The Welshman

PROGRESS. There is no word so commonly in the mouths of a large class of modern politicians as Progress. What is its precise meaning, or whether it is anything more than a complimentary name for certain obvious tenden- cies of the day, is a more doubtful question. Its fre- quent use, however, indicates the growth of one of the most marked characteristics of modern political opinion. The old-fashioned thinkers of the last century thought that States rose and fell and rose again without any as. signable or general law. According to them a nation emerged from a barbarous state for no particular reason, became rich and powerful, then was frequently corrupted by luxury," lost its liberties, and disappeared to make room for the next comer. But they scarcely entertained the conception that these changes in a given nation, or still more in mankind at large, were the result of any definite process of development. The political constitution of a country was a skilful work of art, arbitrarily invented by some ingenious legislator, which might continue to perform perfectly for an indefinite time, but was pretty certain, sooner or later, to get out of order and run down like a worn-out clock. The modern thinker is more accustomed to look upon men in their present condition as one term in a long series which began with the apes, or it may be with some mysterious protoplasm," and which will go on develop- ing itself beyond any assignable limits. If our faculties were sharper we might trace out the future destiny of our race, and give as distinct a formula for calculating its position at any given epoch as for determining the growth of a tree or of an individual animal. The truth and the value of this conception may be disputed, or subjected to various limitations but its importance in determining the form of modern controversies is obvious. The commonplace Radical is provided by it with a weapon of which he makes the most un- hesitating use. Progress, he says in substance, is inevitable and progress means the adoption of his opinions. Therefore, by an easy inference, the victory of his party is simply a question of time. Conservatives are merely the stupid people who do not recognise the inevitable, and are trying to hold back an express train by a bit of string or to keep out the Atlantic with a mop. It is easy to see which way things are going, especially if our vision is confined to a sufficiently small arc of the world's orbit. The suffrage, for example, has recently been lowered every change, therefore, of a permanent kind will be in the direction of lowering it a step further. We have got as far on our way as household suffrage, and we shall presently, it is assumed, get to manhood suffrage. After that we shall give votes to women as well as to men; and though it seems necessary even in the ideal state of things to retain some limits as to age, we may look forward to a period when everybody will vote who likes, and who is physically capable of expressing an opinion. There is only one step more, which has already been reached in some of the Swiss cantons. We may do away with the cumbrous machinery of a representative body, and decide all questions by count- ing heads throughout the nation. We shall proceed on the same system towards annihilating the last traces of privilege The House of Lords will of course be speedily abolished, and every human being will be precisely equal in all respects, except in those which nature has unfortunately put out of our power, to every other. Starting again from the principle of Free- trade, we shall gradually dispense with all sorts of Government interference. Ultimately there will be no superiors or inferiors, no policemen and no legislators, and everybody will do precisely what seems good in his own eyes. At that time we shall have arrived at the millennium, and we may leave to the blessed persons whose eyes are privileged to witness this consummation the task of deciding what is to be the next step in the series. There is a great comfort about this way of reasoning, because it enables everybody to see at a glance who is the most enlightened poli- tician. The direction in which we are to advance being clearly laid down, it does not require the least intelligence or statesmanship to discriminate the right political leaders we have simply to measure the distance which each man has advanced along a given line, or to count how many pledges he can swallow without a show of repugnance. We have a kind of self-acting test, a sort of political thermometer which will show at a glance the warmth of any man's princi- ples, and give what riflemen call his 11 figure of merit." The popularity of this mode of deciding all political questions is not more than is due to its easy and simple-minded nature. We are all going down hill, and the only question is who will be first at the bottom. The argument, however, is not vitiated by the occa- sional absurdity of its application. No one can doubt that there are certain profound political and social changes going forward to which no individual can op- pose himself with much hope of success. The most uncompromising of modern Conservatives would not, :.£ 1. L! 1 -3- J.'L- £_¿ 1 n ue were a man or spnsp, to vaio mui, ouu would merely assert that their true tendency h:1): mistaken by his opponents. Even Dr Manning, when he denounces modern society, feels the necessity of implying that the evils which he attacks are not a necessary result of civilization, but are produced by some temporary aberration from the truth. He wishes to believe, though it must be a difficult task, that Rome is really the leading city of Europe, if regarded im- partially by a very penetrating observer; and that though certain little weaknesses strike the eye of a casual visitor, it has made more substantial, if not more showy, progress than places inhabited by obstinate heretics. The argument is a very dangerous one, and is touched with corresponding lightness for it would re- quire an amazing dexterity in the manipulation of facts to prove that the morality and intelli- gence of different places were in proportion to the closeness of their adherence to Ultramontane principles. But the reference, though hesitating and incomplete, is sufficient to show that, even in the minds of the strong- est opponents of much that is called progress, there is a tacit understanding that there is such a thing, if it can only be discovered, and that conformity to its principles or divergence from them constitutes the most satisfac- tory test of excellence to the modern mind. It is a logically possible position that the world is going from bad to worse