On this page
-
Text (2)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
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
tholdj but h * is evidently a man of very inferior intellect . He waft the authdr bT the * Political Handkerchief / a puerile attempt ' to out-manoeuvre the stamp-office , by printing political articles on calico , or rather on crossed cotton threads , saturated with damaged American flour or plaster of Paris , The thing was unreadable after a single 4 manhandling , ' becoming a dirty mass of printer ' s ink and white powder . He could
not even have looked at the act of parliament , or he would have seen that the stamp duties were protected by the words , paper or any other material . ' A man thus shadow , could be but a blind guide to Glhere . In stealing the boa—supposing him not to be possessed of the idiosyncrasy peculiar to some persons , of appropriating every thing they lay hands on—he must haVe been actuated by one of two causes—actual want , or utter profligacy . If the latter , he was a worthless being ; if the former ,
it is an evidence of the absence of intellect , or beggarly pride . A writer , in want , would scarcely be refused employment as a labourer in a printing house , and a man of moral feelings would at once have said , it is better to labour for a bare existence , than to break down the barrier of integrity . Nothing but the pangs of hunger can warrant any man in taking the property of his neighbour without hia leave , and even then the violence only becomes excusable on the plea that hunger ia like madness ,
preventing a man from being the master of his own actions . Had there been a fragment of . high mind in Henry Berthold when put upon his trial , he would at once have crossed his arms and said , ' I am guilty , and the cause of my guilt was want or profligacy , for which I am content to bear the punishment the law awards / But not so , he meanly shuffled and prevaricated , and endeavoured to controvert direct and positive testimony by a trick ao absurd and glaring , that a child would have been ashamed
to attempt it , as an imputation on his intellect . Still more contemptible than this , was his citing such persons as the Dukes of Clarence , and Gloucester , and Wellington , in proof of his good character . A portion of his business , as a public teacher , had been to bring into contempt the factitious respect attaching to such men on account of their rank , and upon the principle of the cringing meanness ever inhabiting the soul of a sycophant ; only upon that principle can his conduct be accounted for .
A man of high mind , even after the commission of a crime , would at once have disdained such disproof of his own unworthiness . Yet * the Recorder told the prisoner , that if he had respectable witnesses who could depose to his character and mode of life , he would hear their evidence before he passed sentence . ' That sentence when translated , means If you abjure all your former radical doings , and can by proper sycophancy to sundry dukes and duchesses , persuade them to give you letters of recommendation , I will let you off . ' How perfectly this tallies with the statement of the * Schoolmaster in Newgate / that great men can influ-4
ence the punishment of a prisoner , from hanging and transportation down to respite and reprieve / It is another proof of the mischief of suffering a * pardon power * to lie in irresponsible hands , thus making it a tool for political tampering . Punishments should not be defined by law , save under the direction of unprejudiced philosophers , and when
thus defined , they should be imperative , not left to the regulation of the passions of a judge . Thus far , Henry Berthold criminal ! Turn we to Charles Phillips , the hireling advocate of criminals . When Julian Hibbert the witness who presented himself to speak to
Untitled Article
Hissing an Atheitt . 93-
Untitled Article
G 2
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1834, page 83, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2629/page/85/
-