The Sun.
London, England, 1854-01-11 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 11, 1854.

MR. PANIZZI & THE CABMAN JONES.

(From the Morning Chronicle.)

Although we have never taken particular pains
to cultivate an entente cordiale with the Cab in-
terest, and have never spared the misdeeds of the
fraternity, we nevertheless own, as we have more
than once said, to a sort of sneaking, irrational
kindness for the British cabman. Like Sir Robert
Inglis, we regard him as part—though it may bo a
muddy, draggled, beer-bemuzzied part of the
British Constitution. The cabman is, after all, a
man and a brother, and we have had unfeigned
pleasure in watching his recent social progress.
While he has been learning his first lessons in the
neglected humanities of life, we have sincerely, if
not obtrusively, sympathised with his patient ad-
vances ; and when—which has been very often—he
has checkmated us with Mr. Fitzroy's Bill, and
contrived to extract a good deal more pelf from us
than under the old law, we could not resist a good-
n,atured chuckle. We, the public, put forth all
our strength in vindicating the completeness of the
Government measure ; and a little playful exercise
of retaliatory ingenuity on cabby's part—in which he
has not unfrequently managed to show that he is in
native wit, more than a match for the British Par-
liament, the British press, and the British public
—could not but earn the tribute of our ap-
plause. Our feelings, therefore, towards the cab-
man have of late been softened. Time, the healer,
has smoothed the asperities of July last ; and the
enemy have submitted, with tolerable forti-
tude and with considerable good feeling, to the
stern, wholesome discipline of adversity. They
have certainly learned the art of civility. Occa-
sionally they are even polite. As a class, six
months have humanised them. " Like Ciusar in
the Capitol," they have succumbed with dignity ;
and consequently, in the recent terrible weather,
we fairly admitted that, as the laws of nature were,
so those of Mr. Fitzroy should be, for the grim
season, suspended. We consented, without a mur-
mur, that cabby should charge just what he pleased;
and the British father was glad to be carried to his
dinners, or to send his children to their Twelfth-
night parties, at any figure at which Jehu would
charter his craft for an Arctic expedition. But
although we admit that he has improved, and have
allowed him every reasonable indulgence during
the snow-storm, we cannot be charged with par-
tiality when we ask for common justice to the
cabman.

A case at Bow-street, which we reported yester-
day, is the text for our present appeal on behalf
of our ancient foe. Mr. Panizzi, keeper of the
printed-book department at the ritish Museum,
summoned cabman Jones for insolence, and for
not delivering his ticket. On Wednesday, the 4th
instant—one of those awful nights which London
will not soon forget—Mr. Panizzi wanted a cab,
and sent out a porter from the Museum to fetch
him one. On the messenger returning, after an
abortive search, Mr. Panizzi sallied out himself,
in dudgeon and the cold, in search of a vehicle.
Ile walked from Great Russell-street to South-
ampton-row, but the atmosphere below zero failed
to cool his fervid Italian temperature, which re-
mained at boiling heat. In Southampton-row he
found four or five cabs, but no drivers. Does Mr.
Panizzi imagine, however, that on such a night,
any human being could, even if he would, sit at
the receipt of custom on the box of a cab ? Mr.
Panizzi was not pleased. As he himself admits,
he " continued to bawl out for the cabmen"—here-
in imitating the famous dramatic hero who, when
he went to " call a coach," called out " Coach,
coach, coach." Now bawling—and bawling con-
tinously, unceasingly, and ineffectually, with the
thermometer a dozen and more degrees below
freezing point—is not an operation likely to in-
crease the serenity of anybody's temper, least of
all an Italian temper. At length a cabman ap-
peared, but was ' very slow" in bringing his
vehicle to the pavement to take up his amiable
customer; and the first thing Mr. Panizzi did
was to take his number. Says the cabman,
"Don't be in a passion"—a moral and ethical
warning which we should conjecture that the
"fare,' from his own account of his feelings,
stood slightly in need of. Mr. Panizzi is short-
sighted ; and he states that, on narrowly ex-
amining the cabman's badge, the latter—who,
it appears, is addicted to the vice which Sir
Walter Raleigh introduced and Bacon patronised
—insultingly puffed his cigar in his face. Mr.
Panizzi also complains that he never received a
ticket.