that all the changes on which we pride ourselves most arc really symptoms of decay and that to prove that any belief or institution is destined to give way before an irresistible change is therefore to prove, not its inferiority, but its superiority, to the ex- isting state of things. As a matter of fact, however, this cheerful creed, though it may be implicitly held by some persons, is so far discredited that it cannot be openly put forward. Most people are optimists with more or less reservation, and consider that to prove that anything will succeed in the long run is equivalent to proving that it is, on the whole, an improvement. It might possibly be argued that this is merely a necessary concession to our weakness, and not to truth that we are forced to believe that we are improving, not from the force of evidence, but because it would otherwise be impossible to look upon life with any complacency. Mr Carlyle frequently speaks as though, in his opinion, the world were rapidly plunging into wilder chaos and confusion, and all honesty, truthfulness, and good order disappearing from among us. Yet even he keeps an eye upon some small gleam of distant hope, and believes that after the descent of Niagara and one general smash we shall somehow or other manage to put ourselves together again, and emerge at a distant period into a smoother water, with real kings of men enforcing order and suppressing the blatant babblements of thedistracted populace. Chaos may be coming, but after chaos will not the disturbed elements again crystallize into shape ? Carlylese, however, is a dialect which has not yet be- come popular; and the cbeif reason that it has not much chance of popularity is the discordance of this tone of universal complaint with the popular need of comfort and the profound popular conviction that things improve slowly, but surely, with many periods of fall- ing back, compensated on the whole by longer periods of more decisive improvement. Lord Macaulay's political philosophy was not very deep and his incess- ant assurances that we were all steadily improving, and that at some future day the top of Helvellyn would be cultivated as richly as the Carse of Gowrie, did not convey complete satisfaction to thinking minds. Yet, on the whole, this cheerful view of our fate corresponds more nearly to the instincts of people in general, and even of a broader philosophy. When Mr Mill argued the other day that the inevitable tendency of modern changes was to destroy the privileges of the stronger sex, he considered that he had also proved that their instruction would be a benefit to mankind Indeed the answer to the vulgar species of Radical is to be found, not in denying bis fundamental axiom, but in showing how difficult it is to interpret it rightly. How are we to distinguish the superficial currents of the day from the dcep and permanent changes ? If any one had judged simply from the tone of the philosophers who preceded the French Revolution, he would have said that Christianity was rapidly dying out and losing its hold over the consciences and intellects of mankind. If he confined himself to a later period, he might have thought that there never was a period at Nvhich, in many respects, it was making wider and more rapid conquests. If we could discover a test which will distinguish between the permanent and the temporary changes of opinion, it migth perhaps appear that in both cases there was a mixture of various tendencies and that neither epoch failed to contribute some permanent results to intellectual progress, though they might ultimately take a shape very different from that which the original leaders anticipated. It is already obvious that the ordinary Radical has not completely solved the riddle of humanity, and that there are more things in the world than were dreamt of in his philosophy. There were forces which he completely failed to take into account, which are making themselves evident in spite of hIs occasional protests. The Free-trade propagand- ists, for example, have discovered that the simple formula by which one problem was satisfactorily solved is not capable of answering every question that may arise. Fltw tendencies are more conspicuous at the present moment than the desire of the extreme party to call upon the Government to extend its interference in various directions. The law of supply and demand, it has been discovered, will not fill schools, nor save the labouring classes ir.om overworking themselves, nor make them conform to simple sanitary regulations. How far the change may go it is impossible to say, but the same people who were most vigorously crying out to be let alone are now most active in demanding interference. The eulogies which we used to hear upon local self-govern- ment have become terribly discredited. The idol, it has been recently discovered, belonged properly to the most obstructive Conservatives, and should never have been praised by Radical lips. In short, Radicals are tacitly giving up their simple old principle that progress meant putting a stop to governing, and doing without rulers as much as possible and though they have not yet hit upon an alternative doctrine, the old one has mani- festly become discredited in their eyes. Perhaps they may find out in time that it is not the one end and object of political science to give votes to as many people as possible, even though the votes may be taker. by Mr Hare's ingenious scheme instead of the old rough-and-ready methods. It may even appear that universal suffrage sometimes plays into the hands of the Conservative party, and leaves untouched certain grievances which were popularly supposed to be peculiar to despotisms or aristocracies of the old- fashioned type. It would follow, therefore, that before the name of Progress is so confidently invoked it is as well to ask what it really means. Some leading principles are so conspicuously written upon the face of history that there can be no mistake about them. That people, for exam- ple, are becoming more tolerant, governments less arbi- trary, and classes less divided by fixed privileges, and that progress in these directions is beneficent and inev- itable, may be taken for granted. Many important corollaries may easily be drawn from these and similar truths. But when we proceed to determine the ma- chinery by which effect may best be given to the prin- ciples in question, there is room for a wide difference of opinion, and the uneducated observer is almost certain to call by the popular name of progress many changes which turn out to be a merely transitory result of acci- dental combinations of circumstances. Saturday Review.

