Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-06-18 00:00:00

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

to Mantua, the south-western corner of the Equi-
lateral—as the • district of which that '-fortress,
Peschiera, Verona, and Legnaho from .the four
Corners, is here generally called, although its sides
are not, geographically speaking, equal. As the
distance between the two armies leSsens, and they
again come in sight of each other on the opposite
sides of the Mincio, the interest of the campaign,
now somewhat slackened, will revive with greater
intensity than ever. After witnessing the wretched
blundering of Gyulai—who, backed by 'his head-
strong and headlong Sovereign, would assume the
offensive, and then showed that he was. too timid
or too slow to profit by his opportunity, and too un-
sklful to recede without disaster—the world will
watch with strong interest the defensive tactics of
the veteran Hess. What hag passed as yet is but
the prologue to the bloody drama ; the real cam-
paign will be in eastern Lombardy, not in eastern
Piedmont. The Austrians hold lines which they
have spent years in strengthening —a position which,
naturally formidable, has been rendered yet more so
by the application to it of every resource of the.
engineer's art. They are known to have prepared
and practised themselves against every contingency.
of attack they could forsee. Large bodies of
troops have been repeatedly opposed to each
other, in simulated attack and defence of
the Mincio and the works that back it, with a view
to detect every weak point, and to be prepared
for every possible device of an assailant. The
Austrians will fight on ground perfectly familiar to
them, provided with every applicable means of
defence, with abundant stores and material of war,
close at their back, and with an army 'which what-
ever may have been the effect upon its morale of its
recent unprofitable foraging and countermarchings
in Piedmont, of its reverses in Montebello, Palestro,
and Magenta, and of its hasty retreat from the
frontier—has not yet experienced numerical losses I members.of the new ministry
of any importance as compared to its great strength. The Attorney-General fcr Ireland gave notice that, on
The French, on the other hand, take with them upon I the 30th of June, should bring in a series of bills to
their forward march the prestige of success, and
Consolidate the statute criminals in England and Ireland.
their usual confidence of victory. Although some of
Mr. kinnaird asked the Secretary of State for India
them may suspect that the triumphs of, Montebello .establishmen .
ts
and Magenta might have been more decisive,- Or whether he had not received a report, on civil
at any rate less dearly purchased, their generals throughout India, by Mr. Henry Ricketts, and what "steps
can point to the broad plains of Lombardy they it is proposed totake in accordance with the recommendation
now are traversing as the tangible proofs of their thereof.
valour and of their conquests: Only the other Lord Stanley said that the report had been received, and
day the enemy was on the Ticino ; he is precently
on the Mincio. There is something in this -
had been taken into consideration, and a communication
argument. As they pursue their not unpleasant had been mede to the Government of India relative thereto,
march through a rich and smiling country, they are The Chancellor of the Exchequer then rose, amid pro-
cheered by the enthusiastic applause and heartfelt found silence, and said it was but respectful to the house to
demonstrations of the ardent Italian population. We announce what it already knew, that, in consequence of the
can hardly doubt that they go to their work, with a vote of Friday, Lard Derby and his colleagues had tendered
good will, and in high spirits. As regards scientific
their resignation to her Majesty, which . she had been
resources? so important when sieges are in question,
the experience and skill of General Niel cannot be graciously pleased to accept. They only held office till their
doubted. The famous rifled canon 'have not as yet I successors could be appointed. He understood that the
had opportunity of fair trial ; as far as there have 1 noble lord the hon. member for Tiverton had been entrusted
been means pf judging practically of their effects,
.with the task of forming a new Administration. He had
these are reported to have satisfied even those most succeeded in that task, and it would therefore be convenient
sanguine in their expectations. It is still to be seen .to the nobie lord if he moved that the house, at its rising,
whether their powerS be sufficient to work that
revolution in siege warfare which some confidently adjourn till Tuesday.
anticipate. Unless those powers be very extraordi- jThe motion was agreed to.
nary, sieges of great length are naturally to be Colonel Forrester brought up the Royal answer to the
expected: But there are many rumours abroad of 'address of the House in reply to the Royal Speech, again
plans by which those usually tedious operations are. repeating the professions- of neutrality during the present
to be greatly shortened. There. is much talk of struggle, and announcing that, in corformity with the
taking the Austrians in the rear, of landings to be advice of the House, Her. Majesty has taken steps for the
effected in the neighbourhood of Venice. We are
formation of a new administration.
told also of floating batteries of prodigious power,
Petitions against the return for Athlone, Weymouth,
to be set afloat on the Lego di Garda, and on the
small lake formed by the expansion of the Mincio, Aylesbury, Maidstone, Norwich, Beverley, North
which environs Mantua on three sides, and stretches Leiceitershire, Preston, Clare County, Bury, Limerick
for about three miles to the westward of that fortress. City. -
A very short time will, doubtless, show us the yalue On motion of Mr. J. Northcote,
of these conjectures and reports, and fully display The
aggressive resources of the French and the Queen's Speech was ordered to be taken into
consideration on Tuesday next.
Austrian powers of •resistance. The last
• two bulletins describe the • Austrians as in full Mr. S. Estcourt moved the second reading of the
retreat from the Adda to the Oglio, some of their Criminal Justice Middlesex Judges Bill. The object'was
forces having already got far beyond the 'latter simply to increase the salary of .the assistant Judge, who
stream. They mined and blew up all the bridges would forego his private business.
on the Adda and other rivers,. and evacuated Pizzi- Mr. W. Williams opposed the bill, as involving
ghettone, burning the bridge, and throwing into the
river large quantities of artillery, ammunition, and c Mry :
.x 'ins: moved that the debate' be adjeurned for a
fortnight.'6
other military stores, including a great mass of pro- Mr. Hardy, in consenting to the motion, defended the
visions, Which had been levied by requisitions bill.
on the surrounding country. They had left • After Somelurther_discussion, the motionlvras agreed to.
Cremona, Brescia, and Crema ; Bergamo and Lodi The House then adjourned at five minutes to five o'clock
had proclaimed Victor Emmanuel, and declared
themselveaunited to the Sardinian States. A con-
siderable portion of the Franco-Piedmontese army.
had crossed the Adda at Vaprio and Canonica,
places close to each other, but on opposite sides of
the river, a few miles to the north of Cassano. The
al u e of the stores of all kinds abandoned at Piacenza,
is estimated at several millions ; and, owing to the
failure of some of the mines, the damage done to the
citidal and other fortifications did not appear to be
very considerable. On the 12th the Emperor's head-
quarters were at Gorgonzola, about fourteen miles to
the north-east of Milan: While the bridges broken
by the Austrians were being repaired, the 'Emperor
had two bridges of boats thrown over the Adda and '
'the Muzza, near Cassano. The state of the Adda,
swollen by the late rains, rendered the work diffi-
cult, butit was accomplished, and the army ,forth-;
with recommenced its forward movement. It
-is positively stated that . Massimo d'Azeglio is
..going as governor to Bologna. Farini, the deputy,
is ,to go. in the same capacity to Modena, news of
whose evacuation is almost hourly expected.- Other
appointments, announced as nearly • certain, are
.those of Count Pallieri as Intendant-General at
Parma, .Signor Alasia at Pavia, and' SignOr Vera as
'lntendant of Mortara, and Intendant-General of
Como.' ' A Royal decree, published' at Milan on the
9th instant, says, that all direct and indirect takes
'it present borne by the Lombard provinces are pro-
visionally maintained, excepting in so far as
alteration is made by the following article :--
As regards the sale of Excise articles, the post, the tele-
raphs, and the Custom-house,, there, will be applied in
Lombardy, by special measures, to proceed from the
Governor, the rates, laws, and regulations in force in other
parts of the Royal States. This assimilation completed,
the Custom-house: line between Lombardy, and the other
provinces will be suppressed.
A recruiting office. has been opened in Milan, for
the-.enrolment of volunteers, between the ages of 18
and 35 years, for the Chassears of the Alps •