To all this the cabman answers, first, that he
could not drive his cab close to the kerb by reason
of the accumulation of snow—next, that though he
did not leave off smoking, he took his cigar from
his mouth when addressing Mr. Panizzi—finally,
that he did offer a ticket. And this evidence is
corroborated by a respectable tradesman who hap-
pened to witness the fracas—not a waterman or
cabman, but a watchmaker living in the City-road,
who gives his name and address, and who must
have lost valuable time by attending at the police-
court. This perfectly impartial bystander swore
that Mr. Panizzi was very much excited—that
there was a crowd (how should there have been a
crowd, unless Mr. Panizzi had been making a row ?)
—that the cabman did not use abusive language,
and did not puff his cigar in the great Panizzian
visage—and that the cabman did offer Mr. Panizzi
a ticket, which was refused with the courteous, but
not literary, repartee, "You be —." Says the
worthy magistrate, Mr. Hall, "It is perfectly ri-
diculous, to suppose that any gentleman of common
propriety would make such a false charge against
a cabman." To which the answer is, as regards
the " propriety," that the complainant was Mr.
Antonio Panizzi ; whilst, as applicable to " gen-
tlemen" generally, the magistrate's dictum rests
on a personal assumption about which opinions
may differ. As to the corroborative evidence pro-
duced by the cabman, Mr. Hall simply ignores it.
He takes it for granted that it must be worthless,
because it involves a conflict of truthfulness between
" a gentleman" and a watchmaker. But why was
the watchmaker to be disbelieved ? He was on his
oath. The notion of confederacy is utterly unten-
able—he had never seen or heard of the cabman
'before. Upon what grounds does Mr. Hall settle
that the watchmaker committed perjury ? Because
he was a watchmaker, and because Mr. Panizzi
was a gentleman. Here, then, is the rationale of
the thing. It may be proved in evidence that a
gentleman may curse and swear, and make a row
against a cabman, bawl and bellow, and bring a
crowd about him ; and his simple denial of this
evidence is to be taken for gospel. It may be
proved in evidence that a cabman was civil and '
respectful, and this evidence is to be disbelieved
because it is given by a watchmaker. A gentleman
may be charged, on unimpeachable testimony, with
ungentlemanly conduct—buthis word is to be taken
of course. An honest, simple citizen is to be
branded as a liar and perjurer, for the sole reason
that he is audacious enough to bear witness against
a gentleman. _

Of course, in such a conflict of evidence, it
would have been desirable to go into the ante-
cedents of the respective parties. Doubtless, Mr.
Panizzi could have proved that he is not a
man of violent gestures and intemperate language
—that he never roars and raves, though on this
occasion he admits that he " bawled out"—that
ho never could say, "You he —"—that it is
not his fashion to get excited. This would have
been good corroborative evidence ; and we only
regret, as friends of Mr. Panizzi, that it was not
forthcoming. And then the atrocity of smoking,
which Mr. Hall says should be visited with 40s.
fine. Does Mr. Panizzi never smoke ? Mr. Hall
is, of course, in the habit of sitting on a cabstand,
motionless, at night, in January, with the ther-
mometer below zero—he knows experimentally
the delights of a cabman's life, and invariably re-
sists the soothing stimulant of tobacco. But we
are human, and on Wednesday night we could
pardon poor Jones his cigar, or even his seat at
the taproom fire.
The simple fact is, from all that the public
know about Mr. Panizzi, that there is much in-
direct confirmation of the evidence of the watch-
maker, corroborated as it is by that of the cab-
man. Mr. Panizzi, in the discharge of his duty
of collecting hooks for the Museum, has con-
trived to concentrate upon himself an amount
of odium perfectly unparalleled. It is not his
discharge of his duty that the whole booksel-
ling trade complains of, but his mode of doing
it. This Italian gentleman certainly has the re-
putation of being possessed of a peculiar temper,
which reflects the volcanoes rather than the serene
atmosphere of his country. We should say that
he is not considered, by thoso who have to do
with him, a rival of Moses in meekness. There are
persons in this naughty world who are exceedingly-
deferential to their superiors—who worm them-
selves into fine society (Mr. Panizzi was on this
occasion, as he takes tare to inform us, en route to
Belgrave-square)—and who, by a compensating
provision, relieve this unnatural strain on a simu-
lated politeness by storming and bullying their in-
feriors. Far be it from us to act Theophrastus to
Panizzi but those who know him better than we

