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Leader (1850-1860), 4th August 1860, Edition 2 of 2, Page 7, Aug. 4, i860.] The Saturday Analyst and ...

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      Free And Slave Labour.* Nphe Question Of...

      sive fleets on the coast of Africa and in the Mexican Gulf , for the new Government of Washington will reverse the foreign policy of the slave power , and render the slave trade impossible . Our author adds , that -were bur Government to encourage the cultivation of cotton along the Western Coast of Africa , any future iinxiety as to supplies of that staple would be obviated , and we should have done for ever with the trade in African slaves . Cotton is indigenous to that Continent , and labourers may be numbered by millions . Let it be shown to the chiefs , who now carry on continual wars for the

      sole purpose of replenishing their coffers by the sale of their prisoners , that the cultivation of the cotton plant would be immeasurably more remunerative , and they would quickly desist from killing the goose that lays the golden eggs . Our present poHey with regard to the slave trade , Mr . IEdge thinks , is simply ridiculous ; for we enhance the value of the shipments which evade our cruisers , and thus offer an inducement for the continuance of the traffic . These suggestions appear to iis of much value ; and we trust that the author ' s hopes may be fulfilled ,

      Aug. 4, I860.] The Saturday Analyst And ...

      Aug . 4 , i 860 . ] The Saturday Analyst and Leader . 70 S

      Bribery. It Was Coleridge, We Think, Who...

      BRIBERY . IT was Coleridge , we think , who said that , if he were clergyman in a village where " wrecking" was practised , he would preach about nothing else till he cured it . The intention was laudable , but ' the operation might be difficult ; the fear is , that the subject would pall , and the physic sicken , before the cure was produced . We have been writing against " Bribery , " that is , we , the Press of England ^ ever since the " Commons" were of consequence enough to make a Parliamentary seat an object of ambition , and not a task to be deprecated , which , as some of our readers may know , Was the case once . When , a member was paid for his trouble , and disfranehisenient was a privilege ,, and not a stain ,- —a time , probably , when the Commons still trembled before the Lords , and made little either by vote-selling or place-giving , — when one of the tricks of Statecraft recommended by Sir Walter Raleichi was as follows : r- ^ . " To suffer the poorer and meaner sort to be absent , and neglect these ( state ) assemblies , under pretence that they wi l l not draw them from their , business and private earnings , yet withal to cite thither some few of them , viz ., so many of them as are easily overmatched by the richer sort , to make a / show ; that they would have the people , or poorer sort , partakers likewise of those matters , yet terrifying those that pome to their assemblies with tedipusness of consiiltations , & c . ''JRa /<^ j 0 7 i ' s 31 ax *; Hs q /"/ Sfozft ? . " .- . ' Such precautions against the poor arc now entirely needless . There are others , more effectual ones , sufficiently referred to in our title ; we have got through the medium phase , when Scotch members were paid for doing Parliamentary duty as a labour , and richer Ensrlishmenpavina for the same as a privilege .

      It is astonishing- how long- vices take killing- ; longer , even , than interest . In one of the many fortresses which our favourite hero-G-if 6 'PAA ^^ - <^ i ^ "J ^ - d , -h q . frm Ti d . the court of the castle thickly strewn with apparent corpses , in all the attitudes of death ; but , on examining- more closely their p hysiognomies , he discovered a warm ruddiness of the most Auspicious character , and with a poke or two of his scabbard , set them , though in a penitent and submissive state , upon their legs again . So it has been with the agricultural interest , in spite of its imitations of collapse ; and so , perhaps , the brewers' physiognomy will not lose much of its contour by the acidities of claret . * (¦ y * - \ ye do not wish too mucli tp interrupt the course of the text , but Micro in a passage in an old play , '" The Wits , " which suits anaftZliiRly some of our "dyiiiK liitdrcri ' tH . " Tho hero wishes the ludy to understand that ho has beeu dying for love .

      " Elder Palatine . —Heaven knows how I hayo groaned , nnd pined , since ttrft Vour letter gave tnc' knowledge of the cause . , Lady . —It is not scon , sir , In your face . Elder P « latim : —My / aco ! 1 grant you j I bate inwardly ; I ' m H 3 orcheil and dried , with sighing , to a muminy ; My heart and liver are not big enough To choke u daw ; a lamb laid on tho altar For sacrifice liath much moro entrails In it . Lucy . —Yot still your sorrow alters not your faco . Elder Palatine . —Why , no ! I say no man thut ovor avah Of nature's milking , hath a face that's moulded With less help for hypocrisy than mine . " The scono proceeds ¦ with equal humour on tho name ) tack , but . wo cannot qiioio more Tho play is by Sir William rjavonanl .

