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    1010 THE LEADEK, [No. 493. Sept. 3, 1859...

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    MAYORS AND TITLES. A little civil war is...

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    THE SECRET OF THE SERPENTINE. It is the ...

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    Clmmikattty Ol K Ck1ahjs Alli X

    charged by the courts is no credit to tlie authorities which have made the preliminary investigation , The number discharged by both jurisdictions af ter being apprehended is a sign that much injustice is done in the exercise of authority , and much suffering is unnecessarily inflicted . There were , ho we ver ^ some bright places in our criminal history of 1858 . The number of persons committed for trial , 17 , 855 , was 2 , 414 , or 11-9 per cent , less than were committed in 1857 , —20 , 269 . As no alteration in the jurisdiction had taken place in the interval , this was so far a positive reduction in serious ofiences as compared to 1857 . stab

    In miirder , attempts to murder , maliciously - bing , and wounding—an burglary , housebreaking , and in all crimes of a heinous character , there was a considerable decrease in 1858 , which was more marked in the metropolitan districts , or where the people are most closely packed together , than in any other . Dating from March , there was throughout the remainder of 1858 , a continual decrease of pauperism , and it is an established fact that a diminution of crime and a decrease of pauperism go together . In 1854 , a year of high prices and of much increased pauperism , the number of committals was no less than 29 , 359 , or 11 , 504 more

    than in 1858 . This is hot a fair comparison , because between 1854 and 1858 an Act was passed which removed the jurisdiction , in many cases , from the courts to the police magistrates . Nevertheless , as the committals in 1854 were considerably in excess of those of the previous five years , and as then pauperism increased , we see ' very plainly in that , year a close connection between pauperism and crime . . It is an established fact that both pauperism and committals went on almost continually increasing from 1815 till the latter reached the maximum in 1842 . Then the late Sir Robert Peel , under the

    pressure of a dire necessity , began his commercial and taxation reforms . From 1842 to the present time pauperism and committals , have waned and waxed together , and have both been , having regard to the increase of population , proportionably much less since 1842 than before . ' They were both comparatively small'in 1858 . That subsequent to 1842 , in consequence of an increase in our freedom in employment , and in the means of subsistence , pauperism and crime both diminished , is such complete evidence of the criminality of restrictions , that we feel , arid cannot avoid expressing , a sentiment of intense

    indignation for those statesmen who profess to seek the public welfare , and yet do . not abolish the many laws which still , like those Sir Robert Peel modified or abolished , stand in the way of the people getting abundance of employment and of the means of subsistence . Nay , our professed patriots , boasting humanitarians , and preaching philanthropists , actually and continually increase restrictions and taxes on the industry of the people , and , therefore , continually increase pauperism and crime . We have long lost faith in these pretenders , and have now lost patience . They persist in perpetrating gross national wrongs in spite of experience and of their own teaching .

    For several years our legislation , under the iniluence of despair at the continual and rapid increase of ofiences , particularly juvenile ofFences , has taken the direction of extending summary jurisdiction . The establishment of the metropolitan police by the lato Sir It , Pool , in imitation of the despotic Governments of the continent , was one step in that direction ; extending police to counties subsequently was another ; andaundry Acts

    of Porhninont , particularly the Criminal Justice Aot , passed in 1855 , were avowedly intended to relieve the courts ^ save tho oountry from expense , and individuals from long detention before trial , "by giving the police and other justiocs aummai'y jurisdiction . The cfl'octs of this legislation has been , as wo now see , to place the personal freedom of tho multitude at tho mercy of tho very lowest instruments of judicial power . It degrades at once the majesty of the law and tho idea of liberty . "Wo read , with alarm for tho character of the people , and with disgust for tho careless legislature , tho cases which occur almostovory day of persons p leadinc truiltv to some minor ofl'onco . and boffemor for

    three months' imprisonment as a . boon . A snarp remedy for a dosporato disease—tho amputation of a limb to save life—is thus by our Stato doctors daily applied to tho peoplo . and liberty la maimed—which is next to taking life—by our Mandarins , and

