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¦ ""¦ ~ I March 80, 1850.] ©#£ HrfatJltV...
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—— : — GERMAN UNITY. Gebman unity, as fo...
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A JUDGE. EnsiciNrc discovered, on behalf...
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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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
The Church, Its Bishops, And Its Priests...
! weapons of personal offence . Men's consciences make them rebel against authority , but do not deter them from trying- to cheat the Church out of her I envied temporalities , by imitating the device of the I cuckoo and insinuating into the pleasant seats of | the Establishment the children of Dissent . All i this is " diversity of opinion , " and is all patent to i the " Christian" ! | If the Church is an institution to be put down , let | it be so ; but until that time let us grant to it , j equally with other sects , the faculty of defining its { own spiritual constitution and limitations . Re- | ligion is a nullity if not free : it cannot be enslaved , | though its votaries may be degraded .
¦ ""¦ ~ I March 80, 1850.] ©#£ Hrfatjltv...
¦ "" ¦ _~ I March 80 , 1850 . ] _© _#£ _HrfatJltV . U
—— : — German Unity. Gebman Unity, As Fo...
—— : — GERMAN UNITY . Gebman unity , as formalized by the Parliament at Erfurt , is but a chimera . However much has been said or sung of late enthusiasm for this unity , such enthusiasm has never grown out of the hearts of the people . They have applauded vociferously enough ; but only because they had been so indoc- trinated , because the object of their applause was in that state of vagueness tha _$ a clear understand- ing was not necessary . German " unity" at Frankfort and at Erfurt , and in the minds of those who have been ied away by hopes of good to be derived from either Parliament , has been and is but an idle dream of German nationality , a dreamy wish , which is unrealizable , simply because it is already realized . German unity , if it is to mean anything , must mean a political and administrative unity , a reality very far from the desires of the promoters of the Prussian bubbles . From the first moment of what is called the German revolution ( of March , 1848 ) , the lleac- tionary party in Germany have striven to ruin the movement by falsifying its natural character , They changed the political question _^ to which men ' s thoughts were tending , into a mere formula of nationality ; and the contemporary movements of Hungary and Italy aided them in their fallacious course . But those movements were altogether of a different nature . Italy and Hungary have each to conquer a nationality . Germany already possesses it . Governed neither by other peoples nor by foreign dynasties , neither incorporated in stales not German , nor shocked by institutions strange and violently imposed , —what is the bare question of nationality to Germany ? She i _< not bowed beneath thc yoke of a stranger , nor , subjugated by a barbarous people , compelled to the surrender of her proper individuality , to wear irksomely and crushingly the inferiority of the oppressor . ' She knows not the thousand " ills that wait upon the vanquished . Her institutions , her laws , her habits , her armies , her masters , her official language , her religion , and even her miseries , are peculiarly her own . In truth , in Germany there is no room whereupon to debate this question of national unity . It is an existing fact , not a thing to be sought , whether at Erfurt or elsewhere . The unity to be sought is not national but political . How to be obtained ? The difficulty in the way is easily perceptible . There is not in the whole nation any desire opposed to unity , nor opposing interest save that of the German prihees . There lies the hindrance . Either some impossible union must be discovered in which to bind the interests of thirty-four reigning families , interests that agree only in so far as those families are all opposed to the welfare of their subjects : or the royal hindrances must be removed . That any real political and administrative union of Germany is impossible while the princes remain , may be clear enough from the royal squabbles and jea- _lousies attending even this sham endeavour at Erfurt . But remove the princes and the problem is solved . On this simple proceeding hangs the whole question of German unity . The matter is so simple , —the advantages of tlie position are so obvious , and so thoroughly felt the evils of the present German complication , with its many frontiers , its com- mcrcial impediments , its political divisions and dissensions , —that were the question of political unity plainly urged , the universal answer would be as clear . The princes understand this well enough , and therefore have confused the issue . The bare formula of nationality answered their purpose . An instinct rather _thati the deduction of reason , to be felt rather than argued for , like lovo or religion not without its mysticism , the shibboleth of nationality is ever appealed to by political craftsmen who , impure in motive and confused in principles , would set moving the popular energy for their own ends , and yet escape the consequences of a . political faith . And where
—— : — German Unity. Gebman Unity, As Fo...
