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PROPOSITA PHILANTHROPICA.

Homo sum:

Humani nihil a me alienum puto. ROYAL MILITARY ASYLUM, CHELSEA.

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The heart of the genuine Briton is never callous to sensations of social affection, nor his mind insensible to the demands of sympathising humanity. Obduracy of soul never was the characteristic of our nation; and those who most unwillingly allow us to possess any of the nobler virtues, or of the finer feelings of human nature, yet are borne down by the irresistible current of facts to acknowledge, that no people have made greater exertions to relieve the miseries that flesh is heir to." Such has been the nature of the general provisions instituted and patronised by the public: but when particular branches of the public service have become more extensive, and have included a greater body of individuals, the nation has employed a portion of its means in rendering confortable, in declining life, those who had done it essential services in the prime of their days. Before the navy was a branch of national service, it could neither claim nor enjoy a national protection, proper to itself: but after the establishment of a regular system, and the admission of great numbers of all ranks into it, policy and humanity were equally excited to pay every possible regard to the personal interests of those who had contributed to the renown and security of their country by their perilous exertions on the boisterous ocean. Hence no one ever thought of grudging the advantages of Greenwich Hospital to a British seaman : and in like manner, after the army became a settled body, though the nation was not without cause jealous of a permanent military force, yet the provision for those who had done their duty in arms, and whom age or accidents forced from the service, was never contemned by unsophisticated patriots. Chelsea College was and is a noble institution: aa honour to our nation, and to the general character of our country. The events of late years have laid Britain under the necessity of considering her army as an essential part of her permanent power, and have induced her wisest statesmen to wish to see it composed of materials superior to those which formerly were forced or decoyed into it. Formerly the

army, was the refuge of unworthy characters,; and so far back as Queen Elizabeth's time the inducements for persons of repute or respectability to enter into it were so feeble, that the counties who were rated to its increase sent the refuse of their population to join it, but kept at home all that was worth keeping. Of this her majesty conplained, and loudly, too; but whether she took any measures correctly adapted to cure the evil by rendering the character of the soldier more honourable and his condition more comfortable, does not appear. The British soldier when he enters the army does not cease to be a man and a citizen. As a man, he is entitled to the moral and the. natural privileges of humanity above inferior natures, and, as a British citizen, to the privileges conferred by his country, to which those of other communities bear no compari

son.

Let him then feel the kinder emotions of his nature, and be bound to his native land by the, same tender ties as bind him to his family. Let him feel, that, in defending Britain, he defends his own flesh and blood, the wife of his bosom, and the children of his affection. Let him feel that he has an honour to maintain, a character that will attach to his posterity, and that, in zealously performing his duty to his country he vindicates their claims to the protection of his fellow-Britons. Can this protection be better shewn than in taking his children into an establishment like that of which we are now to state the particu lars? Can Britain pay the just demands of the father more effectually than by maintaining and educating the son? Can the prosperity of Britain be more honourably employed than by allotting a portion of it to the soldiers' descendants? If there be-which we do not believe-but, if there be a heart so preverse, or a head so impenetrable to the deductions of right reason, as to meditate an answer in the negative, we most heartily wish that the proprietor of such obduracy could have been of our company when we inspected (as in duy bound, for the PANORAMA) in propria persona the numerous ranks of most interesting youth that are at this time under the patronage, and partaking the advantages of this Asylum. The present number of boys is about seven hundred, of girls about three hundred; and more healthy and blithe coun tenances we never saw. The politeness and zealous interest taken by Colonel Williamson,

their Mothers, and whose Fathers are absent on Duty abroad.-4th. To those whose Fathers are ordered on Foreign Service; or, whose Parents have other Children to maintain.

