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Leader (1850-1860), 18th April 1857, Edition 1 of 2, Page 371, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      There as no learned man tmt -will confess he iaath much , profited fc > jr reading controversies , his senses awakened , and bis judgment sharpened- If , then , it 1 be profitable for him to read , why should , it not , at least . lje tolerablefor his adversary to write ?—Miltox .

      Untitled Article

      THE LA . WS RELATING TO THE PROPERTY OF MARRIED WOMEN . ( To the Editor vf ' the Leader . } StR ., —1 . no-w come to the 5 th clause of -the petition , which declares that u it is proved by well-kiio-wn cases of hardships suffered by -women of station , and also by professional women earning large incomes by pursuit of .. the arts , how real is the injury inflicted . " We may leave to Mrs . Norton ' s eloquent pen the task of dilating on the first part of this clause , « ince it is from a " womaa of station" of the class most obviously protected in England by the habits of their class in regard to -wives and daughters , that th $ most emphatic aind persevering succession of appeals lias come . Mrs . Norton , possessing an acute and practical mind , willing to take what she

      can get , and fitting all her arguments to the peculiar habits of mind of those in power , is the very voice to touch the class to which she belongs by birthand education . Appealing less to abstract right than to tlie chivalry atid sentiments of the Lords and Commons , she is ever dramatic , poetical , and womanly . Her bitterness is forgiven to one who has suffered so severely , and her indignation is coloured , by the fiery blood of the Sheridans , which gives her a prescriptive right to uncompromising language . But as the Court Guide is but a fraction of the Directory , so the " women of station" who suffer from careless settlements or spendthrift husbands are but a fraction compared to the great army

      of workers , beginning with artists in every realm of genius , and descending to the shop woman , the sempstress , and the shabby , hut honest and hardworking- < lrudge who " chars" in . gentlemen ' s houses . To begin with professional women of the highest order : Sarah Siddons , whose monument is ia "Westminster Abbey if I recollect rightly , the only woman whose statue is placed there by right of genius , -wrote a letter when she was ill , begging her husband not to make certain legal dispositions of the money she had earned for her family , the prospect of which caused her great chagrin ; and Mrs . Glover , ¦ who was deserted by her husband , and who by her own exertions made an income on the stage for her

      indefatigably they are at work ; how they translate , edit , and abridge ; how they write for children , for circulating libraries , for periodicals , for newspapers . They are quite up to the average literary demands of the day , and there are whole departments in which they find remunerative employment almost as easily as men , and with increasing faoility . And hot a penny of -their earnings is legally their ovm ! One need not look for any ill conduct on the part of the husband , not even for naaladresse in business ; but if he becomes security for a friend , and that friend fail , all the hardearned gains of this unfortunate third party / the sovereigns beaten out of toilsome hours over the desk , in obedience to the impatient printer ' s devil , go into this commercial gulpli . . Let not any on « say

      these things never happen ; in a large population a certain proportion of everything : happens , however outrageously improbable . When , for instance , we learn by statistics that eight thousand letters and newspapers are posted in . a year absolutely without any address , and that considerable sums of money are sent on the same wild-goose errand , we may well believe that the particular kind of imprudence I have mentioned is to be found in . assignable proportions , combined with liability of a wife ' s property and earnings to cover the debt . And , now , it will probably be said that all these risks and liabilities are included In the terms of marriage ; that "in for a penny , in for a pound , " is at once the symbolical and the literal equivalent of that f

      important step ! But tohy "Why are we to sanctify all the indirect accidents of marriage because marriage itself is holy ? Why \ because a -vroman is indtssolubly bound to the father of her children , must she be inextricably involved in the strings of his empty purse ? Surely people are silly enough , unlucky enough , and benighted enough for the most malevolent fairy who eveT gave ill gifts at a christening , without helping them legally to fresh misfortunes . They marry on slight pretences , false pretences , and no pretences at all , and the most spiteful lover of poetical justice need not insist , that

      like Frederick and Catherine in the old German tale , having irremediably lost one of their two cheeses , they should roll the other down hill after it to find which way the first had run . Yet this is the logic which insists that in those very cases where the harmony of a household is endangered , its pecuniary welfare shall be cast as holocaust into the same fire ! The very circumstance of a woman haying unfortuV nately married a bad , a stupid , or an imprudent man , is the reason why the law should enable her to protect herself . I remain , sir , yours obediently , Bessie Raynee . Parices .

      children , actually found her salary demanded by her husband from the manager , though he was living with another -woman ; and the judge to whom she appealed was forced to declare the law on his side ( vide "Westminster Review for October , 1856 ) . The large salaries of all our actresses and singers are wholly at the mercy of their husbands , good , bad , or indifferent , and cannot be efficiently secured to their own use for their children . The tales which were rumoured of Jenny Lind having suffered severely from this legal injustice mayor may not have been true , * but their prevalence showed the belief in the public mind that such robbery was quite possible and far from improbable . It must be remembered that

      musical and dramatic artists , while they are the only women who as yet have in England amassed large fortunes , are infinitely more exposed by the ordinary chances of their life to make imprudent marriages than other women . To none is it more necessary to be shielded by the protection of the law , to none is it more desirable that they should be able to secure to themselves and to their daughters an honourable position of social independence ; upon none does the present state of the law press more heavily than upon these public servants—these women to whom the public owes so much , and to whom it accords so little—who exchange their great gifts for fame and for money , yet live in perpetual danger of seeing tho one tarnished and tho other lost . Now that tho great tragedians of every

      country are , singularly enough , of the female sex , surely the question of fortunes gained by women in pursuit of the arts is no longer matter of imagination . In England wo have no women who as yet gain largo sums by painting , but were Mdllc . Rosa Bonheur an Englishwoman , and married , tho 2000 / . Bho received , for tho " Horse Fair , " and tho golden currents which flow from every country into hor studio in exchange for animals and landscapes , would bo utterly at the mercy of a domestic fiend who might—it is within the range of ninsculino possibility —dissipate th . em in cigars and lockets , or speculations on 'Change . In literature we have a large class of Englishwomen ! who earn considorablG suras of money . Take the Athcnccum of any week , and cast an eye over the advertisements ; what a muss of literary labour is got through by women . How

      Untitled Article

      * We believo they were entirely imaginary . —Ed . L .

