The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-01-22
PrlmORenitmrc I'm England.

JUDGING from the recent British journals, il is
to be presumed that there is popular feeling
arising in England against the law of primo
geniture. This would be only natural link
in that chain of events now stretching in un-
broken sequence through long ages, and first
catching the early light of history on that
great day when the barons braved their king
at Runemede.
The story of the Anglo-Saxon race is a long
uninterrupted struggle for individual free
dom. There is no grander epic than the his
tory of the deeds Of personal courage and per-
sistent heroism by which the right of trial by
Jury was won and held against all enoroach-
ments. Step by step the people have fought
their way from servitude into liberty-a
liberty of law but not Of license, for they are
eminently law-abiding race. The King, once
by a fiction regarded as the source of all law,
has by them been accepted merely as an
embodiment of it, and as q convenient method
by which its administration may be effected
and the details regulated. On many battle
field has this been proven, and those kings
who have insanely followed the letter of the
law instead of its spirit have expiated their
folly on the scsffold or in exile.
Based originally, as warlike tribe, upon
feudalsm, which regarded the chief as the
sole source of property and power, this fiction
has been preserved in words, while in fact the
absolute reverse has grown to be the reality,
and power and property proceed alone from
the people, who willingly olothe serviceable
executive official in all the gorgeous trappings
of royalty, in which they really do homage
to the industry, wealth, and success of the
English nation itself.
The aristocracy acts as a sort Of body guard
to this royal fiction, and the London Times
takes the position in the present debate of
insisting that the British people love this
aristocracy with such sincerity of affection
that they can never be induced to abolish the
law of primogeniture, because it is the strong
est defense of the privileged Glass; that with
them landed aristocracy is "a passion
almost religion This seems to be very
| questionable. 1t is true that "Johnuy dearly
| loves lord" but it is not so certain that,
when at liberty to decide the matter for him
self, he will be found to love so fervently the
lOIuSnlp IudI dUbOIUS al Iu0 lduu, keeping
miles of it in barren forest, while he is com
PEELED to live in a cellar of a narrow, crowded
town street.
The spirit of liberalism that has spread
throughout Great Britain, and found trium-
phant utterance in the extension of the fran
chise and the Irish Church movement, will
most assuredly attack the very groundwork
upon which such relic of feudalism as the
law of entail must stand. Our own code,
which is but the modern outgrowth of the
British law, annuls all such restrictions upon
personal freedom, merely deciding that in,
testate estates shall be divided equally am one
the children. Natural parental affection and
public opinion make this rule work most
equitably, and any alteration now possible il
English legislation could only slowly inau
gurate movement tending to a similar
TasuIt