The Sun.
London, England, 1870-02-22 00:00:00

IHE SUN, _ LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 22, 1870.

not give those educational securities which tile
mining population had a right to expect.
Lord ELCHO said he was exceedingly glad to hear the
provisions of the bill the right hon, gentleman had sub-
mitted to the House. It contained provisions that
,could
not but work well for the benefit of all concerned,
and he was glad that the subject of arbitration
has met with the utmost attention, because
ha knew how beneficial arbitration had been, both as
regarded the employer and the employed. The provisions
of the bill with respect to the employment of children and
young persons were not quite so satisfactory as he
could wish, because it was not set out clearly
and distinctly the number of hours such
young people should be employed during the day.
The bill set out that no children between the ages of 12
and 14 should be employed more than 12 hours at a time
in a 'mine, allowing one hour and a half for meals.
10 hours elapsing between leaving and resuming
work ; but by the bill as it was at present it was
passible to get 84 hours instead of 74 out of the workers,
a proposal which he was sure was not the intention of the
right hon. gentleman. There were some who thought
that eight hours were quite sufficient for young
children to be employed in mines, and much discussion
had taken place on that point, but a compromise
had been come to which he thought was both wise and
considerate. It was that children from 12 to 14 should
work for fifty hours, those aged from 14 to 16 should work
fifty-six ; but in no case should the hours of children of
12 and 16 be so extended as to interfere with their having
twelve hours from bank to bank : that was twelve hours
above ground. He thought the compromise a wise one,
and he had no doubt he should not have to urge the right
hon. gentleman very strongly to give that compromise his

most favourable consideration, with a view of introducing
it in his bill. He did not quite agree with the
provisions respecting penalties, and with respect to

in3pectors he thought it time that these officials should be

called by their proper name, and that was accident in-
quirers, because it was a farce to imagine that they made
minute and searching inspections of mines. The
fact was twelve men could not do the work, and

therefore the Government would have to do something
more than was embodied in the bill. The hon. member
for Edinburgh had an actual proposal with respect to these
inspectors, and he had no doubt when the subject came to
be discussed something more satisfactory than the
proposal in the bill would be eventually arrived at.
He advised the House to do one of three things, carry into
effect a proper inspection, no matter what it cost, or
change the name of inspectors, or supersede the inspec-
tors by carrying out the proposal of the hon. gentleman
who had just spoken, namely, to take measures
for educating viewers, overmen, and other persons in
charge of mines.
Lord MILTON and Mr. PEASE offered a few re-
marks, the latter taking especial care to prove that
colliers were not the ignorant and rude race
which they were popularly supposed to be. It
had been said that most of the accidents that took place
in mines occurred through drink ; but, from his expe-
rience, he was certain such was not the case. In com-
mittee he should move, notwithstanding his general
approval of the measure, certain amendments, which he
trusted would make the bill more effective.
Mr. LIDDELL generally approved of the bill.
Mr. Lancaster, Mr. Elliot, and Sir George Grey expressed
satisfaction at the introduction of the measure.

Mr. BRUCE briefly replied, and trusted that the House
would be ready to go into committee on the bill by Friday,
the 18th of March.
The bill was then read a second time.

The Friendly Societies Bill, the Coinage Bill, the Sayings
Bank Bill, and the Evidenco Further Amendment Act (1869)
Amendment Bill—which respectively stood for second
readings on the notice paper—were postponed till a future
day.

Mr. GOSCHEN mcved for a select committee to inquire
and report whether it be expedient that the charges now irc-
posed on the occupiers of rateable property for various local
purposes should be divided between the owners and the
occupiers, and what changes in the constitution of local
bodies now administering rates should follow such
division.

Sir M. LOPES moved, as an amendment, that it was more
advisable to postpone the appointment of a select committee
until the Government had announced the details of their
promised scheme for dealing with the general question of
local rating.
Mr. GLADSTONE said that the motion for a committee
was not intended to impress any one with the view that real
property was to be made a subject of greater taxation than
personalty. He declined, however, to agree to the amend-
ment.

