The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-01-09 00:00:00

SATURDAY, JAN. 9, 1886.

A CLERGYMAN UNJUSTLY
CENSURED,

Considerable ex-itement and indignation appear to
have been aroused throughout the country by the ex-
pression attributed to the Ives% R. H. Midden, of St.
Botolph, Aldgate, at the last meeting of the City of
London Union, to the effect that instead of making
the paupers happy at Christmas time he would
render their lives in the workk.ouse "horribly and
profoundly miserable." On Tuesday afternoon, at
the guardians' meeting, the subject again cropped up,
when Mr. Bunting asked leave to move "That this
Board does not sympathise with the remarks of the
Rev. R. H. Hadden, who would make the lives of the
inmates of our workhouses profoundly miserable; but,
on the contrary, the guardians desire to, and do, make
their poor aged and sick supremely happy." Amid
loud cries of "No," the chairman ruled that the
motion could not be put, and Mr. Bunting said
he was content in having brought the matter forward.
The Rev. R. H. Haddee entered into a long and
vigorous explanation, saying that he was a man who
had been hard and unjustly hit through an inaceura.te
and inadequate report of his speech in one of the
City papers having been copied iuto and commented
upon ba a vast number of newspapers throughout the
country. What he said last week was restricted to
the idle, incorrigible loafer, who came to the work-
house at Christmas time, and what began in a joke
had developed in a most serious manner. There was
an old sa3ing, "Give a lie an hour's start, and you
will sever catch it ; " but if they gave an Inaccurate
report 48 hours' start, the man who made the speech
must suffer tremendously. (Hear, hear.) That
report had found its way into every corner of the
country, and he had received sheaves of letter on
the subject—one from Brighton calling him a
"hypocritical demon "—(laughter;—while another,
who forestalled the future in a way he should not
like to do, said, "I would not give much for your
chances of Heaven." (Laughter.) But the most
pronounced of all he would read. It was as follows:
"Fool and hypocrite,—You live by a lie, and I, with
other working men, will soon expose your tyrannical,
hetoroclitic, and assinine recalcitration—(laughter)—
from the true Church, by disestablishing and disen-
dowing you. (Roars of laughter.) Hero's damnation
to you-14 of us—in a gallon of beer. (Laughter.
Bravo! Bradlaugh ! Miserable fool, the time is
coming when you shall be horribly and profoundly
miserable! Wretches like you would never be any-
thing else —devils—wolves in sheep's clothing—whited
sepulchres. Take yourselves to the h-- you would
make for others." (Laughter.) This was no laugh-
ing matter for him, who bad a reputation to maintain,
and he wished it to go forth in the press that his re-
marks, incorrectly reported by one paper, and copied
into hundreds of others, had produced a false effect.
The remarks he made applied only to the lazy, incor-
rigible loafers, whose lives he again said he would
make miserable until they were driven out of the
workhouse. (Hear, hear.) All the others—the sick,
the young, and the aged, deserved and received every
consideration.