The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-23 00:00:00

assuring him that it would be rejected, he said " We can
but fail, and then we retreat upon your lesser plan." My
fears proved well founded. Wo were defeated chiefly by
the influence of professional men with the members of our
committee. The plan was for the appointment of a joint
committee of the two houses, seven Commoners and five
Lords sitting, with the assistance of a professional judge to
rule, or at least to advise them, in matters of law, the com-
mittee to examine the whole case and report upon it to both
houses, the report to be conclusive upon all the facts, but
all else to be in:the discretion of each house, Tke last ses-
sion was productive of an important measure, propounded
by that steady friend of the working classes, whose zeal for
their benefit and their improvement is hardly surpassed by
his unrivalled eloquence, so often employed in diffusing
useful truths, as well as in supporting wise schemes of
policy. The great commercial treaty with France, his
work and that of the able and enlightened First Minister
of France, might be justly commemorated. But here at
York, where the gratitude of the working classes has
been expressed to him in so remarkable a manner, it
is fitter to dwell upon the important banefit extended
to these classes by their access to government annuities,
free from all risk, and without hazards to which life socie-
ties are subject. At our last congress, at Edinburgh, a
resolution was passed recommending to the council to ob-
tain a Parliamentary inqairy into the condition of provident
societies for the working classes, and the propriety of Go-
vernment security being afforded to them for annuities in
old age or sickness. The council referred the subject to a
committee, and in the meanwhile Mr Gladstone, by his bill,
anticipated the resolution of the committee. The council
presented a petition strongly urging the reasons in favour
of the bill, which after considerable opposition from in-
surance and annuity companies, was finally passed, An
attempt „was made in the Lords to carry a bill for shorten-
ing the period of limitation in simple contract debts, and
for extending equitable jurisdiction to the county courts,
and in so far the measure would have been most beneficial.
But it was coupled with a provision abolishing the power
of arrest for small debts, and as this would have at once
extinguished those most useful courts, and abolished all
local jurisdiction, the bill was strenuously opposed, and
could not have passed either house. These courts have
been of inestimable service. The causes before them have
increased, so as now to be in their number, and the amount
of the sums sued for, in the proportion of three to two,
comparing the years 1863 and 1865, and double the number
and amount at the establishment of the local judicature
seven years before. In 1863 the number of plaints was
above 800,000, and the sums sued for nearly £2,000,000.
The increase has been regular, and the judgments have
given such satisfaction that from the 260,000 last year in
contested suits, there were no more than 15 appeals. There
were above 170,000 judgments by consent, only 30,000
executions, and between 8,000 and 9,000 imprisonments, so
that of 800,000 suits in all about but seven per cent. the
matter was settled by payment or compromise. In the
supreme courts the same year the number of causes was
100,000, and the necessity of execution and imprisonment
for want, of settlement was not seven, but 23 per cent.
It was unfortunate that the excellent provisions in the bill
were lost with the rest, but it is to be hoped they are only
postponed, it was too late in the session to present another
bill, The continued withholding of a Department for Judi-
cial Affairs, after repeated promises in answer to motions of
our distinguished colleague, the ex-Chancellor of Ireland
(Mr Napier), is greatly to be lamented, on account of the
County Courts Bill, as well as others. Had such a depart-
ment existed the bill, reduced to its fit dimensions, must
have passed, as well as those further amendments in the law
of evidence and judicial procedure which late experience has
shown to be desirable, and which it is to be hoped will en-
gage the attention of our department of jurisprudence. The
exertions of our colleague Lord Clanricanle have at length
succeeded in extending to Ireland the system of judicial
statistics. He expects the return for the year to show a
great diminution in the real amount of litigation before the
superior courts, notwithstanding all attempts to increase
its nominal amount; for be justly observes that in so agri-
cultural a country the sessions are to the bulk of the people
