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JtTNB 21, 1856/] ' .fIB LEAD Elk ^gh
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DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES. Palmer " did not...
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THE ROEBUCK UNION. The Administrative Re...
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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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The Warning Prom Kars. " Wob Tohfe&E Nat...
quish each other . The English were beaten ; .. ; J > ut they had surmounted difficulties so great that the enemy himself recognized their defeat as equal ; to a * conquest . And what did the high-minded , generous victor do ? He came amongst them as a friend ; he entered Kara to feed and clothe the half-starved and halfclothed , army ; to minister to those in whom iamine had sown the seeds of disease ; to speed the officers on the way towards their home , and to harbour them in the meanwhile as brother is harboured by brother . And who was that man that of all our enemies in
the late war displayed the most generous and chivalrous nobility ? It was precisely the one who had gained the most decisive victory over the English . Who amongst all our officers , speaking before the nation , has most endured the hardships of war ? Was it one of those gentlemen who carried couches , pier-glasses , dressingboxes , and shower-baths for their tents in the Crimea ? Was it one of those who , after a brief residence in that uncomfortable district ,
came home on " urgent private affairs ?" No ; it was Sir William Williams op BLa . es , who was responsible for the command of an army after it appeared to be deserted by its own Government , and its own allies ; who maintained a position against an overwhelming force for months ; who kept his men to their duties until they could no longer lift hand for the weakness of famine ; and who actually surrendered the city to the
enemy without a mutiny amongst his men , or an act of violence on the part of the enemy . If any man had experienced the hardships of war amongst us all it is General Williams ; and it is he who repeats to us the warning which we have repeated throughout the war , and before the war began : — " J have passed through armed ^ Europe , and I take this earliest opportunity of uttering a warning to those toho forget the military art . "
Jttnb 21, 1856/] ' .Fib Lead Elk ^Gh
JtTNB 21 , 1856 /] ' . fIB LEAD Elk ^ gh
Dead Men Tell No Tales. Palmer " Did Not...
DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES . Palmer " did not poison Cooke with strychnine" with what , then , did he do it ? Who can tell us ? We have destroyed the only 'Justness who could have enlightened us in i the matter—Palmeb himself . What a hook < would bave been " The Autobiography of William Palmer ; with all the Particulars of " Ac . How it would have sold ! Not because . it would have been amusing . The lives of excessive scoundrels never are . Men become
scoundrels because they have few ideas , and none of the beat . | Palmeb , with his large sense of animal . enjoyment , his secretiveness , his imperfect reflection , must have had very faint motives to make anything like a confession . Why ohould he ? Its only effect could bo to injure his little son " Willie , " his best feelings would tell him to suppress anything of the kind . As to the benefit : which he could confer on society , the light
which he could throw upon the temptations r > to crime , and upon the facilities afforded to it in our elaborate civilization , what would he b care for that ? There could bo no kind of object presented to the mind of such a man ! which would be worth attaining by confes-• ' sion . He died , therefore , silent and reserved , in striving to mislead the comprehension of t > his fellow creatures by the p revarication
¦ ' about strychnine . 1 > What effect , then , is the treatment of this man likely to have upon others of his class , n « r'Upon other natures of a very different kind , which might nevertheless be drawn M'into the crimes of forgery and murder for the make of acquisition ? To the brutally vit'fe orotLs , like himself , the example must bo -Hbme < rtf ivery slightly deterrent power . Palmejb
was of a gambling genus ; he was prepared to play very high stakes- ; indeed , like the Chinese , he would stake himself , his wife , and family in a cock-fight . He literally followed that example . His incentive in such reckless snorts was derived from the fact that the acquisitions were immediate and probable , and that the chance of loss , though it involved absolute destruction , was remote , and only as one to ten . Ten to one on Palmeb might have been his bet . When the penalty does come , it is short and sharp , and not much more difficult to be borne than the
drawing of a tooth . It is evident that down to the very last Palmeb calculated upon a release . He still hoped that " something would turn up . " The gambling spirit supported him until the very noose was round his neck : but he is only a type of the men of his own" class that are riot likely to be more moved while the noose is round their necks ; and still less likely is the noose to have any terrors to them while it is distant . Such
men will perceive m his story how many chances there are of winning . Even the more timid , who share the gambling spirit , will learn from his experience that with the actual state of society , and the very imperfect hold that the law has over those who can pay for evading it , there are more than nine chances of winning against one of losing : are they not safe then in enjoying only nine chances ?