CRIMES OF VEXATION. The murder and suicide at Whitton are really alarm- ing events, if they can be fairly taken to indicate what some other recent crimes of the same kind, not, how- ever, that of Wood Green,—seem to indicate, that the moral and imaginative barriers against violent crime are growing weaker, and that a comparatively very in- significant motive is sufficient to impel men to these spasms of vindictive indulgence, even though they real- ize that they must follow murder by suicide if they wish to escape the only great penalty they still dread, the social humiliation of conviction and its consequences. The murder of Mr Kyezor, aged 7-3, by a still more aged if not more venerable man, Mr Green, or, as it now seems, that he ought to be called, Mr Edwards—the man who gave information of the Cato-street plot to assassinate the Cabinet and pillage London in 1820 — aged 81, for a mere squabble about a tenancy, embit- tered by abusive language on one side, is a far more really alarming kind of crime than the murder of Maria Death and Mr Boyd from motives of jealousy by Hinson. In that case, there was at least the most vio- lent passion by which human nature is ever agitated to account for the crime, and that passion was the passion of a young man. But in this Whitton murder there was everything which we are accustomed to consider likely to diminish the force of such vindictive motives and to restrain their operation,—the great age of the murderer, the age and social popularity of the murdered man, a trivial cause of quarrel, a long delay between the last personal collision and the crime a certain amount of intermittent regard existing between the murderer and his victim, neither warm and strong enough to make the affront given a real wound to the heart, nor so weak, one would have thought, but that the mere conception of the murder of Mr Keyzor must have had all that frightful reality and distinctness of meaning about it which familiarity with the living ways and habits of the victim adds to the intrinsic horror of every murderous purpose. Yet it was clearly not a crime resulting from a mere impulse of the moment, for a Saturday and Sunday had intervened between the last personal dispute and the murder itself and it was not done in a fit of intemperance, for it was done on the Monday morning, and bad been carefully prepared for indeed, Green or Edwards had availed himself of his knowledge of the time when Mr Keyzor took his regular morning walk to find an opportunity for shoot- ing Lim. It is well nigh impossible, we should think, to remem- ber any crime committed from motives which we are accustomed to think so weak, and in spite of restraints which we are accustomed to think so strong, as this. If the querulousness of aged men begins to take the form of murder and suicide-and really the motive of (l-rnn.n'fl rimo ,:¡pAmA to bo lifctlo moi'o than An (iiir hnrsf. ?itCe q;'Ïo'slless of -n aged man-what emotion or passion of humanity can be thought too weak to prompt the most fierce and violent of crimes? We do not see why, if this and kindred cases be really any indication of a permanent tendency diminishing the inward re- straints upon crime, we might not come at least to having men commit suicide from dislike to a cold or to a sleepless night, or murder on the passenger who had taken the place next the window in the railway carriage they had intended to secure. It appears that Mr Green had received from Mr Keyzor notice to quit his house, and threats of an action for slander, that they bad had one or two personal collisions about it, and that then Green taking plenty of time to think the affront over and get two or three pistols ready, accosted his land- lord in his morning walk, shot him, and then rushed home to shoot himself. If the "obsolete vice" of re- venge, as the Saturday Review once called it, can come to life again with such astounding force in one who has passed his fore-score years, what might we not expect of those younger natures to which the frenzy of absolutely reckless vindictiveness is still sweeter and more entrancing, because those who fed it have never yet suffered the salutary pain of stifled passion ? It is, at least, quite conceivable that society might one day go to pieces less from the spread of the deeper criminal motives and passions such as usually lead to thefts, and roberry, and con- cealed murder, than from the ordinary peevishness of society, if it ever takes it into its head to indulge itself in violent modes of expressing ill-temper and to evade the consequences by suicide. Faults, as we are ac- customed to call them—impatience, vanity, discontent, the temper which cannot contain itself when a key is lost, or a caller comes at the wrong time, or a favourite horse s knees are broken-may very possibly one day threaten the constitution of society almost as seriously as avarice, jealousy, and lust do now. There is no reason, in the nature of things, why what we call the worse and deeper passions alone should be formidable. The woman the other day who first threw her dog over Southwark Bridge because she was short of food, and then drowned herself because she bad drowned her dog, may be a type of the kind of violence which society may one day have most to fear. It does not the least follow that because we get more or less rid of what we now call the common criminal motives we should get rid of violent crime. The kind of emotions which all classes are accustomed to feel daily in themselves, and to recognize in others, and which we at present regard as more likely to interfere with the pleasures and comforts of society than seriously to endanger its existence, might very well become as dangerous and fatal to public security as any others. Suppose, for instance, that that peculiar temperament which cannot raise itself above the light afflictions" of the moment, which frets and chafes at a gnat-bite, or a serious misprint, or a smoking chimney, or a failure to catch the train, till the whole perspective of life is lost in the mist of the immediate trouble,-and there is such a temperament, not a very uncommon one either,— should be greatly multiplied amongst us, we think it very likely that vexations might begin to issue in all the awful consequences of crime. There certainly are persons, and not a few of them, who bear the great blows of life with both magnanimity and fortitude, and who yet get red-hot at once under the small blows, to whom grief and misfortune bring an increase of dignity, while petty trials bring nothing but shame. This, no doubt, arises from the fact that the greater blows touch and stimulate the highest parts of the mind, and call into exercise faith and the deeper spiritual affections, while the petty blows seem to make the mind dwindle into something like equality with these minute antago- nists, needing a certain power of mental detachment," as the Catholics say, to be borne well at all. Those whose minds cannot draw off from the smaller pains which affect them, which cannot know them as they are,—speaks of dust upon the mental cornea, painful enough for the moment, and disturbing enough to the vision, but uterly insignificant when their true signifi- cance is best understood,—are but too likely to be moved to guilt and crime by petty irritations, much more likely, at least, than by grievous and terrible wrongs. The man in one of Miss Bremer's novels who shot his horse because he could not make it do what he wished, is the type of a character more and more common in days when detachment" of mind is becoming less and less common. Many of the better tendencies of the day-the eagerness with which we are taught to throw ourselves into little duties, the excessive earnestness" that is instilled into the young, rather tend to inclose and absorb the mind too much in the detail of the moment, and to render it difficult for it to see the small- ness of small things. We do not mean that the murder and suicide committed by Green are illustrations of this-for it is obvious that it was the chafing of a petty nature under the agony of being worsted by an antagonist, publicly recognized in the Whitton circle as his antagonist, which induced him to prefer murder and suicide to defeat. But the same irritability which arose in him from the sense of rivalry, arises in many a more cultivated mind from mere intolerance of small obstacles in the way of a keen purpose and that sort of irritability is quite capable, if never regularly checked, of ecstasies of impatience as fatal in result. A life apt to be temporarily concentrated in small things is by no means peculiar to men whose tastes are low and natures small. It belongs often to men capable of the most lofty faith and thought, if they throw themselves too eagerly into fits of purpose, grooves of enterprise, and suspend their wider life, as they often do, till any one of these is terminated. Anger and impatience quite incommensurable with the occasion is, at least, as common with men of high mind, but of feverish practical ardour, as with m- n of low. We can well imagine that in this generation of ours, when so many men Qrlance and nod and hurry by, And never once possess their soul Until they die," there might be a real tendency to the dcvelopmor of a new class of crimes,—crimes of vexation,—crimes the stimulus to which is wholly without proportion to the result. And this tendency, it it exists, must be ara. vated by the growing and, in a certain sense, healthy disposition, to fix the conscience less on mere conse- quences, and more on the spirit on which actions are conceived. The remedy is not properly a mora!, but rather a religious one,—the constant elevation of the heart and imagination above the mere details of life, to that higher life in the presence of which the spirit is always living. — Spectator.

