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    SOCIALISM AND ITS NEWEST TRADUCER. When ...

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    Moloch. Ckimks, Says Tho Morning Chronic...

    Aug . 2—I pswich—Maria Stewart , for wilful murder 0 f her female child ; acquitted . _^ Ug 3—Bodmin—Mr . Baron Platt , in charging tbe grand jury , observed , in the course of his address , that there was one case where a young woman was charged with the heinous offence of destroying her own offspring ; and if they ( the grand jury ) should be of opinion that a bill ought to be found , and if the petty iury should find a verdict of guilty against her , it would be necessary , for the putting down of this dreadful crime , to make an example . At the same time they must take care that they were right in what they were about , and see that a person was not convicted unless the crime was brought home by clear and substantial evidence .

    Au _<>" . 4—Maria Chitty , tried for the wilful murder of her child , aged seven , by beating out its brains ; acquitted—insanity . Aug . 6—Carlisle—Eleanor Pattison , for the wilful murder of her child ; acquitted . Aug . 9—Wells—Mary Amory , for the wilful murder of her illegitimate child ; acquitted—insanity . Aug . 13—Ellen Roberts ( Chester ) , for the murder of her illegitimate child ; seven years' transportation . Aug . 19—Liverpool—Alice Shaw , for having killed and murdered her new-born female child ; not guilty . ( Same day)—Selina Mooney found guilty of concealing birth , after being charged with murder ; sentenced to six months' imprisonment .

    For the large proportion of acquittals , the Morning Chronicle accounts by the fact , that it is very difficult to procure positive evidence in support of this crime ; and also by the fact , that juries , instead of restricting themselves to the simple questions before them , take regard to consequences , and withhold a verdict of guilty because they will not condemn the prisoner to death . It is , we are convinced , most proper , both in humanity , in rigid justice , aye , and in strict logic , to withhold a verdict of guilty where life and death are at stake ; excepting upon that positive and logical proof , which is in such cases nearly impossible . There are other crimes , as

    the Chronicle says , for which juries will not convict ; but when our contemporary infers from that fact , that it may be more pertinent to enquire whether it would not be better to revise the system' of trial by jury itself than to remodel the law on infanticide , the suggestion is tantamount to a confession that the perplexity is too great to be solved , except by a violent inroad on our constitutional guarantees . Thore arc many imperfections in the working of the trial by jury ; but to give it up would be to give up the great practical guarantee for political and individual freedom . A proposition of that kind therefore we may dismiss as beside the question .

    There is , however , a much deeper question involved in this inquiry of the Morning Chronicle When infanticide , to say nothing of thc other vices , is growing to be a national characteristic , we have tangible proof that there is some fatal Haw in our social system . The dilemma is formidable , but not very complicated : either the people is thoroughly depraved in understanding and heart—which is a supposition that we . are not at present prepared to admit ; or a people not thoroughly depraved in mind and heart is driven to Huch straits that it violates the strongest natural instinct—that of the mother to preserve her child . And that is the fact . No sooner do we

    come upon this bare rock of fact than we perceive how the question branches out into others . At tbe root lies inexorable poverty ; which is almost invariabl y the one cause that compels the mother to her unnatural crime . If wo had a sound poorlaw—b y which every able bodied person might bave access to reproductive employment — - we Hliould hoar little of infanticide . Let us but glance at , that branch of the subject , without pursuing it at present .

