country doctor at a place where we were staying in 1866. I had been
reading _Tom Brown’s Schooldays_, and I began to listen attentively,
when I heard the doctor denouncing Rugby and speaking of Arnold’s
“presumption” in undertaking to bring up other men’s sons when he could
not bring up his own: every one of them had turned out badly. My father
looked surprised, and mentioned Matthew Arnold. The answer came with
several slaps upon the table--“Matthew, indeed! A free thinker, sir, a
Free Thinker.” And then the doctor went on to talk of the “impiety” of
bishop Colenso in remarking that the Book of Numbers had arranged the
Hebrew camp in such a way that the Levites’ quarters would be more than
a sabbath-day’s journey from the lavatories.
Colenso had begun his criticisms of the Pentateuch in 1862, and had
enraged the partisans of Verbal Inspiration. They could not deny that
his conclusions were arithmetically right, and they did just what the
Jesuits did in the days of Pascal and his _Provinciales_. In 1653 the
Pope condemned some doctrines in a book, but mentioned the wrong
book--the doctrines were not there. It was really no more than a slip of
the pen; but, being in a Papal Bull, it could not be corrected. So the
Jesuits cried “témérité” when anybody mentioned it, just as people like
this doctor cried “impiety.” These people vindicated Moses as
strenuously as Strabo vindicated Homer. They had no suspicion of
misreadings in the Hebrew or the Greek, or mistranslations in the
English version: they just adopted Burgon’s view, “every book, every
chapter, every verse, every word, every syllable, every letter, was the
direct utterance of the Most High.” In other words, the Most High would
not merely send a message off, but would see that it got through.
Now-a-days superior persons scoff at these benighted folk, but very
often seem to be astray in just as dark a night themselves. When I hear
dignitaries talking of the _Filioque_ Clause, I sometimes wonder if they
know how Shu “proceeded” from Neb-er-Tcher, when that deity transformed
himself into a Trinity by the emanation of Tefnut and Shu. The legend is
recorded (in Egyptian hieratic) in the papyrus of Nesi-Amsu, which is
considerably earlier than the Christian Era. And anyone who wants to
know it, will find it printed and translated in _Archæologia_, vol.
LII.
For many years there was a steady sale of _Questions on Church History_
by my mother’s sister, Emma King, written in 1848 when she was
twenty-seven. It begins with the church in Jerusalem, and deals with
persecutions, councils, doctrines, heresies, schisms, sects, orders,
missions, etc., ending with the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829; and
every question is answered with brevity and precision and strictly in
accordance with the Thirty Nine Articles. I have spoken of her
water-colours in my former _Small Talk_; and she was well informed--knew
Hebrew and Italian and many other things--but published no more books.
She married a Fellow of Trinity, who accepted one of the College
livings; and in that country Vicarage she spent the best part of her
time in making garments for the poor. She did, however, find time to
expurgate the _Ingoldsby Legends_, thus rendering them presentable at
Penny Readings. I have her copy with her pencillings. ‘There’s a cry and
a shout and a deuce of a rout’--_for_ deuce of a _read_ terrible. ‘The
Devil must be in that little Jackdaw’--_for_ The Devil _read_ A Demon.
And so on.
Like many books of that period, hers was “for Young Persons”. Others
were “for Young Ladies,” not differing much from these except in the Use
of the Globes, which was a subject for Young Ladies only. Few people
realize how wide the subject was. ‘What is whalebone?’ ‘Who were the
Sirens?’ ‘What are the properties of dogs?’ There are questions on
Cetus, Eridanus and Canis on the celestial globe: pages 430, 431 in
Butler’s _Exercises on the Globes_, 11th edition, 1827. On the
terrestrial globe (page 40) it asks, ‘What is the difference of latitude
between the places where Burns was born and Lazarus was raised from the
dead?’
In my early years there were books “suitable for Sunday reading.” If the
Young Persons’ books were milk for babes, these books were the slops. I
have several that were given to me then; and with _Sunday echoes in
week-day hours_ there is a letter from the man who gave it. He said that
he was sure I should enjoy it, as his own children had enjoyed it so
very much indeed. After reading it, I wondered if they really had.
