which leaves everything to individual discretion; | much call for political activity; peace, and therefore so that neither nation hears a word of dispute leisure to look after the shop and the factory-for until there is an explosion; and while natural all who could pay for it; in the letter, laws were justice supports discretion exercised for the best, national dignity forbids concession. Yet it would be the wickedest folly to let the emulous indiscretions of Mr. Squier and Mr. Chatfield grow into a Punic war.

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equal for every degree-who could pay for it; food accessible to all-who could pay for it; clothing more abundant than purchasers-who could pay for it. The political system ignored the people that could not pay; but in itself it was totus teres atque rotundus," with scarcely anything more to be desired. Unfortunately, the arch-king of commercialism thought that the paying power was omnipotent: he tried to outbid his own principals, the bourgeoisie, by doing business in corruption and dotations on his own account; and he made the common mistake of successful speculators, in forgetting the mode of his own success. He went too far: against the recalcitration of the bourgeoisie he enforced the letter of the law; his instrument broke in his hands; under high pressure the boiler-royal burst, the whole train went off the line, the third class ran into the first class, and France was chaos-a broken railway, a shutup shop, a street unpaved, a parish without its police, prisoners and paupers loose. The natural laws of mechanics came into play, making havos in the attraction of cohesion everywhere; the Letter broken, the wild Spirit of human passion and fancy jumped upon the counter, ran through a series of apocalyptic visions, at once present and prophetic, startling to Europe. Other nations which had not advanced so far as France in literalization, thougn its frost had seized some of them ere they had outgrown the despotic stage, caught the wild shout from Paris, and everywhere the Spirit was let loose-vague, dim-sighted after its long prison; strange in the streets of its own towns; uncertain of purpose, ill served, but exulting in the reawakened consciousness of its own existence.

a

tury, it is one of this special series of three, and without mischief, with no result but certain profit. will probably bring another stage to its close We are therefore coming to learn the full use of with the first fifty years. Though bound again, colonies, just as the bright idea has occurred to the Spirit is not crushed or dead. On the con- certain patriot politicians that it would be well to trary, its influence remains, and has caught a hold get rid of our colonies. even on some of the unbound classes. Interests This complex idea seems to perplex some who have been fused which before were separate, and have got hold of it, as much as the glove left by no doubt a considerable advance has been made to the fugitive perplexed the Arctic bear. The phiwards suggesting to the subject peoples of Europe losophers are aware that they have hold of somea reciprocal knowledge of common interests ; and thing, but they do not know what, and they do not although the authorities in power have not yet precisely know how to put it on. They don't resolved to make common cause with the coinmon know which way to argue ; so they argue both people, an idea that such would be the safer and ways, or neither, according to temperament. Mr. cleverer as well as the juster policy, has seized Godley's letter is another puzzle ; they can't condivers influential minds in most countries. Roy- tradict it, they confess that it is true, and yet they alty has proved to be not infallible, nor invulner- can't reconcile it to ministerial orthodoxy. They able, nor unconvertible. Frederick William's are in the position of the Mussulman sages whom oscillations extend promisingly towards a more the sultan lately required to reconcile medical sci“constitutional" as well as wider grasp of power. ence with the Koran ; they cannot ignore plague The King of Holland has kept perfect peace by a nor gainsay sanatory regimen, but yet it is not in wise adoption of the spirit of the day, however the book-is not the truth authoritative. Mr. qualified. The young King of Sardinia promises Godley earnestly calls attention to the double fact, to develop constitutional monarchy in Italy—a that the colonies are in danger of being lost to us, policy irresistible. Although the voice of a me- and that a sound policy might retain them; which diating statesmanship went wild in the disap- nobody can deny ; but how reconcile the position pointed and perplexed Stadion, its accents still with official views and conduct? The attempts wail eloquently in the ear of Europe, like the spirit made to that end are curious. One writer admits of suffering that haunts the scene of crime and the precarious state of colonial affairs, but gayly threatens the doom of unjust power. The forci- declares that matters are always unsettled and ble suppression of law in Hungary by armed des- must ever remain so in that regard. Another potism has extended Poland to the borders of friend of official interests avows that the state of Turkey ; Murad Pacha bears the traditions of affairs demands revision and reform, but avers that Bem, the countryman of Kosciusko; and Russia Lord Grey and Mr. Hawes are doing all that is is exasperating Turkey to try her restored vigor wanted. in a new war of the Crescent against the Greek These reässurances are equally alarming. Doubly Cross, but this time in behalf of national inde- so, since they are perhaps equally true; Mr. Hawes pendence and municipal freedom. Such are the and Lord Grey may be busy with “reforms” of elements of future action : it is given to 1850 for their stamp, and yet the precarious condition of the Letter and the Spirit to come to some terms ; affairs may be radically unalterable in the official but no doubt provisionally—a world of eventful view. But if those statesmen are so busy, it is enterprises and pregnant glories being left to the essential to the welfare, if not to the safety of the latter half of our century.

