Oak Street 
 UNCLASSIFIED 
 
 ■memorials 
 
 of . : 
 
 S. S. DICKINSON 
 
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 Unsv.of 111. Library 
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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 https://archive.org/details/memorialsofssdicOOdick 
 
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 OF 
 
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 GLOUCESTER 
 
 PRINTED BY JOHN BELLOWS 
 

 PREFACE. 
 
 Of the writings by 8. 8. Dickinson contained 
 in this volume, some have been already printed, 
 the rest are from MSS found among his papers. 
 They are now collected and printed together to 
 preserve them in his family, and it is thought 
 that the short introductory Memoir may not be 
 without interest to those among whom he lived, 
 as recalling his quiet life of unostentatious 
 usefulness. 
 
 j 
 
 si 
 
 v 
 
 i 
 
 703640 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Memoir - 1 — 63 
 
 Papers : 
 
 On Education - 67 
 
 Elementary Education - - 73 
 
 Middle-Class Education - - 84 
 
 Contraband of War - - 100 
 
 Letter on Taxation - - 112 
 
 Local Taxation and Administration 118 
 
 Extradition - - - 128 
 
 Police Supervision - - 140 
 
 On Law Reform - - - 153 
 
 On Temperance - - - 167 
 
 Extracts from Prayers and Meditations 181 
 Poetry : 
 
 Lines on Photography - - 190 
 
MEMORIALS. 
 
 S ebastian stewart dickinson was 
 
 born at Bombay, March 25th, 1815. 
 
 His father, Thomas Dickinson, second son of 
 Captain Thomas Dickinson, R.N., and Frances de 
 Brissac, had early entered the Indian service as 
 an Engineer Officer, and remained in India for 
 more than forty years, occupying, for a considerable 
 portion of that period, the position of Chief 
 Engineer of the H.E.I. Company’s Engineer Corps 
 at Bombay, where, in 1808, he married Miss 
 Catherine Dean. They had a family of eight 
 children, # who, after infancy, were consigned to 
 
 ° 1. Thomas Malcolm. Ensign 14th Regt. Bombay Native Infantry, 
 and Assistant Political Agent Kattiawur. Born 1809 ; died 1836. 
 
 2. Henry Strahan. Vicar of Chattisham, Suffolk. Born 1810. 
 
 3. George Harris. Bombay Engineers. Born 1812 ; died 1832. 
 
 4. Sebastian Stewart, the subject of this Memoir. Born 1815 : died 
 1878. 
 
 5. Eleanor Fanny. Born 1816. Married George Fulljames, Major 
 25th Regt. Bombay Native Infantry, and Political Agent of Rewah 
 Kanta. 
 
 6. Eliza. Born 1814. Married, first, Francis Wemyss, Captain 
 Bombay Engineers ; secondly, Captain William O’Connell, formerly 
 73rd Regt. Died 1863. 
 
 7. William Rice. Major General (late) Bombay Engineers. Born 1824. 
 
 8. Alexander Wedderburn. Bombay Civil Service. Born 1828 ; 
 died 1 848. 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 the care of relations in England, their father’s 
 sister taking charge of the two daughters, while 
 the sons found a home with their grandparents, 
 who resided at Bramblebury, then a pleasant 
 country place, in the neighbourhood of Woolwich. 
 Their grandfather, Captain Dickinson, had quitted 
 the navy to succeed to a post in the ordnance, 
 which had been held till his death by his hither, 
 Captain John Dickinson, also a Commander in 
 the R.N. 
 
 Captain Thomas Dickinson had married, in 1781, 
 Frances de Brissac. She was French by birth, 
 but the family of her father seems to have been 
 settled in England from the time of the Revocation 
 of the Edict of Nantes. On her mother’s side, 
 she was also descended from Huguenot families, 
 whose names, of Loy and Polehet, appear in 
 history, as of refugees at the same period. # 
 
 No small share of the sterling qualities of 
 these, her Huguenot ancestors, must have been 
 inherited by Frances de Brissac. She was a 
 woman of unusual energy, a foe to all sloth, 
 self-indulgence, and extravagance, and a strict 
 adherent to whatever she considered her duty. 
 
 * The Loys were satin- weavers, in Spitalfields. It is reported that 
 one of them, Sebastian Loy, had so much of the respect and liking of 
 his workpeople that, during some early riots against machinery, when 
 the rioters destroyed all the looms in Spitalfields, they were careful, 
 before wrecking his looms, to cut out and put by all the satin that was 
 being woven in them. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 3 
 
 With a warm heart, a strong will, sound sense, 
 and unusual physical powers, even in advanced 
 years, she was well fitted for the charge that 
 devolved upon her. And it could have been 
 
 no light task, when past fifty, to begin, and, 
 for thirty years, to continue, the superintendence 
 of the education and starting in life of six 
 boys. This, with the assistance of her daugh- 
 ters, she conscientiously fulfilled, alw 7 ays with 
 strict and anxious regard to the wishes of their 
 parents, which, in those days of slow postal 
 communication with India, were often not easy to 
 ascertain. 
 
 In witnessing the after career of all her 
 grandsons, she must have found a reward. Some, 
 it is true, soon fell victims to the Indian climate, 
 but the early manhood of these was marked by 
 great promise for a future, in their case, not to 
 be realized on earth.* 
 
 * The eldest son, at an early age, acquired very considerable repu- 
 tation as an Oriental scholar. In a general order, the Government 
 had expressed its marked approbation of the distinguished attainments, 
 in the study of Eastern languages, acquired by this officer ; and shortly 
 before his death from cholera, at the age of 27, had bestowed upon 
 him, unasked, an important political appointment, with the assurance 
 that he owed it solely to his character and qualifications, and superior 
 proficiency in the Oriental languages. Sir Robert Grant, the Governor 
 of Bombay, thus speaks of him, in a letter to his mother : — “ Out of 
 your own immediate circle, no person can be so great a loser as myself. 
 I had pleased myself with the prospect of much and high public 
 service from the maturity of those talents whose blossoming was so 
 bright, and I cannot describe my surprise and concern at finding my 
 hopes so fearfully destroyed.” 
 
4 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 Sebastian always recurred with gratitude to 
 his grandmother’s training in habits of industry, 
 diligence, and self-denial. She appears, from the 
 first, to have regarded him with peculiar affection. 
 “Send Sebastian home,” she writes in 1820, “before 
 the climate can possibly prove injurious to him. 
 I am prepared to love him : his very name # will 
 find its way to my heart.” From the day he was 
 confided to her charge, till he was fairly launched 
 in a profession, her cares for his welfare and 
 advancement were unremitting, and, on his side, 
 well repaid by respect and affection, and by 
 untiring zeal in making the most of advantages 
 afforded to him. In consequence of his entering 
 the legal profession, his home was necessarily, for 
 a considerable time, in England ; and he continued 
 to reside with his grandmother for many years. 
 Her husband had died in 1828, and, as her 
 grandson grew up, his assistance became very 
 valuable to her, and he was, as she herself expressed 
 it, her “ counsellor and friend.” 
 
 At twelve years old he was sent to Eton, and 
 afterwards to a tutor, at Amiens, where he soon 
 acquired considerable fluency in French, and also 
 worked well, in the College, at Mathematics and 
 Physics. His future career was still undecided, 
 
 ® The name had been a frequent one in the family of the Loys, and 
 was endeared to her as that of a favorite son, a young Engineer officer, 
 slain at the siege of Badajos. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 5 
 
 and his grandmother’s anxieties on the subject 
 were great. 
 
 “He engrosses,” she writes to his parents, “my sleeping 
 and waking thoughts, I am so anxious about his future 
 destination.” 
 
 And again : 
 
 He is a superior boy in intellect and manners, rather 
 high-minded and ardent. He is passionate, but good and 
 honourable. I love him very much, and shall be anxious 
 to see him well set out in life. If you cannot get a good 
 appointment for him out in India, what think you of his 
 studying the law here ? . . . . He seems willing to 
 
 pursue any path that his parents may assign him. 
 
 He was eventually articled for five years to 
 Mr. F., a solicitor in London, and after that term 
 had expired, he spent three more in preparing, 
 with his usual application and industry, for the Bar. 
 The following extract, from a letter subsequently 
 addressed to him by Mr. F., shews the estimation 
 in which he was held by that gentleman : 
 
 .... It may not be an unpleasing legacy to receive from 
 your old master, to be informed that, during the five 
 years you spent under articles in my office, there was 
 never one of the matters which were entrusted to me, 
 which you did not make yourself entire master of, and in 
 which you did not give me material assistance. Your 
 whole leisure too, was so well occupied in study, that I 
 do not hesitate to say, I never parted with a pupil so well 
 grounded in the principles of the law, or more competent 
 to give a sound opinion, founded on those principles, in 
 the daily cases arising in ordinary practice. . . . Under 
 
 these circumstances your subsequent career has not surprised 
 
6 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 me. Your perseverance in pursuing your studies, under 
 counsel eminent in every department of the profession, 
 is a proof of that determination you have always evinced 
 of overcoming its difficulties, and is an earnest, I trust, 
 of that success which, I doubt not, will be your reward. 
 
 His grandmother’s letters also abound in ex- 
 pressions of satisfaction with his character and 
 conduct. He was accustomed to spend every 
 Sunday with her, to which she thus alludes : 
 
 Sebastian seems always pleased to come down on 
 Saturday, and I am delighted to observe how all difficulties 
 are surmounted that might prevent his going to Church. 
 If it rains he has an umbrella that will keep off the wet, 
 nor is it ever too hot or too cold. He makes no fuss about 
 it, but always manages to go. 
 
 Later she remarks : 
 
 I really think we have every reason to be satisfied with the 
 conduct of Sebastian. He is prudent and careful, but at the 
 same time gentlemanly and correct. Mr. F. thinks highly of 
 him ; and though he is much in company, he never fails in 
 regularity, but is always at his post punctually. He always 
 starts in time for the earliest conveyance, which enables 
 him to be at his desk, in Essex Street, by the right time. 
 
 To those who knew him in after life, the above 
 slight touches of his youthful character will 
 strikingly recall the characteristics of the man, and 
 will not be devoid of interest, as showing how 
 early were acquired those good habits and 
 principles which helped to make him what he 
 became. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 7 
 
 In 1839 he was called to the Bar ; and soon 
 afterwards it was decided that he should join his 
 parents in India. The several barristers under 
 whom he had studied, were agreed in predicting 
 for him a successful career at the English Bar, 
 and advising him to remain in England ; but there 
 appeared, at that time, to be a good opening 
 for a young barrister at Bombay, and Colonel 
 Dickinson was anxious his son should avail himself 
 of it. The latter, therefore, left England in the 
 autumn of the same year, and, after a short tour 
 on the Continent, proceeded to Bombay, where 
 he joined his family early in 1840. He writes to 
 his grandmother at this time as follows : 
 
 Malta, 9th November, 1839. 
 
 My Dear Grandmother, 
 
 I cannot touch at Malta without giving you a line of 
 intelligence as to my whereabouts and progress. I am now 
 fairly embarked for India ; for while travelling about on 
 the continent it was so like the life I have led often before, 
 that I could scarcely think of a different termination to 
 my tour, than has ended my former tours in the same regions. 
 
 I left Rome last Sunday evening, the 3rd, to reach 
 Civita Vecchia in time to embark by the packet, which 
 was to have reached it early on the morning of the 4th. 
 Unfortunately the weather, and a foolish obstinate captain, 
 caused a delay for three days. It was extremely annoying, 
 having to spend three days of waiting in such a wretched 
 place. It is dull beyond comparison, presents no feature 
 of interest to the traveller, and is only visited as a port 
 from which communication to France, the coast of Italy, 
 Malta, Constantinople and Egypt, is very easy. I fortunately 
 
8 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 met there two other gentlemen, hound for India, though 
 to different presidencies from mine, which made the delay 
 somewhat less irksome to me than it would otherwise have 
 been. But, independently of the actual inconvenience and 
 annoyance of the delay itself, it was so provoking to think 
 that all that time might have been so much better, and more 
 profitably, spent at Rome, and elsewhere. However we, 
 Civita Yecchia passengers, are somewhat repaid for our 
 waiting by the beautiful passage we are having. There’s 
 not a wave to toss a boat, and we are writing, a party of a 
 dozen or so, as much at ease as if we were on dry land. 
 
 I expected, and was not disappointed, to meet Captain P. 
 and his sister. He was the first person I saw on stepping 
 on board. I was further most agreeably disappointed in 
 finding Mrs. W. and her daughter. She gave me the last 
 news of you, for unfortunately, owing to my not going to 
 Vienna, I did not receive the letter she told me you had 
 written to me, directed to that place. I am vexed now that 
 I did not go to Vienna, as I find from experience, which is, 
 unfortunately, the only guide you can depend upon in 
 travelling, and is usually the only one wanting, that I 
 should have had ample time to have seen Vienna and all 
 that I have seen. When I got to Munich I met a most 
 intelligent and agreeable English gentleman, just on his 
 return from Egypt, who had travelled through Italy, and, 
 finding, as I thought then, that I should have to hurry over 
 Rome if I went to Vienna, I gave up my Vienna project. I 
 dare say you have received, by this time, a letter, or rather 
 hurried scrawl, I wrote you from Milan, by my friend, and, 
 up to then, fellow-traveller. At Milan I was delighted, 
 as every one must be, with the Cathedral, and the first 
 introduction to the picture-galleries of Italy. From Milan 
 I went to Florence, where I staid three days. Florence 
 seems really a charming place, not only to visit in a passing 
 way, but to live at, combining the advantages of good 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 9 
 
 society and economy, and possessing a never failing fund 
 of amusement, in its noble picture and statue galleries, 
 always open to the public. I should think it must be one 
 of the cheapest places on the continent, and the mode of 
 living approximates nearer in comfort and other respects 
 to the English style, than is usually met with on the 
 continent. The Florentines are very gay and cheerful, and 
 are well governed, which is more than can be said for their 
 neighbours in the Papal Dominions. 
 
 From Florence I went to Rome — the Eternal City — which 
 I have so often wished to visit ; and I spent nearly a 
 fortnight there. I suppose Rome is the only place on earth 
 •which cannot disappoint any traveller. As a city — that is 
 as a centre of commerce, population and civilization — it is 
 not to be talked of. But, by its ancient monuments, by the 
 ruins of its ancient splendor, it speaks so much more strongly 
 to the feelings, than any language which can be used to 
 describe it, that no one can have formed, before entering 
 its walls and visiting it in detail, an exaggerated expectation 
 of the effect it is to produce upon him. His idea of it 
 may be false ; but it cannot be overwrought. I feel the 
 greatest pleasure now in reading, what I have before read 
 merely with admiration, Madame de Stael’s description of 
 it, and of the country of which it has been so long the 
 capital, in her Corinne, which fortunately happened to be 
 on board. We are quite an English, I should say an Anglo- 
 Indian, party on board. Civita Vecchia got rid of all the 
 foreigners, and, fortunately, by unburdening the steamer 
 of some thirty passengers, procured us better accommodation. 
 There are about thirty passengers for different parts of 
 India, so that we shall be a large and agreeable party across 
 the desert. 
 
 I was so pleased to hear about you from Mrs. W., and 
 to hear her say that she found you looking so well. May 
 you long continue to enjoy such good health. I cannot 
 
10 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 help indulging the hope of again embracing you. I will 
 write again on my arrival in India. My best love to 
 you all. 
 
 Your affectionate Grandson, 
 
 Seb. S. Dickinson. 
 
 Cairo, Dec. 14, 1839. 
 
 My dear Grandmother, 
 
 My letter from Malta will prevent your being surprised 
 at my being still in Egypt. We have been a most unlucky 
 party. The delay of three days which took place in the 
 steamer voyage from Marseilles to Malta, owing to the very 
 deficient arrangements of the French line of steamers in 
 the Mediterranean, made us arrive at Syra too late for the 
 boat which works between that place and Alexandria. The 
 consequence was, as we expected, that when we reached 
 Alexandria by the next line of boats, we were too late for 
 the long boat. Thus we are obliged to spend a month in 
 Egypt, which, I am happy to say, is now drawing to a close. 
 When we arrived at Syra — a wretched little island in the 
 Archipelago — we found no means of accommodating so large 
 a party as ours was, and, as there was no possibility of our 
 getting on to Alexandria for ten days, we all determined to 
 proceed to Athens. Our party consists of twenty-nine, bound 
 to the East, and so far east it is difficult to find accommo- 
 dation for us. We spent a week at Athens, which, of all 
 places, was perhaps the one best calculated to reconcile us to 
 our disappointment, as it is one which we shall all be glad to 
 have visited, and it lies somewhat out of the way of ordinary 
 travellers. The present town of Athens is a miserably poor 
 place ; the houses are rather huts than houses, and the streets 
 choked up with rubbish. The present King’s new palace is 
 an immense, and will be a splendid, edifice, and forms a 
 striking contrast to his mean capital. The ruins at Athens 
 consist almost entirely of temples, which call forth your 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 11 
 
 warmest admiration for the magnificence and beauty of their 
 proportions : they are the chefs d' oeuvre of architecture. But 
 I did not feel the same kind of interest at Athens as I did 
 at Rome. In wandering among the ruins of the public 
 buildings dedicated to religion, you do not feel the same 
 communion with the people who built and used them, as 
 when you find yourself among the ruins of their private 
 buildings. The ruins of temples, which crown the Acropolis 
 and the plain, are much more extensive than any you find at 
 Rome ; but as the genius of the people did not lead them to 
 the same luxuries in private life as the Romans, you do not 
 find the same remains of private opulence and luxury. The 
 town itself is wretchedly mean, and has frequent proofs of 
 the spoliation it underwent during the late revolution. It 
 will take many years before the most persevering and well- 
 directed energy can raise it from its ruins, and present the 
 appearance of the capital of a kingdom ; but with the present 
 king such a task seems almost hopeless. He is described to 
 be of a very suspicious disposition, and allows nothing to be 
 done without personal enquiry. The consequence is that 
 the most trifling things remain for months in abeyance, 
 waiting the personal investigation of the sovereign, and his 
 tardy fiat for their performance. I cannot conceive a finer 
 position for a young man like King Otho, than raising from 
 the dust a nation which, from the highest point of civiliza- 
 tion and national glory and character, has sunk to one of the 
 most debased in power and character. But he does not seem 
 to feel his position in that light : he would seem to doubt 
 the duration of his kingdom, and to feel contempt for his 
 subjects. 
 
 On our return to Syra a further delay in the next line 
 of packets to Alexandria augmented our ill humour. For, 
 although it was almost impossible for us to be in time for 
 the Suez boat, we could not help hoping that some accident 
 might delay the Suez boat, and enable us to reach it in time. 
 
12 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 The French authorities behaved most shamefully to us, for 
 although they knew of what importance despatch was to us, 
 they, without necessity, sent us from Syra in a steamer of 
 which the engines were out of order. The consequence was 
 that when the wind, which was contrary, freshened a little, 
 we made no way. The machines got worse, and we were 
 obliged to put in to Scio for repairs. Thus we did not reach 
 Alexandria till the 26th of Nov. Had we reached Alexandria, 
 as with a better boat we should have done, on the 24th, 
 we, or some of us, would in all probability have been 
 in time, for the mail was delayed in its passage up the 
 Nile, and did not reach Suez till the 28th. We staid 
 at Alexandria ten days, finding the accommodation there 
 very good, and, after a fair passage up the Nile, arrived here 
 on the 8th. 
 
 Mrs. W. has at times been very poorly ; she was naturally 
 dreadfully disappointed at not reaching Suez in time. She 
 is a most agreeable intelligent person, and I feel her society 
 takes away much from the ennui of a forced stay in Egypt. 
 Our party is fortunately an agreeable one, and we amuse 
 ourselves here very tolerably. We went, a large party, to 
 the Pyramids three days ago. We were sixteen in all : our 
 four young ladies (we sport four) honored us with their 
 presence. Mrs. W. did not feel equal to going. We were 
 two days in making the excursion, bivouacked in the rooms 
 of the Pyramids, and ascended and descended according to 
 rule. All the ladies ascended the great Pyramid, and gained 
 immortal applause by the feat. We made a magnificent 
 cavalcade on donkeys (the usual conveyance here) and 
 enjoyed ourselves extremely. 
 
 We cross the desert on Wednesday, the 18th, and hope to 
 reach Bombay about the 10th or 15th of January. I have been 
 very well, and hope to escape everything but flies and 
 mosquitoes, to which Egypt is subject. I shall be very glad 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 13 
 
 to hear of you all again when I get to Bombay. I pray you 
 all continue in good health. Love to all. 
 
 Believe me ever 
 
 Your affectionate Grandson, 
 
 Seb. S. Dickinson. 
 
 Bombay, Jan. 30, 1840. 
 
 My dear Grandmother, 
 
 I cannot allow the first packet after my arrival to 
 leave Bombay without letting you know how matters fare 
 with me hitherto. Our detention in the West, after all, 
 turned out rather as matter to he pleased at, than grieved 
 with, for it only occasioned a delay of ten days in arriving 
 at Bombay, and saved us the inconvenience of making the 
 passage down the Red Sea in a vile old tub which is unfit 
 for the service, and procured us, which was necessary for so 
 large a party, a very commodious steamer. We arrived here 
 at 2.30 in the morning, and consequently the steamer quietly 
 slipped into the harbour without observation. Mrs. W. and 
 her daughter and I landed immediately, with the Captain, 
 and had to walk about a mile to her Bungalow on the 
 Esplanade, where we knocked up Mr. W. and almost over- 
 came him with surprise ; and when the first moments of 
 meeting were over, he ordered a Shigram (a carriage peculiar 
 to India,) and sent me home. We live about four miles from 
 the Fort, where all business is transacted, and I arrived home 
 about four in the morning. I took them quite by surprise, for 
 the steamer was not expected for a day or two. My mother 
 got up, but would not awake any of the others ; so I went 
 to bed and got a little sleep, and saw my father and sisters at 
 breakfast. They are all looking extremely well, my father 
 as young and active as you have heard. He is very regular 
 in his habits and takes a great deal of exercise, and when 
 he gets away from the Fort in time of an evening he has a 
 game at cricket, for which he has established a ground here. 
 
14 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 .... I must now give yon an account of my own doings. 
 I live in a little Bungalow detached from the house, built in 
 my father’s peculiar fashion, with little narrow doors and 
 windows. It consists of a bedroom, which is of a nice size, 
 with a dressing room and little bath room, and another little 
 room which I don’t use except as a lumber room, forming a 
 very comfortable suite. Sarabjee,* to my agreeable surprise, 
 is my allotted servant. Here the establishment of servants 
 is very extensive. When you go to dinner your own servant 
 attends, and as they are all clever and expeditious and quiet 
 in waiting, there is never any lack of attendance at dinner, 
 however large — and the dinner parties are very large here — 
 the party may be. Sarabjee is quite delighted to have me 
 for his master. He tells me he wrote you a letter lately, 
 which I suppose you have duly received. 
 
 We breakfast soon after eight. Sometimes my mother 
 takes a ride before breakfast, starting at six and coming in 
 a little after seven, when the sun begins to be felt, and I 
 accompany her. She is not so bold a horsewoman as for- 
 merly, but enjoys a canter on her very nice horse amazingly. 
 Close by us is a very nice riding ground, extensive flats 
 intersected with soft cart roads, so that we have not far 
 to go for a canter. The roads in these parts are beautiful 
 for carriages, but being very hard and very much watered, 
 dangerous for riding, 
 
 I have got very nice chambers in the Fort, to which I am 
 transported after breakfast in a palanquin. It takes me an 
 hour to go, which is inconvenient. I did not at first much 
 like the notion of a palanquin, but am used to it now. I 
 have not as yet had much to do : the amount of my fees up 
 to this time only amounting to seven gold mohurs, or about 
 ten guineas. But there is no business doing now, and the 
 
 * A favourite native servant, under whose charge some of the young 
 children had been sent to England. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 15 
 
 approaching term will not, I fear, bring any very great 
 addition to it. The late proceedings in China — the destruction 
 of so much property belonging to the Bombay merchants — 
 has brought so many of the people here into depressed 
 circumstances for the present, that there is no money to spend 
 in law. The suspension of the opium trade, moreover, has 
 put a stop to all business arising out of the transactions 
 respecting it, which were a very fruitful source of litigation. 
 The Bar here now is very full ; a short time ago there were 
 only two barristers. One arrived just before me and two or 
 three more are expected every day, so that there will be 
 somewhat of a struggle for the lead, and some will get but 
 indifferently off. There is plenty of business for four here, 
 but we shall muster seven or eight. 
 
 The weather now is quite cool ; it is, in fact, the cold 
 season, and although in the day, when the sun is out, it is hot 
 enough, yet the mornings and evenings are quite cold. But 
 it is not a very pleasant or bracing cold ; the breeze is cold, 
 but the air is not. I don’t know how I shall like the hot 
 weather ; but I think, as far as one can judge, that I shall 
 not dislike the climate here. I don’t find the people looking 
 so ill and cadaverous as I expected. This, I believe, is 
 attributable in great measure to their periodical visits, during 
 the hot weather, to the hills. I was delighted to see your 
 handwriting by the last Packet, and pray you may continue 
 to enjoy health and happiness. All unite in love to aunt F. 
 and all friends at home. 
 
 Your affectionate Grandson, 
 
 Seb. S. Dickinson, 
 
 On his arrival at Bombay Mr Dickinson had, as 
 he observed, found the Bar fuller than he expected, 
 and during his first two or three years there, he 
 often complains of want of work ; but his industry 
 
16 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 and ability at length brought him to the front and 
 his professional career proved an unusual success. 
 Before long he had distanced all competitors but 
 one, with whom, till he left Bombay, he continued 
 to divide the principal practice at the Bar. This 
 gentleman, in a letter as early as 1843, urging him 
 to act as his junior counsel, in an important case, 
 thus writes : “I told Mr. W. that I considered you 
 without any exception of Bench or Bar, the best 
 lawyer in the court which marks the estimation 
 in which he was even then held. 
 
 The twelve years spent in Bombay was a time he 
 always looked back upon with pleasure. He worked 
 steadily at his profession, never spared himself 
 any trouble in mastering details, and never allowed 
 any amusement to interfere with his hours of work. 
 Duty with him then, as in after life, always held 
 the first place. He was at the same time equally 
 regular in adhering to certain hours for exercise 
 and recreation, seldom omitting a daily game at 
 rackets, and finding time also for occasional riding 
 and rowing. This, together with his temperate 
 habits, doubtless enabled him so well to withstand 
 any injurious effects of the Indian climate, and to 
 return to England as strong a man as he left it. 
 
 While Colonel and Mrs. Dickinson remained in 
 India their son was able to enjoy, under their 
 roof, the home companionship he always so much 
 appreciated, and afterwards he found a kind of 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 17 
 
 second home in the house of his parents’, and his 
 own, most intimate friends, Mr. and Mrs. W., 
 whose society conduced much to the happiness of 
 his Indian life. He was accustomed, till they too 
 finally quitted India, to spend all his disengaged 
 evenings with them, and frequently to join them for 
 a few weeks during the hot seasons at Khandalla 
 or at Mahabuleshwur. Many, who knew him when 
 he possessed a house of his own at Bombay, speak 
 of his exceeding kindness and hospitality, and tell 
 how it was always open to any he knew, who, on 
 arriving at Bombay, were in want of a temporary 
 home. 
 
 A few extracts from his letters will afford some 
 insight into his life and thoughts, at this period of 
 his life. He was always, as he expresses it, “ an 
 advocate for frequent correspondence among those 
 who would keep alive mutual affection,” and, as he 
 adds “the labour and exertion of writing is a very 
 small penalty to pay for the pleasure resulting 
 from such mutual intercourse, and is in itself 
 much diminished if, by frequency of practice, it 
 becomes almost a habit.” 
 
 These sentiments he fully carried out in his own 
 practice, always, when in India, writing regularly 
 and fully to his relations in England, and to his 
 sisters settled in distant Indian homes. And 
 during his later years, though the press of business 
 necessarily lessened his friendly correspondence, 
 e 
 
18 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 still he never grudged, when possible, thus, to 
 bestow a little time and trouble on absent friends. 
 
 To his Grandmother : 
 
 Mahabuleshwur, May 20th, 1842. 
 
 My dear Grandmother, 
 
 I have indeed to thank yon for all the trouble you took 
 in endeavouring to get me recommended to Sir George 
 Arthur .... When I wrote to you I did not wish 
 to entail on you any further trouble than asking for the 
 S. interest. I am not sorry that we have a perfect stranger 
 to India, as a Governor. He will have no prejudices, it is to 
 be hoped, in favour of the servants of the Company, and 
 against other people. I ought to have considered that you 
 would not spare yourself trouble before I wrote my letter to 
 you, and am the more thankful to you for the trouble. It 
 proves however, which is indeed most gratifying to us, that 
 the winter has left you as unimpaired in energy as it found 
 you. 
 
 I don’t know where Mrs. picked up the news that 
 
 I was coming home again immediately, as nothing is more 
 improbable than my early return to England. I continue to 
 like India very much, and as the guineas do not drop in too 
 plentifully, I see no immediate prospect of my leaving the 
 tree from which I gather what come to my share. We 
 have too many Barristers here for the work, and too little 
 work for the Bar, and none seem inclined by departure or 
 otherwise to lessen the number. I consider myself fortunate 
 in holding a small appointment, though it ties me down to 
 Bombay .... Aunt F. would enjoy a stroll about this 
 beautiful country and would delight sitting in the cold breeze 
 of an evening. We were very gay here — actually got up a 
 fancy sale, and an admittance of one rupee per head produced 
 seventy-four rupees, so you see what an immense concourse 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 19 
 
 of people there is here, for all the people were not there. The 
 sale, which was for the benefit of the Missionaries’ School 
 here, altogether produced about £70 or £80 
 
 To his Grandmother : 
 
 Bombay, October 31th, 1842. 
 
