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Leader (1850-1860), 26th February 1853, Edition 1 of 1, Page 206, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      to bear on the petitioners , who , of course , would have resisted it , if it had ; and the petitioners , ex-oj / icio , are " all honourable men . " And now we come to the reflection , whether it is likely that in so many places men ' s minds should be unsettled on the main question of the day . Is all this " reconsidering of the matter * " at the last moment , a sign of the times ? and is it only in Chatham that a druggist , if examined , would have to say , " lam not aware that my

      son in the Post Office got his situation through Sir F . Smith , though it may be so , for I had asked Sir F . Smith to get him a situation P" Are we to understand that all classes are open to corruption , and that the real objection to the ballot is , that were it once in force , no more sons could be got into the Post Office , and no more sovereigns turned up in beds unaccountably ? One committee , by the way , we have forgotten . Samuel Carter has been turned out . But why P ¦ Not because he was not fit to be a senator , not

      even because he bribed ; but because he was not in a position to bribe . Let our protest be made in favour of Carter , as it was in favour of Kirwan —we have no affection for the man , but we will stand by the principle . If the want of a property qualification may turn out Carter , it may turn out Gavan Duffy , in whom we believe , and against whom there happens to be a similar petition , and it may turn out Englishmen as good as him . We happen to have heard , indeed , in " Westminster Hall one of the first parliamentary practitioners of the day remarking that Carter ' s mistake had been his attempting to prove his qualification ; that his proper course would have

      been to get up petitions against some five and twenty indispensable men in the same position , who then would have quieted the petitioners against him , if only he would have dropped the petition against them . And how long , we may ask , is this state of things to continue P iJord John Russell , just at present , seems to have nothing to do—let him direct his attention to the propriety of establishing the ballot , and abolishing the property qualification . Having dipped his hesitating feet in these two little streams , our Premier " unattached" will have more courage to take a " header" into the broad river of Reform next year .

      Untitled Article

      OUR PRACTICAL ^ MOllALITY . The English member of Parliament ought to possess a property qualification ; Mr . Carter does not appear to have done so ; he is declared not to have been duly elected . But the want of Sro perty qualification cannot be the cause of his is-election , since it is notorious that several English members are without that element . Of course , Mr . Carter was to be examined on that point , as other members are ; and he ought to have been prepared to reply efficiently . He was

      not prepared . Ln his examination his answers became so painful , that the chairman , with much gentlemanly feeling , took the matter out of the ands of counsel ; and after a very distressing exhibition , Mr . Carter was pronounced to be disqualified . But it was not the want of truth in his replies ; since we all know that there arc members in the House whoso pretended possession of the qualifying property is in itself a complete falsehood , that comprehends all Mr . Carter ' s abortivo attempts to make up the fiction ; but it is that Mr . Carter had not fabricated with

      completeness , and did not assort with aplomb . We teat causes by effects : tho non-possession of the property is a defect common to Mr . Carter and to other members : he # oes out , they stay iii ; tho difference being , that they arc masters of fiction , ho is not . Thus , we learn that tho qualification for a member iB a property , or a romance ; but tho honourable House won't tolerate fragments . So with votes . It is the usage to affect that members are returned by independent electors , not bv paid servants of thoir own ; but

      occasionally we discover , us in tho ciise of Bridgcnorth , that there is in England a custom of returning a man by means of his own paid servants . JNot , indeed , his resident servants j who must bo " sober , honest , and industrious , " and must know Iub diameter , and must , therefore , be able to givo . some guarantee of his fitness to legislate for a family on u large scale . No ; the election BorvantB arc hired for tho occasion ; and in respect to them , neither is tho usual question asked whether thoy aro sober , honest , and industrious , nOr is any character given . Thoy are hired for tho

      job . Their wages are exorbitantly high—enough to excite the envy of the regular servants . And it is by such persons that many of the members are returned . They pretend thatthey sit for thisor that borough , whereas they sit for what they pay . If you charge one of these Members with commission of bribery , you render yourself liable to a challenge for impugning his honour ; aiid if you talk of giving the suffrage to a working man , you are told that you will break down our glorious constitution .

      Anomalies like these in our representation are followed up in other relations of life . Recently there has been an immense sensation in England , because a couple of Tuscan Protestants have been in prison , while whole classes of Protestants are to be found in the same town unable to pursue their own observances ; and whole states of Protestants are abandoned by England to the Pope or his pet , the Emperor of Austria , almost without a murmur ; and then we boast of our national greatness and our Protestant zeal ! We boast also of our morality , whereof two

      examples are before us this week . The Society for the Suppression of Vice has been pursuing its avocation in routing out obscene prints , and the vendors are brought to justice ; but what will be the result if they are punished P Is it supposed that there will be less vice in this corrupted land ? The very name of the Society indicates the perpetual mistake of our moralists , who are ever " suppressing" vice , instead of eradicating its causes or removing the real circumstances that foment it . We had Rochesters

      and Buckinghams generations back , and prints from France , and plenty of naughty places for the idle and the debauched to frequent ; but it is the boast of our day that we have developed a factory system which associates the young in herds , binds them to protracted toil , and leaves them , between a working week and an " observed Sabbath , " no recreation but the orgies of a Saturday night , or the stolen pleasures which are yet more destructive . And the system is as efficacious as if we had matured and established a

      universal Rochester . Still we vindicate morality , as this other story will testify . A lad y proceeds against her husband for " restitution of conjugal rights , " and the Consistory Court orders restitution—the husband is " to take his wife home , and treat her with conjugal affection . " The very fact that such a pro ^ cess is possible is a scandal ; but that a Court should sitsolemnlyand publicly to execute it , forcing a woman upon a reluctant man , is monstrous . The wife

      however , unsatisfied , appeals again ; and the case is once more before the judge . An advocate is found solemnly to declare that the order of the Court had been complied with . " On the 26 th of January last Mr . Hakewell took his wife to his residence in Powis-place , where he had slept ever since . " Dr . Phillimore , however , said , that instead of having been obeyed , the order of the Court had been evaded .

