On this page
-
Text (3)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
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
THIS PICTURE AND THIS . AKmo- op Naples , abhorred by Europe , imprisons the noblest of his subjects in . subterranean dungeons , flogs them , tortures them , engages Swiss mercenaries to domineer over them ; is stigmatized by Mr . Gladstone as the instigator of inhuman cruelties , and by the Times as an abject bigot . His kingdom is full of melancholy and alarm .
A soldier of undeniably virtuous character , exasperated by private and public wrongs , impelled ~ b y self-devoted enthusiasm , strikes at the King with his bayonet , wounds him , and gives himself up without a struggle to certain death . The King , protected by the love of his subjects and a shirt-of-mail , goes home to be cured of his injury . ' His Majesty V
The soldier is dragged to a dungeon , stripped , bound hand and foot , and hung from a beam , head downwards . For two hours he hangs in this position ; lighted wisps of straw are applied to liia head and face . He is then hung up by the ears—a torture not known , we believe , to Cardinal Cabaffa or the Blackfeet Indians . He is forced to dance on burning coals . Boiling water is
thrown upon him , and then cold water . His shoulders are dislocated . He is scourged until his body is discoloured . Next , he is bound upon a plank , and dragged to the place of execution . There , in the face of day , he is , foully used , that a priest actually strikes his executioner . He is hung by the neck , and the King ' s official clings like a wild cat to his shoulders . ' Poor wretch 1 '
No one denies th at MiiiAKO was tortured ; but some people deny that he was tortured ia this particular way . "Well , there are four historical methods of wringing false confessions from agony . Perhaps Milaito had his choice . But ifc is too ghastly a joke to speak of the tenderness of the torturechamber . Once within that door , what
matters it whether his limbs were bruised in * the boot , ' or his finger-nails plucked out , or his scalp raised like that of Beatiiice Cenci , or his tendons stretched upon a wheel , or bis eyes started with a tight cord ? The ' poor wretch' lad pricked his Majesty , ' and his Majesty does not keep a Cabinet Inferno for nothing .
Untitled Article
IF ANDREWS , THEN KINGIAKE . Southampton has elected Mr . Richard Andrews . Tho returning officer has not yet sent up his name to the House of Commons ; but we understand that tho majority of tho electors have definitively made up their minds , and that thoir choice liaa fallen upon the townsman who was so many timoa their local chief magistrate .
Untitled Article
suffering the ceremony to proceed , suddenly exclaimed , in the carriage that was bearing her to church , that her heart failed her—that she must return home . She did return home , leaving everybody to labour at the problem . _ "What could have induced her to retract , when it was supposed that she was still attached to the bridegroom ! What ,
indeed ? The conjectures might be as varied as they are boundless . But that circumstance was not singular even in this country ; and if all the "World and his Wife held the family meeting which we have imagined , the same story would be told by many a bride , or nonbride , though with slight differences in the details . " How French I" we cry at the scene made by the bride in church ; yet the motives which interrupt the sacrifice at times are aiot limited to France . There is a certain constancy in these irregularities , and it would be an interesting social inquiry to trace , describe , and embody the anatomy of these anomalies .
fence to be good , and the judge declared the lady to be an Artemisia—only with a live Mattsomts ! " How French ! " we cry : yet , not long since , a case of breach of promise occurred in the English courts , very close in resemblance to this French case , and not altogether unprecedented in this country . The Siecle tells a romance of real life , which may serve as a comment on the German-Canadian marriage and its dangers . M .
Chables V- , the son of a wealthy merchant in Paris , was married to Mademoiselle Eugenie D — , only daughter of a manufacturer . Everything was calculated to make the union happy—with one exception . The wedding was brilliant , the banquet sumptuous , the ball in the evening splendid . In the midst of the dancing , however , the husband disappeared , and on her toilet - table the wife found a packet of letters and this note : —
" Madame , —If I had no right , in marrying you , to expect a sincere affection , since -we were but little acquainted with each other , I , however , looked for a heart which had never throbbed for another , and -which I might by assiduity and "tenderness in the end make my own . But a long series of letters from you to another man have just been placed in my hand—letters / which prove that if you give roe your hand , your affection has been given to another . I cannot , madame , accept such an arrangement , and as I am unable to rend asunder the bonds which have joined us a fewhours since , I . am determined to protest at least by my absence against the union which . I have contracted ; and the first day of your marriage shall be the first also of a widowhood -which shall only terminate by the death of one of us . Adieu , madame , for ever !"
