The Sun.
London, England, 1865-08-23 00:00:00

Pacified Poland.

The following is part of an interesting letter,
dated the 9th and 10th August, communicated to us
by a friend of Poland belonging to this country.
The letter is from a Pole, and gives a touching
description of the many distresses to which patriots
still in Poland, Lithuania, &c., continue to be sub-
jected by the unabated tyranny of Russia, Prussia,
and Austria :

" When I last met you my thoughts were much oc-
cupied with the melancholy news from my country.
In fact each day tells of new persecutions directed
against the families of the emigrants, who are interest-
ing themselves in the fate of their countrymen in exile.
Different pretexts are made for imprisoning them, send-
ing them to Siberia, or oppressing them in various
ways. When no other pretence can be found, the false
denunciation of a Russian agent, or revolutionary
placards affixed by the Russian police itself, are
employed--the source being easy to recognise from the
language being full of Muscovite expressions and phrases
foreign to our language. I have received several letters
from young exiles, who write to me in despair at the per-
secutions which their families undergo intheir own country,
for this reason only that they have a father, a brother, a
husband, a son, or some other member of the family among
the emigrants. Besides this, secret agents are sent to other
countries, whose mission is to sow discord among the emi-
grants, to intrigue against them, acting so as to prevent
their obtaining any employment or means of subsistence.
It is by means of these infernal subterranean intrigues
that they have succeeded in obtaining the dismissal of 20
emigrants who had found occupation on one of the rail-
ways in France, and who were dismissed ono morning
sudden without a reason, given. They culminate in-
dividuals, they excite passions, they raise discord, they
sow mistrust among us, they endeavour to plunge
each of us in misery, so as to succeed by this means in
breaking the bond which unites the patriots—to divide
them and kill them morally. And it is not the Russians
only who distinguish themselves by these ignoble machi-
nations, but also the other two Powers which have torn
Poland to pieces. Only lately, we were informed, that,
following the inspiration of Russia, Austria, which at the
present moment seeks to throw liberal powder in the eyes
of Europe, sent on the 4th of May a secret agent, Andre
Mikuli, formerly an officer of Austrian cavalry, provided
with several passports for different names, with the object
of sowing discord among the emigrants, and of trying to
weaken the sympathy of the nations for the Polish cause.
Recent news comes to me also of a failure of corn and
grain, and of an impending famine, both owing to this
cause, and to the conflagration of towns and villages, prac-
tised upon a great scale by Russia by means of organised
bands of evildoers in order finally to devastate the coun-
try, and by these Tartar-like measures to compel the in-
habitants to transport themselves into the distant Russian
province. The Ruthenian provinces (that is to say, Podo-
lia, Volhynia, and the Ukraine), and more especially
Lithuania, are the scenes of this barbarous devastation. In
many localities the inhabitants have caught the Russian
soldiers with torches and packets of inflammable matter ;
they have given them into the hands of the Muscovite
authorities, who have allowed them to escape from the pri-
sons. Out of a great number of these malefactors caught
by the inhabitants in the criminal act, there was only one
soldier shot, but the Russian papers denied that he was
shot as an incendiary, saying that it was for having struck
his commanding officer. It is believed that, besides the de-
vastation of the country and depopulation of its native in-
habitants, the Russians have yet another object. The
papers have even spoken of it ; that the peasants of the
confiscated lands in Poland, during these last times, not
wishing to belong to the Crown, have rather preferred
burning their own houses and viilages than to see those in
the employment of the Russians installed there. This has
produced a lively sensation among all classes. To prevent
this having evil consequences for the Government, to turn
away 'the Russians' attention from the real cause, they
have themselves begun to burn the towns and villages
that had been under the nobles. This may perhaps be true,
for the fact is proved that the Muscovite Government
tolerates and excites clandestinely these conflagrations. I
am also informed that in the schools they create innume-
rable difficulties in the examinations, to prevent the young
ones being able to advance into the upper class. When
any one has not so advanced, they force him to quit the
school, not granting him permission to enter another, so
as to cut off from him all road to instruction. By such
means this year, after the annual examination before the