the most important tribunal, An inquiry in the Commons
upon the health of towns as aff.cted by sewerage bee led to
a report of great importance, and the subject will be taken
up in our sanitary department. It appears clearly that the
process for cleansing towns has led to the greatest impurity
in streams, and the report shows incontestably that all
sewage may be conveyed into the country at a ..uoderate
cost, and even with a profit, by the farmers who purchase
the manure, At a tine when the supply of guano is found
less than the demand fur it, nothing can be more valuable
to agriculture than the process recommended by the report
as so beneficial to the health of towns. There can be little
doubt that the conclusion in the report will be strongly
recommended by our department, with the support of the
evidence brought before it. As the promoters of social
science travel more than others, we have an interest in the
subject frequently broached in both houses during the
session— the security of railway passengers, Consider-
ing the extraordinary powers given to the companies, the
Legislature has a good right to require that, in return, they
should w opt whatever may tend to the eafety of the travel-
ler; and there can be no doubt that the easy cornmunica•
time of each compartment with the guard can be effected at
a moderate expense. Ne subject has more engaged the at-
tention of our association in all its branches than the treat-
ment of convicts. At our first congress, in 1857, papers were
read on the Irish system ; and it formed next year the main
topic of the very able end interesting address by Lord Car-
lisle, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, as presiding over one of
the departments, We have at this meeting deeply to lament
his absence from ill health, which every triend of the
country must hope may have a short continuance. At the
Dublin Congress most of our members had an opportunity
of fully inspecting Sir W. Crofton's proceedings, and all
formed a decided orenion in his favour. Last year, some
alarm ,vas excited by the opposition in high quarters (com•
tenanced by the Home Office) to its introduction into
this country; but this was allayed by the reports of com-
mittees in both houses; and though similar attempts were
afterwards made in the same quarters, there is happily an
end of all doubt upon the matter by the Penal Servitude
Act of last session, which places the principle so strenuously
maintained by us beyond the reach of further disturbance.
The opposition of the Home-office is abandoned ; the act
enforces the most important of the recommendations in the
report of the commission and of Lord Carnarvon's commit-
tee, and that office has shown a praiseworthy disposition to
give up its former prtjudices and fairly and firmly to execute
the act, in the regulations issued under its provisions. The
controversy of years thus comes to an end, and convict treat-
ment is brought into agreement with the intentions of the
Legislature in 1853, or, in other words, the Irish system.
On this we may congratulate our worthy colleague, the Re.
corder of Birmingham (Mr Hill), who first among us
broached this subject inlBs7,having made himself acquainted
with the system upon the spot. Untortunately, ho is not here,
but he has sent an able and most instructive paper, which will
be read in the Jurisprudence Department, and of which ad-
vantage is now taken in this address. The treatment of con-
victs with the constant purpose of reforming them, deviating
neither into indulgence on the one hand nor unnecessary
harshness on the other, their supervision after their release,
both to protect the community against the danger of their re •
lease and themselves against unjust suspicion and consequent
prosecution, and to afford them some aid in obtaining em-
ployment under the all but overwhelming disadvantages
with which they return to society, to use Mr Hill's words,
are the principles now accepted—the principles of the Irish
system. Its success is proved by the experience of 11 years.
It has been approved by the mast eminent jurists of the
continent, and condemned by none. At their head must bo
placed our learned colleague, Professor Holtzendorff, of
Berlin, who joined us in the examination of Sir W. Crof-
ton's premises, at the Dublin congress. Next, we have the
approval of Professor Mittermaier, of Heidelberg ; M. Dau-
sus de Pontes has described it in the Revue des Deux
Itondes ; and Mr Van da 13rugger, Minister of Justice in
Holland, adopts it. M. Massongy, a French judge, who has
long studied the subject, pronounces strongly in Sir W.
Crofton's favour ; and M. Cavour had begun to act upon
the Irish system just before his lamented death. Professes.
