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MODERN CONVENTIONALISM.*
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though sugared ending through , the suction of lollypops treacherously tinged Ayith leaden pigments or arsenical tints . We pity the man or woman foolish enough to persist in purchasing tea that is decorated with French chalk , Prussian blue , and other-deleterious ingredients , or coffee which has stronger affinity with roasted carrots and horse liver than with tl . e choice Arabian berry ; ormarmaJade made of turnips , or best soluble cocoa chiefly composed of tallow , potato starch ; and oxide of iron . But the practical question is whether the public shall be left to suffer these grievances until they remedy them at their own discretion , or whether the Queei ^ shall preside over the private pantry as well as over the larder of Buckingham Palace , and all our transactions with the grocer and the cheesemonger form a subject of parliamentary and parochial control ¦ . ¦
. ... Messrs .- Soholefiemd , Wise , and Vilmees propose in the bill which they have introduced , that any person who shall " . know , iri ^ l y" sell any article of food or drink calculated to injure health , or who shall sell an adulterated article warranted as pure , shall be liable to a pecuniary penalty , with costs of conviction , before two Justices of the Peace , and ' on second conviction to the publication of the name of the offender at Ids own expense . To protect tradesmen against unjust accusations the bill provides that the purchaser must at the time of purchase give notice of His intention to have the article analysed , in order that the seller may if he chooses accompany the buyer to an analyst , and take effectual precautions to prevent the accused article from being tampered with . In furtherance of the operation of the bill , it is proposed that vestries and district boai-ds in London , and town councils in
boroughs , way appoint " one or more persons ,, possessing competent medical , chemical , and microscopical knowledge , as analysts of all articles of food and drink , purchased within the said metropolitan district or borough ; and may provide a convenient office , and all necessary accommodation and materials for the execution of the duties of such analysts- ; and mpty pay to such analysts such salary and allowances as they may think fit . " We cannot imagine that any parish or borough will do anything of the kind , so long as the matter is left to their discretion ; nor , can ht to
we recognise the principle that private purchasers have any rig State aid in procuring analysts to act for them at low rates , such as half-a-crown , or ten and sixpence , which last is the highest fee the analysts are to charge . There are frauds of adulteration which the State ought to prosecute- ; as , for example , when they lead to the destruction of life by the sale of poisonous articles which are represented as harmless ; but we demur to the principle , that the State should give any other assistance to private bargainers than such simplification of the law as may enable aggrieved persons to employ it with greater economy and better chance , of success .
The class , which suffers most from adulteration is the poorest , and the best way the Government can aid them is by economizing expenditure and reducing taxation , a process wliich would soon give them more employment and better wages . If the middle and upper ranks ' of society purchase bad articles instead of good ones it is their own fault , and " young- ladies about to marry" would dp well to acquire an elementary knowledge of the differeut materials of fopd and clothing which they will have to buy . There is no satisfactory way of helping a poor man , except by removing obstacles to his earnin ^ more ; and where moderate means are in the possession of , any
purchaser he deserves no pity if he will not take thy trouble to learn how to spend his money to the . best advantage . We do not believe there is a town in the kingdom in which tolerably good articles cannot be bought by people able and willing to pay . . a fair price for them , and capable of knowing a good thing when they see-it . ' But while a large section of the public will run after " bargains , " are so ignorant of domestic economy as to be caught by the sight of sugar whitened by twenty-five per cent , of starch , or of " Splendid Young Hyson" whose colour does not bear the least resemblance to that of any genuine ten : —they are hopelessly beyond the effectual
reach of any Government aid , . We doubt whether one in ten of the marriageable young ladies of England know the look of half the articles used in domestic economy ; and yet the chemistry and botany of the kitchen' avo far more important , jmd afford a-better discipline for the mind than most of the pursuits in which they are engaged . If Ignorance goes to market , Roguery is sure to be found keeping a stall , and cheating shops are only the symptoms of the folly and credulity uppn which they trade . ¦ ¦ The young men of England should encourage the young ladies to * actical of their faculties life is not entirel
a moropi' development , as y composed of artificial flowers and crinoline . Let no man marry , unless hia beloved has an eye for mustard , n nose for nutmeg , is scientific in coffee , and eostheiio in tea . There are recurring hours when a good roast is preferable to Rossini ; when PKnaokrcsr must yield , to puddings ; and PicookOMiNi—sad to say it— -is of little consequence when compared with pickles . It is not by bills in Parliament that we can reform the bills of the elippkeepor . The acts by which ho must bo amended are domestic , not imperial ; . and when there is more intelligence in the homo , the housekeeper need not apply to the parish ( or nn Export in Porter , a Sage in Sardines , or a Philosopher in Bottled Fruit .