Happily for me, my father said authoritatively that the Continental
Bradshaw was a Sunday book, and so also Murray’s Guides. I thus had
pleasant Sunday afternoons, travelling in my easy chair.
Two friends of my father’s bought Livings in the Church, and consulted
him about the prices of the Next Presentations and Advowsons that were
offered to them. Here is the offer of a parish adjoining this, 17 May
1853, “The sum asked is £2250, of which £1250 may remain on mortgage of
the Advowson at 3½ per cent.... The present incumbent is in his 67th
year.” These men were of a sort that any parish would be glad to get:
kindly, courteous, generous, with considerable means and very
considerable learning--one had taken a First in Greats and the other had
been a Wrangler. They deserved the fattest of Livings, and yet they had
to buy; and they never had any preferment, though Canonries were given
to those two men who preached the sermons (that I have quoted) on dances
and the opened Bible. Of course, the traffic in Livings is indefensible
in theory, but in practice it may often lead to happier results than
public or official patronage.
There were some letters here that I destroyed, as they mentioned many
people’s names, and compromised them. Somebody wanted a seat in
Parliament, and was prepared to pay for it, if he could get it cheap.
(This was nearly seventy years ago.) Inquiries were made in various
boroughs of bad repute, and the replies were pretty much the same.
‘Bribery and corruption are intolerable things, and ought to be put
down; but, as men of the world, we have to take things as they are. The
seat will certainly be sold, and may as well be sold to you as sold to
anybody else. It probably will cost you so-and-so.’ The prices varied
very much, not having an open market to control them.
The sale of seats was hindered by prospects of disfranchisement. These
offers all stipulated that, whatever happened, there must be no
petition. Things would come out on petition that would lead to a
commission; and the commissioners would find out things enough to make
disfranchisement a certainty. And that would be the death of the goose
that laid those golden eggs.
After the general election of 1865 one of the commissioners was dining
with us, and after dinner he told my father what he thought about it
all: not in the measured terms of his report, but quite colloquially. I
learnt a lot of practical politics that night before I was sent off to
bed.
At the general election of 1868 the Liberal party was committed to
disestablishing the Irish church; and many good Liberals disapproved of
this, as they thought that disestablishment was not a matter for party
politics at all. A county constituency (not very far from Devon) was in
the hands of Liberals of that sort; and they refused strong candidates
and picked out one who was so weak that he was sure to lose the seat. He
lost it; and scrupulous people found fault with them for taking his
money (£3000, I believe) when they knew quite well that he would be
defeated.
These men cared more for Church than State, and thought the end might
justify the means; but I have known seats lost without excuse. A breezy
sailor was looking for a seat in 1885, and tried a London constituency
in which I had a vote. He was a very strong candidate; but the local
Conservative Association would not adopt him unless he paid them £400 a
year. I cannot say (verbatim) where he told them all to go to; but he
went elsewhere himself and was elected. They got their £400 a year from
a nincompoop who lost the seat.
I remember a City man who was Vice-Chairman of one of the biggest
undertakings there, but found he had no chance of being Chairman unless
he was in Parliament--they wanted someone who could put their views
before the House. He was a first-rate businessman, but not a showy
speaker; so he got a brilliant young barrister to join him in contesting
a borough with two seats. He paid the second candidate’s expenses, only
“it must be understood that in his canvassing for himself, he of course
supports me as senior Liberal candidate.” I remember that young
barrister then--and also as a Judge long afterwards--and he was much too
big a man to be subordinate to anyone. He made such brilliant speeches
there that the senior Liberal candidate was totally eclipsed.
But his speeches did not really make much difference. A man writes to my
father, 7 July 1864, “I was twice solicited to contest this most rotten
borough, and will undertake to say that, whatever ***** may do, the best
bidder will gain the day. I never was so disgusted with any place. They
stipulate for 2 or 3000_l_ and leave you to be prepared to double this
sum or more. Depend upon it, nothing but money will do, and with a free
use of that, all is safe.”
