Have the people got a notion already of such
an alternative ?
" Tithes. ā Parish of C. ā On Monday, the
Rev. J. B. H. commenced distraining for tithes
due, 8fc. 8?c. On that day there were impounded
above forty cows. The parishioners offered secu-
rity for the cattle, which was refused, and they
have resolved to let the law take its course. In
the mean time, a large military and police force
is stationed in the vicinity of the pound. Sen-
tinels are regularly posted and relieved, and the
place presents more the appearance of a warlike
district than a country village."
THIRD AGE. 107
All ! this Rev. J. B. H. takes for his text,
perhaps, " I came not to send peace on earth,
but a sword." The people, it seems, think his
claim, 1476Z., on a valued property of 9000/. a
year, excessive. But his advocate declares that
no man, acquainted with first principles, can deny
that the Rev. J. B. H. has a legal right to demand
and take his tithes. Be it so ! But first princi-
ples tell just as plainly that it is high time the
law was altered : ā first principles of humanity to
the clergy themselves, to judge by what comes
next.
" The subscription for the relief of the families
of clergymen in Ireland proceeds but slowly,
though the necessity for it increases with every
passing day. Ladies who have been educated
with a view to filling a highly-respectable station
in society may now be seen engaged in the most
laborious domestic offices; while their children
are thankful to accept a meal of potatoes from
some of the lowest of their father 's flock"
" The widow of an Irish clergyman, middle*
aged, is eager to obtain a situation to superintend
the management of the nursery in the family of a
widower, or as useful avnpanion to a lady, or as
housekeeper in a nobleman' s mansion, or as ma-
tron in an extensive charitable institution. She
would be willing to make herself useful in any
situation not menial, her circu?jistances being of an
urgent nature. ā References to a lady of rank."
u A master of arts, in full orders, is desirous
of a curacy. He feels himself ecpial to a labo-
108 THIRD AGE.
rious charge ; and a speedy settlement is of more
importance than the amount of salary ', especially
if there be an opening for tuition."
Alas ! what a disclosure of misery is here !
among a bodv which the United Kingdom is
taxed to maintain. Poor as the Dissenting clergy
may be, as a body, we hear of no such conflicts
in their lot. The poor spirit-broken clergyman
bearing, undeserved by him, the opprobrium
belonging to his church, seeing his gentle wife
washing his floor, or striving to patch up once
more the girl's frock and the boy's coat ; while
they, poor children, peep in at the door of the
labourer's smoky cabin, and rush in at the first
invitation to take a sup of milk or a potatoe !
Scraps of the classics, descriptive of poverty, will
run in his head, instead of gospel consolations
of poverty ; for the good reason that lie was
taught that his classics, and not his choice of
poverty, were his title to preach the gospel. He
could find in his heart to inquire further of any
heretical sect, which takes for its rule to employ
every one according to his capacity, and reward
him according to his works. However difficult
it might be to fix upon any authority which all
men would agree to be a fitting judge of their
capacities and their works, none would affirm
that an educated clergyman is employed accord-
ing to his capacities in wandering about helpless
amidst the contempt or indifference of his flock,
or that his works are properly rewarded by the
starvation of his family. Then there is the
THIRD AGE. 109
widow of a brother in the same fruitless mi-
nistry ! " Any situation not menial !" " Her
circumstances of an urgent nature /" One poor
relation, perhaps, taking charge of one child,
and another of a second ; and the third, perhaps,
sent to wear the badge of this lady of rank at a
charity-school, that the widow may be made
childless ā may advertise herself as " without
incumbrance," to undertake any situation not
menial ! Then comes the curate, eager to un-
dertake more than man can do for as little as
man can live for ; ā to use his intellectual tools,
framed with care, and polished with long toil,
and needing, in their application, all the power
of a philosopher with all the zeal of a saint, ā
for less than is given to the artizan who spends
his life in the performance of one manual act,
or the clerk, whose whole soul lies in one process
of computation ! This poor curate, heart-sick
through long waiting, may find employment ac-
cording to his capacities, and above them ; but,
if he be fit for his work, he will not be rewarded
according to it, till those for whom he and his
brethren toil have, directly or indirectly, the dis-
tribution of the recompense. Bring the church,
in its turn, to the test. It is certain that it is
made up of pomp and penury ; and no power on
earth can prove that it at present yields any sup-
port to the state.
