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Untitled Article
art . The pecuniary impositions , without which they are not to be seerij , are extensions of the notion of property beyond its sphere . Westminster Abbey and St . Paul's ought to be as open to the gaze of the nation as the moon and planets . A short period of protection from that spirit of mischief which is the joint issue of ignorance and property-morality should elapse after they were thrown open . Only a short period would be necessary . There is no power in art
if a large amount of enjoyment and good did not soon result . To such an extent is this perversion carried that many an ignorant man , on whom money alone has conferred factitious importance , treats even a contradiction of his opinions as an invasion of his property . You may not propound an argument to him , for ' he has a right to his opinions . ' The better right of being convinced of his errors seems to him as strange a use of the term as that in
the Scottish idiom , when the counsel tells the gentlemen of the jury that if his client be convicted he will ' have a right to be hanged . ' This indistinct notion of a species of property in opinion made so many respectable people applaud those religious prosecutions which were rather frequent a few years ago . It was not to be tolerated that a set of ragamuffins should attack our religion . Mr . Wade ,
the accurate and diligent compiler of the Black Book ^ has in his recent , and valuable work , the History of the Middle and Working Classes , applied the same principle to the institution of marriage . He maintains that women should be appropriated , because else they would be depreciated ,, 'they would have no exchangeable price / they would run to waste , and ' be similarly situated to the cherry tree in a hedge-row , or nuts in a wood without owner . '
I his might be called , par excellence , English reasoning . The woman ' s will and happiness go for nothing . The merits of the institution are not made to turn upon whether a man and a woman may not find a mutual agreement for certain purposes to be mutually advantageous ; but upon whether , by a certain arrangement , woman does not become to man a better property . Fie upon it ! It is , as our author says , In his own rnind the Englishman is the pivot of all things—the centre of the solar system . Like Virtue herself , he
" Stands as the sun , And all that rolls around him Drinks light and life and glory from his aspect . ' * It is an old maxim among us that we possess the sturdy sense of independence . We value ourselves on it ; yet the sense of independence is often but the want of sympathy with others . There was a certain merchant sojourning at an inn , whom ilie boots by mistake called betimes in the morning . * Sir , " quoth the boots , * the day's breaking . " "Let it hreak , " growled lie , " it owes me nothing . " ' And so may womankind say of that portion of Mr , Wade ' s philosophy . Let it break ; ( to smash this portion of
Untitled Article
5 S 8 Characteristics of English Aristdcracy .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1833, page 588, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2622/page/4/
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