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ittle despise its masses , as it can dread insurrection . The present contest j then , may result in rendering England freer , as -well as more generous and more fit to be the ally of nationalities abroad , upon whose struggles she h » 8 looked with so much indifference . This b % sermon -which the English people will read to . itself , not only in the churches on the day appointed byfcer Majesty ' s Ministers , but in its own action .
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3 EH& PAR ^ IAMEHTABY ROUSSEAU . Poob Society is at its confessions again this #£ ek . The very prevalent disposition to adr tn ^ e ^ hat | lame ^ table monster of candour , and inJBurmity , IBousseau , -firpuld be unaccountable if it were ; not for the fact that society shares wjiat xas perhaps as striking a trait in his ^ hiftraeter as his deplorable timidity , or his ffl ^ rb ^ iC ^ cyy ^ Society , is for ever confessing to ; itself its shortcomings , parading its be&e * | j |^ ntj ^ ns , and wi | j | , equal ostentaf ion parading its ausegaijle attempts , at reform . We
the ceremony and the ostensible household . Others of a more careless turn seek " no simulation of marriage at all , but take their chance as ordinary men do , as undergraduates , or confirmed philosophers , who are not marrying men ; and there is every shade of difference between these extremes , from the men whose evening walk becomes familiar with a particular series of area-railings , knockers , and shop-fronts , to the man who
has a wife who is , as it were , " a crown to her husband" on some stated day of the week . It is not surprising , therefore , if the unfortunate gentleman whose retreats were rendered . conspicuous by the time of his death should not be singular in his resorts . Two women , who were in the same room when , he expired , were alarmed ; . their
alarm brought another inmate of the same houae ,- > -ariotJier Fellow of the University . Nor are ve to suppose that in the "University there iaie only two gentlemen who might thus be caught wandering' from the path of eon-: ventional dictation . Fellows must not marry ; and to those who understand the meaning of the prohibition , we need , say no more .
i But society , has "been making its confession also in Parliament , as it has not long since by a royal commission . Wei saw the lawyers under tliat commission lately investigating the : law of divorce ^ and pointing out . $ om « of the manifold evils and injustices which render our code ridicalouj ,: if it were not ^ tragical , in its effects . > "V ? e now have Mr . Bow- '
yer ; likemse rwhoiaspires to he . a reformer-of the law of ( Jivorce ; so far as to . improve the law relating to criminal conversation . His measure has two great points in it- ^ Pirst , the substitution of a fine ior . the damages , which copy the old Saxon rule of a pecuniary edmpensatk > n , and . offend the sense ef gentlemanly propriety in these times of refinement . A mania still to be mulcted if he be
detected in breach of the existing ; law ; but the fine is to go to the Crown , or to the lawyers , and not to the injured husband . Some injured husbands won't thank Mr . Bowyer for his reform ; some will . The other point is , to permit the wife to be heard by counsel ; Mr . Bowyer rightly
observing that , although she is essentially a party to the questions in issue , she has no standing before the court . Some women will thank Mr . Bowyer for procuring them an audience ; , others will not ; since on thes , e occasiohs ,- ^~ so odious is the law , so unjust is society , so vain is the hope of real justice , that women , would rather not be heard than
otherwise . " The less said the better , " is the woman ' s feeling , even when she is wronged . But it ia , indeed , monstrous to reflect upon the injustice which the law inflicts , right ; , and left , — -upon the tyranny which ties together for ever two human beings whom no right motive would retain in the same household , — upon a law which enforces that intolerable
barbarity " restitution of conjugal rights , " and which can find no pretext for release from the marriage bond save cruelty of the most brutal kind , or the infrjngernent of the bond an one side only . Yet Mr . Bowyer lias nothing better to suggest than the substitution of a fine for damages , nnd the concession , of a counsel to the wife .
In Parliament , in royal commissions , in law courts , in the haggard faces of the troubled lionie , society at once confesses its consciousness that its own rules tiro against its own convictions , and that it is impotent to set right its blunders ; and then , " by ita representative men , high in tho land or legislature , it proposes these palteringn with justice , a . » if they were reforms ! Truly we may say that the institution of marriage , aa it ia at present observed , ia a failure , only exceeded by these' preposterous mockeries of ruuendment .
apeak most , especially of moral reforms . 5 j&is the custom in this country to talk of ' & $ ! && ltilbfaiC $ & ^ as * if that which is ' convexi-. | g | a ^ JPd / - « 'too ^ ru 1 ^ were " , the ordl-|^^ ra % ^; i ^ ii so . to ignore ^ fulj , half « f ^^ 0 ^ X ^^* po ^ Y , Bui ever and anon something comes out which shows what is
^ oing ; £ ion * . ii )« fneAths : the surface . > Smiling sd ^^ pwhich % ul « lf'walk over the »' geoiajA ^^^ caiK ^^ r ^ i ^ ig ; tha # there ^ ifr ? n&mineVbene . a ^ to meet a miner |!|? u ^ . jn ^ K . . ^^ | tb ^; . gp ^ p | id , 0 T is startle ^ l ^ yi p . nf thojT ^ pa ^ i , explosions with which it ought to "be familiar . ... Sout ia now .