    suffered by our people , with as much indifference as death is inflicted arid suffered in China . ' If the extinction of offences could be purchased at such , a sacrifice , which it cannot be , we should think this wholesale degradation of personal freedom too high a price to pay for it . Lord Brougham and others talk much of the renowned profession of the law , and endeavour to make the public rely on it as the sheet anchor of liberty ; but this renowned profession has , on several successive occasions , struggled hard to retard improvements in legislation , such as the establishment of county courts , which went to

    make litigation about property less advantageous to itself , and it has never lifted a voice , except that of Mr . Toubnin Smith , against these stupendous and insidious changes which have absolutely sacrificed the personal liberty of the multitude . The public should look to this matter , and therefore we call attention to it . To have one person out of every fifteen laid hold of by the police , subjected to examination , perhaps shut _ up in a cell , a large portion of the vast mass imprisoned * fined , or whipped , is surely a deplorable condition . Are we called , therefore , ' great , glorious , and free ? " Is it for this that we boast of ourselves as the stalwart Saxon race ? On it is

    our claim founded to be the examplar of nations Are we to convert the Hindoos and others to the constitutional creed of which this general torture is the fruit ? With such a cancer enlarging through our system we are not justified in prescribin g ^ others and sonietnnes enforcing our prescriptions . We suffer from a great and terrible disease ; it has of late increased with frightful rapidity ; and if the multitude here is not to be degraded tp the level of the Cantonese under Commissioner / Yen , the police constabulary and summary jurisdiction systems , the delight of country gentlemen , clergymen , and doctrinaire politiciaus , should be speedily and forcibly checked .

    1010 The Leadek, [No. 493. Sept. 3, 1859...

    1010 THE LEADEK , [ No . 493 . Sept . 3 , 1859 .

    Mayors And Titles. A Little Civil War Is...

    MAYORS AND TITLES . A little civil war is going on in the City between the partizans of rival alderonen anxious to receive the accolade of knighthood or the patent of baronetcy through becoming Lord Mayor for the year of feed and foolery that commences oil the 9 th of November next . Of the two aspirants to name and fame Mr . Alderman Carter niay have a better claim than Mr . Alderman Cubitt both on the ground of seniority and sense , but the public may ask a prior question of what have either of these gentlemen done to deserve an aristocratic handle to their plebeian names ? To be a Lord

    Mayor of London may require some self-abnegation , and a gentleman might be as willing to grin through a norse-collar as to count hobnails at Westminster and roll about in a tawdry giincrack coach in company with sword-bearers , men in armour , and the great Gog and Magog dolls . The City Corporation represents nothing but mediaeval nonsense and modern guzzling . It has no intellectual status , is little better than a big parish vestry , and xitterly unworthy of the greatest capi- * tal in the world , the leading men or which would as soon think of becoming church beadles as of seeking its undignified honours . Happily its

    longpostpOned reform is conjectured to be at hand , and the next mayor , as the last of tho turtle Mohicans and the accidental functionary when the Prince Royal comes of age , is expected to bo rewarded by his Sovereign with honours that wore recently thought sufficient for men who saved our empire in tho East . No nation ever used' titles as ba dly as we do , and an outside observer might fancy there was a covert satire in what is , unfortunately , only foolish fact . Brilliant achievements in science and wondrous deeds of arms aro placed

    on a level with inviting tho Crown to dinner and hospitably dispensing champagne and punch . Feeding tho hungry is no doubt a praiseworthy action as \ yell _ as a Christian duty , but our royal cpmmissariatishappily too well organised to make tho administration of collops to a sovereign an . act worthy of being- cmblazonod in tho Herald ' s books . Mankind loves titles , ovon of tho queerest sorts ; and history does full honour to " Godfrey of Broth , " " Big Dog of tho Staircase , " and other oddly-named worthies of ancient time . Evan republican America worships these old-world distinctions , and for tho lack of most of them imposes such hurd work upon military epithets that you