 My dear Grandmother, 
 
 Many thanks for your last letter, I am afraid you write 
 too much now, but it is so great a pleasure to hear from you, 
 and such good accounts, that I am too selfish to urge you 
 too strongly to write less .... 
 
 Yesterday I received a letter from Mr. W., mentioning 
 that Sir George Arthur had spontaneously expressed a desire 
 to serve me, and asking him how he could do so. There is 
 very little in the Governor’s gift for a barrister, but he sug- 
 gested the shrievalty for the next year, and I came down 
 yesterday evening to see whether I could accept it. We have 
 a strange sort of a Chief Justice here, and as he may object to 
 my holding it and practising at the Bar too (though I don’t 
 think he will,) I am not quite sure whether I shall be able to 
 accept it. I hope, however, that I may, in which case it will 
 put five or six hundred pounds in my pocket. It only lasts 
 a year, but it is not to be despised in these days. 
 
 I am going back to Khandalla this afternoon, and have but 
 little time to write so that you must excuse my hurried note ; 
 but, I thought you would be very glad to hear that 
 Sir George is desirous of assisting me. It came quite 
 unexpectedly, as he had never said anything to me, and I 
 had no reason to think that he intended to do anything for 
 me beyond what you had written. 
 
 To his Grandmother : 
 
 Bombay, March 4th, 1843. 
 
 My dear Grandmother, 
 
 Your accounts of yourself are truly gratifying, and the only 
 drawback I feel, in the pleasure of receiving letters from 
 c 2 
 
20 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 you, arises from the knowledge that your correspondence 
 is already too extensive, without your being so indulgent 
 to me. 
 
 I am duly installed as Sheriff, but the office has not that 
 conspicious prominence here, which it has at home. It has 
 always been a piece of nice patronage for the Governor, for 
 his friends, and in good old times the emoluments were 
 considerable ; but they have much dwindled, and are now 
 very small. But I have not to keep up any state, or be at 
 any expense for the entertainment of the Judges, as the 
 Sheriffs in England are. But, as there is no labour attached 
 to the office, I should be glad if it were made permanent, 
 instead of being merely a yearly tenancy. However, one 
 has plenty of opportunities, in every station of life, of being 
 liberal, and abstaining from being niggardly, and I hope I 
 shall not be chargeable with either illiberality or meanness ; 
 though alas we are too apt to fall into these bad habits in this 
 money-making age. 
 
 To his Grandmother : 
 
 Bombay, April 30, 1843. 
 
 My dear Grandmother, 
 
 You will in a few days hear of my father’s determination 
 to retire from the service, which has since been carried 
 into effect ; for he has appeared in orders to retire from 
 the 10th of May 
 
 So you see the time has at length arrived, which you 
 scarcely expected to see when I left England, when you will 
 again embrace your long absent son. I shall be very anxious 
 to hear how they get on, on their first arrival in England, 
 and where they will settle, down. They will not I hope, 
 however, be in a hurry, and they must from the beginning 
 of their English career consider their actual income, and the 
 time of its payment. Money is generally so plentiful here, 
 and the pay-office deals out its riches so regularly, on the 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 21 
 
 1st of every month, that people do not calculate so much on 
 the real value of money here as they ought ; and, although 
 England is a cheaper place in many respects than India, 
 Indians cry out dreadfully at the expense of living in 
 England. The cheapness here of servants and articles of 
 consumption is really more than counterbalanced by the 
 profusion of them in which we indulge. Such is the custom 
 here, and one can’t go against it ; and the consequence is 
 that even people who have the credit of being good managers 
 here would find themselves out at elbows at home. The 
 climate forces some expenses on you, for, as you cannot 
 walk about, you must keep a conveyance, and there is not a 
 married subaltern who does not keep a carriage, or at all 
 events a buggy. 
 
 They will, in the first instance, have your good advice, 
 and also aunt F. must undertake to instruct them in the 
 mysteries of English housekeeping, and the system of 
 English servants, who are so different from Indian servants. 
 My father is very fond of everything Indian, and scarcely 
 believes in the possibility of anything in England being so 
 good, — an opinion in which I cannot coincide, for I think 
 almost everything in England is better than in India. They 
 will be a great loss to me ; I shall now have to begin keeping 
 house for myself. 
 
 Bombay is a dreadful place for bachelors. There are no 
 lodgings to be got, and you can’t get a good house in the 
 town under about £200 a year, and if you have a house in 
 the country, with an office in the fort, it costs you much 
 about the same, so that a bachelor’s expenses here are equal 
 to those of a married man without incumbrances, and about 
 twice as much as a bachelor’s in London. 
 
 We have had an accession to the Bar here, in the person 
 of a Mr. H., who was called to the Bar the same day as myself, 
 but nevertheless I am no longer the junior barrister here, as 
 
22 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 he is my junior. We have, however, too many here to make 
 money, and H.’s coming has driven away one who arrived 
 here about a month or two before me, who, finding so little 
 to do in Bombay, has taken advantage of the present state of 
 affairs in China, and is going to try his luck there, in the 
 event of any court being established there. However I am 
 happy to say I do not lose my practice, and have the credit 
 generally, and I believe it is not far off the mark, of having 
 the second-best practice among all the Bar here, which, 
 considering my standing, is very creditable. If I can keep 
 that position I shall be very well satisfied, and, from what 
 I have seen of our new man, I do not think he is likely to 
 injure me, as he seems nothing my superior. 
 
 To his Sister, Mrs. Fulljames : 
 
 July 22, 1843. 
 
 My dear Fanny, 
 
 .... Yesterday I had to superintend the execution of 
 the unfortunate man who was tried last session for killing 
 a child. It was a dreadful business, and not a very 
 agreeable part of my duties. The rope slipped, and the 
 poor man was some time before he died. It was a rainy 
 morning, which would, I should have thought, have 
 quite prevented any concourse of people to see a most 
 disagreeable spectacle, but there seemed a considerable crowd 
 about as I went to the jail. It is a sad institution, and I 
 confess I should be disposed to abolish capital punishment 
 altogether, more especially among a set of people who have 
 so little regard for human life, as well their own as that of 
 another. The spectacle is anything but a warning, and is, I 
 should say, demoralizing. The idea of inviting, as it were, 
 the people to witness such a barbarous proceeding, which 
 public hanging amounts to ! If life is to be taken away, I 
 should say it is better to take it away in secret than as a 
 spectacle to a gazing multitude. I could not look on while 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 23 
 
 the execution was proceeding ; but I could not help 
 seeing the body hanging in the air, more especially as the 
 business was badly done, and life was not extinct for some 
 minutes. 
 
 We all dined at the M.’s yesterday, and Col. T. arrived the 
 same day en route to England. He travelled “Dawk” from 
 Lahore, 1500 miles, which took five weeks. I should think 
 he sighed not a little for railways. From Agra to Kahee he 
 had one set of hamals — twenty-six men who travelled at 
 night, at the rate of twenty to thirty miles a day. A slight 
 difference between this and modern European travelling ! 
 
 My wall building is nearly completed. Everybody is 
 wondering at my proceedings, and some abusing me for 
 encouraging Idolatry, because I have built a god-shop in my 
 wall for the reception of the deified stone which you may 
 remember there was in my place. There was a little building 
 with two or three stones smeared with red paint, which I 
 wanted to remove, and I did not like to take away the thing 
 entirely, so I have built a little niche in the wall, where I 
 am going to place said god. I thought it was a shame to 
 deprive the poor people of their god altogether, and so they 
 say I am encouraging idolatry because I have transferred the 
 god from inside my compound to a niche in my compound 
 wall. But if they abuse my kindness, and the god becomes 
 a nuisance (which I don’t think it will,) I shall build it up, 
 and suffocate the deo. 
 
 How is Macaulay getting on ? I have not yet got the 
 book, and have been doing very little in the reading line of 
 late. Indeed, I only get my palanquin ride into the Fort of 
 a morning, for reading ; and one of my last is Mundy’s 
 account of Brooke and Borneo. I wonder whether anything 
 good will eventually come from the doings of the Rajah of 
 Sarawak. What a curious line of life he has chalked out for 
 himself ; and it certainly deserves success, and has hitherto 
 
24 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 commanded it. He has had a great deal of excitement, and 
 that is with many a great source of happiness. 
 
 Aug. 3, 1846. 
 
 I have been quite a stay-at-home. My evening occupation 
 has been reading Arnold’s Life, which I recommend to you 
 for perusal. I fear it will shock some of your ideas about 
 Padres and Church ceremonies and observances. I find it 
 very much in unison with my own feelings and opinions 
 on a variety of subjects. 
 
 From a letter announcing the death of a young 
 brother : # 
 
 June 24, 1848. 
 
 .... are they not to be rather envied than pitied who 
 are early taken away from this scene of trial and tempta- 
 tion, where so many make shipwreck of their souls ? I 
 have just been looking at the Funeral Service, and there, 
 in truth, is the idea pervading the last prayer but one ; 
 though to realize the spirit of thankfulness to God one 
 must feel entirely sure of the acceptance of the lost 
 brother ; and at first the words fell unacceptably on the 
 ear. When we are regretting his loss, and would give 
 every earthly treasure to ensure his recall — when we are 
 almost murmuring because God has thought fit to involve 
 us in this dispensation, and would pray with unusual 
 fervor for a repetition in our favour of the miracle per- 
 formed on behalf of the widow of Nain, and the weeping 
 
 Alexander Wedderburn, (General Dickinson’s youngest son) who 
 had entered for the Indian Civil Service, and, 1848, joined his brother 
 Sebastian in Bombay, to remain with him while studying the native 
 languages, preparatory to passing for an appointment. Within three 
 months of his arrival he was seized with fever, which terminated 
 fatally. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 25 
 
 family of Lazarus, whom the Lord loved, it sounds strange 
 to thank the Lord for having taken away the object of our 
 love, when living, and of our lasting regret when dead. 
 And yet that is the feeling to which we must bring our 
 mind. We may consider in ourselves the worthlessness of 
 earthly existence, not in a spirit which shall not be full of 
 gratitude to God for the many blessings which He gives to 
 render life itself an enjoyment, but in a spirit of comparison 
 of its griefs and joys — its chequered character — its num- 
 berless sorrows — its unsatisfying nature, with the state of 
 existence of the elect beyond the grave ; and, giving it its 
 true character, of a passage merely from our existence to 
 eternity, may feel that we would not reproach God if He 
 would graciously number our days, when the task had been 
 accomplished of rendering ourselves His servants, and fit for 
 admission into His presence. 
 
 .... In this country there is no lingering illness, warn- 
 ing the patient of a coming dissolution, and giving him 
 opportunity to sweep out his house. Not that such prayers 
 avail much at such a season. It is when health is good, the 
 spirits are high, life is pleasurable, and its enjoyments and 
 temptations are within grasp, with its active duties and 
 occupations, that godliness of life and conversation avail, 
 and prove the sincere Christian and true believer. May we 
 all endeavour while we have life so to act that we may not 
 fear the approach of sickness in its most sudden form ! The 
 task must be within our competence. God would not have 
 created man with powers inadequate, if rightly directed, to 
 work out his own salvation. 
 
 .... God bless you and be with you. You must love 
 me all the more now you have one brother less, and I will 
 try to be more than ever 
 
 Your loving and attached brother, 
 
 Seb. S. Dickinson. 
 
26 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 Bombay, 6th Aug., 1848. 
 
 My dear Fanny, 
 
 The fatal intelligence # which our last letters from 
 England communicated will fall as suddenly and painfully 
 on you as it did on me. How cheerfully did dear E. 
 write in her last letter to me, looking forward to her 
 return to India quite with pleasure ; and how soon are these 
 prospects darkened. I had been looking forward, not how- 
 ever without that misgiving which dear Alick’s untimely 
 end was so calculated to strengthen, and which attends all 
 our hopes and aspirations, and all our schemes and plans 
 here, to next November, when I had hoped to have had her 
 under my roof. .... 
 
 Death has been very busy here. I told you, I think, last 
 
 Sunday that Sir was ill : he died yesterday morning 
 
 early. I had not seen him since Alick’s death. He wrote 
 me a most kind and affectionate note on that event. He 
 had, under a rough exterior and manners, a warm heart. 
 He died among strangers. I attended the funeral, which 
 was numerously attended, and was an affair of pomp and 
 ceremony ; but the total absence of feeling in the whole 
 community shocked my feelings much. Which of us then 
 present, and the Cathedral was crowded, could say that the 
 next procession of a hearse would not contain his own 
 remains ; yet everybody was talking as if in- a ball-room, 
 rather than waiting to follow to its last resting-place one 
 who, a week before, was in authority and power. I could 
 see no traces of sorrow, no tears of affection, in the miscel- 
 laneous crowd. The gateways were crowded, and the houses 
 and roads thronged with spectators. The military made a 
 road half a mile long, and a pagan band played the Dead 
 March in Saul. I confess I do not like attending a funeral. 
 
 * The death of his brother-in-law, Major Wemyss, which occurred 
 in England, in June, 1848. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 27 
 
 The solemnity of the service is lost when you see that the 
 attendance is no tribute of affection, but a social form gone 
 through. How can anyone whose feelings are deeply affected 
 mix in such a scene ? When dear Alick died my first 
 impulse was to shrink from such contact, and not attend his 
 remains to the grave. Not one in the assembly could have a 
 feeling in unison with mine, and I thought of the applica- 
 bility of the saying “ Let the dead bury their dead,” and that 
 society is cruel in requiring the mourners of the heart to 
 join in such a ceremony. 
 
 September 9th, 1849. 
 
 My dear Fanny, 
 
 .... I don’t imagine a person can’t be cheerful because 
 he or she eschew^ dancing, stnd I don’t think dancing has 
 anything to do with cheerfulness. I think I only observed 
 that I could not understand how people could consider 
 balls wicked and dinner parties not ; as all the vicious 
 dispositions and feelings of the heart are as much, nay 
 more, exercised in the one as the other. I am quite of the 
 opinion that people should do just what their conscience 
 dictates to them is right, and avoid that which they 
 conscientiously think is wicked or dangerous, or of doubtful 
 propriety ; and I only wish that every one acted on this 
 principle, and also allowed others to do the same. 
 
 We are all strange compounds of inconsistencies, and are 
 more quick-sighted at discovering the inconsistencies and 
 frailties of others than endeavouring to pursue a consistent 
 course. The fact is that the standard of Christian conduct, 
 which, if we attend to the spirit and letter of the Gospel, we 
 must establish for ourselves, is so high and pure and self- 
 denying, that we have not courage and perseverance to adopt 
 it for ourselves, nor courage to subject the infirmities of our 
 nature to its power, and our life is a constant struggle to 
 reconcile our affections to its requirements, which ends in a 
 
28 
 
 MEMORIALS OP S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 compromise which consists in our being severely strict on 
 some points and indulgent on others ; which may account for 
 the wide discrepancies of persons holding a common faith, and 
 esteemed by themselves and others conscientiously religious. 
 
 .... When I recommended passing in the native 
 languages, I am perhaps open to the retort that I have not 
 done so myself ; but my case is different. I am not a 
 candidate for Government employ ; the acquisition would 
 to me be of comparatively little use, and my time is more 
 profitably employed in other ways, though as it is, I some- 
 times contemplate — if I should ever have an hour a day at 
 my command for such a purpose — perfecting my acquaintance 
 with Hindostanee sufficiently to undergo the ordeal of an 
 examination ; but as my professional reading has fallen 
 some three or four years in arrear, and promises to get 
 deeper and deeper into arrear, I do not think I shall find the 
 time to take up Hindostanee again to any effect, till I shall 
 be thinking of leaving India altogether, and moreover, I am 
 the only one at the Bar who possesses anything like a know- 
 ledge of the language. No one else, I believe, can understand 
 the plainest and easiest sentence. If I should go up (and 
 Government would allow me) to the Examination Committee, 
 it would be rather to gratify my father than for any eventual 
 good it could do for me. 
 
 I doubt the correctness of your views on the education of 
 the natives, or the reasonableness of your fear of shaking 
 their belief in their ancient creed by the infusion of know- 
 ledge. If their belief be a dangerous one, then being shaken 
 in it is of no importance, unless the effect of it is to make 
 them worse members of Society. As their creed, however, 
 teaches no moral law, which, irrespective of Revelation, 
 commends itself to the educated mind sufficiently to become 
 obligatory on the conduct, a change far short of conversion 
 to Christianity is a beneficial one ; and to make Christianity 
 a necessary accompaniment to education, to the native mind, 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 29 
 
 is to throw difficulties, I believe, on the ultimate object of 
 conversion. The prejudices which enwrap the native mind 
 must first be subdued by education before it can receive and 
 appreciate the doctrines of Revelation, which, without 
 education, present many features as startling and incredible 
 as the inventions and histories of the Hindu godhead. The 
 missionaries, devoting themselves to the bible, deem it all- 
 sufficient for the purposes of conversion ; and, acting in that 
 spirit, can scarcely be said to have succeeded in their labors, 
 whether of education or conversion. I am not learned in 
 the catalogue of tracts, but I have never seen a popular 
 statement of the Christian religion, setting forth plainly and 
 intelligibly its essential doctrines and precepts — the mysteries 
 of a Godhead and the Atonement, and the law of love toward 
 God and man — the precepts commending themselves to the 
 minds which cannot have faith in matters beyond their 
 comprehension, by their nobleness, purity and beauty — the 
 attributes of a divine and not a human law. 
 
 With much love, believe me, 
 
 Your affectionate brother, 
 
 Seb. S. Dickinson. 
 
 19 May, 1850. 
 
 .... I spoke to-day to one of our Inspectors to get me 
 some intelligent young fellow to come and spend his 
 evenings with me, and as he said Mahrathi was easier 
 than Guzerathi, I think I shall tackle to with Mahrathi. 
 I should like to have such a knowledge of Guzerathi 
 and Mahrathi that I could read off and understand the 
 records of a civil case in one of the Mofussil courts. I 
 am the only barrister, indeed I believe the only lawyer in 
 either branch, who can understand a native’s explanation of 
 his own case in Hindostanee. I understand it imperfectly, 
 it is true, and am at a loss very often to explain my own 
 
30 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 views respecting their cases, but I can generally manage to 
 get a pretty clear understanding, without requiring the 
 intervention of any interpreter. I think I shall set to work 
 with Mahrathi. 
 
 May 25, 1850. 
 
 .... I had made up my mind to have my Mahrathi 
 tutor to spend the evenings with me. He came on Thursday 
 and Friday, but beseeches so hardly to be allowed to come 
 in the morning that I have consented to his doing so ; but 
 I cannot manage the time necessary for an every day 
 lesson of a couple of hours, so I intend to have him three 
 times a week — every alternate day. The worst of the 
 oriental languages is that the written character is novel and 
 not easy to acquire, and as my chief object is to be able 
 to read original papers in the vernacular, it will require a 
 good deal of time, so I dare say I shall be able to keep 
 myself well occupied during the evenings in preparing for 
 my morning lesson. I wonder whether I shall succeed ; I 
 suspect not, for I shall, I fear, find it too tedious, and I 
 cannot spare any time during the day, for, from ten to four or 
 five, I am occupied with my professional business, and am 
 not anxious to find any portion of that time idle on my 
 hands, though I fear, with diminished business in our courts, 
 such a very undesirable consummation may be anticipated ; 
 but even then, I am so dreadfully in arrears in my profes- 
 sional reading that I must appropriate any idle hours I may 
 have in the day-time to that. I now wish I had set to work 
 some years ago, when I was less employed, on such studies ; 
 but it is only of late, since the Suddur Adawlut has been 
 open to us, that there has been any object for us to acquire 
 any knowledge of the vernacular dialects of this side of 
 India. In the business in our own courts, such knowledge 
 is scarcely of any appreciable value. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 31 
 
 Bombay, 25 August, 1850. 
 
 My dearest Fanny, 
 
 1 have to acknowledge G.’s letter. He would be relieved 
 from all anxiety by the next day’s post, and find that I 
 had forgotten to post the letter — a proof of extreme care- 
 lessness or of the forgetfulness of old age. The former, I 
 fear, is nearer the mark, though I am getting old too, and 
 have no wish to stay twenty-five years in India, which he 
 says is about the time when we may think of turning to a 
 life of idleness ; but, at the same time, I do not think I should 
 have the slightest desire to take to professional occupation in 
 England, and as little to stay here, merely to make money, 
 after I had made enough to live upon with comfort. 
 
 .... I would willingly pursue my profession for its 
 honours, when I would leave off the pursuit of money 
 merely ; not but what money is better worth having than 
 honour, but money generally accompanies honour, and there 
 is something in distinction which attracts us. 
 
 But there are other things better worth living for than 
 money, and I sometimes fancy that I might do some little 
 good in my time and generation by living in England on a 
 moderate competence ; but one requires something beyond 
 one’s own expenses. If your income is only enough for your 
 own wants you can do little good ; but money is not the only 
 agent that can be turned to account, though it is very 
 essential. If mine was a Seniority service, and by hanging 
 on I could get on the Board, I would do so, but as it is I have no 
 chance of ever getting anything, even by a system of ingratiat- 
 ing oneself with those in authority, which is very foreign 
 to my nature and disposition. My views will be limited 
 by realizing a sufficient income for every prospective want. 
 
 Bombay, Nov. 10, 1850. 
 
 My dearest Fanny, 
 
 I returned last Wednesday, having taken the whole 
 holiday, and I think the change has done me good, not 
 
32 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 that I had anything the matter with me, but I liked the 
 place and mode of living, and doing nothing in the society 
 of those I love. I am very indifferent to excitement ; and 
 if a person cannot be happy in an agreeable climate, a beau- 
 tiful country and pleasing society, why it is not very material 
 how soon he tries a change to another world. I confess 
 myself easily satisfied in these particulars, and begin now to 
 look forward to the time when I may retire from the 
 accumulation of money, and live a quiet decent life in 
 England. The dolce far niente, according to my definition 
 of it, with no necessary occupation beyond what you please 
 to impose on yourself, has great charms for me, and is worth 
 all the excitement of more stirring and ambitious feelings. 
 I left Khandalla on Wednesday morning, and had a 
 pleasant journey down — if a journey can be pleasant when 
 you are leaving those you like to come into harness again : 
 not that I complain of my harness, it fits me remarkably 
 well, but I am not so wedded to work as to think that I shall 
 be unhappy without it. Work has always been with me a 
 serious affair, and I shall make the non-work as serious a 
 one, if the time should ever arrive for my indulging in 
 leaving my profession. 
 
 To another friend he writes at this time in a 
 similar strain : 
 
 I have no ambitious views myself, and think that there 
 are higher objects in life than professional fame and the 
 acquisition of money. I do not contemplate remaining 
 in India any longer than will be necessary to secure a com- 
 petency, with some surplus, which may be available to benefit 
 those on whom fortune has smiled less prosperously ; and 1 
 sometimes look forward to the exercise of the charities of 
 life, not in giving pecuniary assistance, but by personal 
 intercourse with the more destitute members of the human 
 family — as a fit occupation for declining years. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 33 
 
 To his Sister : 
 
 June 20, 1851. 
 
 .... It (the cholera) is a dreadful scourge, and I never 
 hear of its visiting any place without alarm, and although 
 I entertain no personal fear, yet when it prevails in the 
 neighbourhood of one’s residence, one cannot help feeling 
 that life is more precarious, and that one is living nearer 
 the grave than at other times. Nor is the feeling one 
 to be discarded, for I think it exercises some little influence 
 on one’s habits and modes of thought, though, with the 
 occasion, the practice may depart. Yet all good influences, 
 however transitory, leave some good seed behind, or at least 
 check the growth of weeds, of which, with all the care we 
 can bestow on ourselves, there is an abundant crop ever 
 springing within us. 
 
 March 7, 1853. 
 
 My dearest Fanny, 
 
 The mail arrived somewhat earlier than I expected, 
 for the steamers, which look after the interests of us poor 
 ducks, are of the slowest kind ; and I had some satis- 
 faction the other day in signing a petition to Parliament, 
 asking for an improvement in the present system of mail 
 communication with Bombay. Nothing can be much worse, 
 and I really think my going away on the 20th will depend 
 much on the steamer which is appointed to take that mail. 
 
 My mother, you will see, abstains as carefully as possible 
 from urging my going home, but I really think that circum- 
 stances point out this as a very appropriate time for taking 
 the step. All other parties say that my mother wants some 
 society, and I must not allow her negations to weigh against 
 so many positives 
 
 If I act on my mother’s suggestions, why I should stay 
 here for the next ten years, unless my health failed me, and 
 I should do but little in my time and generation but gather 
 money for another generation to spend. I think that it is 
 D 
 
34 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 truer wisdom to rest satisfied with a moderate competence, 
 and, if you find it insufficient for generous impulses, to be a 
 little more self-denying. There is no merit in being generous 
 when the exercise of generosity entails no loss or self-denial ; 
 nor indeed is there much merit in it then, nor in any good 
 action, but it is profitable to be actuated by such feelings, 
 
 and right to encourage them 
 
 Good Friday was my birthday, 38 — a very elderly gentle- 
 man. Methinks it is time I started some new manner of life, 
 and left the Bombay diggings. Another year would doubtless 
 give me an agreeable addition ; but in other respects I think 
 my return to England now will be more advantageous to my 
 mother, than £5,000 more would be to myself ; so I don’t 
 think I shall change my plans. With much love, 
 
 Your affectionate brother, 
 
 Seb. S. Dickinson. 
 
 Bombay, April 10, 1853. 
 
 My dearest Fanny, 
 
 Time is hurrying on, and in less than three weeks I shall 
 have turned my back on Bombay. I can scarcely realize 
 the idea, for everything is going on just in its usual course, 
 and I have not yet commenced my packing operations. 
 
 W. joined us at the racket court yesterday, and told me 
 that the Board had passed on Willy’s leave for sanction, so I 
 suppose there will be no difficulty in his getting it, and I 
 hope that he will get down here in time for the great field- 
 day, next Saturday, when the Gt. Indian Peninsula Railway 
 is to be opened in form. 1 am glad that I shall be in the 
 country on the auspicious occasion, and I hope there may be 
 no renewal of misadventure, as the blowing down of the shed 
 on the esplanade, the other day, was. I have not been out in 
 the daily experimental trains which have been lately run- 
 ning, for I have not had time. I began to fear that the 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 35 
 
 Court would not get through the arrears of business for a 
 fortnight, but I am in great hopes that by next week we 
 shall be released from an attendance in court, and then I 
 shall set to work in very earnest in setting my house in 
 order 
 
 I am considering whether I should take with me anything 
 in the shape of liquors or of ice, to provide for the possibility 
 of the contractors’ provisions being indifferent, but I ought 
 to commence bidding adieu to luxurious and indulgent habits 
 as early as possible. I had some idea of taking a servant 
 with me to Suez, but I shall not do so ; I daresay one can 
 get waited on by one of the contractors’ servants. I have 
 gone to the expense of a cabin passage, and my chief object 
 in so doing was because I like a place to dress in and keep my 
 things in, for beyond that, it is of no use, as I shall always 
 sleep on deck. My going now is no longer a secret, as it is 
 talked of in court, and therefore there is no chance of a 
 change in my plans. 
 
 Bombay, April 17, 1853. 
 
 My dearest Fanny, 
 
 This is my last Sunday but one in India, and I am about 
 as forward in my preparations, I think, as I was a month 
 ago ; and really I am somewhat puzzled respecting my 
 proceedings for the next ten days, for that is all I have 
 left, and striking off Sundays I may call it only nine days, 
 to get myself ready for the homeward trip. Necessity knows 
 no law, and I daresay somehow or other things will come 
 straight. I hope so, at all events, for go I must now. 
 
 We had a grand field-day yesterday, and I am very glad 
 that I was here when the railway opened. It was quite a 
 fete day. The trains took out some five hundred people ; we 
 were fifty-five minutes going, and fifty coming back, including 
 stoppages. There was a most elegant cold collation set out in 
 a large tent, and lots of champagne, ices, &c., besides more 
 D 2 
 
36 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 substantial food. Luanson, as Chairman of the Directors, 
 presided ; he was very nervous, but on the whole got through 
 his speeches very well. Sir Wm. Yardley, Sir Chas. Jackson 
 and Sir H. Leake were the three visitor speakers ; and 
 Berkeley (the Engineer,) and Crawford also spoke, and the 
 whole went off very well. We got back to dinner a little 
 after eight, having left at half-past three. I am afraid that 
 there will not be much passenger traffic for some time to 
 come, but they commence active operations to-morrow. I 
 should not like to be the driver during the rains ; he will 
 get some most merciless pelting during some of his trips. 
 They are not going to run very fast at first, in which he was 
 right. The prices seem, I think, moderate. I must, I think, 
 take a run to Tannah and pay the fare before I go. 
 
 Mr. Dickinson’s return to England, in 1853, 
 terminated both his Indian life and his professional 
 career. He found his grandmother alive, but, at 
 the age of 93, she had sunk into so feeble a state 
 that it was doubtful whether she was conscious of 
 the happiness to which she had so long looked 
 forward in meeting him. The following year she 
 passed away. 
 
