Do you repent now? Not a whit. Here is the future policy of the MORAL See again the Express of February 20, 1850. PARTY. 'We silently assisted and applauded the progress of that reaction which has swept constitutional government from Europe; and having done so, there is no longer a policy or a necessity for our caviling and quarreling with the mass of allied despotism, that new Holy Alliance, which we permitted to be formed. "The despotic alliance is now master of Europe. We have not interfered to prevent it obtaining that mastery, and the best thing we can do is now not to interfere with their retention of it. Of all the absurdities that we could possibly commit, the greatest would certainly be that of keeping up armaments in maritime or military force, which we otherwise did not require, merely because of the unsatisfactory state of the continent. The continent has nothing to say to us, nor we to the continent. 'Let us avoid all contact, and their rulers can have no cause of quarrel with us. 'The cause that is now alleged for entangling England in the politics of Europe, is that Austria, our pet Austria, has had the audacity to propose including Lombardy in the Germanic empire. Now, what on earth is it to us whether she does or not? 'We can see, therefore no cause for England interfering in anything that it may please the good people at Frankfort to devise touching the connexion of North Italy with Germany. "The French may feel nettled at this, and may remonstrate, if it so please them, But we maintain that England, especially after the quiet and submissive part England has played of late, has no claim nor right now to become remonstrant. Neither do we see that JOHN BULL can be called upon to pay one more pound to the sum of military estimates, because it pleases Prince SCHWARZENBERG that Lombardy should appear as part of the German confederation in the next edition of the Almanac of Gotha.' And who taught this quiet submission except the Express' own party? You have designedly (for you acknowledge the foresight) led, or morally left us, to a position in which there is no longer a policy or a necessity for our caviling or quarreling with the mass of allied despotism.' It is a breeches-pocket homily after all. The murder is out: moral resistance meaned money in the till. There is no use in further caviling. What, not even the colour of a Whig protest? 'England has no claim nor right now to become remonstrant, especially after the quiet and submissive part England has played of late.' The quiet and submissive part having been got up to justify the especially. The part played by England under the liberal leadership of Russel, Hume, Cobden, and the rest of the Palmerstonian non-intervention gang. To this they have led us through the moral resistance of the bargainers for the fall of Rome and Hungary, to the infamous acquiescence of slaves who are to be accustomed to let the world wag as it will. What on earth is it to us?' It is only a question of more or less tax. We have given up all claim or right to consider the morality of the matter. The degrading process has been well devised: the descent is easy. First 'moral resistance' against despotism (morally including the plotting of masked liberalism in the service of every despot); then silent acquiescence in the consequences (what on earth is it to us?); now complicity (for the sake of the shop,) to protect our own pockets' we have lost all except our pockets,'-since we can not recall the past, and repentance might be unprofitable. The last stage (for which we are being prepared) will be the open partnership of the 'brute Tyranny' with the 'moral' Trader; and the People will find in its helotism the just reward of its beastly submission to the leadership of Dishonesty. There are two political parties in England: the party of Despotism, and the party of Dishonesty which, Jacob-like, covets its brother's inheritance, but which would not object to bargain with him for a secure half. Where is the third party, the party of Right, of Justice and of Order, opposed alike to the wrongfulness of Despotism and to the anarchical knavery of the Golden-Mean? Where is the party of THE PEOPLE? Where are those who, believing in God and his law, will gird themselves to smite down both the Idolator and the Atheist ? THE BROTHERS. [From an Old Book.] THERE were three brothers: Cain and Abel and one unnamed. Cain arose against Abel, and slew him. Their brother looked on. And when Abel cried unto him for help, he refused. For he said he loved peace and abhorred all manner of violence: but peradventure Cain might stay to reason with him. In process of time the children of the three brothers increased, so that they overspread the earth. To this hour, when the sons of the first Murderer would slay the seed of the Righteous, the descendants of him who abhorred all manner of violence refuse their interference to prevent the wrong. Verily the crime of Cain shall be expiated sooner than the crime of these. PEACE AND HOPE. (Cromwell's charging-cry at Waisby-Field.) For 'Peace and Hope' our Heroes bared their swords: ENGLAND'S SHAME. DIG a grave, and dig it deep, To Dishonour's burial! Dig a grave, and dig it deep, Wherein England's Shame may sleep. Openly, in front of day, In the broadest public way, Dig that grave!