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    Untitled Article

    Certain vague notions of decency . however , strengthened by vague terrors of the Police , prevent this costume becoming general . The Nude may be pure in Art , but is decidedly objectionable in the streets ; and , inasmuch as w e must drape our human figures , the question of drapery seems as infinite as human caprice . Yet on nothing is the public mind more bigoted . The slightest variation in costume seems like an insult to the general taste . To wear a bonnet unlike that of the hundreds which pass you in the street is to commit a crime . Lo stint yourself in whalebone and crinoline is looked upon as evidence of an eccentric and unfeminine mind . In spite of all the pictorial and historical evidence of the infinite varieties of costume—and all these

    changes tending obviously to greater — the changes are always resisted at first by inept ridicule ; but they gain ground if they have any real superiority , and pass into established things , to become in their turn the obstacle to any new change . " Bloomerism " will gain ground , because the change it brings with it is indisputably one which has convenience in its favour . It is opposed by the natural conservatism of human beings , especially women , and still more by the fear of what " others" will think . But as the waist is no longer under the armpit , and as stays are every day becoming more and more obsolete , so we have no doubt but that the spirit of the "Bloomer" revolt will prevail , and some considerable modification of female costume become

    universal . Indeed , not only with respect to female costume , but with respect also to male costume , a very decided revolution is necessary . We ought to study elegance of form more , and costliness of stuff less ; we ought , while bearing utility in mind , to marry it as closely as possible with beauty . At present , who thinks of beauty—who can carry out his ideas of utility ? We are all dressed by our tailors and hatters ; and we accept their taste in lieu of our own , because they deepen their voices into solemnity , and assure us that " no gentleman wears such and such a thing now . " Much of this is

    owing to our being as a people so inartistic ; more , however , to our being as a people so " respectable " and conforming . Shelley used to say that he would rather be damned with Plato and Bacon than go to heaven with Paley and Malthus ; but our nation would rather be damned with Respectability than go to heaven through the path of nonconformity beset by ridicule .

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    ROME AND CUBA . International law is scouted by the Party of Order in some cases as ostentatiously as ^ it is insisted on in others . For instance , the French bandit expedition to Rome was applauded by the reaction ; the American buccaneer expedition to Cuba is condemned . Rome in 184 . 9 was in the hands of the Romans . A Roman Senate made the laws , a Roman Ministry executed them , a Roman army defended the city of the Ogesars and the Popes . Throughout the States which constitute , in international relations , the Roman nation , there was nothing exceeding the fullest support given to the national Government , except the joy and gratitude of a people

    delivered from the bloody and abominable rule ot the InquiHition and the Vatican . Nothing was wanting to constitute an expression of national force and national will . As far as France and Austria and England were concerned , the Roman Slates were , to all intents and purposes , a Nation . Was it not then fairly within the pale of international law and entitled to the protection of nations i * How ( hat national law wan interpreted and that protection afforded we know . Four armies , with cannon and mortars , with sabre and bayonet , surrounded Us unfortified extent ; and one nation trampled out , not only the fire of its nationality , but the last sparks of its liberty .

    The party of Order rejoiced . The Times , the Chronicle , and the " weaker vessels " - of the Unglish Absolutists had no arguments against the men who reestablished the InquiHition , imtl reasserted tin * domination ol Austria . Then , they did not urge for one moment ; that the Roman ( Expedition was a violation of international law . Neither in that nor the subsequent invasion of Hungary by the Cossacks , did they express a longing for the time when all civilized nations would unhesitatingly acquiesce " in the rules of international morality , commonly denominated the law of nations . " But now the tablet * are turned . The Spanish Monarchy i « one of the brightest gems in the

    crown of the Party of Order , because it is one of the meanest of the crowns of Europe . The Spanish Monarchy is among the weakest and most contemptible of that bloodstained party , and the Spanish Monarchy is ( or was ) in possession of the island of Cuba . . Cuba is not a nation ; Cuba is not liberated and independent ; Cuba has no national senate , no national executive , no national army . Spanish soldiers command in her citadels , and a Spanish general rules in her councils . She is not a part of SDain . but one of Spain ' s dependencies : she is not