empire, to know what they are doing. To unravel

that formidable mystery, will be one duty of indeFrom the Spectator.

pendent members in the approaching session ; for

it is now quite evident that colonial affairs must THE SUM OF COLONIAL REFORM.

occupy a prominent position in the ensuing debates. OVER-ABUNDANCE is the prognostic that begins to All politicians are preparing for such a turn of alarm watchful economists. The bank is gorged public discussion ; and it is not an unfavorable with gold, and the Morning Chronicle lifts up a omen that a politician who ever inclines to seize warning voice interpreting that dread sign. It upon that form of any question which can be turned reminds us that those practical financiers, Mr. to most popular account, has come half-way over Jones Loyd and Sir Robert Peel, have described from his recent anti-colonial position. Mr. Lobsuch gluts of money as the sure forerunners of ex-den's Bradford speech is one for colonial reform, cited speculation, over-trading, and crash. Com- but it is not half so strongly imbued with the spirit mercial men are getting familiar with the idea. of colonial abandonment. That semi-conversion is It takes, they say, about seven years to run the a great fact; a month may suffice to effect the round of rising prosperity, afiluence, crash, decline, other half. and rebound. They watch the bubble as it fortas Were the interests at stake less momentous, it and bursts, but do not offer to go beyond critical would be amusing to note the ado which is made, observation, to correction. The Chronicle, how- first in coming to conclusions, and then in turning ever, calls to mind the proper vents for the super- them to any purpose. In the first instance, there abundance-sound speculation, such as permanent is the coyest dread of the most obvious conclusions, improvements of land, and colonization. In such A leading journal bestows all its immense skill works for future production, money can be sunk and power in selecting and establishing for itself a

which might solve every difficulty connected with
free trade in labor-it is manifest that a fair use
of superior faculties and opportunities would main-
tain white supremacy; and natural sympathy would
always secure the safety of the white race, by its
alliance with other sections of its own family in
Europe and America. In a word, the very way to
avert the oft-repeated threat that any British West
Indian colony municipally independent would be-
come an English San Domingo, is to make it a
black England, under the controlling sanction of
England, her prestige, experience, and influence.
To the question, "Would you then enfranchise
the blacks?" we answer, that all history proves
how precarious is the condition of any polity which
depends upon any "checks" or contrivances to
withhold power from particular classes. Let the
blacks obtain all the power of which they are ren-
dered capable by their inherent faculties and social
development; but maintain proper government
among them by a corresponding elevation of white
power. Surely the whites have start enough in
the race, and advantage enough, not to need that
the blacks should "
carry weight."

