The Press.
London, England, 1857-09-12 00:00:00

THE PRESS, SEPTEMBER 12, 1857.

enlarging into dimensions of striking dignity
and power.
Even now Lord BROUGHAM, after thirty years'
experience, does not see the defects of the
vaunted Mechanics' Institutes. We agree with
the Times of Friday in thinking "that the march-
" of-mind idea, as regards the masses, has
" much subsided." We do not admire COB-
BETT as a publio instructor. He was much of
an anarchist, and he had wild views about
meum and taunt, though they were so plausibly
put forward that Sir /AMES GRAHAM plagiarised
from them largely. in his suppressed " Corn
and Currency." But COBBETT told Lord
BROUGHAM and Dr. BIRKBECK some home
truths about the absurdity of expecting that
the sons of toil, after twelve hours' work,
were to go, and, in the Broughamic cant,
" slake their thirst for knowledge" (1) The
" masses" have not intellect equal to
laborious study after days of toil. Some sin-
gularly gifted individuals amongst them may
have such mental energy ; but it is delusion to
encourage the idea that the working people
at large, ploughmen and draymen, can be ex-
pected to acquire a philosophic ardour in the
pursuit of knowledge which the middle classes
rarely show. We honour the working classes
for the great part that they perform in our
social commonwealth ; we admire their cheer-
ful fortitude under privations ; and we rejoice
in their progressive prosperity, and are
glad to see many amongst them emerging into
larger social spheres. But it is social sym-
pathy, friendly intercourse, and cheering esti-
mation, rather than hard, toilsome, intellec-
tual life of the dryest kind, that the working
classes crave for. Many amongst thein wish
that their superiors had more hearth and
less " head ;" and the promoters of Mechanics'
Institutes totally forget the differences between
the working classes in agricultural and manu-
facturing England.
"Lord BROUGHAM and his friend Dr. BIRK-
" BECK," wrote COBBETT, " knew nothing of the
" habits of the working people of England.
" They are talking of the horns of the ox, and
" not of its hindquarters and tail. What can
" Lord BROUGHAM know of the working classes
" when all his life has been passed in Lin-
" coln's-inn, or in the botheration of speculative
" books?" The latter phrase was a happy one,
as it touched the radical error which has run
through much of the thinking of the "Liberal"
party even down to the present day. National
habits, customs, and social prejudices are too
much disregarded by the " Liberal " theorists.
They have lived upon " botheration of specula-
" Live books."

There are two sides, it may be said, to this
subject of the education of the working
classes, and so there are. If there was too
little faith in educational institutions for the
working classes in the rural districts, there
has been to-) credulous an expectation in the
towns of benefits which could scarcely be
realised. We have quoted COBBETT because it
is almost the sole question on which he could
be safely cited. Lord Jotor RUSSELL
alluded with approbation to the common•sense
views of ConsETT upon expecting miracles from
the march of mind amongst the working
classes.

THE PAPAL POLICY TO ENGLAND.
Ir would be a great mistake to suppose, be-
cause there has been little said or done of
late with reference to religious questions, that
the people of England had ceased to care
about those mighty controversies which occu-
pied not long since the attention of the coun-
try at large. In the religious world there is
much activity that is not represented in the
journalism of the time, and all through the
provincial districts there aro influential reli-
gious circles which keep sentiment alive on
subjects of a far more spiritual character than
mere political discussions. Indifferentism is
not the dominating feeling of the land; and
questions in which Romitnism is involved aro
eagerly examined by large classes, who care
little what Ministers are doing with reference
to a new Reform Bill. In the days of the
long revolutionary war, while our armies were

encountering the Marshals of France, Ministers
were made and unmade by the subject of " Ca-
tholic Emancipation." And even now, in the
presence of an Indian mutiny, there aro
numbers of persons who take the deepest in-
terest in the new aspects which the Papacy
seems anxious to assume to England.
That there hats been a decided change of
policy at the Court of Rome is plainly mani-
fested. ,What is -called " The Pope's Pro-
gress * in Italy has not been undertaken
without a deep design. Pius IX. had for a
series of years been declinini, in estimation
amongst the Courts and Cabinets of tho
" Catholic Powers." His reputation had
greatly fallen, and his popularity had proved
ephemeral. Whispers had been heard of a
meditated deposition, and of a contemplated
retreat to some position more suitable to his
disposition. His tenure of the Papal office
had certainly injured his Church. He had
disturbed the minds of many ; his measures
were wildly conceived in a spirit of crude
enthusiasm that was received with apprehen-
sion by skilled ecclesiastics of his own
communion ; he meddled with things that
he did not understand, and his rule sowed
revolutionary seeds. Between the charac-
ters of JOSEPH 11., the " philosophical Em-
peror " of Austria, and Pius IX., there
is a striking resemblance. Both were enthu-
siasts, mistaking sentiments for convictions,
and fancying that institutions can be kept up
by benevolent words and amiable acts of a
merely personal kind.
It would not suit the Papacy to allow itself
to be injured by the weak rule of a Pope like
Pius IX. It was accordingly resolved that
demonstrations should be made in his favour,
so as to impose on the credulous or ignorant.
A " progress" was determined upon. It has
turned out to be a hollow failure. Nobody has
been deceived by it, though at first it pro-
mised well