      Tt is tho samo with our political vioea , which are hunted like that noble animal tho stag , only to bo let loose again , and not nailed up , like vermin , at tho barn door of Saint Stephen ' s , A misclriovous knight in " Ariosto , " when cloft from the skull to the chin , manages ( it must bo confessed , undor rather -painful and difficult circumstances ) to murmur out a confession , and then dies decently and penitently ; but bribory—, 'iMoclia . in inorto negautaon

      Exporare—¦" has alllho resurgoms of tho heads oi ' a hydra . Shoroham formerly , St . Alban ' s lately , avo disfranchised in vain : tho pest ro-appears at Wakofiold and Bovorloy . In vain did Pitt prosont , in 1783 , tho resolutions , " That it was tho opinion of , tho House that moasures woro highly necessary to bo takon for tho further prevention of bribery and expense at elections ? " and Sheridan invoigh , in ' 1797 , against those " who , iadood , could not buy men and sell them , beoause that was not yet to be done ; but who bought and sold boroughs , and with them sold tho dearest

      rights of the people . " Alas ! neither of the protesters were pure . One could create peers by wholesale , to carry his measures ; and we should have been sorry , in his days of debt and difficulty , to tempt Sheridan with a large money-bid for his support . But the question is whether briberyis not more rampant and impudent than ever . We track the mischief with some trouble ; personified , it . stands before us , ready for execution ; and , with . a precious Spirit of nepotism , Mr . Bright , the defender of the people , the would-be purifier of the House of Commons , does not wish matters to be pushed to extremes , and Mr . James , another of our Reformers , seconds him . It is enough to disgust any honest voter , and to raise in the House of Commons the reciprocally encouraging , but degrading cry , " Tantara-rara , rogues all . " We go back , for something of a parallel , to the case of Hindon , t near Salisbury , where , in l *< 02 , " upon a complaint of t IJurnet , Boot vii . bribery , the case was so full and clear , that they ordered a Bill to disfranchise' the town for bribery ; and yet , because the bribes were given br a man of their party , they would not pass a vote upon him as guilty of it ; so that a borough was voted to lose its right of electing , because many in it were guilty of a corruption in which no man appeared fto be the actor . " Now , it is wink for wink between the parties , and the upper classes cant to the lower ones about educating , and , forsooth , moralising them , in order that they may deserve suffrage , when the real desire of half of them is to make this a pretext for delaying- the time when ^ they may have more votes to pay for , being as incapable of perceiving the chanee of the people ' s improvements in honesty , as of their own ; which is , it must be confessed , rather hopeless in the case of those who have all along been sinning against light , and who persist in doing so still . How dare we deny the people votes , at any rate , on the pretext of the superior morality of the rich . Bribery is so old a crime , and in some cases so congenial , that our senators seem to view it very much as the country lad views poaching , and as the sailor on the French seaboard viewed contraband " traffic ¦' ¦ ;¦ to some of . whom , nevertheless , our aristocrat ic Shaixows on the Bench take care to show little .-pity , though , in reality , they are not only far more innocent ^ bu t , strange to say , have views far more enlightened than those who punish , them : the smuggler anticipates the wisdom of the Senate , and , with Ms eye on the Weather quarter , is the first to see the lights of the vessel . of free-tsade ; and the poacher , though blindly and savagely , and far the least innocently of the two , carries on a guerilla warfare against the baronial power , against which we have all been fighting , when lie knocks down the fera nahirce which crosses Ms path . Whilst you , moral aristocrat , feed your own corruption oii the more pardonable corruptibility of your poorer brothers , and perpetually act a lie against the British constitution on which you are so fond of dilating , and commit what you know to be against its laws . When will you learn , not to buy votes with gold , but " golden opinions from all so rts of people , " by character and kindly concessions ? When will you learn that a lie is no less a lie , and dishonesty is no less dishonesty , if bent to obtain an end which they succeed in ^ obtaining , simply because everybody knows of the roguery ? This is something worse than your " not at home , " and your " very obedient Bflgv j ^ .+.. lL .-nft * . i 5 i it ftvnn on a level with the " not guilty m a court Of justice . If you confess that you sell your honours to save your country , in the first place there are more views than one of " saving a country ; ' and in the second , when you sacrifice your honour , there may bo also more views than one of the mighty value of the offering , . ¦ ¦ . . . ., It is our earnest hope that tho press , or at least the honest part of it , will ever carry on the battle , though it may have to do so against the cupidity of the poor , intentionally encouraged by the rfch , against dishonest Tory , or dishonest Radical , against the slyness of individuals , and tho impudence of cliques and parties ; they will have all honest men on their sido ; and the more inveterate the evil , the better worth thoir perseverance and their steel . The openness of bribery is a blot on England ' s character , which makes the corrupt Governments on tho Continent laugh at our theory of constitutional representation of tho people ; and , \ uifortunotoly , the laugh is merrily echoed by too many on our own shores , in whom tho sentiments of Sir Kobem : Walpoi . k about " saints" and " patriots" still survive , and who care about nothing but " social position , " got and saved at the oxpenso of any price and any principle . Wo hayo had a long lease oi national power and national glory , despite our faults , and they are many , but we cling none tho less firmly to a golden maxim ot the German ScnT / EarcL : —• " At no time has a political constitution ov mode of government been devised which could permanently supply tho place of principle . —Philosophy of History . We lmvo read with pleasure the recent , as wo should any measures or bills for putting down bribery ; but , after all , the . » Afltttfe iO'hut we want improving .

      The Litekaliy Pension List. An Minimi Fr...

      THE LITEKAliY PENSION LIST . AN minimi fraud m ' porpotnitert by Government 0111 the people of Kiilund . under tho above title . Hv « io ^ lijnnont oi William IV . twelve hundred pounds « year wan allocated fromi tho Civ LM , for tho purpose of being distributed m pensions to Hienuy , scientific , null Jtistic punJl . Thta , J ™/^ ^

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 4, 1860, page 7, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_04081860/page/7/