EFFECTS OF AUSTRALIAN GOLD. London, and he directed the police to check or stop them. These were largely Sunday meetings of artisans to discuss politics and religion, and were almost entirely "officered," so to speak, by republicans and atheists. But whatever power the law gives its administrators in such cases, it would have been wiser for the new Tory government to "let things slide,” than to interfere in a way which they were not prepared to follow up, and which was sure to provoke an outcry. Practically, their interference did only harm, and had to be given up; though the police retreated in due order; and the Sunday "orating" in Bonner's Fields, beyond Bethnal Green, went on again finely. In this connection may be noticed the rapid increase among the working-classes of the party now known as Secularists. For some time previously Mr. Holyoake, who had led the anti-Christian and anti-theistic party, had felt that it was a bad thing for them to be called “atheists,” and he succeeded in organizing the party of Secularism, and in establishing that as the current name of the anti-religious body whose chief apostle he was. The point of the change of style lay in this, that a man might adopt the formula of secularism without being an atheist, though, we may add, it was exceedingly improbable that he should, and secularism utterly ignores all questions of God and a future life. Just at this time it happened that Mr. Holyoake appeared as the "bail” in a bankruptcy case before Mr. Commissioner Phillips -of Courvoisier celebrity-and declined to take the usual oath. Being asked if he did not believe in a God, he replied that he was "not prepared to answer the question with the brevity the court would require." To the question what he called himself he answered that if he must take a name he should call himself a Secularist. After a little more twaddle on both sides Mr. Commissioner Phillips dismissed him with ungrammatical abuse: "Go and attend to your secularism, sir." Now Mr. Holyoake was an able man and a journalist, and had friends and allies, so the case made a great noise. An immoral and irreligious novel of the worst French-revolu 7 tion type had been written by Mr. Phillips when young, and this unsavoury work-The Loves of Celestine and St. Aubert—was dug up and brought into public notice for the purpose of showing the inconsistency of the author; while his defence of Courvoisier was made the most of against him. Those personalities are, however, a trifle. The important fact is, that the Liberal papers all over England, including some religious papers like the Nonconformist of Mr. Edward Miall, took up the case, and made it the text of an argument for permitting others than Quakers and Separatists to "affirm." From this time forward the subject assumed a prominence that it never lost. The gold discoveries in Australia were having many startling effects both at home and in the colonies, the derangement of the currency and a rise in prices being among them. This was expected; but no human being was prepared for the escape of "Meagher of the Sword," one of the Irish patriots whom we had sent to Australia for his share in the rising of 1848. Mr. Meagher had the partial liberty of a ticket-of-leave at the time of his escape, but did not violate its literal conditions. It ran as follows:-"I undertake not to escape from the colony so long as I hold this ticketof-leave." Having made previous preparations for his flight, with a horse saddled in his stable, and being armed with pistols, he addressed a letter to the magistrate of Ross, about twenty miles distant, and a township of the district out of which he was not permitted to go. The place in which he resided was the wild bush. In his letter he returned his ticket-of-leave and said he would remain at his house that day till twelve o'clock, when the leave expired, in order to give the authorities an opportunity of arresting him if they could. When the magistrate read the letter he was astounded, and he immediately ordered the chief of police, who happened to be present, to proceed at once to arrest Meagher. The chief of police replied he would not do any such thing, as he was an Irishman, and that young gentleman was an Irishman. "But you must do it," retorted the magistrate. "Faith, I will not," replied the Irishman; "I will resign first." "But I will not accept your resignation." "Then if you do not you may let it alone, but I will not arrest young Meagher." The magistrate gave it up as a bad case, and rode immediately to another station in search of police. Meantime the Irish chief of police set out for the mines, as he thought he could make more money in digging gold than in arresting his Irish friends. Meagher waited for six hours after the time, in order not to give the British authorities any excuse for saying he had violated his pledge. He was accompanied and assisted by three young English settlers, who supplied him with horses and had horses themselves. They proposed to wait till the police came and to kill them. Meagher thought it unnecessary to shed blood, but stayed till the police came, and kept his friends