20,472 4 Harwich HOW ARE THE LARGE CONSTITUENCIES BURKED? Constituencies. Electors. Members. Constituencies. Electors. Members. London West Riding, Yorkshire 36,165 South Lancaster Manchester 2 Thetford 2 Chippenham 2 Knaresborough Westminster 14,254 2 Richmond (Yorkshire) 289 2 So that twenty members, representing under 3,000 serfs in pocket boroughs, are enabled to stultify the votes of twenty men representing one hundred and sixty thousand voters: yet the House of Commons is styled the people's house. Verily it is time the People's Charter became the law of the land. COST OF LABUAN. Much has been said about this spot, which government pretends is a choice harbour of refuge for Indian ships, but which others as well informed, but more candid, describe to be a pestilential bog; but whatever advantages may hereafter accrue to the nation from its possession, at the present moment there is about it the hue of Whig jobbism as great, if not to a greater extent, than any other that can be pointed out. According to Mr. Cobden, this important colony consists of a population of ten white souls, for which the British nation has to pay as under : Governor and Commander, Rajah, Sir James Brooke Master-Attendant and Post-Master What a glorious instance have we here of Whig economy and retrenchment! How arduous must be the duties of the governor with only 2,000l. a year, only 4871. a-year for the hut that he dubs an office, and only 3,500l. a-year for the public buildings! How modest of the Lieutenant-Governor to demand no more than 1,375l. per annum; and the Post-Master, with the duties he must have on his hands, how can he manage on 500l. a-year! Really, talk about Utopia, this must be the spot, a Whig retreat, in which government cast off flunkies are foisted on the nation to the tune of 10,000l. a. year, to govern (or misgovern) a bog with ten white inhabitants. Total in ten years £421,559, independent of £150,000 required for Buckingham Palace, and £7,799 for Holyrood House. To Correspondents. H. J. U., Norwich.-His essay has been received, but press of matter has prevented its examination. VERAX's letter is received, and we thank him for his hints and offers of assist ance. We have received the Bristol Examiner, and a letter from the author of the review of our last number therein inserted. We thank the gentleman for the courteous and kind tone of his letter; and in consideration of the good sentiment therein contained, beg to say if he will continue to read the Freethinker's Magazine he shall have ample demonstration that we have more valid reasons for endeavouring to uproot what is called Christianity, than the turpitude of its professors. B. H.-Regret being obliged to decline his lines. A. C.-The subject will be discussed in the Magazine for August. ENQUIRER. They are two different men. One is now a priest of Catholi cism, the other is almost one of us. They are brothers, All communications for this periodical are to be addressed to the Editor of the Freethinker's Magazine, care of J. Watson, 3, Queen's Head Passage, Paternoster-row, London. We have received a number of communica tions from good and true friends of the cause on the subject of subscrip tions towards this attempt at propagandism. We thank them most sincerely; and while declining their kind offers as regards this work, beg to suggest the formation in every town of a committee to collect subscriptions, &c., the proceeds to be devoted to supplying the local priesthood with copies of works of progress as fast as they come out. To such communi. ties we promise, on our part (and fancy can guarantee on the part of seve ral other publications), such a reduction on the cost, as shall enable the various committees to distribute a larger quantity than under ordinary circumstances they would be enabled to do. The Editor begs to intimate, it would forward the cause of progress were he furnished with the names and addresses of the clergy of all denominations in their several localities. Printed by Holyoake Brothers, 3, Queen's Head Fassage, Paternoster-row; and published by James Watson, 3, Queen's Head Passage, Paternoster-row, London. THE FREETHINKER'S MAGAZINE, AND Review of Theology, Politics, and Literature. Oceans of ink, and reams of paper, and disputes infinite might have been spared, if wranglers had avoided lighting the torch of strife at the wrong end,; since a tenth part of the pains expended in attempting to prove the why, the where, and the when certain events have happened, would have been more than sufficient to prove that they never happened at all.-REV. C. C. COLTON, A.M. IN No. 2 of this Magazine it was noted, almost in a parenthesis, that an attempt had been made to alter the Sunday postal arrangements. The idea we conceived to be so ludicrous that we could not help referring our readers for a portraiture of a Puritan Sabbath to that prince of punsters Punch. We now find it to be no joke, and feel we are no prophets, but, like the Times, when all the world acknowledges and testifies to the certain accomplishment of a given result, we gracefully acknowledge it to be a great fact. Yes, it is a great fact that these religionists are not even wise in their own generation, and are too obtuse, too besotted to be able to make common calculations. Or is it only a portion of tactics to bring about some ministerial change? A saving of Sunday labour is their supposed object. Their mode of bringing about such a result is curious and eccentric, something like that of post masters, road-side publicans, horse dealers, and others, against the introduction of railways a few years since, on the ground that horses would die out, as there would certainly be no use for them—the actual result being the employment of ten times more horses under the railways than under the previous system. So it is now these spiritualists are so absorbed in calculations of future bliss, that they have no capacity for figures on earth. Do they think, for instance, the weekly press will make no effort in self-defence? Do they dream that a much larger staff of men and boys will not be called into requisition on what they are pleased to term the Sabbath than before? If they do, most miserably will they be deceived. It really seems a dream that in the year 1850 a ministry should be found so truckling as to allow a bare seventh of those persons who, by courtesy, are called representatives of the people, so to stultify themselves and to swindle the