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Leader (1850-1860), 23rd January 1858, Edition 2 of 2, Page 15, CR OMWELL AND CHARLES STUART. Toryism de...

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      E A P E R Rather No. 409, Jaihtary 23,18...

      No . 409 , Jaihtary 23 , 1858 . 1 THE Ii E A P E R » 87

      Cr Omwell And Charles Stuart. Toryism De...

      CR OMWELL AND CHARLES STUART . Toryism deserts its trenches even before its adversaries open their first parallels . The Qtxeen gives un praying Heaven to avert from England the guilt ofthe blood shed at Whitehall even before the general public take any hostile notice of the old fervice for the 30 th of January . A Drawing-room is to be held on the anniversary of the day when Charles I . was put to death , and there is to be merry-making instead of mourning in the Palace of St . James ' s . How effectually that veteran radical , old Time , saps the ancient prejudices of the Consp . rvatives ! Trace the change from the days of the

      Restoration , when the body of England ' s greatest and most real sovereign was hanged in chains , to the day when the second son of ' the martyr' was driven from his palace . Trace events a little further , and we have the grandson of the martyr set aside by Parliament in looking out for a new fine of kings . We have his great grandson ( once the Young Pretender ) dying at Rome , a childless , neglected old man , with our lion and unicorn glittering over his bed ; and ' last scene of all / Cardinal York ( legitimate Henry IX . of England ) , obliged to leave Italy when invaded by Bonaparte , and afterwards pensioned by his royal cousin George III . So end the descendants of Charles the Marttr . On the other hand , our young men were taught in school-books that Cromwell was a bloodthirsty usurper , and that Charlks , with some errors , was a saint .

      Cari , tle disturbed that creed by his ' elucidations ' of Cromwell ' s speeches ; but still the Protector was refused a statue . How oddly we treat our history ! we make a compromise of extremes : the two great adversaries are alike insulted : we refuse the Republican a statue , and we dance upon the grave of the King . Remembering the old tie between Church and King , and how Charles shed torrents of blood to force Bishops on Scotland , it is , perhaps , the greatest change of all to find the Bishop of London at an . Indian meeting last week , praising the old Puritan soldiery of Cromwell , simply adding , that he would ' say nothing either way as to their politics . ' A Bishop will ' say nothing * as to the policy of cutting off a king ' s head . Truly , ' the whirligig of Time brings about its

      revenges . It is worth while to note that the Times is wrong in speaking of Queen Victoria as a representative of the family of Charles I . She belongs to a rival branch of the family . No blood of the decapitated king is in her veins ; she is descended from his sister . The Orleanists might as logically mourn the Revolution of 1830 as Queen Victoria the fall of that branch of the Stuart family whose successive crimes caused the change of succession to the other branch , of which she is the direct descendant .

      The Spanish Dancers. Etrrobe Evidently M...

      THE SPANISH DANCERS . EtrROBE evidently misunderstands Spain . Some politicians disregard her because she will not play even the tenth fiddle in the European concert — others appear to study the web of Madrid politics with the perseverance of Robert Bruce's spider . In truth , both arc wrong . "Wo should hand over Spanish affairs to our theatrical critic , and were it not that the noted Spanish dancer is an unexceptionably ' proper' lady , wo should suggest Perea Nena on a Throne as an interlude on that European stage where Louis Napoleon does leading tragedy , Ferdinand of Naples the melodramatic * villain , and LjaoroLD of Belgium tho heavy father . We should name our own Court for genteel sentimental comedy , only that there is a real happy family life behind the ' ourtain , and tho only theatrical point ia ' no money returned . ' Tho mo 3 t rocont scene in tho Spanish drama teaches us that thcro is a Cortes . Our study of Spain has been so occasional—wo hud heard so much of ' tho favourite , ' and of unexpected turns in the elmncos of winning , that wo had hastily imagined the Palace a kind of Spanish Derby . We wore mistaken ; the ministry of Admiral Aivmero has resigned , because defeated in tho election of Speaker . Why , this is like England—Lord . Toun " —• bHn 8 elf ^ oould-not-do-tho-Uiing-rbottej , . ^ . wXho 4 . n . ai ^ lel part of tho play is , however , tho best . Tho Queen herself hud supported Iho defeated candidate ; she gave AitMKiio a decrco to dissolve tho Cortes , and then , worked on during tho night by some of the Absolutist party , she rcoullod tho decree , and accepted Armeuo ' s resignation . The suocos & ful candidate in tho Cortes is Buavo MoiuLr-o , and tho leader of tho successful section is S / vinouniH , the minister who , in 1851 , escaped in diagubo from a

