The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-04-11 00:00:00

THE CANT OF " PROGRESS."

(From " Hogg's Weekly Instructor.")
It is an amusing as well as melancholy matter of obser-
vation to note the facility with which, in past or present
times, a few clever charlatans have succeeded in gulling
and deluding the public mind, by ministering to popular
vanity and flattering popular foibles. In John Bull's cha-
racter the love of praise is a prominent feature, and the
only one which can be worked to advantage. Let any
honest man try to point out his errors, or to benefit him
by showing where his weakness and ignorance lie, and
immediately the popular tongue will wag against him, and
wag loudly and long, till it has silenced him • but let him
come with any hoeus pocus creed, half-mystic,
but eminently adapted to minis er to the infallible wisdom
of " the people" and the vanity of the vulgar, and be that
creed whatever it may, the panderer will find followers,
and his pockets be filled. Few people do think for them-
selves in the honest occupation of the term ; they receive
the thoughts of others into their own minds, without in-
vestigating them, and, provided they do not contradict
prejudices or prepossessions long cherished, cling honestly
by them ; and, so long as this is the case, it is no matter of
objection that they do not understand what those who pro-
fess to guide them may utter. Nay, it seems to us they
prize the incomprehensible all the more because it is so.
Any literary quack who chooses at a little labour to ac-
quire a verbose, unintelligible style, only distinct enough
to show that he feeds popular passions, the " discerning
public" will hunt out and uphold as a man of genius.
Nor does it seem to matter much that they like their
friend the less, although his motives be quite apparent.
The parasite may show he is such, yet the oak cherishes
him all the more. If he has only ability enough to main-
tain the hue and cry, when once raised, his success may be
considered certain. Of course our observations must be I
understood with some limitation. There are certain ea-I
ploded doctrines that those " earnest souls" now enlight-
ening the reading public may show up, and successfully.
The disadvantages of dirty dwellings and advantages of
fresh air—the necessity of education—the right of private
judgment—the ignorance of superstition, and kindred to-
pics, may all be handled with advantage by those whose
mission it is to hasten the dawn of the "good time coming;"
and as the people are now so far advanced as to recognise
such truths and errors, the philantrophy of their advocates
will be duly rewarded. These, intermitted with a little
superficial dabbling in the sciences, form nearly the limit
of what the public, already having learned, will allow the
propriety of being taught, and beyond these few of the one-
ness-of-purpose men attempt to instruct them in. ro cry
out " you are dirty still ;" " you are ignorant still ;" " you
are socially, morally, and politically retrograding still :"
" you are feeding on intellectual poison ;" " you are de-
ceiving yourselves"—these oracles, whether they know it
or do not, would never for a moment dream of. Their
craft would be in danger. But instead of dealing thus
honestly, they administer the subtle flattery, " ye shall be
as gods, and not men." The deluded mass is told it is on
the advance to a better condition—helping itself on—in-
formed that in every point of view it is reaching the acme
of perfection—taught that it is only to struggle and strive
a little longer, as it is now doing, and the " good time"
will arrive—that the long dark night of old ignorance and
error under which it has groped, it has now already dis-
pelled, and a glorious light is dawning. Such is the bur-
den of the song, the essence of the philosophy, the trea-
sured truth the mass believe, with much more which nei-
ther we nor they can understand, all comprehended under
the term " Progress."