nation as to arrest totally the transmission of letters and newspapers on Sunday. It is apparent Mawwormism will not be contented to live in peace side by side with Progress. No, like a blind, antiquated, used-up dotard, it courts its own destruction, pointing to the hand-writing on the wall, which, instead of three or four words of unmeaning gibberish-to be translated as anybody likes-may be read in plain English that 'Priestcraft and Progress have no fellowship, no communion.' No, the foul stigma upon common sense and common right must be destroyed and exterminated, for, until priestcraft is no more, freedom, or liberty of thought, or intelligence can never be safe. Poor Exeter has at last a quietus, his suit being dismissed with costs; and rumour is rife that he yearns for Romanism. If true, it is good. Counting his beads and repeating paternosters for the rest of his life, if it do not remunerate mankind for the trouble, anxiety, and dissension he has so plentifully caused, it will at least keep the old man occupied, and in an occupation too, which, if useless, still is harmless. Ecclesiastical features are generally much the same. Get all, but give nothing, their unchanging practice. But there are signs of squalls which, in some instances, turn out to be more than wind. The parish church of the fashionable district of Islington has been the arena in which has been enacted an instructive though farcical performance. Fancy a large assemblage of inhabitants, among whom long cadaverous faces and white neckcloths shone out with radiant effulgence, congregated in a sacred edifice destined by its founders to sacerdotal purposes, with the ordinary fixtures of altar, communion table, and font. Above, a tall aspiring spire-below, a snug and comfortable vestry room, with cushioned pews for the rich and benches without backs for the poorer brethren-the audience composed of radicaldissenters, evangelical-dissenters, staunch anti-state-churchmen, thoroughgoing nonconformists, and last, not least, a goodly party of the full round established churchmen, who love the Church so well that they never attend except to vote her more money-all are assembled in that solemn, chilly, venerable pile, consecrated long since by some Right Reverend Father in God, now defunct and forgotten. And for what purpose are they met ? to discuss some point of religious belief? Not a bit of it; but to decide whether a few pounds more or less shall be wrung from the nonconformists of all creeds of course including freethinking heretics like ourselves. The church rings, not with anthems or hosannas, but with bitter declamations. 'Volleys of cheers' form the voluntaries as 'motions' and 'resolutions' are lost and won. Reverend gentlemen and unreverend talk at full speed one against the other; the place, the creed-all is forgotten. There is a balloting box in the vestry room, and at the font a stand for subscriptions to a parochial reform association. Shall we add that pipes, pots of porter, and tobacco next go round ?-the Columbian weed rising in spiral wreaths, and hanging in heavy clouds above the disputatious throng. What a parody on the Catholic mass-pipes for censers, and tobacco smoke for incense! Every cheer which through that temple of Jehovah, Eloihim, Eloi-or the fifty or sixty other names they give him or her-met, ere it died away, a fraternal shout from the crowd assembled outside the church. The result of this extraordinary meeting has been that a rate to build a chapel-of-ease was refused, and a resolution carried declaring that it is wrong to support religion by physical force, and unjust to compel those who do not use churches to pay for them.' But this subject must not be dismissed without putting to these nonconformist gentlemen one or two questions on their own very illogical proceedings. How far are they disposed to extend liberty of thought in religious matters ? Is it only up to the point of their own belief, or will they extend the hand of fellowship to those who, totally dissenting from the dogmas of theologians, use no church but the sacred temple of the heart, who kneel at no altar except the solemn, the universal altar of the conscience? If it be unjust to compel those who do not use churches to pay for them (in money, that is), is it not alike unjust to compel those who use neither church nor chapel to believe in their creeds, or to suffer in reputation or in position? Dear religious brethren, follow out the resolution to the limits of legitimate inference, and then you will join in persecuting freethinkers no longer. In defending yourselves against the church, you defend us against yourselves. Voluntaryism, if it goes no farther than mere money is concerned, is but a small matter, if unaccompanied with voluntaryism in opinion, which should dictate charity to those who, in all truth, and after patient investigation, consider the whole Christian system of theology to be baseless, and, in its effects, an unmitigated evil. In combating existing religious creeds, we strive not for an 'ism,' but for the principle of mental freedom. There are numerous other instances in which the established church has been utterly defeated in its attempts to wring more cash from the poor. In one town (Leicester) there are five parishes where this practice is carried out. After all these money questions of church-rates, though they provoke useful discussion, are very superficial. No doubt money is taken to be the great representative of the age. Money measures rights and guages consciences. Money often stands a man in the stead of wisdom. Money qualifies a voter and a legislator. Money is the test of social worth and political capacity; and money tries hard to usurp the power of ideas. By and through money religious systems are defended and supported; by and through money they must be attacked and uprooted. If it be said the Church of England believes in a certain jumble that they call the Holy Trinity, whose sympathies or attention are enlisted ?-but if it be said the Church of England costs ten millions annually, a deep and lasting impression is made on the minds of Englishmen; and if coupled with that it be asserted (which we heard publicly stated by the Rev. Mr. Rowe, of Horsemonger-lane Gaol), that out of the number of criminals who came under his notice, not more than one-sixteenth knew the difference between right and wrong (to teach which this annual ten millions has been paid), there will be |