waiting at a short distance. The moment the police entered the house he passed out at another door, and, mounting his horse, came round to the front of the building within pistol-shot of them, and told them to arrest him if they could. In the next moment he put spurs to his horse, and with his friends was soon out of sight. They travelled over 180 miles without halt, having relays of horses on the way. They at length reached unmolested a lonely spot upon the sea-coast, where, according to previous arrangements, a whale-boat was in waiting, and bore Meagher off in safety. He of course fled to America. When it became known in New York that he was there, detachments of the Irish militia regiments, accompanied by their bands, marched up to his residence in succession and serenaded him. But this was only a part of the "demonstrations" that ensued. The event is particularly interesting at the present time because it is certain that the presence of Meagher and Mitchell had much influence in the formation of the antiEnglish party among the Irish in America. A very short time before the escape of Meagher, one of the exiles of the year of insurgence had written to a friend in Galway an amusing account of the then condition of "Smith O'Brine, of royal line," and "Meagher of the Sword." "Smith O'Brien, since his acceptance of a ticket-of-leave, has lived in great privacy and retirement in the vale of Avoca, having, in order to employ his highly cultivated mind, condescended to become tutor to the young sons of an eminent Irish physician who resides in that retired locality. His constant and dignified demeanour has procured him the respect of all, even of those most opposed to him in principles and politics. He is now, I am informed, in very bad health, so much that he has been obliged to give up the employment he had accepted, and has got permission to reside in a different locality. Mitchell has been joined by his wife and family; and with such a family, and with the society of his old and excellent friend Mr. John Martin, he must be as happy as it is possible for an exiled rebel to be. O'Meagher still resides in his solitary domicile at Lake Sorell, save that the solitude is now somewhat disturbed by the presence of his amiable and beautiful bride." For some years the influence of Dr. J. H. Newman had been increasingly felt in religious circles, and from the Oratory at Birmingham and otherwise he made damaging attacks on what may be called show or shop Protestantism. This led at last to the longdrawn Achilli business, which ended in one of the most memorable trials of the century, that of "The Queen versus J. H. Newman, in the matter of Giovanni Giacinti Achilli." It took place in the Court of Queen's Bench before Lord Campbell and a special jury, Sir Alexander Cockburn leading the case for the defence. The court was crowded, and the scenes which occurred when the women, some of them Italians, were in the box, as witnesses against Achilli, were most dramatic. Achilli himself was a very dark, firmly-built Italian, with deep-set brown eyes, great self-possession, and large mouth and jaw. He wore a shorthaired black wig, and in dress and bearing looked a curious mixture of Romanist and Protestant Evangelical. This Dr. Achilli is almost forgotten now by the general public, but he was then a great celebrity as a "converted Catholic" lecturer, making capital out of what he had seen, or said he had seen, in the Roman THE ACHILLI SCANDAL--WALPOLE'S MILITIA BILL. Church. Father Newman, now Cardinal Newman, was then lecturing at the Oratory, Birmingham, and delivered an impassioned and bitterly ironical attack on the character and career of Achilli, which was included in a pamphlet on the "Logical Inconsistency of the Protestant Point of View." This attack contained the libel for which Father Newman was now indicted. It charged Achilli openly with the very worst offences that could be alleged against a minister of religion; with deliberate atheistic treachery and hypocrisy, and with the grossest immorality. The libel alleged-and this was proved at the trialthat he had been deprived of his office as a priest by his clerical superiors, and it was stated that he had then lived almost publicly in Italy with the wife of a chorus-singer. But publicity or privacy was-according to the libel-all one to Achilli, and the sacristy of a church was mentioned as the scene of some of the evil acts of which he was accused. Two of his wife's English servant-girls, one of them little more than a child, came forward to give evidence against him. Protestants found it difficult to believe that a man making the most solemn professions of piety and purity could be guilty of the iniquities with which he was charged; but a very black story was brought out by Sir A. Cockburn for the defence. An account of Achilli's career, true or false, was published in the great Roman Catholic organ the Dublin Review, and was left unnoticed for fifteen months. A few passages, much condensed, from Dr. Newman's terrible indictment may be placed on record here. "You speak truly, O Achilli, and we cannot answer you a word. You