Current:

Leader (1850-1860), 23rd September 1854, Edition Town of 2, Page 900, Untitled Article

Page 900
Page 12
12 of 24

On this page

  • Text (4)
  • 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

      of licences upon proper application for opening houses of entertainment on the Sunday , for the special accommodation of excursionists , such ns those who visit Hampstead , Hampton Court , Epping Forest , Graveseud , Greenwich , or Itichmond . The Sunday licence would rest upon its own grounds ; might be made quite a separate affair , and might fairly bo bought for a separate fee . But at all events do not let us continue to debar the people of .. great towns from those rational excursions into the country which have been especially intended for them , by placing a parliamentary prohibition upon refreshments .

      Untitled Article

      VINE CHOLERA AND HUMAN MILDEW . *' The Church in danger ! " most assuredly , for " the jolly full bottle" has got the cholera . TV ^ e are scarcely using a metaphor . The dear black bottle , which gives its name as the designation , of the soundest parts of the Church of Englandj is sick ; it has contracted an hereditary disease ! The parent vine has been for a few years . under the influence of a serious malady , which , in the district of Alto Douro , - has affected the plants , probably to the number of 80 , 000 , 000 , has put in peril of actual destruction property estimated to be worth 4 , 000 , 0002 ., and has teazed proprietors and . wine dealers wibh the harassing question of a " remedy . " The history of the disease is interesting : —

      '"The . ¦ Alto-Dourb , " . says . Globe , following a . paper by Mr . ^ F . J . Forrester , in the proceedings of the jRoyal Society , " comprises a tract of very variable elevation ; at Baleira , the river runs- at an elevation of not more than 250 feet ; while the Sierra do Marao attains an elevation of 4500 feet from the level Of the sea ; the intermediate tract forming a long irregular basin , girt by granite chains , . arid thus protected from ¦ winds that might damage the vine . In . 185 L the season was favourable ; the vines were vigorous , aud produced pevfect . fruit , and the -vintage of that year was excellent . The following year was wet and cold , and a blight appeared on the vines ¦

      which were attacked at the rate of about one in every 1500 , and the vintage in that year was very inferior . Rain , sleet , ha 51 , and bleak winds , extinguished the spring of 1853 , and floods impeded the navigation . In June , however , the sun burst forth with intense vigour , leaving the nights very cold ; and again in Marchj 1854 , only half cargoes could be brought down the river Douro for -want of water . In the meanwhile , the plants suffered severely ; in many places the fruit withered , in others less exposed the grapes grew no larger than peas ; while some plants , again , continued to show their

      accustomed vigour . But it 5 s remarked that even these healthy plants , in most instances , show traces of the disease , even after the fruit - \ vaa gathered in 1853 . The grapes which at first promised abundance of wine were filled with seeds , each berry containing from three to five instead of two or three stones . The quantity and quality were seriously afflicted ; whereas 21 baskets of grapes usually produce a pipe of wine , in 1853 that quantity could barely be obtained from thirty baskets ; and whereas seven to nine pipes of ordinary wine give a pipe of brandy 20 per cent , above British proof , ' in 1853 fxorn ton to twelve pipes of ordinary wine were required . "

      The land whero the vine grows was formerly divided into two districts- —one in which the best wiues of distinct classes were produced , and the othor where wines were grown only to a small extent for local consumption and distillation . Now , the two districts have becoixie one ; the plantations of pines on the heights , and tho corn-producing valleys , having alike been converted into vineyards . In other words , human avarice has forced tho vine to grow , not only , aa it

      often does , by the side of tho more northern wheat , but by the aide of the pine-tree , to whose soil and climate- it is alien and repugnant ; . The vino Ima boon forced agninat nature , not encouraged according to nnturo ; and after that fact , wo aoo growing up within three short yoara a disease that threatens to deatroy the plant . It seems to originate with the unhealthy planta , and thence to bo communicated to tho healthy class . It is a sporadic disease .

      _ It evidently resembles in its nature the disease of the potato plant ; and it is a question even more important for some classes of the English people than the portwine question , whether the potato disease nuy not have been produced iu the same way ? Wo bad potatoes , and they flourished in the land : we forced them , to grow on imsuited soils , content to increase the quantity at the expense of quality ; and a disease springs up which threatens to destroy strong as -well as wealdy . Is this a " judgment" on men for attempting to overrrule the laws of nature ?

      The disease which afflicts the vine , like that of the potato , appears , according to very probal ) le conjecture , to resemble the great man disease of the present day—the cholera . According to " the Fungoid theory " of microscopical inquirers , man , like the potato he eats and the wine he drinks , is dying of a mildew . How far is this also to a

      judgment ? We force numbers to live in crowded neighbourhoods , which even if they were uncrowded would be wrong abodes for men ; and have we thus engendered a disease which Spreads even to the healthy ¦ quarters— -which , ¦ engendered-ia . Sti Giles ' s , invades St . James's , and carries off a Jocelyn as well as the anonymous thousands ?