Mittermaier's valuable Treatise on Capital Punishment,
translated, with valuable additions, by an English lawyer,
Mr Macrae Moir, is about to appear, but may be too late for
this congress. On the subject of capital punishment dis-
cussion is certain in our Jurisprudence Department, and
a respectable society under Mr Gurney has been oc-
cupied in circulating information, part of which has
reached us. No doubt the question of total abolition
is attended with difficulty; but on one point there can
be no difference of opinion, the necessity of an ex!-cution of capital sentences without suspicion that indi-
vidual caprice or popular interference exercises any in-
fluence, and such suspicion is sure to exist as long as there
are no judicial assessors to the Home Office in determining
questions of respite and reprieve. The establishment of a
department of justice would afford great facilities for such
an arrangement. The Act passed at the end of the session
to close refreshment houses between the hours of one and
four in the morning has had in London a most happy
effect in abating the nuisance which made some streets
impassable, and it is to be hoped that this success may
encourage the supporters of other measures connected
with temperance and moral habits. Men may differ widely
as to the measures fit to be taken. But that something
must be done 1 hero cannot be a doubt, when it is admitted
on all hands how great a proportion of the offences tried
in our courts proceed from intoxication, and when the
saying of the Recorder of Birmingham has passed into a
proverb, that let him go in what path he will in his labours
of philanthropy the drink demon starts up and stops the
way. This subject must be fully taken up by our Sanitary
Department, but also indeed by the Department of Juris-
prudence, and then will came into discussion ,the Permis-
sive Bill of Mr Lawson, which met with so indifferent a
reception in the Commons—partly no doubt from a feeling
in favonr of the working classes, grounded on most incor-
rect views of their best interests. That bill has beeh warmly
supported by those classes themselves both in Cumberland
and in this county. In connection with this subject, and in
reference to the comfort of the working classes, mention
must be made of the cooking depots established in ',Alden,
and of which notice was taken in the Club Institute at its
yearly meeting. It appears that the endeavours of the in-
stitute had been attended with success during the year,
a great number of clubs having been formed in various
parts of the country to the incalculable benefit of the la-
bouring people, the comfort of their homes, and the pro-

motion of education, as well as innocent amusement in the
evening of the labourer's day. The success of the cooking
depots was appropriately dwelt upon at the general meet-
ing, and accounts were received from our colleague, Mr B.
Jerrold, who had taken great pains :with their establish-
ment. The first of them was at Glasgow, and an excellent
one was set up in Edinburgh by Miss Catharine Sinclair.
It appeared that at the central depot, in New-cut, Lam-
beth, 1,500 working men daily dine—that for an excellent
meal of roast beef, vegetables, and soup only 6d. is paid ;
and the establishment is self-supporting, inasmuch as after
every expense is paid there is a net profit of 20 per cent. on
the capital. The promoters of social science, friends of the
working classes, can desire nothing more than the multi-
plication of such establishments, of which steps have been
taken to form 18 or 20 in London, and it is devoutly to be
hoped that the like steps may be taken in the provinces.
The importance has more than once been considered at ow
congress of introducing into this country the decimal and
metrical system now so universally prevailing on the Conti-
nent ; and its importance is regarded not merely with a view
to facility of accounts in our extended commercial dealings
with foreign countries, but also with regard to its advan-
tages in education. It appears by Mr Chadwick's state-
ment, from his communication with numberless teachers
in various parts of the country, that the result is to obtain
a saving equal to between a third and a half of the time
taken to teach pupils arithmetic. As this is reckoned
three quarters of an hour daily, the benefit of the saving to
the working classes is manifest, even on the half time sys-
tem, now it is to be hoped generally adopted. The Weights
and Measures Bill, moved by our colleague Lord Fortescue,
though opposed in the Lords, was carried by a very con-
siderable majority, and the Act is passed. It is only per-
missive and confined in its extent ; but it is a step in the
right direction, and will inevitably be made general, and be
universally adopted. But with all the care taken for the
working classes, for promoting their comfort and furthering
their improvement, shall nothing be done, even when we
find them improved, to increase their weight in the come
munity, by extending their influence on public affairs—in a
word, by lowering the elective franchise and admitting a
larger number to concur in the choice of our representa-
tives ? Every one must remark how constant the occur-
rence is of the poll having a very different result from the
show of hands. Can nothing be done to bring them nearer
together ? Is it impossible so to arrange that the person
returned by the show of hands should sit unless the poll
exceeded by a certain proportion the first return ? This
would give the voters a very decided preponderance, but
without denying the existence of the more numerous class.
