The living age Volume 224

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 Excerpt: ...foremost to set an example of those partialities and encroachments which have everywhere vitiated our local administration." (True! True!) "Thus oligarchies have become omnipotent and the conviction general that a man must stand at nothing to get the deputy on his side. Not merely has government accepted things as it found, without attempting to improve, them, but it has actually arrived at the point of attempting nothing more than securing and keeping at all costs--through the influence of its functionaries, sometimes of the very best of them--the support of the deputies" (cries of Good! and Hear!). But what use is there--what use has there ever been in repeating these things? On that very occasion I asked one of those deputies who are sure to vote with the majority whether he did not think Sig. Fortunato's speech a good one. "Oh, yes," he said, "Fortunate always speaks well, and he always leaves things exactly where he found them." There it is! This is a chord which vibrates but faintly in the breasts of our politicians. For them, questions of this nature are simply ornamental! But, setting aside the ever-burning question between the North and the South, we must own that there is much truth in the contention of Sig. Negri. Who made this budget which is so bitterly criticized? We, ourselves! And how can we ever reform it, and adopt a wholly new line without first chang ing our own nature and reforming ourselves?, The truth is, that a good many of our mistakes have not been mere mistakes. They have sprung from ingrain faults of character. We knew very well wha£ we were doing; but, either through personal or class vanity, we were resolved to do it. We have pursued the same course and made the same blunders whatever par...