The Press.
London, England, 1854-01-21 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

of its constituency than it would be welcome
to them to imagine. At the same time, we
have reason to know that it would be pre-
mature to make any statement whatever as
to the course which it may be thought ad-
visable to adopt. The outlying members with
whom we sympathise may rely that vigilant
measures for their interests are being taken
by tried and experienced friends in Oxford
and in London, who are in constant communi-
cation. These friends are prepared for any
issue which may be imposed upon them,
though it will be most grateful to them to
find that their duty coincides with their
desire not to disturb unnecessarily the peace
of the University.

" THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL" AND
THE STRIKES.
AT the annual meeting of the Manchester
Commercial Association, the President, Mr.
ASPINALL TURNER, delivered an address which,
as an exposition of the views of " the Man-
chester school," deserves to be rescued from
the oblivion of a mere report. After an inci-
dental allusion to the genius of Dr. BOWRINO,
and an inferential suggestion that he should
(in consequence, we presume, of the immi-
nence of war) be appointed to the command of
the fortress of Gibraltar, Mr. A. TURNER at
once plunged boldly into the subject of the
strikes and the lock-outs, or, as he justly
described it, " the civil war going on between
" masters and operatives " in Lancashire, the
heart and centre of the labour and capital of
England. His words were generally mild, and,
therefore, unlike those which ordinarily flow
from the lips of the Manchester orators. We
missed the pert, positive dogmatism of Mr.
COBDEN : we looked in vain for the boisterous
acrimony that pervades the speeches of his
gentle twin-brother BRIGHT. But, though
breathing honeyed words, the spirit of the
ancient League was there. Kindling as he
recounted the triumphs of the past, in predict-
ing future conquests Mr. AsriNALL TURNER
was betrayed into a momentary and, under
the circumstances, venial lapse. Bursting
into a boast at once reminiscent and prophe-
tic, he threatens that, as Manchester had
" put down " royal tyranny and aristocratic
tyranny, so it would also deal with the tyranny
of democracy. Here we have an involuntary
avowal of the policy of the " school " of which
Messrs. COBDEN and BRIGHT are the leaders.
The Crown is in England supreme—then
diminish the royal power. The aristocracy
stands before us—sweep it from our path.
Working men agitate—crush them to the
earth. Thus forewarned, it will be, indeed,
the fault of the threatened if they permit the
vaunting assailant to accomplish his aims.
What England would be if Manchester pre-
dominated we may in some measure imagine
from the present condition of Rochdale, where
Mr. BRIGHT is paramount. The state of that town
is described with graphic power and evident
knowledge in a work to which we have this week
devoted several of our literary columns. After
a perusal of that work—after the disclosures
there made of the unscrupulous acts to which
the Manchester school resorted to stimulate
the greatest agitation that ever existed—it may
surprise the reader to learn that Mr. ASPINALL
TURNER thinks agitation very wrong, of course,
when it is directed against his party. He (the
President of the Manchester Commercial
Association) vigorously protests against "the
" right of the mechanics to send demagogues
" up end down the country endeavouring to set
" the masters against the men, to create an un-
" kindly feeling where there should be nothing
" but kindness, and attempting, in fact, if they
" were allowed to continue these proceedings,
" to upset the whole manufacturing system."
No right to send demagogues about the coun-
try ! From whom, then, did Messrs. COBDEN
and BRIGHT, eight or ten years since, receive
their commission ? Did it emanate, like that of
MA HOM ET the false prophet, direct from heaven,
and do they only thus divinely inspired pos
seas the right to agitatate ? But this is the
Manchester school again—all must be silent

SATURDAY,

—all must quail and bend in the presence of
Manchester. The Crown and the aristocracy
have fallen—now the working classes must be
crushed

If Manchester was not to be obeyed, the
speaker hinted that the inestimable blessing
of its capital might be removed to more
favoured spots—to the Rhine, for instance
As if capital solely possessed the property of
,locomotion; as if, in the presence of the pre.
sent emigration, it is inconceivable that labour
also may leave Lancashire. "amine severed
the ties that bound the Irish peasant to his
" people," and drove him from his rude hut to
a land further in the West. Others, again,
aro tempted by gold over the limitless sea to
an Australian home ; yet to an Englishman
the pangs of hunger are less hard to bear than
injustice ; and the thirst of gold is not stronger
than the desire to escape from oppression.
We have the testimony of Lord WILTON that
these men are ardently sensitive to kindness,
and keenly jealous of encroachment on their
supposed rights. And it is to men thus consti
tuted that threats and tauntshave been liberally
applied. The operatives maybe, and very proba•
bly are, wrong in the question at issue, but the
masters of the Manchester school are most cer•
tainly wrong in the manner in which they attempt
to enforce their views. Power may, perchance,
enforce a sullen obedience ; taunts and threats
will assuredly engender vindictive feelings;
and, if the men are in error, the only way in
which this strike can be settled satisfactorily
is by convincing them of their mistake. This
is a duty imposed upon the masters by their
superior education and their position. Let
them do this, and labour and capital may
again unite in useful and harmonious combi.
nation ; but when they boast of "putting
" down " the Crown, the aristocracy, and the
working classes, they overrate their own
power, and do not comprehend the temper of
the times. And when they speak of factories
springing up on the Rhine, let them beware
lest labour should also find a new opening on
the banks of the Mississippi or the I'aramatta.