position like that at the meeting of cross-roads, by | from their white aristocracy-a considerateness which to advance hereafter in any direction, or retreat. And another more strictly ministerial paper, which maintains that we have already come to all desirable or possible conclusions, wishes the world to be content with ending in Lord Grey and Mr. Hawes. Those timid eyes cannot be induced to confront the actual state of things-the estranged mind of the colonies, our vitiated relations, and the necessity for setting about some plan of providing for the future. But then, as if in anticipation of the inevitable work, it is hinted that the needful labor to make all right will be impossibly vast and difficult. Now that is not so; what remains to be done is not so very vast; neither is it impracticably difficult. Recent occurrences in every section of the colonial empire make it obvious that the actual, or rather the late relation between England and her dependencies cannot be maintained; but the change which is inevitable is half made, ready to the hand of the official statesman, by the colonies themselves. The future relation, whatever it is called, if any relation is to exist at all, must be one of federal alliance and reciprocal benefit; the colonies wholly independent of the central administration in their local government, but united to the empire by a few broad and simple bonds of mutual interest. Now, towards effecting that sort of independence not much remains to be done. Canada is virtually independent, notwithstanding the large army which this country maintains in that colony for a show of supremacy. The Cape of Good Hope has seized hold of independence in such a manner that the independence must be conceded, or the cape must be conquered from its English colonists; a conquest which no probable administration would undertake. The whole course of legislation as respects Australia tends towards a similar end; Mr. Hawes' oft-retracted draft of a constitution will have to be outdone, by himself or others; and that necessity implies everything. In these respects, with reference to all our colonies proper, we are reverting to the relation which sub-like. They cannot see the colonies or their prosisted between England and those settlements that she established on the best political footing, the earlier colonies of North America.

In any colonies whatsoever, the custom of appointing officers from England must be given up. Possibly the actual enjoyers of patronage conferred should not be rooted out suddenly, or at least without due consideration; but the system is already doomed-really at an end. On the other hand, released from many liabilities annexed to over-government of colonies and the exercise of patronage, future ministers will not find it difficult to found new colonies without the abuses which beset the old. There is for every shadow a bright side.

The reason why the statesmen who are in office, or waiting outside the portal of office, refuse to recognize and act upon these obvious facts, is that they are blinded by routine and certain conventional tenets, about "the integrity of the empire," the duty of "maintaining its territory intact," and the

ceedings, for the accumulated heaps of didactio despatches and blue books around themselves. For similar reasons—the fixed contemplation of received With regard to some dependencies, difficulties ideas, rather than an examination of realitiesmay exist, because the proposed municipal inde- they cannot discern the utility of colonies municpendence is there complicated with questions of ipally independent; and as they cannot bring their race; as in Ceylon, with the numerous and not minds "to give up the colonies,” they cannot bring contemptible native races; in the West Indies, their minds to what seems to them equivalent to with the black Creoles. But Ceylon is an excep- giving up. If they would simply leave poring tional case, having been treated neither as a colony over the records and imaginative compositions of Lor an Indian dependency; therefore it must still Downing Street, and look at the facts open to the be treated provisionally, either until its adminis- broad light of day, these doubting politicians would tration be assimilated to that of India, or it be soon perceive that colonies might be as useful as effectively colonized by whites; which it might ever-more so-although they should be municbe. And in the West Indies, it is not at all to ipally independent. The nation that is not conbe assumed that the blacks cannot be admitted to tinually growing is stationary and about to decline: a share in the working of representative institutions. but if England continue to grow within the comCare would no doubt be required in devising plans pass of the four seas, she will grow too big for for such institutions; but while the possession of her own space, like the giant in the Castle of political power would secure to the blacks a very Otranto, and will die of glut, like that threatened proper and socially advantageous consideration in the golden congestion of the bank: colonization

affords scope for growth, field for the action of in- But if these suggestions were carried out, their creasing energies. To multiply English settle spirit would no doubt be carried much further. ments, is to multiply English markets for English None would object to the expense were the outlay produce. But there are considerations higher even a real sacrifice to the dead, either for his welfare than commercialism : it is the duty of us all, na- or the honor of his memory; but by our usage tions as well as individuals, to do all the good we of delegating the conduct of the funeral entirely can, and not to let good be wasted for want of our to a tradesman, the sacrifice is not to the dead, exertion : it will be the better for the world, if one but only to the undertaker. He undertakes to of the most civilized of nations be extended, rather measure the respect and regret, and he does it virthan one less civilized. Accidental circumstances tually in the length of your bill ; the properhave conspired to set a lower tone of intellectual, ties' of the dismal drama being only pretexts to political, and national morality in the great sepa- justify the bill. The spirit of reform should rated colonies of England ; and it would be for search into the matter, with the view of eliminat the benefit of the world if England were able to ing those parts of the ceremony which are merely extend herself, rather than to acquiesce in exten- expensive, and of restoring the rest to a more natsion of the United States by absorption of English ural relation with the laws of grief. colonies. It would be better for England to pos- In that sense, we find that the need of reform sess allies bound by every tie of blood and undi- exists far less among the outward parts of the vided interest, rather than rivals prone to contest. pageant, the visitors and their carriages, than in Statesmanship worthy of the name deals with real- the more essential parts, the greater as you apities, and aims at substantial good : true colonial proach the sacred person of Death. statesmanship, just now, should consist in confront- Were grief a mere pretence, there might be ing the facts and striving after attainable good, not some show of reason in bringing a dismal aspect in ignoring the facts and striving to retain obsolete over the actor in the pageant, by the detestable privileges.