The merit of the father, as to regimental character, shall be always considered as a

None shall be admitted, except the children, born in wedlock, of warrant and non

the commandant, and all the Officers, as well, reign Service.-3d. To those who have lost as the Rev. Mr. Clark, chaplain and superintendant of morals and education; the neatness of the apartments; the good order of the whole; gave us the most heartfelt satisfaction; and we can no better-indeed no otherwise express our feelings than by wishing the bene-principal recommendation. volence that breathes throughout the whole institution may meet with a reward proportionate to its good intentions; gratitude from the arny as a body; honour from the nation at large; emulation from the benevolent, and the ineffa·ble pleasure of beholding thousands and tens of thousands of those whom it has educated, becoming valuable members of society, sober, honest, industrious, moral, respectable, and loyal.

His majesty's warrant for establishing this
Asylum is dated, 26th of April 1805.
The officers established by it are

A commandant-20s. per diem.
Treasurer-£300 per ann.
Chaplain and superintendant of morals and
education, £280 per ann.

Adjutant and secretary, 10s. per diem.
Quarter master and steward, £180 per ann.
Surgeon, 15s. per diem.

Serjeant major of instruction, 2s. Od. Serjeant assistants, one to every fifty boys, 1s. 6d. per diem.

To those of them who assist in instruction,
Ed. per diem. additional.
Drunimer.

Matron, £100 per ann.

Assistant matron and school mistress, £50 Reading mistress, and one knitting mistress and sempstress, each £25 per ann.

Nurses, one to each ward, £10 per ann.
Nurses for the infirinary, £12 per ann.
Cook, £20 per ann.
Laundress, £20 per ann.
Serjeant porter, 1s. 6d. per diem.
By his Majesty's Deed of Institution the
following Orders are established.

Four quarterly, or general, boards shall be holden in each year; by the commissioners, viz. on the first Tuesday in the months of January, April, July, and October, or as soon thereafter as may be of which the Secretary shall give due notice to each commissioner, one week, at the least, preceding

each board.

In the selection of the children for admission, preference in general shall be given, 1st. To orphans.-2d. To those, whose Fathers have been killed; or have died on Fo

Captain Lugard, is adjutant; Mr. Hill, quarter-imaster; Mr. M'Gregor, surgeon, and Mr. Norris, his assistant.

commissioned officers and soldiers of our regular army.

Every child, previously to admission, must be ascertained to be entirely free from mental and bodily, infirmity.

The parents, or friends, applying for the admission of children, shall be required to sign their consent to such children remaining in the Asylum as long as our commissioners may think fit; and to their being disposed of, when of proper age, at the discretion of the coumissioners, as apprentices, or servants; or, if boys, to their being placed, with their own free consent, in our regular army, as private soldiers.

The number of children to be admitted shall not exceed One Thousand; viz. Seven Hundred Boys, and Three Hundred Girls; exclusive of such as, upon any pressure of special circumstances, may be received (for a time, and until they are of proper age to be removed, or until vacancies may occur in the Asylum) into the infant establishment in the Isle of Wight; hereby declared to be a branch of this our royal institution, and to be under the general controul of the cominissioners thereof.

It is the positive order of the commissioners, that all the officers, assistants, and servants, of the establishment, shall regularly attend divine service on Sundays, and on the Public Fasts and Festivals.

The Chaplain is to examine the children in the Church Catechism, and instruct them in the meaning thereof, according to their capacities, every Sunday; and to read prayers to them on every Wednesday, and Friday Morn ing. He is also to be responsible for, and to have a general superintendence of, the education of the children; to take care that they duly and reverently attend public worship; to reprove them for any irregularities and vices, which he shall observe, or know them to be guilty of; and, if they do not amend after admonition, he is to report their beha viour in writing to the Commandant. It will likewise be his duty to have a watchful eye over the moral and religious conduct of the ofricers, assistants, and servants, of the institution; and likewise to visit frequently, and at un certain times, the schools, workshops, refectories, and dormitories; and particularly to report to the Commandant, if he hear any oaths or indecent expressions made use of by

the children, or by the under officers, or servants, of the institution. In fine, he shall in every respect, to the best of his ability, endeavour that the children be carefully instructed in the principles of virtue and religion; and that a pious, sober, and orderly, conduct be observed by every person in the

Asylum.