HOUSE OF LORDS.-Fium.ky

The Earl of Derby announced that, in consequence of the
vote of the Commons, on Friday, he' had placed his resig-
nation in the hands of her Majesty. That resignation her
Majesty had been graciously pleased to accept. He and his
colleagues now only held office till their successors could be
appointed ; and was happy in believing in the present state
of foreign affairs that those successors would be quickly
appointed, and trusted that they would observe a strict
neutrality in the present contest. The future Ministry
would receive from himself and his friends that support
which their duty would enable them to give. Before he
sat down, he felt bound to take notice of the publication
and the comments in the Times newspaper, respecting the
conversation which had taken place relative to the formation
of the new Ministry, between her Majesty and Earl
Granville. It was unusual and inconvenient that such a
conversation should be made public.
Earl Granville regretted that he had been somewhat
indiscreet in mentioning what had passed between himself
and the Queen. It was not undesirable that these matters
should be known, as it proved how constitutionally her
Majesty had acted, but, still, he regretted it.
Lord Brougham made some observations, urging the
necessity of preserving the strictest neutrality during the

present Contest.
The House adjourned till Tuesday

HOUSE OF COMMONS.-FRIDAY

The Speaker took the chair at four o'clock, when there
was a full attendance of members. Most of the members of
the actual ministry attended, but none of the expectant

A POPULAR: HISTORY

OF THE

WORKING GLASSES.

