The readers were drawn from all the educated classes-clergymen, lawyers, doctors, clerks, tradesmen. There was little difficulty in enlisting volunteers for this department, when once the entertainments had become popular, and a full audience was a certainty, though there was considerable difficulty in finding gentlemen with voices clear and loud enough to fill the hall, so that all could hear without effort, and in finding pieces for them to read, brief, yet telling, and written in short sentences and homely style. Additional interest was given to the entertainments by having occasionally what might be called 'class nights-e.g., a night when the whole of the music and reading was provided by members of the staff of the Midland Railway stationed in Derby, or a ‘Britannia Foundry night,' a 'Rifle Corps' night,' a 'Printers' night.' these class nights created an esprit de corps which was as wholesome for the men as it was useful to the managers. For The entertainments were made known by handbills, which were distributed in the factories, foundries, and working quarters of the town. At first, the words of the songs' were sold at a halfpenny each in the Hall; but when the scheme proved self-supporting, the words of the songs were printed on the back of all the handbills, so that every bill became, in fact, that great treasure to most working people-a song book. The result was that the bills were in eager demand; the shopkeepers said they could not keep them in their windows, so many persons came in to beg them; and there were even cases in which the bill was sold for a penny or more. It surely was no slight incidental benefit that every week some thousands of copies of the words of good, pure, standard songs were put into the hands of those whose labour most needs the lightening, and whose leisure most needs the brightening, of the God-appointed instinct of song. Objections of course have been made to such a method of spending Saturday evening as has been indicated above. Good people say that it was not the best way of spending the preparation for the Sabbath,' as they think well to call Saturday night. The natural answer rises, 'True, it is not the best way conceivable, but it is infinitely better for these men than spending it at the pothouse, indulging in excesses which made a Sabbath utterly impossible. The method of spending the two hours was not surely wrong, for save in its publicity, it differed little from the way in which Saturday evening is spent in the most orthodox of drawing-rooms-save that perhaps the music was performed without preliminary pressing, and the readings from standard authors involved no breach of the ninth commandment, which is more than can be said of the gossip and tittle-tattle which form so staple an ingredient in common conversation. Another objection made is this -that these crowds cannot be brought together without moral detriment, and that men are sure to adjourn to the drinking-houses when the entertainment is concluded. The answer to the first half of this objection is, that it is an equally good reason for shutting up our churches on Sunday evening; while the reply to the second half is, that if a man did go to the publichouse at half-past nine, he would be much less likely to stay there than if he had gone at half-past six. In the bar-parlour he finds. the companies for cards, or what not, already formed, he finds the close, small room disagreeable after two hours in a pleasant hall; his mind is influenced by the two hours of rational amusement which he has had, and the contrast makes the half drunken chorus of the tap and its screeching fiddle sound much less charming. He knows that if he goes home he will find it cleaned and comfortable; and unless he be an inveterate sot, if he goes at all to the public-house after the entertainment, it will only be for a glass of beer, and then he will steer homewards. At any rate, the regret with which the close of the third season of such entertainments elicited at Derby, from men who said that they had never missed one of the fifty which have been given, the appearance of men at the Penny-bank who had never saved a sixpence before in their lives, but who now began to deposit that they might get clothes to go decently dressed to a place of worship, encourage the belief that 123 such entertainments, wisely managed, would tide many a strongarmed but weak-willed mechanic over the dangerously unoccupied hours of Saturday, so that he should not awake on the Sunday morning physically or mentally unfit to worship the true God on His own day of holy rest. Thus a legitimate veneration of Saint Saturday might bring it about that the Lord's-day should be fittingly observed, and that this interloping Saint Monday might be deleted from the calendar of English operatives as a relic of a dark-age mythology. J. E. C. She'll train the roses on the wall: This English rose, whose tender leaves, Home-sick and pale, come forth and fall, Shall reach our cottage eaves. That English acorn which she sent- And I have planted out the shoots Which one day mighty arms shall reach; With violets at their roots. And children, playing 'neath their shade, Shall lisp our names as they who made CHRONICLE OF CURRENT HISTORY. THE singular manner in which the fate of the Budget became in its last stage mixed up with a question so wholly irrelevant as the Galway contract, is not without its peculiar instructiveness. Nominally, the division on the Bill for the remission of the paper duty was a great party conflict, in which the advantages of dispensing with a tax that was said to be collected with difficulty, and was unusually onerous to the manufacturer, were insisted on by one party, while the other party wished to protect the revenue by taking off a portion of a tax that could so easily be augmented as the duty on tea. But really there were many other points at issue. It is still uncertain whether the Opposition meant to make serious efforts for office, but, at any rate, they wished to establish the conviction that they must soon accede to power. The Irish members had to discover how much they could get out of a Ministry in difficulties, and the Ministry had to make the most they could out of the Irishmen. Now that it is all over, every one must allow that the Government turned the enthusiasm of the sister island to very good purpose; and that Lord John Russell took a handsome allowance of credit for the noble way in which the Government had resisted an attempt