Since the people have no benefit from a state
education, and but a questionable benefit from a
state church, how much is spent on their behalf?
Here are tables which look as if they would tell
23 l
110 third ac;k.
something, though it requires move wit than
mortal man lias to make out accurately how the
public accounts reallv stand. Amontr all the
accommodations provided for the transaction of
public business, one would think a pay-office
might be fixed upon where all public claims
should be discharged, in certain allotted depart-
ments ; and, among all the servants of govern-
ment, working men or sinecurists, one would
think some might be employed in preparing such
a document as has never yet been seen among
us ā an account of the actual annual expenditure
of the public money. But one may make some
approach to the truth in the gross : ā
IC The expenditure for the last year may he
calculated, in round numbers, at upwards of
fifty millions."
Upon my word, we are a gay nation ! If we
acted upon tbe belief held by some very wise
persons, that the business of government might
be conducted at a charge of one per cent, on the
aggregate of individual revenue, this sum total
would show us to be rich enough to buy Europe,
and perhaps America to boot. This would give
us a national wealth which it would be beyond
Croesus himself to form a notion of. But we
are far enough from having ourselves governed
so cheaply. Let us see how these fifty millions
go:ā
To the Public Creditor . . Ā£28,000,000
Civil and Pension Lists , , 1,000,000
THIRD AGE. Ill
Superannuated and Reduced
Allowances of Civil Depart-
ments . =Ā£1,000,000
Do. of Military Ditto . . . 4,300,000
Miscellaneous Charges . . . 200,000.
5>
Here are thirty-four millions and a half de-
voted to " non-effective" expenditure. This is a
pretty triumph of Pomp versus Support. ā Yes,
ā pomp : for few will now dare to affirm that
our prodigious wars were necessary to the
national defence. They were wars of pomp
which undermined our supports : and, as for the
glory thus gained, our descendants will be
ashamed of it long before they have done paying
for it. ā As for the other items of non-effective
expenditure, ā the smaller they appear by the
side of the enormous debt charge, the more ne-
cessity there is for their reduction ; since the
disproportion proves, ā not their smallness, but
its bigness. Though they cannot be abolished,
ā though their Majesties must have a household,
ā though the other branches of the royal family
must be supported, ā though retired soldiers and
sailors must betaken care of on their quitting a
service from which it is not easy to turn to any
other, ā no man will now affirm that reduction is
for ever impossible ; though the like affirmation
was made before the present government proved
its falsehood. That their Majesties must have a
household on a liberal scale is true ; but that
there are no sinecures in the royal households
remains to be proved. And if such sinecures
l 2
112 THIRD AGE.
there must be, it also remains to be proved that
they would not be equally well filled if they were
merely honorary offices. That the members of
the royal family, precluded as they are by their
position from being independent, must submit to
be maintained by a pitying people, is also true.
It is a lot so full of mortification, that a Christian
nation will soften the necessity to them to the
utmost; cheerfully paying as much as will sup-
port them in decent splendour, but not so much
more as will expose them to the taunts of their
supporters. This regard to their feelings is their
due, till their day of emancipation arrives, ā till
the customs of society shall allow them the
natural rights of men and women, ā the power of
social exertion, and the enjoyment of social inde-
pendence. Their case, however, is peculiar in
its hardships. No other class in society is pre-
cluded from either enjoying ancestral property or
accumulating property for themselves; and it is too
much to expect the nation to approve or topay^for
the infliction of a similar humiliation on any who
have not, in their own perso'ns or in those of their
very nearest connexions, served the people for
an otherwise insufficient reward. Let the soldier
and sailor who have sacrificed health or member
in the public defence be provided for by a grate-
ful people ; but there is no reason why the de-
scendants of civil officers, or diplomatists retired
from already overpaid services, should receive
among them far more than is afforded to naval
and military pensions together. As for the pro-
portion of these naval and military pensions to
THIRD AGE. 113
the expenditure for effective defence, it is to be
hoped that a long abstinence from war will
rectify, ā if they must not be otherwise rectified,
ā such enormous abuses as that of the number
of retired soldiers far exceeding that of the em-
ployed, and of the expenses of the non-effective
service being considerably greater than the main-
tenance of the actual army. Monstrous absurdi-
ties ! that the factitiously helpless class should
cost the nation more than those who advance
some plea, ā more or less substantial, ā of civil
services, rendered by themselves or their con-
nexions ! that these last should cost the nation
more than the whole body of its maimed, and
wounded, and worn-out defenders ! and that these
a^ain should cost the nation move than its actual
defenders ! What wonder that they from whose
toils all these expenses must be paid talk of a
national militia, ā of arming themselves, and dis-
pensing with a standing army ? It is no wonder:
but when we let them be as wise as they desire
to be, they will perceive that their best weapons
at present are the tongues of their representatives.
