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Leader (1850-1860), 27th September 1851, Edition Country of 2, Page 13

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      The Truth That There Is In 13loomer. Blo...

      or to sway in the stepless dance of the hareem—not for wear or real exercise , not for active grace . If women are at last awake to the unseemliness of draggle-tail petticoats , or to the ungainliness of most of our " homely " forms of costume , let them invent new patterns , suited to our times and circumstances j but above all suited to the working condition of our multitudinous population . A comely working garb is the one thing needed : the divine Mama Oello taught fashion and civilization to the Peruvian fair ; where is the Mama Oello of our world of costume ?

      Nor is it only for women : men need new costumes no less . Working men , with a pride anything but Democratic , only copy " gentlemen " in dress , and wear that garment which is not beautiful when made in the best of cloth by a Nugee , but which is detestable when made by common hands in common fabric . We should work all the better , too , if we more generally adopted costumes suited to our special callings ; trying , not to disguise the artisan in the gentlemen , but to set forth the artisan in an

      aspect as little spoiled as possible by the double disguise of a dress at first bad and made worse by being destroyed in hard work . If every trade had its own dress for working days , and a holiday suit like that , only new , and perhaps more perfect in its type , then the costumes of our streets and gatherings might be very agreeably varied , We have some few samples of the plan , as in the butcher and the drayman , but they are imperfect ; and in neither of them is the picturesque so much studied as it ought to be .

      The subject is worth the practical consideration of all classes except the " highest "—with whom dress is rather the livery of exclusiveness than the setting forth of working energy clothed with the fitting garb of taste . Men and women might look more comely than they do , —which is no triflewith a gain in the way . of practical ceconomy and working convenience . And a searching dress reform might be made highly beneficial to classes which are beginning to suffer before many others from want of employment—the classes , both male and female , engaged in the making of clothes . For these reasons we applaud the Bloomer

      agitation ; only , we say , extend it . Let Professore 88 Dexter revise her satin decree ; let Bloomerites reconsider the subject of trousers ; and let our political agitators of every " " awaken an agitation on a question which truly conies home to men ' s business and bosoms . The tailor has impiously presumed to " make the man , " and he has only depraved man into being a clothes-block : let the clothes-block , as orators say , " Awake , arise , or be for ever fallen . " " Who would be free , themselves must strike the blow . " Let us be nobly revenged on our destroyer , and make a man , yea , of the tailor . " England expects , " & c .

      ,. * Sept. 27, 1851j «** %T&Tltt* 921

      ,. * Sept . 27 , 1851 J «** % t & tltt * 921

      A Little Peddlington Fkorhkt. It Is As E...

      A LITTLE PEDDLINGTON FKOrHKT . It is as easy to twist the nose of a proverb as to create a paradox . " A prophet hath no honour in his own country " recurs to us as a signal instance of how sayings "which have " passed into proverbs" are not seldom divorced from fact . Look at that distinguished Whig patriot , an object of dread , we are told , to all the despotisms , the bon enfant of diplomacy , Falmerston the ddbonnair . Perhaps the believers in Palmerston are decreasing in number . We do not mean believers in his graceful and easy wit , in his fluent and " evasive answers , " iu his charming liberal audacities , in his

      admirable good humour in the House , in spite of nmghty teasing boys with one idea , like Urquhart in his pliant grasp of circumstances , and , above all , in his really pleasant manners and exterior , and unexceptionable " address "; but believers in the betrayer of Sicily , the seducer of Italy , the passive , con-Henting party to the ravage of Hungary , the restorer of the Pope , the hopeful augur of a peaceful ' 62 , as the official champion of English Liberalism , as anything more , in a word , than the cleverest

      nd most successful fellow of " the Family : " these are decidedly decreasing . Perhaps Palmcrston is beginning to rft ' jbelievc in himself ! What shall he do to regain his own moral calibre ? Invite himself to that pretty Devonuhire village which he so ably represents in Parliament , and before the assembled burgesses of Tiverton refresh orally his own self-belief , whilst he has little or no difficulty in persuading men of simple habits that ho is the very pink of—fashionable—Liberal principles , felt all over the world , but " visible at "Tiverton

      The Btamt-Oi'fick In Llbtkkat. Tukvaloro...