Now, so long as this word is employed in reference to
literature, or arts and science, we don't object much.
But of the way in which it is generally used, and of those
who do so, we are strongly suspicious. There is a cheap
literature, some of it of older standing, but most of it re-
cently sprung up, more or less advocating it. There are
journals of progress, records of progress, oracles of pro-
gress, and magazines of progress—progress newspapers
and progress pamphlets. No penny periodical seems to
consider itself safe without registering this title. All of
these are more or less rabid on the subject, and the wilder
they are the greater chance of success. It is not good
cheap literature the majority of the public want : they
have no desire for that. In proof of this, there was
" Hunt's London Journal," and Charles Knight with his
second series of the " Penny Magazine ;" both refused to
pander to a depraved taste, and both were shamefully ne-
glected. But the dozens of cheap sheets just now issuing
from the London press need only to adopt a few cant
phrases—mystify the lower orders a little—praise them
largely—give them plenty of filthy poison to drink in, and
their success is certain. Does any one question the truth
of these assertions, let him gather from a cheap periodical
shop an armful of such stuff at random, take them home
and read them, and if he be a man possessed of one spark
of genuine honest principle, he will rise saddened from
their perusal. He will find these journals of three classes :
the lowest ministering indirectly to every vile passion,
exhibiting vice tricked out in all the draggled finery that
can captivate a youthful imagination, and serve to deaden
principle and religion in the heart ; the next class avowedly
hostile to Christianity ; and the last, but not the least dan-
gerous, making the melancholy recommendatory boast,
that it has carefully avoided every allusion to religion. The
real teaching of the first is, " Whatsoever seemeth good
unto you ;" of the last two " Self-sufficiency." We do not
speak of the talent with which some of these journals are
conducted ; many of them have a fair share of it, and de-
light in displaying some crack names in the list of their
contributors •, but these all advocate progress, and mainly
advocate it. Now it is easily enough observable that, from
whatever source this cock-and-bull story proceeds, the
obvious aim and tendency of one and all is the same—the
exaltation of human nature, and its independence of divine
aid or authority. Should any of these parties stumble at
the last conclusion, and enter a protest against it, we refer
them for proof to their own writings, and ask whether
they do not teach human advancement as wholly depend-
ent upon human sufficiency. That cannot be denied, else
the existence of the sheets and printing is fabulous. And
what else is infidelity—the meanest and most contemptible
species of it too—infinitely far behind the doctrines of
heathen sages or philosophers ?
Like every other species of imposition, this favourite
cry will have its day. So long as it pays the promoters
well enough, they will keep it up. When the profits
cease, the prophesying will cease too. Meanwhile, it an-
swers admirably the end for which it was got up. It is
accommodating enough to clothe any subject and suit any
writer—and, like charity, it covers a multitude of sins.

" I SAID TO MYSELF."—The prosecutrix in a criminal
case at the Suffolk Assizes, resorted to this familiar exple-
tive so frequently as to create some annoyance to counsel,
and merriment in Court. " Mrs. Taylor," said the
Learned Chief Baron, " you must not tell us what you
said to yourself, unless the prisoner was by."
We find many instances of the shrewd sense which al-
ways lay hid under our popular grossness—the real cause
of all our greatness. It never exhibits itself more keenly
than in the detection of cant. Counsellor Wallace once
said to a countryman in a smock-frock who was undergo-
ing his examination in the witness-box, " You in the
smock-frock, how much are you paid for lying ?" " Less
than you are, unfortunately, or you would be in a smock-
frock too."

THE FRENCH EXPERIMENT AND THE DUTY OF EUROPE.
—As the experiment now making in France is new, and
in the highest degree important, so it is to the last degree
to be wished that it may go on undisturbed. The other
powers of Europe cannot be too much on their guard
against it ; but no armed intervention should be attempt-
ed, if France retains the pacific attitude she has hitherto
held in regard to other states. The republicans of that
country have never ceased to declare that the first Revo-
lution terminated in internal bloodshed, military despot-
ism, and foreign subjugation, because it was not let alone
—because the Girondists plunged it into war, in order to
provide a vent for the ardent passions and vehement aspi-
rations of the unemployed multitudes in that country.
Lamartine admits, in his celebrated circular, that in 1792

" war was a necessity to France." He disclaiths, as
every man of the least knowledge on the subject must do,
the idea that it was provoked by the European powers,
who, it is historically known, were drawn into it when
wholly unprepared, and as unwillingly as a conscientious
father of a family is forced into a duel. Lamartine says
the same necessity no longer exists—that the world has
become pacific, and that internal regeneration, not foreign
conquest, is the end of this revolution. We hope it is so.
We are sure it is ardently desired in this country that
pacific relations should not be disturbed with the great
republic, provided she keeps within her own territory,
and does not seek to assuage her thirst at foreign foun-
tains. By all means let the long-wished-for experiment
be made. Let it be seen how society can get on without
the direction of property and knowledge. Let it be seen
into what sort of state the doctrines of the Socialists and
St. Simonians, the dictates of the trades-unions, the cla-
mour of the working masses, will speedily reduce society.

Theirs be the glory and the honour if the experiment
succeeds—theirs the disgrace and the obloquy if it fails.

