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It is assuredly a bad state of the law which forces citizens to violate it with the deliberate purpose of ascertaining its real meaning . Such is the case with the law respecting stamped newspapers . Our readers know the long and active struggle made by the Anti-Knowledge-Tax Association , a struggle which has elicited a strong expression of public opinion in its favour , and has made palpable the absurdity of the law it seeks to get abolished . Mr . Dobson Collet , the energetic Secretary of the Association , has now in his own person determined to violate the law , and so bring the matter to an issue . His purpose is not a factious one , it is simply that of bringing the subject decisively before the public . He brings out an unstamped newspaper , The Potteries' Free Press , and the opening number contains an address to the Commissioners of the Inland Revenue , from which we quote the following : —
" I am desirous of ascertaining , by experiment , ' What is News ? ' You will probably recollect that in 185 ] ., Mr . Cobden endeavoured to elicit from your solicitor a solution of this riddle , and that Mr . Rich , then a Lord of the Treasury , suggested that the only way to solve any legal question was by violating the alleged law , and taking the chance of a decision before the courts . "After four years' study of the question , ' What is News ? ' I find myself unable to understand what is the rule acted upon by the authorities . From the severity used by your hononrable board towards the Norwich Reformer , and the WaTcefield Examiner , I should say that ' News is something that must not be published unstamped out of London . ' Trom the peculiar style of the judgment in the Court
of Exchequer , I should imagine that ' News is something which Mr . Charles Dickens does not publish ; ' but what this something is , I am unable to discern . It is not the record of parliamentary proceedings ; Hansard publishes that every week It is not the account of such events as the Duke of Wellington ' s funeral , that was chronicled in the Builder , which also contains many excellent law reports . It is not the state of matters connected with Newmarket and Epsom ; that is gazetted in the Racing Times , and the Racing Telegraph . It is not an account of the proceedings of associations of working men ; these appear weekly in the JReasoner . Information on Foreign affairs is not news , for that appears in the columns of Punch .
" If debates m parliament , public processions , sporting matters , public meetings , foreign affairs , and legal proceedings , may be narrated on unstamped paper , without violating the law , the difficulty is , to imagine what subject of public importance is excluded ; and yet there is a prejudice which prevails throughout the provinces , that , not only is it illegal to publish records of current events , without a stamp , but that you would prosecute any body who should commit such an offence . " I confess that I was once in this prejudiced state of mind . Wishing to get rid of a law which , if it be interpreted according to the common meaning of the words ,
forbids all such records as I have mentioned , I endeavoured to obtain an enforcement of the law against all offenders , as the shortest way of getting rid of the law itself . In conjunction with other persons , I memorialized your honourable board , requesting the prosecution of several weekly publications , including some of those above-named . You paid no attention to our memorial ; since then we have presented copies of these and similar publications to your chairman , to Lord John Itussell , to Sir Frederic Thesiger , and to Lord Derby , and no prosecution has been commenced against any one of them .
" I have only two alternatives , one to believe that I have been mistaken in thinking that the current , events of the week were news , liable to stamp ; the other , to suppose that your honourable board , and the Government of the country , have grossly neglected your duty . It is more charitable , more modest , and certainly more pleasant , to own that J have been mistaken ; it would have been , indeed , very desirable that you should have proclaimed to the country the mistake under which so many persons arc labouring ; but you are , I know , martyrs to official reserve , and cannot spread this important information , as it deserves to be
spread . Mr . Juch is right ; a hivv can only be explained by a court , and in order to toll tlic country that I am right , you must prosecute me as if you believed me to bo wrong . You will have , indeed , an unpleasant tusk , . should you feel it your duty to prosecute this paper ; you will have cither to admit that you ought to haveprosecuted Hansard , Punch , the Jhuhler , the Hating Times , &o ., or you will have to bIvow Homo . essential difference between these papers ami the- Potteries' Free Press . This difference you cannot show , and on this T put myself upon the country . " Yours respectfully , " OoTjIVHt Douhon CoJjJ / et .
" 25 , LiverpoolJload , Stoko-upon-J rent . ' This course ; is boldly wise . Either the Potteries' Free Press must be prosecuted , and in that case the courts of law must decide on the . perplexing question of what is news , and all the unstamped newspapers be forced to become stamped ; or other papers will follow the example , and the stump will be done away with .
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Madame Ida IViciKi ' icu , the world-renowned traveller , as we learn from a private letter , has been most successful in her wanderings through Singapore , Borneo , Batnvia , and Sumatra , meeting everywhere with the greatest kindness and attention from private persons , mercantile firms , and ( j Jovernliient authorities . Horses and men , free passages on the steamers plying between the ports , have been liberally provided for her , so that her expenses have , been next to nothing . I Tor works , alvejuly translated into Dutch , have l > een widely read in these countries , and slie has nmilc a rich collection of curiosities for museums . She lias given up , for the present , her intention of proceeding to Australia ; but we presume as long as health permits her wanderings , she will leave no corner of the habitable ; globe untrodden .
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It is not many weeks since we noticed the third volume of Louis Hl . AN (;' h eloquent and erudite Ilistoire de h Revolution Frammisc ; we
have now to announce the publication of the fourth volume , which , brings the narrative down to the violences of the counter-revolution in 1790 . There are two great subjects treated , with considerable detail in this volume—namely , the financial question ( and the issue of assignats ) and the organization of justice . Victor Gousin has also reprinted his articles in the Revue des Deux Monies in a substantial volume , entitled Madame de Longueville , Etudes sur lesfemmes illustres et la society du XVII . siecle . As an historical study , this volume is not without its interest ; but the subject to be fitly treated requires a more delicate pen : St . Beuve should have taken it in hand . Russia fills a large space in the world , her people ought to be understood ; but unhappily we have so few writers in a condition to speak of Russia and the Russians except in a superficial way . Among the few is M . HerzeNj already known by his work on the progress of Republican ideas in Russia ( published under the pseudonyme of Iskander ) , and now speaking in an eloquent pamphlet entitled Le Peuple Russe et le Socialisme , Lettre a M . Michelet , which we commend to the attention of our readers . As a vindication of the political activity and life of the Russian people , and as an intimation of the volcano which lies under the smooth diplomatic ice of the Russia seen by travellers and spoken of by writers , this pamphlet will " give pause" and matter for reflection .