 The autumn of 1853 was saddened by the news 
 from India of the death of Major Fulljames, who 
 had been cut off in the fulness of health and 
 happiness, and in the midst of an honorable and 
 successful career. This event caused Sebastian 
 to make a rapid journey again to the East, in order 
 to meet his widowed sister ; and it was not till the 
 following year that he finally established himself 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 37 
 
 in an English home, at Brown’s Hill, Gloucester- 
 shire, where his youngest sister, Mrs. Wemyss, and 
 her family resided with him till his marriage, in 
 1856. 
 
 And now, settled down quietly in the country, 
 he entered on that new phase of life and employ- 
 ment which he was to occupy for the remainder 
 of his days. It is not often that we see so complete 
 a realization of earlier aspirations. Dreams of 
 the future are so frequently composed of such 
 conflicting elements that their fulfilment is scarcely 
 possible. But the kind of life which Sebastian 
 Dickinson had pictured for himself was, as we 
 have seen, to retire upon a moderate fortune, and 
 to lead a quiet life, doing some good in his time 
 and generation. 
 
 “ I feel so satisfied,” he had written some years previously, 
 “ that as we advance in life the world takes more hold of us 
 than in our earlier years, and if we indulge that desire to 
 be always occupied with business, in other words, money- 
 making — for it chiefly resolves itself into this — death finds 
 us, at whatever age, if our faculties continue, exercising those 
 faculties, not in the active service of Christian charity, but 
 in assisting in plans and schemes which have only this 
 world’s progress for their object.” 
 
 When at the height of his professional career, 
 when every year would have added largely to his 
 future income, he had the self-command to give 
 up such prospects and to return to England in the 
 
38 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 prime of life, before all his best years had been 
 spent in the acquisition of wealth. 
 
 The legal experience and business habits gained 
 during the years he practised at the Bar, were 
 doubtless an invaluable preparation for the work 
 that afterwards devolved upon him ; but had he 
 clung to his profession for ten or even for five 
 years longer, he wwld probably have found it 
 much harder to enter on a new sphere of work, 
 and, after the freshness and vigor of youth had 
 passed, to direct his thoughts and energies into 
 fresh channels. 
 
 In a short time, as may be imagined, employ- 
 ment such as he desired began to fall to his share. 
 Never much disposed to thrust himself forward, he 
 usually waited quietly till work came to him, ready 
 to respond to any call to usefulness, and never 
 engaging in any office without a full intention, 
 always carried out, of fulfilling all its requirements, 
 at whatever sacrifice of ease or convenience. 
 
 By the year 1860 Mr. Dickinson had entered on 
 much of the routine of work which occupied his 
 future life. Soon after settling in the country he 
 had, at the instigation, and through the interest, of 
 his future father-in-law, Mr. Hyett, become a Poor 
 Law Guardian, and had been appointed Chairman 
 of the Stroud Board. He had been made a Magis- 
 trate for the County, and took much interest in 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 39 
 
 the management of the County Prison and Lunatic 
 Asylum. He was also on the Committee for the 
 Asylum at Barn wood. He had joined the Stroud 
 Volunteers, and had been appointed to the com- 
 mand of a Company. He had undertaken the 
 duties of Secretary, and the general management 
 of a School of Art in Stroud. He was on various 
 committees of local schools, clubs and institutes, 
 with constant engagements for evening meetings 
 or lectures. He was besides always ready to take 
 part in any work which accidental circumstances 
 might bring temporarily to the front ; as, for 
 example, in the cotton famine of 1862-63, he 
 became Secretary and Treasurer to a Committee 
 which was formed in the borough of Stroud for 
 sending relief to Lancashire, and which, by perse- 
 verance and the organization of weekly collections, 
 succeeded in obtaining upwards of £2,000, such 
 supplies only ceasing when no longer needed. 
 
 As time went on his work necessarily increased ; 
 not a year passed without his name appearing on 
 fresh committees and boards, and for him to give 
 his name, implied, almost invariably, personal 
 service. A glance over the pages of his engage- 
 ment memorandums reveals a curious amount 
 and variety of occupation. In his later years the 
 position of Member of Parliament and that of 
 Chairman of Quarter Sessions added still further 
 to his labors. But work was what he had desired, 
 
40 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 and what he liked. His early habits of business, 
 and his own peculiarly quiet methodical ways, 
 enabled him to get through his multifarious 
 duties with comparative ease ; and they are thus 
 enumerated not as constituting claim to uncommon 
 merit, but rather with the view of forcibly marking 
 the character of his life. 
 
 Lengthened details of all Mr. Dickinson’s public 
 work would be superfluous, but the following slight 
 notice of a few of its principal branches may not 
 be without interest for his friends. 
 
 In any such record the promotion of Education 
 should take the first place, for to nothing did he 
 apply himself with greater zeal and pleasure. From 
 the first year of his settling in Gloucestershire, 
 when he was placed on the Committee of Manage- 
 ment of the National Schools of Painswick, till the 
 last year of his life, when he became Chairman of 
 the newly-formed School Board of that parish, he 
 took the warmest interest in its schools, entering 
 into all the practical details of their management, 
 and maintaining that cordial intercourse with the 
 teachers which enabled all to work heartily 
 together. 
 
 Any educational efforts also beyond his own 
 parish he would readily aid, deeming it a simple 
 matterof dutyfor those, who enjoyed its advantages, 
 to do their utmost to place education within the 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 41 
 
 reach equally of all classes and denominations. 
 His first step in this direction was to co-operate 
 warmly in the establishment of the “Gloucestershire 
 School Prize Association” — a scheme which in- 
 stituted examinations of children from primary 
 schools, and gave certificates and prizes to all who 
 passed them creditably. The object was, in the 
 first place, to induce parents to keep their children 
 longer and more regularly at school, while holding 
 out to the children additional motives for diligence 
 and good conduct; and secondly, it was considered 
 that such examinations might assist, not only the 
 managers of schools and the parents, but also the 
 teachers, in testing the character of the education 
 given at school. It had been for some time felt 
 that some test was required. There were at that 
 time far fewer schools than at present under 
 Government inspection, and in these the system 
 was rather to inspect the general state of the 
 school than to enquire into individual progress. 
 
 An experiment of the same kind had been tried 
 in Staffordshire with good success, and early in 
 1858 the late Mr. Bowstead, one of H.M. Inspectors 
 of Schools, in conjunction with Lord Ducie and a 
 few other gentlemen, started the above association. 
 Mr. Dickinson undertook the Secretaryship, and 
 entered heartily into its working. It was a move- 
 ment which commended itself strongly to him, 
 both as supplying a want, and also from its 
 
42 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 unsectarian character. It was based on thoroughly 
 broad principles, being open alike to schools of all 
 denominations, throughout the county. 
 
 Local centres for examinations were fixed upon, 
 four examiners were appointed, and many schools 
 joined the Association. The promoters of the 
 scheme desired that there should be a fair exami- 
 nation of the children in religious knowledge, as 
 well as in other subjects, and here the religious 
 difficulty intervened, some controversy arose, and 
 a large proportion of the Church of England 
 schools held aloof Mr. Dickinson did not believe 
 that such difficulty would, in practice, be found to 
 exist ; and in fact the Examiners — one of whom 
 was a clergyman of the Church of England, and 
 another a minister of a Dissenting congregation — 
 were able to unite in setting papers of questions 
 on religious subjects, admirably calculated to test 
 the children’s intelligent understanding of the 
 Scriptures, and their powers of applying such 
 knowledge. The first year’s examination was a 
 success, as regarded the number of children 
 mustered at the various centres of examination ; 
 and although the result brought to light much 
 ignorance and defective learning, which surprised 
 and dissatisfied many of the teachers, still in the 
 following years there was so marked an improve- 
 ment shewn, as to lead to the conclusion that the 
 Prize Scheme had done some good work. After 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 43 
 
 three successive yearly examinations the Society 
 suspended its operations for a time, and it was not 
 afterwards thought necessary to recommence them 
 inasmuch as the number of schools in connection 
 with Government was greatly increasing, the 
 Government examinations were becoming stricter, 
 and probable revisions of the Educational Code 
 left less need for private effort in the above 
 direction. 
 
 At this time Science and Art Classes, in con- 
 nection with South Kensington, were becoming 
 general throughout the country, and no one entered 
 more heartily than Mr. Dickinson into the move- 
 ment. While using every endeavour to render the 
 education given at all the primary schools, where 
 he had any influence, as thorough as possible ; he 
 considered it also of the greatest importance, that 
 the means of a higher education should be placed 
 within the grasp of those whose abilities, or incli- 
 nation, prompted them to demand it. He was 
 therefore always most ready to co-operate with 
 the teachers of science classes ; and he succeeded 
 in establishing at Stroud a Branch School of Art, 
 and continued as long as he lived to undertake 
 all the business connected with its management. 
 When meetings w r ere to be held with the view^ of 
 bringing such objects before the public, he was 
 indefatigable in his efforts to make them a success. 
 He would often call at every house in the principal 
 
44 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 streets of Stroud to request the attendance of the 
 townspeople, and thus he generally succeeded in 
 obtaining a crowded audience, instead of the empty 
 benches which would probably have been seen, had 
 he depended only on advertisements and handbills. 
 
 While noticing his work in the cause of Educa- 
 tion, which was indeed his life’s work, and only 
 ceased with his life, it should be noted how, when 
 teachers were wanted at the Stroud Night School, 
 he agreed to take a class there once a week, and 
 persevered in doing so for two or three winters, 
 scarcely ever allowing anything to interfere with 
 his evening walk on the appointed day, being 
 always most particular to avoid accepting invita- 
 tions or making other engagements on those, or 
 indeed on any evenings fixed for drill or other 
 special duty. It may seem a small thing to record, 
 but it marks the man. 
 
 During the last year of his life the establishment 
 of a School Board in the parish where he lived had 
 become necessary. He and others earnestly wished 
 to avoid a contest, and by judgment and tact it 
 was found possible, to his great satisfaction, to 
 propose a Board which was generally acceptable. 
 He was chosen Chairman, and entered on his duties 
 with great interest, continuing them almost to the 
 last week of his life, when prostrated by his fatal 
 illness. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 45 
 
 For twenty-two years Mr. Dickinson filled the 
 office of Chairman of the Board of Guardians. 
 How he worked in this department is described 
 in the following letter from Mr. Chas. Playne, 
 himself an active Poor Law Guardian : 
 
 Dear Mrs. Dickinson, 
 
 I beg to thank you for the opportunity you have 
 afforded me of bearing my testimony to the admirable 
 manner in which Mr. Dickinson discharged the duties of 
 Chairman of the Stroud Board of Guardians. 
 
 When Mr. David Ricardo, owing to failure of health, 
 resigned the office in 1856, there was no member of the 
 Board attending its meetings possessed of the qualifications 
 of a good chairman, or, possessing them, was desirous of 
 filling the office ; and Mr. Thos. Skinner, then, as now, 
 Vice-Chairman and senior member of the Board, was com- 
 missioned to invite your father to accept the post. Your 
 father declined it, but at the same time he stated that there 
 was a gentleman lately come from India, who had settled in 
 Painswick parish, possessed of legal acquirements and of 
 great business capacity, with leisure time at his disposal, 
 who had already evinced his readiness to place those talents 
 at the public service, and was in all respects fitted for the 
 position ; and Mr. Dickinson having expressed his willingness 
 to accept it, it was arranged that he should be chosen as a 
 parish Guardian at the approaching election ; and the Board 
 of Guardians, at their first meeting after the election, unani- 
 mously appointed him their Chairman. That they were 
 well satisfied with their choice was evidenced by their 
 continuing to appoint him in each succeeding year of his life. 
 Before the expiration of his first year as a Guardian he was 
 made a Magistrate, and he thenceforth took his place amongst 
 us as an ex officio member of the Board. He at once threw 
 
46 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 himself into the work, and soon made himself acquainted 
 with the routine discharge of the duties of his office, and 
 the Board found that they had obtained a diligent worker, 
 who kept the business well in hand, and did not allow time 
 to be wasted in the discussion of extraneous matters. He 
 seldom had recourse to a division of the Board, in order to 
 come to a decision as to the mode of dealing with the 
 applications made for relief, generally gathering the opinion 
 of the members from the observations made. It is almost 
 needless to say that theological and political views were 
 allowed no place in influencing our decisions. 
 
 Mr. Dickinson sought to enforce the carrying out of the 
 principle of the Poor Law, namely, that relief shall only be 
 given to the really destitute, and that too in such a way that 
 others may be induced to strive, by industry and thrift, to 
 avoid becoming the recipients of public alms ; he was, 
 therefore, in doubtful cases, in favor of using the workhouse 
 as a test of the actual destitution of the applicants, but often 
 he allowed his sympathy with the sufferers to override the 
 strict rules of political economy ; and the general unwilling- 
 ness of Guardians to press hardly on their neighbours when 
 in distress, led to a less rigid observance of the rules he 
 would fain have enforced than is, in the permanent interest 
 of the community, to be desired. 
 
 There was one slight drawback to his efficiency as a 
 Chairman, and that was, that his voice was not strong; and 
 thus it was at times difficult for those seated at a distance to 
 follow all his remarks. Mr. Dickinson did not confine his 
 attention to the discharge of the duties of Chairman by 
 presiding at our weekly meetings, but showed that he felt 
 them to extend to all points which tended to the efficiency 
 of the work of the Board. If an office was vacant, he 
 took much pains in the examination of the testimonials of 
 candidates, and made written enquiries, where information 
 was to be had, in order to obtain the services of those best 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 47 
 
 fitted to carry out the work devolving on them. He was a 
 most diligent visitor at the workhouse, being at the meetings 
 of the Visiting Committee nearly every week, and was 
 familiar with all the details of the work there. 
 
 When Mr. Dickinson was elected M.P. for Stroud, in 
 anticipation of his being prevented from giving the regular 
 attendance at our Board which he had hitherto done, I was 
 at his suggestion appointed as a second vice-Chairman, to 
 serve in case of need, and I was thus brought in more 
 constant communication with him, both personally and by 
 correspondence, and 1 learned still further to respect him 
 for his self-denying labours ; and I have to thank him for 
 the confidence with which he treated me up to the time 
 when I saw him a sufferer on a sick couch. 
 
 The passing of the Sanitary and Elementary Education 
 Acts threw much additional work and responsibility on 
 Boards of Guardians. Mr Dickinson entered on these duties 
 with great energy, and sought by carefully-considered rules 
 to get them thoroughly carried out. Much has been done, 
 but still probably the results have fallen short of what he 
 hoped for. As regards sanitary reform, the difficulty has 
 been great of moving in advance of the general intelligence 
 of the community ; the ratepayers, and many guardians also, 
 could see that sanitary reform meant, at any rate in the first 
 instance, increased rates, whilst the promised advantages 
 were in their opinion problematical. And so, as to improved 
 and enforced education of the working classes, there are 
 still many, here also some guardians may be included, who 
 think that such is not required by those who are dependent 
 for subsistence on their daily toil ; and thus it has come to 
 pass that the working of the Acts by the Board has devolved 
 on a small number only of its members. Still a commence- 
 ment has been made, of which the practical working is on 
 the lines laid down by Mr. Dickinson. 
 
48 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 In conclusion, I may state, that great grief was expressed 
 and much sympathy felt for Mr. Dickinson when we were 
 informed, alas too truly, that his health was seriously 
 impaired, and that we were about to lose his able and 
 friendly guidance, a grief which is still felt by 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 Chas. Playne. 
 
 The branch of sanitary reform, relating to the 
 better carrying out of the laws for enforcing 
 Vaccination, was a subject to which he began to 
 devote himself as early as 1858, when he corres- 
 ponded with most of the medical men in the 
 Union in order to learn their advice and opinion, 
 and afterwards printed a short paper on the subject, 
 at the time when the Amendment of the Act was 
 being considered in Parliament.^ 
 
 The well-being of the children in the Union 
 schools was a point to which he directed his 
 attention. Nothing pleased him more than to give 
 them a little amusement, by exhibiting his magic 
 lantern on a winter’s evening, or by asking them to 
 his grounds in the summer. On these latter 
 
 °In connection with this subject of Yaccination, may be noted an 
 incident illustrative of his promptness in devising practical expedients 
 to meet emergencies. A sudden outbreak of small-pox occurred in the 
 Union Workhouse, where within a few days there were upwards of 
 thirty cases. From the want of a separate building, and the consequent 
 impossibility of isolating the sick, there seemed every probability of the 
 disease spreading throughout the house, when Mr. Dickinson bethought 
 him of applying to the War Office for some hospital tents. This was 
 at once acted on ; within a few days the tents were there, the sick 
 removed into them, and not one fresh case afterwards appeared. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 49 
 
 occasions he would frequently invite several of the 
 neighbouring schools, and these large gatherings 
 at Brown’s Hill must be always looked back upon 
 with much pleasure by his own family, who can 
 remember the great enjoyment they afforded to 
 himself, and how whatever success attended them 
 was owing to his own power of organization, and 
 the personal trouble he bestowed in carrying out 
 his arrangements. 
 
 As a magistrate, Mr. Dickinson took his share of 
 regular visits to the County Asylum, the Prison, 
 the Reformatory, &c. How much his visits were 
 appreciated and his presence missed, in one of the 
 great Institutions, where for many years he 
 attended weekly, is kindly expressed in the 
 following letter from Dr. Needham, the Super- 
 intendent of the Barnwood House Asylum : 
 
 Barnwood House, Gloucester. 
 
 Dear Mrs. Dickinson, 
 
 You are kind enough to wish me to give some particulars 
 of Mr. Dickinson’s connection with this Institution, and I 
 am very glad indeed to have the opportunity of doing so. 
 
 Mr. Dickinson’s connection with this Institution dated 
 from its commencement, and I know that throughout he 
 rendered most valuable services, both in its establishment 
 and subsequent management. 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 I was associated with him as its Superintendent only from 
 the time of my appointment in 1874, but I saw much of him 
 on his frequent visits, and in all my difficulties on entering 
 on a new sphere of work, had the benefit of his constant 
 counsel and support. 
 
 It needed no lengthened experience to discover that in 
 him the Committee had a Chairman of no ordinary capacity, 
 and that a Superintendent would find him to be both a keen 
 observer and critic, and a wise and faithful counsellor. I 
 found him to be these, and far more than these ; he was a 
 most kind and sympathising friend, and I could go to him 
 feeling certain of receiving wise and kindly help in any 
 difficulty, and a generous forbearance in criticism. A quality 
 in him, which especially struck me, was his great and 
 uniform reliability. 
 
 His knowledge of the patients was most extensive and 
 accurate, and his manner towards them sympathetic and 
 pleasing ; and I know from many of them that they felt that 
 they possessed in him a friend, who cared for their troubles, 
 and was interested in whatever had an interest for them. 
 He had a wonderful memory for detail, and an inexhaustible 
 capacity for concentrated work ; and whatever he did in 
 connection with this Institution, he did as thoroughly as if 
 it was the only occupation which claimed his attention. He 
 never seemed to tire, and he set everyone, with whom he was 
 brought in contact, an example of honest conscientious work 
 which could not fail to stimulate them, or shame them into 
 an endeavour to discharge their duties in accordance with 
 the principles by which he was evidently actuated. 
 
 His greatest pleasure seemed to consist in giving pleasure 
 to others, especially to those upon whom was laid the burden 
 of sorrow or suffering, and it was delightful to see him, when 
 he entertained the patients at his house, join in their game 
 of tennis with all the enthusiasm of a boy, or accompany 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 51 
 
 them in a ramble through his grounds or the surrounding 
 country. He had apparently the most perfect command of 
 temper, which I have frequently seen greatly tried, but 
 never lost. 
 
 To a manner somewhat cold and reserved there was 
 united in him a very tender heart ; and when the end came, 
 and it was known that he would never be among us again, 
 all of us who could feel, felt indeed that we had lost a warm 
 true friend as well as an invaluable counsellor. 
 
 Believe me, yours sincerely, 
 Fredk. Needham. 
 
 Among the many objects occupying his time 
 and thoughts Mr. Dickinson’s special interest in 
 the Temperance cause must be noted. Perhaps, 
 next to Education, it enlisted his warmest sym- 
 pathy. Some of his views on the subject will be 
 found in a subsequent paper, taken from an address 
 written for delivery at a meeting of the United 
 Kingdom Alliance. He was not himself a Total 
 Abstainer, but was always willing to attend, or 
 preside at, meetings on this subject, considering 
 that, whether lie agreed or not in the minor details 
 of the work, all efforts to grapple with intemperance 
 were worthy of support. That legislation must be 
 forced to cope with the evil, was his strong persua- 
 sion, and for this object, when in Parliament, he 
 voted for the Permissive Bill, though with doubt 
 in the possibility of its ever becoming law. 
 
 e 2 
 
 l 
 
 \ 
 
 U, Of- ILL. LIB. 
 
52 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 Occupation, of a somewhat different character 
 from the foregoing, was afforded by a connection 
 of more than twenty years with the Stroud Volun- 
 teers. In 1860 Mr. Dickinson was appointed to 
 the command of the 5th company of the Glouces- 
 tershire Rifle Volunteers, which position he held 
 till the beginning of the year 1878, when press of 
 business and some indication of failing strength 
 caused him to retire. The interest he felt in his 
 office was well evidenced by his strict personal 
 attention to its duties, his regular attendance at 
 drill and at rifle practice, and by his constant 
 efforts to promote the efficiency of his corps. In 
 his speeches at their annual dinners, and on other 
 occasions, he often expressed his confidence in 
 the Volunteer movement, and his persuasion that 
 it might, if well worked, “ lead to placing our home 
 security on a firmer basis, and to a diminution in 
 our army estimates, and to a greater independence 
 in our relations with foreign powers.” 
 
 When Mr. Dickinson resigned his Commission 
 great regret at his retirement was evinced by all 
 the members of his Company, and there was a 
 general desire on their part to express it in some 
 public manner. Although the state of his health 
 then obliged him to decline this, yet it gratified him 
 deeply, as marking their feelings towards him. # 
 
 * After his death, a portrait in oils of Mr. Dickinson was “ presented 
 to Mrs. Dickinson, by past and present members of the 5th G. R.Y., in 
 memory of their late Captain.” 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 53 
 
 Mr. Dickinson commenced his political career 
 somewhat late in life. Anglo-Indians generally, 
 of his date, felt but little interest in Imperial 
 politics, and he returned from India without, as 
 he often remarked, having ever considered such 
 subjects at all. His father’s family being Conser- 
 vative, he had, on his arrival in England, joined 
 the Conservative Club, and settled down in the 
 country with the impression, and reputation, of 
 being what was called a Liberal Conservative. 
 
 It was then a period free from political excite- 
 ment throughout the country, and for ten years 
 he took no public political action, beyond recording 
 his vote once or twice in favor of the sitting 
 members for the Borough, Messrs. Scrope and 
 Horseman, on the ground that they fairly repre- 
 sented a large majority of the constituency. But 
 during these years he had naturally been acquiring 
 some insight into social and political questions; 
 he began to feel strongly that a vote is a trust, to 
 be exercised to the best of a man’s ability, and to 
 devote attention to the study of such subjects. 
 And when, in 1867, there was an election at Stroud, 
 consequent on Mr. Scrope’s retirement from the 
 representation, Mr. Dickinson’s convictions led 
 him to support the Liberal candidate. He writes 
 about this time : 
 
 While the Liberalism of some has been waning of late 
 years mine has advanced, and I feel that the true policy of 
 
54 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 this country is a progressive one, and that a Liberal GoveTn- 
 ment alone is fitted to carry out such a policy consistently, 
 frankly and systematically. 
 
 During the following year, when a general 
 election was impending, and there was a question 
 as to his coming forward as a candidate, he thus 
 alludes to his political views : 
 
 In our days we cannot altogether steer clear of politics, 
 and by degrees we find ourselves joining one or other of the 
 great political parties, between which the nation may be said 
 to be divided. In our social gatherings, among all classes, 
 political questions are always rising to the surface, and it is 
 amusing to see with what assurance men will decide, over 
 their pot of beer or their glass of wine, the most difficult 
 political questions. I find myself frequently, round the 
 dinner table, laying down dogmatically the law on questions 
 which I have studied but little, if at all. But it is in these 
 very discussions that we find the divergence of parties, even 
 when they relate to questions above, one might say, the 
 sphere of politics. The American Civil War might, one 
 should think, be discussed quite apart from political parties ; 
 the Jamaica Insurrection might, one would have thought, 
 be discussed in a spirit of judicial impartiality ; the question 
 of Education seems one essentially above party coloring ; 
 the best Law of Succession to Land might surely be argued 
 by Liberal and Conservative without getting involved in 
 party disputes and crimination. But my experience is, that, 
 in almost every question of social interest, the spirit of party 
 enters, clouds the judgment, and interferes with conciliatory 
 and catholic settlement. 
 
 It is thus impossible to mix with the world actively, 
 without joining one or other of the political parties, almost 
 without study or intention. And this has been very much 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 00 
 
 my own case. I have abstained from politics in the 
 Borough, but when, on the late election, it became a question 
 whether a representative should be returned to support a 
 Liberal, or Conservative, Government, I did not ask myself 
 whether all the opinions of Mr. Winterbotham were in 
 accordance with my own, but I gave him my support as a 
 Liberal, and a supporter of a Liberal Administration, and I 
 am fully prepared to cast in my lot with the Liberal party, 
 and not with the Conservatives. 
 
 The Disestablishment of the Irish Church was 
 the leading question of the day, and he thus writes 
 of Ireland : 
 
 It is easy, and somewhat the habit of those who declaim 
 on the wrongs of Ireland, to enter upon the history of 
 the past, and rouse the passions by an examination of the 
 wrongs heaped on the Irish by the legislation of a conquering 
 party. I think it is undesirable to rake up the past ; we 
 have enough of the spirit of antagonism in the present to 
 overcome and conciliate, without stirring the embers of past 
 animosities. The past has left sores which we must try to 
 heal — it has created feelings which we can scarcely under- 
 stand ; but we shall not render the task of reconciliation 
 easier by encouraging, on the one side, an exaggerated and 
 morbid clinging to past grievances and making capital of 
 them, or on the other, by too high handed a disregard of the 
 feelings of the dominant party. 
 
 Ireland is a nation divided into two hostile camps ; the 
 Protestant party representing, in a great measure, its wealth, 
 its ease and its intelligence ; and the Catholics, its numbers, 
 its poverty, its ignorance, and its laborious and ill-paid 
 industry ; each ranged under the banner of opposing 
 theological creeds. There seems but one point on which 
 both parties are agreed, and that is, in a mutual animosity 
 
56 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 and desire to come into collision and fight it out. Each 
 seems ready to trail its coat on the ground for the other to 
 tread on ; each refusing to be reconciled, and encouraging 
 no advance from any mediator, but branding every reformer 
 as an enemy, who will listen to the claims of the opposing 
 party. In this state of things, if we cannot allay the 
 passions, it is wiser to pass them unheeded, and deal 
 with the arguments and prejudices of each. For in these 
 discussions, prejudices even, which excite such strong 
 passions, should be, within certain limits, respected. 
 
 Two or three other short extracts may be given 
 illustrative of his views on entering Parliamentary 
 life : 
 
 There are but few men qualified to take a prominent part 
 in Parliament, or to grapple with those great questions 
 which call for the higher powers of statesmanship, and 
 range the two great political parties in battle array. I 
 cannot aspire to any such distinction ; my place would 
 be among the rank and file, under the Liberal banner and 
 the leadership of Mr Gladstone ; but there is plenty of 
 useful work to be done in a less exciting and conspicuous 
 field ; to watch the general legislation of Parliament, with a 
 view of securing equal justice to all classes, of preventing 
 exceptional laws, and of preserving the boundary between 
 civil and criminal wrongs ; to simplify and improve the 
 laws relating to the tenure, alienation and succession of 
 land, and those affecting associations for commercial, provi- 
 dent, social, and other purposes ; to simplify and improve 
 railway legislation ; to provide for the more general and 
 effectual education of the middle and lower classes of 
 society ; to remedy the evils arising from gang labour ; to 
 secure freedom of action and fair dealing between employers 
 and employed ; to check the public expenditure and reduce 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 57 
 
 taxation ; to improve the organization and increase the 
 strength and efficiency of onr volunteers, and thus eventually 
 reduce our standing army. Such are some of the subjects, 
 to say nothing of questions of colonial and foreign policy, 
 and the Government of our Indian Empire, which will 
 provide a Member of Parliament with abundant and useful 
 occupation. 
 
 I am averse to canvassing and asking personally for votes. 
 It is almost impossible to ask for a vote without conveying 
 the impression that the person asked will offend by a 
 refusal ; thus a pressure is exercised on a voter which inter- 
 feres with the free exercise of his will. 
 
 The Irish Church and Land Questions press for early settle- 
 ment. I think such questions are more legitimately the pro- 
 vince of Government, and that a Liberal Government is bound 
 to take them in hand, and would do so earnestly and in a 
 proper spirit ; and that the Liberal party should support the 
 measures which may be devised by the statesmen at their 
 head. Members of Parliament cannot give studied votes on 
 all questions ; and therefore, I think, a member should on 
 such questions vote with his party. I would however on no 
 account assist in a mere factious opposition of which I fear 
 sometimes the leaders of parties are guilty. 
 
 The election of 1868 resulted in the return of 
 himself and Mr. H. Winterbotham as members 
 
58 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S S. DICKINSON 
 
 for Stroud, and for the ensuing five years, his 
 parliamentary duties, carried out, as may be 
 supposed, with his usual punctuality and method, 
 occupied a good deal of Mr. Dickinson’s time and 
 attention, not however to the relinquishment of 
 much, if any, of his country avocations. 
 
