horse, or grooms and lords of the bedchamber? These are menial offices, and unbecoming the dignity of noblemen, if endowed with the genuine feelings of nobility. At best, they have served only to purchase the support of some needy boroughmonger, or provide for some low parasite, or ruined aristocrat. Wood, major-gen. sir G. major-general, unattached Pension for services ... Woodroffe, Wm. associate to chief justice, common pleas Woolley, capt. Isaac, late deputy chairman, victualling office £590 456 935 200 904 1000 1198 1000 Pension for wounds... 250 Worthington, T. surveyor-general, customs 800 Wray, Charles, president and judge, vice-admiralty, Demerara 3500 Wray, John, receiver of new metropolitan police establishment 700 311 Wright, Alexander, Alfred, and Caroline, pension, each, on civil list, 1827..... Wright, Thomas, collector of customs, Plymouth Pension for special services.. Clerk for paying fees on passing accounts, 1815 .... court of exchequer, and clerk of common pleas, Barbadoes Registrar in chancery, and clerk of the patents, Jamaica The duties of the hon. Percy Charles Wyndham, brother of lord Egremont, are discharged by deputy; the emoluments are principally paid by the inhabitants of the islands, who are twitched up for judicial fees in the same fleecing manner that suitors for justice are in the courts of the United Kingdom. .... Wylde, John, pension on Scotch civil list, 1796..... Wynn, H. W. W. son-in-law of lord Carrington; envoy and ..... min. plenipo. at Copenhagen Wynyard, gen. H. col. 46th foot, pay Wynyard, lady, pension on civil list, 1819. Wyon, Thomas, chief engraver, mint-office Yates, Jane, pension on Irish civil list, 1814 .... .... .... Ditto, Mary, pension on civil list, 1794. Yonge, dame, pension on English civil list, 1812 .... Ditto, pension on Irish civil list, 1804 There was a sir George Yonge of old in the war-office, but from the date of the pension she cannot well be his widow. 25 500 450 150 150 1003 1476 4050 138 3750 443 738 1200 4900 613 467 500 61 177 300 445 .... .... Young, J. W. protector of slaves, Demerara chequer (sinecure) ... Zachary, M. cocket writer, customs £2000 2700 1698 A copious introduction to the Place and Pension List renders unnecessary many observations at the conclusion. We might have multiplied notes, but made a point of passing over the Grenvilles, Sidmouths, and other individuals already sufficiently known, whose merits have been canvassed and long since settled in public estimation. Many names illustrate themselves, others by juxta position; and really we cannot help thinking that our alphabetical arrangement has been the means of our performing a task very usual at certain seasons of the year-that of assembling families together-from the royal household, the colonies, courts of law, army, navy, and public offices, exhibiting them face to face, their incomes, emoluments, relationships, and prospects. Our List has one striking advantage over every other previously given to the public. All the individuals enrolled upon it are living, or were living within a few months of the period of publication. From it the people will be able to learn who receive exorbitant emoluments, and the amount of them in every branch of the public service -civil, judicial, naval, and military. Since the last edition, issued within the preceding twelvemonths, many names have disappeared through death, some few have voluntarily resigned their annuities; those have of course been omitted, except in the latter case, two or three have been retained, purposely to remark on such a rare example of disinterestedness. With respect to the pensions generally, though their claims appear at present recognized by the settlement of the Civil List, we apprehend they will ultimately have to undergo the ordeal of another examination. There are some deserving objects, but they are only a grain of sand on the sea-shore-the mass are too vile for description, and their plunderings must speedily have an end. We are told, indeed, "to pause before we plunge noble families into distress." But if noble families can only maintain their nobility by living on the public, perish their nobility. Surely tithes and corn-laws are sufficient for the maintenance of the Order, or, if they be still indigent, let them appear in their proper character, and not assume to rank above other paupers. What claim have the Mulgraves, Manchesters, Mansfields, Arbuthnots, Grevilles, Courtenays, Črokers, Herries, and Bathursts; or the lady Anns, Emilys, Bettys, and Jennies, of any titled beggar, to the money wrung from the labours and necessities of the industrious and now deeply depressed people. If they think carriages and fine clothes, titles and fine houses, essential to their existence, let them pay for them out of their own purses; if they cannot pay for them, what right have they to them? or what right have they to make the people pay for them? The whole affair is a gross insult to common sense; and those silken creatures, and their dandy brothers, etherial and exquisite as they may be, must do like others, earn their bread by honest industry, or have no bread to eat. Noble families have long been under a delusion, and seem to think they have a hereditary right to be fed and clothed at the public expense, whatever be their improvidence, folly, or worthlessness; but they must be undeceived:-no more lordly plunderings by the sons and daughters of corruption; if they cannot support themselves by useful services, they must descend from their fictitious rank and learn the duties of their proper station in society. They will gain a great deal by the change, lose nothing in point of real dignity, or perhaps comfort; for there