Lord Mayor's Day to dispose of the largest, and shall be sure of getting off the youngest when- ever a certain great man ( Sir H. Walpole) makes another entertainment at Chelsea." Here aro your false words to win all feminine sympathy :—" In fact, our great satirist was of opinion that conjugal love was unadvisable, and illustrated the theoty by his awn practice and example— God help him !—which made him about the most wretched being in God's world." How cruel was this in you, under some of the probabilities and all the possibilities that may be, ought to be, charitably referred to Swift's case—in his loves or his friendships, be they what they will, for Stella and Vanessa? Mr. Thackeray is not formed by nature to appreciate a character like the Dean of St Patrick's. He cannot sympathise with the " fierce delight " of political warfare, nor do justice to the zeal and the faith and the gallantry evoked by the conflict of parties. His dislike of Swift's politics, and of the ardour with which he pursued them, has coloured his estimate of the man. He sus• pects him of selfishness where the Dean is only effecting the best compromise of which circumstances admit, parsimony where he is only prudent, and of irreligion where he is only ironical. Two other very good papers are on " Civili sation" anti " The Census." Mr. Eagles is evidently very much inclined to regard the latter as a huge piece of humbug. Ile questions the veracity of the returns, and objects very justly to the language in which they are con veyed when the subject of religion is in volved : Parliament has thought it worth while to employ a great part of a session upon Assumption of Title Bills. The labour could only be justified by a previous assump tion, an acknowledgment of the Church of England as the Established Church, of which the Queen and her Government are supposed to be members, and preservers by oath of her rights and dignities. The Church of England and the Constitution of England, however tole rant both happily are—and may they ever be so—acknow- ledge but one Church—the Holy Catholic or Universal Church. This acknowledgment is embodied in the au• thorised formularies of the Church. The Constitution does not declare that there shall be no other religions, tolerating dissent to the utmost. A form of religion differing from her own is also established in one portion of the dominions, but not so as in any degree to nullify the title of the Church of England as a branch of the Church Catholic iii England. Our Queen Anne was so sensitive upon this subject that she spoke of Dissenters as that portion of her subjects who had "the misfortune not to be members of the Church of England." In our day, no such expression would be used. I only mean to show by what I have said that, in making a report to be laid before the Queen, the Government, and the People, legitimate titles and distinctions should be preserved ; and I should draw this inference, that a writer of a census who errs in this respect is not a member of the Church of England, or, if he thinks himself one, must be mistaken. The report before me is not for all the Queen's dominions, but for " England and Wales," within which limits one would suppose a member of the Church of England would not enumerate " Protestant Churches." But the classifier, to act up to his profession of freedom from " bias," treats all opinions and sects with equal indifference, or, it may rather be said, with equal respect, and lifts up and dignifies the disgusting subscribers to the blasphemy of Joe Smith, the Mennonite, with a place among " other Christian Churches." Taking the very, respectable accounts of the multitudes of creeds, with the equally respectable classification, it would not be very unfair to imagine them to have been made purposely for a people in search of a religion ; and that the compiler, as a general agent for all bodies, would show the honesty and impartiality of his agency by an equal and fair die. play of all their commodities, without presuming to indi cate a preference or bias. More than this, the pedlar's pack is ready to exhibit the quilts and cradle of the mad Johanna, and advertise that there are yet four insane congregations of Southcottians, into any of which the looker-out fur a faith may enroll himself or herself. I cannot believe, Eusebius, that he would willingly, know. ingly, omit any sect • that he has not noticed, th ere f ore , the Princeites and the Agapemone, I put down not as of any evil intention, or of disrespect to them, but merely to that carelessness and negligence which have caused so many omissions and inaccuracies. And this is the more surprising as his very lengthy and flattering ac count of the Mormonites would have led him, one would have supposed, to as full a narrative of so congenial a sect; for it does not appear that any degree of insanity, or worse, is to annul the title of faithful believers to be a " Christian Church !" I would not wish to speak too lightly ; but, in truth, in this report the area of religion seems to be treated as that of a fair, in which any set of actors may set up a booth and claim from the Queen's printer the advantage of advertising bills for