should this be done so easily as in visionary ! Germany ? What less philosophic people could have dreamed of so mischievous an absurdity ? The German Governments knew their men . At first they rang the alarm of French invasion ,- _^ that old well-used expedient for arousing the Germanic enthusiasm . Failing that , when there was no further mistaking the placid innocence of M . Lamartine , they discovered the happy idea of national unity , and forthwith illustrated it with flags , and eagles , and processions , and speeches , and proclamations , and Te penms _, till the in- definable was generally received . When some few unbewildered demanded the abdication of the Princes , the abolition of privilege , the estab- lishment of equal law , of a veritable unity , they were denounced as enemies and destroyers of that beautifully-fragile edifice , that harmonious unity , but just founded , though none knew how or where , From the midst of this hallucination proceeded tnat miserable Constituent Assembly of Frankfort , of which we might say that it well deserved its paltry end , were it not that it never sought any other end . To shelve all practical questions , to prattle of a patchwork unity , and to increase the bodyguard , of the princes under pretence of as- suring national independence , such was the glorious achievement of the Frankfort Parliament in a year of movement and of struggle . The people were set to prophesy of an already existing nationality , tnat they might not labour at their political re- demption . The dispute of Schleswig-Holstein may help to prove our position , There , at least , was a national question , whether a portion of the German family should be overlaid by Denmark . But how was this met by the apostles of German unity ? There was no lack of popular sympathy ; but the kings sided with the king . The esprit de corps om _% weighed the national sentiment . The history of nations exhibits few grosser instances of royal per- fidy than in this affair of the Duchies . The Ger- man unionists excited the population to revolt , they openly espoused their cause , they exhausted the country by all the ravages of a campaign , they lavished recklessly the blood and gold of Germany , ami all with their minds made up to slip the victory into the " enemy ' s " hands and to use the oppor- tunityof sacrificing those " infected with democratic ideas . " They were excellent cannons' food , and expressed the sympathy of the German princes . At length Baden and the Palatinate were overwhelmed ; and it was time to fin sh the play . At Fredericia , by some strange management , the German army was beaten , 3000 democrats were left dead upon the field ; and the defeat was pretext enough for a preliminary treaty of peace , concluded secretly at Berlin eight days before the battle . The Prussian Government hobbled through an official exculpa- tion . It is enough that a Government should need to exculpate itself from the suspicion of such an atrocity . The war of Schleswig-Holstein may serve better than aught else to prove the treachery of the German princes in this question of a national union . The Erfurt Parliament is the last grimace of the mask . The German people at length perceive the falsehood of their Government , even of the most " liberal : " and this is why not one in ten of the few qualified electors has voted for the new phase of hypocrisy . They have been wrongly blamed f ( > r thus standing aloof . What good could arise from helping the reactionary party in their last endeavour at confusion by any recognition of the Prussian League , or of its creature , this Prussian Parliament at Erfurt—this poor revival of the gumes « f Berlin and Frankfort , which began with Te | Deums and ended with _grapeshot . Bourgeois diplomatists may try their wits upon these _idjte formulas of unity , nationality , and order ( idle in this instance ) , playing with thorn as mere harm- less abstractions , while they dread to follow them to their logical results ; but it is time that true men everywhere should turn with indignation and loathing from the attempts to hinder action j ]> y excess of worthless words , to delay , by intrigue and falsehood , the appointed progress of Humanity . ~
A Judge. Ensicinrc Discovered, On Behalf...
A JUDGE . _EnsiciNrc discovered , on behalf of Englishmen , that the jury is the judge of the law as well as the fact ; Mr . Justice Talfourd has discovered , on _behrilf of Englishmen , namely , Englishmen of the criminal caste , that there is impunity for murder , that there is no murder unless yon can specifically , scientifically , and with most minute precision , trace
A Judge. Ensicinrc Discovered, On Behalf...