arrangements of black stuffs about the mourning coach-in itself an ugly and unwieldy vehicle

and the faces of the mourners. A sad-colored From the Spectator.

costume, and even black, might be used to typify THE COMMON SENSE OF FUNERALS.

the inward sombreness ; but not that midnight The undertaker's business will not be permitted should a tribe of mercenaries walk by the side of

sootiness which is so repulsive. Again, why to rest in peace, unreformed. One who is “ Not a Mute” writes to the Times, making two sugges-parted was so beloved by friends and adherents,

the procession? They mean nothing. If the detions for the curtailment of idle expense

let them walk with him on his last journey ; but The rank and station of the dead are not a meas

why those idle traders in funereal woe? Cui bono? ure of the worldly means of those he leaves be- Especially, what is the use of that board of hind. But in cases where a large circle of friends black feathers carried before the hearse? Does desire to show an outward mark of respect to it solace the soul of the departed, or the grief of genius, to public services, or to worth, why is a the living, or in any way reconcile death to life ? heavy burthen to be cast upon the living? In such No ; it simply reconciles the undertaker's bill to cases carriages are offered with their attendants, his conscience, or rather to the usages of his trade. Why are the coachman and footman to be decorated in silk scarfs, at an expense, I am told, of two For the undertaker's object is the perfectly fair guineas for each carriage ? Surely carriages might one of getting an income out of his trade, and follow without this mockery of woe, which is worn he is quite willing to do suit and service for that for the moment, then sold for its value to the under- estate according to what is expected of him. laker again, perhaps for another occasion of equally

One thing that multiplies the attendants is the idle pageantry; or, why should not such friends weight of the coffin, and that is caused by the send their carriages, if such display is called for at all, with all these outward marks of mourning, at

endeavor to render it impervious. Now that enthe expense of those who really desire to show a deavor was suggested by the old barbarous notion mark of respect thus publicly? Perhaps fewer that the body could literally be retained in its carriages would attend. On the other hand, many actual form for future resurrection ; a conservative would be anxious to do so, if only custom sanc- process carried to the most efficient shape of which tioned it, with or without idle ostentation. Then it is capable in the process of embalming. But the carriage would be a real mark of respect.

Again, I am confident inany friends would attend we now know that decay cannot be arrested; partial funerals if they were allowed to do so without in- success only makes the ignorant attempt the more convenience to the living. Why, then, should not hideous ; and Queen Adelaide has set an example, this nnmerous class attend in simple mourning at even in the royal class, of waiving the process. the grave---meet at the cemetery-join in the last It was only another graceful tribute of that lady rites-pay a tribute to private or public worth or to the laws of simplicity and nature ; for she it eininence, without enhancing the undertaker's bill? is who bears the repute of abolishing the custom, I feel very sure, were the custom onco sanctioned, the funeral would be simple and inexpensive ; and long disused on the continent, of disguising the

You can a more genuine expression of sorrow would take change of time by wearing false hair. the place of the empty and heartless ostentation not resist the laws of nature without the penalty pow too coinmon.

of defeat: false hair converts the time-worn couptenance, not into a young one, but into a harsher or the privilege of the “table d'hôte ;' only it is caricature of age. Embalming converts the much more hazardous to public order. The price divine form of humanity into a mummy. The at which the toper was to be allowed to consume leaden shell and oaken coffin are but rude substi- his wine without measure, must have formed the tutes for embalming-contrivances for resisting subject of some nice calculations. Few Dandos or delaying the process which restores flesh to are produced in an age, and hence the accuracy earth ; but it is in the prolonged transition that with which men's eating may be averaged ; but the process is shown in its most shocking form. the capabilities of liquid consumption are not so Living flesh and good fertile mould—the mould easily measured—at least in this country. The of a garden or a corn-field, of the grassy meadow cabaretiers, however, are pushing the business or the forest—are both pleasing to our sense; and at six sous (3d.)per hour; and as the retail price the process which converts the one into the other over the counter, or “ in your own jug," is a is consecrated by all that we know of the benefi- penny the litre, (one quart,) the quantity which cent laws under which it is operated. But when will be allowed without grudging may be put down it is delayed !