In England it was deemed advisable to take
a guarded course. The " Aggression " and its
results had compelled even the boldest
manceuverers to be more cautious. The con-
stituencies even of the " Liberal" connection
had shown a decided aversion to being repre-
sented by Roman Catholic gentlemen, and the
social influence of the Engiish Catholics had
been much injured by the effects of the
Aggression. Some of that lost power had
been regained by the " Coalition," and by the
triumph which the Roman Catholics had in
driving Lord JOHN RUSSELL from the leader-
ship of the Liberal party, and forcing him to
sit under Lord ABERDEEN. But the enor-
mous scandals associated with the SADLEIRS
and some of their confederates, and the almost
wholesale pledge-breaking of the " Irish Bri-
gade," counteracted the ephemeral triumph of
the Roman Catholics ; and other causes also
deeply injured them.
It is in Ireland, as in days of yore, the
Papacy has again sought its reserve of power.
The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland is to
be remodelled on a system analogous to that
existing in Italy. The Roman Catholics of
England are to be left to gain social influence
as well as they can by the aid of their ancient
families, many of whom are entitled to much
personal respect. While the popular power
will be sought for in Ireland, the patric►an
element will be looked for in England amongst
the Howarda, Petres, Dormers, Cliffords,
Constables, and others with long pedigrees
and deep purses. A feeling of alienation had
for some years prevailed more or less between
the chief persons of the English and Irish
Roman Catholic connections. The language
and tone of the Irish platform was not liked
at the Stafford-street Club. But it was shown
by the compact movement to obtain the repeal
of the Roman Catholic Oath that their differ-
ences had been considerably healed. Arch-
bishop M'HALE was treated with much dis-
tinction by the English Roman Catholics on
his visit in the course of the present year, and
it has been stated on competent authority that
"close and friendly relations exist between
" Cardinal WISEMAN and Archbishop M'HALE."
The circumstance, also, that Cardinal WISE..
MAN should have written so strong a letter to
the Member for Dungarvon on " Rome and its
Rulers " is not without significance. The letter
is written in a tone of emphatic, and oven

--
authoritative, approval, and passages in it
seem to show that it was meant for more than
a polite and flattering notice. " I need not
" say that, by this work, you have nailed your
" colours to the mast, and become the Pope's
" champion in the House and out of it, and
" that you will not allow him to be vilified by
" any one, however lofty." Such a sentence as
that is not without much significance. Select-
ing the " Pope's champion," not from the
English Catholic nobil►ty, but from the Irish
popular interest, and choosing, also, an Honour-
able Member who has for many years been
most consistently opposed to the jobbing Whig
clique at Dublin Castle, and whom the Duke
of NEWCASTLE'S friends, the Sadleirs, sought to
crush, are points of much importance.
A thorough social identification and increased
cordiality between the Roman Catholics of
England and Ireland—the increased and
more adroit use of Irish Parliamentary in•
fluences—the remodelling of the discipline of
the ecclesiastical order in Ireland—and a
new system of raising the clerical status of the
Irish priests—suoh are the main features of
the policy which tne Court of Rome wishes to
inaugurate. Upon the contemplated changes
in the internal management of the Irish Roman
Catholic Church we shall speak on another day.
The subject is of great importance to the Protes-
tants of England, and is indirectly, if not pri-
marily, connected with the political interests
of the Conservative party at large.

