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    July 29, 1854.] THE LEADER. 709

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    CHOLERA. CaoiiEEA is like corn ; its har...

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    SAVAGE LANDOR AND PRINCE In our last num...

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    MANUFACTURES—EMPLOYMENT OF PAUPEKS. Mr. ...

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    The Hot Weather. We Know, Or Ought To Kn...

    connected with the state of a nation ' s digestion . It would not "be yery unreasonable if the English dog-days were to be explained as that particular period when everything goes to the dogs . "When the sun , whom wo get in reach of in this month , bursts out in his full glory upon us , we become even more

    disorderly , reckless , and apathetically anarchical ( that is our national manner of expressing excitement ) , than the natives of a tropical clime . They , at least , take the hot horrors as their normal condition , for which they are prepared . Their houses are built to elude a hot sun , their clothing is fashioned so as to escape him , they know by tradition the food that is suitable to the season , and their men of science have exhausted the lore of

    refreshing potative . mixtures . But in England a hot summer conies upon us as much to our astonishment as though hyaenas were to re-appear in Yorkshire . "We are in our close houses , in our dense towns , —in our black coats , our thiek neckercliiefs , our flannel shirts , and our heavy shoes—and with our overloadeddigestions . "We have no organisation to get sleep at night , and we are without those delicate contrivances which enable

    Europeans , even m India , to get through their work in the day . " We eat our beef as usual , and we drink our beer more than usual . "We perspire , we faint , and we don't know what to do . " We accordingly talk about the cholera , neglect our business , set in towards misanthropy , misogynysy being a still earlier stage , and die in hundreds . In most , yet even then in our but slightly , collected moments , we ask in a sulk why Napier doesn't take Cronstadt , and incoherently why ] Lord Aberdeen " don't" resign . That is wliat we want to know .

    We state this phase of the nation , as the characteristic of this particular period , with the view to accounting for the altogether exceptional oblivion , of people and Parliament to their constitutional duties and rights . Public spirit ig not to be expected at such a climactic crisis , and good government is necessarily in abeyance . It is at such periods

    that dynastic conspiracies are brought to a head , and that the integrity of nationalities gives way . let us , then , afc least consider ourselves fortunate that Prince Albert ( who is always represented by liberals as an enemy of our conspicuous self-government ) has not as yet attempted that coup d ' etat which , at such a moment , would be so sure to succeed . The British lion ia ignonriniously limp .

    July 29, 1854.] The Leader. 709

    July 29 , 1854 . ] THE LEADER . 709

    Cholera. Caoiieea Is Like Corn ; Its Har...

    CHOLERA . CaoiiEEA is like corn ; its harvest is dependent upon the sun . It springs from the sun upon each section of our globe as we circle round the sun . They had a hot season at Barbadoes the other day ; and in Bridgetown , out of a small island population , it killed 10 , 000 people . It has been very hot in

    JSe-w York , and it is doing its work there with deadly celerity . In the East , and we fear , among our troops and sailorsthcre , it is raging . "Where there is most heat iu England there there is most cholera , and the- diseaseis tho most alarming in the towns which are hot during ? both night and day ; tho atmosphere being , as it wore , boiled in tho street caldrons—whore it simmers , stenches , and kills .

    J ? he people arc gottiug frightened these dog-days , and thoy exaggerate tho danger . JJut there is danger , and no doubt what everybody Bay a ia true— " something must bo done . What ? Our people arose unlike what tho old English people used to bo , are ao unorganised both municipally and nationally , that thoy are crying out holpleaaly

    to Parliament ; and Parliament shrieks with imbecility to the Home Office , which responds that cholera is not in its department , but duly commences to correspond with the Board of Health . Cholera is our great " internal enemy , " says the press ; and the press abuses Mr . Chadwick , and talks of " next session . " _ There is among the public uo tangible idea whatever of fighting this great internal enemy the cholera . The poor , penned into the streets like sheep in a

    slaughterhouse , await their doom , and take as well as they can the Dr . Southwood Smith style of advice—to live well : —advice to many as satirical as Queen Antoinette's reference of the Paris multitude to cakes . The rich are horrified because cholera is contagious , and not rendered less virulent by first nestling in the befilthed clothes of their humbler fellow-Christians . But the rich can go out of town ,

    and , being exhausted with seeing a great cantatrice perspire through her repertoire , and Spanish dancers struggle on a furnacestage through the idiotic contortions of what is supposed to be the expression of Iberian enjoyment , the rich do go out of townbefore they corrie back hoping to find that the Home Office or the Board of Health , they are not sure which , has done something .

    Clearly a great internal enemy is worth facing . If Louis ISTapoleon were to land on our shores with half a million of men , tolerably certain to slaughter some thousands of us , we should make an exertion , and no effort would "be too tremendous for ua if we had to calculate the probability of a Louis Napoleon , not being put down , coming over to us every July . Cholera is a very material thing—as material a thing as any other invader , or internal foe ; and it might not be throwing away our time at a period when the House of Commons has nothing to do but investigate

    printing machinery , if we were nationally to advertise for tenders for the supply of that sanitary organisation which would put down cholera . Money can do anything ; it is simply a question , are we wealthy enough to pay for the complete eradication of cholera ? Our house is very dirty , and we want our house put in order . To cleanse all the towns of England , Scotland , and ' Ireland , would not take much longer than it took the Egyptians to build a pyramid , or the Assyrians to cut a canal , and the Romans to made a road . And these works were accomplished by putting armies and nations to the labour . What Mr .

