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Leader (1850-1860), 8th January 1853, Edition Town of 2, Page 39

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      Untitled Article

      of Protestant Protection . In September followed the scandals of the smuggled Chancellorship . In January an unholy affiance of discomfited Tories , disappointed converts to State-Churchmanship , Protestant bigots , and Protectionist Anglicans , with other even less respectable elements of obstruction , convulses Convocation , distracts the peace of parsonages , and puts professional and rural Masters of Arts to all sorts of trouble and expense—for what ? To satisf y the impertinent dictation , to flatter the inordinate pretensions , and to assuage the acrid suspicions of Mr . Archdeacon Denison and his strange

      associates on the one hand , and to do the dirty work of the Carlton and flaunt the flag of relig ious intolerance on the other . And as if the University were not in a sufficiently compromised position and could afford to sink still lower in public estimation , as if commissions of inquiry were not suspended over her head , and Parliamentary committees threatened , her dignitaries are found dealing in the meanest tricks of the

      dirtiest borough constituency : resorting to fraudulent electioneering manoeuvres , jockeying like Frails and Elewkers , bullying like Beresfords , and after forging fictitious candidates , adopting as the supplanter of Mr . Gladstone a crazy Chadband , quite as orthodox as insignificant . So underhanded and pertinacious , however , has been the canvass by the opponents of Mr . Gladstone , that his seat is really in danger , and he bids fair to share the honourable repulse of his great friend and master , Peel .

      It concerns all those to whom the good honour of the University is dear , to hasten at whatever inconvenience to the rescue . Whatever differences of opinion may exist about the temper or the consistency of Mr . Gladstone ' s political faith , it will not be denied that no representative more thoroughly identified with all that is best in

      Oxford , by genius , character , and education , ( and at the same time , more liberal in sympathies , and generous in tendencies , ) could be found to represent that University than William Gladstone . What can be said of his opponent , unless it be that he too fitly represents the motley crew who are making him the tool of their dishonesty , their folly , and their malevolence ?

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      THE GIBBET AS A PULPIT . Science has established the truth , that every living thing carries with it the seeds of its own destruction ; and that these seeds are facilitated in their germination , by contact with objects with which they sympathize and assimilate . IJistory furnishes abundant material to the investigator , and wherever we find this truth appreciated , there society is active in the work of preservation , by withholding food from the desolating parasite : henco the mission of the apostle of anti-nestilence , and of every grade of reformer ; and the fervent utterance or hope that we may bo led from temptation and delivered from evil , embodies the desire which philosophical

      research is teaching us how to realize . Yet , m the face of these facts , those whom wo would wish to regard as the wisest and moat learned in our land , have permitted a statute to remain upon the books , which orders that a public spectacle should bo made of the execution of a murderer , by way of example , to deter others from

      crime ; and , contrary to general experience , there are those who are , it would appear , so eager to be taught by example , that wo are informed by a contemporary , " at a late hour at night a crowd of the habitual attendants at executions assembled at tbo Old Bailey , " in the expectation of fleeing the condemned convict , ilorler , executed on the Monday morning following , " and although told the execution would not take plao / beforo Monday next , many persons pelted m remaining during the night , and at an early hour in arrivedand

      the morning additional numbers , many wore the peculations that a reprieve had heen Kent from the Home Oflire , others insisting that the execution would take place . The gates of the prison having l , een opened shortly before eight o ' clock , and several barriers brought out , the mob began to be * certain that the execution would take p lace , but it soon turned out that the barriers were required for the city of London election , and the crowd nt length wearily dispersed . " Wearily < Wirno < l . " I >« 1 they come there to stand through the long night , to witness a harrowing scene on iho morrow by way ol Lice For their own bIubP Did they convorne with each other , and speculate upon the awful debt the murderer had to pay V or , Did not these

      " habitual attendants " come again , some of them to feed an idle curiosity , and others to gloat their imagination upon the legal slaughter ? What example is it , then , when we find " habitual attendants , " and those not counted in tens , but in thousands ? Is it not an example rather for imitation than avoidance P The more hanging , the more crime , which the following figures from a Parliamentary paper will prove . In the county of Middlesex alone , there were , from 1810 to 1826 , 34 criminals convicted of murder and executed , notwithstanding 188 murders were committed . Prom 1836 to ' 42 , out of

