On this page

• Text (3)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    these ^ musfckbee considered . , defunct aa . statear m If-thbc bucat of indignation be only the outcome of noble ' sjmpathy for : suffecing ,, becaasa Wihfl » einot ; been more succejastul against the - enemy , because * we' have ' not ; a » avmyi and nofcalab annunciation of the war administration ; if . tha ; pi *> ple are not prepared to make / their weight felt in the management o £ the-army-j so fac-as regards its efficiency as anrijastensnent ,: them the vote of Monday will

    have * © nlya answered , the party purpose : of ousting * a . Ministry , and will not have ; can ? ied tr » a > . joi > r nearer what we want—not merely apmy'Teformybut militacy perfection . Henee ^ forward Ehgland ? a statesmen—if they would win the foremost place in Europe—must be prepared toi make- ^ the boldest propositions in the allied ! Giiuncila ; Parliament must be prepared . ! to sustain- them- with vigour ; the people miast-: support and goad the Parliament : Werreidicein : the vote of Monday if it think it if it

    mean these things ^ we . meanly ofmean anjrthingj else . ; Iiet us grow corn ; let us spin cotton . ; let us comb wool ; let uadig , and mould ,, and fashion iron ; let us be a great entrepot of commerce ; let us be , in fact , the most enterprising and successful House of Business in the Universe ; but for the sake of commerce- itself * if not for the sake of right ; and the honour of England ani&ng the nations * do ^ n ot let us forget the duties of our freedom andf the obligations of our strength .

    Untitled Article

    THE DARE MIRROR . If anything has been proved by experience ^ it is , that society is incompetent to measure its own tendencies , to know its own impulses , to provide for its own necessities . The records 7 > f the criminal courts are continually reporting tons some outburst of passion , neither new nor unparalelled , and yet each time the report occasions a wonderment . "We find some flagrant act of fraud , some

    Brutality , some ferocity , some violation of statute or moral law , of feeling or instinctand we are amazed ; although if we look around we shall find that we have had exactly the same cases before , and the parallel misdeeds in " places " wheFe they"Occasioniittle " remark , or pass almost without censure . Punish men for wrong doing wherever it is done , and who shall cast the first stone ? There is not a meanness , a fraud , or a

    violence that has not been perpetrated in the highest places . At the present moment take the picture of statesmen as painted by themselves , and they are engaged in petty shuffling intrigues to turn each other out of place on false pretences * We do not say that it' is so of this statesman or of that ; but we remark that they are accusing each other of such conduct , and by the accusation confessing that their class is pettifogging , invidious ,.

    insincere , and prone to sacrifice , its members and its country to the paltriest gratifications of personal vanity or profit . We boast in this country of our commercial in * tegrity ; we boast of the honesty of our chief commercial companies ; but what are the great facts continually bursting forth ? Unless the press be calumnious , a gigantic

    fraud has recently been detected in the vaults of the Sfc . Catherine ' s Dock Company . It would appear that forty empty pipes—from which a worthless kind of wine , valued at some five shillings the pipe , had been surreptitiously emptied- —had been as surreptitiously filled with wine worth 851 . or 88 J . tne p ipp . ' . But palpable as that enormous act of stealing is , it-is small compared to frauds that a ^ e nabituaHy carried on by traders . A man ^ alHpurdbaBe- a httndred ships with the -unflewrtairdftig tfWaf he is to pay for thorn ; his power oT ' pwjHmg ^ ioif the m being dependent

    i noon a rapid , and- felicitous turn . of xl specula * ! tfetrade .. Heia made a bankrupt * butlvis case iis singulaEonly . in : the scale ,. w » . t in . the kind . His brother , merchants try to patch up , the ; bankruptcy to , save themselves ; and his de' fence is , that , he brbke down ; through the ' failure of others , abroad as . well at home . When the bankruptcy occurs- the merchant world is alL . w-ondernient ; although the causes ' ¦ of bankruptey . aEe , daily generated in the trade of . every . city in the United . Kingdom ,, and if : they attract notice , are passed byr with a . smiie ¦ and a wink as " the usual thing . "

    So it is in society ; but what we specially denounces is the morbid hypocrisy which treats flaorant cases as-isolated , cases , instead of confessing , that they are only exaggerations of classes so extensive that we know not how far their * base : may spread into society . Such cases are . but the , summits of an Alpine range i where the descending sides of the mountain blend into , a common base , and there is little plain unbroken . Buranelli , thwarted in . his rude affections , resorted to weapons . of murder for purposes of revenge rather than justice . His obvious motive is one that puts him

    beyond titie . pale of mercy : he has placed the world at defiance , and made his appeal to death by preference * There is no defence for him . Is it certainy . however , that amongst those implicated , he is to be regarded as irremediably bad ; or entirely the worst ? Who shall judge ? The question of moral culpability , however , is not the one to which we are looking at the moment ; it is the curious fact that such cases occur , and that numberless other cases of a cognate kind are existing , as" it were , in the germ all round ; and yet upon each occasion society is lost in wonderment when the fact bursts" forth in

    flagrant crime . The passions of men are excited by temptations , ; are goaded ^ by thwarting , or concentrated by suppression ; in the soci&lr conflict the raw material of crime is constantly accumulated ; and when there is a conflagration , society , like an idle woman , " wonders how it can have

