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1010 THE LEADEK . [ No . 493 . Sept . 3 , 185 9
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charged by the courts is no credit to the authorities which have made the preliminary investigation . The number discharged by both jurisdictions after being apprehended is a sigh that much injustice is done in the exercise of authority , and much suffering is unnecessarily inflicted . There were , however , some bright places in our criminal history of 1858 . The number of persons committed for trial , 17 , 855 , was 2 , 414 , or 11-9 per cent , less than were committed in 1857 , —20 , 269 .
As no alteration in the jurisdiction had _ taken place in the interval , this was so far a positive reduction in serious offences as compared to 1857 . In murder , attempts to murder , maliciously stabbing , and wounding—in burglary , housebreaking , and in all crimes of a heinous character , there was a considerable decrease in 1858 , which was more marked in the metropolitan districts , or where the people are most closely packed together , than in any other . . hotit the
Dating from March , there was throug remainder of 1858 , a continual decrease of pauperism , and it is an established fact that a diminution of crime and a decrease of pauperism go together . In 1854 , a year of high prices and of much increased pauperism , the number of committals was no less than 29 , 359 , or 11 , 504 more than in 1858 . This is not a fair comparison , because between 1854 and 1858 an Act was passed which removed the jurisdiction , in many cases , from the courts to the police magistrates . Nevertheless , as the committals in 1854 were considerably in excess of those of the previous
five years , and as then pauperism increased , we sec very plainly in that year a close connection between pauperism and crime . ' It is an established fact that both pauperism and committals went on almost continually increasing from 1815 , till the latter reached the maximum in 1842 . Then the late ^ ir Robert Peel , xinder the pressure of a dire necessity , began his commercial and taxation reforms . From 1842 to the present time pauperism and committals have waned and waxed together , and have both been , having ^ regard to the increase of population , proportionably much less since 1842 than before . They
were both comparatively small in 1858 ; That subsequent to 1842 , in consequence of an increase in our freedom in employment , and in the means of subsistence , pauperism and crime . , both diminished , is such complete evidence of the criminality of restrictions , that we feel , and cannot avoid expressing , a sentiment of intense indignation for those statesmen who profess to seek the public welfare , and yet do not abolish the many laws which still , like those Sir Robert Peel modir
fied or abolished , stand in the way of the people getting abundance of employment and of the moans of subsistence . Nay , our professed patriots , boasting humanitarians , and preaching philanthropists , actually and continually increase restrictions and taxes on the industry of the people , and , therefore , continually increase pauperism and crime . We have long lost faith in these pretenders , and have now lost patience . They persist in perpetrating gross national wrongs in spite of experience and of their own teaching .
For several years our legislation , under the influence of despair at the continual and rapid increase of ofibnoos , particularly juvenile offences , has taken the direction of extending summary jurisdiction . The establishment of the metropolitan police by the lute Sir R . Pool , in imitation of the despotic Governments of the continent , was one step in that direction ; extending police to counties subsequently was another ; and sundry Acts of Parliament , particularly the Criminal Justice Act , passed in 1855 , wore avowedly intended to relievo the courts , savo the country from expense , and individuals froin long detention before trial ,
Iby giving the police and othor justices summary jurisdiction . The effects of this legislation has Ibeen , as wo now see , to place the personal freedom of the multitude at the niorcy or the very lowest instruments of judicial power . It degrades at once the majesty of the law and the idea ofliborty . Wo road , with alarm for the character of the people , and with disgust for the careless legislature , the eases which occur almost every day of persons p leading guilty to some minor offonoo , and bogging for throe months' imprisonment as a boon . A sharp remedy for a desperate disease- — -the amputation of u umbi to save life—is thus by our State doctors daily applied to the people , and liberty is maimed—whjoh is next to taking life—by our > Mandarins , and
suffered by our people , withas much indifference as death is inflicted and suffered in China . If the extinction of offences could be purchased at such a sacrifice , which it cannot be , we s hould think this wholesale degradation of personal freedom too high a price to pay for it . Lord Brougham and others talk much of the renowned profession of the law * and endeavour to make the public rely on it as the sheet anchor of liberty ; but this renowned profession has , on several successive occasions , struggled hard to retard improvements in legislation , such as the establishment of county courts , which , went to make litigation about property less advantageous
to itself , and it has never . lifted a voice , except that of Mr . Toulmin Smith , against these stupendous and insidious changes which have absolutely sacrificed the personal liberty of the multitude . The public should look to this matter , and therefore we call attention to it . To have one person out of every fifteen laid hold of by the police , subjected to examination , perhaps shut ^ up ' in a cell , a large pox * tion of the vast mass imprisoned , fined , or whipped , is surely a deplorable condition . Are we called , therefore , - ' great , glorious , and free ?" , Is it for this that we boast of ourselves as the stalwart Saxon race ? On it is
our claim founded to be the examplar of nations ? Are we to convert the Hindoos and others to the constitutional creed of which this general torture is the fruit ? With such a cancer enlarging through our system we are not justified in prescribing for others and sometimes enforcing our prescriptions . We suffer from a great and terrible disease ; it has of late increased with frightful rapidity ; and if the multitude here is not to be degraded to the level of the Cantonese under Commissioner Yeh , the police constabulary and summary jurisdiction systems , the delight of country gentlemen , clergymen , and doctrinaire politiciaus , should be speedily and forcibly checked .