An unfortunate gentleman goes to a house o ^^^ incnJis never talked about , sare W $ ' % ^' ' M $ 0 ¥ " ¦ Corife 8 si 0 ^" S' ^ f ^ jS ^ fe- . *^ " ^ -- ^ ore convivial and ^ Mff gfc £ g . o ^ 6 ^ 4 | aw' ' . ' 4 U tiamiiriine . He goes ; for *( the purpose of ^ meeting a ; woman stilt inor *^ mily as well as technically unforWnate '' thtinTiimaelf ; and while there , by a . sjpecidl'dl&aste ^ disease of the heart cbnaiammates its fatal work , and the time of Ms death renders , the place of it notorious . The
gentleman is a Eellow of Cambridge University , and the world ia scandalised at the fact , that a Fellowj whom the rules of the University require to be unmarried , should resort to those " substitutes" for marriage which everybody knows to be customary . So ijudfcomary are "they that if a man be untniirried , and strictly observe the rule which everybody professes to observe , he becomes ' aif-ibigject of cont&inpt "rather than of admiratidn'for an asceticism which is taken to
bes ^ alc a mean or pitiful disposition . That Teilows' might be defected , if spied upon , everybody knows ; but that a Fellow should be detected is a painful scandal , and his friends will be indignant With us for the mere circumstance of mentioning it again . Tet , mention such things we must . For there is more . Women , even of fche unfortunate class , have their feelings nnd attachments . Fellows , whom the rules of the
society oblige to live without the ceremony of marriage , omit the cereinony and the ostensible household , but nothing else ; and as they are men at least up to the English average in heart find head , tliey have equal chance with others of earning the affection of women , even without the marriage ceremony . There ia more or leas reciprocity * in these engagements . With men who are decidedly of a conjugal turn the union mnj bo so complete that there ia nothing absent but
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Sm THE LEADER . Saturday ; WBWMMWBMMBBWWW ^ . — - ¦ lmm
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FLAWS IN THE SPANISH RIGHT TO CUBA . Spain is proving herself more and more incompetent to hold her colony . The Government which cannot protect its own people —which cannot keep its own soldiers in order in its own capital , eannot hold distant dependencies . The incident ia which our
Ambassador figured at Madrid the other day exposed as much as anything the impotency of the Government . He saw an imonehcling muleteer assailed , first by a common . SQldier , who stabbed his animal in the nose with a bayonet , by way of arresting it in jibs course , and then by ayoung officer , who cut fche man ' s head . Our Ambassaador ran down into the
street , took the wounded man into his house , and sent a note to the Government ; offering himself as witness of the whole outrage ; : and threafce * ning that if Government did hot take care of the wounded man , he would . Such a message to a Government that actually . performed its duties would justly be considered an act of insolence : it was the only ink and intelligible mode of addressing the Spanish
Government . But what gdverntnertt , indeed , can reside in a public Administration which is thus called to its duty by foreign , residents ? Nor can it preserve its allies to prop it , up in its . decay . It has been remarked that there is sonifr parallelism in the ease of Cuba and that of Turkey , and that England , tbe ally of Spain , is as much bound to defend the island as the t ) anubiau Principalities . The distinctions between the case * , however ,
are many ; but let us take a fe \ r . In , the first ] j > lace , if Turkey was an aggr&ss : or at all —which is denied—it was not upon Russians , but upon her own subjects : the . aggressions of . the Spanish Government are committed upon American citizens and their property ; giving to America an indefeasible right of reprisal and war . In tbe second place , Cuba is not a constituent part of Spain , but is , in a geographical and military sense . American ;
—is , beyond all refinement , necessary to the occupation of America . In ^ the third p lace , the American Government has waived its right of reprisal and war , upon several occasions ; persevering in a hopeless experiment upon Spanish good faith , and endeavouring to give Queen Isabella an opportunity either of redeeming the past pledges of her Government , or of transferring the
island to America , peaceably , on terms advantageous to Spain . In the fourth place , the Government of Turkey has been faithful to its treaties , at least with third parties ; that of Spain habitually violates its treaties , and conspicuously its treaty vnih England , whom , it niO 8 t impudently asked to give it a guarantee of its occupation of Cuba against all xisk .
In other -words , Spain combines with the weakness of Turkey the insolence and bad faitli of Uussia . A consciousness of this false-position of Spain displayed itself in many of the speakers during the conversation on Wednesday upon the slave-trade treaties . Sir George Pechell , moving for the papers ,
showed the enormouB expense which this country has bestowed upon ita eruiseas—just 90 , 0007 . short of 3 , 000 , 000 sterliug ; Mx . Hume , who seconded the motion , pointed out that Spain is the only delinquent iu this breach of treaties , and that if her treaties wore enforced we could at once withdraw 20
or 25 ships ; and Mr . Oobden , who supported tht ) motion , pointed to the uudeniablo fact , that it' Cubiv were transferred to the United States , tho treaties with this country would be observed , and the slave-trade witli Cuba , its chief centre , would be extinguished . Thus Lli « country Avhich now clflims English interference to defend tho outlying province , wliich she ivliynatca by bad government , coats
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 8, 1854, page 324, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2033/page/12/
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