to corrupt them; while at the same time the Irish have been saved from despair. Lord Palmerston has discovered that Ireland is the true point of departure for America; and that of all Ireland, Galway is the best place for the purpose and a select committee has been appointed to hear and record the numerous reasons that ought to protect an Irish company against being called on too rigidly to fulfil its engagements. Both the debate and the divisionlist showed that there was a great dislike in the House to upset the Government, and at the same time, that a thousand considerations intervene at a political crisis like the present both to protect and preju dice the Government. The Ministry has been repeatedly beaten, and yet it gets on tolerably well. It does not lose credit, or assume the humble and shifting attitude of a weak Ministry, although the things it aims at are not carried, and its lobby is often comparatively empty. This is owing, we believe, almost entirely to the personal consideration in which its members are held. There is something almost ridiculous in turning out Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell and Mr. Gladstone, in order to replace them by their opponents. The first men should, it is felt, be first, unless there is a good reason against it. If any difference could be raised so as really to divide off party against party, then the triumph of one opinion would be an intelligible reason for changing the Ministry; but when nothing is to be decided, and times are quiet, reputation and ability decide who is to govern. That the country holds its chief statesmen in honour, although it does not blindly prostrate itself before their decrees, is one of the best signs of the times. We are yet so far from the ignoble jealousies of democracy, or the blind fanaticism of oligarchies, that we are proud to have our chief men in our highest places, and pay honour to old and well-established merit. On two important questions within the last month Conservative opinion has triumphed. The House has declined to increase the number of metropolitan boroughs, and the Church-rate Bill has been killed before it reached its inevitable doom in the Lords. If numbers are to be the ground on which representation is to depend, Chelsea and Kensington had an unanswerable claim. But the metropolitan members are in bad odour just now. As a body they obstruct business without contributing to the discussion of great subjects, and they are obliged to be obtrusive in order to avoid being forgotten. Marylebone has made itself especially notorious, and Chelsea and Kensington bid fair to rival Marylebone. To create another borough where, on the retirement of another Mr. Edwin James, another Mr. Harvey Lewis should defeat another Mr. Harper Twelvetrees, seemed an impossible concession to the pedantry of numbers. The country has amply ratified the decision of the House, and even the metropolis has shown no signs of indignation. This is partly a tribute to the general spirit of Conservatism, which, while nations are breaking in pieces all around us, clings closely to the great good that it is in our power to retain in safety. But it also arises from the dislike of a particular class of people. Rich men without territorial position, unknown to fame, and inclined to get into Parliament by pleasing the publicans and electors of constituencies like Marylebone, are apt to be great bores both in private and public life; and the vote which deprived Chelsea of a member was but the expression of feelings which have been bubbling and boiling for years. The defeat of the Church-rate Bill by the casting vote of the Speaker, was one of the most thrilling and exciting events to those who were present that have occurred in recent Parliamentary history. That there has grown up a wish to protect the Establishment in the last few years is undeniable, and that there is a growing indisposition to let the more violent Dissenters have their own way, is equally certain; but nothing is more hard than to estimate what is the real feeling of the nation on such a point as Church-rates. There are three things that principally contribute to make the Church popular. In the first place, the great body of educated men have come to the conclusion that the existence and independence of the Established Church is absolutely necessary at present, and will probably be long necessary, in order to secure toleration and the absence of ecclesiastical dictation. The arrogance, the ignorance, the intense narrowness and dogmatism of most of the sects of Dissenters, is far more formidable than any pretension of the Established Church can possibly be. In the next place, it is socially more respectable and fashionable to belong to the Church than to any other body; and thirdly, there is a persuasion, which may not be supported by any very precise proof, but is widely spread, that the Church works better and harder amongst the poor. On the other hand, the Church cannot be said to gain in its prestige or in the respect paid to its leaders. The Times laughs at Convocation, and nine-tenths of English laymen entirely agree with the laugh. Whatever opinion may be entertained as to Essays and Reviews, no one even professes to care whether Convocation condemns it or not. The defeat of the Church-rate Bill would lead the Church into great danger if the clergy mistook the meaning of the decision. It must be said, however, that the leaders of the Parliamentary party that is supposed to represent the clergy, have shown a disposition to use their victory as a means of coming to terms. Whether any compromise is likely to be lasting is, however, a very different affair. That there is a reaction towards Conservatism, both in and out of Parliament, is evident; but it is curious how little this is connected with the efforts and wishes of the Conservative party. Only one great question divides the two parties, and on this the feeling of the country is altogether on the side of the Ministry. The genuine burst of grief, anxiety, and interest that has followed the news of Count Cavour's death, shows how heartily Englishmen care for Italy, and how determined they are not to allow their jealousy of France or their solicitude for the balance of power to interfere with their sympathies for a great nation struggling into freedom. But the Tory party, and especially the higher members of the party, are unable and perhaps unwilling to conceal the dread they feel of Italy, and the dislike |