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MAYORS AND TITLES . A little civil war is going on in the City between the partizans of rival aldermen anxious to receive the accolade of knighthood or the patent of baronetcy through becoming Lord Mayor for the year of feed and foolery that commences on the 9 th of November next . Of the two aspirants to name and fame Mr . Alderman Carter may have a better claim than Mr . Alderman Cubitt both on the ground of seniority and sense , but the public may ask a prior question of what have either of these gentlemen done to deserve an aristocratic handle to their plebeian names ? To be a Lord
Mayor of London may require some self-abnegation , and a gentleman might be as willing to grin through a horse-collar as to count hobnails at ' Westminster and roll about in a tawdry g ' nncrack coach in company with sword-bearers , men in armour , and the great Gog and Magog dolls . The City Corporation z ; ep . resents nothing but mediaeval nonsense and modern guzzling . It has no intellectual status , is little better than a big parish vestry , and utterly unworthy of the greatest capital in the world , the leading men of which would as soon think of becoming church beadles as of seeking its undignified honours . Happily its longpostponed reform is conjectured-to be at hand ,
and the next mayor , as the last of the turtle Mohicans and the accidental functionary when the Prince Royal comes of . age , is expected to bo rewarded by his Sovci'cign with honours that were recently thought sufficient for men who saved our empire in the East . No nation cyor used titles as- badLy ojs wo do , and an outside observer might fancy there was a covert satire in what is , unfortunately , only foolish fact . Brilliant achievements in science and wondrous deeds of arms are placed on a lovel with inviting the Crown to dinner and
hospitably dispensing champagne and punch . Feeding the hungry is no doubt a praiseworthy action as welj ^ as a Christian duty , but our royal commissariat is happily too well organised to make the administration of eollops to a sovereign an act worthy of being emblazoned in tho Herald ' s books . Mankind loves titles , even of tho queerest sorts ; and history does full honour to " Godfrey of Broth , " " Big Dog of tho Staircase , " and other oddly-named worthies , of ancient time . ' Even republican America worships those old-world distinotions , and for tho luck of most of them imposes such hard work upon military opithets that you
can only travel pleasantly by addressing every innkeeper as " Colonel , " and then run the risk of occasionally offending a purveyor of " gin si inn- " who ought to have been worshipfully approaclicu as General Spit . " Some years ago our wits cracked their jokes upon the Imperial Court of Soulouque , whose jet-like courtiers bore titles ol ' Dukes of Barleywater and Marquises of Lemonade ; but even that sable potentate did not do so much to bring names of honour into ridicule as our practice involves . If being a mayor when the sovereign visits a city is held to justify the bestowal of ° a title , do not let us cominit the folly of lowering the value of those distinctions that are awarded for great services to the state . We intent easily
avoid this by taking a hint from the Limited Liability Act , which requires the fact of such limitation to be made known so often as the name of the company is paraded in public view . If the dustmen combine under the abovenanied Act , " The General Dustman ' s Company , Limited , " at once certifies to society that the shareholders' responsibility has legally-prescribed bounds . In like manner , if mayors must be knighted and baron otted —barrownighted , most London mayors would call it—merely for the fact that royalty has placed its . sacred feet beneath their gastronomic mahogany , iet the kind of title given at once display " their
limited claims upon our admiration , and distinguish them from the Herschells or the Havelocks , who are worthy of boundless praise . This might be done by a simple and appropriate prefix ; and what could be more congenial to the visceral part of the aldermanic man—which is usually the chief part of him—than to add " Turtle " to his name " Sir Turtle Gobble" would be intelligible , and do no wrong to a higher class of men . The herald , also , should provide proper iitensils instead of arms , and authorise the new . dignita ' ry . to paint upon his carriage and engrave upon his plate a ladle proper in a soup tureen or .
It is not the lower titles only that we put to bad use , —we make peers in a manner that -looks as if we were determined that what is called in the House of Commons " another place " should be , in sad and sober earnest , the Hospital of Incurables it is sometimes named . Anything but merit may lead to that venerable institution , and the commonest reason for according itd honours is the fact of a ministry being in tho condition of porcine maternity with more hungry pi ^ lmgs than suctional apparatus . Mr . Vernon Smith wa ? made a peer because no use could be made of him
in the lower regions where the " awful Commons dwell ; and it is understood that . Lord Canning is to be advanced in dignity because he was the author of the mutiny among the European troop ? , which will- cost our tax-payers a million to put straight . Orders of Demerit may be useful , hut it is wrong to give them the names and privilege ? that ought to belong to Orders of Merit ; ami it is a moral insult to society when the stamp , that should mark its admiration for human gold , is recklessly impressed upon ignoble load or tinkling brass .
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THE SECRET OF THE SERPENTINE . It is the fashion to declaim against the dishonesty and unreasonableness of the working classes , and of their popular movements . We arc not goinj ! now to discuss the justice of this , accusation ; we only beg to assert , that however dishonest or unreasonable a popular cry may be , it is surpassed w both' those unenviable respects by the pqouhav ories which ai'e raised from timo to time by the upper and fashionable classes ^ . Wo ¦ commented , not long ago , upon tho unfair way in which the unlucky indicators were cried down , without the slightest consideration , bocauso they happened to oflend tho world of fashion . Wo have now a more flagrant illustration , in the cry that is being raised for cleansing tho 'Serpentine
We all know how that cry was got up . I ' ' some years past , as regularly as whitebait or young potatoes oamo in , some one has been found to write to the daily papers complaining of tho disgraceful condition of tho Serpentine , stating thai its effluvium was so foul , and tho exhalations from its putrid waters so noxious , that bathing in it wnfl certain death ; that a drive by its bank * wasnexi thing to ordering one ' s ooflin , and that a ionrJu malady would soon arise from tho nuinnnoo , nnu infoot tho town . This letter usod each woason t <> bo followod by communications from anwtoui
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 3, 1859, page 1010, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2310/page/14/
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