      revolution he had most wantonly provoked . What will the Vicalvarist generals who overthrew this man four years ago say now to his return ? What Espartero , who at the head of the national party seconded the mutineers , will say , is not of much importance . True , he is honest , but the only honest man in Spain is he whose good faith puts all the rest to shame , as the only great Spanish book is that which ridicules all the rest . When the late Minister was retiring , he denounced to his face the King ( titular Consort ) as the head of the Absolutist intrigues . These intrigues are the one check on the Queen ' s wish io reign without a Cortes .

      If Spain tolerates or upholds a despotism , the logic of facts and of family right is with her cousin Montemolin , and Isabella , the facile and devout , has no wish to take a pension in exchange for her Palace . That people may see some difference "between her and the other Pretender , she keeps a Cortes in Madrid—but she may find that she is playing with edged tools . The Carlist party is cunning and unscrupulous , and , with its aides in the Palace , can afford to wait and watch , occasion . Opposed to the Princess of the Asturias , the Legitimist Infant of Spain has a new emphasis in his title . What quaint jokeslike bits out of Tristram

      , Shandy , one finds in tbe Court Circular of Madrid The little girl called a Princess gets a name derived from the Immaculate Conception , and by a curiously illogical process , her birth is the occasion of a decree giving donations to all ' legitimate' children born on the same day . Cross the Atlantic to see the very black joke of slaves landed in Cuba by the bribed concurrence of Spanish Governors . We send Dr . Livingstone to the interior of Africa to persuade the inner tribes and kings to give up slave-dealingwhy not send him to the capital ot that ' advanced part of Africa' north of the Mediterranean ? Is not

      the unfortunate Spaniard a man and a brother ? It is wrong to judge of tile people by the thick-lipped , low-browed Isabella .. Is not the capacity of the race proved by Perea Nena ? And if Spanish soldiers and generals now-a-days are nothing Getter than policemen skulking down the Palace areas , must we not try to remember the middle ages , when the Spanish infantry was a power in Europe ? But this would lead us too far : and a society for missionaries to Madrid savours too much , perhaps , of the profitless enthusiasm of Exeter Hall .

      Frugal. Marriages. No Sooner Does Any Pu...

      FRUGAL . MARRIAGES . No sooner does any public meeting upon the greatest of our social evils initiate a discussion upon the best means of checking or exterminating wnat is erroneousl y called the vice of great cities ( for the country in this respect is not pure ) , than a hundred letter-writers are sure to spring up under various signatures in the newspapers , advocating the subject of frugal marriages . The very phrase involves a contradictiou in terms , for marriages are in the abstract luxuries of existence , and the quality of absolute frugality cannot be logically conceded to them . Marriages may be relatively frugal , that is to say , one marriage may be more prudent and economicall y arranged than another , depending upon the standard of living existing in the mind of the persons interested ; bat it proves very little in the cause of hymeneal propagandism for eacli individual to parade liis standard before the eyes of the world , saying , " See what I have done , or can do , and cannot you do likewise ? " The standard of a clerk —even in ' one of the first housos of business in the

      City '—is not , and can never be , the standard of the younger son of a nobleman ; and if comparisons are invited , tho clerk will bo outdone in marriage Upon small means by the porter in tho same establishment , who will again yield to tho Whitcchapcl birdcatcher , who will in his turn give way to the Dorsetshire labourer , who must yield the palm to the peasant of Conuenmra , the discoverer and practisor of the lowest standard of all .

      Perhaps tho letter in tho Times of the 15 th inst ., signed ' Another Happy Man , ' has excited tho most attention , becuuso ot tho details which the writer enters into , showing how he , his wife , nnd infant child , and two servants , contrive to live upon J ? ilQ / j-Q ? . ^ lI c i' ft " " - ^ Jl urs ^ ' it ° n 1 > ' baker / gives them abouflwo pounds ^ f ^ bT ^ d ^ por ^ dayrwniohr for iivo persons , neau'ccly seems sufficient . Tho ' butcher and fishmonger' are very moderate—about nine shillings per week—and their household seems to consume nearly tho saino value in beor during the year as it does in broad . The cheesemonger ' s aocount will seemingly allow about one half-pound of butter nor week , vyfiich , for flvo persons , ia economy of tlio most alringont kind . Tlio greengrocer ' s