      THE BTAMT-OI'FICK IN llBTKKAT . TuKvalorousmovementon the Maidatone Gazette has been rcpulsrd . The Daily News , determined to try whether a

      notification of arrivals at hotels could be charged as an advertisement , went out of its way to chronicle the arrivals and departures from the Clarendon . The result was the defeat of the Stamp-office . This is as it should be ; the stronger supporting the weaker against the unjust extension of the law . By the by , how is it that Mr . Charles Dickens has never been brought up for judgment ? Is the Chancellor of the Exchequer in retreat also ?

      Moral Plagues. There Is A Gross Omission...

      MORAL PLAGUES . There is a gross omission in our news columns—an omission we are at a loss how to supply . The daily records of the police courts contain stories which ought to be known to the thoughtful , but which are scarcely dreamed of by those who do not see the daily journals . Many we dare not print—they are too revolting ; at the same time we feel that they are symptoms of a widespread moral infection , depravity , and absence of manly of the

      feeling , which is the least hopeful feature age . We allude to cases of violence to women and children , perpetually occurring , in the most diegu 8 ting shapes . Children decoyed away by brutal old men ; young women attacked in the lonelier portions of the public streets ; half-witted servant girls the victims of depraved masters ; and occasionally crimes even of a darker hue described as " unfit for publication , " appear in the daily papers . These cases occur every day . On Wednesday alone there vine four .

      How many unknown ? We appeal to the thoughtful to ask themselves whether these painful phenomena are not significant , not only of the low moral atmosphere which prevails , but also of the unsatisfactory state of all existing relations between the sexes . Higher moral training for both , more chivalrous sentiments for the men , are not these wanting ?

      Social Reform. "Notes Of A Social Cecono...

      SOCIAL REFORM . " notes of a social ceconomist . " the cooperative associations of england . " Nihil est agriculture melius , nihil uberius , nihil homine dignius . " —Cicero . 4 U ' The rapid development of Communism , in the early Christian societies , is explained by the fact , that the social organization of pagan Rome was based upon the antagonist principle of individualism , and the god Terminus , who presided over boundaries , is described by Ovid as refusing to give way even to Jove himself : — ** Restitit , et magno cum Jove templa tenet . " The constant struggle between the Plebs , or commons , and the Patricii , a haughty and faithless oligarchy , arose , not from any desire on the part of the people to abolish the principle of individual property , but from the very natural wish to protect themselves against fraud and tyranny , great abuses having crept into the administration of the ager publicus , or common land , the large proprietors having gradually driven the people from the soil , and replaced them with slaves , who

      frequently rose in arms against their oppressors ; and seventy years before the birth of Christ , the escape 1 slave Spartacua , and 40 , 000 of his fellows , fell , fighting desperately , in the fertile plains of Campania . The principle of individualism was carried to such an extreme , that the Roman citizen became the proprietor , not merely of the soil and of the slave , but of the women and children also . The husband might even lend his wife , and yet retain possession of her and of her

      progeny , over which he exercised a right of sale . But aa Rousseau finely says : — " The strong is never strong enough to be always master , unless he transform might into right , and obedience into duty . " The primitive Romans had reinstated agriculture as one of the liberal arts of peace , had asserted the dignity of " labour" ( despised by the effeminate Greeks ) , and converted it into a

      privilege ; and when the citizens of Rome resigned the plough into the hands of slaves , Agriculture once more was doomed to veil her sun-burnt head in the night of oblivion and barbarism , which overspread the Empire , until the followers of Christ again adopted her as the basis of social reconstruction . The unexampled luxury of the enervated Romans , menaced as they were with dangers , and their craving after excitement , had rendered them cowardly and superstitious j to this was

      added their total neglect of science , and their awful immorality . Men sought refuge from their fears in the practice of magic rites—hoping , like the Pharisees , to avoid the punishment of their crimes , by multiplying purifications . The prospect of gain soon filled the Empire with soothsayers and dream-interpreters , magicians and priests of strange religions , and their success was furthered by pseudo-philosophers , who borrowed materials from the popular religions , to build up systems under which every kind of superstition found shelter .