are a priest; you have been a friar; you are, it is undeniable, the scandal of Catholicism and the palmary argument of Protestants, by your extraordinary depravity. You have been, it is true, a profligate, an unbeliever, and a hypocrite. Not many years passed of your conventual life, and you were never in choir, always in private houses, so that the laity observed you. You were deprived of your professorship, we own it; you were prohibited from preaching and hearing confessions; you 9 were obliged to give hush-money to the father You It would be impossible to quote any of the evidence, except that which related to Dr. Achilli's being deprived of all ecclesiastical functions for ever, and some of the less important testimony of Lord Shaftesbury and other Englishmen. The trial lasted three days. Lord Campbell summed up by merely reading his notes with a few connecting remarks, and the jury found a verdict for the crown. This was received with repeated cheers, which, it was noted, Lord Campbell did not attempt to stop. The Times wrote an indignant article, maintaining that the administration of justice in England had received a terrible blow in a trial the like of which had not been seen since the first triumphs of Titus Oates. At the same time Achilli's residence was besieged by congratulating visitors. To return for a moment to some of the movements which distinguished the portentous session of 1852, it may be mentioned that the Militia Bill, introduced by Mr. Walpole and warmly supported by the Duke of Wellington, was generally held to be an improvement on that of Lord John Russell, and was at the time largely accredited to Lord what he took for it. "We're as good as you are!" shouted one of the mob at Edinburgh at that bitter parting. After a few years, however, the "better sort" remembered that very few of them were "as good" as Macaulay in the sense in which those words had been used. It was openly proposed that he should again stand for the city; but the proud scholar would not stir in the matter himself. Edinburgh had cast him out; she must now fetch him with open arms and without trouble to himself, if he was to represent her again. To her honour and his she did so, and there never was a more affecting political reconciliation. When the orator first showed himself in the Music Hall-crowded to suffocation, and adorned not only by the presence of the leading men of the city, with some outsiders, and hundreds of ladies-the wan, thin face and pain-stricken air of the man sent a momentary pang through the assembly. There was a stirring pause. But then the cheers burst forth, and Macaulay faltered a little from the shock of sound. Mr. Adam Black, who was moved into the chair, made a very Hardinge. Suppressing details, it may be stated briefly that the number of men to be raised was to be 80,000; the cost after the first year, £250,000 a year; the age from 18 to 35; and the height 5 feet 2 inches, the army standard being 5 feet 6. Lord Palmerston supported the measure. Mr. Hume and the Manchester party opposed it. Certain "fancy franchises" had to be withdrawn, but the best account of them will be found in Mr. Macaulay's great speech in Edinburgh, to which we will now refer. A constitution for New Zealand was part of the work of the year. It was introduced by Sir John Pakington, and supported by the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Gladstone. Mr. Berkeley's annual motion for the ballot was defeated of course; and Mr. Spooner was unsuccessful in his assault upon the Maynooth grant. Mr. Macaulay peremptorily refused to answer any of the questions about it that reached him from Edinburgh. In Macaulay to "address his constituents." Then the immense multitude rose and again broke out into cheering. When the applause had entirely ceased there was, for some moments, utter silence, and evident emotion on Macaulay's part; but at last he recovered himself, and the old voice was once more heard by the old friends and acquaintances. The narrative of Mr. Macaulay's rejection by his old Edinburgh constituents, his proud withdrawal from parliamentary life, his long-short speech, and simply called upon Mr. continued sufferings from chronic bronchitis, and his determination never again to take office, need not here be repeated. But it is within our province to notice his return, without solicitation on his part, for Edinburgh in 1852, upon the dissolution of parliament under Lord Derby's government. November of that year the great Whig historian again addressed his old friends in the Music Hall of Edinburgh as their representative, amid tumultuous excitement. In the last speech he had delivered to an Edinburgh public there had been bitter things, and a little contempt, perhaps more than a little. The less intelligent portion of his audience had resented what they took for the undue self-assertion of the scholar and philosopher, and no doubt Macaulay-though he wished well to all men, and would have sacrificed something to serve them-had at bottom a real dislike of "the masses." There was something of Coriolanus in him, and of all the things which he despised none