But whatever difference of opinion may prevail upon the
extension of the franchise there can be none upon the evil
effects of corruption and the absolute necessity of freeing
the community from that which is injurious to its most
important interests—above all, to its morals. The desire
to have a seat in Parliament is such that all risk of
costs is willingly encountered, and the punishment of
fine or imprisonment without hard labour is not suffi ient
to deter the candidate or his agent, who yet would not
expose themselves to the risk of the treadmill. The
slave trade flourished under the pecuniary penalties of fine
and forfeitures, but when it was made felony the crime en-
tirely ceased. Men would run the risk of losing ship and
cargo, because the profits of a successful voyage made them
whole after a forfeiture; but the risk of transportation they
would not run, and the crime ceased at once and for ever to
disgrace the country. So would bribery at elections were
the treadmill the punishment, and a public prosecutor ap-
pointed, as has become necessary on every account, listless
we desire to see our criminal law continue to be most imper-
fectly administered. The bill for awarding this punishment
was introduced into the House of Lords so late in the ses•
sion that when Sir Fitzroy Kelly took it up in the House
of Commons, with the important addition of requiring a
declaration to be made by every member, on taking his seat,
that he believed no illegal expense had been incurred by him
or his agents (a provision which could not well be intro-
duced in the Lords), it was found impossible to pass the bill
before the prorogation. The prospect of immediate disso-
lution being no longer in view, the postponement of the
measure till next session was less to be regretted. The
effect of the declaration proposed by our distinguished col-
league, Sir John Pakingtun, would be very great; for, as
the Lord Chief Justice Cockburn observed when he intended
himself to move such a provision, no man of the least re-
gard for his character could make it when he knew what
sums he had expended himself, or by his agents, in corrup-
tion. If the Commons really wish to prevent bribery, as
we are bound to admit they do, notwithstanding all rumours
to the contrary, they will take care to pass a bill with this
provision. It is satisfactory to find, as the Lords' committee
did upon municipal elections, that the persons guilty of
corruption at these as well as parliamentary elections, are,
generally speaking, of the mostignorant classes—those who
never read at all. But whatever may lately have been done
by the legislature, or left undone, for the working classes,
it is clear that they possess the power of doing much for
themselves, and that happily they are resolved on pro-
viding for their own advancement in all respects, for
bettering their condition, and for acquiring the time and
the means for their moral improvement. This is by the co-
operative plan, now so universally adopted, and which since
our last congress has made such steady progress. The
yearly report cf that excellent and most able officer, Mr
Tidd Pratt, has been made, and is most cheering. It shows
that there are in England and Wales 454 co-operative so-
cieties, and though of these 74 have made no returns, either
from neglect or from having been too recently established,
of the other 331 the number of members is 108,588, of whom
22,732 were admitted in 1863, only 11,353 having been
withdrawn. The amount paid for goods was £2,370,153,
the sums received for goods £2,626,741, leaving a profit of
£213,`43. The whole expense for wages, rent, repairs, Sec.
was f 176,5.14. The account which we have received since
Mr Tidd Pratt's report (which comes down to December,
1863) shows a very considerable increase during the present
year, in numbers, capital, and transactions. The profits are
divided in proportion to the shares held by each member;
and it is most satisfactory to find that the sums withdrawn
were tar less in 1863 than in 1862, the relief from distress,
which caused the withdrawing of these sums, having been
much less considerable in consequence of the improvement
of trade. Tho principle in almost all cases is, " No trust,
no debt"—and the only exceptions are when from sickness
or other infirmity individuals are assisted by others, and
repay the small sums thus advanced. The whole manage-
ment of these concerns is in the hands of the workmen
themselves, and the gains are for the moat part accumulated
so as to form a small capital, which is generally employed
in the productive branches of co-operation. But the great
bulk of these societies are the stores, for the purchase and
sale of the goods consumed by the members. The profits are
thus earned in proportion to consumption, and a most
pleasing part of their appropriation in very many instances
is the provision made for education, by the purchase of
books and journals, and the support of reading-rooms. But
a most important step has been lately taken, which in its
consequences promotes co-operation in a degree almost in-
calculable—the establishment of wholesale stores, the
purchase and sale by general agency. For this great
improvement we are indebted to Mr Greenwood, of Rocht-
dale, who having observed the failure of former attempts to
establish such an agency, devised the plan, which after being
submitted to a conference, held in March, 1863, of delegates
from almost all the societies in Lancashire and Yorkshire,
was adopted by their unanimous concurrence, and is now in
active operation. An office is established in Manchester,
and the whole expense, including the purchase and sale of
the goods, is defrayed by a small contribution from the
members of the societies in connection with the office. All
the goods required by the societies are bought of the great
dealers, and sent by them at the cost of the receivers. The
goods are thus of the best quality and at the lowest prices.
