Noteworthy Pensions.
The finance accounts for 1862 give, as usual, a rather serious list of Pensions charged upon the Consolidated Fund, and therefore not otherwise stated than in these accounts.
“Among the larger entries are five ex-Chancellors of England receiving 5000l. a year each, two ex-Chancellors of Ireland with 3692l., four retired English judges with 3500l., two Irish with 2400l., and five County Court judges dividing 4600l. between them. But these are pensions earned by personal service; perhaps not so much can be said of some others. The Earl of Ellenborough has a compensation annuity of 7700l. as chief clerk of the Court of Queen’s Bench; the Rev. T. Thurlow, 4028l. as clerk of the hanaper, in addition to 7352l. as patentee of bankrupts. Viscount Avonmore receives 4199l. as late registrar of the Irish Court of Chancery; the Earl of Roden 2698l. as late auditor-general of the Irish Exchequer. But these pensions will come to an end; even that cannot be said of some others. There is above 23,000l. a year paid in perpetual pensions, payable as long at least as there shall be an Earl Amherst or Nelson, a Lord Rodney, a Viscount Exmouth, an heir of William Penn, or of the Duke of Schomberg, and so forth. Of the limited number of first-class pensions of 2000l. a year to statesmen who have been in high office, and who claim the pensions, only two are now payable—viz., to Lord Glenelg and Mr. Disraeli; Sir G. Grey’s is suspended, he being again in office. Several pensions ceased in the course of the year; among them that to the family of George Canning, and that to the door-keeper of the Irish House of Lords; but the housekeeper still lives to receive her annual compensation for loss of emoluments by the Union.”
Progress of Civilization.
How the Earth was peopled.
The record of the actual origines of the human race, as communicated by God Himself, tells us that one spot was selected, for the purpose in question, by Creative Power; and that to one aboriginal pair was consigned the office and destiny of replenishing the earth. The same record, moreover, informs us, that, when the earth was corrupt before God, through the wickedness of their posterity, the whole race was destroyed, save the family of one man; and that, of the three sons of that one man was the whole earth overspread. And, lastly, we have this account confirmed to us by the testimony of an inspired servant of God, who has declared, that He hath made, of one blood, all nations of men, for to dwell on the face of the earth.
Now, according to this account, Noah may be considered, for the purposes of ethnological inquiry, as the sole forefather of the existing race of man. Of antediluvian men, all, except Noah, are entirely out of the question. Of the remarkable physical varieties of complexion, stature, or temperament, among the races before the Flood (if any such varieties existed), we are profoundly ignorant. We do read, it is true, that there were giants in those days; but the meaning of this term seems very doubtful. It is most generally understood to indicate a gigantic scale of iniquity, licentiousness, and violence, rather than of corporeal bulk and might. At all events, Noah himself, and his three sons, were the only males spared from the general destruction: and the mother of these three sons, together with their three respective wives, the only females; eight persons in all. And, so far as race or family are concerned, the sons are clearly identified with their father. It is, indeed, just possible that all these four females may have been of so many different tribes or races. But this surmise is wholly gratuitous, and very far from probable. And, even were it admitted, it could not affect any argument respecting the origin of the present inhabitants of the earth, without assuming the falsehood of that part of the sacred narrative which traces them all, Noah and his whole family included, to one and the same common parentage.