      Untitled Article

      " Wliat a ¦ wonderful man my ———would be if he were not so frightfully ignorant ! " Lord Derby confirms that impression of hiin among his family , who should know him best , by remarking , at Liverpool , this week , that he was educated in the pre-seientinc period , and is , therefore , totally ignorant of '' science . " Lord Derby is not ashamed of his ignorance . The Tambov story would have ruined any other public man ; Lord Derby was the first to suggest " How the deuce should I know Tambov wasn ' t a port ? " He was educated

      LORD DERBY'S <> SCIENCE " A . KEiiATivE of Lord Derby recently said ,

      in the pre-geograplncal period , too . His notion , evidently is , that men should nob be expected to keep their knowledge abreast of their time . The English Peerage generally is the most ignorant class in Europe ; or Lord Derby would not have become premier peer . He is premier peer because he is so remarkably " smart "—making up for astounding ignorance . But Lord Derby should qualify his confession , as an ignoramus , by a reference to that notorious fact . He did not define

      " science ; " while it is well known that he is remarkably scientific — in his way — as a sportsman and a politician . At Doncasber , last week , the course beheld the singular spectacle of a great jockey getting mauled instead of caressed as he walked his winning horse from the post to the stable . Why ? He had sold , said the

      was Beresford Avhen he was kicked out of the War-office , as . was Stafford when he trembled before a Committee of Inquiry , as was Mackenzie when ousted from his sent for Liverpool . These different gentlemen were , like Mr . Scott , unfortunate : misunderstood , they were suspected—but wrongly . Of this they have given the most sacred private

      assurances . Yet , unfortunate Lord Derby !—so chivalrous ! yet served by jockeys so suspected ! Xe shall know a man by his acquaintance , says the proverb of the . pre-scientific period ; but if the proverb were good for anything , interpreted in a scientific period , it might be varied , in this way : Xe shall know the acquaintance by the man . According to the proverb , Xord Derby would be a Derbyite ; but the reduction of the proverb is this—that all the Derbyites are chivalrous ; which is absurd .

      When Mr . Disraeli , riding Protection , won Office , he escaped the fate of his colleague Scott—only Newdegate , and Butt , and one or two more , mobbed him ; it happened to be the " interest" of the general crowd that he should sell the agricultural stakes . But as in all these instances the Derby tactique is identical , we should be careful how we pet in Tory polities at present . Lord Derby has entered the horse - " Protestant , " with Mr . Disraeli ' s colours—shot silk—for the next Parliamentary races ;—there can be no doubt about that fact . We wonder what is the real aim ?

      mob , one race to win this—he had sold the Sfc . Loger cup to " bag" this third-rate handicap stakes . He was Lord Derby ' s jockoy ; and the reporter who chronicles the scene observes with fine irony— " The public indignation was so intense that it was very fortunate Lord Derby had left the town . ' " ' Lord Derby had started by train to meet tho men of science at Liverpool .

      We disdain tho malignity which suggests that Lord Derby was par-biceps of the " " sell " with hia jockey . Lord Derby k chivalrous on tho turf aa on tho floor of tho Houao of Lords . But wo irmy remark without oiFenco tho singular similarity of Derby iam on tho turf and Dorbyiain on poiitiea . Scott , tho jockey , or trainer , ia a Major Buroalord—a StaUbrda Porbea Mackenzie—iu short , a Derbyito . Wo do not for a moment imagine that Scott could " sell" a race : mobbed at Doncnator , he was just an much tho victim of a Coulitiou ;\ a

      Untitled Article

      SHEFFIELD—ITS TOWN COUNCIL AND ITS POLITICS . Accident gave me ten days' leisure in Sheffield , and curiosity induced me to devote it to the Town Council . 'The Council . Chamber , decorated somewhat in the stylo of the Pompeian House at tlie Crystal Palace , possesses hountiful accommodation for visitors and auditors , and is an agreeable interior . The Council , an animated and pungent body , occupy one end of the Chamber , and administer local affairs and animadvert on each other with an energy peculiar to Sheffield .

      On this day a refractory Councilman had given notice of motion on the conduct of the magistrates , in having refused the lessee of the theatre her license because she had let it to a gentleman from Ohio , who had delivered certain lectures considered by the Bench not up to tho magisterial standard of orthodoxy . Mr . Alderman Dunn , a rollicking , unctuous species of political pedagogue—one of those cacchinatory saints who , if he roasted you at all would roast you with a guffaw—openly declared on the Bench that the license could not be granted because the theatre had been let to Mr . Joseph Barker , the heretical lecturer from Ohio . Whereupon Mr . Isaac Ironside , the aforesaid refractory

      Councillor , gives notice of motion of censure upon the Bench . Between the period of giving notice and debating the said motion , tho Bench—as Aberdeen did lately byLayard—forestal the Councillor—the Bench redecido Mrs . Scott ' s case ( tlmt is , the case of the lady who is lessee of tho theatre ) upon new grounds ; they find her son , the manager ' s , conduct defective in secular particulars—the religious reason is thrown over—Mr . Alderman Dunn Is instructed to eat the leek in public , which he does , nnd doclares that ho merely spoke his own individual opinion—not that of tho Btinch . This was somo atonement to public opinion and right principlo , but tho discussion in Council proccedod nevertheless .

      Tho mover of the motion indulged his colleagues with fucta of persecution beginning with the Epifltle to tho Hebiows—taking Wiekliu" on tho way' —»«*! then coining down to tho motion . Tho Mayor very naturally thought this unnecessary , but hi « modo of saying' so was a no loss astonishing digression from tho record of oflleiul dignity . " With looks of contempt and words of intonso irritation , ho charged the speaker with concealing the- later decision of tho Bench . Ho , the Mayor , ruled , and very properly , that the Epistle to tho Hebrews and WlcklHf might bo diapensed with , but added , " You know very well

      Untitled Article

      900 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 23, 1854, page 900, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2057/page/12/