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      souls were added to the population j from 1851 to 1856 , only 256 , 000 ; in 1854 and 1855 , the deaths actually exceeded the births . Statists are seeking for explanations of this formidable result ; many causes are suggested ; to each of these tve wish to assign its full value—even to emigration , although not more than ten thousand persona annually quit Prance for the colonies , England , or America—a number compensated for by the arrival of foreigners . We may go back to the great wars , when one

      prodigious army after another , amounting to a total of two millions , was annihilated under the flag of N ' a . poleots ' , the idol of the Empire , when it was twice found necessary to reduce the military standard , when boys were inarched to I / utzen and Leipsic , because the supply of men had failed ; but the fact interposes , that during the reign of Louis P hilipp e the energies of France seemed to revive , and more than a million was added to her population within five years . " We will allow all due importance to the influence of small agricultural

      holdings , producing an inexorable entail oi poverty , to the extension of the Maithusian economy from the capital to the villages , to the succession of bad harvests , grape blights , silkworm failures , and other discouragements ; these details cannot fairly bo left out of the calculation ; but do they account for the astonishing and alarming cessation of vital energy we now witness in France ? In what have the Trench people so materially changed since the five years from 1841 , when , with the

      same division of property , the same aversion to large families , and no exemption from , natural inflictions , they multiplied with comparative rapidity ? Whatever change of manners took place after 1851 was certainly preceded by a wholesale change of institutions . In front of the whole inquiry stands the conspicuous certainty that , u nder the Empire , the growth of population has everywhere been checked ; while in many places , tho births have not made up for the deaths .

      . Not that France is overcrowded . Belgium contains 147 inhabitants to the square mile ; England 130 ; France only 68 ; yet , with ample , scope for development , the body of tho nation dwindles instead of dilating . At the same time , the necessaries of life are produced in smaller quantities in the provinces , and luxury flourishes at the capital ; tho poor congregate in tho groat cities ; an immense displacement of wealth is paraded for prosperity ; Paris , Lyons ,

      Marseilles , St . Etienno are swollen by the formation of now faubourgs ; thousands forsake the Held without entering tho factory ; tho proportion of dcatlis among adults is singularly largo ; but what other process is going on at tho same time ? Tho capital that wna formerly employed in cultivation or in manufacturing industry , has sinco 1851 been absorbed in 1 ' aria and expended in loans or iu luxury ; prices rise ; broad ia artificially cheapened for the dangerous populations of tho faubourgs ; to tho peasantry it is

      be-TIIE FRANCE 03 ? TO-DAY . "Wuo can imagine the effect of an announcement that tho British nation had ceased growing ? Between tho years 1819 and 1855 we contributed two million threo hundred thousand immigrants to the population of tho United States ; within the same period wo transmitted vast numbers of colonists to Canada and Australia ; since 1800 the inhabitants of our own islands have doubled , in spite of a great famine ; what , then , should we think it' this process of expansion were suddenly to bo arrested ? Yet such a suspension of national vitality has taken place in Franco , tfroui 184 L to 181 C . 1 , 170 , 000

      conic dearer ; Franco ia being gradually reduced in these respocta to tho level of Spain and Turkey . In tho meantime tho public expenditure increases enormously ; tho Empire wears literally a mural crown ; its works in stone and mortar aro confbsaodly imposing . It has its Golden House ; it delights in tho colossal ; with Dion Cashius , Louis Napoleon perceives no difference between public and private funds ; while tho life of Franco is drained away as by a mysterious disease , broad , strategical streets , and ornamental facades arc certainly added to Paria . Wo may tako advantage of another opportunity to estimate the value oi Louis Napoleon ' s monuments . Our pro-

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      Aprh , 183 1857 . } •• ; . , ¦"¦ : ¦" ; :. ; T 3 g . ^ , . .. L , ; B - A-, PE ; B .- " 371

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      [ IS THIS DEPARTMENT , AS AIX OPIXIOKS , HOWEVER EXTBEME , ARK AUOWED AIT BXPKESSJOJJ , THE EDJTOB NECESSARILY HOLDS II 1 MSBJ-F EESPONSIBLE FOR K 0 XE . J

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      There is nothing so revolutionary , Vjecnuse Lhore ia nothing so unnatural and convulsive , ns the strain to keep things fixed -when , nil the wotUi is by thovery law of its creation in eternal progress . —Du . Anxoi . 1 ) . — . — + .

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      V _^~ \ ^_ j »¦ SATURDAY , APRIL 18 , 1857 .

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      n Jktiibtt .

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      NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS . It is impossible to acknowledge tho mass of letters we receive . Their insertion is often delayed , owinc to a press of matter ; and when omitted , it ; is frequently from reasons quite independent of tho merits of tho communication . . ¦ "Wo cannot undertake to return rejected communications . Communications should always be legibly written , and on one side of the paper only . If long . it iucrcasos the difficulty of llndinj ? spaco for them . During tho Session of Parliament it is often impossiblo to find room for correspondence , even the briefest .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), April 18, 1857, page 371, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2189/page/11/