The societies are of course required to confige their pur-
chases to the central agency, which, buying perhaps for 158
stores, can afford to charge a very small commission from
each. Mr Greenwood's estimate was grounded on the actual
consumption of 3,500 persons of the Rochdale Pioneers, and
this made the amount consumed by 40,000 persons equal to
£524.000 a quarter of groceries. He reckons on 2s 6d for
each member in these counties, which would yield £5,000,
a sum amply sufficient for all the expenses of the central
establishment and agency. Great as the step has been there
is besides a remarkable increase in the number of co-opera-
tive societies and of their members. Instead of 332 societies
with 90,000 members in 1862, we have now, for 1863, 454,
with 108,000 members, and the sums paid for goods have
risen from £2,300,000, with a profit of £145,000, to
£2,600,000 with £213,000 profit by the comparison of the
last two years. But since December, when Mr Tidd
Pratt's accounts were made up, we have received returns
for August, which show that the increase has gone on this
year more quickly. It is impossible to doubt that much
is due to the unremitting and powerful exertions of Mr
Pitman, and to the journal so ably conducted by him—
the Co-operator, But he has been indefatigable in his la-
bours,having gone round the country to deliver lectures on
what may truly be called self-help to working-men ; teach-
ing them the uses of co-operation, and having ever in view
the paramount duty of exciting men to work out their own
improvement by helping themselves. It is to be hoped that
we shall have the great benefit of his presence at this con-
gress, and among various subjects to be discussed at our
section of Social Economy there is one which his experience
and his intimate acquaintance with the working classes
renders him peculiarly fit to handle—the proper distribu-
tion of profits in concerns of productive industry. Some
have contended that the distribution should follow no rule,
but the apportionment to each person according to his
wages ; others that it should depend entirely on the capital
employed ; while between these two extremes it may be
hoped that a middle course might be found, so as to give a
share both to the labour of the workman and the capital by
which it is put in motion. The extension of co-operation
to farm labour has been continued since last year, as we
shall find from Mr Garden's statements. Tho incalculable
benefits of co-oeeration to the comfort and independence of
thAworking classes are even surpassed by the advantage
which the community derives from the reconcilement to
each other of the different bodies that compose it. ' There
no longer prevail the feuds which most of us remember to
have set against each other the master and the workman,
the middle and the humbler classes. We shall soon outlive
all strikes of men and combinations of their employers in
self defence; and the time will never more return which
Drought a special assize to this great county for the trial of
outrages not only upon property hut life; and although
doubtless the progress of the people in education and moral

improvement has mainly served to bring them into mutual
amity by the great progress of co-operative industry. To
this is the whole happiness as well as improvement of the
people due—
" Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Life in these words—health, peace, and competence,
But health consists in temperance alone,
And peace, oh virtue, peace is all thine own."
But if from surveying the progress of Social Science at
home we turn our eye to foreign countries, the view is by no
means so gratifying. There has not been that advance in
constitutional systems which we were happy to commee
morate at our last congress, and in some states the changes
have been for the worse. There appears a determination in
the two great powers of Germany to resist all constitutional
improvements as tending to revolution, and in their own
dominions everything is withheld from the people which it
is safe to withhold. In the smaller principalities the love
of foreign war has suspended all internal reform. The
kingdom of Italy is making very useful changes in its ad-
ministrative syste:n, adopting an improved taxation, and
establishing such an effective peace as may relieve its
southern provinces 'from the banditti, whom the exiled
family, protected by the Roman Pontiff, continues to en-
courage and support. It is certain that as long as France
maintains an army atßome the tranquillity of Naples may
be secured by orders from Paris. The sufferings of Poland
under Russian oppression have been already adverted to ;
and, reprehensible as the imperial proceedings have been)
we are bound to admit as an exception the Emperor's conduct
towards the working classes in his own country. He has
firmly and successfully persisted in the great measure of serf
emancipation, and his merit has been the more remarkable
because he had to contend with the universal opposition of
the landowners, In France some important changes have
been wrought in the law and in the constitution of the pro-
vincial councils, It is proposed to restrict the imprisonment
of debtors to cases where there has been fraud or gross ex•
travagance and carelessness; and a code of bankrupt laws
is preparing, somewhat on the model of our own; the great
errors of which committed recently it is to be hoped will
be avoided. There have been material improvements in
the departments of public instruction, the most useful of
which is the giving prizes to any persons who have left
school and been employed in labour, but retain the know-
ledge they had acquired, it being a common charge against
poor schools that the pupils soon forgot all they had learned,
A very useful association has for two years been established
for international instruction by the exertions of M, E.