 His parliamentary career was short, but it was 
 during a period of great political activity. Many 
 great measures were introduced and carried 
 during the existence of that Parliament, and 
 he entered with deep interest into the progress 
 of the Irish Church Bill, the Education Act, and 
 other important legislation. He occasionally spoke 
 on subjects he had well considered, but his want 
 of voice prevented his being an effective speaker, 
 and he never attempted to take any prominent 
 part in debate, being satisfied with being, what he 
 called, a working member, watching carefully the 
 course of debates, and always ready to serve on 
 Committees when required. 
 
 Mr. H. Winterbotham’s premature death, and 
 the consequent election and Conservative victory, 
 was the beginning of a year of great political 
 excitement and turmoil in the Borough of Stroud, 
 which lead to a series of petitions and elections. 
 Party feeling ran high, and electioneering tactics 
 were brought strongly into play. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 59 
 
 Electioneering tactics were peculiarly distasteful 
 to Mr. Dickinson, and still more so party animosity 
 and rancour, and when shortly after his re-election, 
 he and his colleague, Mr. W. Stanton, were un- 
 seated on petition, he withdrew as much as 
 possible from the political strife around him. 
 If he felt any regret at the loss of his seat, 
 it was very small compared with his sense of, 
 what he deemed, the humiliation of having to 
 come forward to swear he had not been guilty of 
 dishonourable practices. 
 
 The following summer he was appointed Chair- 
 man of Quarter Sessions. He had for some years 
 occupied the place of Chairman of the Second 
 Court, and was now elected to succeed to the 
 office which was rendered vacant by the lamented 
 death of Mr. Curtis Hayward. This gave him 
 occupation thoroughly congenial to him, and for 
 his few remaining years, Mr. Dickinson devoted 
 himself earnestly to the County business thus 
 devolving on him. 
 
 We have now glanced slightly over the field of 
 his public work. Beyond this, it must be remem- 
 bered that what he was in public, still more was 
 
60 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 he in private life — the ever helpful friend — the 
 wise and kindly adviser. On business matters he 
 was the constant referee among a large circle of 
 relations and friends, and the number of these 
 who committed their affairs to his charge was 
 remarkable. 
 
 Sebastian Dickinson was a man of few words or 
 professions ; he entered, perhaps, less than most 
 people into the theological controversies of the 
 day ; but the great principles of duty to God and 
 man were ever paramount in his mind and traceable 
 in his conduct. None who associated with him 
 could fail to observe how the spirit of Christianity 
 was evidenced in his daily life ; how considerations 
 of duty prevailed over those of personal gratifica- 
 tion ; how he was ready to do any service, small or 
 great, for those around him, whatever trouble it 
 might cost ; and how considerate he was of the 
 convenience of others. 
 
 A reference to Christ’s Golden Rule was mostly 
 his solution for vexed questions of conduct from 
 man to man. “ How should you like it yourself?” 
 he would say, when consulted on small matters 
 affecting the convenience of his household ; and 
 so, in great questions bearing on the interests of 
 classes, denominations, or nations, his constant 
 argument would be, “In their place we should 
 not, ourselves, like such treatment.” 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 61 
 
 He was most averse to hearing uncharitable 
 judgments on others, and especially disliked the 
 imputing of evil motives ; in his own practice 
 adhering to the sentiments he had thus ex- 
 pressed : 
 
 It may be, that to ascribe the purer motives, is to attribute 
 to human nature in general, greater excellence than it actually 
 possesses ; but it is to err on the right side, and I, for one, 
 think that, under an enormous mass of selfishness, there is 
 much of charity and love towards our fellows, in mankind 
 in general. We recognise this in ourselves, and shall we 
 venture to call ourselves better than our neighbours ? 
 
 It has been well written of Mr. Dickinson : 
 
 “One marked trait in his character was the judicial impar- 
 tiality of his mind. Is such a thing fair between the two ? 
 Is it just ? were questions often on his lips, and still oftener 
 in his heart, and it will be readily understood how this 
 quality enabled him to accommodate in many instances the 
 jealousies and conflicting interests of religious parties, and 
 to arbitrate in not a few private disputes.” 
 
 Among the papers now printed in this volume 
 will be found a few extracts from prayers and 
 meditations written by him for family or private 
 use. These are given because they seem so 
 clearly to illustrate the motives of his life and 
 actions ; or rather to show how his life was illus- 
 trative of the principles and sentiments they 
 express. 
 
62 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 Of his home life there is little incident to 
 record. His tastes were thoroughly domestic ; 
 his enjoyments centred in his family and in the 
 home which his own sweet temper and tender 
 love made so bright and happy ; and the years 
 passed peacefully over him, no great change 
 occurring, and his immediate home circle 
 remaining unbroken till the time that his own call 
 came. 
 
 In the spring of 1878 it became apparent that 
 a serious malady had seized him. Three sad 
 months of suffering and anxiety ensued, during 
 which no murmur ever escaped him ; no expression 
 of impatience was ever heard from his lips, 
 though sickness and feebleness must have been 
 a terrible trial to one hitherto so strong and self- 
 reliant. Apparently, he felt that he should not 
 recover, and carefully arranged, as far as he could, 
 many small matters of business; but those around 
 him little deemed the end was near. 
 
 On the 23rd of August he rapidly became much 
 worse, and before the end of the day was taken 
 to his rest. 
 
 Of the blank left in his home it were vain to 
 speak. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 63 
 
 In a wide circle beyond it his death was 
 regarded as a public loss and sincerely mourned. 
 It was a deeply solemn scene when hundreds of 
 friends and neighbours assembled to show the 
 last mark of affection and respect to his memory 
 by following him to his grave in the cemetery on 
 Painswick Hill, where he was interred on Thursday, 
 August 28, 1878. 
 
 In the words of one of the many preachers who 
 in church and chapel alluded on the ensuing 
 Sunday to his life and death : “ He is gone now, 
 his task is over, his work accomplished, his battle 
 fought. We thank God for him.” 
 

PAPERS 
 
 BY 
 
 S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 p 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 67 
 
 ON EDUCATION. 
 
 FROM A SPEECH WRITTEN ON THE OCCASION OF A MEETING 
 FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SCIENCE CLASSES. 
 
 At the present time education is undoubtedly 
 the subject of great and hearty interest, at least 
 among the educated classes throughout the 
 country. The time has not yet arrived when 
 we can say with truth that it has established 
 for itself a place in the hearts of the people ; 
 when that time shall arrive, a very great advance 
 will have been made in the material, moral and 
 intellectual happiness and welfare of the country. 
 In the meantime, those who appreciate its value, 
 must be content to work even against opposition 
 and prejudice, which however become from day 
 to day less powerful, and must in time yield to 
 the onward progress of events. 
 
 We must not expect anything like a universal 
 system of education until the popular mind has 
 become conscious of its intellectual wants, and 
 feels its poverty, and is warmed with an earnest 
 desire to satisfy these wants. The consciousness 
 of want developes the desire of possession, and 
 that desire once excited finds the means to attain 
 its gratification. 
 f 2 
 
68 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 That the popular mind will in the course of a 
 few generations advance to th&i knowledge of its 
 wants, I, for one, think it heresy to doubt. The 
 progress of truth, though slow, is sure. That it 
 has been slow the past history of man will readily 
 prove, though the proof of its progress is not 
 perhaps so palpable. I believe, however, firmly 
 in the ultimate triumph of truth over error, good 
 over evil ; and I also believe that the law of 
 progress is one of those simple laws which mark 
 the Divine Government of the world, and by 
 which the victorious march of truth will be mani- 
 fested, subject only to the impediments which the 
 opposition of evil, and the power which the human 
 mind, through ignorance, and to its own destruc- 
 tion, allows the evil principle to exercise over it, 
 may from time to time present. 
 
 In this progress each one of us is arrayed for good 
 or evil, and it is right that we should remember every 
 one of us, whatever his station, that, for the good or 
 evil which pervades society, he is in a large degree 
 individually responsible. Society is an aggregate of 
 individuals, and the laws and habits of society are 
 the reflection and expression of the feelings of the 
 individuals who compose it. It is a step gained in 
 the right direction when a man feels the real dignity 
 of his nature, the important part which he performs 
 in the work of society, and the responsibility which 
 attaches to his position. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 69 
 
 And what is the law of progress % the law of 
 education ; and I see in its simplicity and univer- 
 sality all the attributes which especially distinguish 
 the Divine Lawgiver, and mark every rule of His 
 code, so far as we have been permitted to read 
 and understand it. Look at the law of gravitation, 
 which preserves the planets in their orbits, and 
 regulates their motions ; look at the laws which 
 define their course in those orbits. These may all 
 be stated in a few words, and yet by these, may 
 the planets and the earth be weighed as in a 
 balance, and their position foretold for any time. 
 By these, may such eccentric travellers as that 
 weird visitant — whose tail of golden light, circling 
 a large arc of our heavens, was of late so gorgeous 
 and attractive a spectacle to our world — be traced 
 through the trackless depths of boundless space, 
 in its long journey of 2,000 years, ere it again 
 returns to awe and to delight the inhabitants of 
 earth. Think too of the laws of life. Six short 
 words contain all the law and the prophets — Love 
 to God, and, Love to man. Simple and universal 
 as are these laws, centuries elapsed ere a Kepler 
 or a Newton rightly interpreted Nature, and it 
 required a direct revelation from God to proclaim 
 the last. 
 
 And of this great code, by which man’s life is 
 to be regulated, and his destiny fulfilled in time 
 and eternity, the law of education is an integral 
 
70 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 part. Believing then in the Divine authority of 
 this law, I pay no heed to those objections which 
 some years ago were loudly uttered, and even 
 now find a few stray advocates, who would still 
 impede the march of education or limit its 
 extension ; and I am willing to wait while it 
 proves its inherent authority by its successful 
 progress. These objections remind me of the 
 fears that some entertained that the same comet, 
 to which I have alluded, was so insecurely bound 
 by the chain of attraction to our sun, that the 
 wonderful velocity, which it acquired as it neared 
 that luminary, should force it from our system 
 without guide or compass into the abyss of space. 
 But man’s puny fears were thrown away, for true 
 to its course and the laws which regulate it, it 
 rushed with mighty speed round the sun, and 
 bidding us farewell, as a dissolving view, passed 
 on its appointed way to realms beyond our 
 sight 
 
 If we look at man, even without the light of 
 Revelation, we see that the law of his nature 
 requires the exercise and cultivation and develop- 
 ment and discipline, in other words, the education, 
 of all his powers and faculties of body, of mind, 
 and soul ; and we may fearlessly assert that, 
 by the steady and constant exercise of all his 
 powers, can he alone work out .the happiness of 
 the individual or of society. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 71 
 
 Human wisdom will arrogate to itself a right of 
 interpreting this law, of modifying it, of adapting 
 it to what it may consider to be the requirements 
 of the age, of dividing society into classes — 
 giving an undue importance to one element of 
 man’s nature, and sometimes ignoring the others — 
 of denying to the laboring man the privileges of 
 his intellectual nature, and confining him to his 
 task — drudgery ; careless almost of his moral 
 wants, if only the ground be tilled and the factory 
 worked. It forgets that nature will provide for 
 the material wants of society by the distribution 
 of its gifts to man, without requiring him to be 
 a traitor to himself, or relieving him from the 
 responsibility of educating and elevating, to the 
 utmost of his means, all his natural powers. Or 
 if one could conceive that the intellectual powers 
 of man could so thin the ranks of labor as to 
 justify a fear that there should be a deficit of 
 labour to meet the material necessities of man- 
 kind, is there not the wide and still imperfectly 
 developed range of mechanical agency and applied 
 science, ready to supply the ranks of the workman, 
 and to yield to man an instrument of labor more 
 in sympathy with his nature, as it requires and 
 elicits an intelligent superintendence. 
 
 But to us, who have the light of Revelation — to us 
 who acknowledge the laws of individual responsi- 
 bility as applicable to man — to us who have heard 
 
72 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 the doctrine proclaimed by a Divine Preacher that 
 every gift to man is a talent entrusted to him by 
 God, for the exercise of which he is responsible to 
 the full extent of his ability and opportunities — 
 no argument is necessary to establish the duty of 
 self-education, or of charity to meet the intellec- 
 tual and moral wants of our neighbour; no fear 
 can be entertained that the fullest development 
 of each man’s powers can lead to evil — that any 
 mistake can be made in furthering to the utmost 
 of our ability the moral and intellectual training 
 of the working man. 
 
 Nor is education a hot-house plant, to be 
 cherished, and nursed and coddled. We need 
 not entice the working man to use his intellectual 
 powers, nor need we preach to him, as a moralist, 
 and shame him to it. No : that assistance which 
 man may and should give to man in his endeavours 
 to advance himself — that encouragement which 
 should always be ready to oppose good to evil — 
 these and such aids may well be given. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 73 
 
 THE BEST MODE OF CARRYING OUT 
 ELEMENTARY EDUCATION, 
 
 IN ITS RELIGIOUS AND GENERAL ASPECTS. 
 
 READ AT THE DIOCESAN CONFERENCE HELD AT GLOUCESTER 
 Tuesday, 22nd October, 1872. 
 
 The terms in which the question is proposed 
 represent Elementary Education as divisible into 
 two branches— religious and general — and suggest 
 that a different mode of instruction may be applied 
 to each. This is in a sense true. In teaching 
 the elements of general knowledge, the bodily 
 and mental powers of the child are exercised, but 
 religion must find its way to the heart ; and the 
 personal influence and example of the teacher are 
 important elements of instruction. If the teacher 
 and pupils are of the same religious persuasion 
 the answer to the question proposed is found in 
 the personal qualifications of the teacher to impart 
 instruction, general and religious. The question 
 propounded is not, however, of this simple charac- 
 ter, but the more difficult and complex one, viz., 
 the best mode of securing for the children of the 
 poor a good, general and religious education. 
 
74 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 But what is meant by religion ? Is it the religion 
 of the Church of England — the religion professed 
 by any denomination in connection with which any 
 particular school may be maintained ? or is it the 
 religion professed by the parents of the child to 
 be taught ? Again, is it a term of the problem 
 that all the children should be instructed in 
 religion, or a part only ? I assume that the object 
 to be attained is the education of every child, both 
 in general and religious subjects — the religious 
 instruction being in harmony with the religious 
 opinions of the parents. The question then is, 
 how may that education be best carried out \ Any 
 suggestion, to be of practical value, should proceed 
 on the existing state of things and system of 
 schools in this country, as regulated by the 
 Elementary Education Act of 1870, for though 
 amendments may be effected in that Act, any 
 fundamental change in its principles - were it 
 even desirable— is not likely to be made. 
 
 In the case of parents who can pay for the edu- 
 cation of their children, the problem solves itself. 
 The duty being acknowledged and fulfilled, there 
 is no occasion for the State to interfere, even to the 
 extent of declaring the duty, and seeing that it is 
 performed. In the case of parents who cannot 
 pay, the State assists in defraying the cost of 
 education, affirms the parental duty, and dele- 
 gates to the locality the power of declaring that 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 75 
 
 education shall be compulsory when a due provision 
 of schools is made. In the case of paying parents 
 the child is either educated at a boarding school, 
 where education in general and religious subjects 
 is provided, or in a day school or class in which 
 general subjects are for the most part taught, and 
 the religious education is provided for at home. 
 
 In the case of the poor the boarding school 
 system — except in workhouses— is inapplicable. 
 The education in general subjects must be in a 
 day school, and except in populous places where 
 several schools are found there is no choice, there 
 being but one school for all. But is not the home 
 available for the poor child, as well as the rich, for 
 religious teaching? I fear that for the purpose of 
 this discussion, I must assume that other provisions 
 must be made for religious teaching than the 
 home affords. 
 
 Such being the terms of the problem, what are 
 the means and agencies, pecuniary and human, 
 by which this education must be carried out ? 
 The school, apart from the home, is the place 
 in which education in both branches is to be 
 provided. To secure a good school, a good teacher 
 seems to be the sole requisite ; but to secure a 
 good teacher, and to insure his work being 
 efficiently done, a good board of management 
 is necessary, and to make the school successful, 
 
76 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 the management and the teaching should com- 
 mand the confidence and meet the legitimate 
 requirements of the parents. The expense of 
 education in excess of the parents’ payment is 
 supplemented from two sources — the one impe- 
 rial, the Government grant — the other local, viz., 
 voluntary contribution, or rate. The imperial 
 contribution is confined to the teaching of general 
 subjects, and its due application is secured by 
 Government inspection. The religious teaching 
 is left to the locality and to local funds. 
 
 If, then, as assumed, the religious education of 
 the poor will be at least defective, unless some 
 provision is made for it other than the parents’ 
 home, the question is how is the religious education 
 of the children, for whom the school provides 
 elementary general education, to be secured. If 
 the school only teaches religion to a portion of the 
 children, or teaches it in a form unacceptable to 
 the parents of a portion — a portion of the children 
 must remain untaught, and the school fails in an 
 important part of its work. Any proposal to 
 extend the ordinary school hours for the purpose 
 of teaching a class religious subjects, or of appro- 
 priating any part of Saturday for such a purpose, 
 would probably be objected to by the teachers, 
 and would fail, unless volunteer teachers will 
 undertake the work. On the ordinary school day 
 the time devoted to learning is probably as much 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 77 
 
 as a child can bear, and the Saturday special 
 attendance would probably be irregular. 
 
 I assume that the religious teaching of the day 
 school will be supplemented by Sunday schools 
 and other voluntary teaching, the value and effici- 
 ency of which depend on the agencies by whom 
 they will be carried out. I do not purpose entering 
 on this branch of the inquiry, but will confine 
 myself to the question how religious education 
 may be best carried out in our day schools, governed 
 as they are by the Conscience Clause ; and my 
 suggestions will be made on the lines of our existing 
 schools, and to avoid prolixity I will confine myself 
 to our national schools. Our national schools have 
 been almost universally established in connection 
 with the National Society, and are subject to the 
 following laws, viz. : — The incumbent has the 
 superintendence of the religious and moral teaching 
 of all the scholars. The incumbent and any curate 
 he nominates, are ex-officio members of the 
 committee of management, the incumbent being 
 chairman. The teacher, and each member of the 
 committee of management, must be a member of 
 the Church of England. 
 
 These conditions involve the following conse- 
 quences : The supplementary funds, beyond the 
 Government grant and children’s fees, must be 
 sought from a part only of the residents. You 
 
78 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 cannot ask a Dissenter to subscribe to an insti- 
 tution from the management of which he is 
 excluded. The committee take no interest in 
 the school, and exercise no superintendence over 
 its conduct. It is left to the incumbent. The 
 teacher is under the incumbent, and the school 
 becomes in fact the incumbent’s school. 
 
 On each of these heads a change appears to me 
 desirable, at least so far as the day school is 
 concerned. The Sunday school may be managed 
 and paid for separately, and on exclusive terms. 
 
 1. As to subscriptions. The education of the 
 poor concerns the whole locality. If funds are 
 required, all should, according to their ability, 
 subscribe to them. If voluntary subscriptions fail 
 recourse must be had to the rates, which fall on 
 all alike. 
 
 2. As to management. When the funds are 
 subscribed, the management should be co-exten- 
 sive with the subscription. But the managing 
 body have, in addition, the funds contributed by 
 the Government and by the children’s fees. 
 These funds are contributed irrespective of reli- 
 gious opinion. The Government are satisfied, 
 so far as their contribution is concerned, with 
 inspection and control. The parents accepting 
 pecuniary aid towards their children’s education 
 may be held to forfeit any right to a voice in 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 79 
 
 electing the managers ; but it should be open to 
 all to contribute, and the qualification to serve on 
 the committee should be a pecuniary and not a 
 religious one. 
 
 Again, it is important that the constitution of 
 the committee should be a guarantee that the 
 teaching of the school, especially in religious 
 subjects, will not offend the religious convictions 
 of any of the parents, so that they should have no 
 hesitation in sending their children to school. 
 Means should be taken to secure that the religious 
 teaching is efficient. These means are supervision 
 and periodical examinations, the supervision being 
 a constant process by the committee of manage- 
 ment, and the examinations, at annual intervals, to 
 test the teaching ; but such examinations must be 
 so conducted as not to offend the religious con- 
 victions of the locality. As a general rule it 
 appears to me that it would be well each year to 
 select certain portions of the Bible, and some 
 religious book containing hymns or devotional 
 poetry and prose as the subject of study and 
 examination, excluding catechisms and formularies, 
 which may be relegated to Sunday school and 
 volunteer teaching. 
 
 It is essential to the success of such a scheme 
 that the committee of management should repre- 
 sent the opinions of the parish, and no incumbent 
 
80 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 or other person should have any official status or 
 greater power than any other member on the 
 committee. 
 
 3. The teacher should be appointed by the 
 committee with reference simply to his qualification 
 for the office. Religious and moral defects are a 
 disqualification, but religious opinions should not 
 so operate. As a general rule he should be inter- 
 fered with as little as possible by the committee, 
 and never by one member only, unless authorised 
 by the committee. His independence is an 
 important element of success. The children’s 
 attendance at school should be compulsory. If a 
 parish school be conducted and maintained by 
 voluntary agency and contributions on as broad a 
 basis as a school board school, I see no reason why 
 attendance should not be compulsory ; but if the 
 only school in a parish is the school of the 
 clergyman, or there being several, every school is 
 denominational, the teachers and managers being 
 members of a particular denomination, compulsion 
 would, I think, be improper. 
 
 My answer, then, to the question, “ What is the 
 best mode of carrying out elementary education 
 in its religious and general aspects ” is : 
 
 1. To convert our existing national schools into 
 parish schools, by abolishing all qualifications, 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 81 
 
 except subscription of a certain amount, for being 
 a member of the managing committee. 
 
 2. By a more systematic and constant supervision 
 by the managers, and by a periodical examination, 
 to secure that the teachers do their work, and that 
 the education is efficiently given. It might be 
 well to supplement the Government inspection by 
 a local examination on general subjects, and if 
 there are local funds available for education, to 
 grant exhibitions open to competition to all the 
 elementary schools of the neighbourhood. 
 
 3. It would probably assist in making the 
 religious teaching of our elementary schools more 
 careful and efficient, if a system of examination by 
 an independent agency in religious, similar to that 
 by Government in general, subjects were established, 
 and grants were made to the school on results ; 
 but that agency should not, I think, be diocesan. 
 It should adopt the civil division of the county, 
 and not the ecclesiastical, nor should the subscrip- 
 tion be confined to members of the Chnrch of 
 England. What is required, is the religious 
 education of all the children in the district. 
 Though the Church of England may take the lead 
 in this work, it should be as prima inter pares , 
 rather than as claiming it to be its own exclusive 
 domain. It should weigh with charity and con- 
 sideration not only the convictions, but the 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 prejudices of men. Thus the examiner should 
 be a layman and not a cleric. The examination 
 should be directed to test rather the intelligent 
 understanding of the Bible than the acquisition by 
 memory of catechisms and formularies. Everybody 
 should be invited to co-operate in purse and person 
 irrespective of religious belief, and all elementary 
 schools should be competent to offer themselves 
 for examination, and to receive grants. It is the 
 interest and the wish of all that religion shall be 
 taught in our elementary schools. 
 
 The Church of England is more tolerant, by the 
 action of the laws which regulate the Established 
 Church, than any form of Dissent from its doctrines, 
 its discipline, or its Government. It is less the 
 object of jealousy to others than any one denomi- 
 nation. Its members are richer and better able to 
 assist Dissenters in advancing general and religious 
 education than Dissenters are to assist the Church. 
 It can accommodate itself to teach gospel truth 
 without offending tender consciences. It has a 
 mission higher than that of extending its form of 
 government and enforcing its creeds and formu- 
 laries, viz., that of spreading the knowledge of the 
 gospel throughout the land. It should, I venture 
 to submit, in the great cause of national education, 
 rise above a denomination or a sect, throw itself 
 unreservedly on the trust and love of the people, 
 accept the leadership with which they will gladly 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 83 
 
 invest it, throw down all barriers which, though 
 raised in the name of religion, impede the free 
 development of education, and vindicate its title 
 to be the National Church. 
 
 S. S. Dickinson. 
 
 g2 
 
84 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 MIDDLE-CLASS EDUCATION. 
 
 PROPOSAL TO RE-ORGANIZE THE GLOUCESTERSHIRE EN- 
 DOWED SCHOOLS ON THE PLAN RECOMMENDED BY 
 THE ROYAL COMMISSION. 
 
 A new educational era is opening upon the 
 country. The Royal Commissions, which reported 
 in 1861 on elementary, and in 1867 on secondary 
 education in England, have collected all the 
 materials necessary to form a sound opinion on 
 the best system to be adopted, and have offered 
 for public acceptance certain recommendations 
 for the organisation and administration of such a 
 system. The Endowed Schools Act of last Session 
 has brought all the educational endowments of the 
 country, with certain exceptions, within the reach 
 of those who are interested in the reform and re- 
 organisation of endowed schools, and the time has 
 arrived for public action to give effect to those 
 careful inquiries, those well-considered recom- 
 mendations, and that wise legislation. 
 
 Middle-cla&s Education is the subject proposed 
 for discussion at this Conference. The commis- 
 sioners could not discuss thoroughly the question 
 of secondary, without traversing the field of 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 85 
 
 elementary, education. The question naturally 
 arises whether the two subjects are not in truth 
 one. Should not the elementary school be the 
 introduction to the lowest grade of secondary 
 school? That it should be so— that there should 
 be a free mixture of classes in the same school, 
 seems most desirable. But there is in England a 
 prejudice which indisposes parents of one class to 
 send their children to a school open to children of 
 a class socially inferior. In other countries no 
 such prejudice exists. Scotland owes much of the 
 high educational position it occupies to such a 
 system. There are, too, some instances in England 
 noticed by the commissioners — Bunbury, Abbots 
 Ann, and Callington — in which a mixture of classes 
 with a graduated scale of fees works admirably. 
 
 After describing these three schools, the com- 
 missioners proceed : — “ It is impossible to read 
 these accounts without feeling how little real 
 foundation there probably is for the objections to 
 a mixture of classes, which are strong and widely 
 spread in many parts of the country. Here are 
 schools readily and gladly attended by all classes, 
 where the poor get the assistance of the Govern- 
 ment grant, and the richer pay no more than the 
 fair price of a good education. Their payments 
 both preserve the parents’ sense of independence 
 and contribute materially to the support of the 
 school. All these schools have masters who are 
 
86 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 allowed to add to their income by taking a few 
 boarders. Two, at least, are left almost entirely 
 to the master to manage ; all have been started by 
 clergymen of the Church of England, and in all 
 Dissenters allow their children freely to attend the 
 school and receive the instruction in Scripture, 
 which is all that is given on week days in Abbots 
 Ann schools, and is all that is pressed in the others. 
 The majority of the boys at Bunbury, and many at 
 Callington, are Dissenters.” 
 
 Our present arrangements for primary and 
 secondary education must, however, recognise this 
 prejudice. It may often be desirable to attach 
 schools of the 3rd grade to the existing elementary 
 schools, which are aided by Privy Council grant, 
 especially in rural districts, where the population 
 is comparatively thin. But although elementary 
 and secondary schools be kept distinct, it appears 
 in every way desirable that the superintendence 
 and management of these schools should be in the 
 same central and local authorities. The authorities, 
 most competent to superintend and manage the 
 one, would be able the best to manage the other, 
 and although separate, they should be conducted 
 so as to assist and develope each other. 
 
 It is proposed that secondary schools should be 
 divided into three grades, having reference to the 
 age at which parents are found to take their 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 87 
 
 children from school for the business of life, each 
 grade being subdivided into two divisions, and 
 provision being made for preparatory schools, at 
 least for the highest grade. The lowest, a 3rd 
 grade, is intended for children whose education 
 ceases about 14 ; the 2nd grade for those whose 
 education ceases about 16 ; the first grade for 
 those who remain till 18 or 19, or who pass on 
 thence to the universities. At elementary schools 
 the limit is reached about 12. It is recommended 
 that educational endowments, including not only 
 the endowments of grammar schools, but endow- 
 ments for elementary schools and charities hereto- 
 fore given to the poor, should be appropriated for 
 the purposes of secondary education, the interests 
 of the poor in gratuitous education being provided 
 for by exhibitions, securing a higher education 
 for the more deserving and promising of poor 
 children. 
 
 It is considered that gratuitous education is 
 productive rather of evil than of good, that all 
 elementary schools should be maintained by sub- 
 scriptions, children’s fees, and the Privy Council 
 grant. That the best application of educational 
 endowments is in establishing good secondary 
 schools, with good school buildings and play- 
 grounds, and in providing gratuitous education 
 only for such of the children of the poor as show a 
 talent and ability deserving of higher education. 
 
88 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 The work before us is to remodel our endowed 
 schools, to organise new schools, and to distribute 
 among them the work they have to do. 
 