The Serjeant-Major of Instruction shall cause the boys to rise, by beat of drum, at six in the morning from the 25th of March to the 29th of September; and at seven o'clock in the morning from the 29th September, to the 25th of March.

He is to allow the boys one hour to clean, their shoes, wash their hands and faces, and to have their heads combed;

He is then to read, or cause one of the senior boys to read, such prayers as may be directed by the chaplain after which he shall cause them to proceed to the school-business of reading, writing, and the four first rules in arithmetic, or to such other employ ments as may be assigned, to qualify them either for the duties of a soldier, or for other subordinate situations in life.

He is previously to examine each boy, to see that he be washed clean, and dressed in a proper manner; and if this should have been neglected to be done, he is to deliver the boy, so improperly dressed, to the serjeant or nurse of the ward to which such boy belongs, to be put in order; and he will report any repetition of neglect in the same person to the

Commandant.

He, and his assistants, are to attend the boys at all meals, and to cause one of them to say grace, before and after each ineal.

He and his assistants are also to attend the boys at their hours of recreation, to prevent them from behaving improperly in any respect, He, and his assistants, are to see that the boys are all in bed at the hours appointed; and that no fire, or candle, is left in their dormitories.

He, and his assistants, are to see that the boys are decently or properly dressed on Sundays, previously to their attending divine ser vice; where they are all required to be present with the children.

He will promote, to the utmost of his power, good-will, friendship, and cordiality, among the children; endeavouring to impress them with those sentiments of virtue and religion, which may best enable them to regulate their future conduct.

diately to report the same to the adjutant, or (through him) to the Commandant; according to the nature and degree of the offence.

The Serjeant-Assistants are to watch over the boys, when at their recreation; to prevent them from doing mischief, or acting improperly in any respect.

They are constantly to attend divine service with the children.

They are to abstain from the use of profane or indecent language; and in all respects to behave themselves religiously and soberly so as, by their example, to excite in the children an emulation to virtue.

They are to be present with the boys at meal-times; and to assist the serjeant-major in keeping silence, and maintaining a decency of behaviour, during meals; and in seeing that the candles and fires be extinguished in proper time in the boys dormitories.

Correspondent care is also taken of the girls by their proper attendants, matron, &c. but, our limits do not allow us to repeat the injunctions; they are varied merely as far as appertains to the sex.

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At the opening of the New Court of Requests in Sheffield, several of the gentlemen who were nominated and had been qualified as Commissioners, after surveying the state of the Gaol in King-street, entered upon a subscription, which they conducted with spirit and success among their private connections, that they were enabled in a short time to liHe will be especially careful that no profane berate all the Low Court prisoners then in or indecent expressions be on any occasion custody; against whom there were no less made use of to them, or in their hearing, by than a hundred and one warrants in train his assistants, or the servants; and whenever and in execution. This noble act was niahe may discover any species of vice or immo-naged with so much promptitude, and so litrality, or tendency thereto, in the boys, or any improper conduct towards them on the part of the assistants or servants, he is imme

the ostentation, that it was scarcely known to the public at large until its effects had disclosed what had been done.

DIDASCALIA.

COVENT GARDEN, DRURY LANE,
HAYMARKET.

The winter theatres have opened their campaign, and but for the non-arrival of Pope the actor, the metropolis was to have been treated (gentle reader!) with that famous piece of pantomimic mummery-the joint effusion of German Kotzebue and English Sheridan,PIZARRO!-as a fit and proper play for the opening of Covent Garden theatre, in these awful and afflicting times!-However, Macbeth,-Hear this, ye admirers of one of Shakespeare's sublimest productions !—Macbeth, was deemed no unworthy substitute for ponderous Pizarro !