    F . 0 . "Ward calls the venous and arterial drainage of England could be accomplished in a week—if all England set to . Lord Palmerstoii had the courage , some time ago , to deal with Providence as a foreign power not coming within his jurisdiction and not in his department , and to recommend some Scotch clergymen , who prayed him to pray , to remain on their knees only for tho purpose of washing out tho domestic back-yard . Suppose , then , that her Majesty deoreed a national suspension of business , in order that throughout these realms we might have a great wash V "We aro spending in one year about

    15 , 000 , 000 Z . to maintain the " independence of Turkey . " Can we not afford that much more to cloanse England ?

    Savage Landor And Prince In Our Last Num...

    SAVAGE LANDOR AND PRINCE In our last number we said enough to indicate our respect for the character , career , and principles of Mr . Savage Landor ; and , in what wo have now to aay , liis friends "will understand ua to speak as a friend . Mr . Landor has boon writing in a contemporary ' s columns , a series of letters addressed to Prince- Krazinski , and dealing with questions of Polish politics . Mr . Laudpr aeoma to aaaumo that a successful " rising" in Poland ia imminent : and Uo diacuaaea tho

    question—what form of Government should be given to the liberated country ? He , a Republican , would appear occasionally ' adopt politics as " the science of exigencies ;" for he recommends a Monarchy . "Who , then , should be the King ? In his fourth letter ( which was published on Thursday ) he says : — " The idea of an English Prince upon her throne has haunted me ever since the reading of your letter . " The Duke of Cambridge , whom you propose for election , is respectable in private life , but

    inexperienced in political or military . He is guiltless of perfidy or of cruelty . If you think perfidy is necessary to kingcraft , you might perhaps find a Prince among his alliances" who has been beguiled into it by the blandishments of a barbarian ; if cruelty stands in the place of valour , one might "be pointed out who delights to be represented by artists in the midst of hares -with bloody noses , and stags in the agonies of death—one memorable in his earliest days of manhood for shooting down a dozen or more of these poor creatures , confined for the purpose within a high paling . "

    Now , we doubt if this reference is at all justified by any interpretation of the widest laws of political discussion . It is an allusion unnecessary to the argument , for the Prince in question could not be a candidate for this throne which is being thus prematurely put up in Mr . Landor ' s studio-auetion-rooni . But it is objectionable on other grounds ; in the first place , because no political writer has a right to insult those who cannot reply to him either by sword or by law ; in . the next place , because the " perfidy" is not proved , and the " cruelty" consists in the mere adoption of a

    " manly" custom of the time—shooting living things for human pleasure . A . wholesale slaughtering of stags was a novelty to us ; but the sport was not on English soil , and , had it been , would the cruelty have been greater than in the ordinary English case of a battue of smaller " game ? " Our nobles and gentlemen are just as cruel as the Prince ; and that is not cruelty at all which ia the thoughtless assent to a fashion of the time . Spanish ladies are not less womanly than English ladies ; and yet they enjoy bullfights . But for still other reasons we venture to

    protest against the tendency so often displayed by Mr . Iiandor to assail the English Court . As Liberals , we think loyalty an exigency ; and we have always regarded the attacks of the liberal press upon a powerful personage , who can have few sympathies with the aristocracy , and who might be induced to sympathise with the peojjle , as silly and suicidal . "We despair of mating Mr . Landor loyal , and wo should admire him less if he were to abate a jot of his finely impracticable classical Republicanism . But we trust it is not a hopeless attempt to suggest to him in England the observance of that discretion which he condescends to exercise in the instanco of Poland .

    Manufactures—Employment Of Paupeks. Mr. ...

    MANUFACTURES—EMPLOYMENT OF PAUPEKS . Mr . 1 <\ Lucas , the Member foT Meath , who would appear to bo greatly misunderstood in England , for though specially regarded as a . religious zealot , we find Ills name , in Parliamentary proceedings , invariably connected with n business-like proposal or n practical speech , is " on the paper" to call tlio attention of tho Houseof Commonsto tho subject of tho industrial employment of paupers In Ireland , —ft subject which ia obtaining more ami more consideration In England with reference to our own mendicity—and wo direct notice in advance to the matter in tho hope that tho question will be elevated out of amejo " Iriab debate . Tho English Radical and tho Irish " Independent" party mean identically tho aarao thingovon , wo bolievo , in regard to tho Roman Catholic question ) < u »<] if English members help Mr . Lucat thoy will be helping themselves . Mr . JLuciw wnnfcs tho same thing done in Irelanc which has been so successfully dono in Belgium—

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), July 29, 1854, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_29071854/page/13/