 “ It will hardly be possible ” (I use the words of 
 the report) “ to do this well without breaking up 
 the country into manageable divisions, and treating 
 each division by itself. The needs of the different 
 parts of England are so different that a uniform 
 reorganisation of all the schools of the country is 
 hardly possible, nor, if possible, does it seem to be 
 expedient. In assigning to the different schools 
 their different tasks — the character of the 
 population — the chief occupations, agricultural, 
 mining, manufacturing or commercial— the kind of 
 education to which the people have been already 
 accustomed — the teaching that seems to be most 
 in demand — all these considerations should be 
 allowed their proper weight 
 
 The division of England into counties seems to 
 offer the most natural basis for such a purpose. 
 In many important respects each county is a whole 
 by itself, and has a political and social life of its 
 own, a great advantage in all matters that require 
 co-operation. We are of opinion, that, in all 
 arrangements relating to education, it will be 
 expedient to provide that it shall be possible 
 eventually to allow each county, subject still to 
 superior authority, to have the control of its own 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 89 
 
 schools.” 1 would suggest that we accept the 
 county division here proposed. I think we shall 
 find our county quite a wide field enough, and we 
 are more likely to work harmoniously within our 
 own county, than by going further. I would indeed 
 rather curtail this area, and exclude Bristol, whose 
 large and centralised population, and remarkable 
 educational and charitable endowments, will supply 
 materials enough for the Bristol people to arrange 
 for themselves. 
 
 But though it is desirable that primary and 
 secondary education should be under one control- 
 ling and superintending authority, there is no 
 reason for delaying the organisation of our 
 secondary schools till legislation is complete 
 respecting our elementary schools. On the 
 contrary, we should lose no time in carrying out 
 at once the objects and using the powers of the 
 Endowed Schools Act. While so engaged in 
 organising and systematising our secondary educa- 
 tion, we shall be better able to watch, influence 
 and assist legislation as to primary education. 
 
 Before the facts and recommendations of the 
 commissioners, and with the great national object 
 of securing the best education for all classes of the 
 people steadfastly in view, we may, I think, wisely 
 forego our individual feelings and prejudices, and 
 accept the conclusions of the commissioners, as 
 
90 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 the basis of action, in which we may all heartily 
 unite. Such co-operation will deserve and ensure 
 success. 
 
 Gloucestershire, including Bristol, has a popula- 
 tion of nearly 500,000. Its charitable endowments 
 furnish a yearly income of £30,000, of which £11,417 
 are applied to education, £1,258 for apprenticing, 
 £1,157 for public uses, £5,316 in support of alms- 
 houses, £3,255 distributed in kind, and £2,353 in 
 money to the poor, and £1,211 for general uses of 
 the poor. If we exclude the Bristol charities, 
 there remains a noble income which, as at present 
 applied, does not effect all the good it might, and 
 in some cases produces positive harm. “ Glouces- 
 tershire,” say the commissioners, “ has besides 
 Bristol 17 foundations for secondary education, 
 and none of these, except the Cathedral school at 
 Gloucester, and Cheltenham and Chipping Campden 
 Grammar Schools, are reported to be at all efficient 
 as places of secondary instruction. The Crypt 
 School, at Gloucester, has, like Chipping Campden, 
 excellent buildings, but is reported to be steadily 
 declining in numbers.” 
 
 We have, heretofore, never attempted — nor did 
 the law admit of — anything like united or system- 
 atic action. Every separate endowment has been 
 managed by itself, without reference to others or 
 to any general plan of education. I have no desire 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 91 
 
 to sweep away any existing schools, but to extend 
 their usefulness. We should endeavour to 
 economise both our managing and our teaching 
 power, and our pecuniary resources. The great 
 object we should keep before us should, I think, 
 be to establish — 1st, a good elementary school 
 under Privy Council inspection, within reach of 
 every poor family in the county ; 2nd, a good 3rd 
 grade school within reach, if possible, of every one 
 who would wish for his child a higher education 
 than the elementary school provides ; 3rd, a good 
 2nd grade school in every centre where there was 
 a sufficient population to feed it ; 4th, a sufficient 
 number of 1st grade schools, all of the highest 
 order. 
 
 I am not in a position to say to what extent 
 elementary schools may be deficient in Gloucester- 
 shire, but it would be the first duty of the County 
 Education Board to ascertain what districts were 
 unprovided with schools. There are some districts 
 where the population is insufficient to support 
 more than one good school, in which it is sought 
 to maintain two different denominational schools. 
 It would be the office of the Board to endeavour 
 to get two indifferent schools, so circumstanced, 
 united into one good school. It should also 
 endeavour to remedy such defects as the following, 
 referred to in the reports of Her Majesty's 
 Inspectors of Schools for last year : — “ Of the 
 
92 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 schools in Gloucester I have to report in terms 
 less favourable than could be desired. The St. 
 James’s Schools (girls and infants) deserve honour- 
 able mention. The National School (boys) which 
 has hitherto maintained a good position, is crippled 
 for want of an adequate staff of teachers. The 
 rest are either in indifferent condition, or barely 
 up to the average. Nor can I admit that eight 
 annual grant schools, or eleven departments with 
 an attendance at inspection of some 1,300 children, 
 is a sufficiency of good elementary instruction 
 worthy the position of the Church of England in 
 a cathedral city, or commensurate with the needs 
 of a population of some 28,000 souls. In a town 
 of the dimensions of Gloucester, it would seem 
 scarcely possible to supply the educational wants 
 of the whole labouring population, unless the place 
 be treated as a whole, the school system organised 
 upon one principle, with the full co-operation of 
 the school managers, lay and clerical, of all the 
 parishes. 
 
 So far as this end fails in its accomplishment, 
 so far will the supply of proper schools and 
 the attendance of the children fall short of the 
 necessities of the poor, and the just demands of 
 public opinion. Parochialism is a rock on which 
 the Church of England should fear to run the risk 
 of making shipwreck in her recently assumed 
 character of instructor of the poor. If each parish 
 
MEMORIALS OP S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 93 
 
 be ambitious, not to subserve the general interest, 
 but to possess a school, however inefficient, of its 
 own, the result will be such as we see in Gloucester.” 
 And again, “ Some of the very small schools fail 
 from want of numbers in scholars as well as of funds. 
 The question of grouping small parishes with one 
 efficient central school has not received the attention 
 it deserves. The present plan of confining school 
 management to the clergy of the respective parishes 
 interferes here. Each one feels that he would be 
 guilty of disloyalty to the parochial system, if he 
 consented, however indirectly, to place his children 
 in a school out of his own cure.” 
 
 It would be the duty of the County Education 
 Board, acting with reference to elementary schools, 
 to examine into those cases in which such schools 
 are maintained by endowments, and not by sub- 
 scription, children’s fees, and Privy Council grants. 
 The question is an important one, seriously affecting 
 local interests, whether these funds should continue 
 to be so applied, or whether such endowments for 
 free elementary education would not be better 
 applied, as recommended by the commissioners, in 
 gratuitous secondary education for the poor, by 
 competition 
 
 The most important charity of this character in 
 the county (excluding Bristol) is, I believe, the 
 Crypt School in Gloucester. The income of this 
 
94 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 charity, amounting to £1,700 per annum, is wholly 
 applied in the education, and apprenticing, of 34 
 boys, and in doles to a few poor. The commis- 
 sioners’ remarks with reference to St. Olave’s 
 appears to me not inapplicable to this charity. 
 “ What is needed is such a reorganisation as shall 
 stimulate merit by making gratuitous instruction 
 a reward and not a right, and at the same time 
 shall adapt the teaching to the needs of the 
 district.” There are some fifty similar educational 
 endowments in this county, with incomes varying 
 from £9 to the above noble income of Rich’s 
 Hospital. To show the importance of this question 
 I will enumerate some of them and their incomes, 
 viz : — Buckland, J017O, of which only £ 27 is applied 
 to education ; Cam, £237 ; Chipping Campden 
 Blue School, £170 ; Cirencester Yellow School, 
 £676; Fairford, £119; Henbury, £157; Mickleton, 
 £156; Minchinhampton, £149; Winchcomb, £250. 
 The total gross income of these endowments is 
 nearly £6,000. 
 
 The endowed grammar schools in Gloucestershire 
 (excluding Bristol) classified according to age of 
 scholars are — 1st grade, 3 : — Cheltenham, with an 
 income of £1,634 ; Gloucester Cathedral, £420 ; 
 and Chipping Campden, £170. 2nd grade, 4 : — 
 Gloucester Crypt, £855; Cirencester, £28; Thorn- 
 bury, £68; and Nortlileach, £697. 3rd grade, 7 : — 
 Tewkesbury, £48; Newland, £208; Winchcomb (2), 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 95 
 
 X99; Henbury, <£412; Wickwar, £191 ; and Wotton, 
 X589. In addition to these, Chipping Sodbury, 
 with an income of X369, and Stow-on-the-Wold, 
 with an income of XI 3, are in abeyance, and the 
 income of Tetbury (X70) is paid to the National 
 School. In some cases a part only of the income 
 above specified is applied to the school. 
 
 It would be premature to propose any detailed 
 plan for remodelling these various schools and 
 utilizing their endowments to the utmost in 
 furtherance of secondary education. They would 
 seem, however, to furnish ample materials for 
 providing the best secondary education equal to 
 the requirements of the county. The three Glou- 
 cester schools might be easily reorganised so as to 
 bring the complete system of secondary education 
 recommended by the commissioners into active 
 operation in the city, which might present a model 
 of well organised educational institutions, primary 
 and secondary, which would not only meet all the 
 local wants of the city, but provide for the higher 
 education of the county and attract scholars from 
 other parts of the country. Cheltenham might 
 also add to its educational, and, as a consequence, 
 its residential, attractions by a corresponding 
 organisation of schools. Its primary education is 
 alluded to by Her Majesty’s Inspector of Schools 
 in terms of praise, as follows : — “ Of the three 
 large towns (Bristol, Gloucester and Cheltenham) 
 
96 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DTCKINSON 
 
 which fall under my supervision, I regard Chelten- 
 ham with the greatest satisfaction as approaching 
 most nearly to the ideal of a town fully furnished 
 with means of education for the labouring classes 
 of a proper quality.” What seems wanting in 
 Cheltenham — and it is the great want for which it 
 would be the first care of the County Education 
 Board to provide as far as practicable throughout — 
 are schools of the 3rd grade. “ The most urgent 
 educational need of the country,” say the commis- 
 sioners, “ is that of good schools of the 3rd grade, 
 that is of those which shall carry education up to 
 the age of 14 or 15. It is just here that the 
 endowed schools appear most signally to fail, while 
 nothing else takes their place 
 
 The evidence is almost unanimous that just here 
 is our most conspicuous deficiency; and that the 
 artisans, the small shopkeepers, the smaller farmers, 
 are in many places without any convenient means of 
 educating their children at all, and, still more often, 
 have no security that what they do get is good.” 
 The towns in Gloucestershire at present without 
 any provision for grammar or secondary schools 
 are Stroud (population 9,090) and Dursley (popu- 
 lation 2,447.) Stroud has some charitable funds 
 which might with advantage be applied in 
 establishing a 2nd grade school. The various 
 endowed primary schools might probably be 
 reorganised so as to combine elementary and 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 97 
 
 secondary education of the 3rd grade, and the 
 various local charities, which are now applied in 
 pauperising the population, might be utilised for a 
 like purpose. 
 
 Such a system as I have ventured to sketch out 
 can only be carried out either by the pressure of a 
 central authority armed with strong powers by 
 legislation or by the co-operation of the community. 
 To secure the latter, the organisation for remodel- 
 ling and administering those various charities 
 should command the confidence of all. Nor will 
 any body, however it may represent all local 
 interests, succeed in this great work unless it 
 proceeds with caution and judgment, and with a 
 studied and anxious desire to respect all legitimate 
 local claims. It will still meet with much opposition 
 and prejudice ; but if it is judicious, temperate 
 and conciliatory in its conduct I am in hopes that 
 it will overcome all difficulties, and will render 
 acceptable the sound principles which the Royal 
 Commissioners have propounded, and on which 
 they justify and recommend a reorganisation and 
 redistribution of all those charitable endowments 
 which are within the province of the Endowed 
 Schools Act. 
 
 First among the bodies at present charged with 
 the duty of secondary education are the Dean and 
 Chapter of the Cathedral of this city. I should 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 wish to see the Cathedral or King’s School of 
 Gloucester rank as one of the first schools of the 
 country, feeding the Universities with some of its 
 worthiest alumni. I look to that venerable body 
 to set the example to all other trustees throughout 
 the county. The Endowed Schools Act cannot 
 touch the Cathedral School without the consent of 
 the Dean and Chapter. Their hearty concurrence 
 will not, I think, be withheld from any judicious 
 scheme by which not only secondary education of 
 the highest order would be provided, but the local 
 interests of the city be advanced. 
 
 We have now before us a great opportunity. 
 We have the means of establishing a well organised 
 system of secondary education. There are diffi- 
 culties in the way, but not insurmountable— nay, 
 the surmounting of these difficulties may become 
 an instrument of success. A very large and 
 universal interest will be excited. The apathy 
 which mars so many good schemes will be replaced 
 by a feeling which, though it may be hostile in 
 some quarters, will, let us hope, yield under the 
 influence of patient thought, sound counsels and 
 conciliatory discussion, to one of hearty co- 
 operation. I have a strong faith that the various 
 trustees of the different educational endowments 
 have an earnest desire to utilise and economise 
 to the utmost the funds at their disposal to improve 
 the position and extend the action of the schools 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 99 
 
 under their control, and that they will soon 
 perceive that their separate interests will be 
 promoted by a systematic organisation and classi- 
 fication applied to all. 
 
 It is impossible, within the limits available for 
 this Conference, to enter into details ; but if the 
 general principles are accepted I feel satisfied that 
 the work may be done well and thoroughly and to 
 the satisfaction of all. I would suggest the 
 formation of a County Education Board, in which 
 all endowed and elementary schools should be 
 represented. This Board should divide the county 
 into education districts, which should be larger 
 than parishes, but the size of which would depend 
 on local considerations. These districts would be 
 under a District Board, representing all the schools 
 of the district, and each school should have its 
 managing committee. By this means all the 
 existing charities could be carefully examined into, 
 all local claims recognised, the co-operation 
 of all parties interested secured, and a sound 
 and effective organisation and administration 
 established. 
 
 S. S. Dickinson. 
 
100 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 CONTRABAND OF WAR. 
 
 WRITTEN FOR THE SOCIAL SCIENCE CONGRESS, 1870. 
 
 In every civil State there is a legislative power 
 to declare the law and attach penalties to its non- 
 observance, a judicial power to interpret and apply 
 it, and an executive power to enforce it. The 
 legislative power fixes the boundaries between civil 
 and moral obligations, securing the observance of 
 the former by the administration of justice and 
 the punishment of offences, and leaving the latter 
 to the conscience of the individual. As nations 
 acknowledge no superior, and have not established, 
 and cannot establish, any organisation to declare 
 and enforce International Law, without ultimate 
 recourse to war, the international obligations of 
 States must remain in a great measure in foro 
 conscientice. International usage and precedent 
 have established certain laws, which, with important 
 variances in different States, on nearly every branch, 
 have been acknowledged by nations, and have con- 
 trolled them in the assertion of their rights by 
 war — the ultima ratio regium. These international 
 obligations, which an enlightened State should be 
 the more scrupulous to discharge, because they 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 101 
 
 cannot be inferred by other authority than that 
 of reason, or, failing reason, of war, include the 
 conduct of its citizens as affecting the interests of 
 other States. A State which omits to exercise its 
 power of restraining its citizens from acts which 
 are condemned by reason, and derogatory to the 
 properly understood rights of neutrals, and the 
 legitimate assertion of force of belligerents, is 
 responsible for those acts. 
 
 In respect to internal legislation, acts of a 
 citizen injurious to another assume a twofold 
 character — the one civil, for which the law provides 
 compensation — the other criminal, for which the 
 law provides an appropriate punishment ; but for 
 acts of a citizen affecting a foreign nation, that 
 nation can only look to the State of which the 
 offender is a citizen, either for compensation or 
 for punishment. While, therefore, a legislature 
 may in the case of its own citizens, and with 
 reference to their dealings with and conduct 
 towards each other, decline to exercise its pro- 
 hibitive and primitive powers to enforce their 
 rights in certain cases, it would seem to have a 
 larger obligation thrown upon it to secure for 
 other nations respect for their rights by its own 
 subjects. It sounds like a contradiction in terms 
 to talk of rights which can only be enforced by 
 war ; for when war is undertaken the belligerent 
 is the sole arbiter of his own rights, and when he 
 
102 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 appeals to International Law, he acknowledges no 
 other court as competent to declare that law but 
 his own. Thus, contrary to the ordinary rules of 
 justice, the courts of the country of the captor 
 determine the liability of the prize to confiscation. 
 When war is raging a neutral can only effectively 
 assert the rights he claims by appeal to an arbi- 
 trament — war, which determines his neutrality. 
 This will account for the divergence of different 
 nations in their estimate of belligerent rights. 
 
 Great Britain, with its widely extended com- 
 merce, its colonies scattered over the world, and 
 its claim to maritime supremacy, has asserted 
 belligerent rights, founded on its own ideas of 
 expediency, its consciousness of power, and its 
 protection of its own interests, the soundness of 
 which has been denied by other countries, and by 
 some of its own statesmen, who have looked rather 
 to its commercial interests than to its maritime 
 power. Though they differ in its rules and its 
 application, all nations appeal to International 
 Law as determining the mutual intercourse and 
 conduct of belligerents and neutrals. 
 
 While in fact, as matter of legal definition, the 
 mutual rights of belligerents and neutrals cannot 
 be tabulated, each nation can, and each nation 
 ought, to lay down for its own conduct those laws 
 which reason and sound sense, a due sense of 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 103 
 
 justice, and a proper appreciation of the position 
 which nations hold towards each other as families 
 constituting the civilized world, and of their rela- 
 tive rights in peace and war, dictates. If such a 
 universal rule prevailed, we should have an Inter- 
 national code universally accepted and acted on. 
 Unfortunately war ethics are of a very loose 
 texture, and yield to what belligerents consider 
 the necessity of the case. Self-preservation is the 
 first law of nature, success in the war is the one 
 object of the belligerents, to which all other 
 interests must yield. All stratagems are fair in 
 war — the end justifies the means, are principles 
 not always repudiated by belligerents. The con- 
 viction that force is the only arbiter of right, blunts 
 the moral perceptions, and reconciles to a course 
 of conduct which a just judge would condemn. 
 
 In order to define the limits within which a 
 State is entitled or bound to enforce, on the part 
 of its subjects, a course of neutral conduct towards 
 a belligerent, it is necessary to have a clear concep- 
 tion of the relative duties and rights of belligerents 
 and neutrals. These rights have a technical and 
 a popular meaning. Technically it is difficult to 
 acknowledge any right in the belligerent to injure 
 or control the neutral. In every war one, and not 
 infrequently both, belligerents are in the wrong. 
 The very term neutrality implies impartiality of 
 conduct, irrespective of the merits of the dispute, 
 
104 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 and the — according to each belligerent, whether 
 he is right or wrong — equal privileges and powers. 
 As neutrals are not justified in taking any part in 
 the quarrel, even to support right against wrong, 
 justice against injustice, it follows that they must 
 regulate their relations and conduct to both belli- 
 gerents so as not to give either a just cause of 
 complaint that they are assisting one to the pre- 
 judice of the other. Conversely, each belligerent 
 must regulate his conduct to neutrals by respecting 
 their rights and relations, in their intercourse with 
 either belligerent, so as not to force them, in the 
 vindication of their rights, to have recourse to war. 
 As a failure of duty by either neutral or belligerent 
 towards the other cannot be dealt with otherwise 
 than by an appeal to war, the definition of their 
 rights, and the question how far any particular 
 act may be in derogation of their rights, become 
 capable of only arbitrary solution. 
 
 War excites the strongest feelings in a nation ; 
 the justice or injustice of its inception is soon lost 
 sight of in the passions it engenders, and the 
 popular feeling will not submit to technical rules. 
 
 It will not be sufficient to regulate our conduct 
 towards a belligerent by the strict letter of a law, 
 unless it commends itself to the popular sense of 
 right and justice. Consideration must be shown 
 to popular feelings if we desire that when war 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 105 
 
 terminates there shall remain as little rancour 
 and ill-feeling as possible to embitter the future 
 intercourse between neutrals and the quondam 
 belligerents. The extreme asserters of belligerent 
 rights argue that a belligerent is justified in inflict- 
 ing the greatest possible injury on his opponent, 
 in order to secure an early and durable peace, or, 
 as others might say, to insure his own victory and 
 the subjection of his antagonist. They argue 
 that as trade with other nations will supply the 
 necessities and add to the wealth of the bellige- 
 rent, and thus enable him to prolong the contest, 
 his opponent may adopt any measure calculated 
 to destroy that trade, unmindful of the fact that 
 trade is neutral, and that the injury so inflicted 
 extends to neutrals. The right of blockade, which 
 some authorities would limit to ports actually 
 beseiged, is one measure, and the inhibition of all 
 trade in Contraband of War is another, by which 
 the trade of neutrals with belligerents is restricted. 
 A proper definition and limitation of these two 
 rights, universally accepted, would go far to relieve 
 neutrals from the risks of trade with belligerents, 
 and to enable neutral States to enforce neutral 
 conduct on the part of their citizens. 
 
 The question proposed for discussion is confined 
 to Contraband of War. But what is Contraband 
 of War? Mr. Mozeley, in a treatise on Contraband 
 of War, begins by stating “ that what is and what 
 
106 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 is not Contraband of War has long been a question 
 of difficulty, not only in the cabinet of jurisconsult, 
 but in those of diplomatists and statesmen, not 
 unfrequently superinducing a supplemental war 
 to that already raging.” In a debate in the House 
 of Lords at the commencement of the civil war in 
 America, Lord Ellenborough said “ that the law of 
 Contraband of War is in a state of constant change. 
 It must change from year to year as the manner 
 of conducting war is changed; that these changes 
 are constantly controlled by one principle, viz. : 
 that that is Contraband of War which, in the pos- 
 session of an enemy, would enable him better to 
 carry on war.” 
 
 Earl Granville, in the same debate, says “ there 
 are certain articles which are clearly Contraband 
 of War, but there are certain other articles the 
 character of which can be determined only by the 
 circumstances of the case, as, for instance, the 
 ports for which they are destined, and various 
 other instances, which can be properly judged of 
 only in a Prize Court.” And Lord Kingsdown 
 said “ the determination of what is contraband 
 must depend on each particular cargo. Provisions, 
 though they might safely be sent under other 
 circumstances, yet if sent to a port where an army 
 was in great want of food, would then become 
 contraband. So with regard to coals — they might 
 be sent for purposes of manufacture, but if sent 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 107 
 
 to a port where there were war steamers, with the 
 view of supplying them with coals, then they 
 became contraband.” 
 
 A continental writer referred to in a note, p. 802 
 of “ Laurence’s Wheaton,” commenting on Lord 
 Russell’s despatch with regard to the case of the 
 Trent, says, “We remark particularly the doctrine, 
 assuredly very new in England, that Lord Russell 
 professes with regard to contraband. It is known 
 that there exists on this subject two systems, with 
 respect to which the publicists have been divided 
 for centuries. The first, the French doctrine, 
 which France has caused to prevail on every 
 occasion since the Treaties of Utrecht, limits 
 Contraband of War to arms, munitions, and to 
 the men and things which serve as the direct and 
 the immediate instruments for the operations of 
 war. The second, the English doctrine, extends 
 the definition of Contraband of War according to 
 circumstances, to a great many things serving only 
 indirectly to the objects of the belligerents, and 
 which in the treaty of 1794 with the United States, 
 for example, had extended in such a way the term 
 of contraband that it might embrace everything 
 that England might choose to include in it.” 
 
 • The declaration of Paris of April 16, 1856, that 
 the neutral flag covers enemy’s goods, and that 
 neutral merchandise under the enemy’s flag is free, 
 
108 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 excepts Contraband of War. M. Casimir Perrier, 
 in an article in the Revue des deux Mondes of 
 January, 1862, recommends that the declaration 
 should be supplemented by another, which should 
 define once for all in clear and positive terms 
 what is Contraband of War. Many questions were 
 asked at the close of the late Session as to what 
 was Contraband of War, but the invariable answer 
 was that merchants must trade at their own risk, 
 as the definition of contraband depended on the 
 construction of the Prize Court of the country of 
 the captor. 
 
 The. first act of Government on the declaration 
 of war between two friendly powers is to issue 
 a proclamation of neutrality, which warns Her 
 Majesty’s subjects that if they shall do any 
 act in derogation of their duty as subjects of a 
 neutral sovereign in the pending contest, or in 
 violation or contravention of the law of nations in 
 that behalf, as for example, and more especially 
 among other things, carrying any articles con- 
 sidered and deemed to be Contraband of War 
 according to the law and modern usage of nations, 
 for the use or service of either of the contending 
 powers, all persons so offending will incur and be 
 liable to the severe penalties and penal conse- 
 quences by the Foreign Enlistment Act, or by the 
 law of nations in that behalf imposed or denounced. 
 The language of this proclamation shows indeed a 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 109 
 
 distinction between those acts which, being against 
 the Foreign Enlistment Act, come under its penal 
 provisions, and those which are punishable only 
 by the action of the belligerent, viz., capture and 
 confiscation ; but to a non-legal mind, and to a 
 foreigner, such distinction is scarcely intelligible, 
 and seems rather to suggest to the one a specu- 
 lative and dangerous trade, which can only be 
 carried on by blunting the sense of right and in 
 violation of neutral obligations, and to offer to the 
 other a hypocritical denunciation of a trade with 
 which it carefully abstains from interfering. The 
 innocent trader in articles which are only construc- 
 tively contraband (and by a forced construction) is 
 involved in the same condemnation with the one 
 who traffics in the instruments of war. Public 
 opinion, which resents any interference with legi- 
 timate trade, is brought to look on trade in direct 
 Contraband of War with less repugnance, and the 
 friendly belligerent, who sees unscrupulous traders 
 furnishing the enemy with arms and munitions of 
 war, holds the State responsible for conduct which 
 it denounces as illegal, but connives at, by not 
 preventing. 
 
 It behoves the Legislature to re-consider the 
 existing law as to Contraband of War, and to 
 limit its definition to those articles which are 
 directly contraband. But whether this country 
 is or is not prepared to modify its pretensions to 
 
110 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 extend Contraband of War to articles of which 
 the contraband character is constructive on the 
 purpose for which it is disposed of, it is, I conceive, 
 bound, as well for the credit of the country, as to 
 guard against the consequences resulting from a 
 traffic which all condemn, viz. : that of furnishing 
 belligerents with weapons for slaughter, and to 
 draw a line between a trade which public opinion 
 condemns and one which it sanctions, with belli- 
 gerents, to prohibit the exportation of direct 
 Contraband of War, viz. : arms and munitions 
 directly or indirectly destined to either belligerent. 
 It has been argued that such a course would 
 involve the Government in additional complica- 
 tions, as belligerents would hold the Government 
 responsible if such articles were exported clandes- 
 tinely, and that it would involve an inquisitorial 
 police watching every manufacture of arms. This 
 argument appears to me of no force. The officers 
 of customs would exercise a watchfulness over the 
 exports, and intercept any prohibited articles ; 
 the Government would prove that they did not 
 connive at unneutral conduct on the part of the 
 subjects of the State ; there would be no occasion 
 for any police supervision. 
 
 Even if it were necessary to stop all export of 
 such articles, the injury would in no degree be 
 commensurate with that effected by a successful 
 illegal traffic with belligerents; but such an extreme 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 111 
 
 step would be quite unnecessary, for legitimate 
 trade might be allowed under securities against 
 fraud. It has also been urged that the power 
 under the Consolidated Customs Act, 1853, under 
 which the exportation may be prohibited, of arms, 
 ammunition, “gunpowder, military and naval 
 stores, and any articles which Her Majesty shall 
 judge capable of being converted into or made 
 useful in increasing the quantity of military or 
 naval stores, provisions, or any sort of victual 
 which may be used as food for man,” meets the 
 case ; but it is obvious that this power is given 
 diver so intuitu , and the issue of such a prohibition, 
 after a declaration of war, might be construed into 
 a breach of neutrality, as it is almost of necessity 
 that such a prohibition would operate more 
 injuriously to one than the other belligerent. It 
 is therefore submitted that it is desirable to 
 prohibit the exportation of Contraband of War, 
 limited to certain specified articles, being direct 
 Contraband of War, and further, that measures 
 should be taken to obtain an enumeration, 
 universally accepted, in clear and precise terms, 
 of the articles to be deemed Contraband of War. 
 
112 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 LETTER ON TAXATION. 
 
 PUBLISHED IN THE “TIMES” OF NOV. 29 , 1872 . 
 
 Sir, — The readjustment of imperial and local 
 taxation, which the Government are pledged to 
 settle next Session, involves such important issues 
 that I hope the subject may be well discussed in 
 the “ Times.” Such discussion, to be of practical 
 value, should precede the announcement of the 
 Government plan. 
 
 Mr. Goschen’s report of 1870, and the proposals 
 submitted by him to the Committee, of which he 
 was Chairman, are likely to be the basis of the 
 Government plan. 
 
 Mr. Goschen’s report seeks to prove that the 
 increase of local taxation has not involved any 
 addition to the burdens on land, and that houses 
 have relieved land. His remedy seems to be to 
 divide rates in future between landlord and 
 tenant. 
 
