Government, Conduct, and Example

Front matter

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Preface To The Second Edition

The first edition of these lectures having secured a ready sale, I have prepared a second edition. I have added about thirty pages of new matter, and have altered a few pages containing redundant illustrations and epithets suitable for oral delivery, but which seemed not so suitable where exactness, full expression, and good taste, are more particularly required

The following are the pages which introduce new subjects to my readers : — ^The Influence of Bribery on Progress, 24. — ^The advantages of a systematic arrangement and study of our duties, 65. — ^The natural law upon which success and decay depends, 81. — ^The use of the mathematical sign minus in Business Accounts, 93. — ^The importance of statistical science, 95. — ^The impregnable position of merchants, who limit their transactions as much as possible to cash payments, 102. — ^Tbe psychology of deliberation, 110. — ^The results of free individual action on the stability of society, 117. — ^The Rules of debate of the Liverpool Corporation, 127.

There are still some other corrections required. Since the pages referring to bribery and to returning members to parliament (pages 23, &c.) have been printed, the towns of Yarmouth, Lancaster, Totnes, and Reigate have been disfranchised ; a Reform Bill has extended the suffrages of the people, and altered considerably the constituencies, which are in future to return members to parliament

IV.

It may not be unnecessary to notice the principal alterations which this Bill has made in the Constitution.

Every man who is 21 years of age is a voter, if he has occupied a House for 12 months, and paid poor rates. Lodgers occupying Booms at the annual rate of Ten Pounds and upwards, after two years' occupation, are also voters. County voters have their franchise lowered from £60 to £12. The four largest towns in the kingdom have had three members given them ; but each voter can only vote for two Candidates ; and all Boroughs of less than 10,000 population in 1861 are to return only one member.

I trust that my friends, who have perused the first edition, will consider the revision to which I have subjected tliis to be an improvement.

Ehnsioood, Llvtrpool^ October, 1867.

Introduction

By the good offices of my late worthy partner and father* in-law, William Yelverton, Esq., I was permitted for some years to be a non-resident from my mercantile engagements in Liverpool, and to live in a small country town a life of somewhat greater leisure than I should otherwise have had. Leisure, as every one knows, is so much a negative state of existence as often to make people fall into mischief. Mine, to be rendered as harmless as possible, ran into reading and writing, and endeavouring to fix in an agricultural district, manufactures, which might give new sources of employment to an indigent and half-occupied population. This attempt to manufacture succeeding, I ventured to accept, as they fell upon me, those public trusts which, from the Englishman's love of self-government, are to be found in connexion with Town Councils and Savings Banks, Boards of Guardians and Assessed Taxes, Boards of Health and Turnpike Trusts. I do not know very well how it came to pass, but it was also thought by some of the societies in my neighbourhood, formed for mutual improyement and Christian usefulness, to whom I was known, that I was a proper person to be asked to lecture — and I lectured. Some of my Mends and hearers, who thought my lectures suflSlciently good and useful, requested me to print them. So I have added to the number of the employments of my leisure that of getting up the small unpretending volume, to which these few lines are the introduction.

The first of these three lectures, — Government, illustrated from Blackstone and his Commentaries, — was delivered before the Young Men's Christian Association, in Liverpool. The design was to give a brief sketch of the foundation, of the citizenship and liberty, which we are permitted to enjoy under the enlightened rule of Queen, Lords, and Commons.

The second, — Conduct, illustrated from Private, Business, and Public Life, — ^was given in the Town Hall of Cambridge, to the Young Men's Christian Association. Its object was to enter into some of those general requirements, which most men must strive to possess, who would hope to arrive at anything like success in life.

The third lecture,— Example, illustrated from Sydney Smith and his Writings, — was delivered to the members of the Society of Arts, Lyna. Its great design was from vu.

the writings and example of that worthy man, whose mind was a well-regulated, well-balanced, and justly-proportioned mind, to show that partizanship is not necessarily injurious to the better interests of the public, when party feeling is guided by pure, incorruptible, and intelligent energy. I hold that, whatever be our politics, we shoidd always respect and choose character, and consider it to be of greater importance and value than that of mere party. It is scarcely possible for any of us to live in this our country without being identified with party feeling of some kind or another. But it is possible to live a life like that of Sydney Smith, who was respected by all for his consistency. His talents and manly character, and private excellencies, make him a good example for the youth of this kingdom to become acquainted with.