[15] The author of the "Comic Blackstone," first published in "Punch," says:—"The only method of getting rid of the debt would be for the sovereign to file a petition at the Insolvent Court in the name of the nation, and solemnly take the benefit of the act, in the presence of the fund-holders." About eighteen months since, Professor Newman, of the London University, published an able pamphlet, proposing that the interest on the debt should be paid for sixty years longer, after which it should cease. There is a growing disposition in England to get rid of the debt by some other mode than payment.
[16] Intimately associated with the subject of this chapter, is the recent unsuccessful, but by no means abandoned movement of Mr. Cobden, to reduce the government expenditures £10,000,000 per annum. His speech on that occasion was worthy of the anti-corn-law leader. Those who know him will need no assurance, that he will not give over till he has carried a far more radical measure of retrenchment. He bides his time.
[17] Entire precision has not been aimed at in the foregoing statistics, "round numbers" being sufficiently accurate for my purpose.
[18] One or two recent divisions in the House of Commons are no criterion for determining the strength of the Free Suffragists and Chartists. That subject is not now on the "cards."
[19] The trials of Lovett, Collins, Vincent, and others, are reported briefly in the 9th volume of Carrington & Payne's reports. The legal points raised on the trials chiefly make up the reports.
Transcriber's Note:
Obvious punctuation and printer errors have been silently normalized. Unusual spelling and inconsistent hyphenation have been left as in the original.