do can say whether, on the whole, the watchmaker's
evidence, which describes him as " very much ex-
cited," and uttering the gentle compellation,
"You be --b.," is altogether out of keeping with
what has been experienced of the librarian's ethical
idiosyncracy in familiar intercourse.
Indeed, if we might give a hint to this illus-
trious refugee, we should say that there are points
in his character which do not fit in with
our dull English prejudices. We should prefer,
in a highly salaried official, one who did not so
faithfully reproduce the peculiarities of an ancient
school. We would willingly exchange Mr. Panizzi's
zeal for the mint, anise, and cummin of technical
duty, for some solid devotion to the weightier mat-
ters of the law. He may, after a fashion, adorn
literature by his presence at conversaziones in Bel-
gravia—he may represent the dignity of letters by
harrying booksellers, and bawling and swearing at
cabmen—but for all this pound of civet we should
I like an ounce of work. We would dispense with a
little of his zeal in vindicating cab law, and in try-
ing his native powers of florid rhetoric in a street
encounter of wit, for the sake of a few more instal-
ments of the British Museummatalogiie. We have
imported Mr. Panizzi, and his foreign manners,
and his choice Tuscan courtesy, at considerable
cost, to do the nation's business ; and we believe
that his mornings at Bow-street might be very well
relinquished for his study in Great Russell-street.
As to Mr. Hall's decision in the case, painful as it
is to criticise the decisions of "worthy" magistrates,
we have only to say that it is tudn-English and
unjustifiable as the conduct of the complainant.

RELIGIOUS WORSHIP IN ENGLAND
AND WALES.

