NOTES OF THE MONTH.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 184, 11 January 1875, Page 4

NOTES OF THE MONTH.

(From the Spectator.)

Three el< ctions were held in France on Sunday,—two for the Alpes Maritimes, one for the Pas de Calais, and one for thp Heine-et-Oise. The result is the usual one, that the Republicans and the Bonapartists are the only two parties in the country. In the Pas de Calais, alway 3 Imperialist, the Bonapartist, M. Delisse Eugrand, beat the Republican, M. Brasme, by 65,900 to 61,500,. but a second ballot will be required. In the Seine-et-Qise the Republican won by. 60,000 to 45,000, but the Bonapartist, the Dnc de Padoue, was of the most pronounced type, and had quarrelled with the Septennate. In the Alpes Maritimes the Republicans also won, but their adversaries were suspected of a wish to reunite the Departments to Italy. The Legitimist candidates, when they stood, polled some 10 per cent of the voters, and that seems to be about their strength in political elections. They do better in elections to the Councils-General, but they are so frightened that they talk of postponing the dissolution to 1880. Why not pass a law making the Assembly perpetual, and decree the exemption of members from mortality ? Mr Bouverie was presented at Glasgow, by his former constituents of the Kilmarnock Burghs, with a portrait of himself and Mrs Bouverie, and with services of gold and silver plate, in gratitude for his Parliamentary services. He made a speech in reply which was a good illustration of the kind of downright belief in himself and disbelief in everybody who takes a different view, which is one of his most happy qualities as an orator. He had lost his seat because he was "the victim of Popish vengeance and an aspiring provost" (is, then, Rome supreme in the Kilmarnock Burghs ?—it is a great feather in her cap, if she is). Ho had refused to " toady " the Minister; he had preferred to worship "at the shrine of truth;" and he had repeatedly attempted to warn the Liberal party that was marching "into Caudine Forks with drums beating, trumpets blowing, and flags flyiDg ;" but he had been treated like Micaiah, the son of Imlah, when he declared that he saw the children of Israel scattered like sheep upon the mountains, without a shepherd. His friends and leaders were quite ready to say, like the King, "Put this fellow in the prison, and feed him with bread of affliction and with water of affliction." It was evidently a satisfaction to Mr Bouverie that his prophecy was fulfilled. He hints that the Liberal chiefs must not reproach, for they have wronged him. May be. At all events, let us hope that the portraits and the plate may make some amends. Liberal members are beginning to express alarm at the task undertaken by the Recorder of London at Mr Lowe's request and with Mr Disraeli's sanction, on introducing a Bill to apply to the enforcing of uniformity of doctrinal teaching, in the Established Church, the same summary process provided last session for enforcing uniformity of ritual. Mr Samuelson, M.P. for Banbury, in expressing his rather contemptuous estimate of the Act for the sake of which everything else was set aside last session—an Act which, in his opinion, " would turn out as great a failure, if it did rot lead to more disastrous results than the Ecclesiastical Titles Act," confessed that he held with Mr Gladstone, that the Church could live as an Establishment only by comprehension, whereas, next session, it was proposed to move on from imposing uniformity, in ritual to imposing uniformity in doctrine, and "gravely to say what truth is." Mr Samuelson means, of course, that you cannot propose to enforce peremptorily and sharply an elaborate and antiquated symbol, without discussing the very pertinent question, what falsehoods, or appearances of falsehood, it may contain—and that means an appeal to the House of Commons to say what truth is.

