The Guardians of the Poor at Richmond are guardians indeed.
If they were their parents, as well as their guardians, they could 'hardly take a more affectionate interest in their political opinions. .0n 'Thursday week, Mr. Carlile, one of these Guardians, -taking up an illustrated newspaper, called the Penny Illustrated Taper, remarked that it was unsettling to the politics of the paupers, because it contained this paragraph on the recent action of the House of Lords :—" The truth is, that the time is --ripe either for the reform or the extinction of the House of Lords. Why cumbereth it the ground ? It serves no useful .purpose. It delights to parade its opposition to the will of the people. It represents, as a whole, nought but the utterly inde- fensible selfishness of a privileged class, its existence is an anomaly. Its extinction can be but a question, of time." And on the ground of this improper passage, Mr. Carlde is to move, at the meeting after the recess, that the Penny Illus. .trated Paper be discontinued. Mr. Sims, who opposed the idea
confining the attention of paupers to any one shade of politics, and, suggested, very sensibly, that in all probability they 'look much more at the pictures than at the print, made a gallant defence of the poor creatures' penny pic- torial paper, and we hope he may carry the day. The notion -of sedulously excluding from paupers any access to Radical -opinion, is, we should hope, at once too comical and too narrow to carry even a Board of Guardians with it. Even Mr: Pecksniff, in these days, would hardly venture to vote for Mr. Carlile's resolution.
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