The day book. [volume] (Norfolk, Va.) 1857-1867, 1866-01-05
LORD JOHN RUSSELL AND HIS
EXPERIMENTS.

list some Individual whose influence Though
exerted for special pnrposes) will be felt and
appreciated by mankind almost till the end of
time. The monk who invented ,gunpowder,
although his name is lost to fame, did thing
which may tell on human affairs after the last
pinch of his dust has disappeared. Fulton,
in our century, changed the future locomotion
of the inhabitants of the earth TILL probably,
the end of the age of iron. The inventor of
chloroform will be esteemed a benefactor of
mankind, by the sick and suffering of remote
posterity.
The man who could render cheap, or pre-
vent from becoming dear, any article of daily
necessity in all parts of the earth would, by
a favorable exercise of his power, become
blessed by his race. The poor would canonize
him, and statesmen would rank him as great
er than themselves. So, c conperso, the man,
who from party selfshnsss, or pride of opn-
ion, desire to accomplish mistaken theories of
national greatness, would deliberately multi
ply prices for the poor of all nations for all
future time, upon thug so necessary as
their daily raiment, would observe las he
could not fail to receive) the brand of eternal
infamy The wickedness of such man could
only be equalized by bis hardihood Tor, as some
might term it, moral courage"
That such man exists in the present age
and has 8" done SO foul a deed" is alas, too
true. Lord John Russell, the chief wire
puler in the British Government, has within
the lustrum by a single rash experiment, put
Joshua did the sun. King Cotton was pref
ty big King las well as servant and Lord
John thought he would try to undermine him,
even if the poor of all lands should suffer.
He would try to dance a hornpipe and let
mankind pay the fiddler. So Lord John just
& went and did it. and the world will
hereafter have to pay for the great staple. per-
haps, never less than twenty-five cents per
pound specie.
Sidney Smith well remarked of Lord John
q number of year, ag that there was no
limit to bis self-reliance and complacency
He would undertake to build ship, to erect
St. Paul's, or to deliver a woman with child
and no one could tell afterwards, from hi,
manner. that the ship had foundered at sea
the Cathedral had tumbled down, or the wo-
man had died. And the Russells according
to this eminent critic were race that new
eff changed an opinion"
When our sad civil war broke out, the Brit
ish Secretary for Foreign Affairs put his think
ing cap on his head and his hands in his pockets,
and seen ed to endeavor to +" take it coolly"
His manufacturers wanted to get the staple
cheap, as Britain was manufacturing coun-
try; but, No, says he, the niger question has
Exeter Hall must be satisfied if it costs you
your mills. Besides, our colonies can't raise
cotton for less than twenty-five cents per pound.
They are down, and we must bring the world
down to their level; we cant be expected " to
level up" So Lord John let the interests of
British manufacturers slide, and with them
now the Premier of England. Richard III.
ruled England through the blood of his neph-
ews; our great Arbiter would sacrifice only
the world for his theories
Every man scorns the nameless hero who
set fire to the fame of Diana at Ephesus; but
we would far rather stand at the bar of Heaven
AZ that man. condemned already. than as he
Who with the lights Of reason and experience
before him, has deliberately plunged the poor
of all the earth into deeper poverty, and has
acquiesced in the destruction of constitutional
liberty fora vile experiment in cotton, and an
hour of "brief authority" as Lord Premier of
England.
"Such fantastic tricks before high Heaven
(Would) make the angels weep"