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Leader (1850-1860), 13th November 1852, Edition Town of 2, Page 1091, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      re intelligent but precarious hired service of whites , I I ^ ° 11 not refuse to show him that when their free papers made out , it will still be their interest to remain on V estate ; and that the oldest planters of Jamaica are onvinced that it is cheaper to pay wages than to own S The special arguments here may pass : they may or ot be the rig ht ones ; but in the consideration of the ' lass whose convictions have to he conquered by the -av we have the line of success chalked out by a much easildid nell

      master ' s hand . How more y O ' Con win the applause of the N " ew World philanthropists . " G reatest of liars , vilest of hypocrites I" shouted that im mense professor of invective . "Tyrants , base wretches , Murderers , you belong not to us ! " This cheap and facile denunciation of Slaveholders , which in nowise altered their determination , but rather intensified it , won the everlasting remembrance of the Liberator , where it may be seen reprinted in N " o . 8 , for February last , as a -parallel menace to the Magyar

      visitor in Boston . When Lloyd Garrison praises the great Celtic Moircli of invective for this dire outpouring , he acts the uarfc of the boy who fancies that the terror is in the war whoop of the savage , unmindful of the quieter muskets of the civilized infantry , whose unostentatious execution blows whoop and tomahawk to the devil . Ion .

      Untitled Article

      THE DELATION OF WOMEN TO POLITICAL . REFORM . ( To the Editor of the Leader . ) WujfE all men refined and disciplined , there would be no need to say anything about the relation of women to political reform or any other reform . They would liike their right position as water finds its own level . Unfortunatel y , refined and disciplined men are the exception—ho exceptional , that they may be pronounced rare . "Women are more refined , but , if possible , less disci plined . The mother , it is wiid , moulds the child into lie niiin ; and man , in scorn or fear , or pride ; or ignoiiiiicc , or in all together , keeps her tightly closed within tlic prescribed limits of her narrow life ; and in

      keeplnK her dwarfed to this conventional standard , oileo-1 'iall y dwarfs himself . It seems that , before refined '"id disci plined men can cense to bo the exception , "omen must be raised above their present standard . I'clore there can be any chance of" this , woiinin must " rcatlio n freer atmosphere . Ah it is , her intellect and j' ""> tio ns an ; as tightly laced as her body ; and the dis'" ¦ lion and weakness caused by the conventional eon"icinenl ; an ; a . s great in the out ! case as in the other .

      ""in women , and men loo , have a freer lift!—until ' •¦ world recognises what , individually , it ho well vlll ) ws , tbiii , wo : ln ] mvo j ) aHS ; oll > s that , nurd direction I " health ful development , that are nol , suhduablo" llll ( l ( ' what amount of talk you may , a full developjj nit <> f «„„ . w // () / r Ulliun . . ' moi , i , a ] " , p i-,,.,.. Until "> 'he Miin ^ s which now pass for nicu and women v ' < - () iil . i , u ,,. to bo fhing . s , and f , o replenish the earth Vl < l'in-s aa . ii- their own lik .-ness . I '" , whol » i social system , including our system of ac ' r ¦ > 1 S ' u '' ' y l »» rd upon women , narrovving her 'viticH mid obstructing hor independence : not so much )( ( ^ »« heretofore , but , still immensely . I l . hink that '"' . V , probabl y mostof fhoovils that beset women mv

      , Hiil ] < O ( ' U ! U' < 1 « 'l >« ' »<^ ' »'' position , pecuniarily , so-, >'• ""<• politicall y . To have a dependent iri n grcaf Ij ,, '' , '" . " l () ( l " < Im'kJ . <> f us . What is it to all below i ' eHu |( ' '' •'" . ' luimv gradatioiiH to tho worst ? Tin ; l . jj ,, ' " ! . ' W «» i-Ht arii almost , tlui only public indicawhat is j ) iissing beneath the Hiirfacc of society .