scholar." That term has now lost much of its
significance, and in consequence much of its
distinction. It no longer means the man
ahead of his fellows upon those subjects in
which all thinking men are interested, and ho
is no longer, therefore, feted by Courts and
worshipped by crowds of pupils. Art and
science contributing to either luxury or com-
fort have elbowed pure literature out of her
former place of honour. This is the great fact
which underlies all university questions, and
which must ever greatly impede all efforts at
restoring them to their former eminence.
If this be the case we need not beat about
the bush to discover reasons why men able to
climb the mountain of fame should cease to
reside at Universities. The mountain has
been removed. You might abolish celibacy,
throw open foundationS, divide revenues,
create new professorships, introduce what
reforms you please, but nothing will now pre-
vent the metropolis from becoming the head-
' quarters of all aspirants to fame or fortune.
Why then interfere with the undoubted ad-
vantages conferred by the system of celibacy
to remedy one grievance which does not exist,
and another which cannot be remedied? The
truth, we believe, is that the dislike to this
system is founded merely on the schoolboy
sentiment of disliking anything, however
otherwise agreeable, that we are compelled to
do. Celibacy is called compulsory at Cam-
bridge, and it is not called so in London. But
it exists there to exactly the same extent, and
ever must in populous cities in a high state of
artificial civilisation. In fact, when we say
the word " compulsory" is not used in this
case we aro mistaken. The shocking evils
which result from the " compulsory " celibacy
of young men who have to rise in the world is
a frequent theme with social philosophers and
reformers. Evils of another sort which result
from it have been touched by satirists like Mr.
THACKEHAY ; and, in fact, into whatever male
company of a certain age a man may go he is
pretty sure to hear the same topic—the
inability to marry—arise in the course of the
evening as a subject either for jest or serious
discussion. The abolishers of college celibacy
have no case at all ; and we fervently hope
that the utility of our college establishments,
and the common sense of the whole commu-
nity, will never be sacrificed to gratify the
prejudice or the passions of a few restless in-
dividuals.

COLLEGE CELIBACY.
THIS is ono of thoso topics which recur

periodically, and to which the pertinacity of a
few men lends an importance it would not
otherwise possess. All reason and all expe-

rience seem in favour of continuing the present

system, and we should scarcely think it in
danger did we not know the success which a
few grievancemongers are too frequently en-
abled to obtain from the sheer force of impor-
tunity and perseverance.
Let us first examine whether there be any
real grievance at all. A young man is elected
to a fellowship usually between the ages of
twenty-three and twenty-six. He is not a
man of private fortune, and has his own way to
make in the world. Were he not a fellow he
must therefore be working hard in one of the
professions or in business. Now, what is the
age at which such a man has usually by his
own exertions amassed the minimum fortune
that would entitle him to marry ? If we fix
the average at thirty-five we are erring, if any-
thing, on the side of youth. Now, what is the
case with the college fellow ? The chances
are that any man who waits steadily at college
will have a living fall to his acceptance within
ten or twelve years. And how much more
pleasantly has that intervening time been
spent than in a curacy at Spitalfields, or
pleader's chambers at the Temple. These
latter possess charms of their own for a
certain order of minds, but such are not those
who are given to complain of fate. It is the
very wantonness of querulousness in a college
fellow to complain of restrictions he has so
much to make endurable, while they are in
reality just as binding on the rest of the
community, who are totally witliout such re-
sources.
" Oh," but it is said, " the grievance must be
" a real one, for look at its results; it drives all
" the best men away from the University."
Now this objection bas to a great extent been
answered already. Even genius rarely brings
a man to independence before the age we have
specified. But the real reason which seduces
the best men from Oxford or Cambridge is
something quite distinct from either money or
marriage. It is not the pangs of protracted
passion or the cravings of incipient avarice
which brings the leading men of their year
from Magdalen Gardens and Christ Church
Walks, from their noble city and their beauti-
ful river, to the fogs of Fleet-street, the odours
of the Thames, and the tender mercies of a
laundress or landlady. First-rate men leave
the University because the scholar's life is no
longer a first-rate thing. In the days of ERAS-
mus and CASAUBON, or even of BENTLEY and
LOCKE, it was something to be simply " a

A NEW ASPECT OF RELIGIOUS
LIBERTY.

watch for material. Their vigilance and assi-
duity has been lately rewarded, and it is now,
at Belfast, that Roman Catholicism is under-

going martyrdom.
Our readers have doubtless made themselves
acquainted with the circumstances to which
we refer. and we need not here recapitulate
them. It will suffice to say that on Sunday
last the Roman Catholics of Belfast formed
themselves into a mob for the purpose of in-
sulting a Protestant Minister who was preach-

ing, in the open air, to a Protestant congrega-
tion. A scene of tumult and confusion
followed, the constabulary were called out, the
rioters fired upon, and blood was plentifully
shed. Several persons were seriously injured,
among them the peaceful and unoffending,
and the whole town thrown into a state of
ferment and disorder which has not yet
subsided.