      " Mr Hakewell had taken his wife to Powis-place , where two rooms were furnished for her on the second floor , Mr . Hakewell having a bed placed in the dining room with a strong iron-cased door to prevent communication between them . There were two servants in the house , but they had received directions not to obey her orders . Iii tbe evening she took jwsseasion of the dining-room , when her husband abuBed her 'in the blackest terms . ' She attempted to soothe him and to kiss him , when be declared it was an assault , and be would knock her down . "

      Dr . Phillimore left it to the Court to say whether he had treated her with conjugal affection ; and the Court asked for more information before giving its judgment on that point . But let us leave it to Dr . Phillimore and all the learned doctors to say whether the hideous process here described , this revolting admixture of law , curses , and caresses , is a true way of maintaining moral il . y .

      How strangely must foreign nations regard these traits of our manners and customs—this forcible seduction of a husband by a wifo under sanction of law—Miis special pleading of Protestantism—this protended wealth and proiended election of our legislators—this universal upholding of tho appearance- instead of the substance and the truth .

      Untitled Article

      CHURCH HARMONY IN SOMERSETSHIRE . Ovn attention has been called to certain ecclesiastical proceedings in Somersetshire , in which Mr . Georao Anthony Donison is a prominent actor ; and in taking notico of them , wo must bo

      understood as giving no opinion on the rightfulness or wrongfulnesB of the views of either party . We simply intend to narrate the facts as they appear on the face of a correspondence between Mr . Archdeacon Denison and some of the clergy of his archdeaconry . It would appear , that in his visitations to his clergy , the archdeacon insists on administering the Holy Communion ; and that at a visitation at Stogumber , held in 1852 , fourteen of the clergy remained outside the church during the purely religious proceeding , and after the blessing , walked in , answered to their names , and walked out again . Naturally Mr . Denison was greatly annoyed . ' ...

      _ _ _ ., ,, We ' ll , in 1853 , he desired to hold a visitation at Dunster Church , and to administer the sacrament . On the " Feast of the Circumcision" he wrote to the Reverend Mr . Luttrell stating his desire , expressing a hope that the strong objections to the introduction of the Sacrament would not present itself ; and asserting for the visitations a " purely religious character . " But in reply , he gets a document from thirteen clergymen of the Deanery of Dunster , denying in the first place , the " purely religious" character of the visitation ; and secondly , propounding the

      following difficulty to their archdeacon : — " That whereas , the Archdeacon , in his letter dated March 29 th , 1852 , used these words : — ' If any of the Incumbents object to this , or to the administration of the Lord ' s Supper , I am quite aware that I hnve no power to order either ; ' and in a subsequent letter , dated the Ascension Day , 1852 , wrote as follows : 'I have been advised on very high authority , since I wrote the letter dated March 29 th , that I have the power , as Visitor and Ordinary , to order what arrangements I think fit , provided that such be within the rule of the Church , on the days of my Visitation , and that the Incumbent of the church where the Visitation is held , is

      pro hac vice only one of the " visited ; " ' and that as these two opinions are so entirely opposed to each other , the Archdeacon be requested to point out the Canon or Act of Parliament which has induced him to depart from his opinion as at first expressed . " Further informing their ecclesiastical superior , that if he can make a satisfactory answer as to the legal authority , Mr . Luttrell will surrender Dunster Church ; and the clergy will " attend and answer to their names in the same manner as they did at Stogumber . " Tt must be admitted that this was rather a

      hard blow ; and Mr . Denison felt it . Acknowledging the resolution " with deep and painful regret , Mr . Denison revealed how deeply he felt the blow , by adding , with some temper , " I am not going to discuss questions of my lawful authority as Archdeacon with the clergy of my archdeaconry . " He knows his power now better than when he wrote his missive of the 29 fch of March . And he bluntly refers the thirteen clergymen—his clergymen—to the letter dated " Ascension day . "

      Well , having gone so far in the autocratic line , of course , tho guileless reader expects that this stickler for church authority will exercise his power . Not a bit of it . No ; he resolves , as a punishment to tho recusants , to hold no visitation in the Deanery of Dunster so long as this " unhappy state of things shall continuo ; " and appealing to public opinion , he throws upon Mr . Luttrell , and " others of my brethren , tho scandal and groat public inconvenience caused by

      your own proceeding" ! Hero is an anti-climax . Mind , we are expressing no opinion on either party ; but right or wrong , what a want of courage and confidence , what a lack of a logical perception of the duties of his position is hero displayed ! Ho knows his power ; he is placed there to exercise that power ; there is a case of contumacy , at least in his opinion , and—ho calls in tho public to judge the recusants and award tho punishment .

      We may draw one moral on our own necotint : docs not this Somersetshire transaction andly , but aptly , illustrate that scandalous anarchy of the Church of England which wo have ho ofton exposed P

      Untitled Article

      " A ST HA N ( i K R " 1 N PA RLIA MENT . A coalition iiovormnent , with an opposition consisting of one mnu only , presents this advantage to tlio puDUc , that it gets through business . Lust night tliei-e WJIB n wonderfu l amount of work got through—tho army estimates , for iiinl , ancc , travelled througb in an Unprecedented couploof hours ; and though all this usefulness 1 b unexciting and letwes tbo morning papers more unnccept *

      Untitled Article

      206 THE LEADER * [ Batubpay ,

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 26, 1853, page 206, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1975/page/14/