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Leader (1850-1860), 24th May 1851, Edition Town of 2, Page 488, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      replace these ? Have not hotel-keepers also that in custody which never can be restored by a mere money-payment ? When , the theatrical wardrobe in the theatre is consumed , though insurance money to the full value be paid , what can reimburse the lessee or proprietor for the loss of time and profit ? And when a large factory becomes a heap of ruins , though all be covered by the policy , where is the machinery to be obtained again on the instant ? Where the premises for the conduct of the work ? Where is employment to be found for the thousands suddenly launched upon the world to starve ?

      We conceive parties thus indicated should call on Mr . Pnillips to afford them a full , entire , anri satisfactory solution of all doubt on the subject of this important invention ; He may go on tor ever at Vauxhall , or elsewhere in a house of hi . « own construction , and he will not set the question at rest as to his power over what objectionists term " a genuine fire in a dwellinghouse . " Let , then , the parties to whom we have referred provide a house as large as they pleasethere are plenty to be obtained just about to be

      pulled down , and they would only have to indemnify the owner . Let this house , in addition to its already dry and inflammable materials , be filled with all sorts * of combustibles ; let a committee be appointed who shall hold the key of the building until it be fired . Then , when the fire is blazing , let Mr . Phillips be invited to put it out with his " Fire Annihilator . " If he fail , he will have shown that his invention is unequal to great occasions ; but if he succeed , as we verily believe he would , then he will have proved himself one of the greatest benefactors of mankind .

      Untitled Article

      AN APOLOGY FOR CAPTAIN SOMERSET . Captain Somerset ' s case is a hard one , in spite of the sound views and the general concurrence which have supported Mr . Hardwick ' s judgment . It is a hard one , because there appears to he no sufficient reason why he , Paulet Henry Somerset , should be singled out as the living sacrifice to justice . The constant practice of an opposite kind was odious and barbarous ; still , taking the body of our police-law in such matters , and interpreting its intent hy the long-established usage of the police bench , it did imply a sort of right for the individuals . Whatever the purpose of the law

      which gave the alternative of imprisonment or fine , unquestionably it was open to the interpretation that the rude excesses of the vulgar were to be repressed by the stringent alternative , but that a discreet indulgence was to be allowed for the excesses of the well-connected ; and that interpretation was the one given in judicial practice . The rare and signal exceptions just sufficed to keep the usual interpretation steadily in mind . The Somerset class , therefore , were endowed with a full right to count upon a usage so long established , and fortified hy a very intelligible rationale . For , observe , to be well connected is to be connected with the magistrate-appointing class .

      Now it does not appear that the new case presents anything so extraordinary—so cruel , so wanton , or so surmounting precedents of the same kind—as to make it , ex facto , the suggester of a new law . Quite the reverse ; it does occur to our memory that there have been far more outrageous cases in the annals of noble families—a wrenching of knockers altogether uncalled for ; a sowing of wild oats on the heads of policeman in a manner most injurious to the blue-coated health ; a sportive obtrusiveness in gaming-house j " shindies , or a kissing of Cockney ' s wives and sweethearts in the

      streets at midnight—all of which might be deemed to constitute precedents so distinct and strong , that Captain Somerset may be said to have kept , most creditably to himself , far within the licence conceded to hiN class by the tact and courtesy of the bench . We discern no malevolence in his offence ; if there was some aristocratic insolence on hia purr ,, it is within the bounds of imagination to conceive an insolence not aristocratic among those lords of the creation who are dressed out in blue coats and brief

      authority , and whose breasts are dilated with the desire to ful / il their duty and to fill out coats cut on , the military pattern . It does happen sometimes that ambition of this sort assumes a very offensive shape , particularly when it threatens to involve an antagonist in the ridicule of an overthrown cabriolet and the mulct of an injured horse . Somerset's case , Lbcrelon-, was not " one of those clear , unuiiHtakable , Hurpaswing and monstrous outrages which manifestly trantigreas the boundu of judicial indulgence .