The amendment was withdrawn, and with some verbal
alterations the motion for a select committee was agreed to.

Leave was granted to Mr. LOCKE to bring in a bill to
amend the laws relating to smoke nuisances in the metro-
polis, so far as they relate to bakehouses.
The House then adjourned.

L 1.5.7 FOR THE USE HF VISITORS TO
TILE METROPOLIS.

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LITERATURE.

MR. HUGHES'S ALFRED THE GREAT.

Exactly a thousand years ago a great disaster befel this
country, and the Christian faith seemed to have perished
in Eastern England. Fierce battles had been fought in
ssincolnshire between the heathen Danes and the Christian
Saxons, and the latter, terribly outnumbered, had been
completely defeated, and their chief, Edmund the King,
also to be the martyr, was taken, tortured, and put to
death. Not only was East Anglia for a time lost to
Christendom, but Wessex lay open to the Pagan foe. It
was at such a gloomy time that the greatest of English
svereigns came to the throne a few months later in 871.
Alfred the Great was born at Wantage 849. He was
the youngest child of Ethelwulf Osberga. His father, the
son of Egbert, being hindered from making a wished-for
pilgrimage to Rome, sent Alfred there when the child was
only five years old. Leo IV. adopted him as a son, and
anointed him King of the West Saxons. He had for
fellow pupil a beautiful and clever girl of 14, named
Judith. A few months later his father arrived at Rome,
and converted his son's fellow-pupil into a step-mother.
Shortly afterwards Ethelwulf died, and his widow was in
the same year married to her step-son Ethelbald, Alfred's
brother. This " fair, frail, fascinating" Judith had many
other matrimonial adventures, and from her descended
our own Queen Victoria, for to her son by a third husband
Alfred gave his daughter to wife. The pair were the ances-
tors of Matilda, and it is through her that our sovereisma
trace their descent from Alfred the Great.
Bishop Asses, his biographer, tells us how that-
- Findmg that the carnal desires, and proud and rebellious
thoughts, which the devil, who is ever jealous of the good,
is apt to breed in the minds of the young, were likely to
have the mastery of him, he used often to rise at cock-crow
in the early morning, and repairing to some church or holy
place, there cast himself before od in prayer, that he
might do nothing contrary to His holy will.
But finding himself still hard bested, he began
at such times to pray, as he lay prostrate
before the altar, that God, in His great mercy,
would strenthen his mind and will by some sickness, such
as would be of use to him in subduing his body, but would
not shew itself outwardly, or render him powerless or con-
temptible in worldly duties, or less able to benefit his
people. For King Alfred from his earliest years held in
great dread leprosy, and blindness, and every disease
which would make a man useless or contemptible in the
conduct of affairs. And when he had often and with much
fervour prayed to this effect, it pleased God to afflict him
with a very painful disease, which lay upon him with little
respite until he was in his 20th year."
When he was about to be married, he prayed that this
sickness might be taken away and exchanged for some
other. As he rode away he felt himself cured. In the
midst of the marriage revelry he was attacked by a sudden
and violent pain, which no physician could ever under-
stand. He was subject to it until his 44th year.
Ethelwulf had done his best to break up the kingdom
which his father had founded, by dividing it among his
eons. Happily the younger ones were not self-seekers,
and they did not press their claims. By a series of events,
resulting in the death of the elder sons, Alfred came to
the throne, as we have seen, in 871. But, before this, he
had had to fight for his inheritance. While still a bride-
groom, he was summoned to the help of his brother-in-
law, the King of Mercia, against the Danes. A great
famine and a great pestilence visited the land in this same
year 869. The following year saw the death of King
Edmund. Very shortly afterwards the Danes made a
bold attempt, and seizing the delta which is formed by the
Thames and the Kennet at Reading, threw up
entrenchments close to the present racecourse,
and little later a great battle was fought, which, after
the tide of victory had ebbed and flowed,
left young Ethelwolf dead on the field, and
Alfred compelled to retreat. He fell back with his broken
bands to Wantage, and encamped on the range of the White
Horse at Ashdown. Hither the Danes followed him,
and here one of the most eventful of English combats
was fought. The Pagans occupied the higher ground.
But they could not resist the impetuous onslaught of the
Christians. They gave way and fled, and terrible was the
havoc wrought in their ranks. But the loss was not on their
side only. Alfred's brother Ethelred was among the slain,
and Alfred himself thus, at the age of 23, ascended the
throne of his fathers just at the time it seemed tottering to
its fall. At first, as the chroniclers tell us, he lost heart.
In the eight pitched battles he had fought with the Danes
the flower of the West Saxon youth had fallen. The
other kingdoms of which he was over-lord, had ceased to
exist, except in name, or lay utterly powerless like
Mercia, awaiting their doom. Kent, Sussex, and
Surrey were at the mercy of his enemies. Lon-
don had been pillaged, and was in ruins. Even in
Wessex proper, Berkshire, and Hampshire, with parts of