( From the Times.)
A publication of extraordinary interest has just appeared,
in the shape of a supplement or appendix to the returns
of the last general census. It refers to the organisation of
religious worship in England and. Wales, and comprises
within the limits of an octavo volume the most compre-
hensive as well as the most recent statistics attainable on
this important subject. It occurred to the conductors of
the census that so unusual an opportunity for acquiring
information respecting the " number, varieties, and capa-
bilities" of the religious institutions of the country should
not be lost, and it was at first conceived that the language
of the census act fully warranted the official extension of
the inquiry to these particulars. Subsequently, however,
doubt was thrown upon this point, and the returns, there-
fore, to the questions of the authority on these subjects
were left optional. It seems that the same disinclination
to statistical disclosures lately evinced by some of our
agriculturists was encountered occasionally among minis-
ters of religion, but returns were made in such numbers
as to provide ample means for making up deficiencies by
estimates, and the result, we have no doubt, may be taken
as substantially accurate and trustworthy.
The religious communities in England and Wales
amount to 35 in number, of which 26 are classed as
indi-
genous, and 9 as foreign. First, of course, stands the
Church of England and Ireland. After this comes the
Church of Scotland, nor need Lord Egliutoun's friends
conceive that Scotland is here swamped in the general de-
nomination of " England," for the computation refers to
Presbyterian establishments south of the Tweed. Next
follow those congregations recognised by the comprehen-
sive title of " Dissenters," which include Methodists, Bap-
tists, Independents, Quakers, Unitarians, Moravians,
Sandemanians, the New Church, and Brethren. Of these,
the two former are ramified through numerous subdivi-
sions—the Baptists having 5 and the Methodists, .9 diffe-
rent " connexions." The foreign" communities appear
to include the Roman Catholics, or Papists ; the Greek
Church ; the Lutheran and Huguenot congregations ; the
New German and Italian Reformers; the Catholic and
Apostolic Church, and the Mormons ; besides which
there are the Jews. It will convey some notion
of the extent to which Parliamentary reports have been
developed when we add, that the volume before us con-
tains an elaborate description of the origin, tenets, and
principles of these several sets—a description intended to
communicate nothing less than " the reason which have
led the English people to divide themselves into such
varieties of religious combination." On a 'future occasion
we may introduce the public to the more remarkable por-
tions of this sketch, but at the present we confine ourselves
to the topic of most extensive interest - the proceedings
and position of the Church of England. The compiler of
the report thinks it necessary to offer some apology for the
particularity of his exposition by observing, very reason-
ably, that the results of a national census should be ad-
dressed to the world at large, and, consequently, to many
who are destitute of any preliminary knowledge. The re-
mark is wise, but the excuse is needless. We shall not,
indeed, follow the writer in transcribing the Articles of
Religion, or recapitulating the orders and dignities of the
Church, but if much of what we here subjoin is not both
new and attractive, even to the best informed churchman,
we shall be considerably mistaken.
The whole of England has been partitioned from very
early times into parishes and dioceses, ten of the former
originally constituting a rural deanery. Of our bishoprics
all, except seven, date from the British or Saxon period of
history—the five creations of Henry VIII., and the sees
of Manchester and Ripon, forming the sole additions to
the ancient foundations. The number of benefices in
England and Wales is 11,728, and the distribution of this
patronage is a point of considerable interest, as showing
where influence resides. Of these preferments, 1,144 per-
tain to the Crown, 1,853 to the bishops, as many as
938 are in the gift of cathedral chapters, while 770 only
are at the disposal of the Universities; 931 belong to the
ministers of mother-churches, and no fewer than 6,92 are
in the hands of private persons, to be bestowed as they
think fit. The income of the Church was distributed, in
1831, in the proportions following :—The bishops re-
ceived in the aggregate 181,6311. ; the deans and chapters,
360,0951.; and the parochial ministers, 3,251,1591., so that
the capitular bodies took about twice as much as the
bishops, and the " dignified" classes together as nearly as
possible one-sixth of the whole amount falling to the paro-
chial clergy. It was further computed, at the same time,
that the number of beneficed clergy being 10,718 (1,010
less than the number of benefices), the average income of
each would be about 3001. per annum. But, besides these
ministers, there were at the same date 5,230 curates,
whose receipts averaged only 811. a year, so that the sti-
pends•of the working clergy are certainly not large. We
may here offer some description of a fund often heard of,
but not perhaps generally understood, known as Queen
Anne's Bounty. This is formed out of the revenues de-
rived from first fruits and tenths, which pertaining first to
the Pope, and since the Reformation to the Sovereign
were made over by Queen Anne to a corporation in trust
for the " augmentation of the maintenance of the poor
clergy." The annual produce of this fund is now 14,0001.,
and its present trust capital is 2,400,0001. Its resources
have been increased by Parliamentary grants and private
benefactions to an extent so considerable that it is almost
surprising its agency is not better known. It is stated,
however, in the volume before us, that up to the end of
1852 the governors of the trust had appropriated to the
benefit of small livings, in some shape or other, no less a
sum than 5,027,2001., and that the incumbents of such liv-
ings now enjoy from such sources a permanent yearly
income of 240,0001.

