The Sun.
London, England, 1870-06-15 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 15, 1870.

The most important assembly of the Catholic laity
in England that has taken place since the date of
the great Act of Catholic Emancipation was holden
on Monday, at Norfolk House, with his Grace the
Premier Duke as its Chairman. The occasion call-
ing it together was identical with that which rallied
together on the same day in St. James's Hall a very
considerable number of Nonconformists. Both the
Nonconformists and the Catholics are resolute in
their antagonism to the Educational Bill of the Go-
vernment now before Parliament. According to the
statement set forth by the noble lord who moved the
first resolution at the first mentioned of these two
important assemblages, the meeting which took
place in St. James's-square and not in St.
James's Hall, the Catholics of England would be com-
paratively contented, it appears, if the aid afforded
them by the Government were still continued upon
the same system which has been in vogue during the
last twenty years : a system under which, as Lord
HOWARD of GLOSSOP remarked, money had been re-
ceived by the Catholics from the national exchequer
in a manner satisfactory to themselves without giving
umbrage to anyone else in the country. The disap-
pointment felt by the Catholics in the presence of the
educational scheme now set forth by Mr. FORSTER in
his own name and in that of his ministerial colleagues
is natural enough under the circumstances. For, in
point of fact, the matter stands thus between the
Catholics and Her MAJESTY'S Government. After
having overcome a mass of difficulties—now in regard
to the religious treatment of convicts at the prisons,
now in regard to the religious treatment of paupers
at the workhouses—they find themselves confronted
with difficulties, far more enormous and far more
formidable in their character, not in regard to sec-
tional portions of their body, but in regard to the
whole of their community ; the aggregate of them
being brought into competition, so to speak, with the
entire Governmental system of educational schools.
As the noble lord put it, very simply but very forcibly
and, in fact, as it seems to us, quite irresistibly, "the
whole population of the country having to be
educated, as Catholics have a very small proportion
of wealth as compared with a large mass of poverty,
there will be a danger, when the Catholic schools
come to be placed in juxtaposition with schools
entirely supported out of the rates, backed up by
grants from the central Government, that the Catholic
schools must go to the wall, the poor children being
taken to the Board schools in the various large towns,"
thus becoming very rapidly proselytized. About
the reasonableness of this view there can scarcely
be any doubt whatever. The Catholics of England,
aware of the danger confronting them, and viewingthe
position of things conscientiously, are naturally and
reasonably alarmed. This fear again, from another
point of view, is partaken of by the yet more powerful
body of the Nonconformists. And it is this double
opposition which now immediately confronts her MA-
JESTY'S Government. Manifesting itself, as this two-
fold opposition does, at the moment when Mr. FOR-
STER'S Bill is being brought practically before Parlia-
ment so late in the session as after the Whitsuntide
recess, the prospect can hardly be regarded as hopeful
for the securing this year, in any way satisfactorily,
of the Ministerial scheme for the realization of the
popular day-dream of National Education.

THE question "where shall we bury CHARLES
DICKENS" has brought us acquainted with the
lamented novelist's dislike of English funerals. So
great a humourist could not but be impressed by the
horrible grotesqueness of these ceremonials. Devised
with the double purpose of awing the living and of
setting forth the greatness of the dead, they
miserably fail in both objects. They are ludicrous
where it is meant that they should be solemn
they are mean where it is meant they should be
magnificent. The Burial Service of the Church of
England is the most magnificent composition in the
English language, for it combines into one grand
chorus the notes of bitter sorrow, sure trust, and
heartfelt joy. But while the priest is doing all that
human language can do to comfort the heart and
elevate the mind, the undertaker has by every
means in his power sought to distract
and wound by hideous and unmeaning para-
phernalia. The' priest goes forth to
meet the mourners with the sublime words, "I am
the resurrection and the life," and he is greeted with
the spectacle of sticks swathed in sable, of men
in seedy black holding rods that have absolutely no
purpose or use, of horses with feathers stuck between
their ears, of a frightful looking cloth of velvet
thrown over the coffin; with sham upon sham, and
forms that have lost all life, and have become more
meaningless than the rites of Mumbo-Jumbo. CHARLES
DICKENS hated this wretched parody of a ceremonial
that bad beauty in the days before the veiled cruci-
fix gave place to the "crutch done up in a black ban-
dage," and before the dimly burning tapers, so sugges-
tive of the transitoriness of life, yielded to the brass-

