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    THE POLISH LEGION. The Wednesday meeting...

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    Vulgar Impatience Of Adulteration. Just ...

    usss 3 S There as the same adulteration in ^ eSg S ^ BBtitntes the toitu ^ of jS ^ JSr clothing , your furniture , your ^ uBe / ar ^ ad ^ erate d ; W whatos w ^ e very fi aendsjbhat stand around ^ ou , the . Par-SanWt ^ o whiob . you appeal , * # &?& *«*** the adulteration . There is no instant voice to put down the nuisance , because everybody ta ^ apreeent inter est in it . It was so in July , 1854 , and it is bo ndw : the wy / "J ° flluBtratioii serve us . We then pointed to the case of Davids ©* , Gordon , and Co ., as showing the extent to which commerce itself , as -well as the wares transferred in commerce , is adulterated ; and we have Davxd-^ and Gobdon with us still , besides many a Co . that deserves but has ^ not reached the police courts ; to say nothing ot that baniang company which has shown tow far the veir strong box of commerce is tainted by the adulteration . . Nevertheless we are far from saying that we are exactly where we were then . We have at least made that important step which consists in knowing and confessing our disgrace . It was in July , 1854 , that the Leader pointed out the adulteration of society ; and it is in July , 1855 , that our mercantile contemporary , the Ecvncmist , admits the worst part of the adulteration : " Both fcuyer and seller are to blame , " says the ^«\ r / a ^ Ke s S # r ^? p ^ An ^« 5 j Jg SS-5 i gross and vulgar misapprehension of what SSjnesfmeans , is one of the most prevalent causes of adulteration . " The buyer , hardened in ignorance , may Tcnow that chicory is a drug and that copperas has deadly qualities , for people tell him so : but ignorant of physiology or ot chemistry , he does not , in the sense of actually perceiving it , know what the poisoir causes , or survey the consequences to himself and to his children , perhaps to the third and fourth generation . It is low-minded ignorance to begin with . An adulteration of the buyer is an essential condition , without which the adulterations of the seller could not be . But once instituted in commerce , the process of adulteration makes rapid advances . It is a trick easily learned ; and it is highly stimulated by our competition . The oldfashioned Jiahan dealer sells pickles for a certain price . His neighbour wishes to get the custom and sells them cheaper , but they must look as good or better , and the flavour is heightened with one drug , the coIout brightened with another . Others outvie the first adulterator . In the meanwhile the old-fashioned dealer has continued to sell dear and to be genuine , but & genius in the firm discovers a new branch of adulteration , Tt consists in selline : the article in the

    oldfashioned house , at the old-fashioned price , on the strength of its being " genuine , " but resorting to exactl y the same devices as are used to get up the manufactured article ; and so the adulterator who has tried to beat down price teaches the hig h-priced vendor to make a larger profit , by adulterating : an / " old established genuine" reputation . The next step is to trade in " awful sacrifices , " and bankruptcy itself is subject to adulteration . TKe proceeds are lodged in a bank , whose manager is s elling securities to those that purchase such commodities , and the very bank is adulterated . Since we exposed the extent of the disease ' la * fc "year , however , we have had new proofs of its yet further . « xtearauou There is not a ;

    srannyfio email that it floesaiot enter , not a place t » elevated that it ^ does *< rt * eaoh . JS ot bolook further back than iihecradle- ^ thou | n we might pursue the inquiry there —the schoolboy beg ins , life under a schoolmaster whose Echini is adulterated with ignorance and with the devices to conceal ignorance . If the child is sick , ' a medical man is called in and the boy ia not only treated with oSugs that are Adulterated , but the medical man himself is adulterated with ignorance and with quackery to conceal his ignorance . As the child grows up , an artificially-adulterated form of life clouds his sense , cramps