      Then why single him out ? You may say that the incidents of the Crystal Palace had made it peculiarly necessary to enforce order without respect of persons ; but you can only urge that plea by confessing that heretofore justice among the great body of the People and the feelings of the humbler classes have been less precious than the glass house . Admitting the plea , too , does not mitigate the hardship to Somerset ; it only means , that , instead of being a living sacrifice to justice , he is a living sacrifice to the safety of the Crystal Palace . Nor , it is to be feared , will his castigation stop with the completion of his sentence : it is said

      that his undergoing a punishment with common offenders , will oblige him to leave his regiment ; and there is only too much probability in the representation . It would seem that the chivalry of the mess is not outraged by conduct which renders " an officer and a gentleman" deserving of the House of Correction ; but to incur the penalty is an unpardonable offence ; and Captain Somerset expects to be cashiered by the inexorable judge whose tribunal is the dining table . Now this is manifestly going beyond the record ; and those who support Mr . Hardwick ' s upright judgment , are bound to see that no ulterior tyranny be

      inflicted upon the transgressor . How prevent ifc ? There might be various modes of prevention . For example , Captain Somerset might have the distinct permission of an official " understanding" to challenge any brother officer who should allude to his residence in Coldbathfields . Or if there is some repugnance to opening a series of duels , the difficulty of his case might be

      met by neutralizing its singularity : let him have leave of absence for a year , and , in the interval , let the new law proclaimed by Mr . Hardwick ' s deci sion be enforced with uniform rigour ; and thus , by the time Captain Somerset returns from his travels , he would find so many companions in the new illustration of equity , that no question would be raised at the mess table as to the tenure of his commission .

      Untitled Article

      LIMITATION OF THE MALTHUSIAN CONTROVERSY . Certain correspondents , all of manifest ability , and one of such qualities as command our most earnest affection and deepest respect , laise special questions on the conduct of the Malthusian controversy ; and we cannot withhold a reply , which may aid in forwarding- a discussion so useful . In what we say let us not be understood as attempting to exhaust , or settle , or in any way determine the

      question ; that cannot be done in a newspaper , and we must refer ( he reader to the next truly great book touching on the subject—John Mill ' s expected Sociology , or Herbert Spencer ' s sequel to Social Statics . We scarcely attempt even to " reply , " in the sense of settling the special points . That is not the function of passing controversy ; but rather to suggest some considerations for adversaries as well as friends in future for the working out of points . What we say is addressed to all collectively . E . R . is too wide in his assumptions . It is not necessary to be assured that Government would altogether repudiate the business of production ; indeed that function is already included , now , in the prevalent idea of Poor-law reform , as it is upheld by numbers of-practical men in all parts of the country ; and it is included in the most intelligent views of prison reform . E . R . should also bear in mind that no adherent to the principle of Concert would recognise Competition as n healthy or just measure of value . The acts of modern / civilization have not been tried in accordance with the principle of concert , and therefore we cannot judge from the paHt to the future . We sec , at tbia moment , millions toiling the whole

      day , to effect work which , under an o-conoinical distribution of industry , a few hours would Jsnfliee to accomplish ; we ftee millions of square miles of fertile land , witlifn "thepoHHessionsof her Britannic Majesty" —n <* y » are there not millions of acres in this land of England unused or half-ti . scri ? Now while the world i . s thliH disorganized , tee say—Then ; \ h no <| iieHl . ion of too many ; but the question is of work undone , or il 1 . done . Do > our work better , and there is no question of " surplus population . " Therefore the practical precept , for the public , writer , is not . to get the number reuiiccdj h \ V . the work belier peiforimd . In a boar , with one b ; ig of biscuit , a great voyage to go , and too many to feed , it may be justifiable to keei > down the population ; but with lands untilled , or half tilled ,

      and empires unpeopled , such projects are , at least , ill timed . If , in the distant future , philosophy discerns some inevitable collision of organic laws , let her devise the means of avoidance ; but that is a question for discussion , not practice . If , under existing social arrangements , a man " cannot support a family , " he has no business to marry ; but that is a question for practice not theory ; and to admit such a dilemma as the expedient of a fundamental truth is empiricism , not philosophy . It is necessaryin practical administration , to follow out great