holidays, they succeeded in sending away about nine-
tenths of the youth frequenting the schools. You may
imagine the despair* of these poor young people,
and of the parents who have no means of giving education
to their children; for it must be observed that, besides the
public schools of the Government, there are no private esta-
blishments which are not strictly prohibited by the ukases
of the Czar. I say nothing of the fresh transportation of
unfortunate prisoners to Siberia, and to the works of the
1 fortresses, for these are ordinary well-known occurrences,
which continue to be repeated daily, and of which we can-
not foresee the end. The civilised world will not believe
in all these infernal machinations, because they seem too
ignoble, too degrading ; besides, the Russian policy consists
in denying all, and deceiving all the world. They say the
contrary, and pay numerous agents and papers, which de-
fend them, and relate false facts ; but I can assure you, by
all I hold most sacred, that I have not added one word to
the confidential information I have received, and I might
even cite the persons and places, if this would not give
occasion to new prosecutions. . . . Among other things I
am told that quite recently they have sent to Siberia from
the provinces called Ruthenian (Volhynia, Podolia, and the
Ukraine) 150 persons, and that there are several parties of
prisoners who are destined to follow the same route by
Kiev. They have fixed a fresh tax of 5 per cent. Besides
this, they have diminished by one-half the indemnifica-
tion for the lands given to the peasants, which makes
a loss of a sixth at least on the property of each Polish
proprietor possessing lands. Then, again, a fresh tax,
and this is the way in which they make it ;—During
the last two years the Russians had employed in each
village guards composed of peasants, four, eight, twelve, 1
or oven more men, according to the size and number of
the roads crossing each village. These men were
armed with pikes and scythes. The duty of these
guards was to stop any one entering the village, and to
lead him before the village police, who vised his pass-
port and left him, or arrested him to send him before a
Russian employe in the city, according as the traveller
might appear to them suspicious or not, or simply according
to the humour he might be in; for each man in going oven
to his neighbour must be provided with a passport, which
ho must constantly keep. You may imagine what an enor-
mous waste of time—what a delay in tbe ufsoi no
found,
sd, s —f
oNry hbeen
doone one
is obliged to pass through several villages in one day,
especially if the policeman is not to o

The latent malignity which always co-exists with vanity
was never more clearly illustrated than in these Holborn
and Ramsgate murders. The key to those crimes, and to
the whole history of their perpetrator, is simply diseased
vanity, vanity of that extreme kind that it hates every hu-
man being who will not gratify it. Throughout his known
career, in the wild autobiography which he published in
April, 1864, in his applications to the police to make Sir
Bulwer Lytton inquire into his "attributes," in the papers
which he insisted on reading before the magistrates of
Ramsgate, Stephen Forwood has been consistent. The
world, which would not acknowledge his greatness, give
him the chance of revealing his latent powers, enable him
to rise to some pleasant ledge where he could stand idle
and let all below admire, was a world out of gear, a stupid
world, even, as he became ulcerated by delay and hardship,
a criminal world, to be taken by the throat and punished,
and forced to perform its first duties. To make the recog-
nition of his merits easier, Stephen Forwood, insolvent
baker of profligate habit and some trace of that education
which makes men write puffy letters, and use words like
"baneful" and " uncongenial," and " the mournful requiem
of all earthly joy," took the name of Ernest Southey. With
the same object he adopted the trade of billiard sharper
and writer of begging letters, not because he thought bil-
liard sharping or begging right, but because right and
wrong seemed to him trivialities when compared with
the moral duty which he owed to mankind of getting
money enough to secure himself fair play. It is related of
a Swiss employed by the Empress Catherine to kill her
husband, that he took the money earned by his crime, went
home, and lived ever afterwards a worthy citizen, noted
for his benevolence and scientific acquirements. After his
death a paper was published, written by him to reveal both
his crime and his motive. He had always, he said, been a
good man. He had never done a wrong thing save only
this murder, and he had done that because he had found
that to live a good life, to have hill possession as it were of
one's self and one's soul, it is essential to have some inde-
pendent means. So he turned assassin for an hour to earn
the gold which was to make him philanthropist for a life.
