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1«8 THE LEADER. rS *™™^
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THE LADY PERRERS CASE. Strange is the te...
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There is no learned man bub will confess...
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BABEL. (From a various Correspondence.} ...
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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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Lunatics Ckiminal Anx> Matrimonial. The ...
reporting the fact in Blue Books , and reiterating the truth for nearly forty years , Parliament Still leaves the unhappy beings under -treatment reserved for the vilest class in the country !
1«8 The Leader. Rs *™™^
1 « 8 THE LEADER . rS *™™^
The Lady Perrers Case. Strange Is The Te...
THE LADY PERRERS CASE . Strange is the tendency of the Ferrers family to heroism in causes celebres . Tyburn is lost in Tyburnia : and possibly even a footman in the Ferrers family , of course resident in that region , could not now guide the children or the lapdogs to the spbt over -winch dangled the celebrated silken Tope to which an " eminent novelist" has hung a tale . Besides , hanging has gone out vrlth . that fashion in deference to which a Lord Ferrers or a Lord Mohun made
for manslaughter , as a pastime . Your great personage submits , now-a-days , to the mediocrity of an age shaken by French revolutions into some hypocrisy : and we , thus , see a Lady Ferrers httnribly seeking a distinction by steering for Newgate . Sh « has been saved by a Lord . Chancellor , who , it may be , apprehended the intercessions to which a French official of his caste was exposed when the young Count killed the jeweller—that was when 'France was as aristocratic as England
now is ; antd the tipstaffs of the Court of Chancery , their democratic fingers tickling , perhaps , to clutch at the cloak of a Countess , have been kept oflT by a Judge whose parvemu feelings were touched , aiid whose bowels < rf compassion- —^ for a Countess - * - seem proportionate to the amount of hair in his / wig—^ -a wig - which the Constitutipa requires should fee copious , because it has to cover , or to hide , not only his own conscience , but the conscience of
his sovereign . Think of a Countess being in ISewgate ! And what if Kewgate , in its capacity as connected with the offended Court of Chancery , should partake of the retentiveness of that Aula , and k « ep a prisoner as long as the court reserves a cause ! That is a consideration which , during this week , must have been perplexing the confined mind of that distinguished Irish clerk of the peace ( an absentee clerk of the peace—no doubt a rule of such . officers—which accounts for the disturbed state
of Ireland— -or which , otherwise , may be explained on the ground that there is no peace for the clerks to look after ) , the Hon . Mr . Chichester . The story of « Thornhili and Thornhiirwhich we elsewhere relate with scrupulous elaborateness—bears its own moral , and sufficiently ^ tignnatises the contemptible characters of the brother and sister engaged in the aristocratic pursuit of burglary—we do not mean entering a house for plate , but for heiresses .
. But the general moral of the matter , as illustrating the manners of the time , is not quite so obvious , and is "worth « ome attention . This moral is not at all affected by any sort of answer to the question inevitably raised by the report of the case as to whether the young lady , who is the heroine , is quite ao angelic as the venerable Lord Chancellor , on her assurance , assured the court she was . Vwy likely the lady wag amusing herself with her amorous clerk of the peace , and enjoyed tho chase to which—a very Knowing deer—she subjected herself . If not
an ingenue , more shame to I ^ ady Ferrers , for this wouM make her ladyship guilty , not only of improprieties , but of stupidities . The English public is awaro of the weaknesses of our male aristocracy . Because our mal © aristocracy is fighting- well in tho Crimea - —at which the aristocratic press crows , as though they had expected our male aristocracy to run away , and as though the highly-fed fine fellows , bein g English , could be loss brave than privates . Brown , Robinson , and Jones—wo are asked , in a manner assuming 1 that there cannot by possibility fee any answer , to overlook those
thirds sufficing for a working majority , while the other estates are secured , and while the Cabinet excludes all but peers , or the tools of peers . It has the Church for its younger sons ; the colonies , so far as ready-made fortunes in the shape of good situations are concerned , ditto ; and in the army , as we see in a case turning tip this week , it obtains , if not all the commissions , at least all the commissions " without purchase" —and which lead to anything-. Thetid-bits of British life are its own ;
weaknesses . That , however , would be illogical ; and , for present purposes , a statement of such weaknesses will be interesting . Our male aristocracy pretends to a right to have complete governmental domination in these islands ; and though , in theory , that right is somewhat lazily denied by these islands , yet , practically , the male aristocracy manages to get most of its own way . It crushes the Crown ; it monopolises the upper House ; and has two-thirds of the Lower House of Legislature—the
twoonly the crumbs of the constitutional feast reach the aspiring members of the classes who , though " well-clothed" and horribly stupid , are not < c well-born . ' *; These advantages it obtains by considerable political wrong : by rendering our Parliament a delusion—rendering our Parliament a delusion , among other means , by br ibing and corrupting our picked electors A Stonor case—a Stafford case—a Keogh case - —a Lawley case- —these Cases , familiar in the short memory of the careless public , explain the system . .
Yet we have heard of palliations . When , during the era of the Derby Ministry and th « elective committee inquiries of 1853 , all England was holding- its patriotic nose , offended by . the stench of universal political corruption , we were referred to consolations ; for practical men , your " man of the world , sir , " told us that
all such tilings signified as nothing- —that where everything- was understood nobody was deceived —that though all were thieves , yet that enough was gained if there were the honour which prevails among depredators—and that , in fine , there was something compensating for the atrocities of public life— ' -there was the exquisiteness of the purity of pr ivate life .