    Another cause of the compulsion to murder is _Nhame . Bv the moral code of the day in English society , a shame more agonizing to enduro is felt " » the birth of a child without the previous ceremony of marriage , than in that violation of natural law by which the mother destroys her own offspring ! Religion has so little done its work , that to conceal her misdemeanour from the sight of inan , the mother will violate the laws of nature , the decencies of her own soul , in the sight of God . _h <> touches tho national faith , in every school whero that faith is taught ; and yet the teachers ° » that truth will not carry it , home to the ears a _» d hearts of those who constitute their charge , wnlcHB they , the hoarcra of tho truth , aro duly paid for it in current coin of tho _roalrn . God

    Moloch. Ckimks, Says Tho Morning Chronic...

    have mercy upon the soul that cannot pay its pew rent . We do not stop now to " suggest a remedy , " as cant requires us to do , when we " point out a fault . " The first thing for us to do in all such cases , is gravely , simply , and candidly , to admit the existence of the fault . And here , in the presence of these twenty-six culprits arraigned before the national tribunals for violating one of the first laws of nature—women , we have supposed , not thoroughly depraved in mind or heart—we see it declared to the world that our social system , ingeniously pretending to keep down crime , to check vice , positively acts as an impulse to the one , and literally creates the other .

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    Socialism And Its Newest Traducer. When ...

    SOCIALISM AND ITS NEWEST TRADUCER . When a public writer undertakes to make explanations and distinctions for the profit of his readers , he is especially bound , if not to attain accuracy , at all events to seek it ; but a writer in the Daily Neivs , whether from incomplete acquaintance with his subject , or from inadvertence , seems to scout accuracy as a superfluity or an obstruction to his pen . With- the first part of his explanation , indeed , we are little disposed to quarrel ; indeed , we cordially adopt the sharp line of distinction he has marked out to sever

    that body of economical doctrine , comprised under the general term " Socialism , " from those violent and subversive theories ( if theories they deserve to be called ) of professed political revolutionists and destructive demagogues , for with which fear , bad faith , and ignorance have combined to render it responsible . Endeavouring to disprove the assertion of M . Louis Bonaparte , that he had crushed "Red Republicanism and Socialism , " synonymous in official mouths with disorder and pillage , in France , ( an assertion which Emile de Girardin so

    triumphantly refuted last week as to cut the ground from under the feet of the Saviour of Society , ) the Daily _Netvs objects , with shrewdness and good sense , that the Bonapartists in Franco always speak of those two things , " with a convenient vagueness , " as the same ; and the English writer proceeds to discriminate and correct . " Red Republicans , " we are told , " are those

    unreasoning blunderers who always appeal to arms , and to arms alone . Their only idea , their only mission , is destroying by brute force whatever exists , or whatever has incurred their enmity . With , such men there is only one way of dealing . Inaccessible to argument , they must of necessity be encountered with their own weapons . Brute force can only be put down by force animated and directed by reason . "

    This may not be a very close description of the political sect whose origin is too recent to have escaped the memory of all writers ; but we are not the less disposed to accept the conclusion . A more exact description of "Red Republicans , " setting aside the odious associations whieh the name suggests , would be , that they were so called from hoisting a red Hag , which ( according to their own creed ) was intended to signify , that they would seek to defend " the Republic" even at the cost of blood , in contradistinction to the

    peaceful revolutionists of July , 1 S 30 , who had so done their work by halves , that , after eighteen years , it had to be done over again ; an < l fo the " Moderate" Republicans of _Februury , who had temporized with the Reaction , until a . crouching phantom of treacherous compliance had become an amalgamated Party of Order , avenging panic by persecution . We are here describing fhe " Red" Republicans , as they describe themselves in their move reasonable and discreet moments . We pass by without comment the fundamental

    folly of making " the Republic" a standard ot patriotism , an empty name , without the virtues it demands , and the liberties it , is supposed to guarantee—a form of government which in France has never yet been dominant , hut as a revolutionary dictatorship , under which freedom was a byeword and citizenship a curse . Thero is , however , let if be avowed , anofhoj 44 Rod" Republic , to which we may suppose our contemporary here alludes . That Red Republic is an odious , a sinister , a , fatal anachronism : if is

    the impotent plagiarism of a , gang ol demagogues , who seek to cloak their isolation in turbulence , and their barrenness of thought in revolutionary jargon . Jjamurtinc , in the noblest moment ol his life , covered that Hag with shame , ami swept back into the foul kennels of crimo tho scum that had polluted for a moment tho pure air ot

