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If the North prevails, slavery falls; and if the South pre vails, freedom falls. That is the real point at issue, disguise it as we may, evade it as we may; sympathy with the South means sympathy with human oppression, sympathy with the overthrow of constitutional government and law ; it means sympathy with tyranny in its worst forms, and wrong in its most hideous aspects. But I am far from admitting that Lincoln is not sincere. Where is the proof of his insincerity? Every act of his official life has proved him to be true to his promises, true to the principles of his party, and, above all, true to the interests of the slave. He has grown in anti-slavery faith since his accession to office; he has not done like some governments I could name, climbed into office under the pretence of zeal for certain principles, and then turned round and kicked those principles over; he has not receded one step in the anti-slavery faith in which he and the republican party are walking; on the contrary, he and his party are evidently growing in the conviction-I. That slavery is the cause of all their national troubles; and, II. That there will be no peace, no union, and no prosperity, till slavery is entirely eradicated and uprooted.

9th. Allow me to refer to another fallacy we often hear on this subject that the condition of the coloured man in the North is as bad as that of the slave in the South. I regret to say, that on several occasions, our senior member of Parliament, Mr. Berkeley, has given utterance to this statement. But I venture to say, that if the honourable member would try slavery in the South during one of the Parliamentary recesses, he would return a wiser, and, on this question, a better man. It is the old story our fathers had the fight over thirty years ago. We were told then that the slave was better off as a slave than he would be free. I am not here to say that the conduct of the Northern people in times past has been all it should have been to wards the black race. It has often been wanton and wicked. It is one of the sad catalogue of evils resulting from slavery, that if you degrade a race by oppression, you make them odious in the eyes of their oppressors: this has been illustrated in a sad way by the treatment of coloured people in the North in past times. But though the North is not yet perfect in its treatment of coloured people, they are progressing towards a practical recognition of the truth,

that, GOD has made of one blood all nations." The riots at New York are pointed to as an illustration of Northern treatment of the man of colour. Why, it would be as fair to charge upon us the results of the Bristol riots of 1832, as to charge upon the people of New York the sad results of the late outrages there. Those riots were got up by Southern sympathisers, and stimulated by Southern money. I regret to say, that the most prominent actors in the affair were Irishmen; and it is notorious that no class in America have such an antipathy to coloured people as the Irish. They hate them with a perfect hatred, and are almost to a man in favour of slavery, because they think that the result of abolition would be to bring the black race north to compete with them in the labour market; whereas, the very opposite would probably be the result. The black people now in the North would most probably go South, where the climate and work best suits their constitution and habits. But let me ask you to note how New York acted directly the riots were suppressed. They at once collected 50,000 dollars to relieve the distress caused by the riots among the coloured people; the lawyers, to their honour be it spoken, combining to offer to make good all claims for compensation on the part of the poor blacks for property lost by the riots, free of charge. Lawyers really do so little without a fee, that I refer to this as a peculiar illustration of benevolence and right feeling. Does this look as though the condition of free blacks in the North was worse than slaves in the South, as asserted by Mr.Berkeley? The honourable member knows, or ought to know, that no coloured man dares to own property in the South. He does not own his wife; he does not own his children; he dares not even own himself. On the contrary, in the North, the same laws protect both; the same schools, with few exceptions, are open to both; the same protection, now the North is free from Southern influence, is afforded to both. I admit it has not always been so but I assert that it is so now to an almost universal extent. In New York alone, property of the value of ten millions of dollars is owned by coloured people, and they are constantly increasing in wealth.

Mr. Fred. Douglas, a coloured gentleman, is now in the service of the United States government; and the same government has resolved to compel the South to recognise

the equality of coloured soldiers, or else to decline any further exchange of prisoners. This does not look as though freedom in the North was as bad as slavery in the South! I have no doubt that the change from slavery to freedom will be attended with suffering. The path to the promised land lay through a wilderness of discipline; and so the negro race in America are being brought through the Red Sea of war, and a wilderness of sorrow, into the land of freedom and prosperity.