Two incidents in that election are imprinted on my mind.--The senior
Liberal candidate was past the prime of life, but very tall and
dignified, with a charming face and silvery hair, which really was a
wig. Not having stood for Parliament before, he got a little flurried on
the hustings; and, meaning to wave his hat, he waved his wig as well.--A
voter happened to be coachman to a strong supporter of the other side,
who was at his London house just then. The coachman said it was “as much
as his place was worth” to ask his employer for leave to go down to
record his vote. And, with very little scratching of his head, that man
was able to reckon up, within a pound or two, how much his place was
worth.
Barefaced bribery is not a bad thing, in its way. The voter got hard
cash, and the candidate provided it; whereas the voter only gets wild
promises now, and these always cost the country a good deal, even if
they do no good to anybody. Moreover, when the voter could be bought,
there was not the same necessity for cramming him with lies. With his
pocket full of money and no illusions in his mind, he went gaily to the
poll, feeling that it was all a festival at which he was an honoured
guest. And in very many places it was very little else.
An old friend of the family writes to my mother from Brighton, 6 July
1841, “I was at Shoreham on Saturday. During the heat of the polling the
scene was more amusing and lively than what you saw here. Lord Howard
(who by the bye had on a shocking raffish dirty white hat) had between
thirty to forty men and boys drest in white with pink bands round their
bodies with ‘Howard for ever’ on them, shoulders and legs and hats also
decorated with pink ribbons, and each with a wand with flag attached.
There were also eight with huge flags, and two bands of music similarly
drest. They altogether formed a very pretty tableau. Their province was
to meet the voters coming up at the bridge, then form in procession and
escort them to the polling booths. Sir Charles Burrell’s were in white
with orange decorations: Goring’s white with red and ethereal blue. They
of course had music, and neither party was idle: so what with four bands
of music, a multitude of flags, vociferous cheers, horrid yells and
groans, and now and then a shindy, it made as spirited and lively a
contest as one would wish to see.”
Writing from Reigate on Sunday 13 May 1849, my father says, “I walked
over to Bletchingley, a rotten borough and much gone to decay, and there
I went to church. With the exception of about twenty well-dressed
people, the congregation was composed of hard-featured rough farmers
with lots of young girls and urchins belonging apparently to the parish
school: the choir was a fiddle, bass-viol and clarionet; and every body
and thing looking as uncouth as in the most remote districts.”
Bletchingley was one of the rotten boroughs that were disfranchised by
the Reform Bill of 1832. Till then it had two members. Shoreham had two
members until 1885.
He came up to London from Carshalton on the morning of 10 April 1848 and
“met Chartists all round Kennington.” Among my family relics I have a
truncheon: there were 150,000 special constables then, and they stopped
any Chartism. But the Charter itself seems harmless now: we have
accepted five of its six points, and might very well accept the other
one--annual parliaments. If we had general elections every year, they
would soon cease to be such great events, and such great nuisances; and
there might be greater continuity in our public policy. A moderate loss
of seats would warn the Ministers, if they were taking a wrong course;
and then they probably would alter course at once, instead of keeping on
for several years, and then losing so many seats that they are
superseded and their policy reversed.
We badly need a word (say Pleistarchy) for government by majority. We
call it Democracy, but use that word in quite another sense. The
arguments for democracy are embodied in stock phrases, ‘the will of the
people,’ ‘vox populi,’ and so on, all implying that the people or
populus or dêmos is always going to be unanimous, just like a jury. It
may be necessary that the will of fifty-one should thwart the will of
forty-nine; but it cannot be justified by saying that the will of the
people must prevail, as that means the will of the whole hundred, if it
means anything at all. We should come nearer to democracy by stipulating
for majorities of two-thirds or three-fourths, as in America; but we
ought to have majorities of nine-tenths or nineteen-twentieths before we
talk about democracy here. And we might talk less nonsense, if we had a
word like Pleistarchy expressing what we really mean.