Mr Kirkman Hodgson, at Bristol, went further in relation to the future, not so far in relation to the past. He had not opposed the Public Worship Bill, as heregarded it as a proposal to simplify legal procedure; but he would sooner see the Church disestablished and disendowed at once, than admit the heavy yoke of the State in the form of a vote of the House of Commons as to what he was to believe. That is not very logical of Mr Hodgson, for the proposal for next session is, in form, just as much of a proposal touching the simplification of legal procedure, and nothing else, as that of last session's act. In effect, no doubt, both measures really go far beyond a form of legal procedure, and are intended to burnish up and rivet anew an indefinite number of obsolete fetters. But Mr Hodgson rightly discerns that what may possibly, though not probably, prove unimportant in relation to ritual, must prove very important in relation to doctrine. And like a good many other members of Parliament, he is dismayed at what is before them, and inclined to appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober, —from the House of Commons in a mood of bluster, to the House of Commons after it returns from consulting its constituents in the frigid intervals of a remarkably dead long vacation. Sir Wilfred Lawson has made one of his amusing harum-scarum speeches at Carlisle, saying he would have preferred to enact, instead of the Public Worship Begulation Bill, that whenever a clergyman breaks the law he should be brought up before the magistrates and fined 5s and costs. But Parliament, he says, never likes simple laws, and that is why it is so much hates the Permissive Bill; so it would have the Public Worship Regulation Bill, instead of Sir Wilfrid Lawson's alternative. Further, Mr Disraeli supported the Public Worship Regulations Bill because he saw it was so popular, and Sir William Harcourt gave it his support because he wanted to overtrump Mr Disraeli's trick. " There was a friendly emulation between the two which of them should show himself the most eminent Protectant statesman. And there they stood in the House of Commons, as they expressed it, on the broad platform of the Reformation, these two holy men, these two pillars of of orthodoxy, the modern Luther and the modern Melancthon, and in tones of moving eloquence implored the House of Commons—that great assembly of Jews, Turks, heretics, and infidels—to maintain religion and put down Ritualism." Mr Disraeli and Sir William Harcourt, representing Luther and Melancthon, in an attempt to put down Ritualism on the broad platform of the Reformation, is not a bad suggestion for a political burlesque Sir Wilfrid Lawson standing by and suggesting, sotto voce, that their intrinsic eloquence is melodramatic and superfluous, since to fine the offenders 6s and costs would fully meet the exigencies of this critical situation

It is a curiouH sign of the times that the leading journal allows all sorts of theologians, from Dr Pnsey to Mr Voysoy, to discuss in its colurao theological distinctions as well as ecclesiastical politics. For instance, a rather interesting controversy has been going on in the Times this week as to what is Sacerdotalism, in which Mr Blomfield, Mr Voysey, Mr Lewelyn Davies, and others, have taken part. Mr Llewelyn Davies, as might be expected, writes much the most thoughtful letter of the three, though he shrinks from admitting what seems to us the plain fact, as conceded by Lord Coleridge, " that the sacerdotal theory is utterly wrong, but that it has a place in her Prayer-book." Mr Blomfield wanted to define the essence of the sacerdotal theory as consisting in the assumption that the priest is a " mediator between God and man, without whose intercession men cannot be saved." But that, as Mr Davies shows, is clearly inaccurate, no system, however sacerdotal, denying God's full power, and in a large class of cases, His will, to save, without priestly intervention. Mr Davies thinks " Sacerdotalism is not a theory, but a habit of mind ;" the habit, namely, " of substituting the visible for theinvisible, the audible for the inaudible, the carnal for the spiritual." That is good ; but then that habit of mind is apt either to rest on a theory, or to engender a theory, or both. And the theory is, that a specially consecrated order of men, and that order only, is empowered to infuse a stream of spiritual influence into physical channels. We submit, that though the sacerdotal " habit of mind " is constantly found in the ministry of all churches, heterodox or orthodox, it admits of a perfect verification only in the form of this theory and that traces of this theory are visible enough in more than one of the services of our National Church. - Mr Cross apparently intends next session to introduce some Bill foi the further repression of crimes of violence. He has asked the Magistrates in session—first, to state whether they think the law against violent assaults strong enough ; secondly, whether any cases of assault now punishable summarily should be sent up foFtfial-; whether the maximum term of imprisonment to be summarily inflicted should be extended ; fourthly, whether flogging should be given ; and fifthly, whether flogging has been efficacious. We should say in reply, that the magistrates' summary power should be increased to six months' imprisonment with hard labor, and solitary confinement for the first and last fortnight; that every case in which permanent injury had been inflicted should be sent for trial; and that attempts to murder by torture —kicking being expressly included under " torture"— should be made capital. The question of flogging, which is embarrassed by social considerations, could wait till those remedies had been tried.