      27 convictions only 17 were hanged , and but 90 persons committed for the crime . In England and Wales , all who were convicted of murder in 1815 , ' 17 , ' 18 , and ' 29 , were executed , and in the four years following , the crime increased to 12 per cent . In 1836 , ' 38 , ' 40 , and ' 42 , 31 were executed out of 83 condemned , and in the succeeding years the crime of murder increased 17 per cent . Weak natures , in the throb of excitement , yield obedience to the powers of contamination sooner or later , and the elements destructive to

      healthy instinct , which are found in the " habitual attendant , " thrive apace and receive continued supplies of food to satisfy their craving . The highwayman and burglar have manifold admirers , and the murderer who dies " game " is an example which , to the debasing and debased , leaves in their mind an image , not so much to be shuddered at , as to be contemplated and W&en of with a brutal zest . It is really worth

      while to act upon these well-known truths , although the subject has been discussed until it is threadbare . The work of improvement has been slowly going on , in the suppression of harmful theatrical representations . Why not then suppress the greatest and worst in the Theatre-Royal Old Bailey ? We have improved our treatment of juvenile offenders : have we not at last learned that it is not necessary to exhibit vice to the child whom we would make virtuous ?

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      AN EVENING WITH A PROPAGANDIST * ADDBESSED TO ANTI-SLAVESY LEADEBS AT HOME AND ABROAD . { Concluding paper . ) Yeaks ago , I sat one night on a platform , at a large public meeting in the North , to hear a gentleman of great talking-power mako an oration against certain indefinite industrial oppressors , who occupied villas outside the town . My friend was then a Member of Parliament , but some little service I had rendered him before he had dreamt of that elevation , had maintained a speaking acquaintance between us . Poor fellow ! he is dead now ; but he had an eloquent tongue . My friend that night made one of his best speeches . Even now tho melody of his noble voice resounds in my car . No music moves me like oratory . I , who can read Walkingame at the Opera , cannot turn my eyes one moment from a Master of Assemblies while a single cadence sways the human forest before him . This is an excellence which I could never imitate , nor even attain the point of endurable mediocrity ; but as many passionately worship the faculty they least possess , and worship it the more ardently as it is more hopelessly beyond their reach , so the admiration hero confessed to , arises perhaps from the despairing distance of the gift admired .

      The condition of the white slave was my friend ' s subject , and his generous heart bad a pulsation equal to the great theme , and be bad a great opportunity that night . The English Planter was there , part of tho audience , iw well as the factory Negro . Attracted by the reputation of " Parliament men , " they had come down " just to hear what had to be said ; " and the orator determined that they should " come for something . " And be kept his word .

      " Huvn'fc I given it them ? " he said to me , as he Hat down , amidst a storm of applause . " Yes , you Magnificent I Hock head , " I answered ; " and don't they tlmnk you for it ? Listen to that half-suppressed titlor in the boxes—watch the curl of satisfaction and contempt now playing on the cotton-lords' lips . Thertt read your triumph ! They should have turned ine twice on a gridiron before 1 would have done them the service of that Hpeech . Yon have afforded them a pretext for buttoning up their pookett * and keeping out of y our franchise agitation for six years more . " " What the devil do you mean V Come and coffee with me , and talk it over . " " What T mean is this , " I said , tho moment we sat down in the smoking-room of his Hotel ; " that you

      have made a very eloquent and a very useless speech . Had I your Atlantean shoulders , your imperial presence , your lungs of Mirabeau , I would have spoken like the voice of Nature to those men . My cadences should have had the ring of fate in their ears . It makes me mad to see you lay your Sampson ' s head on their Dalilah lap to be shorn at their discretion . " " Ah ! is that what you mean , Coldblood ? " he said ,

      in provoking indifference to my impetuous reproof . Then thinking some justification necessary , he added , " Look at the enormity of the callousness of these men to the misery around them . Their plethoric brains repose on down . If they would but open their windows before they sleep , they might hear the dying scream of famished poverty in the bitter night air . Gentleness , ' Ion / only pampers the evil . They overflow with indulgencies . "

