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Leader (1850-1860), 29th May 1852, Edition Town of 2, Page 514, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      of different natural powers more to a level ; but is there not an evil in the very fact that it . thus lends afactitious impunity to feebleness and faintheart , to say nothing of the fact , that it has now become the suspected instrument of compromise and evasion ? ¦ " ¦ . ¦ ' ¦ It is expected , from the usual force of example , thatas one hanging is followed by many murders , and one wedding by a swarm of courtships , the parliamentary affair of honour at Weybridge will generate a flock of " affairs" to bring the curtain down on St . Stephen's with iclat . We

      hope not . Perhaps , the suspicions which have dimmed the prestige of the recent combatants , may disincline gentlemen to use a weapon so easily adapted to sham-fight , and may recal them to a sense of the fact , that the legitimate instrument for an " affair of honour" is the brave man's sword . Let custom restore that ice-brook tempered judge , and it will go far , if not to abolish these encounters altogether , at least to weed them of these pop-gun salutes , whose multiplication has imparted to an . exploded fashion something of the burlesque and the vulgar .

      Untitled Article

      THE MAYNOQTH ENIGMA . " Let us leave child's-play , " cries Miss , in Swift ' s Polite Conversations , " and go to push-pin . " Parliament leaves Maynooth , and betakes itself to the Derby . The manner in which these Tories , according to their own account , have betrayed the nation , and abandoned it to the Pope , is truly frightful . The Scarlet Lady has unconcealed designs on the United Kingdom . The triple tiara has appropriated Ireland , and is the retainer of the Irish priesthood . England was parcelled out * and its ultimate annexation to Rome was only prevented by the resolute energy of Lord John Russell and Sir Robert Inglis . Still the fortress , whose keep had been erected by Peel , the betrayer of Protection for corn and Protestantism , had been suffered to stand even by the Russell-Inglis heroes ; and it was reserved for Spooner under , the auspices of . a Stanley to make the onslaught upon that Stronghold . The doctrines taught in the college are immoral , antisocial , anti-loyal . The safety of the empire demanded instant resistance to the insidious machinations carried on in that priestly abode . The safety of our youth demanded the instant exposure of those horrible seductions . Spooner

      undertook the enterprise . Stanley watched it with interest , and declared it to be necessary . So stood the matter when Mr . Spooner broilght the subject before Parliament , even as Cicero denounced the conspiracy of Catiline . The danger was more imminent , infinitely more horrible . That is the Tory case . But , behold , no sooner is this Ciceronian denunciation ventilated in the House than the pressure is abated . The promoters of the denunciation themselves proposed to adjourn it until the 16 th of June , perhaps the day after the break up of Parliament . Laughed

      out of that procrastination , they fixed it for the day before the Derby : twice are they invited to adjourn it to that day , but they knew they could not obtain an attendance . There are not 4 X ) of them , neither the followers of Spooner nor the followers of Derby , who can be brought to see the necessity of stopping away from Epsom Downs to defeat the Catilinian conspiracy . The debate on Maynooth , and all its machinations , degenerates into a squabble between the O'Gonnan Mahon and John Reynolds on tho

      irrelevant subject of " a return ticket to Weybridge . " The debate is adjourned from the morning until the evening . In the evening , without the counter attractions of a Derby , not 40 members are Protestant enough to keep together . Tho House is counted out , and Mr . Spooner ' s propoaed investigation into the enormities of Maynooth becomes a dropped order . The question remains for tho country , and a very pretty question ifc is , of tho alternative or forked order .

      1 . When Mr . Spooner ' s allies , including Lord Derby , insisted on the necessity of inquiry into the dangers of tho Maynooth machinery , were they in earnest P or wore they simply bamboozling the Protestant prejudices of Exotor HallP 2 . If they were in earnest , how can they dofend the awful treachery of which they have l > een guilty j " dragged away by the Derby , or enticed by the odours of dinner , and abandoning their country to tho Daniel O'RouxJrt * of Maynooth P