at three quarts each hour that the toper avails What we desire in a funeral is that it shall himself of the contract. The Angevin farmer typify our sorrow, and restore the fleshly body of mentions that a gardener of his, “rather thirsty," our friend, which he has ceased to need, to the and endowed with “ a day's pay of 40 sous, (204.) earth from which it was borrowed, in the manner is enabled to drink by the hour for three days." most seemly, the most harmonious with our mem- In this there must be a mistake ; for the 40 sous ory of his living condition and with the welfare are hardly equal to seven hours' drinking ; unless, of the living For to make him a loathsome indeed, the drinking day is short and the charge pest-bed for the living, is to desecrate his memory. is made to diminish in an immense ratio as the In that view, our plan should be, to keep aloof as hours advance. Perhaps the scale is so adjusted much as possible the train of mercenary strangers; as to take into account the probability that at a to effect the restoration by the most direct and certain stage drinking may be suspended in quarcomely means. The coffin should not be imper- relling; or, even where this does not take place, vious, but pervious; and a ground might be pre- sleep may interpose and cut off the power of coopared to facilitate the process, and thus conse- sumption. crated to receive the ashes of the dead by a prac- Probably the sole country where such copion tical furtherance of those laws which close his supplies of liquor could be furnished at the rate mortal career, as they originated and sustained it. of 3d. an hour is Scotland. Kirk Sessions might In the same sense, the mere transit from the abode add a curious chapter to the report recently pubof life to the cemetery should not be made a gaz- lished upon this point. They could tell that there ing-stock for the public: it is the last depositing is a beverage called “small beer," brewed froin that the eye of love will gladly watch, precisely malt and hops, which sells, where quantities are in the same spirit that carries you to the railway taken, at a penny the quart bottle ; that it is not station and detains you to gaze towards the part- in favor when it is “flat," the test of excellence ing train long after you have no trace of your being that it “nips the nose,'' or “cuts the breath." friend but the cloud of steam or the glare of the What if the French practice should be adopted, red lamps.

and the consumers allowed to swill this cut-breath But reduce the ceremony of the restoration to beverage at threepence the hour? It might proits essentials, and it is a very simple process ; duce an anti-whiskey revolution, and in time enable absolutely needing little beyond the services of the a nation to get rid of its headache. friends, the sexton, and the priest who sustains the trial of death with the knowledge of life, and

From the Spectator. calls change to its immortal duty of ministering to NEEDLEWOMEN'S RESCUE- -MINISTERIAL the eternal.

HOPES.

“ Digging holes in sand” was the process to From the Spectator.

which we said Mr. Sidney Herbert's scheme for CAROUSING BY WHOLESALE.

carrying off the superabundant needlewomenDRINKING makes head in some of the rustic superabundant and therefore starving-might be parts of France.

An Angevin farmer writes in likened ; and this objection has been hammered alarm to the Corsaire, complaining that a Parisian out by writers who would not dislike to balk his practice of " drinking by the hour” has been in- scheme. We explained how it failed not only to troduced in the commune village, and that one remove the causes which create that unhappy class effect has been a great augmentation of the busi- of workers, but also adequately to counteract the ness of the gendarmerie in the way of quelling effect of those causes. As the causes are larger wine-shop disturbances. A sergeant of that gal-than the remedy, the relief can only be partial and lant corps actually refused to dine with the farmer temporary. The causes are, that low state of the on a recent Sunday because of his largely increased industrious classes generally, especially in the rural duties in keeping the peace.

districts, which makes women cheap; the tendeney This “ drinking by the hour" must be placed of trading competition, pushed beyond its productive in the same category with “ dining off the joint,” | stimulus in a mutually privative and destructive

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