ADDRESSED TO THE -WORKING CLASSES

THEMSELVES

THEIR. RISE AND PROGRESS-SOCIAL AND POLITICAL

PART SIXTII

CHAPTER FIRST

LAW OF SETTLEMENT IN RESPECT TO THE POOR

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS

OF THE PEOPLE DURING THE EARLY PART OF THE

PERIOD

day, to settle the balance of Europe, and depose
kings, and to prove that England was upon the
brink of ruin, to their hearts' content. In this spirit
the tradesman forsook his shop, and the merchant
his counting-house, to take care of the State, and
harangue upon the conduct of the Ministry, without
thinking of his own. And, as a necessary conse-
quence, the Tattler informs us, the approaches to a
club-house had often an ambushment of bailiffs and
bailiffs' men on a look out for those disinterested
patriots ; so that an oratorical financier, after he had
settled off the debts of the nation, was often walked
off to the " sponging-house" for ' being unable to
settle a paltry bill. One mark of these political
quidnunes, it would seem, was to have the upper lip
besmeared with snuff, which was supposed to impart
an air of peculiar sagacity to the whole countenance.
This characteristic would almost seem to attach itself
to similar politicians of our own day.
Gallantry, it would appear, was even still more
active than politics. It clearly appears, from the
poputar literature of the earlier part of the
eighteenth century, that the generality of men
dressed, looked, acted, and studied, like our own
modern " gent" (unhappily not yet quite ex-
tinguished from among us,) entirely with a reference

Two year's after the Restoration, a revolution wa,
effected in the condition of the labouring population
almost as important as the emancipation front,
villainage, though in a contrary direction ; for in
lieu of a charter of manumission, it became an
instrument of local bondage. The measure to which
I allude was the celebrated one which so long con-
tinued the foundation of the law of settlement, and
formed a most fruitful source throughout its exist-
ence of parish litigation. The objects of this statute
have been much misunderstood, but are apparent
enough, and were twofold—first, the further restraint
of vagrant larceny ;,and secondly, to fix each parish
with, the maintenance of its own poor only, without
being burdened with those of another. But the
expedients by which those ends were sought proved
extremely oppressive ; for instance, they empowered
two justices, on complaint of the churchwardens,
withm'forty days after the arrival of any new comer
in the parish, forcibly to remove him to the parish
where he was last legally settled, unless he rented a
house of ten pounds a year, or could give security
that he was unlikely to become chargeable in the
new place of residence he had chosen.
So long as this law lasted, which it did for 133
years, it was next to ImpoSsible for a poor man to
remove from one parish to another, whatever induce-
ments he might have been under from ties of friend-
ship; or better market for his labour. He was, in
fact, in a manner chained to the soil, and his parish
became his prison for life. An Irishman or Scotch-
man; however, though the privilege was denied to a
native, might live anywhere in England without
being subject to removal ; but then the former had
no claim to relief in destitution—a resource dearly
purchased, it must be owned, by the sacrifice of one
of the most precious adjuncts of freedom, the
undisturbed right of moving and dwelling wherever
a man pleases.
I now carry my narrative forward to the period of
the eighteenth century. I purposely omit dwelling
upon a description of those wars which originated at
the close of the seventeenth, and were continued at
the early commencement of the eighteenth, century
—all of which produced incalculable evils to the
kingdom—because I do not consider that they at all
enter into the subject with which I have to deal.
War, I may simply reiterate, has two results which
essentially interfere with the progress of nations in
riches and civilisation. The first-consists in the
disturbance it gives to the pursuits of industry, by
the waste and misdirection of capital and labour ; the
second is a similarly injurious action on the public
mind by withdrawing it from everything of an
ameliorating character, to dissipate intellectual
power on objects tending to demoralisation and
barbarism. The most melancholy lesson which
history affords is the fact, that the decay and ruin of
empires have mostly proceeded from the popular
derangement growing out of proneness to war. It
was the pertinacious and exasperated wars of the
Grecian empire that mainly produced their im-
poverishment and subversion. Even successful wars
carry along with them mortal maladies, which, like
the constant force of gravity acting on a projectile,
infallibly tend to bring the proudest people to the
earth. The splendid triumphs of ancient Rome did
not save her from destruction ; probably they
hastened it by the annoyance, luxury, and effemi-
nancy, which her territorial: conquests engendered.
Of the thirteen years of King William's reign
ten were years of war:; of thetwelve years of Queen