      , truths into their working details , before we make laws-, but actual details , however urgent they may seem to us as individuals , however tyrannical and inexorable , do not prove the truth or justice of the system that permits them . A Hindu ryot cannot escape from the horrible system that binds him to the earth and grinds ihe faces of his class ; but his inevitable duties , under the circumstances , no more establish the soundness or truth of the Indian social system , than the incapacity of a Paislev youth to find employment repeals the law of Paul and inia school

      that makes the story Virg a book in every human family . 'Ihe Malthusian appears to us engaged in an impracticable enterprise . Water will not turn back , up the backbone of Lincoln > hire , however much there may be in the fens ; and it appears to us as idle to attempt a change in the essential instincts of human nature , as to revoke the attributes ot water . The Malthusian ' s " success " is attended by evils worse than the evils which he deprecates , worse than war and famine— in degeneracy of men , prostitution of women , and discord of class with class . Thus far in the march of mankind , we

      have come to no such thing as a genuine " surplus population ; " if industry is debarred its fruits , it is by lack of intelligence to expend its labour upon a proper field , or by unjust laws , which divert the fruits of industry to the pampering of indolence , and to that end . prevent the organization of labour . The seasons come round for man , as for the inferior animals ; the land is always here , and its produce , rightly cultivated , more than spans the cycle of theseasons ; man ' s industry is in hisown bands ; and thus far , we say , if he were true to himself , he needs not to take thought of the morrow , since God has always provided for that morrow . Are we to doubt that he will continue to do so?—nay , to presume that he will not ?

      Or if , in the immensely distant future , some time shall arrive when the limit of that provision shall be reached , and the human race shall cease , as other races have ceased and passed away , then , as we have said before , we have not the shadow of a fear that that future will be any such miserable abortion of a millennium as crude Malthusian notions are helping to make the present . The error of the Malthusian lies , lirst in supposing that the cardinal point of their doctrine is proved to be a fundamental truth , whereas it is a fact still in

      question ; next , in assuming that , if it be true , they have discovered the remedy ; thirdly , in assuming that their " truth" is trie active cause of evils manifestly arising from imperfect regulation of labour—that the divorce of idle paupers from the idle or half-idle lands of scant-pursed farmers , or insolvent landlords , is an exampleof evil arising from " surplus population . " They mistake the time for their drama : their discussion bears upon the distant future ; but there is something else which presses just now , better understood for not being mixed up with that ulterior question .

      Untitled Article

      " AUSTRIA" AT THE EXPOSITION . " Sor . uiKiis , the contest will be short ! " Such is the sentence recorded from Kadetzky ' s address to his army , and inscribed on the statue which stands , like a sentinel , at the entrance of the Austrian department , in the Exposition . You ciltfr *** Austria , " thus guarded , to nee what it contains , and what ih it that you find ? Where is " Austria" ? The first thing that you encounter is an assemblage of sculpture , but the name of Monti , Fraccaroli , and Pierotti are not Austrian ! Milan

      hua chiefly peopled this room . Bohemia , too , represented there , but the Bohemian repudiates Austria . If there in u genuine Viennese name in the place , the work attests the minerable inferiority of the umall Hection which gives u title and government to " the Austrian empire . " You go into the glash room , and find that you are still in a department alien from Auttiiii .: that manufacture , which has peculiar beauty , which has excelled Venice—Venice also is merged in "Austria "—arid han given a type to modern Kurope , i a Bohemia .

      Untitled Article

      488 © f > * Smaller- [ Satubday ,

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), May 24, 1851, page 488, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1884/page/12/