THE COALITION JOURNALS AND THE
EX-LORD OF THE TREASURY.
IT is worthy of remark that the Coalition
journals have preserved a significant silence
with respect to Mr. JOHN SADLEIR and the re-
velations which, so far as he is concerned.
ended by displacing one of her Majesty's
Lords of the Treasury. The Times has only
cursorily adverted to it, assigning to the record
of the facts brought home to the Duke of
NEWCASTLE'S " fidus Aehates " about one-sixth
of a column. Nor did it comment on the trial
in any of its leading articles. When we re-
collect that the Times has been unsparing in
its censures of the Roman Catholic priest',
we are astonished why it has I asied without
remark the conduct of Mr. SnmEtia's friend
Father DEMPSEY, whose " treachery " was M
severely rebuked by the presiding Roman
Catholic Judge, Chief Baron PIGOT. Of other
" individual scoundrels," the Times was volu-
minous in its reports, and yet here is a case
of the most extraordinary nature, in which a
Lord of the Treasury was deeply implicated.
and its details are kept back as much n
possible from the eyes of ENGLISHMEN, thong"
all the Irish journals have copiously reportea
them. In Lord CLARENDON'S case, the Timm
copied the severe article (headed " The Man
of the World") which appeared in our cluer,
contemporary the Examiner. But it would
seem that the employer of Mr. BIRCH had less
influence with the Times than the patrons
of the ex-Lord of the Treasury, Mr. 3°llS.
SADLEIR.

BURIAL CLUBS.
A FEW years ago infanticide in India, espe.
cially as practised among the Raj-poot
was a favourite subject of philanthropic de
mation. Every means was employed to pat
down the abomination. Rewards were lavished
on those chiefs who did not make away Ira
their daughters as blind puppies or kittens
are drowned ; and so far was public quo'

JANUARY 21, 1854•

eSB
InS

influenced that it began to be thought that to
rear a family might be a more profitable specu-
lation than to destroy one. So the Itiki-poot
population has multiplied, and missionaries
and philanthropists rejoice. But the evil,
extinguished in one country, breaks out in
another. What we have succeeded in dis-
countenancing among the wildest tribes of
British Asia reappears in an aggravated form
among the conquering race—the model nation,
which affects to preach morality to all the
world, which expends 200,000/. yearly to con-
vert Hindoos, and holds female meetings to
emancipate American negroes.
We affirm it deliberately—infanticide, as
now carried on in England, is not only more
rife, but infinitely more cruel, than in the
shape in which it exists, or existed, on the
banks of the Indus, and among the hill tribes
of Raj-pootana. These heathen parents de-
stroyed their superfluous children, not from
private lucre of gain, but lest the wealth of
the family should be scattered among many
claimants, and its influence thereby dimi-
nished. The murder, too, was predetermined
before the birth—no time for repentance
allowed—the deed purposely hurried on while
the mother's weakness forbade interference,
lest her prayers and tears should prevail
against custom and fixed purpose. Our Eng-
lish peasantry speculate in slaughter, and
sell the lives of their offspring ; adding, more-
over, robbery to cruelty ; for the infant's name
is put on the lists of a burial club, the mem-
bers of which are defrauded by its murder.
In England there is no fear lest parental
affection should interfere with the pre-
arranged design. The child lives, thrives,
is weaned, plays about the house until the
age, it may be, of three or four, until suspi-
cion is lulled, or the pressure of a harder
season than usual makes it convenient to call
in the money which the parents may claim on
its decease. Then the fatal sentence is carried
out, generally in a straightforward, business-
like way, with very little mystery or disguise.
The father or mother goes to the druggist's
shop—buys the requisite quantity of arsenic—
administers it in the next meal—watches com-
posedly the dying agonies of the little victim—
and sends, when all is over, to trouble the
secretary of the burial club for that 5/. which
is due, inviting him at the same time to verify
the fact of the death. These things are not of
rare or exceptional occurrence—they happen
daily—and, for once that they come to light,
they probably escape detection a hundred
times.

Two efforts, which are worthy of all praise,
have been made to abate this nuisance. The
grand jury at the recent Liverpool Assizes call
on Parliament to put a stop to the existence of
burial societies ; and the Rev. Mr. CLAY, of
Preston, whose name has been long and fa
rourably known to the public in connection
with questions of prison discipline, seconds
their appeal in a vigorous pamphlet, full of
useful details.

Let us see what is the actual state of the
law. Some years ago an act was passed in-
tended to check the evil now complained of.
By this act (0 and 10 Vic., chap. 27, sec. 1) no
insurance is allowed to be effected on the lives
of children under six years of age. The re-
striction, however well meant, seems practi-
cally useless, for a child of seven or eight is
Just as much in the power of its parents as one
two years younger ; and the act, such as it is,
seems to be a dead letter, for it only forbids
infant insurance in the case of clubs estab-
lished after the date of its passing—in other
words, it is prospective only—while clubs
which existed antecedent to its establishment
are still permitted to offer premiums for child-
murder. Yet farther, even the nugatory pro-
hibitions thus imposed are notoriously disre-
garded ; for, at this moment, says Mr. CLAY,
": I have before me the rules of a burial so-
' ciety, containing 1,500 members, established
last May, and taking in infant lives as boldly
and openly as if the recent act of Victoria
„ were already a dead letter."
It is almost needless to adduce instances in
which these clubs have operated as incentives
to crime. These are of daily occurrence—not
a week passes without some fresh illustration
of the fact. Poisoning has become habitual