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; Critics are not the legislators , "but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Review .
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186 THE ^ LEADER : [ Saturday ,
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HILL ON CHIME AND PUNISHMENT . Crime : its Amount , Causes , and Remedies . Uy Frederick Hill , Into Inspector of Prisons . John Murray . From time to time a real book is published . Amid the thousand fleeting publications of the day , all mero " printed talk" of more or less ability , there appear , like the rare swimmers in . Virgil ' s storm , certain genuine books conceived and executed in the fulness of knowledge . Such is tho one before us . It is a systematic and comprehensive troatiso elaborated during sixteen years of practical acquaintance with the subject , an acquaintance not liable to the bias which would result from preconceived notions , nor from personal responsibility ; for Mr . Frederick Hill , as an . Inspector of Prisons , was bound to insect , but was not responsible for any of the mistakes which an executive might fall into . llenco the gradual modification of his opinions during this period , gives to his work > i rigorous authority : it must ? ilw 2 iys remain 21 monument of the state of opinion and practice in this half of the nineteenth century . Among tho results which deserve foremost consideration is the tribute to progress afforded by Mr . Hill ' s emphatic statement : — " 1 urn happy to l > o uhle to state , as tho result , of many years of inquiry and observation , that my belief is , that even under present circumstances , the quantity of erimo in this country is steadily decreasing and taking 11 milder and milder form ; Mint it is less than at any previous period of our history , even without rofereneo to tho increase of wealth and population ; hut that hearing these in mind , and estimating the extent of crime by the iivornge amount of privation , fear , and Kuflering which it causes to each member of mxiiety , the decrease is great indeed . " Tho illustrations brought forward in support of this 2 ire both curious and significant . A second result also suggests reflection . It appears that tlio number of criminals is extremely hiiuiII . " As examples of the smnll numbers of habitual offenders , it will be seen by a reference to my Second Import that at that time- ( 18 ! J ( 5 ) there were only nino resident thiovos ut Kinghorn , in l ' 'i ( e , where the imputation was 1500 ; nnd that
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BOOKS ON OUR TABLE . Reports of the Oxford Tutors' Association . No . I . John Henry Parker . Portrait Gallery . W . S . Orr and Co . Picture Pleasure-Book . Addey and Co . The Charm . Addey and Co . The national Quarterly Review . No . I . J . Watson . Sights and Sounds . By Henry Spicer . J . Boswortb . The Fine Arts : their Nature and Relations . By M . Guizot . J . Bosworth . Autographs for Freedom . Low , Son , and Co . The Jlluttrated Magazine of Art . John Cassell . The Dodd Family Abroad . Chapman and Hall . Forests and Fire-side Hours . By W . Gibson . Aylott and Jones . British Journal . T . P . A . Day . Lawson ' t Merchant ? Magazine . T . F . A . Day . Writings of Douglas Jerrold—Sketches of the Englith . Punch-oflice . Bleak House . No . 12 . Bradbury and Evans . Home Circle . W . 8 . Johnson . Household Ifarraf . ive . Office , 16 , Wellington-street . The Jtcanoner . Vol . 14 . J . Watson . The Parlow Library—Stuart of'Dunleath . By the Hon . Mrs . Norton . SimmB and Mclntyre . The Christian Examiner . John Chapman . The Monthly Christian Spectator . W . Freeman . Principles of Human Physiology . By W . B . Carpenter . John Churchill . Influence ; or , the Evil Cfenins . Q . Itoutledge . Jane Scton ; or , the King ' s Advocate . By James Grunt . O . Routledge . Bases of Belief . By Edward Minll , M . P . Arthur Hall , Virtue ! and Co . Knick-Knacks from an Editor'x Table . By L . O . Clurlr . D . Apploton . The People and the Parish : The Common Jjaw , and its Breakers . By Toulmin Smith . Stevens and Norton . Scientific . Memoirs . Parts I . to TV . Taylor and Francis . Essays on Political Economy . By M . Frederic Buatoat . W . and F . ( r . Cash . Biographical Magazine . Partridge and Oakey . The Sexuality of Nature . By S . H . ( Trindon . F . Pitman . Dwellings for the Working Classes . By It . S . Burn . W . Blaekwood and Sons . The Search , fur Franklin . ' By A . Peterniann . Longman , Brown , Green , and Longmans . I ' linsm / esfrOm My JAfe . It . Bentley . Twenty-t ' eoe . n Years in Canada ( West ) . By Major Strickland . 2 vols . It . Bentley . Daisy ' Bur us . A Tule . By Julia Xavanagh . ' . i vols . It . IJontloy .
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The unhealthy prudery of narrow minds is curiously illustrated by this anecdote , which we guarantee as true : —One of our first librarians had a copy of Ruth returned to him by a subscriber , the first volume only half cut open , with an intimation that h ' e was to send no more volumes of a novel so unfit for the family circle ! If one could name a hook pure in spirit , pure in language , healthy and moral in its teaching , surely that book is Ruth j and yet sickly fastidiousness descries " danger" in it , because Ruth is carried off by her lover , and wears no wedding-ring . If an incident is to make a book dangerous , the literature for family circles will become scant indeed !
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 19, 1853, page 186, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1974/page/18/
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