The Press.
London, England, 1854-09-30 00:00:00

914

able, rates grow when corn does not,
bankers are "tightening," the farmer is in
difficulties, and is forced into the market with
corn in bad condition and stock unfattened.
And then, money is dear, trade stagnant, the
country shop has " po erders 1 !of Manchps-
ter—it can't get in its bus ; little pilly
go unbreeched annt,her year—Mighly
afford it ; so " the shop " wants po break
cloth from Leeds. And tildn, the poof
starved labourpr; d Ai* " Opp?" mope
close-fisted and exacting than ever, his
children crying for food, his hearthstone
cold—his heart alone on fire ; one only
tvu4e, one " labourer," is in baleful actiyit.y,
the Quaker cornfactor is making money by
thousands ; and every thousand that he gains
in the price of his corn is multiplied in that of
flour—multiplied again in that of bread. They
who would really know what " harvest-home
means must go into strange places, and hear
strange voices—must see, as some of us have
seen, the winters of '47 in the factories, or '4O
in the fens—their recklessness, their famine,
and their " fires."
From all this, and from all the miseries
that war and pestilence would have added to
its terrible reality, not our forethought, but
Gon's gift, has set us at least comparatively
free, The war is desolating other homes than
ours ; the pestilence, we hope, is passing ; the
worst of the three scourges we are spared
altogether.
And surely we cannot fail to observe here, as
always, how thoroughly the curses are of our
own earning, the blessings of (":}on's
The war still endures, and is likely to endure,
through the unhappy incapacity of the
" Talents," but for whom it need never have
arisen ; the cholera has told us, in plainest
utterance, that it is the natural necessary
reward of the filth we have allowed, after so
many warnings, to accumulate at our very
doors, while Boards of Health, Guardians,
Sewers (we hardly know " which is which "
among them), have been squabbling over their
respective property in the common abomina-
tions : the harvest it has been, happily,
beyond the power of our perversity to
injure.
Then let us be thankful, as we should ; let
us learn, now when we are so lovingly taught,
for we have much yet to do, of which we
cannot here speak more at large. For the
present, what works of mercy every man may
do among his neighbours he will best learn by
using his ears in church and his eyes in the
streets. Our harvest has added many millions
to our national wealth—has added not a little
to the store of every one of us. Let the
thanksgiving of the hand follow the thankful
ness of the heart. Let us remember that the
pestilence has made many a widow and
or) than—the war many ; and it will make many
more. Even while we write to-day, and are
thankful tomorrow, it is making (or has made)
many a heart desolate that as yet, in mercy,
knows it not.

LORD DENMAN.

Drum° the greater part of an extended career,
Lord DENMAN was one of the most dignified
illustrations of British forensic life. He had
a presence such as is rarely bestowed on the
sons of men by Nature even in her most
lavish moods. His figure was commanding;
his face had a noble expression of majesty,
tempered with mildness, and a sculptor might
have selected it as a model for a statue of the
Antonines. His voice was a grandly swelling
organ in point of power, though it had not the
thrilling melody of (Yew--mu:B, or the mas-
culine resonance of Lord LYNDHUReftI. But,
with a great assemblage of the physical
qualifications for an orator, Lord DENMAN
wasted sustained force of reason and that
sapidity of argumentation on facts indispen-
sable to first-class pa►liamentary life. In his
prepared displays be was a rhetorician; his
diction, though copious and correct, was never
terse or vivid; he gracefidly passed over the
obvious commonplaces, and never dived pro-
foundly, though sometimes) be gallantly