Forwood's logic was of the same kind, but somewhat baser.
He did not want to be a good man, but to be acknowledged
as a great one. " What I have suffered," he says in the
autobiography, "has made me, who was a common, an un-
common man, and has taught me to live not for life, but for
its aims." That idea is not an unfrequent one, particularly
among men with just enough wit to bo self-conscious, and
not enough to use the self-consciousness for purposes of
comparison, but it did not bring to Forwood its usual con-
sequence—a conceited content. Usually the man who be-
lieves himself superior to his soundings becomes rather sar-
castic and depreciatory, or good-humouredly tolerant of his
inferiors' better luck. But Forwood wanted before allthings
to make his " uncommonness " manifest, could not be
content with being anything unless he also seemed to be.
He says he sought money by "play" in order to provide
for the woman he had seduced—whose life he meanwhile
made so miserable that she hid herself away from him ; for
the children—whom he quietly, and as it were scientifically,
put to death with prussic acid ; and for the legitimate wife
—whose brains he sprinkled on the floor. He really sought
it only for himself, confident that once possessed of it he
could force the world to acknowledge that his self-estimate
was correct. "Even in billiards I reasoned that I could
there she yr to men of position and power that I was go-
verned by principles and aims which were worthy of bet--
ter employment, and I then engaged to conduct a billiard
establishment." "I have the courage," ho writes, "to do
this duty to society, and I ask in return that society shall
do its duty to me." If it will not, then a "private misfor-
tune may become a public calamity." Judging from this
hint, and from another in a statement made after the exa-
mination before the magistrates, we imagine that
For wood contemplated for some time the assassi-
nation of some distinguished statesman, probably
of Lord Palmerston, as to him the most con-
spicuous. The theory in his mind evidently was that so-
ciety was a personal foe, who owed him money, and who,
not paying it, must be taught in some striking way that
every wrong brings some retribution on the wrong-doer.
Not having the power to spread pestilence, or fire the me-
tropolis, or produce an earthquake, or inflict any striking
injury 9u the whole body, it remained to affect and injure
it all by killing ono of its most valuabfb members. Then
the world would have sat iu sackcloth and ashes mourning
over its own wrong-doing, over, as it appeared to Forwood,
its own criminality which had produced this necessary
fruit; might even—for vanity is capable of all things—
have made a tardy restitution, and given Stephen Forwood
a reward instead of a gallows. "I am an innocent man,"
he exclaims even now, "and I will not be photographed ;"
and in a burst of irrepressible conceit asks, " Is there none
who can read what must be the formation of a mind which
could, under its own strong sense of right, offer up for
theirs and the public good the lives of others for whom he
had lived and faithfully struggled through many years
of the bitterest suffering." Somebody, we suspect,
whom the world would have missed has, as Forwood hints,
had a terribly narrow escape. A man whose mind has
been ulcerated by dwelling for years on his own virtues
and the hideous ingratitude of society is just of the temper
which political assassins have always displayed.
The ultimate direction of the murderous desire developed
by this indulged vanity was probably suggested by Mrs.
White's departure. Forwood seems to have formed a
connection with this woman before her marriage, to have
continued it during her marriage—Mr. White talks of
being the "putative father" of his children—and to have
at last taken her to live with him. When his ill-treat-
ment, as he says, compelled her to fly, his vanity, once
more outraged, suggested that he might include his ven-
geance on her and society in a single blow, and after un-
availing threats to Mrs. White of horrible consequences to
follow her non-return, and an endeavour, happily frus-
trated, to seize her last child, he framed a plan of massacre
every step of which displays cool, deliberate forethought.