-the ground will be Hallow'd by its own ministry. Dig a grave, and dig it deep, Wherein England's Shame may sleep. Dig the grave with freemen's swords, Keen thoughts and determined words! Be upborne by each and all, To the caverns of the deep English Shame hath travel'd far Lay the Weary in his tomb! Dig his grave, and dig it deep: Lower him to his grave with ropes Leaves and blossoms blight-forbid Drop upon the coffin-lid! Dig a grave, and dig it deep, Wherein England's Shame may sleep! Let no priestly hireling dare Save the rush of earth to heap But, when ye are wending thence, Let one song burst forth from ye; One strong hymn whose waves shall leap The living dens where tyrants sleep. HAT public indignation should be roused against the Sloanes was natural. Now they are punished. Perhaps not as less respectable people had been punished; but let that pass. If there is further wrath to expend, let it be bestowed upon the system which connives at, encourages, occasions such abominations. Leaving these particular malefactors in their ignominy, let us examine the system which engendered them. Jane Wilbred was a pauper. So long as landlords and capitalists exploit the labourer, there must be paupers; so long as injustice rules, the poor' shall never cease out of the earth.' But a wise and paternal government, even a weak government endeavouring to be wise and paternal, would, if unable to prevent the impoverishment of the worker, at least care to lighten his sufferings. Nay, in its judicious kindness it might contrive to rescue some few of the rising generation from the curse of poverty. It would bring up its paupesr tenderly. In the poor-house, under the special supervision of the central authority, the burdensome pauper would be nurtured till it became a thriving and useful member of society. The child would be carefully nursed, properly educated, and reared to its full strength that it might buffet bravely with a hard world. Even when it left the parent house, the sheltering wings of the parochial guardians would brood over it, like angel watchers over a ward in chancery. A very pleasant theory, but not tallying with the practice toward Jane Wilbred. She left the poor house, ignorant as a brute, to be the drudge of hard taskmasters; and the parish, rid of their burthen, cared for her no more. So ignorant was she, so imbruted and spirit-broken (by what? by what but her pauper education under the parish guardianship?), that she at once bowed unrestingly to the yoke of the new tyranny, and never lifted her thoughts to the hope of redress from her old guardians. How the poor dumb wretch was abused we know but too well. Her tyrants, too, are smarting for it. But is the evil remedied? The law that punished them, volunteered to inform them, how gratuitously they had incurred the risk of punishment. Barring the assault, they might have abused her at their pleasure. She, forsooth, was old enough to take care of herself. The law that permitted her ignorance, denies protection to the ignorant. They might have starved her, tormented her to madness or death, and been beyond the law, had they kept their hands off her. The law had no protection for her, because she was not of tender years.' How had her tender years been protected? No protection or compensation. By an accident she has escaped the Sloanes. So soon as she leaves the hospital, she may return to similar service, or, having none to give her a character, seek a living in the streets. She may not come to this, for private charity may interpose; but her only dependence is on this chance of bounty. The Law ignores her. The Law, that permitted her childhood to be neglected, her girlhood to be starved and cruelly maltreated, will leave her womanhood to abuse, worse than neglect or starvation. She stands alone in the world, unfitted to cope with it-unprotected -uncared for. If no passing Samaritan will step out of his way to speak comfort to her, let her die; trample her to death in her abandonment, and impanel twelve respectable householders to record a verdict of Died by the Visitation of God—a natural death. This is law-government-social order. Dare to assail a system of things to which Jane Wilbred's case is not the exception, but of which it is the example,of which such cases as her's are logical and inevitable consequences: and from the senate-house, and from the pulpit, and from the rich man's comfortable fireside, will proceed a chorus of denunciation, cursing you as a disturber of 'society.' A 'society,' which has neither law (if law is rule of justice), nor government (if government means social regulation), nor order; which is not society, but anarchy, a vicious anarchy far worse thau savage nature. There are no paupers among the savages. No solitary instance. 'But it is unjust to argue from a solitary instance.' Paupers are not educated, either, physically, intellectually, or morally." No solitary instance: 'next to governesses,' says Harriet Martineau, the largest |