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Northern Star (1837-1852), 28th August 1852, Edition 1 of 2, Page 9

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      Untitled Article

      PROTECTION TO WOMEN . The treatment of women has ever been considered a sure mark by which to tell the degree of civilization arrived at by a people . If foreigners judge us by the records of our police courts , they will conclude that we are a nation of savages . Scarcely a day passes but the police magistrates of some half dozen metropolitan offices find themselves amply occupied in adjudicating on cases of violence — brutal and ferocious assaults upon women . Savage and unprovoked attacks npon men are bad enough , and the offenders should be punished much more severely than they usually are . But how much worse are such acts of bar-________ PPAT ^ nmT AAT rn / -v -tTT rt-. , T ,, »

      barity when committed upon women ! It is a matter of daily occurrence to read of some beastly drunkard returnin " home penniless , demanding money from his female partner * that he may return to his debauch , and failing to » et it ' revenging himself by some most brutal assault upon the luckless sharer of his home . It is also quite a common

      occurrence for the most ill-conditioned of the multitude to exhibit their spleen and ill-temper after the same manner and for no assigned cause . On such occasions the wife or woman living with though not married to the brute finds herself assailed not merely by blows , but by kicks , beatings with sticks and pokers , and wilfully wicked attempts to maim , disfigure , and inflict lasting bodily injury . Doubtless this

      brutality is largely to be ascribed to the lack of education , and want of moral training , which in spite of the wealth of the Church , and the resources ' of the State , continue to discredit the name of England and cause masses of her population to grow up , generation after generation , no better than hordes of unfeeling and besotted savages . While millions sterling are recklessly squandered in the endeavour to bring wild Caffres under our yoke , a multitude of beings , born on British soil and

      i _ _ Li . 1 . 1- _ j ii . f" ^ r _ ¦ « .. / speaking " the tongue that Milton spake , &c , " are in our very midst , exhibiting the worst vices without any of the virtues of savage life . While the Established Church is gorged with wealth , and innumerable priesthoods and priestly combinations are engaged in sweating the faithful of their money to enable them , as they declare , to extend the Gospel , and convert the heathen , there are , about and around these doctors of souls , masses of human beings steeped in ignorance , brutality , and crime . And when the

      question of educating these degraded beings , or their children , is forced upon the country , immediately the priests and sectaries commence lighting among themselves as to which set of them shall enjoy the monopoly of cramming the infant mind with the fusty musty dogmas of superstition ; agreeing only as to one point , that there snail be no education undiluted by the inanities of their favourite theological systems . So , year after year , the reign of Ignorance is perpetuated , and Crime and Brutality hold their horrid swav .

      Even it that which is very unlikely to be seen should come to pass , that our legislators , aroused to a sense of the nation ' s dangers , should proceed to take measures to insure the education of the people , in spite of the favourite schemes of sectaries , and in deiianee of their opposition , that could hardly , if at all , affect the manners of those whose characters are already formed , Your true British ruffian , full grown

      and hardened in brutality , is rarely , if ever , to be converted to humanity by Sunday schools and evening lectures ; he understands no argument but that of force , no reasoning but that of terror , andaverse though we are to Draco-like punishments , we see no other means at hand to check the brutality of the brutal but by making them feel at least some portion of that pain they are so ready to inflict upon the weak and the defenceless .

      The punishment usually inflicted for assaults is inadequate to restrain the rage of the ruffianly and the depraved , The fine of a few pounds , or sentence of a few weeks' imprisonment , seems to have no effect in deterring them ' from acts that would disgrace a savage . Even among the lowest ranks it used to be considered cowardly to strike a man when down , or to thrash a man who was no fair match in size and strength for his antagonist . It was also considered cowardly to strike a woman . Whether aught of this rude

      chivalry remains as regards men we know not ; as regards women it seem to be utterly obliterated . Upon the least provocation , or no provocation whatever , to strike a woman tofellher to the earth with a butcher's blow , to jump upon her prostrate body , to stab , cut , maim , and disfigure her person , seems to be ' the first impulse , if not the regular pastime of vast numbers of wretches wearing the outward form

      and semblance of men . " We are informed on authority we cannot doubt , " says the Times , " that the number of women who resort to our hospitals to recover from the ill effects of systematic brutality is enormous , and that in many cases the " patient only returns to her home to suffer violence , -which renders any further application to thesebenevolent institutions unnecessary . " Here is a gigantic evil crying for a remedy , a national disgrace that we should blush to tolerate even for a day .