      Untitled Article

      THE BEDFORDSHIRE EMIGRANT . A BA . ILWAY 8 TOBY . Last week , at tho Bletcliley junction , a countryman , middle-aged , anxious and attenuated , opened the door of our carriage , and asked , in the Bedfordshire dialect , which I do not here transcribe , whether there was room for his " Missus and children . " On being assured that we would ondeaVour to accommodate that somewhat indefinite number of persons , ho ushered in an interesting woman , with a wondering look and a thin face , and a baby at her breast ; , followed by three other children , appearing very much as peasant children usually do , that is , looking as though they had grown up in that caso of patched fustian and ragged corduroy , commonly called their clothes , and leaving you in doubt , from the joint efl'ect of tho utifthoss and tho fit , whether tho clothes liavo taken tho shape of tho body or tho body tho shape of tho clothed . A primd fade anatomical conjecture would incline to tho latter supposition . Tho father took liis Boat by their side , and kissed with unconscious affection his awkward and passivo progeny , who neither cried , nor moved , nor spoke . They scorned to 'labour under a gonoral inanimation . You could not call tho father of this stolid family " Hodge ; " tho ruco of tho Hodges is nearly extinct . Tho countryman , who used to bo represented under that nnino , had distondod cheeks , a vermillion bronze , and a twinkling oyo , gonoratod by thoso renowned agricultural compounds , fat bacon , fresh air , contentment , and beor . Whereon tho lips of our friend from Bedfordshire had uono of the genuine rural purple , but wore , instead , that modern tinge , thut

      vile invention of thismanufacturing age , the poor-house blue ; and his cheeks , lank and collapsed , were of that saflrbn . and tallow mixture which cornea of ' . ' 'l abouring in the sun all day , and having nothing substantial for dinner . ' ' ¦ ' ¦ ' " \ - . ¦' . - . - . ; ; ' : ; '; : ^ ¦¦ . ' " . ; . v '• . The poor man had never been out of the fields before , and he felt aa a child , and spoke as a child , on this his first venture into the strange \ yide world , beyond the hut where he had vegetated . He told us who he was , and where he was going .

      " That , said he , pointing to his wife , "is mv * missus' / that's our . ' babby' at her breast ; these two are my children , and that ' s my * nevvey' "^—poking in the stomach a twelve-year old boy , who sat faintly grinning in a smock ^ froclcj " and we are all going to Australy . Ilis mother cried" ( meaning the * nevveyV mother ) " when we came away j but we didn't cry . But it was no good him stopping , she couldn't take care of him . My wife didn't cry . 'V

      It was impossible not to share this man ' just pride at his wife ' s firmness . You could see his account was true , as " ' you looked into her urielbuded eye . Those accustomed to hear the Irish parting-screain , or witness the convulsive weeping of ah English emigrant family , as the ship is hauling put of the docks , could not but notice an exception so agreeable as this . As in some men the cultivated sense of duty casts out the sense of danger , so in this woman a deep and Unsophisticated curiosity had cast out all sense of apprehension . Everything was as new to her as \ to the Indian cap .

      tured by Robinson Crusoe . She wondered at every arch ; she peered at everystation-house : the trainwhistjle , the open panorama of field and water rushing by , the dash under a tunnel , were sounds , sights , and incidents , which filled her with ecstacy . What a world of bliss this woman would experience before she reached the golden shore of Melbourne . ! The orient sun showering down his million beams on the silver smiling sea , the sight of unkxiown lands and new races , the eyer-expanding"wonder of water , moon , and stars , and all the marvels often thousand miles of

      travel , would have the inspiring interest of a new existence for such a nature . A storm would be a world of astonishment j the groaning spars , and screaming cordage , a mystery of sound , and even in a wreck she would go down prying into the solemn depths , thinking them something new : she was without knowledge and without fear : in full possession of the rarest and richest inheritance of poverty—the inability to dread For it is blessed to be without fear , where destiny has lef t you without hope . An elderly man sat opposite to her , who did ; " what foolish persons frequently do ,

      suggest to her the difficulties and perils of so long a voyage . But his simpering folly had no effect . Tho woman asked , " Whether the sea was not worth seeing / ' and added , " we have been stained ; toe can't be worse off ' .- " and with this simple effort at logic she relapsed into her primitive wonder at the train going without horses , and when her marvelling subsided , Bhe hugged her child closer to her breasti and tried to shelter it from the cold air by her scanty cloak . Of a chain of reasoning she had never heard—she could only construct a single link , but it was a link of iron , and it sufficed for her repose .