    happened !'' We have remarked of French fiction two singular characteristics . The first is , that a great proportion of the incidents of tbe _ tragedy consist in the impossibility which the drmndiis persona' have to hold their tongue . It is amongst the rarest incidents of French fiction , that , without an amazing effort , a man can refrain from saying that which is fatal to himself or to those he

    lovesj if he be provoked to the utterance . Again , it is a frequent incident of French novels , that men fall into traps set for them , from an apparent want of the 1 faculty of suspicion . We have , however , the same weakness in our own country , though it takes a different form . We cannot believe in the reality of passion , we hold it to be impossible that men will resort to extremes . The wife of

    the brawling husband thinks that " he cannot strike her ; " the man who goads the passions of his companion , " believes it impossible that he can resort to a : pistol or a life-preserver ; " just as the statesman thinks that whatever the price of bread , or the arbitrary run of legislation for a session , it is " impossible that the working classes can rise . " xet women ; are > beaten , day after day ; pistols and life preservers are used often enough to remind us , that they really arc made for deadly purposes ; and the working classes , rise occasionally—impossible as it is always pronounced to be , just before tho next . time . > ...

    Untitled Article

    TO THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE ., My Lord Dukib , —The fable of the Mouse and the Lion was perhaps written before the division of society ; into classes . But even now-a-days the Mouse may occasionally be useful to the Lion ; and I , just at present : tascech your Grace's attention whHo I

    suggest some methods by . . you might escape , victorious , from . this . " crisis "—ati episode , and not a very important one ; in . our Parliamentary history , but , if not well managed , tfce close of your careerfor your explanations of Thursday-nigh * -were lessra defence of yourself than an exposure- of . Lord John Russell . You obtained art * deserved sympathy a »« devoted and honest man , bufc you have still to seek acquittal as the minister-of a system-and of a castei I believe you are a wronged man ; But you acd down—for the present . Ytoti * X ^ vernnien * required a scapegoat ? . The sy stein'nefedefr a victimL -You were at-the way of a Whig conspiracy . What matters the * pretest ? Affl enlightened country and

    an > independent press-have sentenced you ; But you announce , stilT courageous as with ; a clear conscience * that you will face the roar of the multitude and will oflfer before European undaunted vindication . That is bold ; But I warn : you that you will fail , that you ; will add- the , ridiculous to . the ignominious , and be laughed : at after being roaaed , at ,, if your defence ia to be-a < routine defence—the technical , deprecation , of an assailed Minister . In , a word , your defence must not be on < the-defensive - You . are fighting for your life , and you have but one chance ; you will . win . if you assaiL your assailants . Do not parry , bub attack j and you will convert a humiliation into a triumph , and become , from the most fallen , the most powerf ul

    of our public men ; What , terms have been- kept with , you ? . Has . there been any reserve in the- denunciations which , for the moment , have crushed you ? Are you the only man who does not detect some antical hypocrisy in the safe chivalry with which several of your colleagues insisted on sharing your bad fame—secure of escaping vour hard fate ? You ask justice : be first to be

    just to yourself . As priests believed that the whisper of a holy name exorcised devils , be sure it is , here , the truth , the mention of which will clear the vapours —the Downirig-street fog—under cover of which class-conspirators have aimed their daggers at you . Dare to take the country which you are nobly worthy to serve into your confidence ' . You can do this without betraying a Cabinet secret . And , if you do , I foresee that you will be the Master , and not the

    Victim , of the position . Why should a Radical seek salvation for a Duke ? Because you have friends among us . We believe that both by circumstances and by the personal tendencies of . your nature , frank , hearty , and largely sympathetic as -we have judged it , you are the least ? aristocratic of your class . Sir Robert Peel created those ; circumstances which have tempted you totempt us ; He " madethe Tories your enemies and hemade you the rival of the Whigs . Balanced between the two sections of great families , you had to seek friends , as political support , among the

    middleclass ambitions . It was Mr . Bright , who on Friday and Monday cheered every defence that was inada fop you : —between Mtf ; Bright ' s class and . you therehas been instinctive sympathy . The > Peelites , too , were somewhat compelled , to become courtiers , and they were not the less national—in the sense of being less exclusively atistoratic—on that account- And we have j udged of your character by your courageous indifference ,. as Minister , to tho lordly prejudices you . so often excited in the House of Lords by your defiance of some great lords . The " Keogh case '" was not a happy one ; but you did honour to yourself .

    in it . We fancy that , in the clamour . against you , there may bo detected many signs that you are being attacked by personal enmities , formed because you were seen to be bent upon popularising public affairs . You owe to yourself , to the party you have , and to the party you may have , to vindicate tho Peelites . Remind your countrymen that you fought tho Tory nobles when you carried tho repeal of tho Corn Laws , and that you fought the Whig nobles whoa you resisted the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill . Do nqjfc

    lot it bo forgotten that the measure of tho Coalition was tho Succession Duty Extension Bill , and that ifefft anti-aristocratic measure was in symmetrical Pquoiico to tho Corn Law Repeal . The policy of Peel , which tho Peolitos sustained in Opposition and in Coalition , was to annihilate class government : identify yourself -with that policy—it will be bettor comprehended by tho people than the polity of RussoH-like '" Reformers / 1 from w * Kwn there-come but algebraical reformsi Ab Peellte * , you and

    Untitled Article

    T which * # 6 iirasER jjL&M > mm > - > .. ffrmm tm .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 3, 1855, page 110, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2076/page/14/