      That the evil may cease , and the disgrace be obliterated , the remedy must be instant and equal to the evil . The savages who reign by terror must be terror-stricken . They delight iu inflicting pain , let them feel it . As their crimecowardice mingled with cruelty—is infamous , let their punishment be the same . The pain and shame of the lash is the only adequate punishment for the unmanly miscreant Tvho lays violent hands npon a woman .

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      shop , estimating the quality of his tools , taking note and measurement of his materials , clearing away the old lumber , and seeing what was ready made to his hand , and what was left to be done . If a man did not take these precautions , we should expect to sec his work turned out a botched and bungled affair , or not turned out at all . Is it to be thought that less cave and foresight are requisite in constructing a new

      governmental machine , or repairing an old one ? Is that a job we may run at head foremost , and with our eyes shut , trusting that out of the concussion something may come ? - Depend upon it , no . This meddling with ' the confused , wheezing , ricketty wheels and cranks and pulleys of the state is no such child ' s play . It is no task for the rash or the toonsn . It is work for earnest men , men with a well-denned purpose and a clear comprehension of their mode of action , men with hearts and brains ; and unless it be attempted by such—badl y as it was wants doing—it had better not be done at all .

      > the past history of the agitations of the people for their rights , we may see one very evident cause of failure beyond the iaults of leadership , or insubordination of followers , or any merely personal considerations . It is this : that all such agitations have arisen out of distress , and in consequence of the actual pressure of tyranny , or the direct sense of wrong In taking this course the agitations have only followed the character of the people , who , practical in their nature , deal with eiiects rather than causes , love and hate facts better than reasonings , and are only taught by contact with

      suffering . We speak thus plainly because we wish to speak truly , which we take to be the part of a friend in contradistinction to that of flatterer . The motto of the many seems to be the very reverse of that saying , " prevention is better than cure . ' They leave alone the causes of evil while they are latent , or so long as they do not very actively ailect them , and are only roused to action when the penalty of apathy has to be paid . Just as our sanatory reformers allow

      tilth to accumulate in the sewers , and nuisances to poison the air , and graveyards teeming with dead to infect whole populations , so long as the Cholera is ravaging India , or Turkey , or Russia ; just as they wait till the pestilence is upon them ' , to sweep and wash out that , the causes of which they should have swept and washed out beforehand , so do we let corrupt influences and political cesspools grow up and accumulate around us , never bestirring ourselves to get rid of them till they arc strong enough to prostrate us . We have all been

      playing the wise game of " locking the stable-door after the horse has been stolen ; " but , unless we choose to continue beasts of burden ourselves , we must , late as it is , begin a new system . Almost everyone by this time understands that , to say the least of it , political degradation is one of the greatest causes of social suffering . If we judge men however by their acts , it would be difficult to believe that they thought so . for until

      social suffering comes , they let political degradation do its worst . They stand by and allow the cause to grow into effect . Then indeed , when the nauseous blossom has flowered , and the bitter food has ripened , when it is mixed with their bread , and that of their little ones , they complain loudly and struggle violently . In times of want of work and scarcity of food , political agitators are plenty . Ultrarepublicans knit their brows' at you in every street , and patriots meet you at every corner . There is then abundance

      of discontent and valorous resolves to do or die ; but trade grows better again , employment is to be found once more , wages are to be earned , and bread becomes cheaper , and then the republican bends his brow over the loom , and the partiot , forgetting his resolves to die , turns him to do at the forge or the Bench . And so year after year the same vicious circle of discontent and apathy goes round ; the apathy sowing the seeds of misery—the misery forgetting itself when a temporary gleam brightens over the immediate future .