 The discussion appears to me somewhat beside 
 the mark, and calculated to lead to an intermin- 
 able and angry contest with landowners, as to the 
 extent to which they are really burdened. The 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 113 
 
 objection of the landowner, that by the system of 
 rates he has to pay for expenses, not affecting land 
 more than personality, such as Poor, Police, &c., 
 which his neighbour — his equal in wealth — whose 
 investments are in personality, is relieved from, 
 will not be removed by proof that he pays no more 
 than his ancestors paid relatively to the value of 
 his land ; while the proposal to make him pay half 
 the rate will not improve his temper. No argu- 
 ment will convince the farmer who occupies a farm 
 for which he pays rates on a rent of .£100 a year 
 (representing an income of £150 a year,) that he is 
 as leniently dealt with as his neighbour, who pays 
 the same rate on the same rent, for the house he 
 lives in, but whose income is many times larger. 
 
 It is incumbent on the Government to place 
 taxation, imperial and local, on a sound, permanent 
 and equal basis. 
 
 There is no necessary local connection between 
 taxation and expenditure. A charge may be 
 imperial in its character, as Police, and yet wisely 
 left to local administration. The taxation may be 
 local in its incidence, as Land Tax, Inhabited 
 House Duty, Income Tax, Trade Licenses, &c., 
 and wisely entrusted to a central agency for 
 collection and expenditure. 
 
 Certain great heads of expenditure belong to 
 the central authority, as the Military, Naval, 
 
 i 
 
114 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 Diplomatic, Colonial and Civil Services, matters 
 affecting Parliament, the superior Courts of Law, 
 and the higher departments of Education, Science 
 and Art. Others may be wisely delegated, wholly 
 or partly, to the local authority, such as Elementary 
 Education, Poor, Police, Gaols, Roads, &c. : while a 
 limited class of expenditure, such as draining 
 swampy districts, maintaining river banks, supply 
 of gas and water, are of exclusively local compe- 
 tence. 
 
 It is most important in a self-governing commu- 
 nity, to attribute as large powers as possible to 
 local authorities. 
 
 To secure economy, the tax -payer should at once 
 feel the pressure of taxation and be told its cause. 
 To secure efficiency, the central government should 
 have a defined control and supervision over the 
 local administration, and should contribute to local 
 expenditure in such a form as to feel, and be 
 responsible to Parliament, for increased expen- 
 diture resulting from local mal-administration. 
 Again to meet local expenditure, the taxes attri- 
 buted to the locality should be elastic, like rates 
 or income tax. 
 
 Out of an aggregate taxation for the United 
 Kingdom for the year 1869 of nearly £109,000,000, 
 there was raised by rates in England and Wales 
 £16,200,000. Rates are an unjust and unequal 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 115 
 
 mode of taxation, and offer dangerous temptations 
 to increase the charges thrown upon them. We 
 must, I think, put an end to them. In doing so 
 we have to fix what is an equitable charge to place 
 on land in commutation of rates, from which it is 
 to be hereafter relieved. 
 
 Mr. Goschen’s report gives the average of the 
 charge of rates on land at several periods. This 
 varies with the locality, but it would be easy to 
 ascertain, in each locality, what would be a fair 
 commutation to fix, as a permanent rate, on land. 
 Land built upon should pay a reasonable ground- 
 rent. An equitable adjustment might be made in 
 respect of rates heretofore paid by Railroad, Canal 
 and Gas Companies, and of rates heretofore falling 
 on Mines and other property. 
 
 The next adjustment I would suggest, falls 
 under the head of Stamps. Realty, like personalty, 
 should vest in the executor, and be liable to 
 Probate and Administrative Duty. It should pay 
 Succession and Legacy Duty on the same terms 
 as personalty ; it should be liable to the same 
 stamp, 5s. per JE100 of value on settlement, and, 
 as long as entails are allowed, a larger duty might 
 be charged on settlements creating entails. A 
 tax should be levied on all property held by 
 corporations, or in mortmain, or on trusts for 
 perpetuity. 
 
 i 2 
 
116 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 We have now to seek a tax — local in character, 
 equitable in its incidence, and elastic enough for 
 rising and falling demands — to meet the balance 
 hitherto borne by houses. The principal charges 
 are Poor and Education, which are charitable in 
 their nature, and appeal to the wealthy, Police 
 and gaols, which chiefly affect security of person 
 and tangible property, and some other charges 
 which affect all alike. The Income Tax is unavail- 
 able : the system of collection, under which it is 
 stopped out of all income derived from investments 
 before it reaches the owner, deprives it of its local 
 character. 
 
 There seems no other resource than that of 
 Inhabited House Duty, to which might be added 
 a duty on furniture and other valuable pro- 
 perty used and enjoyed with the house. This 
 would be an approach, though a distant one, to the 
 measure of ability which the statute of Elizabeth 
 contemplated, as the foundation of the poor-rate. 
 It might be universal, and extended to every house. 
 While in 1869-70 only 753,727 houses were assessed 
 to the Inhabited House Duty in Great Britain, 
 the number of inhabited houses in England and 
 Wales at the last census was 4,259,000. If to the 
 £68,000,000 annual value of houses we add one- 
 third for furniture, we shall have an annual value 
 of £90,000,000 on which to operate. A tax com- 
 mencing at a low rate for low rents, and rising for 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 117 
 
 higher rents — subject to deduction, as at present, 
 for trade premises — would replace, or, to a certain 
 extent, reduce the existing charge for rates on 
 occupiers of houses. 
 
 The old Inhabited House Duty (£1,062,000 for 
 England) would merge in the new House and 
 Furniture Duty, and would, with the new rate- 
 commutation Tax on land, form the local taxation 
 in lieu of rates. 
 
 The imperial contribution to expenditure under 
 local administration, at present aggregating about 
 £2,500,000 under the heads Education, Criminal 
 Prosecution, Police, Prisons, Reformatories and 
 Poor, might be increased if it be found that the 
 charge on occupiers of houses is too onerous, 
 and the Income Tax had recourse to, to meet the 
 additional charge. 
 
 Your obedient Servant, 
 
 S. S. D. 
 
118 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 LOCAL TAXATION AND ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 ON WHAT PRINCIPLES SHOULD LOCAL TAXATION BE 
 
 LEVIED? AND WHAT SHOULD BE THE PRINCIPLES OF 
 
 LOCAL ADMINISTRATION AND GOVERNMENT ? 
 
 Written for the Social Science Congress, 1873. 
 
 These questions do not appear to me to be 
 stated with sufficient clearness. The word levying 
 would include assessing and collecting, but scarcely 
 extends to the character of the taxation ; and the 
 expression “administration and government” not 
 only applies to the levying and expenditure of 
 taxation, but to matters not necessarily involving 
 taxation, such as licensing public houses, &c., 
 which I presume would be beyond the scope of 
 the discussion. I purpose, therefore, to consider : 
 
 I. — What branches of public expenditure may 
 be best entrusted to a local governing body, and 
 what should be the constitution of such local body. 
 
 II. — What branches of taxation should be placed 
 at the disposal of such governing body, and what 
 should be the character of such taxation. 
 
 III. — How should such local taxation be assessed 
 and collected. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 119 
 
 1. There are two divisions of public service to 
 be considered, one extending over the whole 
 country, the other confined to a distinct separate 
 area. As illustrations of the former, I would 
 instance the administration of the Poor Law, 
 including pauper schools and pauper lunatic 
 asylums, the police, prisons and highways. As 
 illustrations of the latter, the draining of a parti- 
 cular district, and lighting, watering and cleansing 
 a town, though this latter service may possibly 
 extend into the wider range of sanitary adminis- 
 tration. In determining what powers should be 
 attributed to a local governing body, we have to 
 consider, not whether the service to be performed 
 is limited in its action to a specific locality, but 
 what is the range of administration which, looking 
 at the country as a whole, and the various local 
 areas into which it may be divided, separately, 
 is calculated to develope the capacity for self- 
 government — to encourage emulation, as between 
 different localities engaged in the same work, to 
 execute it in the best manner, in a spirit of 
 co-operation, not of antagonism — to enlist local 
 ability, experience and energy in the public service, 
 unpaid, and generally to secure efficiency and 
 economy in management. 
 
 The qualifications offered by a locality for 
 securing efficiency and economy are local know- 
 ledge and local interest. The disqualifications 
 
120 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 are local narrow-mindedness and a perfunctoriness 
 of performance when the time, trouble, and ex- 
 pense required for unpaid service, conflict with 
 the demands of private business or personal ease. 
 The powers attributed to local bodies should be 
 sufficiently large to interest the well-educated and 
 well-to-do classes in their performance, and should 
 cover an expenditure which will be felt by the tax 
 payer, to an amount sufficient to make him careful 
 in the selection, and watchful over the conduct, 
 of those who are to execute them. 
 
 On taking a rapid survey of the various depart- 
 ments of public expenditure there will, I think, 
 be little difficulty in deciding which may be 
 entrusted to local administration. Of a total 
 Imperial expenditure of £71,860,020, the only 
 items that would seem to come within the category 
 are those connected with elementary education, 
 .£1,120,000; police, £654,960; prisons, £58,376; 
 and poor law, £226,648. # These items (which are 
 for England and Wales) do not include the whole 
 of the expenditure for these services, but a contri- 
 bution from Imperial revenues to services which 
 are administered locally, subject to central super- 
 vision, the remaining expenditure (except as to 
 education) being provided out of local taxation 
 That some amount of supervision by the central 
 authority is advisable in connection with local 
 
 * Finance Accounts, 1871-2; Parliamentary Paper, No. 272. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 121 
 
 administration may be admitted, but the control 
 ought not to be such as to derogate from the 
 authority, or diminish the sense of independence 
 and responsibility of the local governing body. 
 The question of contribution, too, is one of some 
 difficulty. It is, I think, inexpedient to keep up 
 a distinction between local and Imperial taxation, 
 which is, to a great extent, purely arbitrary. The 
 Imperial expenditure for 1871-72 amounted to 
 £71,860,020. The expenditure from local taxation 
 for the year 1868-9 was £36, 290, 000, # of which 
 £3,000,000 was for Scotland, and £3,050,000 for 
 Ireland; but the local expenditure includes Govern- 
 ment subventions for police, prisons, and poor, to 
 the extent for England and Wales of £1,215,000 ; 
 and is also swelled by some items, such as the 
 cost of pauper lunatics, which is paid by the 
 counties, and partly (£145,449) repaid by unions, 
 and thus appears twice over, as county and as 
 union expenditure 
 
 Of this expenditure a small portion only is of a 
 strictly local character. Taking the various head- 
 ings of expenditure which, excluding the proceeds 
 derived from the rent and sale of property, state 
 subventions and loans aggregate for England and 
 Wales, t £19,815,000 ; poor relief, vaccination, 
 
 ° Finance Accounts, 1871-2 ; Parliamentary Paper, No. 272. 
 
 f See Mr. Goschen’s Report, p. 6, Parliamentary Paper, No. 470, 
 of 1870. 
 
122 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 registration, assessment and collection ; highway 
 (including tolls,) county, hundred, police and 
 borough rates, markets, bridges and ferries, har- 
 bours, pilotage and light dues, and coal and wine 
 duties in the city of London, amounting together 
 to £15,515,000, come more properly within the 
 category of taxation for general than for purely 
 local purposes, and leave a balance of £4,300,000 
 as taxation for local objects, viz. : lighting, 
 
 watching, local improvements, burial boards, 
 tire brigades, &c. 
 
 Since Mr. Goschen’s report a large item of 
 expenditure — that connected with education — 
 has, by the creation of school boards, introduced 
 a new local governing body, and an addition to 
 local taxation. The legislation on this subject is 
 exceptional. Large Government subventions are 
 made, to the extent of nearly half the cost of the 
 elementary education of the people, and a large 
 portion is paid, not to public bodies, responsible 
 to the public, but to private bodies, who have 
 erected and maintain the elementary schools. 
 
 This state of things cannot last. If the education 
 of the people is to be a public charge, the manage- 
 ment and cost of that education should be placed 
 under local administration, subject to central 
 supervision. This involves an expenditure pro- 
 bably in excess of £2,500,000. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 123 
 
 All these classes of expenditure may, I think, be 
 entrusted to local bodies ; but instead of having 
 twenty different classes, the number might be 
 considerably reduced. The relation, too, between 
 the central government and local bodies might be 
 improved. As a general rule, subject to exception 
 in the case of the Metropolis and of large populous 
 cities, which must be exceptionally dealt with, the 
 Union would, I think, be the best local area. The 
 Union Board might include all the smaller local 
 bodies at present acting independently in different 
 parts within the same area. The county might be 
 made a governing body for certain purposes, as for 
 police, prisons and lunatic asylums. The local 
 governing body should be elective, the taxpayers 
 having votes, in proportion to the taxation paid. 
 The union board might be subject to supervision 
 by the county, and the county by the central 
 authority ; but in neither case to an extent to 
 derogate from their autonomy, nor beyond what 
 may be necessary to secure the due execution of 
 the powers attributed to them respectively. 
 
 2. The taxation, to be appropriated to local 
 expenditure, should be elastic, to meet readily any 
 increase or diminution in expenditure. It should 
 be direct, and apportioned to the various heads of 
 expenditure, in order that the taxpayer should 
 feel at once the pressure, and know the purpose 
 for which it is raised. These qualities attach to 
 
124 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 the system of rating, but that system is open to 
 two objections which condemn it. (1.) It is 
 impossible to state with certainty by whom the 
 rates are paid, whether by landlord or by tenant, 
 or in what proportions ; and (2.) it is raised out of 
 one kind of income, that derived from land, to the 
 relief of all other, which is unjust. I contend, 
 therefore, that rates should be abolished. 
 
 The charge which, taking a reasonable average 
 of years, has been imposed in the shape of rates on 
 land should be commuted into a land-tax of so 
 much in the pound on rental, and provision should 
 be made for securing as a part of the public 
 revenue a corresponding tax on land on which 
 houses, railways, canals, &c., have been or may be 
 erected or constructed. This and the existing 
 land-tax should be irredeemable. Thus the existing 
 charge on land in the shape of rates would be 
 continued in the form of a rent-charge, as a part 
 of the public revenue; but as it would be fixed and 
 inelastic, it should be transferred from local to 
 Imperial taxation. 
 
 Mr. Goschen enumerates market dues, bridges 
 and ferries, harbours, turnpike tolls, and pilotage 
 and light dues, aggregating £2, 980, 000, as branches 
 of indirect local taxation. I should call them 
 direct, as passing immediately from the tax-payer 
 to the tax-collector. Whether these branches of 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 125 
 
 revenue should be continued may be a subject of 
 discussion, but if continued they would form a 
 portion of local taxation applicable primarily to the 
 services for the performance of which they are 
 levied, leaving the surplus expenditure in those 
 branches to be defrayed out of the general local 
 fund. 
 
 The liability to local taxation might be made 
 dependent as to personal estate, on residence, and 
 as to real estate, on locality ; but subject to this 
 question an income-tax, or some form of direct 
 taxation to be substituted for income-tax (by 
 which every resident should contribute according 
 to his ability,) should be the one fund for all local 
 expenditure not covered by other sources of income, 
 and in levying such tax the tax-payer should be 
 informed how much of the tax is required for 
 each head of expenditure. 
 
 The inhabited house duty and the assessed 
 taxes, if continued (which appears to me a question 
 of doubtful expediency, for they are a rough and 
 unequal attempt to tax income,) would remain 
 a part of Imperial taxation. 
 
 It is not easy to state the financial results of 
 the arrangement proposed. The rates levied at 
 present upon land built upon must be re-con- 
 sidered, and reduced to a rate on what may be 
 considered the ground-rent, on a principle to be 
 
126 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 applied to future buildings on land. Looking at 
 Mr. Goschen’s estimate for 1868, out of a total 
 levy of £10,439,000 for poor rates, £3, 466, 000 
 represents the amount paid by land, £4,934,000 
 the amount paid by houses, XI, 160, 000 by railways, 
 and £879,000 by other property. Taking the charge 
 on land commuted as above suggested at about 
 £5,000,000, that amount of income would be trans- 
 ferred to Imperial taxation. Taking the various 
 items of income and expenditure from the same 
 report, and adding the Government subventions, 
 £1,225,000 and £2,500,000, of which Government 
 pay £1,120,000 for education, there would be a 
 total of £20,000,000. This includes some expenses 
 incurred in works by which property is improved, 
 the cost of which may therefore be imposed on 
 such property, but the balance would have to be 
 raised by direct taxation. At the same time there 
 would be a relief of £2,365,000, and an addition 
 of £5,000,000 to Imperial taxation. 
 
 3. The assessing and collecting of the local 
 taxation in the form of an income tax, or some 
 direct tax of that character, should be under 
 central management. It can be done more effici- 
 ently and economically under a central authority, 
 more particularly if that authority collects the 
 same tax for Imperial purposes. There is no 
 necessary connection between the levying of taxa- 
 tion and its expenditure. The local bodies would 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 127 
 
 furnish an estimate of the requirements in their 
 localities, and the amount would be raised by a 
 direct tax, in a manner to give the tax-payer the 
 information he requires as to its expenditure, 
 although by an agency not acting under local 
 authority. The local body would have access to 
 the assessments, to see that they were properly 
 made. In determining questions connected with 
 income tax assessments, a central is preferable to 
 a local authority. The incidence of an income 
 tax on individuals would not be the same for 
 Imperial as for local purposes. For Imperial 
 purposes the income tax would fall with equal 
 weight on all persons assessed, irrespective of 
 locality. For local purposes it would vary in the 
 different areas, according to the economy and 
 good management exhibited by the governing 
 bodies, and the accident of the locality being 
 inhabited by the wealthy or persons of moderate 
 incomes. Again, though existing exemptions 
 might be continued as regards Imperial taxation, 
 there should be no exemption whatever for local 
 purposes. Every resident should pay his quota, 
 however small his income, according to his ability. 
 
128 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 EXTRADITION : 
 
 WHAT ARE THE LIMITS WITHIN WHICH EXTRADITION 
 SHOULD BE ACKNOWLEDGED AS AN INTERNATIONAL 
 DUTY? 
 
 Written for the Social Science Congress, 1876. 
 
 If all nations adopted our penal code, and if 
 their judiciaries were governed by the same rules 
 in the investigation, trial and punishment of crime, 
 there would be no difficulty in defining, in a 
 manner satisfactory to all, the duty devolving on 
 each to assist another State in delivering up and 
 bringing to justice persons, who having committed 
 a crime in one State, seek to evade punishment by 
 fleeing to another. But as different nations have 
 different penal codes, and different forms of 
 criminal procedure, and have different laws 
 regulating the rights of citizens, the difficulties in 
 the way of coming to a common agreement 
 satisfactory to all seem insuperable. 
 
 I do not propose to discuss the principles on 
 which the Law of Extradition, as expounded by 
 Jurists, is founded, nor attempt to reconcile their 
 conflicting opinions. It will, however, be useful 
 to consider the opinions of some high authorities 
 on the subject. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 129 
 
 Chancellor Kent, in giving judgment on the case 
 which occurred in 1819, of Daniel Washburn, who 
 was arrested in the United States on a charge of 
 theft in Canada, declared that the duty of 
 Extradition was of so high and imperative a nature 
 that, in the absence of municipal laws for its 
 enforcement, it was itself a Law which Judges 
 were, by virtue of the nature of their office, bound 
 to recognise and administer ; and Chief Justice 
 Reid, in the Canadian case of Joseph Fisher, which 
 occurred in 1827, uses the following language : 
 
 “The right of surrender is founded on the prin- 
 ciple that he who has caused an injury is bound 
 to repair it, and he who has infringed the laws of 
 any country is liable to the punishment inflicted 
 by those laws. If we screen him from that punish- 
 ment we become parties to his crime, we excite 
 retaliation, we encourage criminals to take refuge 
 among us. We do that, as a nation, which, as 
 individuals, it would be dishonourable, nay, crimi- 
 nal to do. If, on the contrary, we deliver up the 
 accused to the offended nation, we only fulfil one 
 part of the social compact, which directs that the 
 rights of nations as well as individuals shall be 
 respected, and a good understanding maintained 
 between them ; and this is the more requisite 
 among neighbouring states on account of the 
 daily communication which must necessarily sub- 
 sist between them.” 
 
130 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 The case of Tweed is a recent application of the 
 principles, and it is to the credit of Spain that she 
 has acted on this general doctrine, and objected 
 to screen a man against whom such serious charges 
 are preferred. Though a similar doctrine seems 
 to have been propounded in England (see Chitty’s 
 Criminal Law, 1826, Vol. I., p. 16,) yet it has never 
 received judicial sanction, and the actual law on 
 the subject must now be looked for in other 
 Extradition Acts of 1870 and 1873, (33 and 34 
 Vic., c. 52, and 36 and 37 Vic., c. 60.) 
 
 The question we have to consider, as far as 
 Great Britain is concerned, is whether these Acts 
 rightly fix the limitations on the international duty 
 of Extradition. This question assumes that Extra- 
 dition, within certain limitations, is an international 
 duty. I am not disposed to quarrel with that 
 assumption. In the mutual relations between 
 States, as between individuals, rights and duties 
 are convertible terms. The right of the one is 
 the duty of the other. In determining the rights 
 and duties resulting from the relations of individual 
 citizens with each other, an authority may be 
 invoked to which all must yield ; that of the State, 
 which in its legislation is bound to pay all due 
 regard to individual feelings and convictions. 
 
 In the absence of any similar authority to decide 
 questions between States, rules of conduct which 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 131 
 
 are the limitations of their mutual rights and 
 duties must be limited to those questions on which 
 there is a concurrency of opinion. Thus in deciding 
 the relative rights and duties in reference to 
 Extradition as between two States, one of which 
 acknowledges and the other rejects the institution 
 of Slavery, it is quite competent to the slavery- 
 condemning State to decline to extradite any 
 fugitive, though he be a criminal, in order to avoid 
 the risk of his being unfairly dealt with in a 
 country in which his rights as a human being are 
 denied. The very doctrine on which the Extra- 
 dition of criminals is claimed and enforced, viz. : 
 that by refusing to extradite, the nation giving 
 him shelter becomes accessory to the offence, may 
 be applied to his Extradition, and the extraditing 
 nation would, in the case put, become accessory 
 to the cruelties to which he would be subjected 
 as a slave, a condition which its own laws 
 condemn. 
 
 Again, I am not prepared to say that when a 
 penal code is characterised by the Draconian 
 severity which for so long a period was a shameful 
 feature of the English criminal law, when capital 
 punishment attached to comparatively trivial 
 crimes, countries would not have been justified 
 in refusing to extradite an offender for a crime 
 coming within that category, who, if found guilty, 
 might be hung. 
 
132 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 Nations, like individuals, are apt to assert rights 
 to a greater extent than they are willing to admit 
 duties. The old rule of law, nemo potest exeure 
 patriam , is inconsistent with any system of natu- 
 ralization of foreigners. The claim to banish a 
 citizen is an invasion of the right of foreign States 
 to refuse admission to an exile. 
 
 All European nations have accepted the doctrine 
 that there should be no Extradition for political 
 offences. It is clear therefore that there is no 
 law or amity of nations which can require, as an 
 absolute rule, that a man who has committed a 
 crime in a country, and taken refuge in another 
 in order to avoid punishment, shall not escape 
 thereby, but shall be extradited to the authorities 
 of the country whose laws he has broken, with a 
 view to his trial and punishment. But while this 
 may be taken to be the general basis which should 
 regulate the conduct of nations towards each 
 other, there must be limitations and exceptions 
 to the rule. 
 
 The principle on which these limitations must 
 be framed must rather be sought in the municipal 
 legislation of each State, than in any agreement 
 among States in general. This principle is in 
 truth asserted in the usual clause introduced into 
 Extradition treaties, which requires that a prima 
 facie case shall be established against the person 
 
MEMORIALS OF, S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 133 
 
 charged, which, under the laws of the country 
 called upon to extradite, would justify his appre- 
 hension and committal for trial, if the offence had 
 been committed there. The limitations should 
 rather apply to the character of the offence than 
 to the means used for bringing home the guilt to 
 the person charged. While it is necessary that 
 all reasonable security should be taken as to the 
 bond fides of the demand, and the presumptive 
 evidence of guilt, before Extradition takes place, 
 it is equally important that the difficulties inter- 
 posed by forms of procedure should not be such 
 as, by reason of legal technicalities or immediate 
 expense, would render the task of proof hopeless. 
 A State adopting such a practise, while professing 
 to discharge, would be practically repudiating its 
 duty. 
 
 The practise in this country, confirmed and 
 perpetuated by the Extradition Acts, has been 
 to make treaties with other States. There are 
 many objections to this system. 
 
 1st. It limits our power of doing what is right 
 unless a treaty exists. If a criminal, like Tweed, 
 had escaped into England instead of Spain, we 
 could not, unless there was a treaty with the 
 country from which he fled, arrest and extradite 
 him. We are ourselves sufferers, as we keep in 
 the country a man who ought to be turned out 
 of it. 
 
134 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 2ndly. It places the law on a wrong basis, viz. : 
 that of contract, instead of international duty. 
 
 3rdly. It introduces into the negociation of 
 every treaty questions which are to some extent 
 extraneous, and are calculated to limit unneces- 
 sarily the privileges which other nations would be 
 willing to concede, and to hamper us in proceedings 
 against criminals who have escaped from England. 
 In all negociations for a treaty the question 
 of reciprocity assumes exaggerated prominence. 
 Thus the treaty between Prussia and the United 
 States, in 1845, was rejected by the Senate, because 
 Prussia wished to exclude its own subjects from 
 its operation, though in 1852 this objection was 
 waived. It brings into prominence, in the negoci- 
 ations, the difference of laws and practises which 
 one country adopts and the other condemns, thus 
 creating feelings of irritation. 
 
 4thly. As treaties, like other written documents, 
 are couched in language not always free from 
 ambiguity, a difference of opinion in the construc- 
 tion becomes the subject of deliberate controversy, 
 to the irritation of the public of each nation, 
 instead of being disposed of by the public courts 
 construing acts of domestic legislature. This has 
 been exemplified in a remarkable manner by the 
 late discussions between America and England as 
 to the effect of the Act of 1870 on the treaty. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 135 
 
 The case of Anderson (where the question was 
 whether a slave, who, in endeavouring to escape, 
 stabbed his pursuer, could be held guilty of mur- 
 der,) exemplifies the disadvantage, as it involved 
 a question of construction of a treaty to be decided 
 by the judiciary of one party to the treaty. It is 
 obvious also that the limitations on Extradition, 
 having regard to the law of slavery as heretofore 
 existing in America, could not be freely and satis- 
 factorily discussed between the negociators on 
 behalf of the United States and the United 
 Kingdom. 
 
 5thly. In laying down for ourselves our own 
 rules of international duty, we place ourselves in 
 a better position as regards criminals flying from 
 Great Britain than we should be under treaties. 
 In negociating a treaty we could not ask for more 
 than we are ready to concede. But the difficulties, 
 which a system of penal procedure preliminary to 
 committal and trial impose on the prosecutor, are 
 greater than those which many other nations 
 adopt. Each nation would probably, if acting by 
 itself, apply to fugitive foreigners the same process 
 as is applicable to its own subjects, and we should 
 be in a position to avail ourselves of these facilities 
 in conducting the preliminary proceedings, which 
 would be denied to us in a treaty in which each 
 party will only concede as much as, and no more, 
 than the other. 
 
136 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 The experience of treaties cannot be said to be 
 satisfactory. Mr. Clarke, in his treatise, published 
 in 1867, says that for twenty years, from 1844 to 
 1864, no case of Extradition was argued before 
 English Courts. During this term France had 
 made unceasing demands (seven between 1854 
 and 1856, more between the latter year and 1859,) 
 but in no case was the Extradition obtained. The 
 United States were more successful. Between 
 1854 and 1859 eleven such applications were 
 made, and in six of these the criminal was given 
 up. 
 
 These six are cases of murder or attempts 
 to murder, and occurred on the high seas, in 
 American ships, which put in to Liverpool, so 
 that the witnesses were on board, and could 
 easily appear before the magistrate. The cases 
 which have recently occurred, and which have 
 been the subject of controversy between America 
 and England, are discreditable, and it is a disgrace 
 to England that a criminal should go free because 
 America would not undertake that if acquitted 
 on the specific charge, he should not be tried for 
 any other crime. 
 
 Each nation, — while bound to acknowledge an 
 obligation to assist other nations in arresting and 
 delivering up for trial persons charged with grave 
 crimes committed within their territories, and 
 fleeing to evade the punishment attaching to such 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 137 
 
 crimes, — is entitled to lay down its own rules in 
 defining and limiting that duty. 
 
 Such duty should be defined and regulated by 
 an act of domestic legislation under which all 
 nations might apply for Extradition, and not by 
 treaties with each nation separately. 
 
 Every fugitive from justice should be delivered 
 up for trial when a prima facie case is established 
 against him, which, if the crime had been com- 
 mitted in the country in which he is found, would 
 have led to his committal and trial by a court of 
 criminal jurisdiction in that country. 
 
 The crime charged should be a grave crime 
 against the person or against property. 
 
 When the person charged is a slave, and the 
 state of slavery is acknowledged in the country 
 where the crime was committed, he should not be 
 subject to be extradited. 
 
 A fugitive, against whom a crime is charged 
 within the ordinary penal code of the State where 
 the crime is committed, should be extradited, 
 although the crime may not be within the letter, 
 if within the spirit, of the penal code of the State 
 in which he is found. 
 
 It may be desirable to specify the crimes, as a 
 general description might be held to include 
 offences under the mutiny acts, against excise 
 
138 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 laws, or crimes of a like special character, which 
 ought not to be the subject of Extradition. 
 
 A fugitive should be liable to be extradited 
 whether he be a citizen of the State demanding 
 Extradition, of the State of which Extradition is 
 demanded, or of any other State. 
 