Let all other nations stand aloof, and witness the great
experiment—" a clear stage and no favour" be the uni-
versal maxim. But let every other people abstain from
imitating the example, till it is seen how the experiment
has succeeded in the great parent republic. It will be
time enough to follow its footsteps when experience has
proved it is conducive to human happiness and social
stability. But while, as ardently as any Socialist in ex-
istence, we deprecate the commencement of hostilities by
any European power, and earnestly desire to see the great
social experiment now making in France brought to a
pacific issue, in order that its practicability and expedi-
ence may for ever be determined among men, yet it is
evident that things may take a different issue in that
country. It is possible—though God forbid we should
sty it is probable—that the great republic may, from in-
ternal suffering, be driven to foreign aggression. This,
on Lamartine's own admission, has happened once : it
may happen twice. France has four hundred thousand
regular troops under arms ; and every man capable of
bearing a musket is to be forthwith enrolled in the Na-
tional Guard. Twenty-five thousand of that body have
already been taken into regular and permanent pay, at
thirty sous. er about fifteenpence, a-day, and sent to the
frontier. It is impossible to say how soon this immense
and excited mass, with arms in their hands and little food
in their stomachs, may drive the government, as in 1792
they did that of the Girondists, on Lamartine's admission,
into foreign warfare. It behoves Europe to be on its
guard. Fortunately the course which its governments
should pursue in such an event lies clear and open. They
have only to resume the Treaty of Chaumont, concluded
in 1813, to curb the ambition of the great military repub-
lic of which Napoleon was the head. Let that treaty be
secretly but immediately renewed as a purely defensive
league. Let no one think of attacking France; but the
moment that France invades any other power, let the four
great powers forthwith bring a hundred and fifty thousand
each into the field. Let not the wretched mistake be
again committed, of the others looking tamely on when
one is assailed—" et dum singuli pugnant, universi Yin-
cuatur." The moment the French cross the Rhine or
the Alps, the states of Europe must &Laud side by side as
they did at Leipsic and Waterloo, if they would avoid
another long period of oppression by the conquering re-
publicans. —Blacktnedst Magazjne.

VALUE OF AFRICA AS A PRODUCING

COUNTRY

(From the Colonial Magazine.)
The gentle man is still alive, or was three years ago, who
imported the first bale of American cotton into Liverpool.
Now, England receives annually from that country a
quantity of no less value than £15,000,000. Of the capa-
bility of Africa to produce cotton, no traveller, who has
noted that continent, fails to remark the excellence and
abundance which is produced of this useful material. Mr.
Dalrymple, who was at Goree in 1776, states " that there
.....

are three different kinds of cotton ; that samples sent home
were considered by English merchants to be far superior
to that from the West Indies. It grows spontaneously
almost everywhere, though it is sometimes cultivated."
Before him writes Weaver, who says, " of the vegetables
that are wild, the sugar-cane, cotton shrub, and indigo,
seem the most valuable. No country in the world is more
amply enriched than this is with the chief productions of
the animal and vegetable kingdoms." Colonel Denham
also states " that cotton grows wild about Sierra Leone,
of three kinds, white, brown, and pink : the first is excel-
lent." In another part of his travels he observes, " found
it wild on the Tschadda." Park and Clapperton both
bear ample testimony of the superior character of the pro-
ductions of the African looms in the interior. Lander
says, " from Badagry to Saccatoo the cotton-plant, indigo,
&c., are cultivated to a great extent." The Rev. John
Pinney, an American missionary, remarks, " the crops of
coffee, pepper, and cotton, exceed all that could be boasted
of in the United States." The trade in palm oil, raw
cotton, shea butter, rice, and bees'-wax, according to
Laird, could be indefinitely increased. But proofs innu-
merable could be advanced if more was required. Not
only these but the testimony of every traveller into the
interior of Africa could be quoted to the same effect, the
majority also affirming the vastly superior character of
produce over the cotton obtained from any other part of
the world.