THE MILLIONAIRES OF NEW YORK. Nothing strikes us so strongly in this Gold Crisis in New York as the enormous and unrestrained power of the new American Plutocracy. They seem to be rising to a position which, in the extent of the influence it confers, is without a parallel in the history of aristocra- cies, or is paralleled only by that of the few Roman families which united to hereditary station in the Republic the command of masses of treasure and armies of debtors. There are men as rich in England, and men perhaps as unscrupulous in Europe, but for men as unrestrained in the use of their power, as defiant of opinion, of the law, of their own reputation, of all that limits the application of extraordinary means, we must seek in the East or in the history of the old Pagan world. A Roman Senator would destroy a nrovince to .1 L recover his interest on a loan, or raise a civil war to rid himself of his debts, and the American Ring"-leaders seem willing to force on a national bankruptcy, or ruin an army of shareholders, as mere incidental strokes in some grand "operation," or rather game, for in many cases they seem actuated by the determination to win, at least as much as by any thirst for profit. What does Mr. Vanderhilt-with, it is said, £ 1-5,000,000 sterling- want with the few scores of thousands he makes when in some huge railway campaign he crushes a thousand families? Yet he crushes them. In Europe a first-class millionaire of that soit would dread financial disturbance as he would dread an earthquake. In America he makes one. The game, the excitement, the notoriety sectn to be the temptations of these men even more than the profit, and the whole scene suggests that in America, as in Rome, satiety comes quick to the very rich that for the man of millions life has few interests: that the hunger for excitement has reached the height where nothing will gratify it but battle, or orgy, or huge mad gambling, perhaps the most dangerous symptom which a community can exhibit. The "operation" which has recently convulsed New York and shaken American credit throughout the world was not in itself a very extraordinary one. American currency is paper, but all duties must be paid in gold, and a good many contracts must be fulfilled in one way or another by transfers of bullion. Gold, therefore, becomes an article of prime necessity to trade, and one specially liable to be monopolized. Most transactions of the kind are ex- cessively dangerous, because, though the world must have the article, say, for example, quinine, or tallow, or quicksilver, in all of which monopolies have been at- tempted, still the world can wait, and appeal to science for aid but the gold was wanted immediately, every day, and could not be superseded by anything else. Nobody could or would take anything out of bond till he knew what he would have to pay in duties, which he could not know till the price of gold had settled itself. A few rich men, therefore, thought that if they could get possession of all the available gold they could get their own price for it., and the gold in stock being everwhere a very limited quantity, they fancied themselves rich enough to do it. Given a few men sufficiently confident in one another, and sufficiently rich to begin the game, pledging their gold as they got it, and there is nothing very extraordinary or very far- seeing in such a plan, which was indeed very imper- fectly organized, the Ring having either forgotten or been deceived by the largest bullion-holder in the country, "the Treasury of the. United States. The really extraordinary thing is that men of such wealth and such capacity should have been willing to run such a risk, and endanger the commercial safety of the Union in such a spirit of recklessness. Gamblers do very mad things sometimes, but in Europe vast wealth seems to sober men, and the City could no more think of the Rothschilds, or Barings, or any first-class bankers play- ing rouyc-et-noir after that fashion than of their trying to shut the Bank of England for the sake of studvine I the physiognomical marks of despair on a splendid c i l e. The effort to do such a thing would cost any million- aire more cash in the consequent depreciation of his credit than he could hope to make by his operation. In America, we fear, had Messrs. Fisk, Gould, and the rest won the game, and stood out victors amid the surround- ing ruin, their credit would have been increased. They very nearly did win. By steady purchases they forced gold up from loo to 160, that is, they raised the price by some twenty-five per cent., and might, as they in- tended, have sent it up fit'ty but that the Treasury, after giving them time to exhaust themselves, poured gold from its vaults into the mar- ket. Their remaining strength did not suffice to buy that the bubble burst, and they stood with huge masses of contracts to receive gold at a price it did not fetch. Though they won enormously at first; still, with their object they must have held on to their contracts to a great extent, and the ultimate "differences" must have been frightful. During the fight resources had been accumulated by the Ring and their adversaries by enormous sales of securities, which were flung away at almost any price United States bonds, for example, being sold in large parcels 20 per cent. below market fclte, and one great Railway falling sixty per cent. in 48 hours, and fortunes changed hands in a few minutes. Of course in such a scene, the specialty of the American character, the strange and to us inexplicable something "I their brains which makes them so distinct from the English, the liability to mental hectic, came out in full force. Brokers went mad, fainted, fell ill, and died the Gold Room was like an asylum with the patients all loose and furious the clerks in the Gold Bank sat in permanent session the Bank was at last compelled to shut its doors merely to get through its work, and desperate attempts were