Corruption was not confined to politics. A friend of my father’s writes
to him from Torquay, 29 January 1845, about a younger brother who was
causing him anxiety. “You perhaps are aware that I have endeavoured to
obtain him a cadetship in the East India Company’s service.... I have
been thinking that his best course is to purchase the appointment I have
mentioned. These things are to be done, and are daily done, and it is
far better for him to pay £500 or £600 than continue in his present
course of life. I have strained all the efforts in my power with
political friends, but in vain, and there is now but one course
left--his purchasing the appointment. I am well aware that it is
illegal, but there is little doubt that it can be done.”
Another friend also had a younger brother who caused him much anxiety,
and he unburdens himself in his letters to my father--Dick has been
getting drunk, Dick has been making love, Dick has been borrowing money,
Dick is dragging our good name in the mire. Thirty years afterwards he
writes, “The assizes are just over, and Richard has tried the cases here
with great ability and dignity.” I need hardly say that I have changed
his name.
There is a letter to my father from a friend of his who had just been
made a judge--“I like my new occupation hugely. Whilst removing all
strain and pressure, it gives the mind full play and exercise, and up to
the present time it seems to suit body as well as mind.” Speaking of the
necessity of going in procession in his robes, another one exclaims, “I
often long to give a Whoop and cut a Caper in the midst of this
Tomfoolery.”
Some of these letters to my father are very outspoken in their criticism
of distinguished lawyers. Thus, 18 June 1876, “That ignoramus, the
Attorney General, whose opinion I would not take on the title to an
ant-heap....” Again, 20 December 1868, “Think of Collier being a judge.
He was a capital caricaturist on circuit, and made his best speeches in
cases of breach of promise _et id genus_. But beyond that....” My
father’s own criticisms were much more restrained. He writes to my
grandfather, 18 July 1850, “Yesterday morning I saw Wilde take his seat
as Lord Chancellor. He looked rather confused: he cannot possibly know
much about Equity, and how he is to get on I cannot understand.”
In 1920 the parish-clerk of Lustleigh was convicted of stamping an
insurance-card with stamps that had been used on another insurance-card
the year before. Notwithstanding his good character, he was sentenced to
nine months imprisonment; and this sentence was upheld by the Court of
Criminal Appeal in London. The sentence was manifestly out of all
proportion to the crime. The loss could not amount to more than 15_s._
2_d._ on a card, even if all the stamps on it were used a second time;
and, if nine months imprisonment is commensurate with 15_s._ 2_d._, I
cannot conceive what punishments would be sufficient for big frauds of
£50,000 or £100,000 that bring scores of families to destitution. The
15_s._ 2_d._ would be public money; and here was the Law fussing about a
loss of shillings at a time when hundreds and thousands of pounds of
public money were being obtained all round on the flimsiest of false
pretences, the Law being satisfied if some incompetent official had been
bamboozled into sanctioning the payment.
There is, of course, a theory that the punishment of crimes should be
proportionate to the difficulty of their detection, the chances of
immunity being counterbalanced by the risks of heavy punishment. But
with these insurance-cards there is more difficulty in committing the
crime than in detecting it. The cards are collected every half-year;
and, if the collection is efficient, there are not any cards about from
which old stamps can be detached. I suppose the Legislature understands
the workings of the criminal mind, but I sometimes wonder whether men
can be deterred from crime by dread of seven years penal servitude, if
they are not deterred by dread of five. If they reckon things up at all,
they probably pick out the biggest crime they can commit for any
specified sentence--“may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb”--and
then act accordingly.
Fines would be far better than imprisonment in very many cases, that is,
substantial fines with time allowed for payment by instalments. If this
man had been fined £50, it would have helped the public revenue. As it
was, the public had to maintain him for nine months and stopped his
doing any useful work--and he was a hard-working and pains-taking man.
Prisons are expensive things; and many of our prisons might be closed
and a big revenue raised from fines, but for this silly craze for
sending everyone to gaol.
I have a letter to my grandmother, 1 June 1843, from a nephew who had
gone out to Australia and settled at Sydney. “Our county, Cumberland, in
which Sydney is placed, will next month be the arena of a very spirited
contest. We send two members, and there are four candidates, one of whom
(the most monied man, a large distiller) tho’ now Free, was sent a
Convict. We immigrants think it impudence of him to offer as a
candidate, and the other party are as strong in his favour. I really
think he will be elected, tho’ the Press teems with his crimes, the
number of lashes received, and so on: his five associates were hanged.
