TO MR. RICHARD CARLILE DORCHESTER GAOL. SIR, Norwich September 11, 1825. A FEW readers of the Republican (of the working class) beg your acceptance of £1. 10s. Od., as a tribute of their respect for the exertions you have made, and are still making in the cause of Civil and Religious Liberty. Your sincere friend, On behalf of the Subscribers, ROBERT GREEN. TO MR. ROBERT GREEN, NORWICH. SIR, Dorchester Goal, September 19, 1825. I THANK you and your fellow subscribers for this mark of your approbation of my conduct. The question of tithes or no tithes, of Church Property, or no Church Property, is to them vastly important; and all the sects, if they can agree in nothing else, should agree in dispersing that which is mischievously called the property of the church establishment of England and Ireland. This property is now the only source of open persecution. They who share in holding it, or in wishing to hold a share, will persecute all who seek to break it up for the benefit of the widows and orphans who are involved as the creditors of what is falsely called the national debt. I see that Mr. Cobbett has been calling your attention to a once famous priory of Norwich, "which gave, every year, to the poor and the stranger, who fed at their table, the beer of eight hundred quarters of malt and the bread of a thousand quarters of wheat." Mr. Cobbett is a a man who has never been able to reason himself out of deep rooted prejudices, and, consequently, his reasonings and arguments are shallow and rarely useful to the working class of people. Delightful, he seems to say, to see so many persons supported by charity from a religious establishment! But is there a man among you, who cannot see, that it would be more delightful to have none among us to need this charitable or religious feeding? How came all this property, this means of feeding so many to be invested in this priory? How, but in having first robbed those who pro duced it? If the bulk of the people are to be first plundered of their produce and then fed on charity, where is the difference between taking the pittance doled back from the hand of a monk or priest, or from that of My Lord or Lady's steward, butler or footman? Such allusions as these to times gone by, a mere shewing that our fathers fed better than we can feed, do us no good; let Mr. Cobbett shew a reason why any kind of church or religious establishment should be supported by your labour; let him shew a reason why the famous priory of Norwich should have been preserved, or why it was at first well founded; let him shew a reason why the labouring man should not enjoy the whole as well as the nine tenths of his produce. Let him go deeper than the Catholic Religion and shew that any kind of religion be good. Let him shew that even Deism is not an idolatry which wisdom proscribes and which can be dispensed with to an advantage. Mr. Cobbett deals in delusion whenever he touches upon religion or general politics: all his reformation, when the mass of the people are in question, means but a substitution of one for another kind of delusion; and thus it is, that, within one year, we find him the immeasureable eulogist and opponent of the same individual, whether it be a Burdett, a Hunt, or an O'Connel. He fancies himself honest and sensible at all points; but every one but himself can see, that he is the creature of delusions and illusions; that, in politics and religion, he searches nothing tothe bottom, and is alwaysarguing laboriously upon a bad foundation, I confine his wisdom to agriculture, and his honesty, visible honesty, to his assaults upon paper money. ESTEEMED FRIEND. London 16th day 9th month. HAVING, for the last three months, kept a most attentive eye upon all the London popular periodicals, for an elucidation of a very singular phenomenon, which both thee and thy cotemporaries have been entirely silent about, I have made bold, as I have been fortunate enough to come at something like a certainty of the affair, by enquiring in the neighbourhood where it took place, to narrate to thee the important fact, which fell under my observation and raised my curiosity to so high a pitch. I could scarcely credit, that my optics communicated with truth to my reasoning faculties the object of my astonishment and just admiration. The priest would say:- " and thy being disappointed adds another proof of what little reliance can be placed on all sublunary objects." I am sorry to have to inform thee, that the news was too good to be true; but from all I can gather, the affair turns out to be this: Some one, (doubless of the evangelic fraternity) about three months ago, employed a poor little fellow to stand at the corner of a court in High Street, Saint Giles' (which leads into the most notorious part of that neighbourhood for houses of ill fame,) in