    an integral portion of the Spanish monarchy , l he Creole population detest their Spanish masters , and they strive to eject them from the islands . An invading force land upon its shores to assist the patriotic party . Part of them are taken , and a Spanish hidalgo orders their massacre in cold blood . Fresh supp lies of men , money , and arms are sent to the invaders . Their own countrymen are guilty of the crime of mourning and preparing to avenge their loss . Then what do we read in the journals of the Party of Order ? Those who raised not a voice in favour of the annihilation of

    Roman nationality and Roman liberty—a case of the violation of international law so strong that this of Cuba is weak compared with it- —those who saw only justice and right emblazoned on the standards , and enforced by the arms of a Louis Napoleon , a Ferdinand , and a Francis Joseph , see nothing but piracy and robbery , injustice and unrighteousness , in the expedition of Lopez . The conquest of Borne by the Jesuits was a great and noble action ; the invasion of Cuba by American Republicans and exiled Cubans is an act comparable only to the deeds of a Kyd or a Constable J 3 ourbon .

    We are not defending " buccaneers , " we are placing two facts side by side ; in order that the eyes of the People may be opened , and the hand of the Foreign-office either constrained or compelled to help on the right side , and prevented from stabbing Liberty in the back .

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    WHAT CAN BE DONE WITH SIX ACRES OF LAND . " England is over peopled . We ought to send away some 300 , 000 men , women , and children annually , or the whole country will be overrun with paupers . " This is the doctrine of the landlords , who have usurped the title of landowners . Tijey have , for many years , been labouring as industriously to clear their estates of surplus labourers , as their ancestors did to extirpate wolves , bears , and other sylvan monsters . They know that property has its duties as well as its rights , and , therefore , they use every scheme , however dishonourable , to screw down the rates , that being , in their estimation , the paramount duty of every conscientious landlord . Virtue has thereby its own reward , in the shape of an improved rental . Land surveyors affirm that every cottage in the country is equal to a deduction of £ 100 from the value of the estatewhich it encumbers . At this rate , a landowner may calculate that peasanthunting is a most profitable occupation . For every family whom he drives from the land to compete for employment , or steal , or beg , or starve , in the nearest large town , he has the solid satisfaction of reflecting that he has added £ 5 per annum to his income . People wonder at the rapid increase of population in towns , but how can it be otherwise ? This process of land improvement has been carried on incessantly for the last nixty or eighty years , as any one may ascertain by consulting the population tables . In 1774 , Arthur Young , in speaking of the tyrannical mode in which the landlords and farmers interfered to prevent the poor from marrying ,

    says : — " The landlord and the lurmer have almost equal motives to reduce the number of poor in their respective lmii . she . s : nuuriages uro very frequently obstructed ; the couplo muHt , if they marry , Htny nt home , the overneerH of the poor will grunt no certificates ; if they marry , therefore , where arc they to live ? No cottage i « empty—they must live with their fathers or mothera , or lodge ; the' poor ubhor both jih much : ih their betters , and certainly , in inimy cuhch , run into licentious amours , merely for want of a cotuigc or a certificate . ftuppoHo an unmarried couple applies to the lord of a manor f >> r perinmnion to build a cottage on the waste— - ' A ' o , ' w » yH the gentleman , ' I / to catlatje , when built , will bt > a iwsf , of hoijifam , and wtt ahull huvtt thorn all on tho parish . ' "

    'I hey must live with their fathers or mothers , or lodge . " Thin was tho rule in 1774 ; but the cane of rural Iovoih lias altered greatly for the worse since that time , especially on well-managed estates . To think of marriage before a vacant

    house has been found for the young couple , is treated as a most heinous offence by Malthusian landlords . On the Bridgewater estate , for example , the Earl of Ellesmere keeps a watchful eye on the progress of population among his tenantry . The following circular , which was issued b y the head steward a few years ago , will show that it is not the Earl ' s fault if population increases too fast in South Lancas re . u Worgl Jul 30 1842

