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Leader (1850-1860), 24th January 1857, Edition 1 of 2, Page 85, Untitled Article

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      off from his labour , is not a pauper ; but if he must give up his home , and pawn , his tools , before he is entitled to relief , that is the way to make a pauper of him . Say what you will about the necessity of protecting the ratepaying working classes against the encroachments of the idle ; the fact answers you , that the unemployed in London are not idlers , but industrious labourers and craftsmen , who "would work if there were work for them to do . If such a proposition contradicts our political economy , our

      pomen , at least by every individual of the multitude in succession . Perhaps the parishes will then adopt the principles of modern economical science , and , by a system of parochial assurance , greatly relieve themselves , and confer independence on the poor .

      litical economy is wrong . The complaints at Smithfield refute it — complaints of the starving , which can be neither jested nor equivocated away . "We do not need to be told that the Socialism of famished open-air orators is a farrago of stale delusions ; that some of the Smithfield speakers have dug up an old fetiscb , and expect it to work a miracle . There is nothing new , nothing startling , in the Common-Property , or Common-Poverty doctrine . It is simply as old as the earliest Fathers of the Church . But

      it is a graceless undertaking to satirize the intellectual pauperism of men who " wait for alms or death . " " Whatever fallacies may lurk in their system of ideas , quite as many prejudices infecb the dogmatism of their opponents / They have done nothing to deserve reprobation ; on the contrary , they have displayed a spirit of moderation above all praise ; and , as for their social hopes , they are not one tittle more visionary than those political alarms -which made

      "Wellington exclaim , " I could gnaw the flesh off my bones ! " simply because the ' Reform Bill had passed . Illusions are not always strictly popular . If the working classes have their waste land schemes , other classes have had their manias and bubbles— - so let not an impracticable proposal be made an excuse for ignoring the distress that

      exists m the metropolis . The question is not , "What can be done with the waste lands , but " What may be done for the thirty-five thousand men out of work , with their families ? They must have employment , or , if left unemployed , must be fed—the problem being , whether it is better to treat them as paupers , or to devise some plan for supplying them with labour during the slack winter

      months . Emigration ? Thousands of the poor would be willing to emigrate , but have not the means . The Poor-law system works slowly and imperfectly . Do the guardians and ratepayers care to raise the necessary stuns for this purpose ; are even poor orphans and deserted children sent abroad at the expense of the parishes ? But let emigration go on as rapidly as it may , it does not meet the difficulty , which is , that the winter

      season interrupts the industsious classes in their vocations . "Work , in that season , is unprofitable to the masters . Let the men save , then , while they are employed . We repeat , they do save , but cannot save enough ; it is notorious that the funds of numerous benefit societies are all but exhausted , and that many of these associations only profess to relieve the sick and the

      bereaved , the able-bodied members , though unemployed , having no claim upon their limited treasuries . Prom every side the question converges to one issue—the door of the Union . The working-classes must understand that their property is invested in the Poor-luw . In course of time that Poor-law may be converted , not only into a superannuation fund for the industrious orders , hub into an

      assurance organization , guaranteeing thoin , one and all , against destitution . It cannot be too often reiterated that the relieving-olliccr should bo applied to , if not ( simultaneously by tlie thirty-five thousand unemployed work-

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      THE VERGER TRIAIi . The guillotine may silence Vergeb ; but the recollection of bis crime and of his trial will long continue to oppress the minds of the French people . The two scenes—in the church and in the court—complete the horror and the infamy . A priest struck dead by a priest , in the midst of a religious ceremony ; the assassin baited like a wild beast by his judges , dragged out of court , shouting horrible accusations against his order , and while still absent condemned to death !

      device of a public murder . He is described to us as " an honest fanatic , frenzied ' in one particular . " He sacrificed everything to gain the single object of his life , which was to unmask the existence of a hideous amount of intrigue , falsehood , hypocrisy , aa < l unnatural depravity among the French priesthood . They tried to gag him , but his immense energy defeated them . When he was put upon his trial it had been determined , not only to execute him , but to blacken his

      character and stifle his voice . The scheme was not altogether successful . The few words he roared out , which the drum ecclesiastic could not drown , were well understood , and are now commented upon in all quarters of Paris . St . Germain l'Auxerrois especially comments upon them . The trial was a monstrous burlesque , not of justice only , but of positive law . The French Code allows extenuating circumstances to be proved ; Verges was not allowed to

      prove them . The act of accusation went back to his school-days ; the defence was allowed to go no farther than the date of the crime . It is enough to say that M . D-elangh . e presided , that M . Vaissje was concerned in the condemnation of the prisoner . It is whispered far and wide that a deliberate plan had been laid for taking advantage of Vebger ' s irritability to goad him into violence , and thus furnish an excuse for his removal from the court . Groundless or not , an insinuation of this kind shows the kind of reverence

      inspired by justice in Imperial France . So flagrant an outrage upon justice , decency , and humanity , as this spectacle presented , will not , we think , be suffered to pass out of the memory of the living generation . MM . Djela : ngh . e and Vaisse may rely upon it , all the consequences of Vebgeb ' s act are not bygones when Verges himself has been expunged' in the name of justice , and in . the interests of society .