      What women suffer can only be made known by themselves , and will not be uttered . We may dimly guess how the proud chafe beneath the goad , and , humiliated and outraged , make some wild dash at escape , to be outlawed and ineffaceably branded with conventional infamy ; to be relentlessly trampled down , lower and lower , driven from every hold- upon the virtuous past ; humanity , womanhood , trampled out , or so defaced that little but the fiend remains to pay back to society , pollution , for its rigour and its scorn . We may dimly guess the many gradations from this worst upwards to the best . Some do halt on the road , and happily find some harbour of refuge , at least for a time . And we may also guess how many a patient mother leads a life

      of endurance without hope , of suffering without relief . It is not said that there are not many women that live happily and well , but that under different conditions they might live a higher and a purer life . It is said that women endure misery , ill-health , and outragethat they are dwarfed in intellect , in their emotions , and in body—as they would not permit themselves to be were they not dependent . That women suffer much , all know who have eyes to see . The worst never conies above the surface , but merely the startling . It is not intended to develop the whole of this large subject here , but to indicate the relation of women to one important question , that of political reform . To do that may be of some practical service .

      We write and talk many fine platitudes about our civilization . It is said , the condition of woman in a nation marks the progress of the nation in civilization . Remember this , and ask what idea , five hundred years hence , when historical students search our archives , will be formed of the position and condition of women in this nineteenth century ? No doubt the student would find a tendency to encourage the advancement of women , and when , on the one hand , he met with the works of Miss Martineau , and , on the other , the account of a trial for criminal conversation , where the husband sues for damages for

      the loss of the services of his wife , what conclusion would be drawn from this anomaly ? When it is perceived that the property qualification necessary to ensure a vote does not extend to women ; that neither maiden , nor wife , nor widow , however large their possessions , can claim the privilege of exercising any direct personal influence" on the Government which disposes of their property for revenues and other purposes without their having the power to say yea or nay in the matter;—when this is seen , will not the judgment given be somewhat derogatory to our civilization .

      Will not woman appear more as the handmaid than as the helpmate , when it is seen how she is left in the power of the man ? Men make the laws , a fact which none will doubt who comprehend their relation to women . Men are tried by a jury of men ; women not by a jury of women , but of men . The remark occurred in the Household Words , "that some of the verdicts of late trials of women would probably have been different had women sat on the jury . " It is a question whether most men can comprehend a woman ' s ease as fully , or judge it as fairly , as it should be .

      Men , and women too , talk as if Christianity had conferred liberty and equality upon women : forgetting that the I toman matron held quite as dignified ji position , tho Grecian wife in some instanccH a higher ; forgetting that , among the Teutons , women were not only wives , but friends and counsellors ; forgetting that , in this Christianized nineteenth century , with the exception of the county of Kent , the law of primogeniture brands them as unequal ; forgetting that , should a woman possessed of property marry , she loses all legal power in its disposal ; the property becomes the man ' s . It is forgotten that , should the husband turn brute , or sot , and the wife of necessity leave him , the law enables him to strike a more painful blow than that of brute violence . The law crushes the maternal heart .

      Should the wife seek an asylum , tho man brute can violate her presence and her person whenever caprice or hate may urge him , unless an expensive and public process be gone through , open only to tins rich . When the historian comprehends that the polluting stream of unfortunate women that wander through our streets at night is an institution necessary for tho maintenaneo of order—( . hat good Christian men , fathers of women , dare to think prostitution a necessity of civilization , and to think it chimerical to attempt its prevention- — will not women appear as socially degraded as they aro politically negatived " r if women saw this matter clearly , would not women think it time , as bravo Mrs . Jameson and thoughtful Harriet Martineau do , to take this question in hand ? At present women dare not , for fear of what , tho world—that is , man—would say .

      Tin * inequality between man and woman as at present ; recognised by the laws and partially by custom , is a remnant , of Mutt barbarism wo all decry . Hoeing it day by day , being familiar with it from infancv , wo do not

      perceive the injustice or the wrong till some brutal deed startles us , or some social catastrophe sharpens our perception of the anomalous position and painful inequality of the sexes . Women must fight their own battle , and do it without extravagance or intemperance if they would earn success . Existing evils should be sufficient to induce women not only to countenance and aid reform , but to become active reformers on their own account . Women ought to be as materially interested in political reform as the men . They suffer with the men , and should work with them to attain that political power to alter the state of things which keeps them