Ho had first to obtain possession of the children, who were
with their "putative" father, and this he did by represent-
ing that Mrs. White was about to emigrate, and wished to
take them with her. The father, who did not believe
them to be his own, but knew them to be his wife's,
readily gave them up, and Forwood took them to the little
coffee house in Red Lion street, and there, in a cool, de-
liberate, almost thoughtful way, gave each of them a
spoonful of prussic acid, killing them almost instanta-
neously. Ho ought, he thought, to maintain them ;
society, blind to its duty, would not by recognising
greatness enable 'him to perform his ; he would punish
society by showing the alternative it had compelled
him to embrace. The guilt, of course, fell to society, of
which he was only the agent and the victim. He
next bethought himself of those others whom also he was
bound to maintain. Mrs. White he could not get at, for he
did not know whore she was, but he could get at his own
wife, a quiet, decent woman, maintaining herself and his
child at Ramsgate by assisting a dyer. Putting on a false
moustache and whiskers lest ho should be arrested before
his work was done--or was it from some secret conscious-
ness that his vanity was lying all through, and that he
should wish to fly, and so leave society anwarned ?—he
went to Ramsgate, obtained an interview with his wife, shot
her and his child, and when seized by the dyer confessed
that he had murdered three children. Before the magis-
trates he exhibited the same vanity, read papers declaring
himself a social victim, specified well-known men as crimi-
nals because they had declined to do their duty by sending
money in answer to begging letters, and loudly complained
that the prison authorities would not let him read the jour-
nals, which were sure to contain comments to which he
should like to reply. Even in prison, with five murders
upon his hands and the prospect of a shameful death before
him, the diseased vanity of the criminal is stung with the
idea that he has not at the last compelled society to recog-
nise how right he was, how wrong all other men, how just
•a retribution itself had suffered for the crime of compelling
him to work for his bread.—The Spectator.

AN ELOPEMENT.—The Liverpool correspondent of
the Scotsman tells a curious story. A gentleman of
that town having made several successful hits in blockade
running, went abroad to settle his affairs, leaving his young
wife in a fashionably furnished house in Liverpool. The
lady is described as possessing great personal attractions,
and is only 20 years of ago. At the beginning of this month
the gentleman returned, and two days afterwards his wife
disappeared. An ex-detective officer was employed, and if
the story bo true, has succeeded in partly unravelling ono of
the most singular cases of elopement ever brought to light.
Some six months back the lady gave out that she was going
on a visit to some friends in London ; but instead of this
it seems she engaged herself as barmaid at a noted tavern
in Manchester, where a certain commercial gentleman from
London was in the habit of frequenting. The pretty bar-
maid and the commercial gentleman left Manchester for
Liverpool together, and two days after the faithless fair
one had rejoined her husband she eloped with her Man-
chester lover. They were traced to London, and there the
clue was lost.—Birmingham Post.

P.DvEßTlsEmENT.l—Holloway's Ointment and Pills.—
Unerring Precision.—When the health is breaking down
from the continuance of some weakening discharge, when
ulcers refuso to heal, and extending mischief is threatened,
then is the time to try the potency of Holloway's healing
ointment and purifying pills. No treatment for giving
ease and safely leading to a cure can be compared to this.
The ointment cleans and cools the foulest and most angry
sores, diminishes the inflammation, reduces the swelling,
prevents the growth of proud flesh, and spares both pain
and danger. Thousands testify from their own personal
experience to the unvarying success attending the use of
Holloway's medicaments in cases of ulcerated legs, en-
larged veins, scurfy skin, and swelled ankles.