At length the great actor arriving, the public were favoured with a representation, on Monday, Sept. 19, of the Germanico-Anglican performance; chosen, we suppose, to insult the Spanish Deputies now in London, and their intrepid countrymen who are fighting for themselves, for England, and for the whole civilized world !-It must be acknowledged, that the managers, and their whole corps, could not have selected a better piece for this purpose than one which exhibits the most atrocious incident of Spanish history!

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Forty years ago no manager would have dared to have thus insulted the public feel. ings-Garrick would have shuddered at the idea of intruding his own individual opinion in such a case against the united voice of the metropolis, if he had even been so ob stinate and base as to have entertained an opi nion against, not the metropolis of England alone, but of the world, who are looking up to us for examples.-Do our dramatic caterers think that performances against the allies of the Corsican would be tolerated in Paris?For the solution of such a question, we advise our theatrical gentlemen and ladies to look at Buonaparte's inflexible Police of the It is strange that the directors of our na- Theatres, inserted in Panorama, Vol. III. P. tional theatres, should be so deficient in pa- 181, Vol. IV. p. 581, and as they have a triotism, or so destitute of common sense, as happy knack at quotation, we recommend to present pieces whose direct tendency is in to them Sterne's remark," they order these complete opposition to the wishes of the things better in France." Napoleon is deter whole nation;-so that, while our good old mined to make his companies behave with King, and his ministers, are sending our propriety and decorum, or, he scourges and regular soldiers, pecuniary supplies, and assist-imprisons them. Though formerly they were ance of all kinds, out of the country, while his patrons, yet he will not spare them; nor they are straining every nerve to assist the no- will he allow the managers to perform pieces, ble minded Spaniards, with the enthusiastic that may contribute to lower the public spiapprobation of all, and while we are depend-rit; if they play those tricks with him, off ing on the protection of our Volunteers, the theatres Royal, Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and suffocating Haymarket, are either ridiculing the one or consigning to execration the other. [Compare Panorama, Vol. IV., pp. 516, 713, 923.] If our immortal bard were living to witness such anti-patriotic exertions, would he describe," the players as the brief chronicles of the times?" Would he not coincide with a late writer, who tells us that the players form a mixture of baseness, dissimulation, ridiculous pride, and a littleness which fits thein to represent every kind of personage, except the noblest of all, THAT OF MAN!" (Panorama, Vol. IV. p. 696.) If the Spaniards have heretofore committed excesses in the New World, is this the time to tell their Representatives of it, when they are seeking our protection, and making common cause with us, for the sole purpose of saving the Old?-Truly, we feel for our country, and we feel for the laws

they march to the prisons of la Force or St. Lazare !-For it cannot be too often repeated, that the players of Paris, to our own knowledge, were the ringleaders of the greatest atrocities during the revolution: this Buonaparte well knows; he was then a subaltern; and his experience justifies him in saying, "though you performed plays against the allies "of your King Louis XVI-you shall not against MY allies !"-Verbum sat!

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We have no authority for believing that Buonaparte has distributed any part of the plunder that has fallen into his hands by the fortune of war, among the chiefs of our national theatres; but this we know, that they could not choose plays more calculated to obtain the favour of Buonaparte than Bonduca, Caractacus, the Critic, Pizarro, the Mayor of Garratt, &c. and we had hoped from what we had previously said on this subject that they would have presented the publie with something better than what would be

palatable to our enemies only. Animated, with these sentiments, as we not only confess, but even boast, we attended the representation of the wonderful Pizarro, and rejoice to say that it went off very flat.-Mr. John Kemble, the Manager, seeiningly, by the languor of his performance, felt that he was doing wrong, even Rolla's clap-trap speech had but a faint effect. Mr. C. Kemble was insipidity itself, nor could his distracted Cora, nor the consideration of his being a noble, heroic Spaniard, deliver him from the frozen ardour of German dulness. Mrs. Siddons was certainly very impressive; but her abilities are too eminent to set off such trash as Pizarro's kept mistress. The audience seemed so strongly impressed with a conviction of the impropriety of playing this piece, that instead of enthusiasm, it created general disgust.