can be no dignity not founded in justice, nor comfort in enjoying the rewards which no desert has required. HOUSE OF COMMONS, PAST, PRESENT, AND TO COME. We have reserved the subject of this chapter to the last, and have been much at a loss what title to give the observations we are about to submit. At this moment the Reform Bill, for the third time, is in its last stage in the House of Commons, and we are just on the eve, as we fervently trust, of the birth of a new constitution. Under such circumstances it would be mere folly to do, as we have often done before, drag our readers through the iniquities of the Borough System. That system is doomed, and we will not believe that any event can intervene to avert its fate. We will not believe there is any peer of parliament, however great his prepossessions against reform may be, however great his apprehensions of its ultimate issues; we will not believe there is any man who will not deem it a less evil to pass the Bill than risk the fearful consequences which would inevitably result from opposing the two constituted authorities of the state, supported by the almost unanimous power, wealth, and intelligence of the community. We will therefore consider the Reform Bill the law of the land, and will throw behind us, as a portion of past history, the abominations it entombs, like the prerogatives of the Tudors, the oppressions of Feudality, and the corruptions of Popery. Having thus cleared our course of a loathsome nuisance, we will state the chief points to which we are desirous of calling attention. 1. In order to dispose of some popular errors, we will briefly indicate the progress of the constitution up to the era of the Reform Bill. 2. We will give an estimate of the adequacy of the Bill to the national wants, and advert to the principal objections urged against it by its two classes of antagonists-namely, those who think it concedes too much, and those who think it does not concede enough. 3. And last, we will endeavour to show the future improvements likely to be effected in the country by the practical operation of this great public measure. Our readers need not be alarmed from the general import of these propositions we are going to lead them into any dissertation; we shall despatch the whole in a very few pages, our aim being only to indicate a few leading problems, a sort of landmarks, which, at the existing crisis, it may be useful to keep in mind. As we deem the battle won, and seek not victory, we shall submit our remarks in that spirit of truth, candour, and fairness, in which we doubt not they will be received. 1.-PROGRESS OF THE CONSTITUTION UP TO THE REFORM BILL. We have long been of an opinion that the English constitution is the result of successive improvements advancing with the increasing intelligence of the people." It is a tree of slow but magnificent growth, in which decayed parts have at intervals appeared, and been partly abscinded, and new and more perfect branches engrafted. Those who entertain a different opinion, rely, we apprehend, either on descriptions purely imaginary, or refer to a period too remote for authentic intelligence. The surest test of the excellence of public institutions, and the extent of popular rights, is the administration of justice. The executive government may claim and exercise a transitory power, dependent on the character of the sovereign or his ministers, or imposed upon them by the emergencies of the moment; but the administration of justice is that permanent and wide-spread divisions of social machinery which touches all the members of society; and accordingly as their rights are respected or violated under it, we may infer the general existence or absence of civil liberty among the people. Let us apply this test to the Saxon era. We are not accurately informed of the institutions existing at this remote period, but it is certain they were those of a nation little advanced from a state of barbarism. According to Mr. Turner, the laws ascribed to Alfred, and so highly extolled, comprised the decalogue and the principal provisions in Mosaic legislation contained in the three chapters following the decalogue. However applicable such a code may have been to the Jews and Judea, it could not have been well suited to a community placed under widely different circumstances. The existence of the were and the mund afford further testimony of the rude state of society among the Anglo-Saxons: the former was the legal value of a man's life, which varied according to his rank; the latter was the security afforded to the safety of the house, and like the were varied with the rank of the party. If human life and property were thus made to vary in value, it is not surprising personal estimation varied in the same way: thus the oath of a twelve hynd man was equivalent to the oaths of six churls. With such uncouth and partial judicial notions, the condition of the great body of the people may be easily conceived. It was that of mere personal slavery. The labouring classes were considered the property of their masters, and at their absolute disposal as much as the cattle on their estates. They might put them in bonds, whip them, brand them, yoke them in teams like horses, or openly sell them in the market like any other commodity.† This state of society continued till long after the Conquest. In the reign of Henry II. we read that the number of slaves exported to Ireland was so great that the market was absolutely over-stocked; and from William I. to that of John, scarcely a cottage in Scotland but what pos Macintosh's History of England, vol. i. p. 72. + Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons, 5th edit. v. iii. p. 91. |