{11} The City of London, the wealthiest in the world, but not the best
governed, is destitute of a Public Library. The babblement of SIDNEY the
vain, which in 1855 triumphed, now ceases to amuse and the shrill screams
of the PEACOCK are no longer heard. If you wait for a scheme that will
please the _Peacocks_ and the _Sidneys_, you will never do anything at
all.
{13a} It is not for me to say how the wisdom of the wise slumbered on
this particular Night, (May 21st, Paper Duty Repeal Bill—Lords Division).
What do I see? _Mirabile dictu_! The Earl of Shaftesbury, the Premier’s
Lord High Admiral of the _Sees_, not to support his Patrons on a Field
night like this is really too bad! To give a vote which seriously
impedes education, and prevents the cheapening of School Books and
Tracts, is consistent in the extreme. But not only is it refractory, but
ungrateful opposition on the part of Lord Shaftesbury. A nobleman so
favoured by Lord Palmerston as to issue his _Congé d’élire_, permission
to choose a Bishop, and on whose _fiat_ the Lord Chancellor appoints to
Livings, ought not to have been a deserter when his vote was of so much
importance.
{13b} That most genial Entertainer, and by far the cleverest Lecturer
ever seen in London, combining great talent, with rare common sense and
worldly knowledge, ALBERT SMITH, now, alas! no more, sent me a good
humoured note a few days ago, acknowledging “Who is my Neighbour?”
{15} Last Autumn the sad want of knowledge of the elementary rules of
economy among Operatives was _strikingly_ and ruinously displayed, and it
is obvious what a handle it affords to employers to be apathetic, if not
hostile to extending the Franchise. Hence the need of “more light.”
{17} The Member for Sheffield is severe enough, is the Censor par
excellence of small offenders—and pays full tithe of mint and anise, but
with characteristic cowardice is dumb as a dog, has not one syllable of
remonstrance against the titled USURPERS in the House of Lords, who would
retain an iniquitous tax on the Newspaper Press.
{19} There is no vote among the Pairs on the Repeal of the Paper duty
that challenges more attention than that of LORD BROUGHAM. What a
miserable spectacle! Conspicuous by his absence, not one word,—not one
syllable could Ex-Chancellor Brougham vouchsafe to strike off the fetters
on knowledge in Central _England_. Let me tell his Lordship his Mission
speech on Central _Africa_ was inopportune, and unpatriotic, when on that
Monday evening there was a nobler field before him in the House of Lords
to exert his eloquence. England FIRST.
{22} The Meeting will be held at 12 o’clock on Monday, 18th June,
Waterloo day, at the Literary Institution, 17, Edward Street, Portman
Square. The friends of Progress are earnestly requested to COME EARLY.
{24} The objections to the extension of education are often ludicrous;
some complain of servants reading instead of working. A friend at
Liverpool, who had read my pamphlet, “Who is my Neighbour?” writes to me,
“I think it is a very good thing that somebody thinks of the poor man. I
once heard a Doctor of the Navy say, ‘if he had his way a poor man’s
child should never have any learning whatever, as it made the Big Bugs
look so small.’” I have often thought of his words.
{26a} The Bishop of Chichester is sagacious enough to comprehend the
dangerous tendency of educational questions to his Order. Instinct tells
him the dark abuses of the Church would quickly disappear before the
light of intelligence. Here is the key to his opposition to the Paper
Duty Repeal Bill, (May 21st. 1860.) A cheap well written Press is also
denounced from the Palaces of Bangor, Cashel, and Exeter, and by several
Absentee Bishops, including St. Davids, and the Bishop of Winchester. I
am glad to notice the Bishop of this Diocese (London) with eight other
Prelates voted for the Repeal.
{26b} The Church of England is the wealthiest Church in the world, yet
it would scarcely be credited the number of well authenticated cases of
appalling destitution that exist amongst some of the worthiest and
hardest worked of its Clergy.
{30} Out of the 20,000 Clergy of England and Wales there are 10,000 with
an _income of less_ than £100 a year; contrast this poverty with the rich
Clergy, and an Archbishop of Canterbury with £15,000 a year, and York and
London each 10,000, and Durham and Winchester each £8,000. The Laity
denounce these shameful inequalities of remuneration.
{34} The Public Libraries Committee, Birmingham, have recommended a
central _reference_ library, with Reading and News Rooms, a _museum_ and
gallery of art, and _four district lending libraries_ with _news rooms
attached_, should be established. The cost of the lending libraries,
each to contain 3,000 volumes, and the expense of maintenance for one
year would be £3,252, and the annual cost of each, after the first year,
would be £370, or £1,480 for the four.
{35} Nasty minds are loth to part with dirty calumnies.
{38a} The Earl of ROSSE’S vote (Pair) against the Repeal of the duty
upon paper is inconsistent indeed! His telescope is the wonder of the
world, but for free glass what would it be? Here is a Peer, a great
astronomer, coming down from his high tower and clipping the wings that
carry knowledge.
{38b} Mr. BRIGHT in a recent speech alludes to the _Times_ as a paper of
“great eminence,” I suppose he means as an enormous liar, for he tells
the Birmingham Meeting the crushing and withering truth that the _Times_
is at “this moment selling the dearest interests of this country for _its
own private purposes_.”