      YV e snould laugh heartily at a nation which , living in a country where the people were tormented with heat in summer and cold in winter , were ever and anon clamouring about the necessity of building houses to protect themselves against the climate , but never built them . We should be inclinedto setthem down for complete imbeciles if they did actually begin the work when the frosts of winter were at the hardest , but left

      oft when they felt the balmy air of spring . We should be vexed by them almost past all patience , if they renewed their efforts in the dog-days only to cease again when autumn brought less oppressive skies . To see a race go on in that way , generation after generation , would be a * " spectacle of ridicule for Gods and men . We should say , what idiots they are to wait till winter or summer tonics—what worse than

      idots to leave off after they have gone . They are worse than bees , or field-mice , or birds . The beasts of the field have more foresight . Yet , reformers of England , look to yourselves , and ask whether the parallel does not hold V—whether or not this is what we have been , and arc doing ? The mills are out—the loom is idle—the forge is coldpolitical agitation is rife . The factory bell rings—the shuttle flies—the forge glows , and political agitation is stilled . Can it be possible that the people know a fact—this fact , that a great political economist—a very Gamaliel , at whose feet wise men sit—one of the elders and chief priests of his

      mammonworshipping tribe—a man , indeed , who gained a prize—wrote in the , very essay , for which that prize ' was awarded a greattruth , that under our present system those recurring changes are inevitable , that there is no hope nor remedy , that they seem to be produced by necessary laws . What is that but saying to you , millions of workers , you are made to put up with misery ; that is your fate ; you may be a little better oil * now than then , but you must look for the tertian ague fit of poverty every three years or so . Come it must , so long as our present system lasts' ? Just so , and yet you let the system last , and when the fit is over , seem to forgot that it is to come again ,

      Another great evn of these sudden misery-bred and hungerforced agitations is , that they come just " at the time when men have the least power to struggle . Take a soldier , deprive him of his ammunition , keep him on short allowance till he becomes a shadow , and then Bet him to fight—what sort of fitness would he eviuoo for \\ U task ? Take a worker , deprive him ( if his toil , exact tlio last com from his pookot . \ i \\ t

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      famine m Ins house , fill his heart with harrowing fears , rack his brain with anxious thoughts , show him the workhousewhere they break on one wheel God ' s laws and man ' s affections—m perspective , and then—what then ?—why , he will clamour for his rights ; but he will clamour for them because he sullers , not because they arc ris-hts ; and when the suffering goes , the outcry ceases . Truly , this is no better than young rooks which caw for food , but hold their peace when the evening worm comes , little thinking that to-morrow they will be hungry again . '

      But the evil sinks yet deeper , and has a wider range ; at such times men agitate violently , with rage in their breasts and violence at their lingers' ends . We do not wonder that it is so , we only marvel that there has been so little of outbreak . We state tlio bare fact that such movements have , at the least , a strong tendency to become physical . That is playing the spoiler ' s game ; that is walking straight into the toils . Arbitrary power could not be better served . There are always traitors to fan the flame , always spies to exaggerate , always a press to excite class fears and arouse class hatred . Ihen for every hand there is a staff somewhat , heavier than a reed , and as a last resort the trinity of tyrants ' tools , " horse , foot , and artillery . "

      If we are to have a national party at all , one worth having , we must steer clear of this . We must have rights demanded ' , because they arc rights ; we must have them asked for firmly without passion ; we must begin to ask for them while we are most prosperous and able to enforce our requests ; we must seek them as the means of preventing worse evils before they come ; wp must have funds to work with and accumulate them while we have funds to give . We must have time to pick out our best men for leaders , and organize our forces under them . We must—as we can—add to the people ' s light , social power and intellectual force . We must mark