Rendu, the good effects of which are to be seen in the school
of St. Germain-en-Laya. But no exertion has been given
to popular influence in any way whatever; and there have
been prosecutions, that more especially of our distinguished
colleague, M. Gamier Pages, and his friends, the judgment
in which, if upon appeal found to be sanctioned by law,
shows the absolute necessity of that law being repealed,
unless the marvellous discovery of a courtly duke be con-
sidered as founded on fact, that the French aro incapable of
more liberty than they at present enjoy, granted them by
the Imperial Government. It is pleasing to observe the late
elections and their consequences in a very small country
having the inestimable benefit of a free constitution, as well
as most wise and able rulers, the Belgian kingdom, where
the greatest progress has also been made in all branches of
industry. The elections have been in favour of the Liberal
party, and have frustrated all the attempts of the bigoted
adherents of Rome, yet without the least scope being given
to intolerance, as is shown at the Catholic Congress of Ma-
tinee, attended by men of the most distinguished station, and
addressed in some of their speeches upon subjects which no
one would have ventured to approach at Berlin, Vienna, or
Paris. A most excellent practice has been introduced by
our Foreign Office, of requiring the secretaries of legation at
different courts to make a yearly report of the changes in
commercial, and generally the economic, measures during
the year. The volumecontaining these reports for 1853 has
appeared, and is contains a body of most important informa-
tion. One head may be referred to as an example. The report
of Mr Layton upon Switzerland gives an account of a most
admirable institution for the education of female servants,
which has been attended with perfect success, and shows
how that problem may bo solved which the late Prince
Consort was so anxious about, and which Mrs Baines, it is
to be hoped, will enable our Department of Economy to dis-
cuss with the advantage of her great experience and know-
ledge of the subject. That this country will ever be ready to
benefit by the experience of other nations no one can doubt.
We should be worse than spoilt children were we to justify
the taunts occasionally thrown out by foreigners. We
should be like those princes in despotic States, one of whom
asked the bishop, his tutor, when reading the French his-
tory with him, and that it was said the king died in such a
year, " What," said the prince, "do kings die then ?"
"Sometimes," was the bishop's courtly and cautious an-
swer. The Americana indulge in the taunt at our expense;
we are unable to retaliate; for their nationalvanity, apemen*,
ing to disease, is coupled with so rational a regard to their
interest that they are the first to adopt, and often to-con-
tinue, the improvements of other countries. And now what
a scene of misery and of crime does their recent history and
present condition present to the friends of social science,
more horrid than any case known in modern, let us say
Christian times; and with this sad peculiarity, that the
whole people, instead of merely permitting, as in other
cases, the crimes of their rulers, are themselves the active
and willing agents in the work of merciless slaughter— of
such wholesale bloodshed as never before disgraced the
name of man. 't Qua est iota tam infesta ira, quam per tot
acies, fusus sanguis expleri non potuerit ? Adui hue popu-
letionem agrorum ; incendia villarum ac ruinas omnia ferro
ignique vastata, hiscene ira expleri non potuit ? (Liv. vii.
