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    connected with the state of a nation ' s digestion . It would not be very unreasonable if the English , dog-days were to be explained as that particular period when everything goes to the dogs . " When the sun , whom we get in reach of in this month , bursts out in his full glory upon us , \ re 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 cloth jug 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 hysenas were to re-appear in Yorkshire . " We are in our close houses , in our dense towns , —in our black coats , our thick neckerchiefs , our flannel shirts , and our heavy shoes—and with our overloaded digestions . We haveno organisation to get sleep at night , and we iare without those delicate contrivances which enable

    Europeans , even in . 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 , misogyny sy 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 Oronstadt , and incoherently why Lord Aberdeen don't" resign . That is what 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 is 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 , at least consider ourselves fortunate that Prince Albert ( who is always represented by liberals as an enemy of our conspicuous self-goveraineut ) has not as yet attempted thnt coup V 6 tat which , at such a moment , would be so sure to succeed . The British lion is iguominiously limp .

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    CHOLERA . OnoiiEEA . is like corn ; its harvest is dependent upon the sun . It springs from tho sun upon each section of our globe as wo circle round the sun . They had a hot season at Barbadoe 3 the other day ; and in Bridgetown , out of a small island population , it killed 10 , 000 people . It has been -very hot in 10 , 000 people . It has been -very hot in

    New York , and it is doing its work there with deadly celerity . In the East , and Ave fear , among our troops and sailorsthoro , it is raging . Where there is most hoai ; in England there there ia most cholera , and tho disease is tho moat alarming in tho towns which are hot during both night and day ; tho atmosphoro being , ns it were , boiled in the street caldrons—where it simmers , stonch . es , and lulls .

    The people nro getting frightened theso Oog-dnyB , and they exaggerate the danger . Kut there-& danger , mid no doubt wlmt everybody saya is true— " something must bo done . What ? Our people are so unliko what the old English pooplo usod to ho , are so unorganised both municipally mul nationally , that they are crying out helplessly

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    SAVAGE LANDOR AND PRINCE . In our Inst number wo said enough to indicate our respect for tho character , carcor , and principles of IMr . Savago Landor ; and , in what wo havo now to Bay , his lYionds will understand ua to speak na a friend . Mr . Landor has ocoa writing iu u contompomry ' B columns , a series of letters addressed to Prince Kivmnski , aiad dealing with qucations of Polish politics . Mr . Landor scorns to assume that a euccesaful " rising" in Poland is imminent ; and ho cliacuasoa tho

    question—what form of Government should be given to the liberated country ? He , a Republican , would appear occasionally to adopt politics as " the science of exigencies ;" for he recommends a Monarchy . "Who , then , should be the Bang ? 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 priYate life , but

    inexperienced in political or military . He ia gitfltless 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 deh ' glitsto 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 clown 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 t ~ he widest laws of political discussion . It is aii allusion unnecessary to the argument , for tlie Prince in question could not be a candidate ' . for this thrqne whicli is being thus prematurely put up in Mr . Landor ' s studio-auction-room . But it is objectionable on other grounds ; in the first place , because no political writer has a righb 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 iu the ordinary English case of a , battue of smaller " game ? " Our nobles and gentlemen are just as cruel as tlie Prince ; and that is not wnelty ah all which , is 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 . Iandor to assail the English Court . As Idberals , 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 , aud who might be induced to sympathise with the people , as silly aud suicidal . AVc despair of making Mj \ Landor loyal , and we should admire him less if he were to abate a jot of his finely impracticable classical Republicanism . But wo trust it is not a hopeless attempt to suggest to him in England tlie observance of that discretion which ho condescends to exercise in tho instance of Poland .

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    MANUFACTURES—EMPLOYMENT OF PAUPERS . Mb . r . Lucas , tho Member lbr Month , who would appear to be greatly misunderstood in England , foi though specially regarded as a religious zealot , we find his name , in Parliamentary proceedings , invnriub ) y connected with a business- ! iko proposal or n practical speech , is " on tho paper" to call tho attention of tho Ilouseof Commons to tho subject of tho

    industrial employment of paupers in Irolan < l , —ft subject which is obtnining niorc and more consideration in England with reforenco to our own mendicity—and we direct notice in advnnco < o tho imittoT in tho hopo that tho question will bo elevated out ofamero " Irish debate" The English Kiulicwl and tho Irish " Independent" party mean identically tho flamo thingoven , we believe , in regard to tho Koiuan Catholic question ; ami if English mojnbera holj ) Mr . L \ icaa tboy will bo helping themselves . Mr . Lucas wants tho aaiuo thing dono in Ireland Avhloh has been so successfully dono in Belgium—

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    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 eneaiy , " says the press ; and the press abuses ISlr . Chadwick , and talks of " next session . " There is among the public no

    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 . Soutlmood 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 befiltlied clothes of tteir 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 , tlie rich do go out of townbefore they come 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 Iiouis Napoleon were to land on our shores with half a million-of men , tolerably certain to slaughter some thousands of us , we should make an exiertion , and no effort would be too tremendous for us if we had to calculate tlie probability of a ILouis ] S " apoleon , not being put down , coining 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 nut 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 aucl nations to the labour . "What Mr . V . O . "Ward calls the venous and arterial drainage of England could be accomplished in a week—if all England sot to . Lord Palmerston lmd the courage , some time ago , to deal with Providence as a foreign power not

    coming within Ins jurisdiction , and not iu his department , and to recommend some Scotch clergymen , who prayed him to pray , to remain on their kneea only for the purpose of washing out tho domestic lack-yard . Suppose , then , that her Majesty decreed a national suspension of business , iax order that throughout thoso realms we might have a great wash ? "We nro spending in ono year about 15 , 000 , 000 ? . to maintain tho " independence of Turkey . " Can wo not afford thnt much more to cleanso England ?

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    July 29 , 1854 . ] THE LEADER . 709

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), July 29, 1854, page 709, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2049/page/13/