The Tamworth Examiner and Working Men's Journal. — 1875-10-16 (Tamworth, Staffordshire, England)

DUZER & RICHARDS,  SOLE PROPRIETORS. IfIEATORY  &Jl6, ;:''XHAMPTON ROW,  A),:r x)N.  Sra,—There is not the slightest donbt that wo are progressing, in language at any rate. The wise man certainly declared, "There is nothing new under the sun," and students tell no that the utterances of our modern scholars and writers are only the echoes of old philosophical teaching. Don't you think, Mr. Editor, that ideas, whether of ancient or modern times, are pretty much the same? We wrap them up, in this cultured age, in a better fashion, and therein I indicate just the difference The foregoing reflec tions are the result of reading Disraeli's recent speeches. Sad result. Ah, sir, that statesman is a master in the art of adding new colours to the shades of language in which thought !is expressed, but his ideas are old, sir, very old. He is most at home in playing hide-and-seek with ideas, and loves best of all to conceal thought in a flood of tears. What a disappointment when we bend down over the flowers of Disraeli's oratory, and brushing aside the thickened leaves of his rhetoric, find so little fruit. Better go back to the olden ages, of which a poet wrote : ":Some say that the primitive tongue Expressed but the simplest affections; . . . that the words said or sung, Were nothing but mere interjections : Oh! oh ! was the signal of pain: Ha! ha! was the symptom of laughter; Pooh! pooh! was the sign of disdain, And others came following after."  The Birmingham Town Hall rung the other night with 'such denunciations of slavery as carry Us back to the times antecedent to the American civil war. The commanding form of George Thompson, quivering with intense animation as he pled for the enslaved Afriban, was absent, nor were the listeners charmed by th oratory of the silver tongued Wendell Phillips or of bold Lloyd Garrison; but the old fire of British hated against slavery was there, and Birmingham stood true to her traditions. Sir, don't you think our blundering Government had better havci scare? It is too late in the day now to undo the work of Granville Sharpe, Clarkson, and Wilberforce. We may expect now to hear what that master of sophism, Disraeli, has to say about so enormous a blunders.  It is time that the immoral literature which is issued from London, with its murderers, burglars, and high. waymen painted in heroic colours was stamped out. The tendencies to crime are already too great, and the temptations too strong, without this investing of vice with false attractions for the young, by chroniclers of the deeds of •' Jack Sheppard" and " Blueskin." Standing recently in a London police court, I saw three lads charged with vicious conduct in the streets, and it was easy to see how the criminal ranks are recruited, especially when once the taint of the gaol is imparted. The placing of a healthy literature within the reach of the growing thousands of our School Board Schools is one of the greatest needs of the time.  No question discussed at the Church Congress has more interest to those minds who see and acutely feel the Mots on our social syatem, than the condition of our canal population. Great credit is due to Mr. George Smith, of Coalville, for calling public attention to these floating heathens of our watery highways. But it was too much for Anglican toleration to allow him, philanthropist, though, he has proved himself by his labours in connection with this and the brickyard chidren's agitation, to allow him, a Primitive Methodist, to tell Churchmen what their duty was. That was not the lay agency •' required, and so Mr. George Smith was politely told that if he was allowed to speak his right to do so would be challenged. The desire of the unity of the Church of England with other Christians is here shown to be a farce, if by Christians anyone means Methodists. Had Mr. Smith belonged to the Greek or sf me foreign Church, he would have been received with open arms, though he had talked about nothing but Church ceremonies instead of practical Christian charity. From two papers that I have before me, written by Mr. Smith. it is clear that it is time that the attention of all really earnest Christians and of practical states,en also was turned to these voyagers on our canals, wio go floating through time neglected and degraded, town to the ocean in which time is lost, gross ignovoice And immorality being 04eir too general eharactpn-tira.