The "leading journal," with characteristic
hatred of Irish Protestantism, has chosen to
fasten the responsibility and blame of this
disaster upon the clergymen who persisted,
" with such obstinate bigotry," in preaching
in the open air, after being warned of its
danger. What are the facts of the case? Cer-
tain Protestant ministers in Belfast recently
came to the conclusion that, as open-air
preaching had been effective and useful in
this country in imparting religious knowledge
to a class of persons who do not frequent
places of worship at all, it was their duty to
try the experiment in that town. Controversial
theology they did not intend to approach, and,
we believe, they have scrupulously avoided it.
The Times says that as their views were not
the views of the majority, they were guilty of
an insult to the dominant creed of the country
The premises here are as false as the deduc-
tion. Belfast is emphatically the Protestant
town of Ireland. It is not only the most
flourishing and prosperous borough in the
kingdom—the Liverpool of Ireland, as it has
been termed—but it is the Protestant settle-
ment, as it were, and the proof of it is that no
one but a Protestant has a chance of repre-
senting it in Parliament. What, then, was
the grievance of the Roman Catholics? The
sermon preached last Sunday in its streets
is admitted to have been not only free from
polemical topics, but to have been a simple,
practical, and earnest exhortation to repent-
ance, such as no faithful minister should
be ashamed to deliver. No Roman Catho-
lic was bound to be present, or to listen
to one syllable that fell from such "apos-
tate " lips. A large crowd of Protestants
did attend this service. They were listening
with seemly attention and reverence to the
words of the preacher; a rude and infuriated
mob attacks them, breaks up the gathering,
commits acts of brutal violence upon them,
and then, forsooth, we are to be told that the
Roman Catholics are denied " religious
liberty," and that the demon of bigotry is
trampling upon their sacred rights !
This, then, is the newly forged grievance of
the Romish priesthood, that the Protestants
of Belfast are allowed to receive religious in-
struetion from their religious teachers. It is,
verily, a cruel hardship, and Lord CARLISLE,
of course, will relieve them of the galling
burden ! Here is another of the " last rags of
intolerance," and we commend it to the
reforming solicitude of the Legislature.

IN these halcyon days of progress, of mental
refinement, and moral sensibility, we are
accustomed to hear a great deal of " Religious
Liberty." There was never, perhaps, a more
successful cry on hustings or platform. It is
the creed of the nation, and if a man will not
believe in it, he has become, what distrust of
Lord PALMERSTON is, according to the must
approved authorities, " un-English."
This being so, it is curious to observe the
bustling vitality of the dogma. Although its
triumph has been continuous, though at its
shrine has been sacrificed a hetacomb of
oppressive laws and cruel disabilities, it
exhibits no symptoms of repletion. Its
voracity is so insatiable that if victims are not
at hand, it makes them, combining thus its SIR W. CODRINOTON.—The following singular
creative with its destructive faculty. With it extract from a letter, dated August 16, from Lieu.
there is no end to the " remnants of persecu- tenant-General Sir W. Codrington to Major-General
tion," and as for the " last rags "of a barbarous Sir Charles Yorke, K.C.8., Military Secretary, has
bigotry, they are as numerous as Whig bishops been sent to the Times by Lieutenant-Colonel
or Radical placehunters. Blase :
But, of all the religious grievance-factories Before leaving England I am anxious that his Royal
in the world, commend us to the Church of Highness the Commander in. Chief should be aware of my
Rome in Ireland. The priests of that persua- perfect readiness to serve in India should unfavourable
accounts
evecon enttttnr, and that he thinks my services could be
sion display a skill and an enterprise in the orarily. No one can feel more strongly
production of this commodity, which would than myself the wish never to interfere with those who,
be more amusing if it were less audacious. having had the brunt and hard work, ought to reap the
No bloodhound ever hunted down his prey reward. But there might arise occasions in other places,
more keenly than these gentlemen follow up a and I trust that his Royal Highness will not consider rank
cause for discontent, if they can get on its omeefloarminerahnighlocowme manidlito be
tary abar,on
wmiLpraortaitmo eonmltiloy oy;
track, or, when they have good hold of it, can active servicye is goirngmon. capacity
aggravate and embitter it with such consum• We (the Times) trust it is no part of the gallant
mate adroitness. As we have said, if no ground general's duty in his new office to instruct his Royal
of complaint exists, they create it, and they pupil the Prince of Wales in the correct use of the
have their sentries posted in all directions to I English language.