10th. Let me refer to one more fallacy, and I have done. Oh, say some of our public teachers, this horrible war, how dreadful it is-when will it end? Gentlemen, I need not say, I have no sympathy with war; but the inconsistency is, that this cry comes chiefly from those who defend every war in which we have engaged for the last twenty yearsIndian wars, China wars, Russian wars, Japanese wars, &c., &c. It does look to me almost ridiculous to hear such gentlemen hold up their hands in horror of war in America, when they always defend war at home. War is almost the greatest calamity that can befal a country; and I will also add, that those who involve countries in war deserve the execration of all who love GOD and humanity-and, let me ask you, who began this American war? It was not the North; it was the South. They fired the first shot at Fort Sumpter; they appealed from reason to bloodshed, d now, having taken the sword to defend slavery, I say, as "slavery took the sword, let it perish by the sword ;" and perish it will. I am not a prophet; but I venture to predict, that the Southern rebellion is digging a grave that will for ever bury this accursed system; and I also believe another result will follow the war, that some of the enemies of progress and reform in this country intensely dread, and that is the complete and entire reconstruction of the Union.

I now leave the subject with you. I speak warmly, because I feel deeply on the question. I confess I am pained to see a want of sympathy between this country and America. There are men, and organs of public opinion, on both sides of the Atlantic, who seem bent upon setting, if possible, these two great Anglo-Saxon nations at variance and war. Gentlemen, I protest against this course. No man can commit a greater crime against both countries than to misrepresent them, and thus help to produce dis

cord and strife. We ought to try and keep peace with the world. But we ought especially to try and keep peace with America and America ought to do the same with England. There must be no strife between us-"we are brethren." What I ask, then, to-night, is perfect and absolute neutrality on the part of our government. I do not ask that our government should lend a particle of material aid to the North, and I protest against their rendering the slightest to the South. Our motto should be neutrality from the government, and moral sympathy for the North from ourselves, in the great struggle in which they are engaged.

HERE'S TO THE YEAR THAT'S AWA'.

AIR-The Year that's Awa'.

ERE's to the year that's awa',

Its chill wind, its rain, and its snaw;

Forlorn was the prospect it ushered us in,
But we held up our heads through it a'.
Chorus-Forlorn was the prospect, &c.

Here's to the year that's awa',

'Twas the saddest our eyes ever saw !

But from out the dark night came odd glimpses of light,
As we held up our head through it a'.

Chorus-From out the dark night, &c.

Here's to the luck that's in store

For the inmates of cottage and ha';

The sun will shine out when the darkness is o'er,
So we'll hold up our head through it a'.
Chorus-The sun will shine out, &c.

Here's to the year that's awa',

From its gloom a wise lesson we'll draw;
Though sorrows, full share, we have had each to bear,
Yet it might have been worse with us a'.

Chorus-Though sorrows, full share, &c.

T. N.

Васир.

PENNY READINGS.

BY JEROM MURCH, ESQ.

[Delivered at the Guildhall, Bath, during his Mayoralty.]

HE subject of my short address to you, is the application of Poetical Taste to the events and duties of common life. I am led to this subject by remembering what these Penny Readings actually are, and what they do. We have here, in the city of Bath, a society formed chiefly, I believe, to promote good reading-the power, and the practice, and the love of good reading amongst the industrial classes. The great object, I apprehend, is not display-not the exhibition of talent—not even the temporary gratification of an audience; but the pleasure and advantage to be derived in our homes and families. To this end, it seems to me, and to the cultivation of the individual mind, all the means you employ, any machinery of your society, any arrangements as to the readers and the readings, are intended to be subservient. You aim, it is true, at a "People's Hall," and a noble aspiration it is-one worthy of all the energy and perseverance you can manifest; for, however commodious this room may be, it is not your own, nor does it afford you that daily and hourly accommodation which the working classes of Bath may fairly hope for. But this, again, is only a means to the end of which I have spoken.

Now, I am anxious that in whatsoever you do, whether you form committees, or select pieces for reading, or enlist the assistance of friends outside your ranks, or work on steadily for the erection of a People's Hall,—I am anxious that none of this mere machinery should make you forgetful of the main object. In one sense these Readings can scarcely fail to be immediately beneficial. You who engage in them must have your minds cultivated by the effusions with which you become familiar. The very process of going through page after page of good authors, to find what is spirited or eloquent, or humorous or original, must furnish the memory with no smail amount of good things. And those, also, who listen to the Readings, while they

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