general distribution. You remember, Ensebius, Sir Godfrey Dueller's dream; being, as he professed, of no particular religion, he was desired to make a free choice. !tut why was this enumeration and this history of and inquiry into creeds made at all? Why proceeded in, when, as 1 before stated with regard to school inquiry, it was aacert►ined there could be no legal demand for truthful replies? If the Church of England is made to appear to au untruthful advantage, it is hard to withhold a suspicion that there has been a bias somewhere or other. THE PRESS, AUGUST 8,1857. Places of worship of due solemnity and so-called places of worship, where congregations keep on their hats and smoke ; and places fraudulently self-styled places of wor ship, whose object is to put down all worship—are jum bled together as "Christian Churches," and so make a numerical array against the Church of England. No matter what they are, their ticket-titles, with pretty nearly the same probatum est of Census, are tossed into his authority-bag, well shaken, to be thrown out for the people to pick up as a boon and privilege of equal value and of equal Government sanction. Every word of this passage deserves to bo carefully treasured. The carelessness with whicl► the void " Church " is employed has given rise to many of the most prevalent errors on the subject of Hornanism, and has placed in the hangs of Romanists one of their most efficient weapons. We regret that our space will not permit us to notice this volume at greater length. We have been compelled to omit all mention of several other very valuable articles one especially upon the colouring of statues among the ancients ; the other upon the boastful tendencies of the nineteenth century. For variety and sustained merit few essayists of the day can be placed far above Mr. Eagles. Industrial and Social Position of Women in the Middle and Lower Ranks. London : Chap- man and Hall. IN the discussion of all social questions which do not admit of immediate settlement, it seems inevitable that there should at some time or other occur periods of stagnation as well as of ebb and flow. It is cosy, on the one hand, to expose abuses; it is not difficult to draw ideal pictures of what classes and institutions might become if freed from every kind of abuse; but between one state and the other there lies a dreary waste, in which the re former has neither the satisfaction of pulling down what is noxious nor of building up what is salutary. Uncheered by popular sympathy, which is generally withdrawn front every thing which does not appear to promise a direct tangible result, he must either give up his favourite schemes of improvement, or persevere in impressing them with thankless reiteration upon a cold and inattentive audience. Public opinion on the subject of the condi tion of women seems to be undergoing the crisis to which we have alluded. The e‘ils of the present state of things—the distress to which so vast a number of the female popula tion of England are liable, and the misery in which many of them habitually exist—the apathy and dulness of their sisters in the class above them, and the want of an organisa tion by which female industry may be placed in a position to earn the rewards of which it is capable—are all known and admitted. When, therefore, we take up a book like the volume before us, in which all these matters are insisted on at great length, and with much ability, we feel a sort of pity for the author, who is not, we fear, destined to re ceive that amount of appreciation to which his merits ought naturally to entitle him. His work is good in many respects—it is well written, carefully considered, and moderate in tone ; but it is a hundred to one if any one but the professional reviewer will trouble himself to read it. One reason for this is, that the subject has now arrived at the stage at which no one book can possibly exert much influence; another, we must say, is tnat his work is not of a sufficiently practical nature to point out the way to the consummation he desires to accomplish. This will, we think, appear from a short glance at its contents. After considering the " influence of industry on the character" —which forms the subject of the first chapter—he proceeds to describe women of the middle ranks in their relations with industry and domestic life (c. ; compares them with the aristocracy and with the lower classes (c. vii.) ; then goes into . a detailed analysis of the employments in which women of the latter are engaged (c. ; then considers how far it is practicable to admit women to the higher branenes of industry, and how far legal disabilities and economical con siderations are likely to stand in their way (c. xi.