advertising Armour and to hold upon his shoulder a board with a paper stuck upon it, on which was printed in three inch capitals: "BEWARE OF BAD HOUSES." Now, people who have been brought up to commerce, take every pains to make public articles which they have to dispose of, and even go to great expence in advertising them: witness the daily puffs about "Blacking" and the "incomparable oil of Macassar." Not so with the gentle Desdemonas of Saint Giles'; they view their interests in a different light. This was an insult which their honour could not brook, and, without more ado, armed themselves with tongs, pokers, fire shovels, or any thing which came first to hand and issued out of their boosing kens, armed at all points like the famous Moor of Moor-hall when he went forth to slay the Dragon of Wantley, and placed themselves in such terrific attitudes, that they drove the poor centinel entirely from his post. He like the Spanish assassin, took refuge in the portal of Saint Giles' Church, and that too on a Sunday, at the time of divine service. In that situation he was standing, when he met my wondering eye. I inwardly congratulated his virtuous employer, not knowing that the senti. nel had forsaken his original post; but since I have arrived at the truth of the matter, I suspect that employer to be one of those divines spoken of by Burns, who, he says, "Steal through a winnock fra a whore Poor Pat, the sentinel, I believe he wasan Irishman, by flying to one of his patron saints for protection) with true characteristic sang froid was determined to make out his day some where, and, therefore, stood, not with his shoes off, although upon consecrated ground, in the identical situation which I have described. There was a curious contrast between the rough son of Erin up to the neck in advertising Armour denouncing all "Bad Houses" and the wandering flights of some cunning statuary, who has pourtrayed, over the gateway, the "day of resurrection," in such frightful characters, that the church-going fanatic must fancy he hears the dry bones of his ancestors rattling in the air. Thou mayest, e'er this, be sure, that nothing is further from my heart than to decry the venerable old lady whom I have once admired; yet, upon seeing Pat in the situation described, and his armour telling us to "beware of Bad Houses," I really fancied, that one of the members of motherchurch had revolted against her corrupt body. From the effects which thou hast felt of thy holy misgivings of this abortion of the bona roba of Babylon, thou, perhaps, wilt think with Ephraim Smooth, that Pat had not far mistaken his situation. If thou thinkest it expedient, thou mayest insert this in thy Republican, which I hope will assist to set at rest the minds of hundreds, who have been much surprised at the singularity of the phenomenon. 4 That a Pat may shortly be placed at the entrance of every church in similar Armour, and that he like Cerebus, mav never be found napping at his post, is the sincere wish of thine assured friend. Printed and Published by R. CARLILE, 135, Fleet Street. - All Correspor:dences for "The Republican" to be left at the place of publication. No. 13, VOL. 12.] LONDON, Friday, Sept. 30, 1825. [PRICE 6d. TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS, GEORGE FREDERICK GUELPH, THE DUKE OF YORK, BISHOP OF OSNABURG, ROYAL ARCH MASON, &c. LETTER II... MY ROYAL COMPANION, Dorchester Gaol, September, 23, I DOUBT very much, if you recollect one half of the ceremony through which you passed, to be made a Royal Arch Mason; so, on this head, there will be something pleasing to you, to find it in print. With "The Republican" for your guide, you, your brother, the king, and your brother Sussex, can play over the game, as often as you like, during the rainy days of this winter, and, after every repetition of the grand word, say, Jehova, or Jao-bul-on bless Carlile for this glorious revelation. Methinks, I now see your Royalties forming the triple triangle and saying with royal solemnity:-" We, three, do agree, in love and unity, the sacred word of a Royal Arch Mason to keep, and not to reveal it to any one in the world, unless it be, when three, or more than three, such as we, do meet and agree!?goto In the first letter, I supposed the B. B. to mean Brazen Bull, as I have read somewhere about brazen bulls; but I have discovered, that these initials, in this degree, mean the burning bush, which Moses saw in the wilderness of Arabia. I assure you, that mine has been no easy task, to make up this Masonry matter for the press; for I have to make it up from initial letters and all sorts of signs and characters. I never was so sick of a task before, and, in vain do I purpose to write Nos. of the Moralist, whilst any part of it remains Printed and Published by R. Carlile, 135, Fleet Street. |