Again, coffee, the greater amount of which we receive
from Arabia and Brazil can be obtained of a much better
kind, and far more readily from Africa. Here is its native
country, where forests of it grow wild, affording subsis-
tence to numberless monkeys. It is a fact that all the
coffee brought into England from Arabia comes originally
from the interior of the opposite continent. Hundreds of
tons are annually exported from the fair of Berberah to
Mocha and other Arabian ports. In this manner second
hand from its actual cultivators, and by a circuitous route
round the Cape of Good Hope. it finds its way into the
European markets, and even then competes with the pro-
duce of countries more favourably situated. It is reported
in the proceedings of the African Institute that when Ki-
zell, a Nova Scotian, first observed coffee near the Sher-
bro. he pulled up two or three plants, and showed them to
the people, who said that they thought it was good for
nothing but to fence their plantations. It grew all over
the country, and in some places nothing else was to be
seen. Sir Fowell Buxton has recorded that even in its
wild state it seems to repay the trouble of gathering, for
the Commissioners at Sierra Leone, in their annual reports
for 1838, state " that the Foulahs have been induced by
the poor traders of the River Nunez to bring down for
sale to them a quantity of coffee, the produce of the fo-
rests of their own country." We are told also by Ash-
mun, in his life, that in Liberia no crop is surer, for that
African coffee frequently produces four pounds to the tree,
and that the berries attain a size unknown elsewhere.
The low countries to the south of Abyssinia, we also
know, yield an inexhaustible supply, for whole caravans of
this useful berry are continually being forwarded through
the Adal country to the coast opposite Aden, whilst vast
quantities reach Zanzibar from the interior in the same
direction, and is exported to India.
Indigo is another indigenous product of Africa ; it grows
abundantly on the banks of all the intertropical rivers.
Of late years it has been made a profitable source of re-
venue to the sagacious Pacha of Egypt, who, in the coun-
tries around the upper course of the Nile, has encouraged
culture and manufacture of this_important dye. -

Africa was the source from whence the rest of the world
derived their knowledge of, and the first supply of, indigo.
At least, its general name in the East is nil ; and whether
the river of Egypt has given its name to the plant, or the
important produce of its banks has conferred an honour-
able and permanent title to the river, the inference is na-
, tural that, in the country surrounding its course, indigo
was first employed as a dye, and that from thence it tra-
velled, with many other useful facts of ancient Egyptian
civilisation, about the period when the nations of Europe
and Asia appear to have been emerging from the darkest
ignorance of barbarism. Ah ! indeed, well may we ob-
serve, how little is deemed to be owing to Africa by the
rest of the world that has so benefited by the moral revo-
lution which determined the transition, from society as it
was in the times of the pyramids and rock temples of
Egypt, to that which it is at present.
One remark more as regards the abundance of indigo to
be obtained from Africa. It is the weed of that continent.
All over its tropical portions it grows so freely that it is
difficult to eradicate it. In 1828 Mr. Smart, writing to
Sir G. Murray, says—" Immense quantities of indigo and
other noxious weeds spring up in the streets of Freetown."
Captain Denham also observes, that " inland, as far as
Lake Tchad, the natives give a beautiful dye to the clothes
with a rude preparation of the wild plant."

IRISH IMMUNITY AND IRISH WRONGS.

(From the Times.)

There is no animal under the sun, nothing that runs,
flies, swims, burrows or creeps, or crawls, so free as the
Irishman. He can sit on his dunghill, and publicly curse
his King and his country. He may openly employ him-
self in casting bullets, in hitting penny-pieces at fifty
paces, In pike practice, in sword practice, ix. a.e,,—.,
tice, in reaping-hook practice, besides those rougher arts
of destruction in which he is already practised to perfec-
tion. He may announce that the Queen's troops are
the objects of these pious exercises. Yet he cannot be
interfered with. Such is the law. Should the day ever
arrive that a hundred thousand barrels are levelled from
the windows and roofs of the Irish metropolis against
the troops and the loyal inhabitants in general, the law
may then be appealed to. In that crisis, we presume, it
will no longer be indecisive. If there is time to lay a
case before Her Majesty's Attorney-General, and the
Viceroy is alive to lay it, and should the troops be also in
existence, we shall then,,eloubtless, have a most excellent
legal opinion, which will henceforth take its place in our
books of law, setting forth that if the troops still survived,
it was not punishable in them to fire in return.
Whatever is permitted to man an Irishman can do if he
chooses. Unfortunately, nature is not equally accommo-
dating, and hence all this rebellion. An Irishman cannot
cower over a turf fire or bask in the sun from one August
to another and then find a splended crop of wheat or
potatoes on his land self-sown, self-furrowed, and self-
cleared. He cannot find his barrel of meal always full
however freely he may have drawn from it. His coat
wears on his back and his shoes on his feet, especially
when he never puts a needle to either. His hut does not
thatch or glaze itself. lie cannot keep his hands in his
pockets from Monday morning to Saturday night, and
then find seven shillings regularly there at the end of the
period. He cannot shoot ten gentlemen's stewards in
succession and the gentleman himself last of all, and yet
find a free influx of English capital and skill to fill up the
gap. He cannot meet with the most brutal ingratitude
the assistance he has begged in the most abject whines
and then find loans and grants as plentiful as ever. lie
cannot indulge in the indolence, the uncleanliness, and
the ferocity of the lower animals and yet find hmself at-
taining the dignity of a man. These are impossibilities.
They are found to be impossibilities by many persons in
England, in Scotland, and still more in certain other
countries. They are also impossibilities in Ireland.
They are so by the irrevisible laws of Nature and of Pro-
vidence. Yet they are at the bottom of the Irishman's
grievance. The union he wants to repeal is the universal
union between natural cause and effect, between industry
and reward, between cleanliness and comfort, between
obedience and peace, between good social habits and na-
tional prosperity. There is a saying of foreigners that the
English appear to think the Messiah came and suffered for
them alone. The Irish appear to imagine they have an
exclusive right to the blessings of Providence. We say this
on the fullest consideration. As we have frequently ob-
served, every Irishman has just the same chances in his
favour as every Englishman. He has the same laws and the
same opportunities. Ninety-nine out of every hundred in-
habitants of this island find it a very wretched, beggarly,
unkind, uncomfortable place unless they work very hard,
are up early and late, practise all kinds of shifts, deny their
appetites and tastes, cut jovial society, submit with patience
to irksome control, extinguish their tempers, discipline
their tongues, abstain from offence, practise mutual for-
boaranoo and accommodation. and, m fact, live lives of
voluntary and honourable servitude. By the practice of
these homely habits we just contrive to patch up a tolera-
ble show of decency and comfort. The Irishman sees
and envies ; wants to grasp the result, but will not con-
descend to the means.