      "We couldn't go out ourselves , " she said ; " tho parish is sending us . " In answer to the question" Do you prefer going ? " the husband answered— " Wo can't live here . I have worked for one master nineteen years , and my wages have been only seven shillings u week , and we clammed on it when we hod children . " " But surely you lived rent free ?"— " No , " he answered . " You had food given you ? you had clothes found you P "— " No , " lie replied , " wo had to find all out of

      seven shillings a week . We shall all go out as can . Ono man I loft behind mo has only seven shillings , and ho has nix children . I don't know how thoy live . I'd go out if I was him . The last fow weeks my master gov mo oight shillings ; but I never had so much before . Hut T would go . 1 am to have 40 Z . ft yoar and nil found mo in Australy . Maator said ho was sorry to part with mo , but I wasn't sorry to pnrfc with him .

      Emigration wears a different aspect from what it did years ago . Tho working-class used to dread it , iimV thoy long for it . At ovory junction you meet thorn journeying to distant lands , and leaving , without rogrot , a country which gives thorn nothing to regrc , and nothing to remember . Tho ponury of jn « i » u » " ttiring towns is bad enough , but that fumilioB of » vo and eight porHons should bo condemned yoar after yew to subsist on seven shillings a wook , sounds ns incredible H 8 it is disgraceful . Tho admissions paid to ono grand morning concort in tho height of the k ° nll ° . Boason , would support ono thousand agriculture families a week . Perpetuation and multiplied ' Concerts , I say , by all means , but lot not prinu * don and pianos beguile you from your duties tow famished , labourers — - charm they nover 30 wieoy

      Untitled Article

      OTJR « DEEBY J > MOBAIi . DAffim . O'Eqxtbke is the winner ! Barbarian second I Kothing could excel the astonishment of the Epsom , nation at these turns of fate ; nothing the wild Donnybroot delight of Irish turfmen and patriots at this double defeat of the Saxon by the Gelt . Perhaps the heavy ground might help to account for it ; but-account for it how you may , you cannot explain away the fact which has dethroned the favourites , and scattered dismay among those nice calculators , who are always in the " secret of the stables . "

      Another unexpected victory was that aquatic triumph of Thomas Cole over Robert Coombes , champion of the Thames . ( Coombes was in fine condition , and everybody thought that he would have been able "to walk away from his man " without trouble ; but Cole was too much for him . There is no imputation on Coombes or Hobbie Noble , that comparatively " dart" strangers surpass them : it may perhaps rather illustrate the

      general spirit of corrupted honour , than the want of honour in Coombes or Hobbie Noble , that these two occurrences have occasioned a burst of allusions to defeats and betting business . In pugilism , it js indignantly asserted , you may get many a man to be thrashed for a few ^ pounds . Perhaps it is too hard upon the practical conservatives who keep up the remnant of our fine national sports , to place them in the same category with politicians and statesmen P To make a motion or vote in the trust that the proposition will-ha rtaffiated—to enter office under ^

      Protectionist colours and " declare to win with free trade" —to wink even Unto squinting at a Spooner assault on Maynooth , and aid in counting out the Spooner' —these are practices common enough to " another place ; " but if the infection has iii some degree spread amongst professional sporting men , we are not all at once to assume the universality of the abuse in the sporting world , because we find it in the political world . Jockeys are sometimes bad enough , but it is not fair to compare them with election-mongers .

      A liberal view of the question , however , does not militate against some steps to secure greater purity in sporting aifairs . Heaven defend the turf from its St . Albans ! If the sport is to become a piece of stage play-acting and the cast of fate is to be prearranged by compromise , it is evident to the numblest capacity , that the money passing by bet is swindled out of one set of pockets into another ; and it is equally evident that people can be provoked to bet on purpose that

      they shall lose . If you lay with A , a bet that B will lose in a contest with D , A , in conjunction with D , can pocket your cash to any amount without risk . If you astounded at B's prowess , bet upon him next time , A can reap another harvest in conjunction with B . And when the business becomes thus systematized , A can make quite a good thing out-of you . Decidedly the sporting world wants its Roebuck , not for retribution and cure , but for prevention and timely penitence . "

      Untitled Article

      5 | 4 ¦ T H E !» EA P E B . f- SA ^ AbAir ,

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), May 29, 1852, page 514, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1937/page/14/