Fors Clavigera (Volume 5 of 8): Letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain — John Shaqi
Fors Clavigera (Volume 5 of 8): Letters to the workmen and labourers of Great BritainRuskin, John
General
Fors Clavigera (Volume 5 of 8): Letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain
Ruskin, John
Aesthetics; Conduct of life; Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems; Working class -- Great Britain
“The Inhibition of Bishop Colenso.—The clergy of the rural deanery of
Witney, Oxford, numbering thirty-four, together with the rural dean
(the Rev. F. M. Cunningham), have subscribed their names to the
following circular, which has been forwarded to the Bishop of
Oxford:—‘To the Right Rev. Father in God, John Fielder, by Divine
permission Lord Bishop of Oxford.—We, the undersigned clergy of the
rural deanery of Witney, in your Lordship’s diocese, beg respectfully
to offer to your Lordship our cordial sympathy under the painful
circumstances in which you have been placed by the invitation to the
Right Rev. Dr. Colenso to preach in one of the churches in your
diocese. Your firm and spontaneous refusal to permit Dr. Colenso to
preach will be thankfully accepted by all consistent members of our
Church as a protest much needed in these times against the teaching of
one who has grievously offended many consciences, and has attempted as
far as in him lay to injure the “faith which was delivered to the
saints.” [4] That your Lordship may long be spared to defend the truth,
is the prayer of your Lordship’s obedient and attached clergy.’”
III. “Something startling in the way of wickedness is needed to
astonish men who, like our Judges, see and hear the periodical crop of
crime gathered in at Assizes; yet in two great cities of England, on
Tuesday, expressions of amazement, shame, and disgust fell from the
seat of Justice. At York, Mr. Justice Denman was driven to utter a
burst of just indignation at the conduct of certain people in his
court, who grinned and tittered while a witness in a disgraceful case
was reluctantly repeating some indelicate language. ‘Good God!’
exclaimed his Lordship, ‘is this a Christian country? Let us at least
have decency in courts of justice. One does not come to be amused by
filth which one is obliged to extract in cases that defame the land.’
At Liverpool a sterner declaration of judicial anger was made, with
even stronger cause. Two cases of revolting barbarism were tried by Mr.
Justice Mellor—one of savage violence towards a man, ending in murder;
the other of outrage upon a woman, so unspeakably shameful and horrible
that the difficulty is how to convey the facts without offending public
decency. In the first, a gang of men at Liverpool set upon a porter
named Richard Morgan, who was in the company of his wife and brother,
and because he did not instantly give them sixpence to buy beer they
kicked him completely across the street, a distance of thirty feet,
with such ferocity, in spite of all the efforts made to save him by the
wife and brother, that the poor man was dead when he was taken up. And
during this cruel and cowardly scene the crowd of bystanders not only
did not attempt to rescue the victim, but hounded on his murderers, and
actually held back the agonized wife and the brave brother from
pursuing the homicidal wretches. Three of them were placed at the bar
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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