made by the losers to lynch the chief author of their misfortunes, himself, it is reported, an enormous sufferer. All over the country business stopped, no man knowing at what price to sell, because he could not tell what import duty he might not have to pay on taking his orders out of bond. The effect was, in fact, precisely as if Mr Gladstone had announced in Parliament that he was about to increase all import duties indefinitely, without fixing either tl.c time or the amount. The spasm was too short to create much ru'n beyond speculating circles, but had it lasted, as but for Mr Boutwell's action it might have lasted, weeks, it is not too much to say that every dealer in the United States would have been more or less impoverished, and trade contracted 90 per cent. Even as it was, every man who had contracted to deliver goods out of bond on any one of these three days was fined from 20 to 30 Per cent. on the amount of duty, that is, probably, his whole profit. Mr Fisk's finger was, in fact, on the throat of every man in every port of the Union. Tho American Press is already asking anxiously where the remedy for this state of affairs can be found, and it has reason for its anxiety. There is not the slightest security that the experiment may not be repeated by men much stronger than Messrs. Fisk and Gould and Government cannot be always de- scending in a shower of gold to the relief of man- kind. Even if gold were not the subject, men so rich and imbued with such a thirst for gaming might still work irretrievable mischief. There is nothing what- ever to prevent three or for speculators like Mr Vanderbilt from mastering all the railways in the country or reducing their shares to nominal values, or holding all the iron, or even making an attack on flour, or doing any other act which men possessed of immense resources and standing in sympathy apart from the community, fighting like the Barons of old for their own hands, without reference to the welfare of any not directly connected with themselves, may be oble to conceive. Congress has no power over them, the State Legislatures can scarcely touch them,—being precluded from annulling the obligation of any con- tract—the judiciary is in their pay, and even if they stepped beyond the law, which they need not do, juries could not be found to convict them. They cannot be deprived of their wealth without a social con- vulsion, they cannot be lynched, for they could raise regiments of armed bravocs, and apparently they cannot be induced to forego this use of wealth. Amidst such colossal gambling every other excitement seems insipid, and life without excitement is to them a dreary waste. What are they to do ? In England a man with ten millions would enter politics, or build up a great landed estate, or "found a family," or engage in that miserable but exciting social strife which absorbs so many brains but in America all these careers are closed, wealth being, after a certain point, nearly useless to secure a career. It is often asserted that the readiness with which society" in Europe adopts the very rich is discreditable to the great, that it is, in fact, a violation of the first law of good societies that refinement, not wealth, is the sine fjtiit nult of admission, but it must not be forgotten that society in the act of adoption imposes certain restraints which the history of New York shows to be of value, It is not well that great skill in getting together millions should be rewarded with a peerage, political influence, high position in society, and the general deference of all around but it is much better that it should be so rewarded than that its possessor should be placed, as in New York, practically outside restraint, invested with power to ruin, or enrich, or demoralize whole communities. A millionaire there fceems able to place himself altogether [ outside the laws, to live among a race which still boasts its Puritanism like a Sultan, among a law-abiding people to wage private war, among a community singu- larly kindly to pour out ruin at will upon the unoffend- ing. No aristocrat in modern days has bad anything like the power of the American plutocrat, and no aristo- crat in any days has been more completely beyond restraint. The remedy, we hope, must come, but we confess we cannot see whence. The law of equal divi- sion at death clearly does not prevent agglomerations of property which are all the more dangerous, because the property, being personal, caii b, so rapidly turned to use. A Marquis of Westminster can do t-,i but a threat from him to upset the City would only provoke a smile. A Mr Vanderbilt in England, if he chose to work mere mischief, might reduce us all to a state of barter, and work more ruin than an invading army and if we may judge from all wo hear of New York. would be just as likely to do it as not in order to feel his power, to make "strokes," and generally to enjoy the excitement of a superb form of gambling. For- tunately, in England a man of that kind would in no short time provoke the community, and the community through Parliament is absolute but in America we see nothing to prevent the development of the million- aire into a virtual monarch, the state of whose digestion would be most important to millions, who could no more be controlled than a Shah could be controlled, and who, if he could not send his adversaries the bow- string, could send them an equally fatal decree of con- fiscat:on. We fail to see what a man with fifty miUions could not do in New York, or why a successful chief in tbc Ring," any man with a million, a head for finance, and no scruples, should not make fifty millions. We expect yet to see Mr Urquhart's strange dream fulfilled, and a single millionaire gain possession of a State, make what laws he pleases, and live in a free Republic as much a sovereign as if he were an Asiatic King. Yanderbilt-who, we "hould say, behaved well in this affair-could buy New Jersey. — Spcctutor.