It has not yet been tried whether these tongues
may not utter a spell powerful enough to loosen
this enormous Dead-AVeight from the neck of the
nation.
But how goes the 15,000,000/. for actual ser-
vice ?
" Of the 15,000,000/. required for active ser-
vice, three and a half are expended on the col-
lection of the revenue. Eight and a quarter ou
l3
114 THIRD AGE.
defence. Law and justice swallow up three-
quarters of a million. Another million is re-
quired for civil government, and the expenses of
legislation. Diplomacy and the colonial civil
service are discharged by half a million. About
half a million is spe?it on public works. The
remaining odd half million out of the fifteen, is
expended, on the management of the debt, and
for miscellaneous services," fyc.
So we, a most Christian nation, with abun-
dance of Christian prelates, and a church which
is to watch over the state with apostolic care, ā
we, strenuous professors of a religion of peace
and enlightenment, ā spend eight millions and a
quarter on Defence, and how much on popu-
lar Education ? I suppose the latter forms some
little item in one of the smaller accounts, for I
can nowhere see it. Eight millions and a quar-
ter on Defence, and three quarters on Law and
Justice ! Eight and a quarter on Defence, and
one on Government and Legislation ! Eight
millions and a quarter on Defence, and half a
million on Public Works ! O, monstrous ! ā too
monstrous a sin to be charged on any ruler, or
body of rulers, or succession of bodies of rulers !
The broad shoulders of the whole civilized world
must bear this tremendous reproach : ā the world
which has had Christianity in it these eighteen
hundred years, and whose most Christian empire
yet lays out more than half its serviceable ex-
penditure in providing the means of bloodshed,
or of repelling bloodshed ! The proportion would
THIRD AGE. 115
be enormous, even if all the other items were of
righteous signification, ā if the proper proportion
of the three and a half millions for Collection
went to Education ; if Law were simple, and
Justice cheap; if the real servants of Government
were liberally paid, and all idle hangers-on shaken
off; if there were no vicious diplomatic and co-
lonial patronage ; and no jobbing in the matter
of Public Works. If all else were as it should be,
this item might well make us doubt what age of the
world we are living in, and for what purpose it is
that Providence is pleased to humble us by leaving
such a painful thorn of barbarism in the side of our
majestic civilization. Long must it be before it
can grow out. Meantime, let us not boast as if the
whole bodv were sound ; or as if we were not
mi '
performing as humbling and factitious a duty in
paying our defence-taxes as the bondman of old
in following the banner of the cross to the eastern
slaughter-field. The one was the bondman's duty
then ; and the other is the citizen's duty now ;
but the one duty is destined to become as obsolete
as the other. ā What glory in that day, to reverse
the order of expenditure ! Education, Public
Works, Government and Legislation, Law and
Justice, Diplomacy, Defence, Dignity of the
Sovereign. When this time shall come, no one
can conjecture ; but that we shall not always
have to pay eight millions a year for our defence
is certain ; if the voice of a wise man, ā (which
is always the voice of an awakening multitude,) ā
say true. " Human intelligence will not stand
still : the same impulse that has hitherto borne
115 THIRD AGE.
it onwards, will continue to advance it yet farther.
