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lowering the character of every district in which they occur . Nothing can tend more to bring the House of Commons into contempt than the way into it . The process is siniplc and discreditable at every point . The aspirant for senatorial honours must make speeches he does not believe ; engage a batch of lawyers at good retaining fees ; take a score or two of public-houses ; employ all the printers who are " red" or " blue , " as the case may be ; appoint committees and confidential agents j let them spend what they like , and then take his chance of an election petition , winch empties his pockets but makes good for the town . to little
If the landed gentry could manage see a way before their olfactory organs , they would combine to do away with this farrago of vice and scandal , for in the long run it will beat them out of the field . As a class , they live up to their incomes , and if M . P . ship is to go by purchase ^ they will be outbid by mercantile speculators and jointstock company blacklegs , who are best able to make such an investment pay . Of all countries having an electoral system , England is the most extensively and profoundly disgraced by bribery , and such a fact cannot remain without undermining parliamentary government itself . Lord John Russell got much cheering for that portion of his last speech , in which he explained his
aversion to radical alterations , and we suspect there is no direction in which the Whig party is less pi-e--pared to advance with firmness and vigour , than in that which leads to the abolition of electoral corruption . The principles of action are simple enough : let each locality provide and pay for the incidents really necessary for an election , and let all private employment of agents in any shape be made penal . The expense of election petitions should also be borne by the district giving rise to them , and the inquiry should take place in a simple manner on the spot . These , with the ballot and the Members' Bribery Oath , will probably become law whenever the public is honest enough to desire the correction of a most flagrant evil .
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SOCIAL SCIENCE . The gentlemen who are to meet at Bradford on Monday ought to be well aware that an obstacle is encountered on the very threshold of the temple of social science . The changes on the surface of the earth—such as the ebb and flow of the tides , the fall of rain , and the drying up of water , the clothing of the earth with verdure , and the binding it fast in ice ; and the changes in the heavenly bodies as they command our attention by their splendour and their movements , invite us by the curiosity they excite to investigate them . We feel and know that we have no part in bringing them about , and that the science of them , consistently with the meaning of the word , is limited to observing and reducing our observations and their results to some metlaod or order . But
society js another name for ourselves , for man , his actions , and their consequences . He must act to bring about the phenomena of society before he can know them , and thus his own acts in all the social sciences are the objects of his observation and his studios . They arc susceptible , though extremely multifarious , of being recorded and known , like the rest of the phenomena of the material world , but thoy ore always seen through the confusing haze of passion . To distinguish between the pure results of actions and the motives or causes for actions—instincts and passions—the laws of our being , which co-exist with the VQSults--is very difficult . This constitutes the obstacle to progress in the social sciences .
The student of sooial science can only learn the natural laws which govern society by observation , as he learns the laws which govern the tides ; ; but sooiofcy is professedly regulated by many acts of legislation •—by some persons it is thought to reoeive from them its whole , being , and ho is required at start " ing to ascertain the boundaries between the influence of natural laws and of legislation . To ascertain this , however , is one of the last results of investigation , for men make laws as they do Other things , without knowing what will be their , io { Feots , and thus he has to investigate two distinct series of phenomena , inseparably intermingled , without any oluo except abitrary assumptions to guide him in distinguishing one from the other . Accordingly , he assumes that society is regulated by legislation , and then he conducts all his observations in subserviency to that
assumption , always carrying with him the strong belief that but for legislation society would be only an anarchical mass of conflicting atoms . Or he assumes that society is , and has been , at all times regulated by natural laws— -in which he runs counter to the almost universal belief , warranted bv many facts , and shuts himself out from the general confidence . As Me Culloch has expressed it , he mig ht as well address Aldgate pump as the British public if he confine himself to abstract Tvnnoirjles . Or he raav assume—which cannot be
denied—that natural laws and legislation partly and mutually regulate society , and then begins the onerous task of assigning justly to nature or legislation each its influence , while the effects of both are always commingling . At the approaching meeting of the National Association , Air . Monckton Milnes , to illustrate our argument , is to deliver an address on the punishment and prevention of crime and the reformation of criminals . Now , the term crime does not mean what offends one man or another , or what men conscientiously dislike , for then it would be a crime for a Roman Catholic to worship one way and a Protestant another—it would be a crime to be a Puseyite and a crime to be a Low Churchman ; nor does it mean merely what
legislation forbids , tor then it De a be idle , though idleness brings a man and his family to want and shame , and it would be a crime to sell a newspaper on the Sabbath , or to compose and print on that day the paper that is to be sold on Monday . The term crime means actions which nature forbids ; and it is impossible to find a more important subject for investigation . It takes in the whole of human conduct , for all which men are not forbidden by nature to do they may do . At once arises the difficulty of distinguishing between the effects of natural laws arid legislation .