It is not only capital punishment which is somewhat discredited by the whole of these transactions . We see that the plan of strangling a man must have very small terrors for the class that deserves strangling ; that it cuts us off from a mass of evidence which would instruct us in the treatment of this class , and also it cuts short what might be made a real example . Let us suppose that , instead of being strangled , Palmeb had been placed at hard work in public , where he
could have been frequently and freely seen ; always under the eye of some intelligent and active-minded man , who could have learned from him his past life . Let us suppose that the circumstances attending his imprisonment should have been such as to induce him to confess ; and that his labour might have been modified according to his conduct . Let us suppose also that the proceeds of his labour should be devoted , in some indirect way , to compensate for the injuries that he had occasioned—paid , for example , towards a charitable fund in the neighbourhood distinguished
by his crimes ; those crimes being commemorated by the fact of the annual payment . What in such cases would be taught to the classes who would imitate Palmeb , ? Would there not be before them a much more glaring example of inevitable disclosure , of compensation by labour—that thing which they hate ; and of frustration by the regorging of their gains ? It appears to us that such a treatment of a man like Palmeb , however unsatisfactory it might be for the moment to the vindictive passions of the unreflecting , would be . far more instructive both to the class which needs protection and to
the class which needs control . As it is , his fate tells thorn that they must run the risk , as the mariner does of one single shipwreck , as the soldier of a single bullet , which mny terminate their career ; but that by perseverance they may succeed in winning mostly and in concealing always . All Palmek ' s crimes are buried with him . If he did not poison Cooke by strychnine , it is more than probable that by other moans ho poisoned Aumb Palmeb and Walteb Palmeb . There are several of his acknowledged childron unaccounted for ; four illegitimate children have , died y no really satisfactory account luia over been given of the
death of Bbajdok , the commercial traveller , who died under Paxmeb ' s hands ; the motherin-law , the uncle / and a gardener named Ablet , of whom Palmeb had borrowed 100 ? ., are amongst his friends and connexions , ' respecting whom he could probably have told us interesting particulars . < But besides these instances , he had- also another fund of knowledge to bestow upon the world . We believe that those are right who declare that the man was not " deep , " ——that his intellect was very poor / and that he was a very indifferent student in his own profession . But one branch of it he had evidently studied with assiduity , probably with the enthusiasm of love—the use of
poisons ; and if he had studied the use of poisons he had no doubt studied the composition of poisons . Homoeopatbists tell us that by . a peculiar handling of drugs , their virtues can be brought out into much greater activity . The preparation of the human body by one drug , will render another much more effective . This is well known in the ordinary practice of curative medicinej and Palmeb , who was so earnest a student in anticurative medicine , had probablv tested the
principle in that branch also . How much light could he have thrown upon the weapons by which , the jealous wife , the wearied husband ,, the greedy heir , or the speculator in insurance , can work out his ends . Far more instructive would it have been for the world , if , instead of bringing his epic to a sudden conclusion before the gaol at Stafford , he had been made to work out another volume of autobiography in the presence of the public , while contributing from time to time materials for a retrospective volume .
The Roebuck Union. The Administrative Re...
THE ROEBUCK UNION . The Administrative Reformers are once more in the field . They have the advantage of being led by a man of capacity and position , who is thoroughly in earnest , who understands the arts of political agitation , who posesses some parliamentary influence , and who , as a Liberal , is known and trusted . The Association , therefore , gains "by the chairmanship of Mr . Eoebeuok ; but we are at a loss to see what Mr . Roebtjok gains by the
Chairmanship of the Association . He believes that it may be galvanized into a second life , that it may work a change in the government of this country , that it may create a power in the Legislature favourable to reform . Its course , however , has been wrong from the beginning , and we are partly led to question the success of Mr . Roebuck ' s plans , by the omission f rom his statement of all reference
to the- causes of the original failure . He assigns certain reasons , it is true , for that unmistakable collapse ; but the City Reformers broke down , in reality , on account ot their want of knowledge skill , liberality , courage , aptitude for organization , —of every quality , indeed , that is necessary to give aim ana force to a public movement . They proved their want of knowledge by attempting-to in
weld Toryism with Liberalism , as an - strument of Reform , by conceiving that a change of the administrative system could be effected without a change of public policy , by leaving the groundwork of improvement out of eight , by pretending to direct the government in the choice ot ministers £ nd officials , and by excluding members of lfcrliamont from thoir Association . Their want of skill was exhibited by the utter failurejot their efforta to produce ai general ' » mt systematic agitation , though-this was . partly itftriiintable . also , to their want of liberality .
They affected delusiveness ; they m «»«** the older nnd Iks pretentious eocieties tHat offered-to correBpond with them ; they n * ed
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 21, 1856, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_21061856/page/13/
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