      out the ground upon which the battle is to be fought , and where and how the decisive charge is to be made . We must measure out our work and apportion it to our strength , , and settle where we arc to begin . We must have no morcTpopular rulers in high place without confidence ; no more bankrupt exchequers guiltless of coin ; no more debts to wrangle about , and to clog our progress ; no more schemes which will not hold together ; no more rash movements which we are not prepared to carrv out , and we must set about our task at once , while the opportunity lasts . If we once more rally round the flag inscribed " The Charter" in the right irit

      sp , each man knowing his work , and determined to do it onefourth of our former numerical force will suffice . For opinions have moved forward since then . The enemy no longer shows our unbroken point ; here and there his line has been pierced , elsewhere he has deserted his posts , and some of the points are as good as won already . Qn this vantage ground then let us marshal our hosts , from it survey our field , and then rushing down—not tuniultuously —but in orderly array ; not driven by rage , but inspired by confidence ; not pressed on by misery , but determined to prevent it—win as we can , and may the rights of all .

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      SURVEYING THE GROUND .

      We want to see a really national party—a party of and for the whol ? people firmly established . The only way to set about this , so as to have a hope of success , is to do it calmly and thoughtfully ; to build that upon reason which wo intend to urge . M'ith " euthwaasin . No mechanic worthy the narao of a work-J » an -would think of going to work ' upon a complicated piece of HHtelijnery witlioui surveying the capacities of \\ U xtwfo

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      < $ > . THE WAY TO 'POWER . In two preceding articles we have taken a glance at the present of associative effort . That present is now the only basis for the future . We must take what there is , strengthen what is weak , add what is deficient , and unite the whole . We must do this through patient toil , looking rather to ultimate results than immediate benefits ; we must teach a faith in

      association which will enable men to work and wait . Now this faith is to be gained as much from what we sec as what we reason to . The character of the English mind is such that it gains more , and accepts it more readily from observation than from thought . Hepwas surely an Englishman , and one who well understood his fellows who first gave expression to that widely honoured adage , " an ounce of fact is worth a ton of theory . " It may be unphilosophical , but it is consonant with human nature as we find it . Depend upon it that the man who first picked up a lump of gold from the soil of California or Australia , did more to create a gold fever than

      a score of mineralogists could have done by learned dissertations upon the strata . Theoretical thought may be all very well for the scientific few , but for the practical many some thing real is wanted . Soyer might perhaps sit down entranced with the recipe for a new dish , but the epicures he cooks for want the thing itself—the realized dainty , and would fail to

      appreciate the description . So it is with the great masses for whom we write about association . We may reason up to the most unassailable demonstration—we may lavish eulogy and pen glowing panegyrics , but still we shall not arouse faith up to the point of good works , or at least only in a comparatively few instances . To do that requires the exhibition of something tangible .

      Let us look round the world , then , and see if we can find any material argument for the value of association ready to our hand . Can we V Really if ^ Yc will but use our eyes the difficulty is not in finding what we want , but selecting the best illustrations out of the many . Remember that what we require is the means of acquiring positive power , and then glance at all the great works of modem times—the results of power , and see how they have been effected—clearly bv association . Railroads span the land from end to endand

      , their proprietors dictate terms to the great mass of the public —vast < locks receive into their bosoms thousands of ships , and those who caused them to be erected force the merchants oi the world to yield obedience to their rules—immense fleets ot ocean steamers , surpassing the navy of an empire , transport from clime to clime the wealth of the world . How did these things come to be ? By virtue of association . Think

      ot that age when the owner of a few pack horses in company with other carriers , conveyed merchandize from one end of the kingdom to the other , over roads almost , impassable . Go on a little farther to when the broad-wheeled waggon took weeks to roach the metropolis . Still advancing , remember the stage , coach YritU its relays of horses , reducing the . weeks to days , . Compare this with tho present , when days m ro « ( ted to \\ W \ % iuid remember tf uifc this is « 11 the . mm of oquv-

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      August 28 , 1852 - THE STAR OF FEEEDOM . 41 ~ " — — ¦ ¦• - - —— ~—— -

  • Citation
    • Northern Star (1837-1852), Aug. 28, 1852, page 9, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ns/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1693/page/9/