      the serfs of wealth , and often clothes and feeds them worse than the actual slave . It is true that political agitation has been too often connected with debasing influences . There has been too much passion , too much intemperance in speech and act , too much talk about brotherhood , and too little practice of it , to induce women to look favourably on political agitation . The women were right without knowing why , in expecting that if politics were good for anything , they should make those who advocate them better men . Women feel that a vote is not much after all , however right and just it is to have it . Will the possession of the

      franchise insure employment at remunerative wages ? Will it replenish the cupboard ? Women have not seen that it would . They feel ( blindly it may be ) the worthlessness of the . bawling democrat , the inutility and weakness of the denunciator , and the danger that , in appealing against tyrannous authority , the habit may be acquired of appealing against all authority . It is only by showing that political reform leads , —is the first step to social amelioration—that a woman ' s heart can be touched , or her convictions gained . Show her that political reform is the sure precursor of social amendment—which means the removal of the wretched

      uncertainty of employment—a guarantee of the means of subsistence—a change from the one room , where modesty gets balf worn out , where cleanliness is impossible , where notions of decency incommode , and where comfort exists of that kind only which arises from the flexibility of human nature in adapting itself to circumstances ; which means sinking to the level of those circumstances . A cliango from this , which so often . sends the husband and the son to the public house , to some degree of comfort with room to live and leisure to think and love , as well as time for work , is a reform that woman could take to heart .

      Why should not English women march with us m noble fellowship towards the hopeful future ? Let women earn their position as equals . Sister , wife and mother , why not friend , counsellor , and reformer ? It is not so , however . Women at present neither know their duty nor their interest , and men have hardly known the worth of woman ' s aid , or they would have sought it more effectually . Spartan women felt with the men—" Honour gone , all ' s gone . ' They were tho true friends of the men .

      Hut our women , as Ebonezer Elliot says , —¦ " Urge their husbands to . submit to laws which , interdicting our best affections , convert marriage into a crime and a curse multiplied by the number of its births . " When shall this be altered ? ClIAKJJi . S FjtKDUJtlC NlCHOl-LS .

      Untitled Article

      THE CRYSTAL PALACE AND DKSKCKATION OF THE SABBATH . ( To tho Mlitor of the leader . ) Sin , — The proposed opening of the Crystal Palace upon tho Sabbath-day , appears , at present , to bo tho source of considerable anxiety to a large body of the religionists of this country , who assert that if a portion of tho only day in the week upon which the poor working-man hits a moment of leisure , be spent , in the admiration of some of the most beautiful and refined works of artistic

      genius , and in the inspection of some of tho finest productions of human ingenuity and skill , it will inevitably lead to 1110 most fatal immorality , and to the most terrible eon sequences hereafter . Meetings havebeen held in which this subject has been discussed by some of our most eminent , ministers and religious men : tin ; Rev . John Angoll ¦ James , Mr . I' ] . Baines , and many others too numerous to mantion , have unanimously given it , as their opinion that , if this magnificent , building bo opened on tho Sabbath , it will pavo tho way < o infinitely worse desecration in other quarters ; that tho

      Sabbath of Mngland will , at no distant period , bo kept as it is in Franco and other continental countries , and therefore Government must be petitioned to prevent ho shocking and fearful a profanation of that sacred day ., which tho Lord hath set apart for bis own peculiar worship . I had almost thought that a purer and moro sincere service would be rendered lo the Almighty , by tho admiration , amounting to reverence , which intelligent men would bestow upon tho works of those eminent , individuals ,, whoso mighty genius thin muno Hoiiitf is believed to have created than all tho formal liruyoru

      Untitled Article

      November 13 , 1852 . ] THE LEADER . 1091

      (!F) Jrra Camtril

      (! f ) jrra CamtriL

      Untitled Article

      [ in this depabtment , as all orimoNs , however extreme AHIi ALLOWliD AN KXl'UKSSION " , THE EDIToJi NECESSARILY HOLDS HIMSELF ltESFONSIULli FOll NONE . ]

      Untitled Article

      Tim re is no learned man but will confess he hath much proiilcd by reading controversies , his senses awakened , and nis judgment sharpened . If , then , itbrs profitable for bur ; Lo read , why shouldi fc not , at least , be tolerable for Jus adversary to write . — Mii . ton .

      Untitled Picture

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 13, 1852, page 1091, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1960/page/15/