Current:

Leader (1850-1860), 6th July 1850, Edition Town of 1, Page 350, Untitled Picture

Page 350
Page 14
14 of 24

On this page

  • Departments (1)
    • A & .< dDltftl (CiritttfTI ^ r il VlbUUllUU
  • Pictures (1)
  • Text (8)
  • Transcript

    • 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.

      Untitled Article

      extent of the concourse itself . A vast open warehouse , admission one shilling , in Battersea-fields , might collect many : but a great commercial jubilee centering in Hyde Park , will throng London with a vast concourse of holiday-making and holiday-paying visitors . The holiday will not be disagreeable to any class : but millions upon millions sterling depend upon the choice of a siteto go or not to go into the pockets of our middle and working classes .

      Untitled Article

      THE POLES IN ENGLAND . Some little while back , about one hundred Poles who had fought in Hungary arrived at Southampton from Malta . They were , in the first instance , relieved by the " Literary Society of the Friends of Poland "; but , for some reason , the Society wished them to go to America . The Poles objected on the ground that they would not be able to return to Europe when wanted . The Society persisted , and , first diminishing and then discontinuing their scanty daily allowance , made use of starvation as an argument to induce their removal . Some forty of

      them gave way . Of the rest , some went to seek employment in the manufacturing districts , and forty of them have come to London . They , and a number of their fellow countrymen expelled from Switzerland , are literally starving . They have had some help from a few Chartist workmen at Whitechapel , and from Mazzini ; but they are in most extreme need . They would be glad to work if they could get work ; but before then they must really starve if none come forward to assist them . Belonging to the Democratic party , they have no help except from the Democrats who may be found in London .

      Untitled Article

      Thero is no learned , man but will confess he hath "much profited by reading controversies , his senses awakened , and his judgment sharpened . Jf , then , it be profitable for him to read , why should it not , at least , be tolerable for his adversary to write . —Milton .

      Untitled Article

      Wjs are obliged to omit several papers , our news having encroached upon our space . On the whole we have reason to be thankful to our correspondents for the way in which they have responded to our wishes in the matter of length ; but some are less careful . We are disposed to stretch a point in favour of opponents ; but when we have several letters on one subject the longest have a bad chance of admission . One writer on marriage , in Edinburgh , has sent us a letter which we would gladly

      insert , as it suggests very useful thoughts ; but the writer is evidently aware of its excessive length . "Will he revoke it , and curtail it ? He ought also to weed it of unwarranted personal insinuations against the writers and managers of this journal . We see that we must repeat our statement , that we do hot hold ourselves in any degi'ee responsible for the views propounded under this head . The department is open to all who conform to rule as to decorum and length .

      Untitled Article

      THE LAW OF MAURI AGE . July 3 , 18 . ) 0 . Sm , —Your Open Council does you credit ; you have not boon afraid of Mr . Newman's admirable letter on divorce ; and I wish I could hope that it nii « lit induce you to reconsider your own opinion . Tho . present law ( however it is expressed ) cannot be treated as the result of a particular mode of superstition—marriage , as tho earliest of social institutions , has been sulHeiently tried in every form which it can assume , and men are . really too wise in a matter ot

      such very vital importance , to have permitted a law to remain which is less than a fair eont ! hihinn from all past experience . Stringent laws have been tried ; they have been relaxed , and again made stringent ; and if there is one point which is clear in the history of all civilized nations , it is that marriage has uniformly been held most inviolable in this healthiest periods , and that where divorce is easy and frequent society is dissolving . If it i » u question what is tho best rule for men to livo under , we must take the experience of what has produced the best men , or of what the beat men have

      most approved , and be contented to do without sentimentalizing . No doubt on a question so delicate and difficult it is easy to make a case . It is easy to talk of the liberty of a free human being , which is sacrificed by an irrevocable vow ; of the loss of dignity in submitting to such ; of the inalienable right of self-control which it surrenders ; and then to point the reasoning with few or many instances of sin or folly , or even suffering , which , seem to have resulted from it ; but , after all , that is all cant . Show me any really noble-minded person whose soul is suffering , and you have done something ; but where is there any ? We hear no-Doctors

      thing of the noble-minded in * Commons ; only rather of a sort of people , the very last to be indulged with larger licence by legislative experiment . Every human being born into society is brought at once under a number of irrevocable obligations of positive laws—obligations of custom , duties to persons about him , and duties to the country in which he is born . These obligations are laid upon us without our own consent asked or given . We are never at liberty to question them ; yet we do not think we have forfeited any desirable liberty , because we are not allowed to steal ; nor do the police reports afford any evidence that there ought to be no such thing as laws of property .