 The rules of evidence applicable to domestic 
 crimes should be modified, to meet the impossi- 
 bility of procuring the attendance of witnesses. 
 Depositions taken in the regular course of judicial 
 enquiry in the locality where the crime was com- 
 mitted should be admissible, security being taken 
 that they are genuine, and were properly taken. 
 A certificate of a high and responsible official 
 should be held sufficient for the purpose. 
 
 There should be no restriction to a fugitive 
 extradited, if acquitted of the special offence 
 charged, being tried for any crime which the acts 
 proved against him might, under the penal code of 
 the State in which he is tried, establish, or any 
 other crime committed by him coming within the 
 category of crimes for which he might be extradited. 
 
 No one shall be liable to extradition for any 
 political offence. In using the word grave, as 
 descriptive of crimes for which extradition should 
 be made, I do not use it in a restrictive sense 
 beyond this, that it does not seem desirable to 
 apply a law of extradition to petty offences. But 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 139 
 
 the expense and trouble attending the proceedings 
 offer a sufficient security that the law will only be 
 put in force when a serious crime has been 
 committed. 
 
 England ought to take the lead in placing its 
 external legislation on the soundest principles of 
 international law. It does not hesitate to adopt 
 a free-trade policy without waiting to make treaties 
 of reciprocity with other States. It may well lay 
 down sound rules for its own guidance in meeting 
 the legitimate demands of nations whose criminals 
 are seeking to evade the punishment due to their 
 crimes by fleeing to England, where the difficulties 
 which the English procedure place in the way of 
 their arrest and trial, secure them a longer im- 
 munity. Canada in 1833 passed a law authorising 
 the Governor to extradite criminals without 
 requiring any reciprocity from other countries. 
 No country offers greater temptations to the 
 commission of crimes, and greater facilities for 
 escape, and none is therefore more interested in 
 securing ready access for its police to the countries 
 with which the commercial and travelling habits 
 of its citizens brings them in such constant inter- 
 course. It is a misfortune that under the plea of 
 being an asylum for the persecuted of other 
 countries England should become rather a refuge 
 for their criminals. 
 
140 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 POLICE SUPERVISION. 
 
 WRITTEN FOR THE SOCIAL SCIENCE CONGRESS, 1876. 
 
 No question is of greater social importance than 
 that of the prevention of crime. No one probably 
 is sanguine enough to expect that crime will be 
 eradicated, and yet one ought to be at liberty to 
 indulge such a hope. In the large majority of 
 cases, the criminal is the victim of accident, and 
 circumstances for which society is in • a great 
 measure responsible. Is there one among us who 
 will venture to assert that if he had been born and 
 nurtured and educated in that atmosphere of vice, 
 ignorance, drunkenness and criminality in which 
 the accident of birth has planted so many of his 
 unfortunate brethren, he would have escaped from 
 the contagion ? Is not a large amount of the 
 crime so engendered preventible ? and must not 
 society be held responsible for all crime which 
 proper legislation, or improved social habits and 
 relations, might have prevented ? 
 
 Are we not apt to forget the effect which our 
 own conduct may produce on others for good or 
 for evil ? — to ignore the duty of promoting by 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 141 
 
 personal action all measures by which vice and 
 crime may be prevented — to wrap ourselves up in 
 the mantle of our virtues, and think we do our 
 duty by fulminating decrees of Draconian severity 
 against criminals, and paying police and judges to 
 detect and punish them. In no department of 
 social life is the rule that “ prevention is better 
 than cure ” of greater value than in its application 
 to crime. Prevention should be the end and aim 
 of all our legislation and social action, in regard to 
 crime ; and though, while there is crime, there 
 must be punishment for crime, in the manner and 
 the measure of the punishment the principle of 
 prevention must be kept in view. 
 
 We talk of the criminal classes, but every crime 
 is an individual act, and every process of preven- 
 tion and cure must be adapted and applied to the 
 individual. It is not by a system applied to a 
 class, but by influence and action brought to bear 
 on the individual, that success in the prevention 
 or the cure of crime can be looked for. 
 
 Although the prevention of crime, or, if that be 
 impracticable, the reduction of crime to a mini- 
 mum, is a question of such vast importance to 
 society, society seems to take little interest in it. 
 Apparently conscious, at times, of its complicity, 
 by reason of bad laws and bad habits, it vacillates 
 in its judgment and its sympathies according to 
 
142 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 the impulses which some special manifestation of 
 crime evolves, sometimes in favor of, sometimes 
 against, the criminal. To this want of interest, 
 may be in some measure ascribed the absence of 
 sound instruction on the subject. Better in- 
 struction would probably elicit a livelier interest. 
 
 Our criminal legislation has impressed upon the 
 public mind the feeling amounting to conviction 
 that crime must be punished by corporal suffering. 
 Death and flogging, imprisonment with hard labor, 
 are the forms of punishment adopted. The prin- 
 ciple at the base of this is that of deterrence, the aim 
 being to deter the criminal by an experience of 
 suffering from a repetition of crime, and to deter 
 others from committing crime by a fear of similar 
 consequences. One cannot but feel that our 
 earlier legislation was imbued with a spirit of 
 vindictiveness in its code of punishment. The 
 feeling that the criminal should, if possible, be 
 reformed, and converted into an industrious 
 citizen, is a growth of later years, and can 
 scarcely be called a part of our authorised prison 
 discipline. 
 
 The fundamental principle that the sentence 
 should be a just one — one proportioned (though 
 such an expression cannot be applied with any 
 exactness,) to the offence, has been too much lost 
 sight of. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 143 
 
 A man who has committed a crime, and thus 
 broken the fundamental laws on which the security 
 and welfare of society rest, has forfeited a portion 
 of his rights as a law-abiding citizen, and society 
 is entitled and bound, not only to vindicate the 
 supremacy of the law by punishing the criminal, 
 but to adopt special measures to secure itself 
 against a repetition of crime by one who has 
 shown himself an enemy of law and order. The 
 problem is a complex one. As regards the 
 criminal himself, the object to be attained (beyond 
 making return to the party injured,) is his return 
 to society an active, useful, law-abiding member, 
 and the sooner that can be done the better. But 
 the influence of crime on others must be taken 
 into account, and such an amount of punishment 
 may be legitimately inflicted as will deter others 
 from following his example. Beyond the attain- 
 ment of these ends punishment becomes unjust, 
 disproportioned to the offence, vindictive and 
 brutalising. 
 
 There are, however, other forms of secondary 
 punishment besides flogging and imprisonment. 
 All restrictions on liberty, all liability specially 
 imposed by law on an individual from which 
 others are exempt, all exceptional treatment 
 against a man’s will, is a form of punishment. 
 The question is : What form of punishment will 
 best secure the objects to be attained ? 
 
144 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 The law generally fixes a maximum of punish- 
 ment, thus acknowledging the fact that the 
 amount of punishment should be determined by 
 the circumstances of each case. But as certainty 
 in the amount of punishment is a most important 
 element in influencing the conduct of criminals, 
 the principles which regulate the amount should 
 be clearly understood. A Judge cannot know 
 enough of the antecedents, habits and disposition 
 of a prisoner found guilty of a first offence, to form 
 an opinion as to the effect of the sentence on him. 
 The same sentence passed for the same offence on 
 two individuals, may prove as much too severe in 
 the one case, as too lenient in the other. A 
 sentence which, after satisfying one object of all 
 punishment, viz., that of deterring others, is 
 sufficiently elastic to satisfy the other object, viz., 
 the criminal’s reformation, seems to commend 
 itself as the wisest and most just. 
 
 There are two modes in which it would seem 
 practicable to attain this end. The first is the 
 ticket-of-leave system, under which a long sentence 
 of imprisonment is passed on the criminal; but he 
 can by good conduct obtain his liberty before the 
 term expires, under certain restrictions, with 
 liability to punishment if he fail to observe those 
 restrictions. The other is that of police supervision, 
 under which a short sentence of imprisonment is 
 passed, but the convict is allowed liberty under 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 145 
 
 certain restrictions, and is liable to imprisonment 
 if they are not observed. 
 
 Both these forms of punishment, which commend 
 themselves to those who have made this depart- 
 ment of criminal law their study, have met with 
 considerable opposition from the less instructed 
 public. As regards the ticket-of-leave system, the 
 cry has been raised that the Judge’s sentence has 
 been mitigated by the Home Office arbitrarily, 
 whereas it was in truth a part of the original 
 sentence, determined by the Legislature and taken 
 into consideration by the Judge in passing sen- 
 tence. The second form has been objected to on 
 the plea that it is an addition to the punishment 
 imposed by the sentence of the Judge ; whereas, 
 in this case also, it was a part of such sentence. 
 
 In either case, the form of punishment requires 
 much care and trouble to carry out the sentences in 
 the spirit in which they are conceived. The process 
 of imprisonment and hard labour is simple and 
 easily carried out. Place the criminal in a walled 
 prison, with a staff of warders and discipline 
 officers, and the thing is done. His term expires ; 
 he passes back into society a free man, but with 
 the mark of Cain on his brow and the heart of Cain 
 in his breast. Benevolent agencies are at work to 
 help to reclaim him and keep him right; but his 
 relations with authority are rebellious. Give the 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 criminal his liberty subject to certain restrictions, 
 and a difficult task of supervision and careful 
 treatment lies before you. What is the agency to 
 be employed to effect this supervision ? The time 
 may come when this work may be entrusted, with 
 necessary powers, to some other organisation, but 
 at present we have only the police competent to 
 undertake it. The task requires great tact, dis- 
 cretion and judgment. It should not be and is 
 not committed to every policeman, but to the chief 
 officer of the district. It should not be done 
 perfunctorily, but under a sense of its great 
 importance. The police and supervisee are in a 
 novel, anomalous and somewhat inconsistent 
 relation. The policeman suspects a criminal, 
 watches him, and is prepared to pounce on him on 
 the first report of a crime committed. The 
 criminal looks on the policeman as his natural 
 enemy and is sceptical as to the possibility of any 
 official engaged in detecting crime being his friend. 
 
 In this country, fortunately, the policeman is not 
 simply a thief-catcher; his duties are multifarious, 
 and he is in the confidence of the law-abiding 
 members of the community. He should understand 
 that society has, in placing criminals under his 
 supervision, transferred to him the duty of doing his 
 best that the great object of the sentence should be 
 attained, viz., the return of the criminal into the 
 ranks of honest industry. To do this effectively he 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 147 
 
 should endeavour to establish a friendly relation 
 with the criminal. He is at liberty to avail himself 
 of other agencies for this purpose, for the criminal 
 may be directed to report himself to anyone named 
 by the police — a clergyman, a magistrate, or anyone 
 qualified and willing to undertake the office ; and 
 this kind of agency might perhaps with advantage 
 be more largely employed. 
 
 The supervisee has an ardous task before him. 
 His character for honesty is gone : he has to 
 regain it. He is an object of suspicion : he has to 
 create a feeling of confidence. He is at a disad- 
 vantage in obtaining employment : he must prove 
 that he is industrious and willing to work. These 
 are the natural penalties of crime, and he should 
 feel them. Supervision will assist him in over- 
 coming these difficulties and help to keep him 
 right, when, if left to himself, he would probably 
 again lapse into crime. 
 
 It is clear that the success of this system will 
 depend on the manner and spirit in which it is 
 undertaken and carried out by the police ; but if 
 they will consider how important to society 
 success is, how it will redound to their credit if 
 they can reduce the amount of crime and restore 
 criminals to society, they will, I think, feel assured 
 that this is one of the most important, most useful, 
 most beneficial, and most interesting branches of 
 their work. 
 
148 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 It is obvious that this system is applicable to 
 crimes against property rather than to crimes of 
 violence. 
 
 It is obvious also that this system involves no 
 expense, but would effect a large economy, by 
 reducing compulsory terms of imprisonment. 
 
 These observations will furnish the reasons for 
 my answer to the question proposed, viz. : In what 
 respect can the present system of police super- 
 vision be improved and extended ? 
 
 Under the existing law, a sentence of police 
 supervision can only be passed on a second 
 conviction. I see no reason why it should not be 
 passed on a first. 
 
 As a general rule a first conviction is met by a 
 short and sharp sentence, it being understood 
 that a more severe sentence shall be passed on a 
 second conviction. An objection is often taken 
 to a short term of imprisonment, as inadequate. 
 The addition of police supervision would meet 
 that difficulty. Such a change would add largely 
 to the number of supervisees, and it may be better 
 to test the system of supervision by a longer 
 experience before extending it to first convictions. 
 
 Under the existing law, a supervisee at large 
 must notify his place of residence, and every 
 supervisee must notify any change of residence to 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 149 
 
 the chief officer of the district ; and every male 
 supervisee must report himself monthly to the 
 chief police officer, or some person named by him. 
 If the supervisee at large remain in a district 
 forty eight hours without reporting himself, or if 
 he fails to report a change of residence, or to 
 report himself monthly, he is liable to twelve 
 months imprisonment. 
 
 The supervisee, before leaving gaol, should be 
 bound to inform the gaoler, and through him the 
 chief officer of police of the district, where he 
 intends to reside, and should within a reasonable 
 time (allowing for the journey) report himself to 
 the police. This should also be done on a change of 
 residence, the penalty of imprisonment attaching 
 to any default. 
 
 A supervisee found in any district the chief of 
 police of which has not received notice from him 
 of his going there, should be liable to punishment. 
 
 On leaving prison, each supervisee should be 
 furnished with a printed statement of the restric- 
 tions to which he is by law subject. 
 
 Leaving, however, the question of improved 
 legislation, I come to consider how a satisfactory 
 system of police supervision can be worked under 
 the law as it is. 
 
 This can only be done effectually throughout 
 the country by consent among the various police 
 
150 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 authorities ; but in the meantime each separate 
 police authority may adopt a system which, it may 
 be hoped, will become universal. 
 
 The central registry office in London should be 
 under the Home Office, and should be charged 
 with the duty of keeping its register of the move- 
 ments of all the supervisees, posted up in a form 
 to render reference easy, as well to the photographs, 
 as to the personal description of the supervisee. 
 It would seem that this would be readily done by 
 an alphabetical index of names and aliases. 
 
 Every supervisee should, on discharge from 
 gaol, be deemed to belong to the district of first 
 residence ; and the chief constable of that district 
 should be held responsible to know of his where- 
 abouts till he changes his residence to, and has 
 arrived in another district. 
 
 On change of residence, communication should 
 take place between the chief constables of the 
 two districts till the supervisee is actually resident 
 in his new district, when he should come under 
 the charge of the police of that district, notice 
 being sent to the central office. 
 
 Each chief constable should send a quarterly 
 return of his supervisees to the Justices at Quarter 
 Sessions, who should check the same, and arrange 
 with the chief constable any measures for assisting 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 151 
 
 him in his work, such as getting respectable 
 residents to look after and assist supervisees to 
 get work. The quarterly return should be sent 
 to the central office. A return should be handed 
 to the Judge at each Assize. The central 
 office should publish a yearly report of all super- 
 visees. 
 
 Supervision is essentially a personal work, and 
 one of detail; and those counties will best succeed 
 in making it effective for the prevention of crime 
 in which, by public action, by organisation such 
 as prisoners’ aid societies, or by individual resi- 
 dents working in the same spirit, the police are 
 encouraged and helped in their work. 
 
 While the supervisors should show a dispo- 
 sition to assist those supervisees who observe 
 the conditions under which they are placed, 
 those who break those conditions should be 
 punished, and every exertion should be made 
 to trace and arrest those who abscond or fail to 
 report themselves. 
 
 The central authority can do much, not by 
 interposing in details, but by shewing its faith in 
 the principle, by recommending the co-operation 
 and harmonious working of different police autho- 
 ties, by keeping the registry in such a way as to 
 assist in tracing criminals, and by shewing to the 
 police authorities that the work of supervision now 
 
152 
 
 MEMORIALS OK S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 imposed on them is one to which great importance 
 is attached, and in the careful performance of 
 which they will have the support, and earn the 
 approbation, of those responsible for the good 
 working of the criminal law. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 153 
 
 ON LAW REFORM. 
 
 Our law recognises a double ownership of pro- 
 perty, the Legal and the Equitable. 
 
 The Courts of Law and Equity may be looked 
 upon as the expounders of opposite schools — 
 Courts of Law holding that there should always be 
 an absolute owner of property, capable of dealing 
 with and using it freely, exercising all the rights 
 of ownership, and performing all the duties and 
 responsibilities attaching to it — The Courts of 
 Equity doing their utmost to tie up property in 
 the hands of families, and to keep it out of the 
 market, and of trade ; and while assuming its 
 management, ignoring all claims but the selfish 
 interests of the temporary owner. 
 
 This division of ownership, into legal and equit- 
 able estate, complicates titles, and is unnecessary 
 to secure the interest of cestui que trusts, where 
 the ownership is transferred by documentary title, 
 and is unavailing where it passes by delivery. 
 Land offers no difficulty in this respect, as the 
 trusts may appear on the title. Personal invest- 
 ments, such as Government and Railway Stocks, 
 
154 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 and property of that nature, could be dealt with 
 in the same way, by introducing on the register 
 the actual interests affecting the property. But 
 the inconvenience of taking notice of such trusts 
 is so great, that the Government and private 
 undertakings often decline to allow of any but 
 absolute owners of their stock to appear on their 
 books. But, if the law sanctions the creation of 
 limited interests in any kind of property, is it not 
 bound to see that the registers which regulate the 
 transfer of that property shall correspond with the 
 actual ownership. 
 
 Property is dealt with in two ways — by way of 
 trade and contract, or by gift or voluntary settle- 
 ment. The dealings of trade are generally simple, 
 and the great object of the law should be to leave 
 those dealings as free and unfettered as possible. 
 If our laws, relating to land, had been framed on 
 this principle, I have no doubt that the system, 
 which the common dealings of man with man 
 would have brought about, would have been in the 
 main a sound one ; but, when a thoroughly arti- 
 ficial system of law has prevailed, the practices 
 arising under it will have some of the vices of the 
 system. It may be said that any existing practice 
 comes within the protection of the principle I have 
 stated, and that no legislative action should be 
 called in aid to alter it. The principle of freedom 
 of trade, however, to which I have appealed, 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 155 
 
 extends beyond the present, and while it secures 
 entire freedom of action to the existing generation, 
 should take care that the freedom of future 
 generations is not invaded by the action of the 
 present. 
 
 The feudal law, in its artificial veneration of a 
 freehold, and contempt of a chattel interest, 
 allowed the creation of an interest for a thousand 
 years, moreover reserving the fee to the suc- 
 cessors of the original grantor when the term 
 determined. There is a great deal of land owned 
 under long leases. Is it not monstrous to say 
 that a man, who is entitled to land for a thousand 
 years, has not an estate in perpetuity \ Ml accumu- 
 lating at compound interest at 3 per cent, would 
 reach a sum in excess of four millions in five 
 hundred years, and sixteen billions in a thousand 
 years. 
 
 It is, however, from the second class of dealing 
 that the chief difficulties and complications of our 
 laws arise. The law does not, it is true, consider 
 a marriage settlement as a voluntary arrangement, 
 but I feel justified in treating these settlements 
 as dealings with property by way of gift. This 
 system has grown up under the fostering care of 
 our courts of Equity. It has been rendered, in a 
 measure, necessary by the injustice of our laws 
 affecting the property of married women, and the 
 
156 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 law of primogeniture, and is in accordance with 
 the law of entail, of which the end and aim is to 
 secure the continuance of large landed estates in 
 the same families, notwithstanding the occasional 
 intervention of one who, but for such settlement, 
 might dissipate his patrimony. 
 
 It is, I contend, desirable that all property 
 should be under the dominion of some recognised 
 and responsible person. Property will be better 
 employed, as a general rule, by the real owner 
 than by some person on his behalf ; and by one 
 having the whole, than by one having a limited 
 interest in it. As regards personal property, no 
 great injury perhaps is done if it is not employed 
 in the most profitable way ; for, in whatever way 
 invested, it sets free its equivalent for useful 
 employ, and even if buried, the only injury done 
 is by its abstraction for the time from general 
 circulation. But land requires to be cultivated, 
 it demands the application of capital and intelli- 
 gence ; and greater public injury is done when 
 land is left unproductive than when money lies 
 idle. 
 
 A settlement, therefore, which hampers the owner 
 of land in his management of it, is injurious, 
 and no owner would submit to be so hampered 
 but for the strong desire that his estate should 
 continue intact in his descendants. To gratify 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 157 
 
 this desire, he abdicates his ownership, disqualifies 
 himself for discharging the duties and respon- 
 sibilities attaching to it, cripples his means of 
 improving his estate or of applying it in a way he 
 may hereafter find advantageous to himself and 
 the public. The law should not encourage such 
 a system and practice. This system of settlement 
 is one great cause why there is so much expense 
 and difficulty attendant on the transfer of land. 
 The amount of personal property affected by 
 settlement is probably as large in value as that of 
 land ; but the consequences are not so serious to 
 the community, and are in a great measure obvi- 
 ated by the rules of those undertakings in which 
 settled personalty is generally invested. I know 
 of no law which prevents the creation of interests 
 to extend over long periods, say for 500 years, in 
 personal property, as in land. Practically no such 
 interests are created. The owners of personalty 
 show as great a desire to tie up as the owners of 
 land, and as to one description of personalty, 
 popularly called heir-looms, this desire is as uni- 
 versally attempted to be gratified. But the law 
 is fundamentally different when dealing with 
 personalty, including chattels real and heir-looms, 
 and lands held in fee simple, to which it is impor- 
 tant to draw particular attention. 
 
 Marriage is usually the occasion on which 
 settlements of property are made, and the process 
 
158 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 by which lands are retained in families is by a 
 course of successive settlements, made on the 
 marriage of each successive heir to the estate. 
 Thus — A, the father, is tenant for life, and B, his 
 son, is tenant in tail. B is about to be married, 
 and the father and son bar the entail and re-settle 
 the estates, and then A becomes the tenant for 
 life, as he was before, B becomes a life tenant, to 
 have possession after his father’s death, and the 
 first estate of inheritance is passed on to his eldest 
 son in tail, and then to his second and other sons 
 in succession, in tail. We are here introduced to 
 three kinds of estates, viz. : one for life, and two 
 estates in perpetuity, or possible perpetuity ; 1st, 
 an estate of inheritance in fee limited, which will 
 pass to a man’s lineal heirs only, and 2nd, an estate 
 of inheritance in fee simple, which will not pass to 
 lineal heirs only, but to his heirs in the remotest 
 degree. 
 
 In the settlement of personalty the same form 
 is adopted, but the law does not admit of two 
 estates of indefinite duration ; it does not admit 
 of property being settled on the lineal descendants 
 of a man and, when these fail, on his heirs general; 
 but insists upon all indefinite ownership being 
 absolute : and thus, though the same language 
 should be used as in the case of land, the person 
 who, in the case of land, becomes a tenant in tail, 
 and takes an estate which will continue so long 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 159 
 
 as a lineal descendant exists, becomes, in the 
 case of personalty, the absolute owner in per- 
 petuity. I should state that the law does allow 
 of personalty being so settled, that its becoming 
 the absolute property of the first tenant in tail 
 may be made contingent on his attaining 21, so 
 that, if he dies under 21, it shall pass to the next 
 in succession. 
 
 The question naturally arises why entails should 
 be allowed in one kind of property and not in 
 another. Are entails beneficial to the family? 
 are they beneficial to the community? or being 
 advantageous to the family and injurious to the 
 community, is the family advantage so great as to 
 override the public detriment ? If the result of 
 the reasoning be in favour of entails, why limit 
 them to land, held under a particular tenure, and 
 not apply them to long leases, to heir-looms and 
 personal estate in general ? 
 
 But what is an entail ? Professedly, and in its 
 language, it is an estate descendible to a certain 
 class of heirs and the intention of any one, who 
 creates an entail, is that it shall pass to these heirs 
 in lineal succession. But entails so understood, 
 and as they would be if the statute De Donis were 
 observed, are condemned by the Law, which, while 
 it allows of their creation, has ingenious devices 
 from time to time for destroying them. A law 
 
160 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 which first creates an estate and then invents a 
 machinery to destroy it, is surely self-condemned. 
 But the law goes further ; it holds that an estate 
 tail does not exhaust the ownership, that it is not 
 an estate in perpetuity, and allows other estates 
 to be created to take effect when the estate tail 
 fails from failure of heirs. At the same time it 
 declares, that it shall depend on the will of a 
 tenant in tail whether his own estate shall be 
 enlarged, altered in its character to the disherison 
 of his descendants, or whether it shall be enlarged 
 and absorb and destroy all the estates which are 
 to come into possession on failure of lineal heirs. 
 
 Under a settlement such as I have above 
 sketched (and I have taken the simplest form) 
 until B’s son attain 21, the chain of ownership is 
 incomplete and all freedom of dealing with the 
 estate is gone. So far as provision may have been 
 made by proper clauses, or by special legislation, 
 the property may be let, or sold, or exchanged 
 under certain restrictive conditions; but it cannot 
 be self-improved. A part cannot be sold to 
 improve the remainder. In fact, the apparent 
 owner is not the absolute owner but a life tenant 
 only. B’s son, when of age, may sell or mortgage 
 his expectancy. He may, by an enrolled deed, 
 but no other, put an end to the entail ; that is, he 
 can sell the estate so far as to prevent any of his 
 own descendents ever succeeding to it, but of his 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 161 
 
 own act he cannot affect the interest of his 
 brothers, who are tenants in tail in succession to 
 him, and their descendants. With his grand- 
 fathers and, after his death, with his father’s 
 concurrence, and after their death, when he 
 becomes tenant in tail in possession, he can do 
 more ; for he can determine* all entail after his 
 own and sell the estate absolutely. Whether 
 judgments against him, or his bankruptcy destroy 
 the rights of the remainder ever, I will not say, for 
 none but an astute conveyancer can understand 
 the intricacies of this law. Thus we find the 
 owner of a limited estate has the power, not only 
 of altering the character of that estate, converting 
 an estate tail into a base fee, but of enlarging 
 from an estate, to last only so long as his descen- 
 dants exist, into an estate of fee simple or 
 perpetuity. Could any but a conveyancer have 
 devised a machinery so cumbrous, so unintelligible, 
 so unjust to rights of which it sanctions the 
 creation ; and teaching such doubtful morality ? 
 
 Take the case of an unmarried female tenant who 
 cannot in the course of nature have a child, — is it 
 just to allow such a person, because technically 
 tenant in tail, to deprive those in succession from 
 taking the estate intended for them % Is it possible 
 to have simplicity of title, on the transfer of land, 
 made intelligible, when such a complicated system 
 as here disclosed is allowed'? And I have given 
 
 M 
 
162 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 the simplest form of settlement. What is there in 
 this system of settlement that justifies so much 
 protecting care and encouragement as the laws 
 extend to it ? 
 
 It gratifies two dominant feelings which the 
 wealthy entertain : that of posthumous dominion, 
 and the desire to secure the estate from dissipation 
 by an extravagant successor. The former class of 
 feelings require no encouragement. Each gener- 
 ation should be satisfied to manage its own affiairs, 
 and not seek to infuse its views and opinions on 
 its successors. The latter is surely carried too far. 
 To meet the rare case of an extravagant heir, the 
 hands of those best qualified to manage the 
 property are tied. It is no doubt a misfortune to 
 a family when the head of the family dissipates the 
 estates ; but they pass into other hands who will 
 perform, in all probability quite as well, all the 
 duties and responsibilities devolving on the owner 
 of a large estate. The unfortunate children are 
 relegated to the ranks of industry to win back 
 the fortune^ one ancestor acquired, and another 
 lost. 
 
 Under the protection of a settlement, the 
 extravagant head has dissipated his life- income. 
 During his life the family are out of sight ; the 
 estate is mismanaged, the ownership being in 
 abeyance, and, after his death, the heir reverts to 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 163 
 
 a patrimony, and the public feeling is shocked that 
 the creditors suffer while the heir revels in 
 wealth. 
 
 A marriage -settlement proceeds on the as- 
 sumption that the married couple are not to be 
 trusted with the management of their own es- 
 tate and their hands must be tied from making 
 the best use of their property, least they should 
 squander it. The question for consideration is, 
 how far the law, paying a reasonable regard to 
 individual feeling and social habits (which it has 
 probably done much to form and foster) but 
 having chiefly in view the public good, should 
 allow fetters to be placed on the free use of 
 property and the ownership to be subdivided. 
 The existing law, as regards personalty, appears to 
 me to go to the extreme limit of this indulgence, 
 and though I believe that it might be curtailed 
 with advantage, I proceed to make my suggestions, 
 for the alteration of the law affecting the heirship 
 of land, on this basis. 
 
 I would suggest there should be but two estates 
 in land or in personalty : 
 
 1. A limited estate for life, or for a time not 
 exceeding 100 years. 
 
 2. An estate in perpetuity. 
 
 This would abolish entails, base-fees, and long 
 leaseholds, and reduce all land to fee -simple 
 
164 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 tenure, out of which no longer estate could be 
 caused than for life or for 100 years. 
 
 A settlement of land might be allowed to the 
 same extent as a settlement of personalty, but no 
 further. Nor should the settlor claim any greater 
 control over the acts of those entitled to estates, 
 created by settlement, in land, than can be done 
 in the case of personalty. 
 
 There can be no safety and simplicity in title 
 without a register. I would do away with trust 
 estates and trusteeships ; except in cases where 
 they are absolutely necessary from natural causes, 
 as in the case of persons under disability, executors 
 and administrators having to arrange the distri- 
 bution of property, &c., and would leave all 
 interests to be dealt with by those beneficially 
 interested. 
 
