On this page

• Text (2)

  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.

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • 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.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    A 2 Ipswich—Maria Stewart , for wilful murder of her female child ; acquitted . Aug . 3—Bodmin—Mr . Baron Platt , in charging tbe ^ jrrand 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 oflspring ; and if they ( the grand" jury ) should be of opinion that a bill ought to be found , and if the petty jury 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 .

    Aug . 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—Well ?;—rMary 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 ta 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 ndt 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 . There are many ] jmpier , fections intfre working pf the trial fry j ; ury ; ,-, font to give it up would be to , give up tb . e great practical guarantee for political and individual freedom . A proposition of that kind therefor © we may dismiss as beside the question .

    There is , however , a much deeper question involved in this inquiry of the Morning Chroniole , When infanticide , to say nothing of the othep vices , is growing to be a national characteristic , we have tangible proof that there is some fatal flaw 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 wo aro nob at present prepared to admit ; or a people not thoroughly depraved in mind and heart is driven to such straits that it violates the strongest natural instinct—that of the mother to preserve her child . And that is the fact . No sooner do wo

    come upon this bare rock of fact than we pcrcoivQ how the question branches out into otliorH . At tho root lies inexorable poverty ; which is almost invariably the one cause that compels tho mother to her unnatural crime . If wo had a sound poorlaw—by which every able bodied person might have access to reproductive employment- —wo should hoar little of infanticide . Let us but tf lanee at that branch of tho Bubject , without Pursuing it at present .

    Anothor cause of the compulsion to munlor is Hiiamo . By tho moral code of the day in English Hoeiet , y , a shame more agonizing to enduro is felt m the birth of a child without tho previous eerottiony of marriage , than in that violation of natural Jaw by which tho mother , destroys her own oif-Hpring ! Jieljgion has so little done its work ; , that ' <> conceal her misdemeanour from tho Bight of jnnu , tho mother will violate tho lawn of nature , tho decencies of her . own soul , in tho sight of God . " <> touches tho national faith , in every Hohool whore tliut faith in taught ; and yet tho teachers ° i that truth will not carry it homo to tho oars ftnd hearts of those who constitute their charge , unless they , the hearera of the truth , aro duly paid for it in current coin of tho realm * Gtod

    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 .

    Untitled Article

    SOCIALISM AND ITS NEWEST TRADTJCER . 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 News , 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 econom ical 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 lie had crushed " Bed EejyuhlicamBmandSociali&m , " synonymous in official mouths with disorder and pillage , in Prance , ( an assertion wnich Emile de Girardin so triumphantly refuted last week as to cut the ground from under the feet of the Saviour of Society , )

    the Daily News objects , with shrewdness and good sense , that the Bonapartists in France always speak of those two things , " with a convenient vagueness , " as the same ; and the English writer proceeds to discriminate and correct . " Bed Republicans , " we are told , " those unreasoning blunderers who always appeal to arms , and to arms alone . Their only idea , their only mission , ia destroying' by brute fdrce what * ever -exists , ' or 'Whatever ¦ has - incurred' thefr enmity . > ' f * ( such ! ttian there' la only ode way of dealing 1 . * Inaccessible ^ to Ar gument , 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 cloBe description of the political sect whose origin is too recent to have escaped the memory of all writers ;' but we are not theCless disposed " 66 accept the conclusion . A more exact description ot " Red Republicans , " setting aside the odious associations which the name suggests , would be , that they were so called from hoisting a red flag , 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 J uly , 1830 , who had so done their work by halves , that , after eighteen

    years , it had to be done over again ; and to the " Moderate" Republicans of February , who had temporised with tlie Reaction , until a crouching phuntom of treacherous compliance hud become an amalgamated Party of Order , avenging panic by persecution . We aro hero describing tho " Red" Republicans , us they describe themselves in their more reasonable und discreet moments . We puss by without comment tho fundamental folly of making " tho Republic" a standard of patriotism , an empty name , without tho virtues it demands , und tho liberties it is supposed to iniurantco—a form of governmontwhioh in Franco

    Iiuh never yet been dominant , but as a revolutionary dictatorship , under which freodom wus a bye word and . citizenship a curse . Tlmro i «/ however , lot it bo avowed , another " Red ! ' Republic * to which wo may suppose ouir contemporary heroi alludes . That Rod Republic is . an , odious , a Haunter , a fatal ' anachronism : it in tho impotent plagiarism of a gang of demagogues , who neck to cloak their isolation in turbulence , and their barrenness of thought in revolutionary t " argon . Lamurtine , in the noblest moment of lib lifV , covered that ilag with shame , aad swept back into tho foul kennels of crimo the scum that had polluted for a moment tho pure air of

    freedom . It is not , we rejoice to aflirm most emphatically , 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 discontent , its cowardly hankering after terrorism , its stale vocabulary , and its coarse and barren formulaft 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 we 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 Eranceritis 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 well as " Red" Republics . Absolutists , Bonapartists , Royalists ot 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 tbose 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 , d 6 es wen , and deserves our thanks . It is the periidious conjunction of the two by tho Saviours of Society which has thrown dust in the eyes of the great inert mass of the public , who do not judge for themselves , and who are ready to bo scared at any bugbear . How often shall wo repeat that Socialism is essentially an ideal revolution , an intellectual and morul doctrine , an industrial and

    economical problem ; that it has no more to do with political revolutionists than any other phase of economical science P The conservative politician , tho orthodox churchman , may quite as reasonably and properly be Socialists as the democrat in politics und tho free-thinker in religion : und there is no more reason why the latter should bo , than that tho former should nut be Socialists . In

    this country it is well known that many of tho most orthodox of our clergymen , and many of tho most tory of our politicians , are Socialists in . all but tho name ; and tlio name they abjure jih " revolutionary . " So far from Socialism being destructive , it is in tho strictest sense conservative , since its operation tends to universalize the " something to conserve ; " till , as Lear says" distribution shall undo excess , And eiich mini have enough . " Ill socking to abolish pauperism , Socialism eonservatizes ( if we may so nay ) the now " dangerous" classes . Whether it take the form of co-operative self-employment , or of mutual us-Huraneo universalized , it in equally harmless and equally sound . But when it is considered as the attempt to reconcile the laws of society , which in tho work of man , with the laws of Immunity , which is tho work of God , th ' on Socialism , in its largeit acceptation , an u grand peaceful transformer / way bo held worthy of the respect , of tho Statesman , " the Philosopher , and iho Priest . The writer of theso lines has seen revolutions and revolutionists too closely not to desire to clour the ouuso of social amelioration from a fatal contact j und ifc ia due to the Leader , and to tho caiwo for which , wo etrivo agoirut that .

    Untitled Article

    September 11 , 1852 . ] THE LEADER . 873

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 11, 1852, page 873, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1951/page/13/