tipped staves. He hated it because he hated all shams,
and especially a sham that intruded into
the region of that stern and dread reality—
death. In truth a man of far less
keen perceptions might feel the same dislike. The
contrast is too great not to strike the dullest mind.
The greatest slave to conventionalism must sometimes
ask himself what connection there is between the
man who carries a board of feathers on his head,
and the man who lies in the coffin. But most of us
are slaves of habit, and of the undertaker. We allow
him to insult us at the same time that he robs us—
to outrage all sentiment, and to demand black mail
for doing it. Perhaps in time we shall ;ree ourselves
from this wretched and costly imposture, and make
our funeral rites shew forth the resignation and the

trust—the sorrow not without hope—of the Chris-
tian, instead of the gloomy and childish super-
stitions of heathendom. He whom we are all
lamenting did many a good service to his fellows
while he lived ; let us hope that in his simple secret
burial in the grand old Abbey which has witnessed
many more showy spectacles, but none more striking
than his funeral, he may do us one more service,
even in death.

Tun glowing summer weather, of whose unvary-
ing continuance our farmers are beginning to com-
plain, reminds our emigration societies that they
must make the most of their opportunities. Other
questions will admit of postponement to the cloudy
days of autumn or the frosty nights of winter, but
the intending emigrant who waits too long
for " a convenient season " is likely to
find his whole scheme become a failure
in consequence. There is not much ground
for encouragement at present for those of our work.
ing men who prefer the old country. Trade is still
slack, though reviving, and is not likely to call the un-
employed hands into work for some time to come.
Already there is an increase in the price of some
kinds of provisions, and unless we have a much more
favourable account of the cattle feeding crops
than hitherto we shall certainly have a
rise in the price of meat before long.
What is to be done with the thousands of
able-bodied workmen, who are now clamouring,
vainly for employment ? We may regret the impro--
videfice, so habitual in their class, which has left them
so unfitted to meet the emergency. We may deplore
still more the lavish manner in which their money,
when acquired, is spent on drink, on Sunday finery
for the women, on St. Monday holidays and bean-
feasts for the men. Still the fact remains that, with
actual and long-continued want of work, the most
unexceptionable sobriety, the most commendable
prudence will not altogether avail. It is true
they may lighten the burden, since the sober and
thrifty man gets ten chances where his reckless and
intemperate neighbour gets one, and his character
stands him in good stead with landlord 'and creditors,
in times of unavoidable "falling behind." But the
condition of our English labour market calls for some
active and exceptional treatment, if we do not wish
for a permanent addition to the ranks of our chronic
pauperism. This remedy, practical men, who are in
the habit of considering the laws of supply
and demand, believe they can find in emi-
gration. On the one hand they see men,
able and competent artificers and artisans,
who are standing, week after week, idle in the
market place because no man will hire them. On

the other they see the far-reaching dependencies of
the British Crown, from almost every one of which
comes the same cry for hands to develope the
resources of the soil. The vast tracts of Canada and
Red River are unfilled and unsown while Dorset-
shire labourers are fighting to " keep off the parish "
on a shilling or two a day. There are fish enough on

the coasts of New Brunswick and Prince Edward's
Island to engage a good many sturdy hands, and