      " For that very reason treat them tenderly . In a venal and ease-loving opulent middle-class effeminacy is strength . Only exaggerate their ninety-ninth vice , and their piteous cries will echo through all newspapers , and drown the next people ' s petition in St . Stephen ' s . Your brilliant outrage upon them will bring them newattentions . The town will forget their hundred sins of omission in its decorous sympathies for those who give dinners and vote places . The poor man ' s life may be one long series of aches and pains . Nobody thinks of that . It is his lot ; he is used to it . But if a rose-leaf is crushed under the cheek of affluence , all Town Councils and Corporations agree to an instantaneous vote of condolence . "

      " For that very reason , " said he , fiercely , " I would make them feel what wretches feel . " " That ' s just where you are wrong , my Greatheart . It is not worth your while making them feel what wretches feel . There ' s enough of suffering in the world already . Contrive to make wretches feel less . You can't force these men , except through blood , and that ' s a new and a worse mischief , not an amelioration . " " What better course can- I take than telling them the truth ? " he demanded , in a tone of acrid expostulation .

      " Beware of the Truth , my dear friend . Truth , alarming as the paradox sounds , is the weak point of the propagandist . As common men rise in adversity and fall in prosperity , so the advocate will steer clear through shoals of Error and sp lit at last upon the rock of Truth . He does this partly from a commendable reverence for truth , which be looks upon as a Deity , rather than as an Implement of warfare . None of us must deal in Falsehood—we are clear on that point : but Truth may be used at discretion . Out of all that we know to be true , we must take only so- much as will accomplish the end in view . A man rises upon a

      platform . He says he will speak plainly . The audience applaud . No one asks whether the orator will speak justly . The liar speaks p lainly , the ruffian speaks plainly , but we detest their perspicuity and their bluntness . A speaker rises on the platform . He says , he proposes to speak the truth . The multitude vociferate with ecstasy , " He will give it ' em . " No one inquires whether the orator will speak his truth to some purpose . It seldom happens so ; yet that is taken for granted by those ; who are so ill-informed as to believe that all truth is relevant . The . size of a

      town , Ihe length of the streets , the height of the houses , the colour of cabmen's gaiters , and the width of the vicar's brim , are all truths -iwd yet we would not take in that newspaper a second week that distended its leading articles with such inanities . Yet these truths answer all the requirements of tin ; populace . The facts cannot be denied . All is perfectly tn ^—and perfectly useless . Every fact is undeniablo and - ¦¦ unnecessary . Nobody can contradict them , and nobody cares for them . The Times newspaper was llm first to make a household word of the phrase " a

      great fact . " Before it ho christened the Auti-cornlaw League , thousands of persons in this country were unconscious that some facts were great and souks small . And to this day there are orators on our platforms who do not know Ihe distinction . And there aro people who applaud them for their ignorance . If you interpose to coned , this sublime folly , they cry out , MM you have no enthusiasm ! ' And thus enthusiastic men go on , with great noise , throwing pebbles , when the ag . J wants cool-headed , steady-armed giants to remove mountains .

      " Frost , " said he , with ones of those inimitablu wavea of tho head , that my plebeian toil-. stiuened . neuk would never accomplish— " Frost , there ' s a triilo of thaw in theo yd . ; but ' don't sco what you are driving af . Am I to take Cocker on the platform with mo , and work a Kulo of" Three Hum at every round of applause . Your theory would all run into culoulation . " Speaking , my dear Orator , in this quiet manner to you , one may say confidentially , what would l > o called dreadfully egotistical if uttered in tho ears of tho

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      January 8 , 1853 ] THE LEADER . 39

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      * Vido previous articles on tho " Anti-fcJluvt ) ry Aquation , " Leader , Nob . 180 , 13 &

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 8, 1853, page 39, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1968/page/15/