      account nearly balances the baker ' s , which rather goes to show a vegetarian tendency . The grocer's allowance can give no puddings , and only weak tea , and little of that . Passing over the other items , such as coals , rent , taxes , & c . & c ., we come to another class of expenses . Washing is put down at the very moderate figure of 3 Z . 7 s . 2 d . per annum , or about twopence per day , which may be accounted for , in some measure , by the fact that they live ia the country , a few miles down on a line of railway . Bearing this in mind , it is rather difficult to reconcile so much household economy with the very liberal , not to say extravagant , amount ( in comparison ) allowed for dress . Carrying out our friend ' s standard of living rigidly in all its ramifications , we should say that forty pounds ' a year is too much to allow for the dress of himself , wife , and mfant

      child We hope the mother is not allowed to revel in crinoline , and the child in purple velvet mantles up that cheerful , clayey country lane which always leads to your villa from a railway station . Such elegances would certainly be thrown away in such a neighbourhood , if they did not have a revolutionary effect upon the two servants , liberallly supplied with greens , but pining each upon a one-fifth share each week in half a pound of butter and a one-fifth share each day in two pounds of bread , Ihe twenty pounds a year allowed for ' church and charity' rather indicate a desire to make a sensation without , by a pinching economy within . So much for ' Another Happy Man ; ' and a dozen writers might come forward , each with his little personal narrative , in the same way , and leave the great question exactly where he found it . There is no doubt that much of the vice and misery that exist at the present day is the result of a weak desire tor

      display—a morbid passion for outdoing your neignbour in all the showy externals of ornamental respectability . ' Another Happy Man / by his own showing , does not seem to be entirely free from this feeling , for a rigid economist might point out a field for no inconsiderable annual saving , even in his carefully regulated expenditure . Persons who are incapable of acting upon the salutary principle of self-restraint , are not likely to be better members ot

      society when married than when single . Unfortunately for those who advocate marriage as the only cure for the social evil / those who know anything of casinos , night-houses , supper-rooms , wineshops , and the top of the Haymarket , know that married men form no inconsiderable proportion of the permanent patrons of such places . And even in the records of private vice , with which the public may be regaled in a newspaper that contains in the same columns an advertisement of indecent

      photographs and an account of a Dtjgdale prosecution , it is not always the single man and the single woman who figure as the hero and heroine , but more frequently those who , according to no mean authority , are supposed to have given hostages to society for their good behaviour . Witli three hundred thousand paupers , depeiidmg at the present time upon the slender charity of our parochial system , it cannot be asserted that marriages have not been plentiful enough of late . Before Sir Benjamin Brodie made that notable speech at the late Birmingham ' Social Science' meeting , it would have been well if he had pondered over this

      alarming fact , and not given utterance to the opinion that it was the duty ot all persons to get married at the youngest possible age , and without the slightest inquietude as to their means of support . Such an opinion coming from a younger professional man would have seemed to savour of the selfish hungering after the profits of the * night-bell / rather than of a desire to benefit hia fellow-creatures . The unpaid vice of the country and the paid vice of the town , are not to be overthrown by such p latform palliatives—nor , wo fear , even by a leaf from the Housekeeper ' s Book of a mercantile clerk , exhibiting a minimum of washing , and a maximum of ' Church and Charity . '

      Revival Ov The Slavb Tradis.—Ihe Committ...

      Revival ov the Slavb Tradis . —Ihe committee of tho Liverpool Chamber of Commerce appointed to conaider tho French planB of obtaining colonial labourers from Africa , ' have presented a report to the Council , in which they show how tho people of England have been fru 8 tr « tert " i ?! L . liaJi 9 US"L . t ' ' ' ff an cnt 4 t 0 tl 10 traflflc itt Vumn ' ' boiiigfl ' . ' ^ olulWn ^ byit iro ^ CoiteroBBeB ^ of-V-ieiiiift . nnd Verona , by apooiul tretttion with Franco horsolf , and with moat of tho African chiefs on tho aluvo const , and to put down which we huvo armed our cruisers and expended v « et troHHurea both of life nnd money . They rofor moro eapcoially to tho design on the part of tho French Government to introduce Afrloan labourers into her colonies , nnd to tho redumption of the slave-trade at Lagos .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 23, 1858, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_23011858/page/15/