 All transfers of land should be in the simplest 
 form, specifying the names of transferor and 
 transferee, and the extent of the estate or interest 
 intended to be transferred. 
 
 The rule should be, that, unless expressly 
 limited, the absolute property should pass in 
 perpetuity without words referring to succession. 
 
 No covenants of title should be inserted, the 
 transfer itself including whatever is involved in 
 the transfer of ownership from one to another. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 165 
 
 Charges, such as jointures, portions, mortgages, 
 rent-charge, should be created by a simple docu- 
 ment, stating the amount, mode of payment, and 
 description of property charged. No covenants 
 being necessary, nor special remedies, the law 
 securing the payment by the remedies usually 
 reserved by deed. 
 
 All pecuniary charges on land, whether tem- 
 porary or permanent, should be redeemable by the 
 owner of the land charged, on payment of the 
 value. 
 
 The ownership should never be allowed to be in 
 abeyance. 
 
 The guardian of an infant, the committee of a 
 lunatic, should have as full powers as an actual 
 owner. When an estate is limited to a person 
 unborn, the settlor should designate some person 
 to represent the interest till it vests, and, in 
 default, a guardian ought to be appointed, as in 
 the case of a minor. 
 
 Provision must be made for the easy and inex- 
 pensive alteration in severalty of land owned by 
 several. 
 
 I believe that if these principles were carried 
 out, the transfer of land would be, as it ought to 
 be, as simple as that of personalty. 
 
 With reference to the dereliction of land, I 
 would adopt the rules relating to personalty. The 
 
166 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 law of succession should, in my opinion, be uni- 
 form. And for the purpose of administering an 
 estate and dividing it among those interested, 
 executors and administrators should have the 
 same power as they now possess in respect of 
 personalty. 
 
 No dealing with land should be valid, unless 
 registered, and when land is appropriated by an 
 executor or administrator, as for instance to shares 
 in a residue, a written statement be furnished by 
 him to the registrar. 
 
 Documents not under seal to have the same 
 power as deeds under seal. 
 
 No judgment and decree, nor liability as debtor 
 or accountant to the Crown, to affect land, unless 
 registered. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 167 
 
 EXTRACT FROM AN ADDRESS 
 
 PREPARED FOR DELIVERY AT A MEETING OF THE 
 
 “ UNITED KINGDOM ALLIANCE.” 
 
 While honoring and encouraging those whom 
 you will hear this evening, and who will enforce 
 the principles of the United Kingdom Alliance 
 with all the energy of a settled conviction, the 
 fervor of a noble zeal, and the enthusiasm of a 
 hope which no opposition can extinguish, I pur- 
 pose to address my observations to some questions 
 in connection with this great subject which, though 
 less exciting, appear to me of some importance, 
 and may lead to a better understanding of the 
 relations between the State, the publican, and the 
 public. 
 
 The relation of the State with the trade in drink 
 is twofold, financial and regulatory. 
 
 If drink were like tobacco, an exotic, only pro- 
 duced out of the country, the financial relations 
 of the State with the trade would be much simpli- 
 fied. Tobacco, which is a sort of first-cousin, and 
 
168 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DTCKINSON 
 
 frequently the handmaid to drink, is not grown 
 in this country, and, if a case were established 
 against tobacco, an Anti-tobacco Association might 
 demand from the Legislature an absolute prohi- 
 bition against the importation of the nasty weed. 
 The Government might say “ The smokers pay us 
 £7,000,000 a year, and we can’t afford to give up 
 that income, and such is the determination of the 
 public to make chimneys of their mouths that, if 
 w r e prohibited its importation, it would require a 
 multitudinous coast-guard to prevent the opera- 
 tions of an enormous body of smugglers and 
 they might point to the opium traffic in China, 
 where the native Government prohibited the 
 import, and the Anglo-Indian Government were 
 the great abettors of smuggling, by manufacturing 
 the article, and selling it on terms that it should 
 be exported from India to the only market open 
 for it — China. 
 
 The case of drink however is more complicated. 
 It is produced at home and abroad, and thus a 
 double form of tax is imposed on it — customs duty 
 on the foreign article imported, and excise on the 
 native article produced. The contribution to 
 the revenue from these two sources was, in 1872, 
 26^ millions, and in 1873, 30 millions I have 
 not later returns, but it has not decreased since 
 then, but rather shews an elasticity on which the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer so trustingly relies. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 169 
 
 The prohibition of the trade would thus sweep 
 .£30,000,000 off the Budget, as revenue; and we 
 must not be surprised that the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer should attach himself to the moderate 
 drinker class, and say that the State cannot afford 
 to try the experiment. 
 
 Again, a prohibition of the trade would produce, 
 not only the smuggler, but the illicit distiller and 
 purveyor, and not only would a numerous coast- 
 guard become necessary, but a large body of 
 excisemen, engaged in looking after places of 
 illicit manufacture and sale. I confess that it 
 seems to me hopeless to contend against these 
 powers arrayed against the cause; and it is for 
 this reason, that I wish to address myself to a 
 branch of the subject which is free from these 
 tremendous difficulties. 
 
 The State, in laying a custom duty on the 
 importation of fermented liquors, and an excise 
 duty on their home manufacture, is not brought 
 into immediate relation with the retailer. The 
 operation results, no doubt, in a profit derived by 
 the State out of an objectionable trade. But, as 
 regards the trade itself, the effect is to make the 
 retail dealer pay the importer or manufacturer a 
 higher price for the article, which he again receives 
 from the consumer. Its tendency is rather to 
 check than encourage consumption ; though the 
 
170 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 State may be interested in increased consumption, 
 that interest is almost too remote to influence the 
 action of the State in that direction. 
 
 But in addition to these custom and excise 
 duties, in collecting which the State only comes 
 in contact with the importer and manufacturer, 
 there is another duty of a very different character — 
 the licenses for the retail sale. These are received 
 by the State directly from the publican ; they 
 suggest the idea that the trade is a privileged one — 
 as one specially licensed by Government ; and the 
 language used on the sign-boards, that the publican 
 is licensed to sell intoxicating drinks, to be drunk 
 on the premises, suggests to an untutored mind, 
 and one not well versed in rules of grammar, 
 that the publican is licensed by the State to keep 
 a house where anyone may get drunk who likes — 
 that these are places expressly set apart for people 
 to get drunk in, according to Act of Parliament. 
 The revenue derived from these licenses is not 
 inconsiderable, but it is a trifle in comparison with 
 the sums to which I have alluded : it amounts to 
 between 1J and 1J million. The publican who 
 pays for the license considers that he has a personal 
 claim against the State to assist him in getting it 
 back from his customers. In order to do this, he 
 furnishes his rooms, provides sundry entertain- 
 ments, such as music, &c., and does what he can 
 to render his premises attractive ; and he claims 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 171 
 
 against the State, in consequence, an interest in a 
 monopoly for which he pays. 1 feel quite certain 
 that, if we are to have a money connection between 
 the State and the trade, it should be confined to 
 the duties of custom on importation, and excise 
 on manufacture, and that there should be no 
 primary connection whatever between the State 
 and the retail dealer. 
 
 In considering the retail trade in drink, we 
 have two very different sets of people to deal 
 with, and two very different questions to consider. 
 The sale by retail for consumption off the premises, 
 and the sale by retail for consumption on the 
 premises ; and, as regards the latter, whether the 
 consumption of drink is made as of an article of 
 food, or as of an article of simple indulgence and 
 luxury. A man who is addicted to drinking will 
 buy the article, and take it home, and get drunk ; 
 but it is obvious that there are hindrances and 
 opposing influences, which have a tendency, to 
 some extent, to diminish the risk of drinking to 
 excess, when the article is bought at one place 
 and taken to another for consumption, and that 
 the rules to guard against drunkenness need not 
 be so stringent, as regards places where drink is 
 sold to be consumed elsewhere, as in respect of 
 places where it is sold and consumed on the spot. 
 Again, when the consumption of drink is a part 
 of the ordinary meal, and is confined to the 
 
172 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 requirements of that meal, the risks of excess are 
 much diminished, and here the ordinary habits of 
 social and domestic life have a tendency to regulate 
 the consumption within moderate limits. But when 
 a place is set apart for drinking, for personal 
 indulgence, of which the glass and the pipe, jovial 
 company, possibly music and other social attrac- 
 tions, are the elements, and the drinking and 
 smoking are the sole articles paid for, it is clear 
 that the purveyors have a direct interest in 
 increasing the consumption of the article, and 
 those who enter the charmed circle have little 
 chance of escaping from it unscathed. 
 
 We have then the trade carried on in four 
 different kinds of places, which I shall name in 
 the order in which they appear to me to be the 
 least dangerous, and to require less stringent 
 regulations. 
 
 1st. The premises where the article is sold 
 simply, and not consumed. 
 
 2nd. The refreshment -house, where a slight 
 refreshment and a glass of wine are furnished. 
 
 3rd. The hotel, where one department provides 
 meals, including drink, and another, the bar and 
 tap-room, is devoted to drink only. 
 
 4th. The ordinary public-house or beer-house, 
 where drinking only is carried on. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 173 
 
 If the general public have any right to demand 
 that any dealer in any particular article should be 
 bound to supply their wants, I apprehend the 
 universal answer would be that it should be in the 
 case of necessities, and not of luxuries, and that 
 there would be more reason for the Legislature 
 to declare that if I wanted bread, meat, or clothing, 
 the baker, butcher, or draper should be bound to 
 supply me, than the tobacconist and beer-seller, if 
 I wanted a cigar and a glass of beer. But in truth 
 all legislative interference between the dealer and 
 consumer in this respect is vicious. It must be 
 left to the law of supply and demand ; and if a 
 butcher does not choose to supply me with meat, 
 or a baker, with bread, I do not expect that the 
 law will punish him. And I contend that the 
 innkeeper and publican should be treated as any 
 other trade. If a butcher chooses to give himself 
 a holiday, no one can prevent his shutting up his 
 shop. If a refreshment -dealer shuts up his shop, 
 no traveller can knock and insist on his serving 
 him. 
 
 Many years ago the Judges took the part 
 of the traveller, and laid down the law that an 
 innkeeper was bound to receive a traveller, and 
 entertain man and beast, if he was prepared 
 to pay the innkeeper a reasonable sum for his 
 entertainment; and an innkeeper is liable to an 
 indictment if he refuses to do this. I hold this 
 
174 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DTCKINSON 
 
 law to be unjust, and that the relation between 
 traveller and innkeeper should be one of contract, 
 like that between him and the butcher and baker, 
 and that any traveller, going on his travels or 
 making a pleasure excursion, should make his 
 arrangements, as he can readily do, without any 
 such law in his favor. 
 
 This law, confined to the innkeeper and travel- 
 ler, the publican is proud of applying, and he is 
 encouraged in this view by the Legislature. The 
 Act of 1872 authorizes him to refuse admittance 
 to, and turn out, any drunken disorderly customer, 
 and authorizes him to call in the assistance of the 
 police to turn out disorderly characters. I con- 
 tend that the publican is, and if he is not, he 
 ought to be, master of his own premises, and 
 liable for keeping good order. He is proud of 
 urging that he is a public servant, that he is bound 
 to serve any one who comes and demands drink, 
 unless he has already had too much. This is a 
 very much more important question than it appears 
 at first sight. If the view is correct that he is 
 bound by law to serve customers up to the drunken 
 point, he is entitled to consideration ; but if, as I 
 contend, it is optional on his part to do so or not, 
 then he must be held responsible for the conduct 
 of his customers. Take the case of a woman who 
 is known to be a drunkard with a sober husband. 
 If the husband has given notice to a publican not 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 175 
 
 to admit his wife to his public-house, I contend 
 that he ought not to serve that woman ; but if it 
 be law that he is bound to serve her, then the law, 
 and not the publican, is responsible for the result. 
 So, if a workman, if known to be a drunkard, 
 having received his wages comes to a public-house 
 and spends his money in drink, the publican, 
 knowing his habits, ought to be able to say that he 
 will not help in depriving his wife and family of 
 their share in his earnings. 
 
 Again, in the case of the traveller, I cannot 
 conceive on what ground he can ask that the law 
 should entitle him to demand admittance on a 
 Sunday to a public-house ; if it does, the publican 
 may well ask to be relieved from the danger of 
 deciding whether he is a traveller or not. But if 
 the publican has, as I contend he has, the right to 
 exclude even travellers if he chooses to shut up 
 his shop, there is no harm in imposing on him the 
 risk of being deceived. 
 
 The tone of all our legislation enables the 
 publican to press his interest under the cover of 
 the public. If he has to break the sabbath, — the 
 public requires that his house should be open, and 
 he ought to be pitied rather than blamed for 
 keeping it open. If he wishes to retire to rest 
 early with his family, he cannot do so because the 
 public requires that his house should be open for 
 
176 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 their enjoyment, and he is bound to supply the 
 public ! 
 
 Let us have no more of this sailing under false 
 colors ; let us declare that the trade is an excep- 
 tion, dangerous to the public, and therefore one 
 which should be made subject to rules to protect 
 the public, and those who wish to frequent public- 
 houses should be made subject to restrictions, as 
 persons who enter mines or powder-works. 
 
 Allow me here to advert to two matters in which 
 the Acts of 1872 and 1874 have made a grievous 
 mistake, though it may appear to some to be one 
 of form and not of substance. While almost 
 every other trade is prohibited on Sunday, and 
 shops are closed at reasonable hours, and while 
 the early -closing movement has shut up shops 
 once or oftener a week, at the close of day, the 
 trade of the publican has been a seven days’ trade, 
 and his shop is kept open all the seven nights to an 
 hour when most respectable hard-working people 
 are in bed, counteracting the good effects of the 
 early closing. Thus the Legislature gives the 
 authority of its sanction to the proposition that a 
 public-house ought to be open on Sundays as well 
 as week-days, and till a late hour in the night. 
 When the Act of 1872 relieved the licensee from 
 one-seventh of his license duty if he took out a 
 six days’ license, and another one-seventh if he 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 177 
 
 took out a license for an hour earlier at night, it 
 ought to have laid down the rule that licenses 
 would be for six days and for short hours, and if a 
 publican required one for Sunday, or for a late 
 hour, he should apply and pay for it accordingly. 
 The publican now hesitates to curtail his license, 
 he does as others do, but if he had distinctly to 
 take out a separate license, he would probably 
 hesitate, especially when it was a question of a 
 breach of the Sabbath 
 
 So far as the public are concerned there is, in 
 my opinion, no ground whatever for contending 
 that the Legislature should sanction, in favor of 
 the smoker and the drinker, a practice which it 
 will not sanction in any other trade, — that in 
 opposition to the Sabbath observance, traditions 
 and feelings of the country, it should authorize a 
 breach, not for the necessaries of life, but for 
 articles of indulgence and luxury, and that, while 
 every other shop almost is closed, the public- 
 houses should be open till 10, 11 or 12 every night, 
 including Sunday. If travellers and excursionists 
 want tobacco and beer, let them provide them- 
 selves with these articles, and enjoy a pic-nic. 
 
 To sum up, then, as a reform possibly attainable, 
 and calculated to improve the present deplorable 
 state of things, but not impeding or preventing 
 the progress of those more sweeping measures 
 
 N 
 
178 
 
 MEMORIALS OE S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 which the Alliance seeks to impose, I would ven- 
 ture to urge on you a scheme based on these : 
 
 Put an end to all pecuniary connection between 
 the State and the retail dealer, by abolishing 
 the licensing system, if necessary adding to the 
 customs and excise duties on import and manu- 
 facture a sum to cover that now paid for licenses. 
 
 Declare the retail trade to be dangerous to the 
 moral well-being of the community, and therefore 
 to be carried on by those who engage in it under 
 regulations to secure the public, to some extent, 
 from the dangers to which they are subject. 
 
 Make these regulations dependent on the nature 
 of the retail trade, which could be divided into 
 four classes : 
 
 1. Where the article is sold and consumed off 
 the premises. 
 
 2. Where the article is sold and consumed on 
 the premises as part of refreshment, but the 
 consumer is a mere passer-by. 
 
 3. The hotels, where lodgers are taken in, and 
 food and drink supplied. 
 
 4. Public-houses, where drink is sold alone, or 
 as the principal article of consumption. This to 
 include the taps and bars at hotels. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 179 
 
 These regulations might provide for the following 
 matters : 
 
 Registration of the traders’ securities given by 
 him to provide against any breach of the laws. 
 
 A limit to the number allowed to engage in 
 the trade, as regards population ; provision as to 
 suitableness of premises ; a forced regard paid to 
 objections by neighbours in the street ; a limit 
 with reference to others in the neighbourhood. 
 
 A limit as to hours, the ordinary closing hour 
 to be an early one, and when the trader intends 
 to keep the house open to a later hour, special 
 restrictions against persons being allowed to con- 
 tinue above a certain time and the admission of 
 females and young persons. 
 
 Absolute prohibition of all trade on Sundays, 
 except in the case of hotels, in favor of lodgers 
 and of travellers passing and taking a meal ; but 
 all tap and bar traffic prohibited. Liberty at 
 certain hours, say one hour at mid-day and one 
 hour in the evening, to sell, to be consumed off the 
 premises, in vessels to be brought by customers. 
 
 A regulation, in the case of hotels that take in 
 horses, that the trader should provide a proper 
 room for the use of all persons coming with horses, 
 carriages, &c., where no drink should be allowed : 
 n 2 
 
180 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 those who want drink to obtain it at the tap or 
 bar ; no separate tap to be allowed away from the 
 house. 
 
 Disqualification (personal) of a trader on con- 
 viction of any offence. 
 
 Some provisions by which publicans who, after 
 prohibition by a magistrate, on application of 
 husband, or wife, or children, or relieving officer, 
 allow a man, or woman, or other member of the 
 family to drink, shall be responsible to make good 
 to the family the money spent in drink. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 181 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM 
 
 PRAYERS AND MEDITATIONS. 
 
 How large, and wide, and universal is God’s 
 law ; and how short and simple ! Love to God, 
 and love to our neighbour. And that love active, 
 sincere, earnest, efficacious, ever on the watch, 
 and glad of any occasion, however slight, in which 
 it can manifest or exercise itself. Love to God — 
 which accepts, with ready gratitude, all His mercies 
 vouchsafed unto us, sees in His dispensations, 
 special and constantly recurring manifestations of 
 His goodness, and leaves all to the ordering of 
 His gracious providence, in the full assurance that 
 He will make all things work together for good 
 to those who love Him. Love to God — which 
 quickens the eye of faith to realize His presence, 
 kindles the affections with a desire to please Him, 
 sharpens the conscience to detect every symptom 
 of backsliding, and energizes the will to seek 
 every occasion to render Him service. 
 
 Love to God our Father — the trusting, clinging, 
 confiding love of children, who feel that their Father 
 
182 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 loves them, and give expression to that feeling by a 
 constant attention to His will, and studious endea- 
 vour to avoid every occasion of offence, and a 
 dedication of themselves to His service ; who feel 
 that any service they can offer falls far short of 
 their desires, and, far from founding thereon 
 any claim of merit, are conscious of their short- 
 comings, but rely on His graciousness to accept 
 them. 
 
 Love to our neighbour — a lively, active, per- 
 sonal feeling, which sees in every human being 
 a brother — a child of the same Father — heir of 
 the same promises— object of the same love ; 
 which is careful not to offend, not only in acts of 
 carelessness indifference and unkindness to them, 
 but in attributing to them unkind, unworthy and 
 unchristian motives ; which elevates all ranks and 
 stations of life, throws aside all selfishness, all the 
 evil and covetous thoughts, which a contrast, of 
 our own position and circumstances with others 
 more largely favored with worldly advantages, 
 suggests — is quick to discover how each member 
 of the human family, however lowly his worldly 
 station may be, is capable of ministering to the 
 comfort, the necessities and the welfare of others, 
 and has in his daily walk ever recurring occasions 
 of illustrating and practising God’s universal law 
 of love. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 183 
 
 If we could feel, we pilgrims and sojourners on 
 earth, that we were brethren, how different would 
 our conduct be to each other. How should we 
 sympathise with each other, love each other, seek 
 each other’s welfare, and travel hand in hand, 
 giving and receiving encouragement in our journey 
 through life. Yes, love is the fulfilment of the 
 law ; love is the emblem of the gospel. Love to 
 God, love to man, the whole duty of our life. 
 Love which sacrifices all thought of self, and seeks 
 to God. Love which ascribes all we have to the 
 mercy of God — seeks all we desire from the grace 
 of God. Love which reposes on God, and accepts 
 His salvation as a free gift. Love which embraces 
 the cross, and places all its trust and confidence 
 in God. And love to our neighbour, because he is 
 our brother — because he is a child of God, an 
 heir of grace, and adopted of His Father. Love 
 which rejoices at our neighbour’s happiness, which 
 would remove all occasion of offence, would think 
 no evil, would accept the offices of charity, and 
 make him a partaker of our possessions. 
 
 We confess indeed that God is present every- 
 where, and at all times, and that, wherever we 
 may be, and whatever we may be engaged in, 
 God is actually present, and is no idle spectator 
 of our actions, nay, our words and even our 
 
184 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 unuttered thoughts are known to and noted by 
 Him. Oh how does this great truth, which we so 
 freely acknowledge, which we feel we can neither 
 deny nor doubt — this great truth of God’s omni- 
 presence and omniscience, operate upon our habits 
 and lives ? Does our consciousness of it make 
 us take heed as to our ways, and so watch over 
 ourselves as if God were present, and we felt and 
 saw His presence ? If the presence of some other 
 operates as a restraint upon the freedom of speech 
 or action, so far as to make us careful not to 
 offend, how much more should the presence of 
 our God restrain us, and make us careful not to 
 offend \ If the presence of some loved friend 
 constrains us to express to him our feelings of 
 affection, and to tender to him the offices of 
 friendship, how much more should the presence 
 of our Heavenly Father constrain to the expres- 
 sion to Him of our gratitude and love, and to the 
 practice and exercise of those things which He 
 has declared are agreeable to His will \ 
 
 Let us pause while there is time and meditate 
 on our habits and conduct, our life and progress. 
 We confess that we have not satisfied God’s law — 
 that we have lived to ourselves, and not to Him— 
 that we have sinned, and come far short of His 
 requirements. Do we feel our sinfulness ? does 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 185 
 
 the thought of it weigh upon our souls'? do we 
 feel the necessity of our Saviour’s atonement ? 
 We know that we are sinners, we know that Christ 
 died to save sinners, and we invoke the atonement 
 of the cross in expiation of our sins. But the 
 confession only of our sins will not secure us the 
 mediation of Christ. It would on these terms be 
 easy to obtain salvation. The confession must be 
 sincere — the earnest outpouring of a heart that 
 feels all the bitterness of sin, of a conscience that 
 cannot be at rest till it has the seal of God’s 
 pardon communicated by the inspiration of the 
 Holy Spirit, and bearing the fruits of a hearty 
 repentance, a thorough amendment of our lives, a 
 constant watch kept over all our words, thoughts 
 and actions, and a daily and hourly living as in 
 the presence of God. 
 
 Do we live, do we perform our duties thought- 
 fully ? Do we ask ourselves, at all times, and in 
 all places and companies, in all engagements and 
 occupations, whether we are doing what is pleasing 
 to God, and whether we are striving to do it from 
 a desire to please Him ? 
 
 Life is not a succession of great trials and great 
 temptations, but each day and each hour has its 
 opportunities, its trials, its temptations. If, in any 
 
186 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 occupation or work, we could have done better 
 than we did, we have not done what we ought. 
 
 We may perhaps resist any great temptation 
 which comes but rarely, and startles our con- 
 sciences, but do we resist all the trials and 
 temptations which each passing hour offers ? Do 
 we not look upon them as little, as of no import- 
 ance ? And yet they are so many opportunities 
 which each day furnishes us to shew the earnest- 
 ness and reality of our religion, and that it is 
 our constant companion, moulding our thoughts, 
 forming our habits, and regulating our conduct in 
 all we do. 
 
 We are ready to condemn the crimes which the 
 laws of our country punish, but are we not apt to 
 think that, because we avoid the commission of 
 these crimes, we are clear of sin ? We are ready 
 to acknowledge the sacred duty of obeying the 
 commandments of God, .... but do we 
 attain to clear conceptions of God’s law ? We 
 shrink at the thought of robbery, but are we 
 careful of the property of others ? If we have an 
 opportunity of doing good to another and do it 
 not, is not the effect the same as if we did him a 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 187 
 
 positive injury? — if, by an act of thoughtfulness, 
 we could have done him good, and, from idleness 
 and indifference, did it not, have we done what 
 we could l 
 
 How little worth are all worldly possessions and 
 enjoyments, how fleeting and unsatisfying; but 
 by using the talents entrusted to us in the service 
 of our Lord they are valuable, and the means of 
 happiness to our souls, both here and hereafter. 
 
 The very lowest temporal gifts may be devoted 
 to God, as may the highest. He to whom only 
 one talent has been entrusted, and who uses that 
 talent aright, will be rewarded as well as he who 
 made a right use of the ten talents committed to 
 his care. 
 
 The present is all we can call our own ; nor is 
 it wise for us to habituate our thoughts to dwell 
 on a future which may never be ours, or if it be 
 vouchsafed to us, may be of a very different nature 
 to that on which our affections may be placed. 
 If we allow ourselves to invest the future with a 
 promise of happiness, we depreciate our present 
 gifts, and press forward to attain what may end 
 in disappointment. If we overshadow it with the 
 dark clouds of sorrow, we destroy our ability and 
 
188 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 desire to appropriate our present blessings, and 
 may find our sad forebodings falsified. And this 
 habit of looking to the future of life is especially 
 dangerous to our spiritual welfare, as it has a 
 tendency to withdraw us from the necessity of 
 immediate repentance, and the immediate and 
 constant and uninterrupted devotion of ourselves 
 to God’s service, and to whisper to us that we may 
 safely continue a little longer in doubt and uncer- 
 tainty, as there is still time for our repentance, 
 our reconcilement to God, and our sanctification, 
 and eventual fitness for admission into His glory. 
 
 Oh how lukewarm must be our faith, how great 
 our short-comings, how complete our unfitness, if 
 we can be careless of our conduct, indifferent to 
 holiness, ready to yield to the temptation of sin, 
 because we feel that there is a reasonable assur- 
 ance of a future, in which we may repent of any 
 present failings. The future, when it becomes 
 the present, will not be without its own calls for 
 repentance for the sins of the present, without 
 being burdened with the sins of the past ; and if 
 we can now sin on a self-made promise of repent- 
 ance hereafter, we shall make repentance itself 
 more difficult of attainment. 
 
 There is, indeed, one care for the future, which 
 should be ever present to our minds, and influence 
 our actions, — that of our eternal destiny, — and we 
 can well afford to dismiss all other cares. But 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 189 
 
 this care attaches to the present, rather than to 
 the future ; it looks not to the close of life, it 
 invests death with no terrors, it concerns itself 
 only with our fitness for the change, whenever 
 our summons may come. 
 
 What a glorious inheritance, what an ennobling 
 title ! How does all earthly distinction pale before 
 the title of “ sons of God !” What a destiny for 
 the poor oppressed pilgrim wandering through 
 the desert and dark places of the world. Son of 
 God and heir of heaven ! what a noble object of 
 ambition. We labor and toil with all our powers 
 and all our energies to acquire various possessions 
 in life — wealth, station, the applause and admira- 
 tion of the world, the love of friends. These and 
 the like attainments excite our zeal, inflame our 
 enthusiasm, and we succeed in the pursuit because 
 our feelings are enlisted, our powers are devotedly 
 applied, and we are earnest in the pursuit. And 
 yet how far short is the highest earthly prize — the 
 most envied worldly possession — the most coveted 
 station — of the prize of our high calling to be the 
 sons of God and have heaven for an inheritance. 
 Oh that we could be as earnest in the pursuit of 
 heaven, as zealous to be children of God, and as 
 devoted to do Him service, and yield Him the 
 hearty homage of our love and obedience ! 
 
190 
 
 MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 LINES ON PHOTOGRAPHY. 
 
 Nature’s the magic art, not mine, 
 
 That gives to light its power divine 
 When nitrogen and iodine, 
 
 And silver from the darksome mine, 
 
 Are on collodion film outspread 
 Ethereal on its glassy bed, 
 
 With happiest art the lines to trace 
 Of each beloved familiar face, 
 
 Which give to memory a hold, 
 
 When life’s short passing tale is told, 
 
 On forms on which it loves to dwell. 
 
 They weave around the heart a spell, 
 
 Fill the sad ear with voices still, 
 
 Gre.et the moist eyes with sights that thrill. 
 E’en to the saddest moments give 
 A joy best known to those who grieve ; 
 People the present with the past, 
 
 Revive loved scenes, not made to last. 
 
 These are the treasures choice of earth, 
 Memorials of departed worth 
 To us who linger still behind. 
 
MEMORIALS OF S. S. DICKINSON 
 
 191 
 
 They help communion sweet and kind 
 With sainted spirits gone before, 
 
 Who beckon us towards the shore ; 
 
 When lingering we might backwards gaze, 
 Had we here known but happy days, 
 
 And did our hearts not yearn to those 
 Who, snatched from earth, in heaven repose, 
 Exerting their sweet influence still, 
 
 To lead to good, to guard from ill, 
 
 And by a golden chain connect 
 Earth’s denizens with heaven’s elect. 
 


 
 
 
 

 
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