The very circumstance of the vast increase of
expense attending national warfare has made it
impossible for governments henceforth to engage
in it, without the public assent, expressed or
implied ; and that assent will be obtained with
the more difficulty, in proportion as the public
shall become more generally acquainted with
their real interest. The national military establish-
ment will be reduced to what is barely sufficient
to repel external attack ; for which purpose, little
more is necessary than a small body of such
kinds of troops as cannot be had without long
training and exercise ; as of cavalry and artillery.
For the rest, nations will rely on their militia,
and on the excellence of their internal polity ; for
it is next to impossible to conquer a people,
unanimous in their attachment to their national
institutions.'' Nor will any desire to conquer
them while our example of the results of conquest
is before the eyes of nations. Then the news-
papers will not have to give up space to notices
of military reviews ; and gentry whose names
have no chance of otherwise appearing in print
will not have the trouble of looking for them-
selves in the list of army promotions. The pomp
of defence will be done away, while the support
will remain in the hearts and hands of the
people.
What a blessed thing it is tint as soon as the
people do not choose to pav for pomp, pomp will
be done away ! What a blessed thing that they
cannot be put out of the question, as Henry
THIRD AGE. 117
VIII.'s people were, by sending their representa-
tives to the wars as often as they disliked paying
for the King's gold and silver beards, or the
Lady Mary's fool's cap and bells ! What a
blessing that they can be no longer feared and
yet defied, as when Charles II. did without a
parliament because he was afraid to tell them of
the bribes he had taken, and the loans he had
asked, and the cheats he had committed, and the
mad extravagance of his tastes and habits ! Here,
I see, we are content to pay for
" Robes, collars , badges, <Ā§r., for Knights of
the several Orders.
" Repairing the King's crown, maces, badges,
SfC., and gold and silver sticks.
16 Plate to the Secretary of State.
" Plate and various equipage money to the Lord
Lieutenant and Lord Chancellor of Ireland."
This is the people's own doing. No grown
man can be supposed to care for crowns and gold
sticks, and robes and collars, in themselves. It
is the people who choose to preserve them as
antiquarian curiosities. So be it, as long as their
taste for antiquities takes this turn, and they can
find grown men good-natured enough to dress
up to make a show for their gratification. But,
in another reign or two, it will be necessary to
have dolls made to save busy and grave legisla-
tors the toil and absurdity of figuring in such an
exhibition; or perhaps cheap theatres will by
that time be allowed, where those who now act
pantomimes, will not be above exhibiting these
118 THIRD AGE.
other mummeries on Christmas nights. Mean-
time, if the people choose to have their func-
tionaries surrounded with pomp and parade, they
must pay the purchase money with thanks.
Whenever they shall become disposed to dispense
with guards, trappings, and pageantry, to respect
simplicity, and obey the laws for the sake of
something more venerable than maces and wigs,
they have only to say so, and doubtless the King
will feel much relieved, and his ministers very
thankful. The laws will work quite as well for
the judges looking like other people ; in the same
manner as it is found that physicians' prescrip-
tions are worth full as much as formerly, though
the learned gentlemen now wear their own hair.
We tried this method of simplicity in our own
North American Colonies, less than a century
ago. Their total expenditure was under 65,000/.
per annum. We shall not have held those
colonies for nothing if we learn from our own
doings there how cheap a thing government may
be made, when removed from under the eyes and
the hands of a born aristocracy.
What a rich, stirring, happy-looking country
this is before my eyes, where the people hold up
their heads and smile, ā very differently, I fancy,
from what they did when the proud Cardinal
made a progress through it, or when whispers of
the sale of Dunkirk circulated in advance or in
the rear of the sovereign who bartered away his
people's honour! How times are changed, when,
instead of complaining that the King and his
Ministers sacrifice the nation to their own pomps
THIRD AGE. 119
and vanities, the people only murmur at an
insufficiency of courage and despatch in relieving'
them of the burdens imposed by the mal-adminis-
tration of a former aire! What a change, from
being king-ridden, courtier-ridden, priest-ridden,
minister-ridden, to being, ā not king-ridden, less
courtier-ridden, priest-ridden only while it is our
pleasure to be so, and ruled by a ministry, every
tittle of whose power hangs upon the breath of
the people ! One may bear even the debt, for a
short space, with patience, while blessed with the
sober certainty that the true instrument of recti-
fication, ā the responsibility of rulers to the ruled,
is at length actually in our hands. One might
almost wish long life to the sinecure pensioners,
and be courteous about the three millions and a
half consumed in tax collecting, if one rested In
a comparison of the present with the past. But
there is enough before one's eyes to remind one
how much remains to be done before the nation
shall receive full justice at the hands of its
guardians. By small savings in many quarters,
or by one of the several decided retrenchments
which are yet possible and imperative, some entire
tax, with its cost of collection, might ere this
have been spared, and many an individual and
many a family who wanted but this one additional
weight to crush them, might now have been
standing erect in their independence. What a
list of advertisements is here ! Petitions for relief,
ā how piteous ! Offers of lodging, of service,
literary, commercial, and personal, how eager !