THE IRISH LAY CONFERENCE. \Ve do not wonder at the keen interest everywhere expressed in the reorganization of the Irish Church. Not only do English Churchmen see, or fancy they see, in the proceedings of their Irish brethren precedents which they may hereafter have to follow or to avoid, but those proceedings appeal to the general historical imagination. We seem to see how Church governments were formed, to witness once more the conflict of powers out of which the English Establishment origin- ally grew, to behold the birth of a new thing, a repre- sentative government for an Episcopalian Church. The Irish Protestants have, as it were, to make a Parlia- ment, to make it deliberately, and are forced to con- sider the deepest problems of constitutional life and religious organization, not as subjects for literary de- bate, but as actual difficulties to be avoided. They have had to vote in the most formal manner upon a question fought out for fifteen centuries, the relative rights of "clergy" and laity" in the control of the Church: are now debating the best way of affirming those rights, and will shortly have to decide a problem of extraordinary difficulty, one before which the ablest legislators of the Continent have repeatedly shrunk back,—how to reconcile the spiritual claims of the Bishops with their position as officers subject in all serious cruerg-neies to a lay revisal. The clergy are not likely to surrender their right of appeal to some power beyond the diocesan and the laity must have an appeal also, if the Church does not want a secession | whenever a popular pastor is contumacious. As yet, the action of the Irish Churchmen seems to us to have been full of vigour and sense, to have been marked with that capacity for improvising free governments, which we claim as a speciality at once of the English blood and the Protestant creed. It was extremely sensible, for instance, to interpose a kind of constituent assembly between the electors and the permanent governing body. There is, we imagine, little doubt that the General Synod" will perpetuate itself under another name but the arrangement allows room for the correction of accidental mistakes, and for more ex- haustsve discussion of details, some of which are of the highest importance, as, for example, whether the governing body is to be the highest tribunal, as it is in the Scotch Churches, or whether the Church Court is to be free from its supervision. As yet, Irish Churchmen are only settling principles, r.nd at present they have settled two of the highest importance,— first, that the laity" shall be recognized as a governing power in the Church and, se- condly, that they shall be in the last resort the ulti- mate governing power. These points have been decided after the manner of Englishmen in the most illogical style, but still they have been effectually decided. The Lay Conference came together, it is clear, absolutely resolved to give the laity a predomi- nance, and, in fact, to carry out a specific plan for securing it by giving the laity a distinct superiority of numbers. Twu to one was the most popular idea, and two to one was accepted almost without opposition, and under circumstances which suggest that the lay mind is really made up upon the subject. The Clerical party, aware that some such resolution would be passed, put forward the Duke of Abercorn to make a proposal that the General Synod should consist, of two Houses instead of one, the clergy sitting in one and the laity in the other. The Duke did his work with great tact. If he had pleaded the religious argument that the clergy were divinely appointed, and so on, he would have been hopelessly beaten but he confined himself to the old constitutional theory that two Houses were better than one, that a single House might be rash, and that it was better the governing body should have opportunities of reconsideration and the members of the Conference did not know what answer to make. TheN had been bred up in those ideas all their lives, had been accus- tomed to think that Parliaments were naturally two- headed, had never considered the question any more than they had considered why a tree should grow upwards, and they unanimously passed the Duke of Abercorn's resolution. Still they had not surrendered their own purpose, and to mark it, insisted, in spite of earnest remonstrances and in the teeth of the next resolution proposed, on the double representation of the laity. They saw, of course—for Sir J. Napier, the advocate of equal representation, was cool enough to make that the ground of his argument—that having accepted the vote by orders, the double representation was useless, that they had virtually made a clerical House of Lords but they were determined to mark their feeling in the matter, and they marked it by a vote of seven to one, and it will prevail. We are not at all sure that, reasoning from the lay point of view, we object to this vote by orders, are rather inclined to believe that the clergy, considered as members of a Corporation apart from the laity, have made a most fatal mistake. We suspect that in creat- ing a House of Lords they have created a House of Commons too, whither all substantial power will at once begin to gravitate. In the first place, they have precluded themselves from innovation, except with the consent of a body in which they will have neither seats nor voices, nor intlueuce which will show them formal respect, and reject their suggestions without mercy as professional ideas." They will be treated as clergy- men are treated who quote texts in general society against frivolous amusements. Nobody answers them. Xobody snubs them. Everybody thinks it quite proper that they should say that kind of thing, rather respects them for it than othewise, and then everybody goes away to the theatre or the bali-room For aggression they will have no power at all, and not much for defence. Clergymen are not necessarily bad speakers or incompe- tent legislators. When mixed with laymen they often display high oratorical power, and occasionally exert, as in the last debate in the Lords, substantial influence. But we appeal to any reasonably well-informed clergy- man whether an undiluted House of Clerics ever exer- cises any influence, ever debates well, ever discusses matters in a spirit which laymen can sympathize with or understand. Does anybody in the whole world-un- less, indeed, convinced of a certain