These people have an hatred to immigrants, and will not support them if
they can deal with one of their own sort, and so frequently we see them
get on much better than if they had come to the colony of their own free
will.”
In spite of Convict competition this relative of mine did pretty well
out there. In a letter to my father, 9 July 1874, he says that he has
managed to put by £100,000 in the course of thirty years: all of it made
by steady work, and none by speculation.
In his letter of 1 June 1843 he says, “The colony is labouring under
temporary difficulties, but altogether it is advancing most rapidly:
every downfall drives people to some fresh resources. Keeping sheep used
to be almost the only employment: now that does not pay, agriculture is
gaining ground, and instead of sending our coin to America for wheat, we
grow our own. Altho’ sprung up like a mushroom in relation to the older
towns of England, Sydney is as large as Exeter, its market buildings as
good, its streets wider and the houses (that is, those recently built)
as good as any: our George Street is fully two miles long, with all the
bustle of Exeter Fore Street.”
Another first-cousin of my father’s went out to the colonies in very
different style. He was a Chancery barrister in London, and was so
cantankerous that they made him Attorney General of a colony in order to
get rid of him, and then made him Chief Justice there to prevent his
coming back--at any rate, that is what ill-natured people said. He had
plenty of ability, but little experience in criminal law. He felt that
pirates wanted hanging, and he hanged them; but I fear that he was
technically wrong.
There were three brothers at Moreton who went out to America. They were
not relations of mine, but were connexions by the marriage of their
eldest brother to one of my great-great-aunts, a sister of my father’s
mother’s mother. So far as I know the family history, it begins with
Clement Jackson of Moreton and Honor his wife, and goes on through their
son Abraham, born 1678, their grandson Jabez, born 1700, and their
great-grandson James, born 1730, to their great-great-grandsons Jabez,
born 1756, James, born 1757, Abraham, born 1767, and Henry, born 1778.
The last three went to America in 1772, 1783 and 1790, married there,
and died there in 1806, 1809, and 1840. They all settled in Georgia.
Their father had a friend out there, John Wereat; and Wereat looked
after James, and James looked after his young brothers.
James sided with the colonists in the War of Independence. He was in a
law-office at Savannah in the spring of 1776, when the British ships
came down from Boston commandeering; and he joined in the resistance
there and went on through the war, becoming a colonel then and a
major-general ten years afterwards. He was in the House of
Representatives in the first Congress of the United States, 1789 to
1791, and (after a disputed election) again till 1793, and then in the
Senate from 1793 to 1795, when he resigned and went back to Georgia to
attend to matters there. He was Governor of Georgia from 1798 to 1801,
and a Senator again from 1801 until his death (at Washington) in 1806.
It was a strange career for anybody born at Moreton.
His brothers Abraham and Henry did not go out to America until the war
was over. Abraham became a colonel. He fought a dozen duels, and in the
last one he and his opponent shot each other through the legs. They had
no seconds and no doctor, and were fighting on a lonely island in a
stream; and both were nearly dead when they were found. That was the
story that my father always told me; but I see there is a similar story
in Charlton’s _Life of James Jackson_, page 18--“They went upon the
ground without seconds, and fought at the desperate distance of a few
feet.... Mr Wells lost his life, and Major Jackson was badly wounded in
both of his knees.” That was in 1780, and the Major was James, not
Abraham, who was still in England then.
The youngest brother, Henry, came over to Paris in 1814 as secretary of
legation under Crawford, the United States minister-plenipotentiary;
and, when Crawford left, he stayed on as chargé d’affaires till a new
minister came. And his son, Henry Rootes Jackson, came over to Vienna as
chargé d’affaires in 1853, and was United States minister-resident there
from 1854 till 1858. At that time Francis Joseph was quite young, and
had not yet acquired the kindly dignity that graced his later years; and
H. R. Jackson told my father how very difficult it was, in speaking to
that great raw boy, to realize that one was speaking to an Apostolic
Majesty.