30) How the blame for the three horrors should be distri-
buted, it boots not to inquire. Some good men have been
deceived by the notion that slavery is the cause of the war
—duped by the pretext that the North fights to free the
slave, whereas their emancipation edict was a mere belli •
gerent measure, and an after-thought ; they (as Bishop
Wilberforce said) caring no more for the freedom of
the black than they do for that of the white. But it
has been reserved for the later act of the tragedy to see that
government, when destitute of other troops, drive herds of
the unhappy negroes to slaughter, with no more remorse
than sportsmen feel in clearing a preserve. Yet certain
though it be that the North did not make war to free the
slave, and that this could not have entered into their consi-
deration when they began the contest for preventing the
secession, it is no less certain that the maintenance of slavery
—their detestable institution—was partly the object of the
South in fighting for their independence ; and the friend of
humanity, although feeling that we are not entitled to re-
quire a more sudden emancipation than we ourselves effected
in our colonies, may yet earnestly hope that out of this
cruel contest and its countless evils, the mercy of an all-
ruling Providence may draw the good, contemplated by
neither party, of giving freedom to the slave. But whatever
difference of opinion may prevail regarding the origin of
this frightful chit war, there can be none as to the duty im-
posed on other nations of not taking part with either belli-
gerent; and in this country individuals were most properly
warned by proclamation against enlisting in either army,
the enforcement of the Foreign Enlistment Act being held
out as certain. Every British subject is liable to its penal-
ties who so enlist, and that which is now a misdemeanour
was formerly a felony, at one time punishabto with death.
All who serve in the army of either party are guilty, and
may be prosecuted in the Court of Queen's Bench as if
their enlistment had been in an English county. Therefore
the North makes war upon the South by troops composed
in part of persons liable to prosecution for the offence of
enlisting, and it was one of the gravest charges upon
George 111. that he employed German mercenaries against
the independence of America, though these Germans were
guilty of no offence in hiring themselves to the service.
The poor Irish who thus sell themselves break the law
of their own country in order to perpetuate in America all
the crimes of civil war. We aro now in York, the birth-
p'_ace, it is commonly believed, of the first Christian
Emperor, Constantine, who declared the Gospel the
religion of the State. It is lamentable to think that to
this capital there has penetrated the unbelief which is one
of the great misfortunes of the present day, prevailing
much more on the Continent than in these islands, by the
elaborate and subtle efforts of its victims, yet somewhat to
be deplored among ourselves. The friends of religion very
justly complain of the mode and manner of these attacks,
that they are not plain and open, but cover:: and insidious,
casting doubts and raising suspicions, without such a direct
assault as the religion itself might meet and repel; nay
sometimes proceedings from persons who avow their be-
lief, but would reduce the subject of it to such dimensions
as left it unstable and incapable of defence. There are,
however, more open assailants ; and it is strange to find
that while a body directing these are actually distributing
tracts, conducting a periodical work, and holding meetings
for debate, both in the southern counties and even as far
north as Edinburgh, there should be found at the same time
propagators of spiritual visions, in which, as extremes often-
times meet, those are prone to believe who have faith in
nothing else. Although some of the most zealous of those
subject to these delusions fancy that true religion gains by
them as affording proofs of another world's existence, it is
certain that the bulk of those who believe in spiritualism,
in communications from remote regions of the earth, and
even from beyond the grave, are utter disbelievers in all
religion natural and revealed, unhappy persons in whom
the works of the Creator which surround them fail to raise
a thought of the almighty power. wisdom, and goodness,
and to whom the revealed will of God is addressed in vain.
It becomes us to regard such opinions with pity, as far as
they are sincere, abstaining from all expression of vitupe-
ration, difficult as it may be to avoid blaming those who,
by propagating such delusions, would unsettle men's faith
in one system without even affecting to put anything in
its place. But we of the association hold fast by our
own opinions, hart led down with the sanction of the
names most venerated in all the walks of all the sciences,
held indeed by the most respec'ed and beloved
and deeply lamented of our own body. Death
has since our last congress visited us with irreparable losses,
of which may well be noticed that of our excellent Profes-
sor Pillow, one of the most able, learned, and pious of men,
and that of Sir W. Brown, whose munificence, almost un-
exampled in modern times, bestowed upon the working
classes in Liverpool their rich library and the great struc-
ture for their meetings—the friend of all sects, bestowing
his generosity alike to them without any distinction, though
every one knew how firmly held were his own principles of
religion as well as policy, though tempered by forbearance
towards whoever differed with him on either. The loss of
Lord Lyndhurst also betel us at the very cl9O of