power ahove reason residing in Coii vocation ever heartily reverence that body, or turn to it for light, or regard it as, fur instance he regards the Commons, or, in certain cases, the Lords as a body certain in some rough way to be tolerably right, and sure, at all events, to give him more infor- mation than he can get anywhere else ? The Clercial House of the Governing body will be very like Convo- cation, and still more like a Church Congress, which talks and talks, but scarcely deflects perceptibly the current of affairs. If, indeed, the clergy should draw a little nearer to the Duke of Abercorn's theory, and admit all Protestant Irish Peers to votes in their House as of right, their deliberations might be sufficiently leavened with hiy thought of a particular type to nave practical weigut, but even then real power would abide in a House carefully isolated from their influence. The Lay Commons are certain to hold the purse. If the clergy have any far-off dreem that they will hold it they deceive themselves with a vain hope. No body of representatives ever voluntarily gave that up, or amidst an English-speaking people will ever suffer its control to be less than absolute. In only one Protestant body in the world are the clergy in theory sole masters of the Treasury-and even in this a lay "Finance Committee" has, we believe, a practical veto-and the Methodist Hundred has no Re- presentative Chamber by its side to quarrel with its decision?. Power goes with the purse, and, moreover, the Lay Commons can in the long run secede. Sup- pose, for example, a sacerdotal claim to be pushed so far that the congregations who, be it remembered, live in a constant conflict with a real priesthood, will not stand it, and order their representatives to condemn it formally, what is the Clerical Order to do. It might light splendidly in a single House, but in its own Chamber its voice would be the voice of a profession, and it would either have to yield, or see its flocu cross over to the Presbyterian body. We believe that, so tar from having secured too much power to themselves the Clergy have by this apparently adroit manoeuvre placed themselves in a position in which they will bave too little, in which their special knowledge, am ex- perience, and habit of thought will have less weight by much than it ought to have. In one Chamber, for example, they could tavs put some check upon tha dominance of the respectable purse towards which al free Churches tend but isolated in an order of their own, they will on that sublet he powerless, and they dOLit contribute" will in the ruling House be con- sidered an argument for neglecting the rights of the poor. We should, we confess, on this ground, and also on the ground that theology is best discussed in a mixed assembly, greatly prefer to see the resolution to vote by orders reconsidered, but we see in that arrange- ment no danger to Jay supremacy. —Spectator.

RADICALISM IN ITS nEST GARMENTS. TO THE EDITOR OF THE "WELSHMAN." Sin, — In consequence of a notice to quit to the tenant >.{ IVoty. •'•"erV."n:ng letters wern sent to a person living in the neighbourhood, who was supposed to have something to do wiiti fh'i retaking f :be farm, Pobiy is the property of Mr S :tiilei- situated in the parish of Llanddeinol, in the count) of Cardi- gan. On Monday night, the 11th instant, the threaten- ing pro"nhecies were fullkd in part, inasmuch as some villain put tire to the dwelling-house, which burnt it '? of the threatening altogether, except the walls. 0. of the threatening letttrs so-aks of judgment aud justice, and states that it is a good thing they exist, and it is natura. IY inferred that the burning of other people's property It a correct explanation of what is meant by the singular terms. According to the mode of thinking adopted by Radi- calism, this infernal principle can look upon the good as bad, and the lad as good it claims, with authority, unbounded liberty for it.-elf to injure and destroy the property of other?, and even their persons if it can do it safely, whilst, at the same time, it forhias any liberty to those of the other side at their peril. If a Conservative will dare send his tenant away, he must, according to the laws of Radicalism, allow his property to be burnt down to ruins. This principle, if it may be so cille 1. docs not allow anyone to interfere' with its foul and wicked deeds, but demands all liberty itself to I I v t;.? elf to meidlewitli every other man's business at all times, aud even when deeds of darkness are perpetrated by it, the defenders of this faith will, with all conscience, justify its iniquitous proceedings, as in the case under I in the ca-,e under consideration. The proprietor of this farm gave no offence whatever, except he was offending by sending the tenant away for some reasons known to himself, which tie was at perfect liberty to do according to the laws of the land, but the tenant happening to be a Radical, some one or more felt that the principle was insulted, gave vent to the feelings of vengeance, which broke out in the perpetra- tion of a most atr,)cious crime, by igniting the house belonging to the farm into flames of fire. It is sad to think how prevalent is the spirit of this most perilous principle in Wales, how numerous are its advocates, and how industrious the leaders of it are to implant it in the minds of their neighbours and acquaintances, who surround them. It is a most lamentable thing that any man in his senses can justify the crimes committed by that principle of liberty defended by the Dissenters of Wales It will be an everlasting disgrace to the neigh- bourhood that such a villainous thing has been done in a Christian land. The ages to come will be ashamed of this criminal action of their forefathers, and will con- demn Dissent to the uttermost on that account. The parish of Llanddeinol has been eminent and public enough in times past for tricks and foul deeds, but setting a gentleman's property on fire crowns all and will cause people at a distance to look upon the place as being among the most strange and singular spots in the United Kingdom. We should by all means invite Mr Henry Richard to the place, to ee the ruins of the old house, because it may form a splendid subject for a speech in the next session of Parliament. It is well known that he is a capital fellow for attacking Welsh landlords in the Senate for giving notices to quit to Radicals on their estates, but we may reasonably and naturally think that if he will see the propriety of doing his duty by paying a visit to the neighbourhood of Llanddeinol, to have a look at Radicalism in its brightest glory, that the tables will be turned in his addressing the House the next time. At the same time perhaps he is not so ready to take up the absurdity, inconsistency, and the villainous actions of Radicalism, as he is to make an attack on Conserva- tism and all its advantages to the crown, the Kingdom, and the people at large. However, he is at liberty to do as it seemcth good in his sight with regard to that, but the ruin of Popty by fire, will be a scandalous shame to Radicalism as long as the principle exists. I am, sir, Yours trulv, FAITHFULNESS,