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DIRECTED against tlio evils of modern conventionalism , tins book ip much bettor in intention than in execution . The author , obviously a most amiable and earnest person , has
exceedingly imperfect notions of that community whose faults and follies he denounces ; and he has . neither the prophetical fire , the satirical force , nor the delicate irony , to compensate for the want of knowledge . Oddly enough , while attacking society for its conventionalism he writes in the most conventional style . He is marvellously fluent , but the phrases which leap after each other so rapidly have a familiar aspect and a familiar sound sufficiently wearisome . In truth , both the author ' s thoughts and expressions come to us at second hand , though he is not conscious of it . In his attempts to be witty , also , the author is often guilty of bad : taste , and of what we Cannot call by any other name than Little Bethel vulgarity . It is doubtful whether much good arises from assailing modern conventionalism through books . Modern conventionalism simply means social cowardice , and how is social cowardice to be rebuked and vanquished but by the example of the brave ? Never was social cowardice so prevalent as in these days—never , therefore , was the example of the brave more needed . An invincible individuality , however , though the grand remedy for conventionalism , cannot , in an age like this , assume the garb , or utter the words of John the Baptist . ' It must fight its fight calmly and unostentatiously . We live in times when the prophet must be a gentleman ; if he is a scholar , too , all the better ; Ifc cannot be , said that society is ignorant of its defects , ignorant of its slavery to conventional bondage . Never before was the anatomy of social vices so searching , the ridicule of social absurdities so keen . But society cares not a jot either for the anatomy or the ridicule . Fashion maintains its idiotic despotism till some sublime moral reality grows stronger than fashion . Not one woman in England has abandoned the recent disgusting monstrosities in dress from the loud laughter , the bitter sneers , or the savage scowls flung at them . Social cowardice , however , in England , is nourished by fatal influences which exist nowhere else in the world to the same extent . The aristocratic constitution of English society , rn . ay or may not have its advantages .: it is admirably adapted , at all events , to beget social cravens . Every man in England apes white he envies the man immediately above * him in rank . Our--working ' -classes . do-not like to read about the working classes ; they are not satisfied unless through the JLondon Journal they , can fonii an acquaintance with lords . ' . - . . ; , As long , as religious or political pei-seculion existed there was , through , the-. . heroic' spirit which it called . forth , a warfare with social ^ cowardice ; but persecution , at least in legal fur : n , having ceased iii England , those beautiful martyrdoms which hallowed aiid regenerated society have ceased too . There was lately a discussion why the Quakers as a sect were deel fning . Quakerism was the last product of the stupendous puritanic revolt ; it was a magnificent apocalypse of individuality . JDurihg this baptism of peril and of pain Quakerism was continually x-enewed . The baptism at an end , Quakerism is dying . If the aristocratic constitution of English society remains unchanged , and if no sanctifying peril or pain visits . our sluggish , selfish English existence ,, we see not how the . English , nation can be saved from most tragical decay . Our author , perhaps from deficient culture and experience morethan deficient insight , deals with effeets , not causes . With the instinct of the rightTie can smite the phases , but he cannot pierce down to the fallacies , In vain we obtain political reforms if the national is still to be subordinated to the aristocratic . At our schools and universities the art chiefly learned is the art of tuft-hunting . A very silly phrase is now current—" Muscular Christianity "—which is intended to convey to us that man has a body as well , as n soul , a discovery surely not now made for the . 'first time . Why not , instead of" babbling about muscular Christianity , proclaim the Evangel of indomitable « manhood P This is the oldest , and it will always be the newest of all Evangels . In one shape or another it is the only Evangel wliich every foremost moral or religious reform or has preached . Instead of a false godliness let us have a real manliness , and then a real godliness will also bo the fruit and the victory . Our author , for whom we liavo a sincere respect , and who has undoubted talent , though somewhat imprisoned by the provincial and the sectarian , talks of referring every thing to what ho calls the snored oracles . This is the merest rubbish . TUo thralls of conventionalism in England are familiar enough with the Bible , and assuredly the Bible in not favourable to conventionalism . But there is si moro sacred oraelo than , the oracle of Hob row or Greek books , and that is the oraelo in the bosom of the individual man . ' . Indeed , the Bible—though ' through no fault of the Bible—* s one main cause of conventionalism . It holds . a prominent place among our idol * of the past . In England , what reigns is a superstitious regard for the prescriptive ana the traditional , and Englishmen bow to the Bible—not because it is a breath of life from long-vanished agoa , but because it is supposed to contain a code pi infallible doctrine . Thoro is no dolivenuieo for our race , when our race has wandered far into ubpminutien and iniquity , but by an appeal to the simple faculties of the individual , apart from every tradition and prescription ' . Wo show te our brother the manliness wherewith we ourselves are clothed and panoplied ; wo urge linn to stand and combat in kindred manliness bonicle us . It is sad that the freest tjiingB are most turned to slavery—Unit the most living things are-most turned into instruments of death . In iflngland , abpve every other realm , tlio free things hftvo been changed into 'tyrants , the hying things into the disseminators and multipjicittorfl of death . -And now we have arrived ut the point when no EnKH » hman , dares to act a » hie conscience tells him , ana when no woman dares to obey the inipulsosoi « or heart without boing torn to pieces by her maters . What haa sunrom empire at thio moment in England P Fatalism , now , wimt w
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Feb . 25 , 1860 . 1 The Leader and Saturday Anatyst . 183
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* XVwsos andJPaUaoloa of Svoiety < t $ tf Je .-r-JPipor , Sfcepbeneon , & Snonoo ,
Modern Conventionalism.*
MODERN CONVENTIONALISM . *
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 25, 1860, page 183, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2335/page/11/
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