      Of course it would be infinitely desirable if we could do without laws at all , supposing people would do their duty of their own accord ; but that is only to say it would be better if men were perfect . As they are still very imperfect we must do the best we can . With the variety of situations , circumstances , and character which , exist among us , it is impossible that laws can ever be more than a second best . They can only be general ; and to require laws which shall meet every contingency is to require an impossibility . People really good for anything ,

      when they are in an exceptional position , know this very well , and are the last to complain . We talk of freedom ; but there are two kinds of freedom—the savage is free , and the perfect man is free ; one because he does not know what law is , the other because he has so long obeyed it that it has become part of his nature : between lies the infinite gulf which divides licence from liberty . And it is , at least , remarkable that with , all laws , whether in morals or in art , it is just those who are most a law unto themselves , who obey the outward law most readily , while those who most need restraint are the most

      impatient under it . I must say that , as the times when a less stringent marriage law has been required have never been the best times ; and as the men who have come forward to require it have seldom been the best men even of a bad time ; so I think it will be the last relaxation which men will he able to bear with advantage . There is no relation in life in which wo require more to be protected against ourselves , because there is none in which the least respectable of feelings are better able to disguise themselves in an attractive dress . There may be extraordinary cases , grant it ; but legislation is for the ordinary , not for the

      extraordinary . Goethe , who was no more a prude than Gibbon , faced the difficulty in the most aggravated form which he could conceive it to assume ; and yet in his powerful novel , The Elective Affinities , " he reads still the old strong lesson to us : " You can command yourcelvea , and therefore you must . That is your highest course , and therefore it is the best . " He has supposed every facility of ehange , every unfitness in the old relation , every fitness in the possible new relation ; he has placed the trial among highly cultivated persons who , if any , could have taken the direction of their conduct into their own hands ; but ho chose to say that the right way was not the way of self-indulgence , but of self-control .

      I do not say , any more than Mr . Newman , that our law , as it stands , is as perfect as it might be made . Divorce for adultery is made an expensive luxury , which only the rich can afford ; and a poor man must enduro , and does endure , and becomes himself demorali / . ed in enduring any extent of proiliyacy in his wife . Again , there are cases where separation would bo most desirable ; where many a poor wife ' s heart is breaking under ill treatment ,

      from which the law will not protect her unless it has assumed the gross form of external violence . No suits more . deeply disgrace our law-courts than those which from time to time appear for restitution of conjugal rights . Some power ought to be left to relations to interfere in such extremity . But I cannot wish to see a power allowed of second marriage , I had almost said in any case , at all , so long as wife and husband are both alive .

      The Codo Napoleon grunts liberty of divorce by mutual consent ^ but it is iencod round with every precaution , and a second marriage is not permitted within iivo years of the first notice of the intention to separate ? . In case of divorce for adultery , with admirable wisdom , the law forbids absolutely any marriage between the guilty parties ; and such severe liberty was found so unpalatable that , with the return of tho Bourbons , tho canon laws came easily back ; liberty which offered no greater facilities for indulgence was willingly surrendered , and was so little cared fur that the proposal to restore . it in 1848

      scarcely received patient hearing from the Constituent Assembly . Even the canon law gives more hope to self-indulgence , and only the self-indulgent seemed to have any interest in the question . Yet even the liberty of the Code Napoleon I should , be sorry to be introduced among us . It is permanence which gives marriage its solid social value . Take away its permanence , leave open a chance that it need not be permanent , and one large part of its private value as a discipline of character is gone too . which

      The highest lesson of life , , it may be said is the sum of all lessons , self-forgetfulness , is taught in marriage every hour of every day ; and we receive it in the beautiful school where duty and affection best go hand in hand . In a measure this might be so with a voluntary union ; but experience of ourselves ought to teach us to distrust ourselves ; and ordinary men , who really desire what is really best for them , will be thankful that a condition , under which , better than any other , they may receive the very best of human training , is secured from their own caprice .