Alas , now , if the ladies should be like the lords ! Oan it be that as Britannia is to the Earl , so is Miss Thornhill to the Countess ? That as Mr , Chichester is clerk of the peace absentee , so is Miss Chichester , protectrix of middle-class heiresses , a Cardenite in smooth disguise ? We , conscientious though democratic , have always contended that the dire instances of aristocratic profligacy were exceptional , not systematic , class cases . But we admit to being startled by the Ferrers case , because it is so quiet a case—so
unostentatious a case—the letters of Lady Ferrers being remarkably " iady-like" in their quiot , unaffected , pursuit of what Btruck her as an everyday object—swindling a rich young girl into marrying- a worthless brother , who , if in no other respect an unfit match , could not seek an heiress lionourably because he was , as he would say—and no doubt with an accent worthy of his birth , if not of his fortune — " crible . de dcttcs . " Tho question , then , is—Can it bo that the easy impudence of Lad y Ferrers is up to tho standard of worldly morality recognised in her class ?
Victoria , by the grace of God , and goodwill of her people , Sovereign of those Toalms , wo consent to have plundered by the Lords—that is constitutional ; . but let the middle classes lode to their Miss ThornhUls ! After all , the onost Maoairoy of our aristocracy may be tho Indies . It would be a consolation for tho democracy to have the or » o punished by tho other ; and tho fact might Hkistrate the historic thooTy—* that whore there h -not public vinfcu « o there must bo pr ivate vice .
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There Is No Learned Man Bub Will Confess...
There is no learned man bub will confess ha hath imich profited by reading controversi ^? hi ^ lentes awakeaed , arid his judgment sharpened . If , taen it i « ? £ H ? l ° , > ? to read - w ^ 7 should xfc not at least , be tolerable for his adversary to write . —Milton
Babel. (From A Various Correspondence.} ...
BABEL . ( From a various Correspondence . } — - Tub case of omnibuses would seem to show tliat no man knows his own business ; just reversing the ordinary maxim . The omnibuses in the metropolis are continually changing their fares , and they fiad themselves in this predicament—that if their fares are low , the expense of -working exceeds the profit ; if their fares are high , they have the same result , because they run without passengers , or have too few . In any case tho Chancellor of the Exchequer exacts the running tax whenever they leave
the yard , whether they have passengers or not ; ana now they go to the Chancellor of the Exchequer , asking him to remove the incubus from their carriages . The omnibuses are steadily falling in number , because the Chancellor of the Exchequer has placed such heavy imposts upon : them ; so that , to get a re-venue , he not only imposes a tax which prevents the thing taxed , but by the self-same process stops the imeome from the omnibus proprietors -which might otherwise exist for the benefit of the income - tax collector I "Without the tax the proprietors aver that they could run at the rate of a penny a mile . That , we believe , would be the true rate for London
and probably for all great towns . But then the public - ^ ant some simple index of the mile for the penny ; and here is a thing in -which , the authorities could probably help the proprietors and public too . Why not have the whole metropolis mapped , out into square miles ; let every omnibus , then , pay tax upon the number of miles run ; and let the passenger pay a penny for every boundary passed . "We believe this would really yield the largest revenue both to proprietor and Chancellor ; and the homely public would , in that form , constantly find that the ride in the omnibus saves shoe-leather !
In Glasgow , however , tlie omnibus has played the most curious of its vagaries . In order to promote the piety of that commercial capital the omnibus and cab proprietors have ceased running on the Sabbath-day ; the principal effect of which is to prevent infirm people from going to church . The fact is , nature has not destined man to arrest all his movements on the seventh day in the week , though the omnibus proprietors seem to think that nature and the God of nature ought to have adopted that regulation . Tho cab and omnibus proprietors have thought to improve upon tlie Divine government of the universe ; but , as usual , -when man attempts that presumptuous correction , the improvement is deterioration . The stoppage of a disturbance proves to be the stoppage of a pioua duty .
It turns out , however , that the omnibus proprietors who had been running their carriages on tho seventh day , had turned their piety to a very peculiar purpose : although running their omnibus for seven days , and taking tho profits for tho seventh day , they only paid their servants wages for six days . Profits , it appears , arc under some divine blessing ; but payment of wages would be accursed . This is quito tho one-sided view of pioty which suits our commercial age , and it has been presented to tho pious public of Glasgow in so striking a form , that they will porhapa be driven to some penetrating consideration of tho whole subject .
— Two months ago the public would have said that if a good round sum of money was to bo collected , Major Powya was tho man to do it . Ho got tip the Central Association on behalf of "wives and familiea as well as widows ami orphans ; advertises liberally , tallied generously , and collected 80 , 000 / . or 90 , 060 / . Ho has since averred that his charity for wives and families , as well as for widows and orphans , is limited to those cautious fomalos "who have only tho irtOBt regular husbands , and also 'regimental
recognition . Further , tho major will recogniee no Roman Catholic intermediary between tho Central Association and any wife or widow . " No Roman Cutholic priest need apply " ho posts at tho door of his charity . Ifloeka of subscribers are shocked at tho formal and sectarian distinctions drawn in JidminJBtoring tlnoir bounty . At almost ovory meotiug of subscribers to the Patriotic Fund questions are put to clTnw forth the declaration that tho ( rffloial fund has aio connexion with tMfljor PowyB . If "there were
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 25, 1854, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_25111854/page/14/
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