MURAL INSCRIBED STONES AT CILRHEDYN CHURCH. TO THE EDITOR CF THE WELSH MAX." Sin,— The Rector of Cilrhedyn'is undoubtedly entitled to every expression of gratitude for the care and good taste he displayed in the due preservation of the mural slab which belonged to the Saunderses of Clynfelin. Under the circumstances stated in his letter, the inside wall of the vestry was apparently the most suitable place wherein to fix it. 1 must, however, admit, that as I did not find it replaced on the inside of the Church wall, it certainly did not occur to me to look for it in the vestry. The next opportunity I have of visiting Cilrhedyn, I shall not omit to take both a rubbing of the stone and a copy of the inscription upon it. The part taken by the Rector for its preservation contrasts very favourably with that of the Vicar and Church- wardens of St Mary's Church, Shrewsbury, where Dr. Erasmus Saunders was interred, and over whose remains a monumental slab with a Latin inscription upon it, was placed horizontally, not a vestige of which can now be discovered. In fact it has not been seen at all since the Church was restored and the floor raised. There was another stone in the wall of the old Church of Cilrhedyn, respecting which it would be interesting to know something. Fenton, in his Historical Tour" through Pembrokeshire, affirms that it stood over the entrance, and bore an old Greek inscription indicative of the sacred character of the edifice. He does not furnish a copy of the inscription, nor does he state whether it had any date to it. I am not aware that its existence is mentioned by any other writer, except by Nicholson in his Cambrian Traveller's Guide." But he evidently speaks of it on the authority of Fenton. If the stone be still preserved, a careful examination of the Greek characters on it should be made, with the view of discovering the precise era to which they belong, which would probably be found to be coeval with the Church. The Rector was un- fortunately from home when I was at Cilrhedyn, otherwise L might have learned something respecting it. I am, Sir. Your obedient servant, October 18th, 1869, ULAXHIRLLYN, j October 18th, 1S69.

IMPORTANT MEDICAL EVIDENCE AXD RECOMMENDATION" OF A COIWXElt' J CltY.-At an inquest in London on the bodies of Elizabeth and Lousia Stapler (little chil- dren and sisters), whose premature and melancholy death was caused by sucking some common lucifera, the medical evidence went to show that whilst one grain of phosphorus as used in thrir manufac ture proves fatal, Bryant and May's Patent Safety Matches were quite harmless. The jury requested that the coroner would communicate with the Secretary of State on the sub- ject. MU KINGLAKE AND HIS HiSTORY OF THE CRIMEA.' —Mr Kinglake has just returned from the Crimea, where he has been engaged for some weeks collecting information for the conclusion of his history of the war. In the course of his visit, we understand he made careful examinations of all the places rendered interesting by having been the scenes of important conflicts, and in all his investigations was accompanied and assisted by General Todleben of the Russian army, who distinguished himself so much during the war. All the Russian authorities, and especialy General Kotzebue, the Governor-General of the province, showed the greatest desire to assist Mr Kinglake in getting the information he desired. HOLLOWAY'S OINTMENT AND PILLS.—Coughs, Influ- eiiza.-The soothing properties of these medicaments render them well worthy of trial in all diseases of the respiratory organs. In common colds and influenza the Pills, taken internally, and the Ointment rubbed over the chest and throat, are exceedingly efficacious. When influenza is epidemic, th-s treatment is easiest, safest, and surest. Holloway's Pills purity the blood, remove all obstacles to its free circulation through the lungs, relieve the over-gorged air tubes, and render respiration free, without reducing the strength, irritating the nerves, or depressing; the spirit, such are the ready means of saving suffering when any one is afflicted with colds, coughs, bronchitis, and othtr.chest complaints, by which so many persons arc seriously and permanently afflicted in most countries. BENEFICIAL EFFECTS OF DR DE JONGH'S LIGHT-BROWN Coij LIYEH OIL IX CONSUMPTION AND DISEASES OF THE CHEST. — In the treatment of consumption and diseases of the chest, Dr de Jongh's Light-Brown Cod Liver Oil is adminstered with marvellously successful results. Allen G. Chattaway, Esq., District Medical Officer, Leominster, in recording two cases of confirmed con- sumption, observes, "Tue sole remedy employed was Dr de iongh's Light-Brown Cod Liver Oil and now the patierits arc strong and fat the diseased (abnormal) sounds nearly inaudible and in the one case (male), hunting, fishing, and shooting are freely indulged in, the patient expressing himself quite capable of under- going as much fatigieas ari.1, of his fellow-sportsmen." Dr Hitchman, Physician to the Liverpool Home for Con- sumption, remarks Having extensively pn scribed Dr dc Jengh s Cod Liver Oil for a long series of jears, in caCb of consumption, 1 deem it but an act of justice to record my empathic testimony in favour of its superior merits as a preventive of emaciation, and generally as an excellent lestorative in debility and disease of the chest." Dr. de Jongh's Light-Brown Cod Liver Oil is sold only in capsuled imperial half pints, 2s du pints, 4s 9d quarts, t>s labelled with his tampand signature, without which none can possibly be genuine, by his sole consignees, Ansar, Harford,and Co., II, Strand, London and respectable chemists. T 36