      I acknowledge myself most suspicious , particularly in these days , and most particularly among Liberals , of any show of a desire to escape from moral restraints . Liberals , particularly liberals in doctrine , are spoken against in the world as disguising , under a pretended desire for truth , a real desire to undermine the obligations of right and wrong . I am sorry that the Leader , however good its purpose , should give people who so speak so fair a handle . The real Liberal only wishes to get rid of the false sanctions under which duty is presented to him ,

      because , being false , they seem to make every thing else false which professes to be rested upon them . It is not to escape an irksome restraint , but to be able to offer a more complete obedience that I am a Liberal , so , no doubt , is the Leader ; but I may illustrate my reason for being what I am from the Leader itself , which , wishing to see what is right , has yet ( as it seems to me } lost sight of a real truth , because the superstitious ground on which it appeared to rest had fallen away from under it . J . A . Fboude .

      Untitled Article

      SUNDAY SUSPENSION OF THE POST-OFFICE . London , July 1 , 1850 . Sir , —Under a recent Post-office notice , no letters or newspapers are allowed to be delivered through the post on a Sunday , thereby causing great annoyance , as well as infringing on the rights and privileges of the public . For I hold that , as the Postoffice is the only legal channel whereby we can transmit our letters , it is bound to deliver them

      whether it be Sunday or Monday . But it appears , that our Legislature , for the present , have decreed otherwise : they have robbed the poor man of the only chance he had of receiving and communicating with his friends on that day , no matter how urgent his letter may be . So much has been written on this subject , and " the arguments of the Puritanical set so strongly confuted , that I will not say more on tho subject , except to ask you to solve me the following questions : —

      If it be desecration of the Sabbath to deliver letters and newspapers through the post on a Sunday , Is it considered a desecration to employ men , horses , and water-carts , in watering the carriage-drives and "Rotten How" in Hyde Park , prior to the arrival of our aristocracy for their Sunday afternoon drive or ride ? Again , Is it desecration of the Sabbath to alloio upwards of ticenty large furniture vans to be packed with baggage and officers' property , which teas the case at Knightsbridge Barracks on Sunday last—and this , too , under the very eyes of our Legislature ? Further comment is unnecessary . I left the Park

      more convinced than ever of the humbug ot the recent Post-ofnce regulation , and the great call for every man—especially the poor hardworking mechanic and tradesman—manfully to assert his own mind and speak out boldly for redress . However , I was disturbed in my reverie by the appearance of her Majesty ' s liveries , and I had the pleasure of seeing our amiable and beloved Queen , with the Prince Consort , in an open carriags and four , attended by outriders and equerries , enjoying her Sunday afternoon drive . Long may she do so ; and I trust she will continue thus to advocate the cause of the humble though not less devoted classes of her community .

      Trusting you will favour me with a place in the columns of your ?? Open Council , " I am , sir , Yours obediently , Dehfla .

      A & .≪ Ddltftl (Ciritttfti ^ R Il Vlbuulluu

      < ti ) fttt CmntriL

      Untitled Article

      3 S 0 & ?) $ ILeatJitV . [ Saturday ,

      Untitled Article

      SUNDAY POST . Sir , — I am requested by two of my friends ( the one a Jew and the other a Mahomcdan ) to address you . The former would feel greatly obliged if you would use your best endeavours to stop the delivery of letters on a Saturday , and the latter on a Friday . My friends have for a long time borne patiently the desecration of their respective Sabbaths , and they now think that they also are entitled to some consideration .

      I have also a few black Negro friends , who keep holy the day on which they were born , and they would also like to be accommodated . Yours respectfully , Aui ; i » Jii > Kooez .

      Untitled Picture

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), July 6, 1850, page 350, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1845/page/14/