—aiv.); and, finally, attempts to show that a professedly industrial life will not with draw woman from her " proper place," nor meet with any obstacle either inher incapacity for special employments or in the abstract deficiencies of her intellectual constitution. A great deal of this programme is very ably carried out. With the latter part no fault Call be found, for the truths on which it insists are so generally admitted by all who have attended to the subject, that it was hardly worth while to prove them in detail. Tle analysis of the industrial occupations of the female labouring class is the most elaborate and valuable portion of the book ; and it shows conclusively enough that women are at present restricted to the most servile and worst paid trades and professions. The following remarks embody a view which is not often enough remembered in discussions on " distressed needlewomen" The occupation of millinery is not overcrowded, in the sense in which it is commonly understood to be ; nor is there ever any want of work, as the notorious system of late hours prevalent in the business of dressmaking tea• titles. The competition to which the milliner is really subject is of quite another sort, and proceeds from quite another source than the rivalry of others of her sex en gaged in the same profession. Herein lies the import of the census returns of 1851 as compared with those of ; millinery work is not confined to the professional milliner as tailoring is to the professional tailor; a crowd of women, for want of anything else to do, are a sort of half milliners, do not strictly belong to the profession, hut add a little to their other means by taking in millinery work And not only does the profes sional milliner compete with the nonprofessional—with those that merely take occasional work to eke out other stairces of livelihood—but, a worse feature than all, she competes with every woman having idle and otherwise valueless time on hand, i.e., with every one of her own sex that is not at the present time engaged in non-domestio industry. All women are milliners, especially the young and unmarried. The few hundred thousand pursuing the business as a profession compete with a million or two women at home, having their time otherwise unoccupied. It is this competition with work al home that brings down wages; work that can at a push be dune there will not be gii en out but at the lowest price ; rather than pay high for it, it is done within the domestic circle. A man does not make his own clothes ; he finds a more valuable mode of occupying his time. Not so woman—it is the cheapest way for her at present to be her ewn dressmaker; she has no more valuable way of spending her time The milliner thus competes directly with the rank best able to remunerate her work ; with those who ought them selves to be earning, like her, an independent livelihood. . Whatever influences depress a class, they tell with most deadly weight on its lowest grade. And so it is with the seamstress and slopworker, who are exposed to hardships that have made a deep impression on the public mind. Who does nut yet shedder at Hood's " Sung of the Shirt," the pictures of which are so fearful that they are so true ! And yet needlework is one of the few trades that have not been invaded by man's labour ; it is entirely in the hands of women, is of great extent and importance, and in most of its departments requires skill, experience, and taste, and in all requires neathandedness, cleanliness, and care. Unless, therefore, we keep in view the real cause of the depression, we can neither estimate the magnitude of the evil nor devise a fitting remedy. For instance, one must pause ere he believe that the emigration of a few hands, merciful as it may be to the individuals themselves, can very materially improve the position of those left behind. The true origin of the evil is the small value of woman's time in gen"ral, especially in the middle ranks, which is thus placed directly and indirectly in competition wit 4 the labour if the milliner and seamstress. We would not argue that women in general should entirely abandon the needle; it is indeed essential at spore hours to the mother of a family ; but we would wish to open for young and unmarried wo. men other occupations than that of desultory stitching at useful or ornamental needlework ; and thus, while the mother might as heretofore continue to keep her children in tidy dress without calling in a tailor for every mending, the milliner would at least be relieved of the competition of those who, unlike the mother, have nu domestic duties to attend to. But if the mistresses of families in the middle ranks " put out " work in order to give em ployment to the lower classes, they will incur increased expenditure themselves. How is this to be obviated ? By the women of the middle classes themselves engaging in pro fessions. This, too, argues the author, by subjecting them to the same kind of indus trial influences as their husbands, will put an end to the want of sympathy which now exists in married life—will enable the wife of a professional man to take interest in the details of her husband's labours, and raise her above the frivolous occupations to which at present she devotes the greater part of her time. All this sounds very well ; but it is, we are afraid, the weakest part of the book, inas much as the author has not gone sufficiently into detail to enable us to comprehend what sort of improvement ladies would acquire by the alteration in their habits, nor what sure of household it is that he would like to see estab• fished. The following, for instance, is vague enough :