These thoughts were committed to paper, before we had received the slightest information of the destruction that has befallen the property of this theatre: a truly distressing eatastrophe indeed! This melancholy even shall restrain our further remarks, and we conclude by saying, that the manager, we understand, was warned in explicit terms of the impropriety of his designs; and that he had letters from various quarters requesting him to abandon kis intention of presenting Pizarro, at the present juncture.

round sum; and, you know, we should support the managers!"-This converzalione euded in an agreement to puff this wretched production as a che d'œuvre of literature, taste, elegance and patriotism over the four quarters of the world.-Alas! alas! that it should now be the delight of our enemies only, and the bye word to taunt our heroic allies with!We may add to this opinion of these conscious but not conscientious Editors, the sarcasm with which the late Charles James Fox honoured Mr. Sheridan, on the subject of Pizarro. Certainly that gentleman was a compe tent judge of dramatic merit: and he, after learning particulars as to the success of the piece, replied, "I tell you what, Sherry,

make such another successful piece, and your reputation, as a writer, will be ruined!"

CONSIDERATIONS ON THE NECESSITY OF
EASY EGRESS FROM PLACES OF PUBLIC
RESORT.

What is the nature of that kind of presentiment which sometimes anticipates events with a sensation too strong to be repressed? Is it the result of past ideas revived by accidental association with present objects? or is it a feeble whisper of that prophetic voice with which our nature is endowed,

But, with a more general reference to the subject we might ask, what there is in this "Did not this muddy vesture of decay so wonderfully favourite Pizarro, that should So grossly close us in we cannot hear it?" induce a manager to stem the tide of Liberty, However this may be, Loyalty, and Patriotism, in order to force it on we speak, but too the Public? By the help of the Scene-painter feelingly when we describe our uneasiness as and costly decorations, indeed, it furnishes a extreme during the whole of the representaspectacle; and if it had been written-we tion of Pizarro, at Covent Garden theatre, as mean translated-assembled-compiled-put already noticed. When seated in the critical together by the Machinist of the theatre, we should have thought him deserving of the station, the pit, struck with the question praise due to the author of a splendid Panto- which we happened to ask ourselves :-By mine. We know that, on the first perform- what ways could this numerous assembly esance of this piece at Drury Lane theatre, the cape, in case of an accident?-we cast our editors of the diurnal prints universally coneyes around, and could discover nothing but demned it as a most flagrant imposition on narrow doors scarcely adequate to the purthe good sense of the public. They mutually expressed this opinion to each other in the poses of a common dwelling house, and leadlobby: it was trash,-mummery-shocking ing to passages so narrow and so winding, staff-a splendid exhibition, fine scenery, fine that inevitable confusion, and consequently music, but as for literary merit, it possessed inevitable destruction to an incalculable exnone;-" very true, egad," says one, "but tent, must have ensued. Amidst all the we must be favourable; for, you know, our friend SHERRY, has had a hand in it."-"Sherrya hand in it! "—said another who passed for a wit; "that's impossible! The author of the Rivals, the School for Scandal, and the Critic, have a hand in Pizarro, that's impossible! besides he's too lazy; no, no, you mean a certain somebody has put his foot in it. However, we must do what we can for it, as well on his account as for the house; for the spectacle, must have cost them a good

sympathy, then, that we feel for what has happened, we are thankful to Providence that the awful calamity which has visited this theatre, did not happen while the house was crowded. The loss of fifty valuable lives is a subject of unfeigned regret, and sorrow, but the same cause a few hours earlier must, speaking on human probabilities, must have cost ten times that number. What a dreadful

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