TIMES.—An unusual episode at the Liverpool
Assizes deserves some passing attention. Upon the
jury taking their seats in the box on Monday, a
Quaker, who was among their number, kept his hat
on. This irregularity disturbed the equanimity of
the Judge, Mr. Baron Bramwell, and he requested
the removal of the hat. The Quaker urged that
conscience compelled him to keep it on. The Judge
replied that " conscience no more compelled him to
keep his hat on than it did his shoes, and that he
must have respect for others," and threatened to
fine him .ElO if he did not take off the hat. "It is
a reverence for the Almighty," said the juryman,
which compels me to keep it on." " Don't be non-
sensical," retorted the Judge ; " your reason is dis-
creditable to common sense." The Quaker persisted,
and the Judge at length fined him £lO and ordered
him to leave the box. " Any person," he added,
" with such nonsense in his head is not fit to sit upon
a jury. I shall call upon him again to-morrow, and
if he still persists in his nonsense I shall fine him
again." This is a singular scene for the present day,
and one could hardly have believed that it was still
possible for a man to be fined £lO because he held
it a point of conscience to. wear his hat in a court of
justice. There are few places, perhaps, where old
forms and ceremonies have lingered so long as in
Courts of Law; but one might have thought such a
piece of punctiliousness as this beyond even the
most scrupulous observer of customs " whereof the
memory of man runneth not to the contrary." In
this instance, such scrupulosity is peculiarly absurd,
for if the juryman had succumbed to the judicial
remonstrance, and by taking his hat off had re-
tained his seat in the box, he would immediately
have proceeded to assert a peculiarity of far greater
importance, in which he would have been dis-
tinctly protected by the law. Being a Quaker,
he would, of course, have objected to be sworn,
and Baron Bramwell would then have been
obliged, in obedience to an express statute, to
accept his affirmation in place of his oath. When
the law has thus expressly recognised and allowed
the scruples of Quakers in a matter of real im-
portance, there is not only an absurdity, but even
an impropriety, in the representative of the law re-
fusing to respect a far more insignificant scruple.
But the judge appears equally unfortunate in all the
observations by which he justified his proceedings.
" Conscience," he told the man, " no more com-
pelled him to keep his hat on than it did his shoes."
This is a mere equivocation, and in the ordinary
sense of the words is simply contrary to the fact.
When we speak of conscience, we mean individual
conscience, and no general principles of right and
wrong. Every man has some peculiarities of con-
cience, just as he has pecularities of digestion and
of ways of thought. Baron Bramwell has some
ways of thinkingpeculiarto himself, and is no doubt
conscientious about some points on which his neigh-
bours feel no scruples at all ; but the fact that their
consciences allow them to do a certain thing does
not alter the fact that his conscience forbids him to
do it. The Quaker's conscience did not compel him
to keep his hat on. It is a mere matter of fact. The
conscience may be a very silly conscience, but it is
a conscience nevertheless. Just so with the sam-
mary reply, " Don't be nonsensical." A judge
ought to have known that such an observation was
as much beside the mark as it was unbecoming the
courtesy of the bench. He must have heard of
Quakers before, and must have known perfectly
well that they have no intention of being " nonsen-
sical," but pretend to justify their peculiarities, and
among them this one of keeping on their hats, upon
reasonable grounds. Their sense is not the general
sense, or, in other words, it is not common sense,
but they believe it to be sense nevertheless. Indeed,
if we discussed the abstract sense of the matter, we
should be half inclined to take the Quaker's side ;
for there is certainly more to be said for a Quaker's
hat than a Judge's wig. But, in fact, there would
be just as much reason in calling a Quaker " non-
sensical" for refusing to be sworn as for keeping his
hat on, and in either case such an epithet would be
as much out of place as if the Speaker were to tell
a Roman Catholic not to be nonsensical" when
he presents himself at the table of the House of
Commons and objects to the Protestant oath.
Nor was it more to the point to tell the jury-
man that he " must have respect for others."
Respect lies in the motive, not in the form of an
action, and there is no more disrespect shown by a
Quaker in wearing his hat than by an Oriental in
wearing his turban. But when the Judge added
that no person with such nonsense in his head was
fit to sit on a jury, he wag equally rude, and still
more mistaken. It is perfectly possible, and a
matter of very ordinary occurrence, for people with
nonsense, and particularly religious nonsense, in
their heads to be quite capable of serving on a jury.
