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Max 3,1856.] THE LEABEB. ___^ 423
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THE FIRST BLOW IN PARLIAMENT. It seems i...
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DEATH OF J. B. BLACKETT. The death of Jo...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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" Steward I" Oxtb Excessively Nautical C...
like a toad , in the middle is a mortar . Others are armed ¦ with huge long guns . Unsophisticated readers should be told that our contemporary ' s supremely nautical eye has confounded the bluff mortar-boats , sloop-rigged and never intended for speed , with the gunboftts , mostly rigged as threemasted schooners ; and which , however unyachtlike in look , and built all for mischief , ± \ si ?
ships , we are fully persuaded , better officered , better manned , better handled than those of the Baltic fleet . They have failed in nothing but opportunity . We may add that there would have been another slight objection to the sailing regatta which our contemporary sighed for . As a man will die for want of breath , so , for want of breath , it is difficult to imagine how those two hundred and forty "I 111 tr * ' 1 T "I 111 set sail
are IUot / , Ul * iJ . Uy , «* . " . v » aK , x . r ^ a . ux . * . Of the line-of-battle ships our contemporary says : — The truth must be spoken . These big ships with their chequered sides are not handsome . They are all hull . Their masts seem stumpy and disproportioned to the body to be moved . This description has at least the merit of being original . " We venture to say that few will be found to share this impression , or to
snips couxa nave " ana sauea DacK to their stations . " There was scarcely breeze enough in the morning to blow the bunting out , and in the afternoon there was something like a calm . No jdoubt the fleet might have set sail and might have bewildered the nautical eyes of Government clerks with such manoeuvres as they are in the habit of performing daily between 8 a . m . and sunset :
pronounce those towering sea-fortresses not handsome . "We do not say that " handsome '' is the word for them . Out of any but a Cockney dictionary we think another and juster epithet might be found to describe the Duke of Wellington , the ~ N"ile , the Orion , the Caesar , the Colossiis . To say that they are all hull , " is to be ignorant that the spars are just as nicely proportioned to their length and burden as a cutter-yacht ' s . WTio would say that the Conqueror or the Cressy was " all hull ? " Their very perfection of lines consists in that exquisite proportion of strength and grace which makes the enormous size of the ship appear more and more startling as you approach her from a distance . Our contemporary is good enough to assure us that the grandest naval review
but in spite . of all sneers , Ave are disposed to concur , on this occasion , with " Xioi'ds , " in thinking that where a drifting match was the only alternative , steam movements ( for steam-ships ) were preferable . As it is , the Houses of Parliament and the Government clerks only saw half the show . If the fleet had " sailed , " it would certainly not have got to the pivot-ships before dark , and even all our contemporary ' ^ admitted nautical skill could scarcely have prevented disastrous consequencs , for which " Lords" would have been held responsible . For to " sail in line , " to " keep the intervals with precision , is far from an easy operation , " in a narrow sea , and in a dead . calm . " The moral of all this , " as our contemporary observes , is that so grand a spectacle
" you may see any day for a shilling , taking boat at Gravesend and proceeding on the river through the Pool to London Bridge . " " We are very far from denying the grandeur of that forest of shipping which of all sights is certainly the one most calculated to fill the mind of the intelligent foreigner with a sense of the strength of England . But to compare the spectacle of the shipping in the Pool to the spectacle at Spithead last week , is to tell us that when we have once seen a horse-market , there is nothing new to be Been in a review of the Light and Heavy Cavalry Brigades . Our contemporary deploreB the monotony of the ships ( steaming to the pivot-ships and back , and he feelingly exclaims : — But what would it have been if the fleet , having rounded the pivot-ships , had loosed canvas , set sail , and sai to tneir stationswnai wouiu
as the JN aval Review oi last week , is not to be fairly described by a man who was on board a steamer that broke down , or put her fires out , or by one of a " genteel" London mob , whose idea of a day ' s enjoyment is a scramble , a feed , and a fight . A parting word of advice to our contemporary : Let him look to his nautical reputation ; or instead of singing The Bay of Biscay O ! " as he has been wont to sing with so much applause , in the character of an old salt , we shall call upon him for the favourite ballad of " Farewell , my trim-built wherry ! " in the character and costume of Tom Tug , waterman , of Putney .
xea DacK — a sigm mas have been ! ~ We can tell our contemporary what it would have been . It would have been about as sensible for all practical purposes as it might be to open some grand lino of railway by fastening teams of horses to the carriages iind engines , and dragging them along at the rate of two miles an hour , by way of a triumph of the beautiful over the useful . The very object , as wo understood it , of tho demonstration at Spithoad , was to show the world the last results of science applied to the purposes of naval warfare on a gigantic Bcale , and not to reproduce the picturesque but almost obsolete manoeuvres ot forty years ago , when stenm-shins were not . We
regarded this Naval Review as a practical and business-like display of available forces in their highest perfection , and not as a regatta for aquatic Cockneys to criticize . And in that very mechanical monotony of those leviathan sea-fortresses moving to their doatination by some invisible propulsion was that victory of science over bruto f ' orco which ia tho proudest and happiest augury of our tinio , for lfc is the suicide ot war . "When our contemporary suggeata that " porhapa , if tho truth wore told , they would have sailed if they could , " wo inuat bo permitted fco protest ; against an equally unworthy . Ijtnd willy sneer . . Never were any Britiah
Max 3,1856.] The Leabeb. ___^ 423
Max 3 , 1856 . ] THE LEABEB . ___^ 423
The First Blow In Parliament. It Seems I...