Brigham Young has been indicted, at the suit of the United States, for polygamy. It is not likely that he wilt be convicted, as he can buy or terrorise one of the jury into an acquittal ; but a serious trial will show the Mormons that the United States Government is master within the territories, and compel them either to suspend " the institution" by revelation, or to leave the boundaries of the Union—the latter a they are most reluctant to take. The difficulty of the trial will, of course, be to prove that the secondary marriages are marriages at all; but this will, it is believed, be got over, the marriage ceremonial in the United States being nearly as lax as in Scotland. It is, in fact, the same, with the proviso that one witness must be known as a minister of some denomination.

The Liberal members who are talking out of Parliament have, as a rule, nothing to say, and the Tories have not much more. Mr Clare Read has made a sensible speech at Walsham, but Sir C. Adderley, who spoke at Newcastle-under-Lyne, did not utter a sentence of interest; Mr Lopez, at Frome, only observed that it was hard work to be a member, that his patronage was all gone, and that he liked friendly societies; Lord Eustace Cecil, at Hatfield, only said the Henry-Martini rifle was a capital rifle, that it would cost half -a-million to change it, and that he hoped it would not be changed, while Sir Selwin Ibbetson, at the same place, urged with some courage the claim of the labourer to better wages, and with some canniness that of the farmer to compensation for unexhausted improvements. Nothing is said on the Tory side to which anybody can object, and very little in whioh a politician can take the smallest interest.

Mr Mundella made an excellent speech to the Trades Council of Sheffield, of which we can mention only one point. He had the courage, speaking to the representatives of the Trades Unions, to tell them that the practice of rattening—breaking or stealing the tools of men who disobey the Unions—was, to say the least, an anachronism which brought disgrace upon the town. It was considered the distinctive Sheffield practice, and he found Italians apologising for the failure to suppress the Italian Camorra by the argument that England has not been able to suppress the ratteners of Sheffield. So deep was the heart-burning the practice occasioned between men and their employers that the Unions should suppress it for themselves, and at once replace the tools of any man who had been rattened. If the Unions were not rich enough to do this, he for one, would promise them help, and so would the Chamber of Commerce. This is the truth, bravely spoken. A dozen cases of rattening in a single town do more to injure the Union cause than a dozen instances of the helpfulness of the Unions do to further it, Captain Dicey's experiment, the twinsteamer Castalia, appears, in one respect at at least, to be a thorough success. On October 21st at 9 a.m., though the wind was blowing fearfully, and the sea so high that it swept a poor lad off the decks, she steamed from Ramsgate to Calais in two hours and fifteen minutes, no rolling or pitching motion being observable. The outrigger system, in fact, has been tested under severe conditions, and does prevent, if the secretary's report is verified by subsequent experience, any but the faintest chance of sea-sickness. Should all that may fairly be hoped from this trip be secured, there will be a' revolution in the structure of steamers for short passenger trips. Mr William Rathbone has addressed a remarkable letter to the limes (October 17th) on the subject of local taxation. He says the tendency to borrow constantly increases, while the attention of public men to local affairs as constantly diminishes. In the single year 1871 the local bodies in the kingdom raised £5,000,000 by loan, and Liverpool, in the thirty years ending 1871, has borrowed on an average £IOO,OOO a year. In that town, and in that time, while wages rose 30 per cent, rates rose 64 per cent; and