Wilts and Dorset, had been crossed and recrossed by
marauding bands, in whose track only smoking ruins and
dead bodies were found. These bands were now striking
further into the south-west than they had ever struck
before. If the rich lands of Somerset and Devon were to
be saved, it could be only by prompt and vigorous action.
An ordinary foe would have been utterly routed by such
a defeat as that at Ashdown. Not so the Danes. It was
necessary to fight them again and again. One great battle
was fought near Wilton, and the Saxons, victorious at
first, were lured to defeat, as they had been at Reading,
by the feigned flight and the real ambuscade of the enemy.
That year saw nine battles fought in the country south
of the Thames. Wilton probably was the last,
for soon afterwards peace was made between
the two peoples. Unfortunately, the Danes were
always ready to break the most solemn engagements,
if a favourable opportunity for doing so offered, and in
876, what Mr. Hughes calls " the second wave " of inva-
sion rolled over the land. This time the Danes were be-
sieged in their camp at Wareham, and their King, Guth-
rum, was compelled to open negotiations. Alfred made
him swear upon all the relics most sacred in Danish eyes
that he would not again break the peace, but would quit
the King's country, and give hostages. He even gave
hostages. But neither oath, relics, nor hostages could bind
Guthrum. The Danes stole out of the camp by night,
marched to Exeter, got possession of this Western capital,
and there bid defiance to the Saxons. They beleagured
the place,, but, though provisions were running short, the
Danes did not care ; the Exe was open, and a powerful
fleet was on its way to relieve them. That fleet shared
the fate of the Spanish Armada 700 years afterwards. It
was utterly dispersed and destroyed by a great gale. So
Guthrum was obliged to come to terms, and had to leave
that part of England and retired to Gloucester. Alfred in this
matter chewed great want of prudence. He trusted to the
oath of a perjured man. Guthrum was to perjure himself
a second time. A powerful fleet of the Northmen appeared
in the Bristol Channel, and the Danes, hearing of this,
grew restless, and longed to ravage the rich, and as yet
unplundered, county of Devon. The Danish camp at
Gloucester broke up, crossed the Avon at Chippenham,
North
men's
nodr
en's fleetmmarchedrapiywestwards. At the same time the
landed on the coast of Devon.
"And now at last the courage of the West Saxons gives
way. The surprise is complete. Wiltshire is at the mercy
of the Pagans, who, occupying the royal burgh of Chip-
penham as headquarters, overrun the whole district, drive
many of the inhabitants beyond the sea for want of the
necessaries of life, and reduce to subjection all that remain.
Alfred is at his post, but for the moment can make no
head against them. His own strong heart and trust in
God are left him, and with them and a scanty band of
followers he disappears into the forest of Selwood, which
then stretched away from the confines of Wiltshire for
thirty miles to the west. East Somerset, now one of the
fairest and richest of English counties, was then for the
most part thick wood and tangled swamp ; but miserable
as the lodging is, it is welcome for the time to the King.
In the first months of 878 Seiwood Forest holds in its
recesses the hope of England." -
It was during this, the longest period of Alfred's mis-
fortunes, that there occurred the incident of the
cakes. Food at that time was difficult enough to get, and
the neateherd's wife may well be pardoned her petu-
lance. It was now time to do something, or to throw up
the game. So Alfred betook himself to a little spot, two
acres of hard ground in extent, and surrounded with
marshes and with brakes. This spot he named
Etheling's Eig or island; Athelney, as it is now
called. Here he was safe against attack, and he opened
communications with a few trusty followers who had not,
even in this hour of distress, lost heart. A tryst was
appointed for the second week in May, and he was met at
Brixton Church, on the east of Selwood,by men of Devon,
Somerset, Wilts, and Hants. A few days later a great
battle was fought at Ethendune (probably the village of
Edington), and a great victory was obtained. This time
Guthrum fell wholly into Alfred's power. Once more
Guthrum sued for terms, and once more Alfred granted
them. In fulfilment of them, Guthrum and his family
arrived a little later at Wedmore, in Somerset, and were
baptised. The Witenagemot had been summoned thither
and with their advice that treaty was drawn up which,
according to some writers, marks the beginning of English
history. In one sense of the word, English history did
not begin even then ; for Alfred acknowledged Guthrum's
right to the kingdom of East Anglia, and, indeed, one
h ilf of England.
This peace lasted, though not without occasional out
b •eaks, for fifteen years. It left Alfred free to chew that
he was even greater as a legislator than he had shewn him-
-8 31f as a warrior. He had to.almost reconstitute his king-
dm, so greatly had it been disorganised by the Danish
invasions. How he did this Mr. Hughes tells in a series
of chapters entitled "The King's Board of Works," "The
King's War Office and Admiralty," " The King's Justice,"
"The King's Exchequer," and" The King's Church." " The
Bawd of Works" rebuilt London. That is to say, it was
rebuilt by the foreign masons and mechanics whom Alfred
had in his pay. Saxons, Angles, and Danes thronged to