      We can well imagine what would have taken place in an English criminal court had this unhappy wretch been brought to trial before ! Lord Campbell , Chief Baron Pollock , Lord Chief Justice Cockburn , or any of our English judges . If the prisoner burst into frantic exclamations , lie would have been silenced by the immovable serenity of the Tribunal and the Bar . His defence would have been heard , and , if possible , rebutted . The most severe regularity and impartialit y would have marked the whole course of the

      proceedings . All evidence to the prejudice of the prisoner , irrelevant to the exact subject of inquiry , would have been ruled inadmissible . The examinations and cross-examinations would have been controlled by the rigorous equity of the Bench . The accused would have heard the addresses and the testimony against him and in his favour , the verdict , the judge ' s summary , and the

      sentence . The spectators would have been prevented from expressing themselves in any way ; the slightest attempts at applause or disapproval would have been suppressed ; a word uttered by any unauthorized person would have consigned him to custody for ' contempt . ' Justice would have been present , but not passion ; evi dence , nob interest or prejudice , would have influenced the verdict .

      What happened iu Verger' a case ? The Judge degraded himself by an unseemly altercation with the accused ; the carefullypicked audience shouted " Assassin ! " the guards fought with the prisoner ; no one seemed to reverence the Judge , or the law ; the defence was stifled ; the act of accusation was unfair ; the testimony adduced was partial ; Tvithin the court there was confusion and indecency , outside the court a murmur of reprobation ran from end to end of Paris . Vergek declaimed to the judge ; the judge violently contradicted

      him . VisnGEit appealed to the audience ; the audience cried "Assassin ! " Imagine the Lord Chief Justice pouring out invectives against a man on trial for his life ; imagine na Old Bailey audience yelling " Mui'derer ! " in the ears of one who is " presumed to be innocent until the law pronounces him guilty . " To crown this ignominious scene , the prisoner ia dragged away , the prosecution is hurried forward , the defence is limited to an e . v officio apology , sentence of death is passed in the absence of the accused , and Franco is left to wonddr why the Government stood in so much fear of the denunciations of an assassin . The opinion in Paris is that Vkugeti is a fanatic stung by disappointment to expose to the world tho frightful immoralities of tho Church in France . His intellect gnvo way , iu a certain , souse , under tho weight of this conviction . Ho tried numerous methods ol making himself heard , and af ' tor fifteen years of persecution ho selected the detestable

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      * HONEST IAGO . ' Sir Robert Peel is roasted for disclosing the hollow state of Bussia ; the " white palaces" of St . Petersburg , he says , are " all outside stucco and white paint . " We remember a negro preacher who -was reported as telling the fair of Jamaica of his own race that they were all " painted puckery , " which , beiag interpreted , means " painted sepulchres . " ¥ e should like to know how far

      that which we see around us is real ; whetiier our " aristocracy" is so great , generous , and wealthy ; whether our gentlemen are so honourable and so well to do ; our merchants so solid , our public officers so honest . Not long since common people looked upon Lord Gout na a very great person—owner of the town of Gort ; a high Tory of the deopest Orange ; ho seemed a species of sovereign , a local Louis Napoleon . Yet we find iu the

      proceedings of the Encumbered Estates Court this week that that same town of Grort lias been sold to a stranger . The wholo of the grandeur , therefore—tho sovereign dignity and vast possessions embodied in that town of Gort—wore nothing better than " painted puckery . " The Encumbered Estates Court in Ireland has been a great show-up of the " outside stucco and white paint ; " andone reason why an Encumbered Estates Court has not been

      established in this country , is tho apprehension that it would equally show-up tho outsido stucco and white paint of our own English counties . Tho unemployed in Smithfield arc calling for tho land "Which is their own . They are right on abstract principles ; tho land upon which any nation lives belongs to tho nation ; and sinco they lmvo a priuiary right to subsistence out of tho soil , they are

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      Jaotaby 24 , 1857 . ] THE LEADBE . g

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 24, 1857, page 85, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2177/page/13/