    Socialism And Its Newest Traducer. When ...

    freedom . It is not , we rejoice to affirm most emphaticallv , in the columns of the Leader that the " Red " " Republic will find a syllable of faint excuse or sympathy . We heartily abhor and despise all that it worships and exalts ; its personnel , its symbols , its traditions , its organization ; its contemptible consecration of sansculottism , its deification of monsters like Marat , its envy of all true dignity of mind , its corrupt and greedy _dis- < content , its cowardly hankering after terrorism , its stale vocabulary , and its coarse and barren formulas . We eagerly snatch this occasion to tell

    our extreme political friends that as English writers , breathing English air , the present conductors of the Leader have no part nor lot with " Red" Republics ; and this , not that we hate despotism less , but that wc love freedom and civilization more . It is often painful to us to find our native English tongue sullied by the mischievous slang of foreign demagogues . In France , it is true , these " Reds" are a miserable minority , and in England they are at most a dozen or two of stage-struck Spartans ; but it is well to denounce the excesses from which

    liberty now suffers all Europe over ; it is well to separate the cause , which we believe to be a good and a true one , from the contagion of a disastrous alliance . True , there are " Red" Monarchies as w ell as " Red" Republics . Absolutists , Bonapartists , Royalists of all kinds , and indeed Moderate Republicans , have not been more scrupulous on the score of shedding blood than the Red Republicans : witness the slaughters of June , of the 2 nd of December , in Hungary , and in Italy , at Brescia , Naples , Berlin . True

    it is , that the Democracy was everywhere clement , when everywhere triumphant : may it not be feared that when the next deluge shall come , the uproused people will believe the men who say that bloodless revolutions are failures , and who point to the dungeons and the scaffolds by which kings have requited the forbearance so many of them received at the hands of those same RedRepublicans ? But let that pass . For our part , we believe that in repudiating and denouncing terrorism , who or whatever the perpetrator ( as we said last week ) may be—whether professed revolutionists or professed " Saviours of Society , " Marats or Louis Bonapartes—we do

    but express the sound-hearted and intense conviction of nine-tenths of the English people . Our contemporary , in distinguishing Socialism _, from Red Republicanism , does well , and deserves our thanks . It is the perfidious conjunction of the two by thc Saviours of Society which has thrown dust in the eyes of the great inert mass of thc public , who do not judge for themselves , and who are ready to be seared at any bugbear . How often shall we repeat that Socialism is essentially an ideal revolution , au intellectual and moral doctrine , an industrial and

    economical problem ; that it has no more to do with political revolutionists than any other phase of economical science ? The conservative politician , the orthodox churchman , may quite as reasonably and properly he Socialists as the democrat in politics and the free-thinker iu religion : anil there is no more reason why the latter should be , than that , the former should not be Socialists . " In this country it is well known that many of the most orthodox of our clergymen , and many of the most lory of our politicians , are Socialists in all but the name ; and the name they abjure as " revolutionary . " So far from Socialism beiiur destructive , if is in the strictest sense conservative , since its operation tends to universalize the " something fo conserve ; " fill , as Lear

    says—• _» . distribution shall undo excess , And each man have enough . " In seeking to abolish pauperism , Socialism oonservafizes ( if we may ho say ) fhe now " dangerous" classes . Whether if take fhe form of co-operative self-employment , or of mutual assurance universalized , if is _equally harm less and equally sound . But when it , is considered as the attempt to reconcile fhe laws of society , which is the work of man , with the laws of humanity , which is the work of God , then Socialism , in its largest acceptation , as n grand peaceful transformer , may be hold worthy of fhe respect of the Statesman , " the . 'Philosopher , and fhe Pries ! . Tho writer ol" I _heso lines has seen revolutions and revolutionists too closely not to desire to clear the cause of social amelioration from a fatal contact ; and it is due to the Leader , and to the cause for which we strive against that

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 11, 1852, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_11091852/page/13/