the dock labourers of East London would do well
one might imaginer to try a change of trade. For
every branch of practical industry there is room.
North and south, in the vast dominions stretching
between Atlantic and Pacific, and in that great
southern continent as yet but fringed with inhabi-
tants, the same story is told, while we at home are
wearied with the perpetual reiteration of the cry for
employment, and disheartened by the conviction that
pauperism is gaining rather than losing ground.
The leaders of the emigration movement have
at least on their side the powerful argu-
ment that theirs is a prompt and practical
remedy, and, so far as yet known, a successful one.
Of course there will always be individual instances
of failure and disappointment. There is no career
in life which does not shew us hundreds of such
cases, but as a general rule the emigrants
have started in their new worlds with a
fair chance of being free to make their way if they
are competent, steady, and ordinarily fortun ate.
Thus a party who left Victoria Docks last April,
under the auspices Mr. W. 11. SMITH, M.P., all
obtained engagements within three days of their
landing. It is no wonder that on the
receipt of this news plenty more fortune seekers were
forthcoming, and Mr. SMITH, on his part, was ready
to assist them. The British and Colonial Emigra-

tion Society, too, has been actively at work, and we
may guess the real eagerness with which our
unemployed poor are seeking for "fresh fields and
pastures new," where their labour will not be a drug
in the market, from the fact, stated at a recent meet-
ing at the Mansion House, that by the end of this
month there will be 3,600 intending emigrants
registered on the books of the society. Two thousand
of these have been already despatched, and 1,300
more will follow before Midsummer. Mr.
GOSCIIEN, M.P., who deserves credit for the personal
care and originality he has brought to the
consideration of this weighty question, has
made a very sensible suggestion. He does not
see why the principles acted upon across the
seas should not be applied to the unequal distribu-
tion of labour in our own country. The East of
London has a standing army of unemployed
labourers. The Durham mine owners are in distress,
for want of hands. What so easy as to meet one
difficulty with the other Two hundred enforced
idlers, whose names were on the books of the East-
end clubs, have been drafted off to Mr. PEASE'S
estate in Durham, and have succeeded well.
Why should not this principle he applied
to other parts of the kingdom, bringing in
the surplus of one district to supply the
wants of the other, all through the wide circle of our
English speaking dominions, tempering the wants of
the whole vast body politic together, till there should
no longer be vast fertile tracts uncultivated on the
one hand, nor children crying for bread on, the
other.

The Irish Land Bill formed the principal subject
for the consideration of the House of Lords last
evening, and the importance and interest attached
to the measure was abundantly endorced by the
large attendance of the peers at the time of assem-
bling. The second reading of the bill was moved by
Earl Granville, who gate a lucid description of the
object and principles of the measure. The Duke of
Richmond supported the second reading, because he
feared that if the bill were rejected on that occasion
the whole subject would eventually be reconsidered,
and probably a worse scheme for the settlement of
the question be proposed. Earl Russell gave the
measure an unqualified and hearty support. In his
opinion it was the best that had been submitted to
Parliament for the purpose of removing the evils so
grew ly complained of. Lord Oranmore and Browne
expressed his conviction that the bill would utterly
fail to accomplish the object of preventing agrarian
crime, and stigmatised the principle of what be
called taking away the property of the landlord
without compensation an act of dishonesty. Lord
Lifford objected to the bill in its present form,
but hoped it would be improved in Committee.
On the other hand Lord Dufferin was so satisfied
with the scheme that he hoped their lordships would
sanction it without any substantial difference. Ulti-
mately the debate was adjourned on the motion of
Lord Cairns. The Norwich Voters Disfranchise-
ment Bill and the Bridgwater and Beverley Dis-
franchisement Bill were read a third time and passed.
Their lordships adjourned at 20 minutes to 1 o'clock.
In the House of Commons Mr. Buxton brought for-
ward a motion, having for its object the revision of
the authorised version of the Scripture, and praying
her Majesty tp invite the President of the United
States to concur in the appointment of Commissioners
for the purpose, which was withdrawn, and at ten
minutes past seven the House was counted out.