while the taxation was in 1841, 7s 4d a head, in 1871 it was 25s 3d. Yet Liverpool is so rich in property not derived from rates, that out of £960,000 received in 1871, no less than £479.000 was not derived from taxation. Mr Kathbone points to multiplicity of authorities as the main cause of the mischief, and anybody who remembers that there are more than 2000 spending bodies in England and Wales alone will see that he must be right. We want a big new municipal system, and are not at all sure that Mr Gladstone could not do as much for the country in local taxation as the Peelitcs did in national taxation. Only he must do it himself, and prepare his Rill as if it was an Irish Land Act. We want fewer districts ; a new source of revenue, not based on rental only ; and a Parliamentary veto on loanraising. Tnere is a normal deficit in the local taxation budget—so bad that the insolvency of a municipality would be almost a blessing. No municipality should raise sixpence by loan without provision for repayment in fifty years. The Rev J. W. King, who went under the pseudonym of "Mr Launde," when he entered his horses for a race, has resigned his Lincolnshire livings, in a letter in which he tells Bishop Wordsworth that had his earlier letters to him been couched in tbe same spirit of kind remonstrance as the later one which was published, instead of consisting of merely legal threats, he should never have replied by referring his Bishop to his solicitor. As, however, it is now evident that legal proceedings would be utterly futile, andas at his great age he wishes to live the rest of his days in peace, be resigns the livings, but without admitting that in continuing the breed of a very fine race of horses, inherited for generations back from his family, and in occasionally entering them for the turf, he has done anything to incur the Bishop's censure. Perhaps not, and if he haß, the Bishop of Lincoln has clearly been in the wrong in his mode of dealing with the case, especially considering bis summons to his Diocesan Synod of a great lay colleague of Mr King's on the turf. But certainly, men who possess large estates, and feel so jnuch interest in the secular interests they. and racers of horses, can hardly have the sort of devotion to spiritual aims which is the best qualification for the work of a clergyman. Would it not be as easy for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, as for a great personage on the turf to devote any steady and hearty attention to the spiritual and moral condition of (say) his chief pauper parishioners 1 The Bishop expresses extreme gratitude to Mr King for his resignation, as though he had conferred a personal service.

Mr Pawcett made a sensible speech at Hackney in favor of the Girls' Public Dayschool Company, in which he urged that it was not possible as yet to say whether the average force of a woman's mind is or is not equal to that of an average man, considering the long and hereditary neglect of their education, but that even if it be definitely less, that is no reason at all for not cultivating it to the best of our ability. He deprecated for girls, as .for boys, the utilitarian view of education which is always asking of any study, " Is it one that will be practically useful to them in after-life?" Studies never taken up again after the period of youth are often felt by thoughtful men to have been of the greatest possible service to the intellectual discipline of their minds, and so, too, it must be with women. That is not only good sense, but good sense which in certain spheres everybody acts upon. When children are taught to commit verse or prose to memory, nobody asks whether the particular passages so learned by heart will be useful to them in after-life. We know that the memory is exercised and strengthened by the, process, and that is enough; and if it is good to strengthen the memory by one exeraise, it must be equally good or better to strengthen the reasoning or imaginative powers by another. Sir John Lubbock made an interesting speech at Bromley, in distributing the prizes and certificates to the Science and Art Classes held in connection with the South Kensington Department, maintaining that it was only these science and art classes which had saved the Revised Code from the danger of substituting a merely mechanical instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic, for that attempt to interest and develop the intelligence which is of the essence of all true education. The study of science and art could not be got up mechanically, or by rote. These studies imply independent observation and judgment, not a mere exercise of memory, and so they have to some extent counteracted the tendency of the " payment by results " to concentrate the attention of children on the mere acquisition of the instruments of knowledge,—which does not in itself give any guarantee that these instruments when acquired will be put to use, or will be put to good use. Make a child wish for knowledge, and you do more than when you give him the key to it without the wish to use it. The art and science classes do the former, and it is satisfactory to know that those who avail themselves of them have increased from 600 in all in the first year of their institution to 49,000 in 1873,—that is, have multiplied by 100 in twelve years. May they multiply themselves by another hundred in twelve years more I