ADJOURNMENT OF THE HOUSE.—CLOSE OF THE PARLIAMENTARY LABOURS OF 1847.
On the 20th of December the house adjourned for the Christmas holidays, and did not meet again until February. Thus closed the first session of the new parliament, and the legislative business of the year.
Throughout the year the sanitary deficiencies of large cities, and their moral peculiarities, were the subjects of desultory conversation in parliament, and of extensive discussion in the newspapers and at public meetings. To such a degree did the sanitary question excite public interest, that her majesty was advised to recommend its consideration to the new parliament; and during the educational debates, the moral and intellectual condition of large towns, and especially of the metropolis, was a theme of desponding comment. The reverend Dr. Guthrie, of Edinburgh, has since then eloquently shown that the providential dispensation which consigns so large a portion of our people to the close confines of cities, like all the other arrangements of Providence, however mysterious, are full of goodness and mercy:—“Somehow or other, amid their crowding and confinement, the human mind finds its fullest, freest expansion. Unlike the dwarfed and dusty plants which stand around our suburban villas, languishing like exiles for the purer air and freer sunshine that kiss their fellows far away in flowery field and green woodland, on sunny banks and breezy hills, man reaches his highest condition amid the social influences of the crowded city. His intellect receives its brightest polish where gold and silver lose theirs—tarnished by the searching smoke and foul vapours of city air. The finest flowers of genius have grown in an atmosphere where those of nature are prone to droop and difficult to bring to maturity. The mental powers acquire their full robustness where the cheek loses its ruddy hue and the limbs their elastic step, and pale thought sits on manly brows, and the watchman, as he walks his rounds, sees the student’s lamp burning far into the silent night.”
CHAPTER LX.
VICTORIA. 1848
Warin India..... Colonial Affairs..... Foreign Relations..... Revolutions throughout Continental Europe..... Distress and Crime in Ireland..... Disaffection of the Irish Roman Catholics, and attempted Revolt..... Enforcement of Law and Order in Ireland..... Chartist Disturbances in England, and their suppression..... Home Incidents..... Transactions of Parliament.
A.D. 1848
The year 1848 was one of the most eventful which had ever occurred in the history of Europe, or in the history of the world, since the introduction of Christianity; and the relations of England to the great transactions which passed like a whirlwind over the continent were such as to enhance her dignity and her glory. It is difficult to write the History of England, during a period so interesting to continental Europe, without enlarging upon the events which took place upon other fields of action, and by which England was in many respects so much influenced. It will aid in confining the relations of this chapter within proper bounds, to narrate first those transactions in which England was exclusively interested, so far as other European powers were concerned.