    can only travel pleasantly by addressing every innkeeper as " Colonel , " ahd then run the risk ' occasionally offending a purveyor of " gin slincr , " who ou g ht to have been worshipfull y approaeliou as ' " General Spit . " Some years ago our wits cracked their jokes upon the Imperial Court of Soulouque , whose jet-like courtiers bore titles of Dukes of Barleywater and Marquises of Lemonadebut even that sable potentate did riot do so much to bring names of honour into ridicule as our practice involves . If being a mayor when the sovereign visits a city is held to justify the bestowal of a

    title , do not let us commit the folly of lowering the value of those distinctions that are awarded for great services to the state . We might easily avoid this by taking a hint from the Limited Liability Act , which requires the fact of such limitation to be made known so often as the name of the company is paraded in public view . If the dustmen combine under the abovenamed Act , " The General Dustman ' s Company , Limited , ''' at once certifies to society that the shareholders' responsibility has legally-prescribed bounds . In like manner , if mayors must be knighted and baronetted —barrownighted , most London mayors would call it—merely for the fact that royalty has placed its

    sacred feet beneath their gastronomic mahogany , let the kind of title given _ at once displa / thoir limited claims upon our admiration , and distinguish them from the Herschells or the Ilavelocks , who are worthy of boundless praise . This might be done by a simple and appropriate prefix ; and what could be more congenial to the visceral part of the aldermanic man—which is usually the chief part of him—than to add " Turtle " to his name . " Sir Turtle Gobble " would be intelligible , ' arid do no wrong to a higher class of men , The herald , also , should provide proper utensils instead ot arms , and authorise the new dignitary to paint Upon his carriage and engrave upon his plate a ladle proper in a soup tureen or ;

    It is not the lower titles only that we ' put to bad use , —we make peers in a manner that looks as if we were determined that what is called in the House of Commons " another place '• ' should be , in sad and sober earnest , the Hospital of Incurables 'it is sometimes named . Anything but merit may lead to that venerable institution , and the commonest reason for according its honours is the fact of a ministry being in the condition of porcine maternity with more hungry pigl » gs than suctional apparatus . Mr . Vevnon Smith was made a peer because no use could lie made of Lim lawful

    in the lower regions where the Commons dwell ; and it is understood that . Lord Canning is to be advanced in dignity because he was the author of the mutiny among the European troop ? , which will cost our tax-payers a million to put straight . Orders of Demerit may be usul ' ul , but it is wrong to give them the names and privileges that ought to belong to Orders of Merit ; and it is a moral insult to society when tho stamp , that should mark its admiration for human gold , is recklessly impressed upon ignoble lead or tinkling brass .

    The Secret Of The Serpentine. It Is The ...

    THE SECRET OF THE SERPENTINE . It is the fashion to declaim against the dishonesty and unreasonableness of the working classes , and of their popular movements . We aro not going now to discuss tho justice of thin accusation ; wo only bog to assert , that however dishonest or un * reasonable rt popular cry may be , it is surpassed m both these unenviable respects l > y tlip peculiar crjes winch are raised from time to tuny by the upper and fashionable classes . Wo _ commented , iir \ f !( - >««• nrrn iiT \ r >« flirt 1111 frill * WAV in which tJlG

    unlucky indicators wore cried down , without the slightest consideration , because they happened to oflend tho world of fashion . Wo have now a more flagrant illustration , in tho cry that is being raised for cleansing tho Serpentine . Wo all know how that cry was got up . ^ some years past , as regularly as whitebait or young has been louncl to

    potatoes came in , some one write to tho daily papers complaining -of tho . disgraceful condition of tho Sorpontino , Htating tlint its effluvium was so foul , and tho exhalations from its putrid waters so noxious , that bathing i" it wiw oertain doa , th ? that a drive by its banks wo * noxt thing to ordering one ' s coflin , and that u iearnu malady would soon arise from tho nuimuK-V' ¦ ami infect tho town . This' letter used each muiisoii to bo followed by communications from awutoui

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 3, 1859, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_03091859/page/14/