stood lower in his mind than religious bigotry, or The name of John Wilson-Christopher North-cannot be omitted in connection with this event. The professor, it is well known, was a high Tory; but for all that Lord John Russell had advised the queen to grant him a pension of £300 a year, accompanying the notice of the grant with a letter as tender and friendly as if Wilson had been a blue-blood Whig. It was now Wilson's own turn to show that he could forget the politics of party in those higher politics in which all men of good brain and heart are much closer than whips and partisans pretend. The Edinburgh election came off in the summer. One very hot day Wilson, who was living at Woodburn, Dalkeith, and who had MACAULAY ON THE MILITIA BILL. been unusually ill (he was within two years of his death), exhibited a restless desire to be driven to Edinburgh. His own carriage had already been driven out by some members of his family, so his daughter thought he would give up his scheme. Not at all; he sent for a carriage from Dalkeith, and made his man drive him to Edinburgh. There he paused to rest at Mr. Blackwood's in George Street. Great was the surprise of the Edinburgh folk to see the worn old lion about their streets, and not a hint of his errand had he vouchsafed to any living soul. But when, leaning on his man, he entered Macaulay's committee-room in St. Vincent Street to record his vote for an old (political) foe, the secret was out, and he was greeted with a passionate burst of cheering. Space will not permit us to quote Mr. Macaulay's admirably graphic and humorous account of the elections; but his treatment of the franchise clauses of Mr. Walpole's Militia Bill (which were withdrawn) we have promised to reproduce in brief as part of the story, and as a reductio ad absurdum of the kind in which the speaker excelled. "At the end of a sitting, in the easiest possible manner, as a mere clause at the tail of a Militia Bill, it was proposed that every man who served two years in the militia should have a vote for the county. What would be the number of these votes? The militia is to consist of 80,000 men; the term of their service is to be five years. In ten years we should have 160,000 voters, in twenty years 320,000, in twenty-five years 400,000. Some, no doubt, would by that time have died off; though the lives are all picked lives, remarkably good lives-still some would have died off. How many there may be I have not calculated. Any actuary would give you the actual numbers; but I have no doubt that when the system came into full operation you would have some 300,000 added from the militia to the county constituency, which, on an average, would be 6000 added to every county in England and Wales. This would be an immense addition to the county constituency. What are to be their qualifications? The first is youth; for they are not to be above a certain age; the nearer eighteen the better. The 11 second is poverty;-all persons to whom a shilling a day is an object. The third is ignorance-for if you ever take the trouble to observe in your streets what is the appearance of the young fellows who follow the recruiting sergeant, you will say that at least they are not the most educated of the labouring classes. Brave, stout young fellows no doubt they are. Lord Hardinge tells me that he never saw a finer set of young men; and I have no doubt that after a few years' training they will be ready to stand up for our firesides against the best disciplined soldiers that the Continent can produce. But these men, taken for the most part from the plough-tail, are not the class best qualified to choose our legislators— there is rather in the habits of the young men that enter the army a disposition to idleness. Oh, but there is another qualification which I almost forgot they must be five feet two. "There is a qualification for a county voter! Only think of measuring a man for the franchise! And this comes from a Conservative government a measure that would swamp all the county constituencies in England with people possessed of the Derby-Walpole qualifications-that is to say, youth, poverty, ignorance, a roving disposition, and five feet to. Why, gentlemen, what have the people who brought in such a measure— - what have they to say-I do not say against Lord John Russell's imprudence-but what right have they to talk of the imprudence of Ernest Jones? The people who advocate universal suffrage, at all events, gave us wealth along with poverty, knowledge along with ignorance, and mature age along with youth; but a qualification compounded of all disqualifications is a thing that was never heard of except in the case of this Conservative reform. It is the most ridiculous proposition that was ever made. It was made, I believe, at first in a thin house, but the next house was full enough; for people came down with all sorts of questions. Are the regular troops to have a vote? Are the police-are the sailors? indeed, who should not? for if you take lads of one-and-twenty from the plough-tail and give them votes, what possible class of honest Englishmen and Scotchmen can you exclude if |