What tribes of little governesses, professing to
120 THIRD ACE.
teacli more than their young powers can possibly
have achieved ! What trains of servants, vehe-
mently upholding their own honesty and accom-
plishments, ā the married boasting of having got
rid of their children to recommend themselves to
their employers, ā ay, even the mother advertising
for sale the nourishment which God created for
her first-born ! There is no saying how much of
all this is attributable to the weight of public
burdens, or to the mode of their pressure : but it
is enough that this craving for support co-exists
with unnecessary public burdens. It is enough,
were the craving aggravated a thousand- fold,
and the needless burden extenuated to the
smallest that could be estimated, ā it is enough to
prove that no worthless pensioner, ā worthless to
the nation at large, ā should fill his snuff-box at
the public charge, while a single tax-payer is
distressed. For my part, I have no doubt that
many of the cases in this long list of urgent
appeals owe their sorrow to this cause. I have
no doubt that many a young girl's first grief is
the seeing a deeper and a deeper gloom on her
father's brow, as he fails more and more to bear
up against his share of the public burden, and
finds that he must at length bring himself to the
point, and surrender the child he has tenderly
nurtured, and dismiss her to seek a laborious and
precarious subsistence for herself. I have no
doubt that many of these boasting servants would
have reserved their own merits to bless their own
circle, but for the difficulty that parents, husbands
and brothers find in living on taxed articles.
THIRD AGE. 131
While these things coexist with the needless
expenditure of a single farthing, I, for one, shall
feel that, however thankful we may and ought to
be for our prodigious advance in freedom and
moral dignity, we have still to pray, day and
night, that the cry of the poor and the mirth of the
parasite do not rise up together against us. Too
fearful a retribution must await us, if we suffer
any more honest hearts to be crushed under the
chariot wheels of any 'gay, licentious proud' ā
who must have walked barefoot in the mud, if
their condition had been determined by their
deserts.
What place is this i I was not aware that these
pretty villas, and evergreen gardens, and trim
causeways stretched to so great a distance on
any London road. Bless me ! where can we be ?
I know that old oak. 1 must have been dreaming
if we have passed through Croydon without my
perceiving it. I shall be early at G.'s after all.
No ! not 1 ! It is some two hours later than I
thought. Travelling alone is the best pastime,
after all. I must tie up these newspapers. It is
a wonder they have not been claimed for the
Blue Lion yet.
My wife would say this is just the light for the
Abbey ; but she has said so of every light, from
the broadest noon sunshine to the glimmer of the
slenderest crescent at midnight. Long may the
Abbev stand, quiet amidst the bustle of moving life,
a monitor speaking eloquently of the past, and
breathing low prophecies of the future ! It is a
far nobler depository of records than the Tower :
M
122 THIRD AGE.
for here are brought into immediate contrast the
two tribes of kings, ā the sovereigns by physical
force, and the sovereigns by moral force, ā the
royal Henries, and the thrice royal Shakspeare and
Locke and Wilberforce ; ā and there remains also
space for some one who perchance may unite the
attributes of all ; ā who, by doing the highest work
of a ruler in making the people happy, may dis-
charge the commission of a seraph in leading them
on to be wise. Let not the towers totter, nor the
walls crumble, till such an one is there sung to his
rest by the requiem of a virtuous people ! But the
noblest place of records can never be within four
walls, shut in from the stars. There is one, as