Middlesbrough & Stockton Gazette and General Advertiser. — 1875-05-27 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

MRS ANNIE BESAN T AT MIDDLESBROUGH. On Monday night a lecture was delivered in the Oddfellows' Hall, Middlesbrough, by Mrs Annie , Besant, of London. The subject of the lecture was "Civil and Religions Liberty." The attendance was not large. The lady lecturer commenced by pointing out the mischief which arose from the exclusiveness of society. When she had heard ,iropped from polite lips sneers at poiilical reform,. she had looked tround at the houses in which those people lived, and at the luxury which surrounded them, and had seen how very ifinch troubled they were at some trifle which ruffled the smooth current of their lives, and she had thong; that if she c ,nld take those people who despised the poor, and force them to live the lives of the masses, the braver hearted of them would turn into demagogues, and the weaker spirited would sink down into hopelessness. The lecturer then glanced at the French Revolution, which was a culmination of the reaction against the feudal system. Atter depicting the evils of feudalism in France and England, the lady lecturer animadverted upon the wretched homes of the poor of England. Aft,r allowing them tu huddle together in hovels—father, mother, grown-up sisters, and brothers sleeping in one room —they wondered at the immorality of the agricultural labourer. At Woolwich soldiers were huddled into wretched hovels, and those huts belonged to the Government. fitteh huts they were as Her Majesty would not house her cattle in at Windsor or Balmoral. The lecturer then touched upon the loyalty . of the people. She did not want to disparage loyalty. She thought it sae one of the highest principles of the sentimental part of our nature. But she did not believe in a loyalty which was given only because a person had been placed on the fancied elevation of a throne. To genius and intellect she would urge the yielding of a ready loyalty. Bat it could not truthfully be given to a man or woman, simply because they belonged to a Royal House. The lecturer then dwelt upon tie Land Laws. biro man Lad any exclusive right to , land, any more than to other natural gifts, such as light and air. A man's labs.ur on lend should be for his own benefit. At present, things were I exactly the reverse. The.busy man—the farmer— who had spent his energy upon increasing the fruitfulness of his farm, was often turned away just when he should reap the advantage, the idle man—the proprietor of the land, stepping in and taking to himself the value of the labour of the busy man. Referring to taxation, she said that if they wanted Courts they must pay for them, and consequently the people were taxed. As poor people's pockets did not contain very much money, they adopted the method of taking it from what they were coropelled to eat and wear. No one, except the leaders of popular movements, knew what a quiet alienation of the people from the crown was going on. But it was going on steadily neverthe-less, and was due in a great measure to the unfair system of taxation. The lecturer considered the maintenance of a standing army as a piece of folly. With reference to the House of Lords, she said there was more of the comic element in it than anything else. It was a kind of political Zadkiel's almanac, and taken in that sense, was of some use. Whatever the people wanted, the House of Lords did not want, and as the people were the strongest, of course they eventually succeeded in obtaining what they desired. The lecturer then proceeded to the second head of her subject—religious liberty. After confessing herself a free-thinker and a secularist, she stated that she was not at that time advocating atheism, but simply religions liberty. Liberty for one to worshi? in one way,orfor another to abstain from worshipping.  The man Redwood, aged 70, who was recently ordered to be detained as alunatic during her Majesty's pleasure for the murder of his grandchild at Deptford, hue died in Maidstone Gaol.  DYER'S WORKMEN ti