    " The evils which an over-crowded population entails upon the poorer classes of society make it necessary to consider in what manner this may with , the most ease , and with the least interference with their comforts , be diminished gradually , and finally removed altogether . There can be no doubt that early and ill-considered marriages between very young persons is one great cause of these evils—marriages contracted without forethoug ht , and without any consideration as to the means of future support and maintenance of children . Such marriages should be discouraged for the sake of the individuals themselves , as well as for that of their parents and neighbours . Such marriages receive great encouragement the

    upon the Bridgewater Estate , from parties being permitted to reside in their parents' dwellings after marriage , thereby producing other serious evils and inconvenience . It is , therefore , hereby intimated , that after the 1 st day of October next , no cottage tenant shall permit any newly married son or daughter to take up their residence in their house , without leave in writing from Mr . Fereday Smith , or Mr . Robert Lansdale , as the case may be , or the tenant himself will be put under notice . Mr . Lansdale will fill up any cottage now vacant from those cottages which contain more than one family , taking great care that the vacancy thus made shall not be filled up by an extra family or lodger . " James Loch . "

    It never seems to strike these Malthusian oeconomists that there is any other mode of improving the condition of the People besides that of keeping down their numbers . " Mr . Lansdale [ the Earl of Ellesmere ' s agent ] will fill up any cottage now vacant from those cottages which contain more than one family , taking great care that the vacancy thus made shall not be filled up by an extra family or lodger . " Alas , for the houseless " extra famiter estat 1 Not word is

    lies " on the Bridgewa e a said about ever building a new cottage for any of them . The improvement of the Bridgewater property , to use the slang phrase , requires that all such surplus families shall be peremptorily ordered to take themselves off without delay . They must betake themselves elsewhere—in other words to Manchester , that being the largest and nearest place of refuge for the " extra families " of the improved estates of the Earl of Derby , the Earl of Ellesmere ,

    and other Lancashire landowners . And yet , while this merciless system of rural depopulation is going on from year to year , there are millions of acres lying waste in Great Britain , upon which the whole of the surplus families might be comfortably settled . We last week gave an account of what has been clone with six acres of land at Highgate , in improving the condition of eighty-three inhabitants of that village , many of them with large families . What has been effected there in a small way , might easily be carried out on an enlarged scale in all parts of the kingdom . There never was a time so favourable for such a movement

    as at present . The " agricultural mind ' is in a transition state , ready for any great improvement which may be presented to them . Now , then , is the time for the Earl of Shaftesbury , Mr . Sidney Herbert , and the Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor to come forward and show what immense benefit the community would derive from a complete agricultural reform . Let them give the labourers an interest in tho cultivation of the soil by promoting the small farm and allotment Hystein—let them

    bring the intellect of the country to bear on the cultivation of the soil , and thereby prevent the demoralizing immigration into tho largo towns , and they will do more to elevate the physical , bocial , and moral condition of the working-classes , than by building ever ho many lodging-houses for tho poor , who overcrowd the towns , breeding fever and pestilence there , because they have been driven oil Hie hiiMl on which they might no easily be made comfortable and independent .

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    Sept . 20 , 1851 . ] & !> * % t& * tt . 895 _

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    TUB HUll'llUKH ! AVI U THHT Ol' * UOHI'KIUT \ . recently publi-h-. l , «« y « , " Wo may jucl K o with R reat a < ouraJy of tl « , com ... er « i .. pro-perii y of u country ^ tho quantity of . ul ,. h .. ric acid it confine .. Her * is a valuable hint for Hir Cliwle . Wood when he bungs forward his bucket for 1862 . Instead of wearying the House with a tiresome miius of poor-law returns , for thepurpoiio

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 20, 1851, page 895, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1901/page/11/