The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-10-08 00:00:00

CONTRACTING OUT OF THE ACT.

28. Every agreement, condition, or arrangement
which purports to take away or modify the rights of
the tenant as declared, given, and reserved to him by
this Act, or which gives to such tenant any advan-
tage in consideration of his forbearing to exercise
such right or imposes upon him any disadvantage
in consequence of his exercising such right, shall be
void,

PRACTICAL SYMPATHY WITH THE
UNITED STATES.

The Times has published the following letter :

Sir,—There can be no doubt as to the existence of
deep sympathy in this country towards the United
States. Recent calamities have not created that sym-
pathy, but have called it out and displayed it to our-
selves and to the world. It will, 1 trust, be per-
manent; but its expression, like all such outward
manifestations, may be transient. I therefore take
the liberty of suggesting a practical methcd of giving
an enduring proof of our feelings by an act which will
make us no poorer, but will exceedingly enrich our
cousins in the western hemisphere.
There is at Fulham, in the library of the See of
London, a manuscript work in the handwriting of an
expatriated English gentleman, known and venerated
in America as Governor Bradford, one of the leading
Pilgrim Fathers who, in 1620, landed on the then
inhospitable shore of Massachusetts, on the Plymouth
Bock—
" The door-step into a world unknown, the corner-stone
of a 'radon."
This manuscript gives in minute detail a diary of the
ceedings of the pilgrims. and contains the comp tct,
or constitution out of which arose eventually the
federation now termed the United States. It was
captured as loot by a British soldier during the Ameri-
can War of Independence out of the old Dutch Church
(if my memory does not fail me) at Boston, Massa-
chusetts. How brought to England and acquired by
a former Bishop of London is not known. There is
the manuscript, however, which has long ago been
printed, and has also been reproduced in facsimile.
I need not expatiate, however, on the difference in
value, to a possessor, of a copy or an original. This
manuscript is considered by very many Americans as
the very Book of Genesis of their nation, and it is
regarded with much the same veneration as that with
which we contemplate the original, in the British
Museum, of the Magna Charta of our liberties, bear-
ing the seals of the Barons of England.
My suggestion is that, in token of our deep sym-
pathy with America in her national sorrow, and our
desire to forget the conflict of the two nations exactly
a century ago, now attracting attention at Yorktown,
we should present, in the name of our Queen and
nation, this valued original manuscript to the Govern-
ment of the United States.
I made a private communication of this suggestion
in 1867 to Lord Derby, when he was Foreign Min-
ister- but, there being some international question at
that time between the two countries, his Lordship
very properly considered that action at that particular
juncture might be misinterpreted, and I did not
further press the subject on his attention. No such
objection could be raised at the present time.
It may, however, be objected that the Right Rev.
Prelate, however personally disposed, might feel diffi-
culty in parting with a document which is the pro-
perty of the See rather than of the individual. To
this I reply that we have a precedent in the case of the
Third Napoleon, who, when he came to the throne,
solicited the original will of his uncle. A short Act
was at once passed, with universal approval, for in-
demnifying the Archbishop of Canterbury for parting
with the document from his prerogative court.
If there were a national wish on this point the way
would speedily be found. I can but submit the sug-
gestion to my fellow-countrymen through the columns
of an organ universally read.—l am, Sir, yours faith-
fully, BENJAMIN SCOTT.
Guildhall, London, Oct. 4.