    his body , and adulterates his very vitais . We have had more than one family anatomised before the public lately , but perhaps no exposure is more horrid than that occasioned by the suspicions in -the W ooibe family at Darlington . Mr . Wooiee is a man of large property , gmng excellent dinners ; his society has been much courted . He has , of course , been respected m ms county—highly respected . The medical men , who may be said to have ascertained symptoms that indicated poison , were so adulterated in their conscience that evidently tor a time they hushed up their own suspicions . One of them could not tell what to do . Me thought that the nervous disturbance ot removmgthe dying woman ' s attendants would be worse than a quiescence which permitted the process of poisoning to go on ! After death , the body is examined ; and here not only is arsenic found , but the signs of a fatal disease , brought on by our climate and aggravated by our mode of life ; and another land of adulteration—the liver was pushed out ot its place , probably by tight lacing . It is the anatomy of an English wife ! To whom can the guilty and erring . apply but to the Church ; and yet that resort ot the sinner is itself adulterated—throughout . It is a national Church not co-extensive with the nation . It is tenanted by opinions that it disclaims , denounces , and curses . Many of its votaries pretend to be consecrated ministers when they are only anointed traders , in order to enjoy the pay or the social position which it confers . We have had in the Bast an army that was adulterated by the worst administration— a commissariat that was not a commissariat ; officers that would serve to dress a parade at home , but disliked the opportunities for chivalrous destruction in the East ; soldiers supplied with guns that were antiquated curiosities , with clothes that did not shelter them from the weather ; with officers that betrayed them to death in greater numbers than fell by the enemy ' s sword . We have had members of the Cabinet affecting to join in " a vigorous prosecution of the war , " and then retiring into opposition , with sneers at the war that they had pretended to promote , and tricks for tripp ing up colleagues who prosecuted a real war . To descend from . great things to small , we have had witnesses before the Parliamentary committee denounc-. ing the denouncers of adulteration—saying that they exaggerate through ignorance , affirming , in fact , that the eiposers of

    adulteration are themselves adulterated . The only thing wanted is for the committee to trim between the report that tho adulteration exists , and that it is exaggerated ; the chairman following up with a bill with adulterated by clauses to render it ineffective . ¦ It is to be hoped that we are not to reach that bad end . Even a small beginning would be better than none ; and if we could stop adulteration in food , < we might by degrees extend the purification to society , the church , the legislature , the administration , and all that concerns us in public and private life . Diet does wonders , and honest regimen and Bound nutriment might strengthen u s to rise

    « c « 4 nBt * ho continued practice of adulterating ourselves individually ** id tsoilectively . It might teach us if we want to makeji pront out of * ur own till , not to make it out ot our neighbours till , leBt be return jtoe comiplunentT Want of concert makes fellow-labourers in industry become only thieves preying upon each other—near residents , -who aro not neighbours , thinking it wise , when robbery is no longer safe on the highway , to invent a new brigandage over the counter . A wholesome meal might clear our sight , renew our hearts , and warm us to brotherhood .

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    The Polish Legion. The Wednesday Meeting...

    THE POLISH LEGION . The Wednesday meeting did not take place . At a moment when two or three thousand persons were expecting the doors to open the Lnouneement was made that a demonstration , to whieh the public mrnd had been excited by myatic paragraphs and colossal placards , was to be postponed . A feeling ot indescribable indignation took possession of the crowd . Polish sympathisers , who had all day been talking of the evening s programme , were intensely disappointed , tor the hour , Sir De I , aot Evaks lost all his popularity , at least in the neig hbourhood ot § t Martin ' s Hall . There were not wanting certain politicians , always ready to suspect , to insinuate a connexion between the breakdown of the meeting , and the scruples o the Government . Somebody had been bribed —somebody had been intimidated ; the people" had been victimised . How much or how little of this spontaneous gossip was based on truth cannot be determined . In affairs of which nothing can be known , the quidnuncs of portentous limia and rumours have their . own way . 13 ut it 13 undeniable that efforts had been made , tor several days , to create a popular behei in some vague countenance afforded by . Ministers to the projectors of the Wednesday meeting . Sir De Lacy Evans ' s speech was to serve as a p ilot-balloon , and a gorgeous list of peers and courtiers flamed upon the placards in every street . It is not surprising , therefore , that as the Cabinet had been associated with the Bcheme of the demonstration , it should also be associated with its failure * , especially as something took place which has not been explained . The illness of the proposed chairman was far from a sufficient * reason for the contemptuous dismissal of that huge throng which on Wednesday evening blocked up the end of Long-acre , and which had been attracted by the great publicity ot the announcements . The second assemblage , which arose out of the disappointment ot tho first , could not bo regarded ns more than a noisy ebullition of popular feeling . The Polish question , however , is not deposed of because the Long-acre Meeting was quashed . Tho elements of a great political exhibition were ready in tho streets . Only the spokesmen failed . Indeed , tho Whig organs have been coquetting with tho subjoct , and have accused Ministers of neglecting an important opportunity , by oihcouraging tho formation of a Polish Legion . Lord Palmbbston , obviously , scarcely » n |» j rstande his own opinions on this point . l » o " standing menace" does not terrify him , or any of his order , bo much as tho princip le which might be summoned to action by raising in Europe tho symbol of Polish nationality . Still less ia the " standing menace formidable to the Germany of Oourta anil Cabinets in comparison with tho dangers ot removing it . Besides , the English nation comprehend no metaphysical distinctions . Ji they raise Poland against Jiusma , why not i Hungary against Austria , and Italy againsb i all tho alien powers that oppress it t Kevo-

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 4, 1855, page 10, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_04081855/page/10/