EPSOM SPRING MEETING, FRIDAY

The GREAT METROPOLITAN STAKES of 25 sous. each,
were won by Lord Eglinton's Glen Saddel, beating Mr.
Meiklam's Inheritress, and Mr. Shelley's Remembrancer.
The following also started, but were not placed :—Jeri-
cho, Lady Wilclair; Rat-trap, Blackbird, Walmgate Bar
Without, Tufthunter, Gannet, Marietta, Tit-bit, Antago-
nist, Pottinger, Moscow, Maid of Lyme, Marquis of Con-
yngham, Snuffbox, Tortoise, Cracow, Blackball, Baccha-
nalian, Headley, and Senga. Betting : 7to 2 agst Jeri-
cho, 10 to 1 agst Lady Wildair, 10 to 1 agst Cracow, 10
to 1 agst Glen Saddel, 12 to 1 agst Rat-trap, 12 to 1 agst
Remembrancer, 12 to 1 agst Maid of Lyme, 20 to 1 agst
Marietta, 20 to 1 agst Moscow. A most excellent start
was effected, Blackbird leading, attended by Maid of
Lyme, Marietta, and Marquis of Conyngham, Rat-trap,
and Glen Saddel also lying well up. In the rear were the
heavy weights, Cracow and Headley. On turning out of
the course the lead was taken by Maid of Lyme and
Marietta, who went on in company, followed by Glen
Saddel and Rat-trap to the top of the hill, when Marietta
took up the running, which she carried on to the road ;
Glen Saddel here obtained the lead, waited on by Rat-
trap, Marquis of Conyngham, and Remembrancer to the
distance, where Inheritress and Jericho drew towards the
leading horses. Halfway up the distance Inheritress took
the second place, Jericho and Remembrancer also lying
well up. A beautiful race ensued with this lot, Glen
Saddel winning by a head, the old mare second, beating
Rembrancer by a neck, and the latter beating Jerieho by
a head ; Marquis of Conyngham was a bad fifth. Run in
4m. 20s.
The TWO-YEAR-OLDS STAKES of 10 sous. each : colts,
Bst. 61b.; fillies, Bst. 31b. ; half-mile ; 18 subs, were won
by Mr. Dyson's Christiana, beating Mr. Payne's Far-
thingale. The following were not placed : Epirus,
British Consul, Docility f. by Caesar out of Emily, Cheer-
ful, Syrup, Cashier. Betting : 6to 4 agst Farthingale,
6to 4 asst Cashier, and 6to 1 agst Emily. Farthingale
and Christiana got away together, and made the whole of
the running, Christiana winning by a short head ;
Doci-
a bad third, and Lord Low:date's colt fourth. Run
in 500.