Any one who has lived in the world as long as a
Judge must have learnt that nothing is more com-
mon than for people without any nonsense in their
heads to be exceedingly stupid, and for others who
have extraordinary nonsense in their heads to be
extremely acute. The observation, again, is pecu-
liarly unhappy in this particular instance, for
Quakers are notorious for their extreme acuteness
and common sense in all matters of ordinary life.
If it is necessary to point out any other " nonsen-
sical" features in the Judge's proceeding, they will
be found in the insignificance of the occasion.
What is the importance of a stray Quaker that his
hat should be thus exposed to the animosity of a
Judge's wig ? A more diAtinguished Quaker than
Mr. Josiah Carson is said to have once kept his hat
on in the presence of Charles 11. The King ob-
served it, and took his own off. " Friend Charles,"
said the Quaker, " put thy hat on." The King
replied that it was usual for only one person to
wear his hat in that room. Charles 11. knew how
to manage a little difficulty of this sort much better
than Baron Bramwell. Indeed, if there is a hope-
less task, it is to force a Quaker to abandon his
peculiar crotchets. The law gave it up long Ago,
when it allowed Quakers to substitute an affirma-
tion for the usual form of oath, and Baron Bram-
well had much better follow its example. We
trust he will reconsider his intention of re-enacting
the same useless and indecorous scene. The hat
will only damage his wig, and the wig will do no
harm to the hat.

DAILY NEWS.—The Industrial Exhibition move-
ment in London having now made the complete
circuit of the compass, halting for a display at each
of the cardinal points, we may briefly advert to some
of its features, and endeavour to ascertain what is
to be learned frow the experience of twelve months.
A year ago Working Men's Exhibitions were only
an idea. Some people thought it a very vain and
empty idea, which could only be indulged at the
price of much disappointment- and loss. Those
who, in the confidence of fuller and more ex act
knowledge, dared to set these sinister prognostica-
tions aside, may now fairly recall the difficulties
they encountered in the scepticism of lukewarm
friends, and compare predictions with results. That
some mistakes should be made was only natural,
and every generous mind will regard them favour-
ably. What can be done has been shown, and the
demonstration is not impaired by the fact that in
one or two instances the earlier success has not been
repeated. The project of the first Working Men's
Exhibition arose from the feeling that the skill which
gave the chief attraction to the Great Exhibition
of 1851, and to others which have been held since,
was not sufficiently referred to its actual possessors.
In a certain sense, all exhibitions of arts and
manufactures are Working Men's Exhibitions, but
neither in Hyde-park nor at South Kensington
three years ago were the names of the art work-
men at all recognised. The temporary employer
was everything, and the artist nothing. It was as
if a chalice of Cellini had been exhibited in the
sole name of Pope Clement. It was natural that
this should be regarded by many workmen as un-
fair, though whether the institution of Working
Men's Exhibitions supplies the best corrective of
the evil may be doubted. We question whether
many of the cunning workers who made our great
exhibitions so brilliant have since exhibited in their
own names. The interests of capital and skill are
best promoted in alliance. Still the idea, having
been warmly embraced, became fruitful. Bodies of
working men in various parts of London, assisted
by good advisers, took the work in hand, and the
result exceeded all expectation. The exhibitions
furnished a striking proof of mental activity among
those who labour with their hands, and their skill
showed a facility of production, exercising itself
not only in the channels prescribed by the ordinary
laws of supply and demand which must govern the
directions of the employer, but disporting itself
often with much grace in the by-ways of industry.
The first exhibition of this order was opened in South
London, and the second in North London, and it
is in them that most success has been achieved.
They had the advantages of novelty on their side,
but that is far from explaining their success. They
were well planned; their originators had carefully
calculated the means' at their disposal, and under-
took no more than they could accomplish. They
avoided speculation, and entered into no engage-
ments fatal to the freedom of their management.
