presumes to think for himself, and speak for himself, without humble
reference to a censorship which, for its rampant ignorance and base
dishonesty, he utterly loaths and despises in his heart; when those
who most acutely feel its infamy and the reproach it casts upon the
nation, and who most denounce it to each other, dare to set their
heels upon, and crush it openly, in the sight of all men: then, I
will believe that its influence is lessening, and men are returning
to their manly senses. But while that Press has its evil eye in
every house, and its black hand in every appointment in the state,
from a president to a postman; while, with ribald slander for its
only stock in trade, it is the standard literature of an enormous
class, who must find their reading in a newspaper, or they will not
read at all; so long must its odium be upon the country's head, and
so long must the evil it works, be plainly visible in the Republic."


The foregoing was written in the year eighteen hundred and forty-
two. It rests with the reader to decide whether it has received any
confirmation, or assumed any colour of truth, in or about the year
eighteen hundred and sixty-two.



AN ENLIGHTENED CLERGYMAN



At various places in Suffolk (as elsewhere) penny readings take
place "for the instruction and amusement of the lower classes".
There is a little town in Suffolk called Eye, where the subject of