But these figures give no idea of what has actually of
late years been done in the work of church extension, and
the statistics on this head are among the most remarkable
we have ever seen. The most summary, if not the most
complete, method of placing these results before the reader
will be by the following table of church-building. Of the
whole number of churches now standing there were built :
Before 1801 ... 9,667
Between 1801 and 1811 ▪
55
Between 1811 and 1821 . 97
..
Between 1821 and 1831 •
276
Between 1831 and 1841 ▪
667
Between 1841 and 1851 ▪
1,197
Nothing, we think, can be more striking than the indif-
ference exhibited during the war period of the present cen-
tury as contrasted with the extraordinary activity dis-
played and developed after the establishment of peace.
Allowing for certain imperfections of returns, it is com-
puted that the churches built between 1831 and 1851 cer-
tainly exceed two thousand in number, being an addition
of almost one-fourth to the aggregate of those before stand-
ing, and showing that throughout this whole period two
new churches, upon an average, must have been conse-
crated every week. It may interest some readers if we
add that the average cost of a new church is set at about
3,0001., or at about 51. 108. each sitting, exclusive of the
cost of site. Altogether, the sum expended upon new
churches during the above-mentioned interval (exclusive
of restoration works, which, as most readers will know,
form no small item) exceeds 6,000,0001. sterling.
After these observations it will dishearten the reader to
be told that, in consequence of the increase of the popula-
tion, the proportion of churches to inhabitants has actually
decreased, and that whereas in 1831 there was ono church
to every 1,175 inhabitants, tin 1851 there was one only to
every 1,296. Nevertheless, owing to the better distribu-
tion of the churches, it is concluded that the extent of
accommodation is rerlly greater, just as the state of things
will have practically improved when the 30 churches now
marked for removal are transferred from the city of Lon-
don to its suburbs. The disquisitions on this 'head can
hardly fail to prove interesting. As the Church of
England is presumed to be the church of the nation,
and as the nation contains 17,927,609 inhabitants,
it seems to follow at first sight that there should be
this number of sittings provided ; deductions, how-
ever, are !made to such extent for children, inva-
lids, and persons in charge of dwelling-houses, or
° encraged on public conveyances,that in the end it is thought
10,398,013 sittings would be sufficient. But the 14,077
churches standing in England in 1851 supplied, it was
reckoned, but 5,317,915 seats, while other places of wor-
ship provided 4,149,813, making a total only of 9,467,728.
There is another element, however, to come into the cal-
culation, for, as there are usually two or more services in
the day, and few persons attend all of these, the sittings
would be available twice or three times over. And here
it is noticed that Dissenting bodies "get more out of their
buildings," as the report expresses it, than the Church, by
opening them invariably for evening service, at which
period, in fact, they obtain the largest attendance. Alto-
gether, however, and not to plunge deeper into statistics,
which might possibly become bewildering, we may say
that for every 100 sittings furnished by the Church in Eng-
land and Wales, Dissenters furnish 93 ; that the general
progress of church extension is satisfactory, but still inade-
quate ; whereas 21,67$ seats are computed to bo practically
useless, "as being out of the reach of any persons who
could fill them."

Between the "Brethren" and the " Irvingites"—between
congregations repudiating all dogmatic tests of faith and
congregations recognising apostles of their own—a place is
found in the religious census of England for a sect which
recently disturbed the whole economy of Great Britain—
the Roman Catholics. Considering the prodigious clamour
raised by this community, the enormous pretensions which
it put forth, and the astonishing assertions advanced re-
specting its successes by those who ought to have been
informed of the truth, we think the reader will bo not a
little surprised 'at the facts subjoined below. It will not
be forgotten that Mr. Wilberforce—a convert to the Popish
faith, and himself in charge of a Popish "mission"—
described the proselytes to Popery as crowding in multi-
tudes to his church, and allegations to this effect have
been constantly reiterated during the last 20 years.
Now, there has been nothing more invariably difficult
than to bring Popish authorities to any definite account
respecting their proceedings or position. They advance
without scruple the most exorbitant demands in virtue of
their alleged importance and numbers, but, when asked
for proof or explanation, they shelter themselves behind
their "authorities," and reply that their info' mation be-
longs, not to themselves, but to " the Church." At one
time it was actually proposed, probably as a set-off to the
Protestant Church required for Englishmen at Rome, to
erect a huge Popish cathedral in the heart of London, and
it was gravely declared that thousands upon thousands of
worshippers were lacking this accommodation. We can-
not be sure that the report now before us, and to which
the reader was introduced in our last impression, contains
the exact truth, but we are strongly
of opinion that it
conveys a very good idea of the facts, and that the case is,
at any rate, not understated on the Popish side. And
how many, then, of these noisy religionists does the reader
suppose aro included in the whole seventeen millions of the
English population ? Less than 200,000!
It appears that, shortly after .the expulsion of the
Stuarts the number of Papists
in England and Wales was
computed at 27,696. In 1767 another return was procured,
and here the calculation gave 67,916, which figures, 13
years later, were increased to 69,376. These seem to have
been all the data brought before the compilers of the re-
port for past years. At present the actual number of sit-
tings in Popish places of worship (after adding an estimate
for those making no returns) is 186,111. Now, if we take
into consideration the essentially un-English character of
these communities in general, and the extent to which the
congregations are filled either with Irishmen or with fo-
reigners from the various continental States, we may very
safely put 150,000 as the sum total of the sittings required
for bona fide English Papists; nor should we, indeed, have