      In the midst of this superannuated pagan civilization , based upon the principle of slavery , a new sect suddenly appeared , preaching the doctrines of Liberty , Equality , and Fraternity—despising riches and learning , and devoting their lives to agriculture and to prayer . After suffering indescribable tortures and persecutions , the proselytes to the new faith triumphed over their adversaries , and Christianity supplanted paganism as a state religion , by the sacrifice of the principles of its founder . But the persecutions of the Emperor Decius had driven some of the most zealous neophytes into the desert ; and Pachomius , the disciple of Anthony , became the founder of the first cloister in the Island of Tabenna . As in the

      sect of the Essenes of the desert of Judaea , there were different kinds of monastic life ; the Ascetics , who lived in solitude ; and the Coenobites , who lived in community , with a system of rules for the government of their inmates , in which celibacy and obedience to their head were enforced . But among the people the Anchorites were held in the highest repute , for they carried their folly furthest , and vied with each other in inventing new modes of self-torture ; and Simeon Stylites is thought to have reached the climax of this art .

      The monasteries of the Coenobites consisted of groups of thirty or forty houses , each of which was occupied by a similar number of monks , who gradually subdued and redeemed the soil of Europe , and the burning wastes and solitudes of Asia and of Africa . In the East and in the West , in Gaul and in Palestine , these roving agricultural communities rapidly spread themselves , and the surplus produce of their labour was devoted to the use of the poor and the stranger . In the East ,

      however , the monks were placed in the midst of a more civilized population , and gradually resigned themselves to a life of contemplation and ease . St . Benedict perceived the danger , and determined to remedy the growing evil . In the monastery of Subiaco , where the celebrated first edition of Lactantius was printed in 1465 , he matured a farsig hted scheme of reformation , which was generally adopted by the Coenobites of the West , and which became the source of the wealth , tranquillity , and learning of the Benedictine order .

      Thus , by means of cooperative labour , based upon the unselfish principles of fraternity and community , the monks became , not only the redeemers of their mother earth , but the guardians and promoters of literature and art—although the havoc committed by their destruction of profane authors appears almost fabulous . The earlier fathers of the Christian Church—Tertullian , John Chrysostom , Basil , and Gregory the Great—carried the communistic principle to a pitch of fanaticism ; and St . Clement asserted it to be obligatory upon all men ; " and affirmed that all social discord had arisen fiom individual

      appropriation : —maxims which were afterwards revived by Rousseau , and by Brissot de Warville , in 1780 , in his " Recherches philosophiques sur le Droit de Propridtd et de Vol . " The disputes which arQse at a later period between the Franciscans , supported by the Pope and the Guelfn , who asserted , and the Cordeliers , backed by the Emperor and the Gibelines , who rejected , the principle of individual property , were terminated by the sword ; and individualism again triumphed over the communist principle . In the monasteries , these antagonistic elements

      were a constant source of contention ; hut they were gradually reconciled by the magic influence of the pec ' uninry and hierarchic interests , which of courHe were strongly opposed to Social equality and territorial Communism . Ah the monasteries increased in numbers and in wealth , they poured forth swarms of agricultural < : oloni « ts , or obedienciaries , who gradually formed societies , denominated priorieH . At first the prior , who rendered nn annual account to the abbot of the parent monastery , reserved only what was necessary for the farm—for such , in fact , it was . But the example

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 27, 1851, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_27091851/page/13/