How many presumptions do we detect in this letter ! The gentleman evidently expected to find hi the lady nothing hut the raw material which he . could mould to his own liking ; a passive , plastic clay . What right lie had to such sx . purchase we don't know ; "but in Prance the right seems to be conceded . Next day the bride was discovered dead in her chamber , from tlie fumes of charcoal ; and on the table lay this other note : — " Monsieur , —It is I who am in the wrong , and it is I , therefore , who ought to offer a reparation . I give you the only one that is in my power—I restore to you your liberty , and I expire imploring your pardon . "
The woman was a sacrifice to system ; but perhaps in this case the sacrifice is only more obvious and palpable than it is in many others . Many a wife , driven into marriage against her will , undergoes a continuous death in life , worse to bear than speedy extinction by charcoal . We know , nnd could relate , other cases , both in England and in Prance , resembling this in everything but the catastrophe . Not long since , a wedding party was assembled in church ; the assemblage probably was aa brilliant as that described in
A Canadian paper relates how a respectable German , who resides at Toronto , " came to this city [ Rochester ] a day or two since , to get him a wife . " He was a widower with three children , and he wanted some one to take charge of his household . Accordingly , "he made honourable proposals to . some girls about town , ' but without success . Girls in Rochester apparently do not catch at eligible marriages ! " ¦ At last he applied to Mr . Dttbtee , Superintendent of the County Poor , who took him to tbe County-house , and there introduced him to a clever German
girl about twenty years of age . After some consideration , she accepted the offer ; " at fonr o ' clock the couple i ^ ere " united by Police Justice Moore , and set off immediately for Toronto , apparently well pleased with each other . " Here was marriage before wooing ; and , considering all the circumstances , it is possible that if the Germans were sensible and good-hearted , the circumstances of a colonial life miffht" contribute to
cultivate a very fair amount of attachment . Well , that incident happened to Germans in Canada , but we know the exact parallel in England , and not in humble life . A gentleman , who has a title , paid a short visit to his native country in passing from one appointment to another . His receptions had lacked the adornment of a lady president , and he resolved to pick up one in passing . He accepted invitations to parties , and at a dinner party discovered the very object of his search . He proposed , was accepted , and now presents to a numerous and loynl public the very model of an English household .
When the "war broke out in France , a gentleman was summoned to accompany his regiment . A lady had conceived a very strong attachment to him ; and he must , in some degree , have encouraged that attachment , since in consenting to a * spiritual' union , he confessed that the lady had some claim upon him . She pleaded that he might be killed , and mig-ht never return , and that she had a strong desire to be so fav united with him under the Church . Accordingly , the very hour before his departure they were joined in
the different manners and customs of different countries , the totally dissimilar principles and objects "which people propose to each other in the several parts of the world . "We may trace the varieties to the different circumstances , social , political , or even economical . It would be necessary , in the present state of the world , to draw conclusions
' from very broad premises indeed , and not to attempt to draw them too strictly . In this country we most -usually allow something to personal inclination ; perhaps in the vast majority of cases liking is supposed to Tbe the real motive of the marriage ; but even in this country we could parallel some of the Btrangest incidents of foreign lands .
the story of the Siecle , the whole party was as gay , the match was as suitable , and that which was absent in the story just told was present in the case winch we are relating—the young couple were understood to be seriously attached to each other . They approach the altar , the ceremony proceeds ; the dignitary of the Church whose office it is asks the lad y , in her turn , whether she will take the bridegroom to be her wedded
matrimony by a worthy cleric . The soldier did his duty in the field of battlo , and came back ; but returning with a cool head , and reflecting more deliberately u pon the union , he appears to have Been tho objections more strongly than the advantages . ' At all events the spiritual union was not followed by a civil union . Tbe lady naturally thought this unciv \\ ; and , like Sappho of old , she pursued the retiring lover with importunities ; only mBtead of coucliing her Sapphics in verse , she embodied them in a process for " restitution
husband . Amazement and consternation , when deliberately but distinctly she answers , "No ! " There is , of course , ' a scene . ' What can be her motive ? They can the less guoss , since , instantly afterwards , she disclaims her denial , and implores that the ceremony shall proceed . The indignant family of the bridegroom , however , refuse ; the match is broken off , and tho lady—for the Bceno occurs in France—has no refuge but tho convent .
ot conjugal rights . " Practically tho husband pleaded that the lady had obtained possession ot him on false pretences , —that tho union -was effected with a view to tho contingencies of the battle-field , nnd on spir itual grounds , and ho was willing enough to accept tlio sentimental relation , but declined to accompany his concession with the endowment of his goods and chattels . The court held the
delliat scene occurred in France , and yet it occurred in England : with one slight difference , wo might use exactly the words which we have just omployed to tell tho same story over again , except that tho bride , instead ot
Untitled Article
66 THE LEADER / [ No . S 56 , Sattopay ,
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 17, 1857, page 60, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2176/page/12/
-