it indiscriminately. A Danish colony settled on the south
side of the river and built Southwark (Syd Virke, the
s iuthem fortification), where one of the principal
streets, Tooley-street (a corruption of St. Olave's street},
still bears the name of the patron saint of Norway. They
had also another settlement just outside the city, and the

momory of their chief burial place is preserved in the
name of St. Clement Danes. " The King's War Office
and Admiralty " provided that one-third of the available
f.)rce of the kingdom should always be made ready to act
against the enemy at a moment's notice, and built ships
which were higher, longer, and faster than the Danes.
" The King's Laws," or " Alfred's Dooms," as they were
called, were based upon the Mosaic law, with such modi-
fications as the progress of time and society demanded.
In order to establish " The King's Justice," Alfred caused
the aldermen and earls, who had (somewhat like our own
country gentlemen of the present time) administered the
law without being acquainted with it, to be taught to
read, and dire were the groans and grievous were the sighs
which these brave fellows raised as they puzzled over the
alphabet.

We have not space to notice the rest of Alfred's good
deeds ; how freely he gave of his exchequer to the service
of God ; how zealous he was to build churches and monas-
teries ; how earnest in promoting learning ; how true a
friend he was, how able a scholar, how loyal a neighbour.
Tile time was at hand when Alfred would once more have
to slew how powerful a foe he was. In 603, Hasting, who
is said to have been born in Champagne, and to have
joined the Danes from lust of plunder, did, after ravaging
various parts of Europe, land in England. For three
years there was fighting between Alfred and him. Thanks
to Alfred's organisation, Hasting was always worsted, and
in 697 he with difficulty found his way back to
France. Four years later Alfred died. We know
not the cause or the place of his death ; nor are
we certain where he was buried. His last will was worthy
of him, the greatest of kings, greater even, so high an
authority as Mr. Freeman declares, than St. Louis, than
Charlemagne, than Edward 111., or than William the
Silent. The life of this noble king has now been well set
forth by Mr. Hughes, and if at times the biographer
inclines too much to the " gushing " style of his friend,
Mr. Kingsley, he has yet produced a volume which is well
worth studying, and which we rank with Mr. Farrar's
" Seekers after God," as the best of Mr. Macmillan's
' Sunday Library."