to the tastes and humours of the- fair sex. In the
present day, when love is but an episode, rather than
thegreat subject of life, " a lady's man" of the reign
of George I. would be (with the exception of the
individual referred to) decidedly regarded as a sort
of fuses naturm. The following features, grouped
together from the various sketches. of the period,
will convey an idea of a numerous 'class of beings,
now, thanks to the witty and well-pointed satires of
our humorous friend Punch, nearly extinct. From
ten to twelve o'clock, then, the fashionable beau
received visits iii bed, where he lay in state, his
periwig, superb'y powdered, lying beside him on
the sheets, while his dressing-table was sprinkled
with a few volumes of love poetry, a canister
or two of Lisbon or Spanish snuff, a snielling-
b3ttle, ' and sundry fashionable trinkets. At
twelve he rose, and managed to perform the
business of his toilet by three o'clock. In this
complicated process he perfumed his clothes ; soaked
his hands in washes, to make them appear white and
delicate; tinged his cheeks with carminative, so as to
give them th gentle blush which nature had denied;
arranged a few patches on his face, dipped his hand-
kerchief in rosewater, and powdered his linen, to do
away with the horrid smell of the soap. The tying
of his cravat was a weighty operation that occupied
much time, as well as the adjustment of his wig and
the proper cock of his hat. After he had surveyed.
the whole arrangement in- a looking-glass, it was
necessary to practice before it the most becoming
attitudes, to give his finery 'its full effect, and study
such smiles as would show the whiteness of his teeth
to advantage. He then dined ; after which he
ordered a chair and repaired to some coffee-house,
where he endeavoured to exhibit his wit and his
gallantry—the former by railing at the last publica-.
tion; the latter by pulling out some tailor's or
laimdresS's bill and kissing it with great fervour,
pretending that it was a billet doux he had received.
from some favourite mistress or lady of high rank.
From the coffee-house he went to the play, where, it
being vulgar to attend to the performance, he turned
his back on the stage. From the play he next
repaired to the park, buzzing and fluttering from
lady= to lady, chattering to each a jargon of bad.
English, worse French, and worse Latin, and was
rewarded with many a rap on the shoulders from
their fans, and the epithets " mad fellow," " dear
tormenting devil." When the lounge was ended, he -
dropped into some fashionable party in Pall Mall or
James's-square, where he chattered his empty
nothings, and lost his money with an air of
fashionable indifference. The general style of
courtship with which ladies were wooed and won,
comported with the character of the unintellectual
coxcombs by whom the incense was offered ; and in
a love speech, " Angels, Gods, racks, furies, tortures
and demons," together with a host of names of other
" fabulous animals," as the- elder Mr. Weller denom-
inates them, ran through all- the mazes of
metaphorical confusion. It must be remembered.
that this was an age when female education had not
advanced so far as to enable -women to detect the
absurdity of such vapid-lip worship, so that it ap-
peared to them the language of truth and propriety.
An idea of female education at this time may
be gathered from the account, that a fashionable
woman was thought to be learned enough if she
could barely read and' write. In Scotland, we are
told, even many ladies of the highest rank could
, and some of them not read. If she could.
write without notoriously violating the common laws
of orthography, she was then in a condition to pass
for a wit.

not write

[These articles being CipyrigAt, the Author
the privilege offtirther publication 01'

serves t.) himself

anion.]

-do--

The China telegraph, mentions the reeeipt of 30 bales

Japanese silk.
The Times says it rs• reported that Sir B. Hall will be
raised to the peerage ; and that Mt. Wilson will be
appointed a mernheroleouncil in India..
To HOUSE Wives. —A marl dlwn east has invented
yellow spectacles for making lard look like batter. They
are a great s eying of-expense, if worn while eating.
A FAST Gong.—Will Grey, of Kentucky, is so swift of
foot, that, he is 9bliged to send his, shadow by rail aud
special train, for• it to keep pace with him.—Americana
Taper
M. Kossuth has.heen provided wit,h a passport by superior
order at' the Ftench Embissy, and. has left London for
formation of a Hungarian LegiOn has

Ciehoa, wh

been commenced.
A KNOWINtii DACHELOR.—" fine gobt lady's breast
pin,": is advertised as lost in an American paper. A
bachelor makes the inquiry if sha-is a single "gold lady,".
anclis willing to, he changed.
SARCABTIe: -" Did you present yo:ir acconnt to the
defendant ?•'' inquired a lawytnef his client. " I did, sir.'
"-And what did he say ?" "He told me to go to the devil."
"And what did you do iher..?.. "Why, then—l came to

On Thursday, in the Court of Queen's Bench, Mr.
Collier;. on behalf of Mr..Digby Seymour, applied for a
rule against the' Morning Iltroa: for libel, in reference to
his rote of last Saturday in the House of Commons. Lord
Campbell declined to grant the rule. •
LEG XL C frArldts.—The Daily News understands that
Lord' Cramworth has declined to fill the office of Lord Chief
Justice of England ; and that Lord Campbell will, in all
probability, he succeeded by Sir Alexander Cockburn, Chief
Justice of the Court,of•C

anation of a parochial
-., asking a class the meaning
swered very well till he gave "Backbiter."
'ler. It went down, down the class, tiy it
Dle little urchin, who looked sheepishly knowing,

ntlanan wa