The legislator forbids many actions —so does nature ; and . Mr . Milnes ought to distinguish between the prohibitions of the two . His discussion of punishments , to be complete , must include the punishments inflicted by natui'e and the punishments inflicted by law . Mr . Milnes will have , to discriminate , too , between those actions . punished both by law and nature and those punished only by law or only by nature . It is quite clear that nature forbids man to niaini his own body , and the legislator , except in very extreme cases , does not think it necessary to enforce or strengthen the
prohibition , it js equally clear that nature aoes not prohibit individuals , though living under different governments , from exchanging the products of their respective industries , while it is well known that the policy of most governments includes , or has included , a considerable number of such prohibitions . Before Mr . Milnes can successfully discuss the means of preventing crime , he must inform us whether he mean actions
forbidden by nature or merely legal crimes ; if he mean natural crimes he must prove that nature does not equally punish every action she forbids ; if lie mean legal crimes , to prevent them one short method is for the legislator to create as few as possible . The best prevention of actions naturally criminal is clearly that appointed by nature with the knowledge of oonsequences . Probably , too , the best means to prevent legal crimes is for the legislator to learn all the consequences of actions , and then he will never forbid what nature docs not forbid . It is perfectly clear , alike from theory and experience ,
that nature forbids a great many possible actions , and that legislation now forbids , and has at all times forbidden , many actions which nature commands men to 'perform . We see distinctly in Mr . Milnes' proposed disoussion , the two principles-rr-of legislation regulating society , and nature regujiating society—in conflict ; and social science cannot make any progress unless the effects of these two principles De always discriminated . Not to do this would be like mingling the vortices of Descartes with the real motions of the heavenly bodies , and would promote confusion instead of knowledge . '
Will Mr . Monokton Milnes do this P Will any of the gentlemen who are to meet at Bradford do thisP We believe not . They will talk much about jurisprudence ; they will expatiate about some proposed improvements in the law without ever asking themselves whether , these alterations will reconcile the law of the land with the law of nar ture ; they will bring together some statistics which will be valueless , because no discrimination
will be made between what nature forbids and what it pleases hereditary legislators , gainekeeping squires , monopolist landowners-, and the occupants of the Treasury—men who live by a system—; te command- ; but there will be no in ' - vestigation into the principle whether nature regulates society , whether her regulations are sufficient , and whether the law ° for securing , the land to Lord Derby and his copartners , &c ., be founded in reason , and justice .
From an association which is sure to proceed on a biasj and which proposes to treat subjects that interest all men , and which are day by day discussed in all their bearings , with more or less vigour and acumen , by the press , no public advantage can be expected . The members -will flatter each other , and harden each other in error if error exist ; . they will make a noise about each other ' s great merits or blow up a reputation for one another , but they will not much extend accurate knowledge .
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JUDGE LYNCH AT DOO 2 v . Lord Derby's conduct , we see ' with- regret though it is no more than we expected—finds imitators as well as admirers . A weekly contemporary refers to the practice of Mahomet Ali : to hang the Sheik whenever a man was murdered by a tribe of Arabs ; and intimates that it mi ght possibly be right on this principle to hang . a Catholic priest whenever a murder is committed in a part of Ireland . If this is to be" our policy , let it be enacted by law , and do not let us leave it to a mob of Protestants , or to Lord Derby and his retainers to carry such a barbarous principle into execution . Or if , as is said , the old Ari <
rlo-Saxon plan of making the hundred or the barony responsible for every ; crime committed in it , is required in Ireland , let such a policy be debated in Parliament , and settled there , not enacted by Lord Derby and Mr . Gray . What -we contend for is , that all punishment for the prevention of crime , the preservation of order , and the maintenance of the law , should be decreed bv Parliament or the judges as interpreters of common law , and neither by riibbs nor individual landlords . They may be humane ,, kindly , and considerate , but they may be the reverse ; and oil principle we condemn the much-praised exercise by Lord Derby of his power as a landlord .
We must admit and state that in many cases the punishment of the law is accompanied and enforced by punishment inflicted by individuals . In no other light can wo regard the exclusion from all trust and all employment , which in the present condition of society is tantamount to comp lete degradation , if not starvation , of the man whom the law has punished for theft . The offence is by no means exp iated by the pain the law inflicts . Society actually punishes him also it
still more heavily . For Lord Derby , then , may be pleaded that he only nets like any other member of society , in punishing an act , according to "is power , which society generally condemns , lhen his conduct , so defended , opens up another great question , viz ., whether every action w . jioli tiie society dislikes or treats ns a crime should bo doubly punished ? The society , irom the nature of its own feelings and sentiments , just like i-oia Derby , will punish any and every ollondcr . u it does not , then in the eyes of society there is no offence .. And then comes the question— hIwuiu In ,,, oa nrm + KfiriietmcmirtllPfl fl'Om SOCK'tV , PUIUS'l
those ofienocs which society also punishes , ana should it punish actions which society doe * not punish ? Kow , one of the reasons Usually ««» gncu for punishment by law is to properly direct the indignation of society , and its infallible punishments , against crimes ; and the law having , m 1 ;¦» mre , assigned no punishment to the non-detection 01 u murderer by his neig hbours , Lord Derby w wi "g in assuming to punish an action which the nvw does not punish . Whether we look nt tho P » o ceoding under the light thrown oa » it by i » " fenders or its impugners , it stands out reunu kabiy from ordinary events , and forms' an ^ P ' . ! ™ history of landed property and our theory ol pu "
ishmentk , ,,, i .,, i ¦ The proceeding is the more to be reprehended , though we do not allow any feolinga ° < P / y , ™ mingle in our judgment , because Lord Derby »« s been Prime Minister . In thafc capacity—nnvnu both Houses of Parliament at his beck , and tuo power of the Crown in his hands—ho might nlmoK aoquire a conviction that ho was the solo respo "
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1130 THE LEADEK [ No . 4 98 . Oct . 8 , 1859 .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 8, 1859, page 1130, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2315/page/14/
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