Collectanea de Diversis Rebus: Addresses and Papers

by Sir Peter Eade

Lest I should be thought to be dwelling too long on a subject of little importance, or little bearing upon this night’s proceedings, let me read over to you a list of those places in England (and I am not sure that it is a complete list) which, during the past two or three years, have either had presented to them or have felt it their duty to provide public parks and recreation grounds for the use of the residents:—Reading, Birmingham, Dublin, Wigan, Leicester, Limerick, Lancaster, Heywood, Derby, Wolverhampton, Leeds, Longton, Torquay, Sheffield, Swansea, Newcastle, Exeter, and Falmouth.

The only other aid to temperance, to which I will now allude, is that of public galleries of art and natural history, and so forth. These are but small aids, but still they are appreciable ones, and I would gladly see such in Norwich. I do not know how far the disused gaol would be convertible to such public purposes, but it has struck me that the site is an admirable one, and the space ample for the collection in one spot, of an art gallery, museum, free library, popular lecture rooms, and for any other purposes which might properly come under the heading of popular instruction. The former city gaol has long been used as a public library. It would be a happy change if the late one could now be devoted, not to the punishment but the prevention of crime; not to the expiation of the results of indulgence in drink, but to the better training of men’s minds, so as to teach them, by instinct and by culture, to avoid the destructive paths of vice and of excess.

I think, sir, I have said enough to show how large is this temperance question, in which we are all, in which, indeed, the whole community, is so greatly interested. In proof of its recognised importance, we may point to the fact that doctors, physiologists, ministers of religion, peers of the realm, and even a Prime Minister, have raised their voices in opposition to the progress of the crying evil of drunkenness. Many earnest men have striven, by the influence of their continued advice, and by the example of their personal abstention from intoxicating liquors, to help on the good work; and many others have done so in various indirect ways, and especially by efforts to ameliorate the condition of the people, and provide for them alternative means of harmless and rational occupation or amusement. These efforts are so persistent and now so general; they are founded upon such complete knowledge, and such recognised necessity, that they cannot fail rapidly to produce good fruit, and I believe they have already produced some good fruit in Norwich. But as social knowledge ripens, as acquaintance with the means of securing the general well-being increases, so we may hope that the difficulties attending the reformation of evil habits will lessen; and although we may not hope to see established a condition of houses, of streets, of towns, of food and drink, of labour, and of all those conditions which would render human life and surroundings ideally perfect, yet continuous efforts must be made to realise for the community such moral and physical surroundings as shall conduce to their welfare in the highest possible degree. And to this end, let us be sure that nothing will contribute so much as that soberness and temperance which it is the object of this Church of England Society to encourage and inculcate.

III.
ON TORTOISES. [29]

I have almost to apologize for bringing before so learned and critical a Society as this, the few notes and observations I have made upon the “manners and customs” of my pair of common land Tortoises, partly because I feel that much of what I have observed must also have been observed by other members of this Society; and still more because (as is well known) that incomparable master both of observation and expression—White of Selborne—has already noted, and placed upon record, the most interesting of the habits of these creatures.

Mine is thus necessarily a “twice-told tale.” I can only hope that the never flagging interest which naturalists take in the observation or record of the habits of animals, will suffice to make them bear with me for the short time I shall detain them.

I have in my garden two of the common land Tortoises (Testudo Grœca), and these have been in my possession three and four years respectively.

I purchased them from the barrow of a hawker in Norwich streets, in two following years—one being a little larger than the other, and they are in consequence known by the names of the old gentleman and the young gentleman.