Their administration was marked by a simplicity of
aim which preserved it from many errors, especially
from that of relying on extrinsic attractions adverse
to the character of their enterprise, and therefore
likely to hinder its success. The working classes
took pride in the scheme, and both exhibited freely
and went in families to pay their money, and see
what had been done by men and women of their
own order. Ali this gave a strong distinctive cha-
racter to those exhibitions, and caused them to be
visited by members of other*classes who were will-
ing to pay liberally for admission. But all exhibi-
tions have not been so fortunate. That which was
closed on Monday at the Floral Hall, and which, as

originally projected, was designed to represent the
industry of the West-end, has failed to pay expenses,
and has entailed a debt of £l,OOO, being more than
half the receipts from all sources, a deficiency
which will probably have to be made up by the
subscribers to the guarantee fund. The committee
appear to have made a mistake in the choice of
a place of exhibition. The Floral Hall could of
course only be hired for a very large sum, and it
does not appear what advantage was to be gained
by holding the Exhibition there. A bad bargain
seems also to have been made with Mr. Gye, who
was not only to have £l,OOO, with one-fourth of the
receipts, for the use of the hall, but had besides the
right to fix the rate of admission. A shilling was
the price he appointed, and the consequence was that
the working classes were shut out of their own ex-
hibition while it was in its freshness. Then, further,
a " musical performance " was instituted, contrary
to the covenant of the tenancy, and disputes arose,
leading to the interdiction of concerts. The com-
mittee had departed from the simple idea of the
earlier exhibitions to speculate on making theirs
attractive by the hackneyed devices of the showman.
With failure and disappointment came recrimina-
tions, and what we fear we must call appeals to
charity. It was complained that the upper classes
had not done their duty—as if they are not always
ready to pay for seeing what is worth looking at,
and as if they had any further duty to perform in the
matter. Then, if we remember rightly, an applica-
tion was made for the favour of a visit from some of
the younger members of the Royal Family ; and
when this failed, some large firms were canvassed to
buy bundles of tickets as a mode of assisting the
concern. All this is very derogatory to the inde-
pendence of the working classes, and strangely in-
consistent with the self-sustaining spirit in which the
earlier exhibitions was conceived and administered.
Without inquiring further into the causes of this
particular failure, we may express a hope that great
care will be taken to prevent a repetition of it in any
future exhibitions that may be meditated. In these
days every fruitful idea is in danger of being discre-
dited by excessive or ill-understood. application.
Emulation, the desire to excel in merit, ha#,given US
some good exhibitions, but the spirit of imitation
which seeks to reproduce the outside show where the
soul is not, will prove the parent of bad ones. Society
at the present day is infested with imitators who live
by consulting what they fancy is the humour of the
hour, and when these men resolve that there shall be
a Working Men's Exhibition, the very ease with
which they find implements and materials ready to
hand is a source of temptation. There are stock
chairmen and stock committee-men, just as there
are stock objects' of exhibition, which these men
know exactly and at all times where to find. It is
desirable that all parties should understand what the
public will encourage with its patronage. It would
be a great mistake to suppose that these exhibitions
are, so to speak, the order of the day, that they form
a want of the times, and must be got up—well, if
possible—but in any case must be got up. The
fact is quite otherwise. If Exhibitions like those of
South and North London spring unexpectedly out
of the spontaneous action of the class in the name
of which they appear, and are vindicated by the re-
sult, the public will applaud the energy and skill
and power of combination of which they are the
evidence, and gladly recognise in them the promise
of social progress ; but let North-West-by-West and
South-by-East London rest in peace, nor fear that
anybody will think worse of them if they should not
see their way to hire halls and challenge all comers
to a competition of skill. Exhibitions belong to a
class of undertakings that are to be judged strictly
by success. Much is forgiven to those who do their
best in difficult situations which they have not sought,
but little sympathy is extended to those who fail and
injure others in the mere act of sell-assertion.