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HOW TO ELECT GUARDIANS TO YOUR MIND. Let...
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ANTI-MAYNOOTH AND ITS T10ACI1INOS. I mat...
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TIIE "STANDARD" CAUGHT EAVESDROPPING. Th...
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WORN-OUT. WORDS AND SYMBOLS IN POLITICAL...
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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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Italian Martyrdom And English Apathy. We...
Hbw our hearts should bleed for them ! how , in earnest purpose , and in sad compunction for the past , we should prepare for the day when their countrymen will rise to free them , when Europe will again be upheaved with a convulsion , from which no pretended non-intervention policy can succeed in keeping our country entirel y apart . Let us rouse ourselves , and shake off this moral slothand make war to the iudiflerentism which
, is a danger and a disgrace unto us . He who is not for the nations is against them . We do not fear that we shall be neutral ; neutrality is impossible , it is a blind immoral dream ; but it throws us , at home and abroad , bound hand and foot into the power of those who will use our resources in the service of despotism , and leave us at last incapable even of defending the liberties which we have acquired for ourselves .
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How To Elect Guardians To Your Mind. Let...
HOW TO ELECT GUARDIANS TO YOUR MIND . Let us tell some facts about the election of Poor-Law Guardians at Leeds . As we only mean to tell facts , without the slightest comment , the reader will be good enough to pay strict attention to the facts , and supply the comment for himself . The returning officer is the same person as the clerk to the Board ; it is he that engages the persons who distribute the voting-papers , and who collect them when filled up ; he makes up the returns . The same gentleman has filled both offices for the last seven years .
In March last there was the usual election , and voting-papers were distributed as usual ; the proceedings of this election were the subject of an official investigation by Mr . Farnall _. the Poor-Law Inspector , within the last fortnight ; and from the proceedings , at that enquiry we derive our principal facts . Some of the voters had had a sense of old suspicion , and had taken peculiar precautions . One ran his pen across the margin opposite the names of the candidates for whom he did not intend to vote , observing to the collector— " I have run my name across the margin opposite the Tory names ; there can be no
mistake now ; you cannot put my initials there . " When this voter ' s paper came before Mr . Inspector Farnall , the genuine initials had been erased ; and others , fabricated , had been placed opposite the Tory names ; at least , so the voter deposed . Another returned his votingpaper blank , declining to vote : initials were added . Another had voted , but his paper was rejected because his initials " did not look like G . B ,. " A fourth voted one way , but his paper was found amongst the opposing papers , and counted amongst them . A fifth had filled up a
Eapcr , but totally repudiated the one produced as is . A sixth inadvertently did not deliver his paper to the collector ; it was offered to the returning officer at his own office , but declined , as the collector could only call for it at the voter ' s own house . A seventh filled in his paper ; it was _" ticked" by tho collector as having been collected ; but waa missing or "lost : " out of 131 to be delivered by ono collector thero were 52 short ; and the collector could not explain it . All these aberrations told for tho Tory candidates or against the Liberals . They aro specimens only of the facts collected during threQ , days .
We aro still without the close of the inquiry ; tho legal adviser of tho Tory party undertook to bring forward recriminatory evidence , and had obtained several days' grace to get it up ; but the mass of testimony on the Liberal side seems to defy refutation ; and if both sides prove to havo erred , tho evidence against the system will only bo doubly conclusive . The roador will not be surprised to hear that , the people of Leeds havo long been dissatisfied with the plan of electing the Guardians , and some tone since they sent a memorial to the Poor-1 jaw Commissioners asking for a change . The reply of tho Commissioners was that no ease had been made out . Probably the Commissioners will now think that a case has been made out ?
Anti-Maynooth And Its T10aci1inos. I Mat...
ANTI-MAYNOOTH AND ITS T 10 ACI 1 INOS . I mat which is a crime committed in the name of one man ' s religion becomes an heroic act under another ' s—at least in the estimate of that other . Iho indocencios of tho Christian world aro the solemnities of tho Hindu . But wo ' need not
Anti-Maynooth And Its T10aci1inos. I Mat...
look so wide apart for this sort of identical discrepancy . The adherent of one faith denounces an act as a shocking violation of morals , and does the selfsame act himself as a vindication of morals . According to the enemies of Maynooth , the students at that college are instructed to put a series of questions to persons at confession , most certainly suggesting ideas subversive of morality ; and a book has been published to expose this practice . The indecencies of certain manuals in the course of Maynooth are matter of debate ; but there can be no question as to
the gross indecency of the book that exposes them . It is possible , however , that it may be needful occasionally , for solemn purposes , to make statements that would not otherwise be tolerated without some such grave motive ; and if so , a book is a very proper vehicle , since it can be kept , upon the whole , in the hands for which it is intended . But what have the ultra-Protestant assailants of Maynooth and ehampions of morality done ? They denounce the unscrupulousness of the Bomanists , but they have slight scruples of their own . The newspaper is a questionable arena for such discussions , but the
anti-Bomanist zealots do not even confine themselves to newspapers . It would be a flagrant outrage if they were personally to enter a strange household , and to address their foul controversy to the ears of the young daughters ; but there would be this safeguard in such a step , that conduct so flagrant would promote prompt expulsion . The course which they have selected is one not less outrageous , but infinitely more insidious . There is a weekly publication specially framed for circulation in the English middle class , like Chambers ' s Miscellany , with miscellaneous
essays and fictions , selected to attain such a circulation , by avoiding all that can tend to startle that class , and seeking all that is adapted to the tastes of the class ; and we believe that the publication in question , the Household Words , is very widely successful . It is edited by Mr . Charles Dickens . This is the publication selected by the anti-Homanists . Of course they had not the leave of the editor ; but they did not wait for that . A handbill is printed
incorporating some of the most odious suggestions of the book , and that handbill is inserted between the leaves of the Household Words By that disposition it is the more sure to reach the hands of the youth of both sexes , who form , we conceive , no small proportion of the readers of the Household Words ; and thus a publication , singularly harmless , is made the vehicle for those very ideas which the circulators of tho handbill declare to be poison .
