TOPICS OP TIIE DA - Y.
TEE SUCCESSFUL PARTY. ,
Imam is scarcely, a party in the country at present in a state of successful progress:" Natwithstanding a certam easy state of the Political- market, all &Vie men and all parties are _experiencing a certain stoppage:: Carriages Obstruct the way for each other. ::-Erom Government to Administrative Refermers iCis the same. Ministers are masters of the situation, but the situation does net,priemisefrohethpirtepping7.storie, to .4 better: :The Con- servatives can worry the. Ministers,. but ,de not enjoy a prospect of power for themselves ; for even: affiee would be without power. The Radicals are nowhere ; the Manchester party arc in disgrace ; the Administrative Reformers havenet yet began, Measiires are as unprogressive as men.- .There are several before the Houses of Parliament of a very promising character; but blocked in their march by converging objections. Everybody objects, -A score of minorities can always make- a Majority against any one of their number. There is only one part that realizes "any positive and
tangible success. • " " - It is "the dangerous el*" that constitutes the,only successful
party. They .hOld theiFpnblio Meetings; the can point to their a.cliiefemerif4“;.' they have their ascertained _revenue ; they are like .a foreign autocrat, superior to the law; . which our legislittorirare ;0*ton:fly touching up with niggling "reforms." We have been mistaken, however, if-we supposed that the danger- ous claseec were only these that Wear squalid- clothes, look more stunted or more brutal than other men, and sensibly affect the atmosphere around-them. On the contrary, they have their mem- bers in all cla.ss.-, their-aristocracy as well as the rest : they are in fltdirrifildite*cumstaimes; they are in trade, they are_iii joint- stock directorates, they are Government-contractors, they are in office, they arc in Parliament. This is no romance: -the -annals of the week 'arifoharacterized by the supremacy of _Vice, Every newspaper isflooded with special intelligence respecting the proceedings Of the dangerous class. Mr. Wakley and a Coroner's Jury have been instituting a post-inortem examination into John
eir, his conduct and affairs'; and We learn now, that before he
underweutthe SimPle penalty of swallOwinga few aromatic lumps of sugar, he, as a magnate of the dangerous classes, had amassed hundreds of thounanda sterling, with which he played the grandee in Ireland and England; in commerce and in 'polities ; and be- fore we, fast-reading, fast-thinking people, have been suffered to forget about him.and his revenues, we are "reminded that he had a brother his lieutenant. We learn that a Garrard is de- tected in a default:as Chamberlain of Bristol city. What more startling specimen. of the dangerous class than the Leeds Dove, whom we find playing bitter jests with deadly drugs, lying about on the floor of his room like a tired animal, reviling his wife, striking her, and disposing of her as he pleases. Palmerston and Panmure pow to, the two Houses of Parliament, and say that Government must -make cannons, mortars, and anchors, for itself, because the contractors commit frauds destructive to the holdfasts of our ships and the 'arms of our forces. We are reminded, that when common metal was substituted for bronze in the Nelson bas- reliefs, the contractors pleaded as their excuse that the Govern- ment price would not pay them for genuine metal. Adulterated flour is seized at Goole, while a Select Committee is, for the tenth time, exposing the adulteration which appears to be alone the eert,Mn branch of successful trade. Neither Government nor putlic will allow prices that pay for the honest trader ; but by favour of Vice the clever trader may get on. The House of Lords is anatomizing : the home of an Irish gentleman, he and his wife, by her friends, several accusing each other of con- spiracy and 2iufidelity. Covent Garden Theatre is burned down, and, taught by experience, the public at once suspects the incendiary. -lolonest play-acting is a poor trade, but, says the public, there ;Mist be profit in arson. Mr. Dillwyn is retailing to the House of Commons specimens of incorrigible wife-beating, Mr. Fitzroy'a, Bill notwithstanding. Fitzroy, Dillwyn, and the womaz-proteating party, avow that they attain no success. The wife-beater enjoys his privilege uncontrolled ; perhaps the spice of punishment is just enough to be a new zest to his enjoyment. To wife-beating we have added wife-killing and child-killing Honest parents find a difficulty in rearing their children, but there is the resource of killing them.
Even the lower class of the dangerous party are attaining to a fall perception of their rights ; and, wider the presidency of Mr. Mayhew, they have adopted the truly British custom of public meeting. They are a very well-disposed class, we learn from their own statements. .Mr. "Peter," for example, who is evi- dently a distinguished man among them, "sincerely dislikes" the practice of his profession ; but the public will not allow him to make even 11. a week by honest means, while in his own way he can make 51. or 6/. a week. This quite confirms the state- ments of Polioeman King and his witnesses. King could earn about 1L a week as policeman, but much more as superintendent of pickpockets ; and the pickpockets, who, as errand-boys, could not earn more than a few shillings, could ride on ponies in the Park by favour of their true profession. Clearly, there is a growing opinion through all classes, that the
regular practitioner does not know the way to success. The po- liceman can scarcely make both ends meet—the pickpocket lives lace a gentleman. The regular trader cannot make it pay at the prioe—the adulterator alone makes sure of profit. Fitzroy fails— the wife-beaterindialges in a oreseenda. Playguing is precarious --ineendiarism• is year true fen- &artifice. -Binking is tame
work—bankruptcy is the reid.thing: •
`The-mbraliat looks ipen'this outbreak of -Secial vice, deplores the,growth .ef the eril,_preelainni the duty Of reform, and imme- diately brings in- his ." Therein no trade more overdone than: thia:kind of bill-braking. We "pass "-,so many new enactments, that we cannot keep up: with the reading of them, much less exe- cuting them: .0n every second reading, both Houses will applaud "thin Object'," but the object 'ie not the more attained. In the good old days, as the fairy-books say, we had our failures, but we managed somehow-or other to attain the object, though by no means: with the perfectionated completeness of modern times. Wives: Wereb'etiten eVeit the days of Moliere, but there were -14004 .iMen,:* though their hands were rough, who would in- terpose, and, without Fitzroy bills or literary institutions to enlighten - theta, would roundly declare that it was "not Manly" to beat' a Woman, or to see it done. In those days, merchants might make a contract and find that it would' not —pay to ffilful the contract honestly, but they would decline to pass off iron for bronze, because your oldfashioned merchant would say, "that is not probity."- Men were fond of ostentation even then, but there was no general fashion of bilk- lug the:ahareholders, because it would be said at that epoch, "it is not gentlemanly." Somehow, they did not prove the logic of the Matter half so well as we do now ; they had by no means the e_Complisated securities that we now enjoy by aid of Parlia-• Merit; but they made it a matter of feeling. With us it is a matter of precept, ratiocination' or enactment.
We are not laying down a theory, we are not about to pro- mulgate a law ; we do not suggest that any Member should "bring in a bill" to " reform " this matter. We have only laid our finger upon the facts of the day. The Many-headed public itself has found out, practically, where the success is very pre- carious or partial ; and the one party has found out where suc- cess is tolerably certain and ample. The proof of the pudding Peter will say, is in the eating ; and he laughs at your bills. Hir: representatives in Parliament—for they have been discovered there—have full licence to support as many " bills " as may suit • their convenience.
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