The Republican journal., 1872-03-28

Local Items, & Q.
News of the County and City.
Lecture by Wendell Phillips.

Lecture by Wendell Phillips.
The largest audience of the season greeted
Mr.. Phillips on Friday eyening-an audience
eager, eXpectant and absorbed, and that listen
ed with profound atteption to the discourse.
The lecturer began by saying that The Lost
Arts" which he was advertised to deliver that
evening was an old lecture. prepared when the
first lyceums We're begun in this country, and
when their purpose was not well understood
They We're then held to be associations purely
literary, which were to win busy men back to
books, to give the results of the latest travels,
to paint great characters. At the first lyceum
which he addressed, the boys played IN the
aisles and jumped the stairs, until he con
cluded that listening was one of the lost arts,
and sat down. Another lecturer was fairly
put down By heels. But order was restored at
last and the lyceum became quiet and decorous.
But tor Il long time its scope was narrow. 1t
never discussed great questions. Its last Is
years Of existence to him its chief value.
1t is nov the peoples college, the representa-
tive of agitation, and the only untettered arena
of thought. Therefore | value it. Agitation, -
said Sir Robert Peel, $ is the marshaling Of a
| HdllOU y tOnSCleICt IL IL tue ulldlIluS tctDli-
panment of free state and of constitutional
government, and all steps in popular liberty
are owing to it. Pampheteers have had their
day. George the Third collected the pamphlets
of CromwelPs time. and they attested the mar
vellous watchfulness of the agitators of that
day. Defoe made most effective use of the
same means. Next Wilberforce, leaning on
| the churches, and in spite of Parliament, broke
100000 letters. O'Conne, the great Irish agi-
tator, laid down the broad principle that moth
ing can be politically right which is morally
| wrong. Golden and Bright followed in the
same path. In our time Garrison led agitation
until it compelled the nation to break three
million chains. The platform takes an unpop
uar question and lifts it until the press and the
politicians can see it. Thirty years ago slavery
possessed the country. Hit was spoken against.
every city roared with riot. Neither the press
nor politicians would touch it. SO it is with re-
form to-day - with Labor with temperance.
The politician avoids them, and the editor treads
lightly. Ten wears hence the question will be
who shall lead in lifting up and educating the
peoplet Why YOU say, the editor. appre
ciate the press, but doubt if an editor can af
iOltl " ClONQ uoNI ulltH>lNt lhtdN Iltb us
readers. lie cant grapple down lower than
public opinion. | once took letter to a Boston
editor for publication. He had agreed to print
it. but objected to the concluding paragraph,
and wanted it left OFT. SAID 'uo-that is he
snapper to the whip He put it in his paper f,
but said IN another column that he regretted
the absurd paragraph with which it concluded \
| Martyrs don't come in battalions, and you can't
have one IN each editorial chair.
What are party politics. If we are in Con
necticut to-day, and you are Democrats or Re
publicans you won't allow me to speak and
tell all | think or all you believe. | must hit
between the wind and water Of ignorance and
prejudice not to lose Il vote. A very good
| and religious man was once called upon with
reference to some OF these agtations. He said
what do you wanty' When he had been told,
he SAID These ideas are all wise and sound 8,
and couldn't devise anything better-but you
mustn't think that | am going to admit it out
side Of this room" There is a solemn question
confronting Us. Who is to lift up this people,
and pity them and melt their hearts, and show
them the right way: Somebody must. or the
republic rocks to its centre. The platform is
to do it. 1t teaches that robust independence
which dares to listen TO an opponent Here is
where the people welcome new ideas.
Such are my notions Of the lecture platform.
Now for the immediate subject of thi, lecture
1t is very common to ask what our grandfathers
would say if they could come back and iook ut
our Improvements, Ii reminds me of the man
who GlwayA took of his hat with profound re-
ect invention TO boast of, we are not upon the
right point, Tor we nav NJ in, enI,l al.r.hin=.
In ali that relates to the heautiiul--in painting
sculpture poetry, the drama-We are content
to lie second hand. Powers best work serves
only to remind US of Phidias, Shakespeare Dor
rowed of the Italians, who borrowed of the
east. Bulwer did the same, and the best of
Rien6l reproduoes an Old work Dunlop as
serts that in all Europe there are only three
hundred original stories Maria Edgworth has
story of 4 man writing, over whose shoulder
an inerloper looks. He wrote a would say
more, only an impudent fellow is looking over
my shoulder" II havn't read word you
wrote" says the man. That anecdote is only
$50 years older than the New Testament
The joke of the man who is not himself be-
cause he was stolen from the cradle when a
babe, and replaced by another, is so old a. to be
lost in antiquity. The Joke of the man who
had dimnutive glass Of wine offered, with the
remark that it was 40 years old, said it was
small Of its age, appeared in Athens 400 wears
before Christ. All Irish bulls are Greek
1t is very doubtful whether in the useful arts
that minister to daily comfort we are better off
bap ha In i'm +l,. ,
Europe had much to invent before popular
comfort would equal he time al the Pharaohs
When these things were found recorded in
years past, people who read them put "a note at
the foot of the page, saying 'Nhere he lies" And
this is the basis of good deal of criticism
Plny says that the discovery of glass was al
cidenta, the result of fire made on masses Of
nitre resting on sand. Modern wisdom has
commended that it was impossible to make an
open woodire that would fuse the materials.
But five Years ago party in Mexico made a
fire of ebony wood which is very hot, upon
silver bearing quartz, and found silver in the
asnes. Very likely Pny was right. We are
apt to measure others by the yardStlck of our
own ignorance. 1t has been questioned
whether the ancients had glass. A few wears
ago a learned man of Naples wrote 4 book to
prove that they knew nothing of the material
A short time afterwards the workmen who
were excayating Pompei, broke into room
full of all kinds OF glass--wndow glass, cut
glass, coored glass, ground glass-and the lie
and the refutaton met face to face 1t was like
the case of Lardner who in 1886 wrote a book
to prove that no steamer could cross the Allan
tic, and the first steamer brought the book over.
The ancients not only had glass, but made it Ia
a way that we can't approach. The early
Jesuits in China saw glass vessels that when
empty were like our tumblers-but when filled
with fluid like water, appeared alive with fish.
The Chinese confessed that they didn't make
them. In the reign of the Emperor Tiberias a
citizen flung at his feet glass tumber, that did
not break, but was tlattened on the marble then
with hammer he pounded it out again. In
France now they can make strips of glass that
will bend only. In Rome they show solid