The editor of tho Household Words instantly and indignantly repudiated all connexion with the odious act ; of which , indeed , no one could for a moment have believed him guilty . It is among tho most flagrant traits of the outrage that tho circulators of the handbill have not scrupled to invade his property with their filthy polemics . To adopt Achilli as an apostle , and to convert tho Household Words into a sandwich of abomination , are the two most recent exploits of the ultra-Protestant purists !
Tiie "Standard" Caught Eavesdropping. Th...
TIIE " STANDARD" CAUGHT EAVESDROPPING . There are various standards in uso among us ; as the standards of gold and silver , of militiamen and sherry , of woiglifs and of measures , which are the standards of the country gentlemen , and the Standard of the confiding Derbyites , which we will not any is a low standard , for no one has yet been able to appreciate its mean capacity , even with the most delicate of instruments . It
is , therefore classed by natural philosophers among the animalcuheof the political world . But as a very small bono in tho minds of Professor Owen indicates to him the nature of the animal to which if belonged , so a very insignificant object becomes significant by its relation to other larger and more important things . Lord Derby raises the miserable ' No Popery ' cry , and the Standard aids and abets him . All well and good , while that journal confines its advocacy within tho limits of manliness , courtesy and honour . But , fhe Standard , finds those limits too narrow for fhe exercise of its peculiar functions , so it descends into the congenial medium of the unmanly , tho discourteous , and the shameless . Tho Times printed a just and manly commen-
Tiie "Standard" Caught Eavesdropping. Th...
tary on the upshot of the Achilli trial , using strong language in reference to both judge ana jury . The Standard , to whom as to others , it was open to reply in the same way , prefers to denounce the author of the article in the Times Some adept in the arts of Venetian spies dropped a letter into the lion ' s head , in Bridge-street , containing the name of the aUeged writer of this article ,- and the editor of the Standard printed the name in full , an act which we are not going to imitate . Now this journalist is denounced because he is presumed to be favourable to religious liberty for the Roman Catholics . This reason is avowed .
We , for our part , protest against this violation of a rule of honour understood among journalists . The Standard has placed itself in exactly the same position as the eaves-dropper and retailer o & private conversations . We need do no more than gibbet the Standard as the Standard has tried to gibbet the independent journalist ; only , be it understood , we refrain from naming the person who officiates in the character of editor of that paper ; from a feeling of respect for our profession and ourselves _.
Worn-Out. Words And Symbols In Political...
WORN-OUT . WORDS AND SYMBOLS IN POLITICAL CONTROVERSY . Words wear out like other instruments . The cultivation of the understanding , like the cultivation of the earth , is performed by certain machinery , which may be old or new—well or ill-adapted for the office . We plough up the intellectual soil and sow the seeds of knowledge by the aid of terms , just as in agriculture we accomplish similar ope rations by the aid of implements . In arts and sciences , leading ideas are conveyed by leading terms . As these terms perpetually recur , care has to be taken that they do not change in
signification materially , because such change involves confusion . In the advocacy of special political or social principles there are _^ s in art and science , leading terms continually employed , upon which the right understanding of what is intended depends . Yet very little attention is paid to the variation of meaning which these words undergo . Sometimes a partyname acquires , in the course of twelve months , a meaning entirely opposite to that which it at first had . Perhaps some indiscretion in speech , or folly in policy , is committed by a party bearing a particular name ; perhaps something is imputed to a society by an
unscrupulous enemy , anil reiterated by a credulous press , whereby the collective name acquires a new and detestable association of ideas . To continue to use the name after this has occurred , is to mislead the public , and to obscure the objects intended to be explained . When an accident of this kind happens , there is no help but to abandon the term , and ehoose a new one . There is commonly great opposition to this course , as there is to everything reasonable on the part of people more obstinate than wise . Propose to change a party-name which has been distorted by accident or error , and many , more headstrong than
wise , will set up an ill-considered demand for objects , " name and all . " This is considered to bo honesty , whereas it is in fact practical dishonesty . For whoever insists upon using a name with a new association misleads all who hear it , and causes the public to misjudge all who are represented by it . This practice also diverts a party from the pursuit of its proper objects into a laborious attempt to re-educate the people into the right , understanding of the old name with the new signification . A person wearing a new and
becoming coat may pass as a respectable man , but if he will continue fo appear in it after the elbows are out ; , and th » skirts torn off , the , wearer ' s rank and integrity may remain the same , but the public will be sure to mistake him for a very different person . It is of no use saying the public ought not to do so—the public will , do .. wo—it will judge by such general rules as it has inherited , nnd he who disregards them must take the consequences . So it is with n party-name , it is the letter of recommendation to the looker-on . The
association of ideas connected with that name determines the man who is a . stranger to the truth of tho mutter . If u term connotes , that is , calls up , notions of anarchy , spoliation , and outrage , the hearer is tilled with these ideas—they constitute a thick cloud through which he probably never penetrates to the real meaning behind . A more pernicious and irrelevant question never blinded fhe discretion of Reformers than " What ' s in a 11111110 ? " There is nothing in a name if the reality be before you . lint , if if be not , there is confusion in the name , unless it exactly indicate the thing intended . Jf the name lie the sole medium by which the public aro to bo informed ol' the _bearingu of some policy , oi
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 17, 1852, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_17071852/page/15/
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