the physicylogical process of the last _Cfowflingmurdefous act . It is ah exquisite refinement . A _country couple hire a young girl from Bideford workhouse ; torment her , beat her , starve her , and persecute her even in her dying days , so that at last nature fairly breaks up under the' wear and tear of misery and agony ; the whole facts are known to the _neighbours , arid fully recited - in court . The history of the girl and of her tnurderers is as well known as that of ' the elm-free on the village green—better . But yet there is a failure of " evidence . So Mr . Justice Talfourd says . Thegirl Was killed by these two people—they _cornfessed it . Her body was ft ihass of disease , almost of living _disorganisation , caused by their brtitalities , not interrupted even in the sight of fleighbouts . But in the multiplicity of injuries a doubt arose in the mind of the philosopher on the beixeH as to which of the injuries was the one that actually caused death , ibhiah violence it was that pushed the girl over the brink of etefnit _} ' where those c ? _riminal hands had kept her so long ; which last nudge or delicate poke of the fiftger toppled her over the brink . Mr . Justice Talfourd adjudicates in the phi- . losophy of that alderman who ascribed his death _, not to the whole supper , but to the last pea } and what is more , Mr * Justice Talford would have required yott to identify that pea out of the whole peck : to produce it in court , and show that it was not any of this dozen or so of peas , or that dozen or so of peas , or that third _dogdn or so , all alike , — _« as like as two peas , "—and all equally fatal iri their tendency j no , not those , but this last particular pea which filled lip the measure of human endurance ! Had Mrs , Brownrigg been tried before Mr . Justice Talfourd she would have been safe . Clearly he would have wanted to gee the last blow " produced in court" which knocked the little girls into the coffin j or the last crust of bread withheld . Not any crust of bread ; but the actual , identical , and particular crust which Mrs * Brownrigg would not give , and on foregoing which the litle victim expired . Without that Talfourd would not have believed in Brownrigg , any more than lie does in this joint Baucis and Philemon Brownrigg of Bideford . But there is much more in the _Talfourd philo-SOj ) ny than this supersubtlety of doubt : he is , it appears , a man oflarge tolerance and charity , _ihsomuch that he includes , if not iu his affections , at ieast ; n n _| s indifference , the class of Brownrigg ant ] _i $ jrt ] # " She was seen , " he says of Mury Ann p arS 0 ns , and he speaks with a delightful deli' - cacy fiVi _] t may he envied in _Dowrting-street , — " she was seen to receive chastisement , of which he did not _apjjrove , but which taken singly by itself , might have excited little _reyard'" Sir Thomas should speak for himself . It is perilous to place ourselves as standards for others . " Our hands /' Pays Madame de Stael , " we wash everyday ; out * feet never . " If Talfourd had witnessed the Usage , of wnich even the mere description may make some men , neither weak nor cowardly , feel father sick anf ] rather fevered With a sort of retaliatory indig _* nation , —if the philosophic Talfourd had actually witnessed this " transaction , * ' the treatment might , ue tells us , _" have excited little regard ; '' I 3 ut Talfourd is clear on one point , —of one thing he has no doubt whatever . Even to his 8 Ubtle , refining , hair-splitting ' mind there is one thing that is absolute knowledge : it is the one fact that Robert and Sarah Bird " must be ac _^ _- quitted . " Of the rest he is doubtful . To him aione cause and effect in the treatment and death of Mary Ann _Wrsons are beset with doubt fatal to conviction ; but as to the impunity of the Bnucis anc j Philemon Brownrigg , on that point his ever * active mind _reprises in _absolute certainty _, rj ; hi s judgment surpasses all antecedents in history . Certainly we have jumped at once in this direction to the final result of perfectibility _, Talfourd is cither a perfect judge , or the perfect opposite of a judge . ' j' ]) C stinted measure of the judge ' s " regard " for torment criminally inflicted _Trustifies u _^ . The author of " Ion " cannot be other than a man with much intellectual perception , much feeling in hi _« heart . Has he " retired from the _htage into real life ? " Some pay that ( he law , not the judge , is in fault ; but then who so fit to declare the imperfection of the law as the administrator that first detects it in this startling manner ? Some say it id fho indictment . ? , \ _'ul _) y _fnnnrrl . Then where was the censure from presiding justice ? The judge should not only superintend the technicalities of the law ; to take his place fittingly among his com *
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), March 30, 1850, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/ldr_30031850/page/11/
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