THE FIRST BLOW IN PARLIAMENT . It seems impossible for Mr . Disraeli and his friends to succeed , even in the affectation of niihlifi anirifc . Thft selfishness and
narrowness of faction are betrayed in their manner of treating all questions , however remote from the ordinary grounds of party warfare . Their ponderous recapitulations in the Kars debate were seasoned only by oblique personal allusions , and malevolent satire . Pretending to outbid all parties in their sympathy with the army , their deference to public opinion , their political foresight , and their state of strategic preparation , the truth was at once exposed that their patriotic lamentations over tho Armenian disaster were simply the tricks of a famished Opposition . Tho great body of Liberals , who were prepared to question the Government policy in Asia , refused to divide in behalf of this mean and spiritless
fac-Ministers . But , upon the return of peace , the fell of Kars constituted a specious ground for an attack on the Cabinet . The attack has failed , practically and morally . The remarkable division of Thursday night was not merely a ministerial success . It was the declaration of Parliament that it distrusts the patriotism and the capacity of the Conservatives , and it demonstrates tne realitoi tneir decline in
y numerical support , and in the virtual sympathies of the nation . Some conscientious men there are in Parliament to whom , whatever may be thought of their public policy , the country may look for pure statements of opinion . These men were not heard , during the three nights' debate , giving the aid of their character and eloquence to the
suspected Tory party . Only Mr . " White side , Lord John Mannees , Sir John Pakington —that honest and docile philanthropist—Sir Bui-web Lytton , Colonel Dunne , and Mr . Disraei , i were the orators of the assaulting party . JNTot one of the Liberals , not one of the Duke of Newcastle ' s followers , supported them . Some remarks of Lord John Russell ' s had a bearing upon the moral results of the Russian war in England . He had noticed the retreat of many cowardly and inconstant minds upon the idea of centralization and prerogative . But he suggested a parallel , which we shall next week develop , between the state of a constitutional nation after a war , and that of a nation governed " by one strong man . "
tion . Mr . Latarb performed i \ signal service by his elaborate proof of tho indifference oxhibited , on the Tory aide of the House , to the interests involved in tho Asiatic campaign when those interests might have been protected . Tho Tories would not interfere to urge tho relief of Kars whon Kara was still held by General Williams and tho Turkish army . They know that thoir party would not be tolerated in office whilo tho nation was engaged in war . Mr . Layafu ) moved , tho House again and ngniu to consider tho dangers of tho garrison in Asia . Ho had no support from tho Conservatives . They wore , at least , aa iniUlibront as the
Death Of J. B. Blackett. The Death Of Jo...
DEATH OF J . B . BLACKETT . The death of John Blackett , the late member for ^ Newcastle , has taken from us one of the truest men of our day . Blackest was a cultivated man , of a high spirit , and a graceful heart ; and he could not have lent himself to any delusions or excesses of the many . As little could he accept the sophisms by which the few justify the cliqueries of place , or the injustice of one-sided legislation . No man of our time so completely inherited the independent yet generous patriotism , of tho gentleman of the Commonwealth ; a type of the Englishman rarer than it has been , or , we trust , than it will be . The country could ill spare John Blaokett , but only his personal friends know what the loss really is .
The Fleet at Spithead . —It is expected that the Queen will review the fleet at Spithead again in about ten days from the present time . The Emperor of the French is expected to be present . One motive for the repetition is said to be in order to make up for the disappointment of the faithful Lords and Commons on the recent occasion . Death of Mr , Guthrxe , F . R . S . —> This eminent medical practitioner died on Thursday morning , at his residence , Berkeley-street , Berkeley-square , ot disease of the heart . He was born in 1785 , and commenced his professional career at an early age in the army . The Opthalmic Hospital in King William-street , Strand , was founded by Mr . Guthrie . Attempt to Break out ov Prison . —A desperate attempt on tho part of thirteen convicts , now in tho Glasgow prison , to break out of that building , has juat been made . Tho men armed themselves , wounded a turnkev . and were onlv checked bv the arrival of a
strong body of police . 1 ' almbii ' h Trial ,. —Tho Central Criminal Court will undergo Home considerable alterations preparatory to tho trial of the Kugely poisoning case . The Old Court , where the trial will come on , is not capable of giving accommocation to more than live hundred persons—a number totally inadequate to tho requirements of this occasion . It iH said that Mr . Serjeant Shoe , Mr . Groves , Q . C ., Mr . John Groy , and Mr . Knealy , and not Sir Fitzroy Kelly and Mr . Ballantinc , will defend Palmer at the ensuing , trial . Tiik IIkai , th ok Mr . Bright , M . P . —Tho hopes lately held out of Mr . Bright ' s speedy restoration to health were not , wo are sorry to hear , well founded . It in now certain that a lengthened period of repose and abstinence from bimineaa of any kind will be uecoaaary before tho member for Manchester will bo ablo to resume his parliamentary dutluB .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 3, 1856, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_03051856/page/15/
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