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OUR SITUATION AND PROSPECTS. 



ONE could really wish that the public mind might be diverted from 

 the popular subjects of the day, such as " THE TWENTIETH OF JULY/' 

 and the importance of registration the humours of the court the 

 " delicate " situation of the Premier and the thousand and one spe- 

 culations or inventions of the loquacious press, in order that it might 

 gaze steadily on our real position as an enlightened nation, and our 

 prospects as a people determined to be-free. It is true, indeed, that as, 

 in theory, if we want to comprehend a subject, we must examine its 

 details, so in practice, if we want to carry out our plans into efficiency, 

 we must not overlook the most minute parts of the machinery. But 

 we may now, at least, take it for granted, that registration has been 

 attended to that the caprice, or folly, or madness, of our high places 

 has been detected and that we are in a situation to hope for the best, 

 and to provide against the worst. 



The recognition of public principle, or, which is the same thing, 

 the development of the popular power, is sure to attract the opposi- 

 tion of error, with its legion of petty furies. Accordingly we find, 

 that commensurate with its progress is the array of prejudice by which 

 it is ever and anon assailed. The assurance to a blind man that it 

 is day, is but an assurance. It does not communicate to him percep- 

 tion. So, point out to the enemies of the people the elements by 

 which they are surrounded, and they will ask you in vain for a capacity 

 to unravel them. A writer before us* well remarks, " We have seen 

 enough of fatuity in our day, when those who felt themselves on the 

 brink of a precipice, and should have known better,, preferred an ex- 

 posure of their recklessness to a concealment of their insignificance. 

 If, with danger in the prospect, according to their own showing, they 

 obstinately refused to recede, preferring to rush headlong into the 

 vortex which they loved to depict in the tortuous colours of their own 

 imagination what will be the tactics of these men, when the struggle 



* In a Pamphlet entitled, " The Impending Struggle, in a Letter to Lord 

 Brougham." 



M.M. No. 9. 2F 



