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Leader (1850-1860), 19th December 1857, Edition 1 of 2, Page 1212

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      Parliament means legislation for classes , blundering and often corrupt administration , official jobbery , financial extravagance , secret diplomacy , and a foreign policy with which the nation has nothing to do , except to submit to its consequences . Reformers of all classes will shortly be invited to say whether they will concur m agitating for a poor-rate suffrage , .. -with ,.. we trust , a supplementary provision for the enfranchisement of lodgers , and a better arrangement of electoral districts ;

      the extension of . the county franchise in England and Wales to all ten-pound occupiers at least ; the assimilation , as far as possible , of the English , Scottish , Welsh , and Irish electoral systems ; the Ballot , upon the successful Australian plan ; the abolition of the property qualification , and triennial Parliaments . To demand less would be to imitate the Whigs ; to insist upon more might be to split up the party and shipwreck the cause . The public , we think , entertains this view ; it -follows that Reform is on the road .

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      WIDOWERS AND SECOND WIVES . ¦ ¦* ' GtoAT is truth and it will prevail" must fc * ve' been originally an English saying ; for Sinless truth is great in the sense of material magnitude it can hardly expect to prevail in England . All our admiration and sympathies seem , to lean towards large objects . Our ships , our concert-rooms , our congregations , our newspapers , have been getting larger every year ; and , if they hope to attract attention , our accidents must be big enough to startle the accustomed reader .

      The most wicked negligence in factory , colliery , or railway , should it only kill one man ia ignored by those worshippers of magnitude , the penny-a-liners , and pur next shipwreck must sacrifice five hundred lives , or it will be put into back columns . We sympathize also with oppressed millions , but oppressed units are beneath us . Were there in England a section of people not Christians , but numbering a million , arrangements would soon be made to admit them into Parliament ; but a few thousand Jews are too few to draw out

      out indignation at injustice . Or were there an epidemic jnania amongst widowers for marrying the sisters of their deceased wives , the restriction on so many hundred thousands would excite wide-spreading sympathy , when it is now pooh-poohed , because possibly there ¦ are not more than a couple of thousand persons who eagerly desire a change in the law . But even though there were only one person ¦ wronged , the spirit of equity forbids it ; and

      « 18 > any one of real feeling , a sense of injustice Itt ^ insult , impressing gloom and pain on ftfnH&tine household , is a matter aaot to be re-SBSIi ^ ith levitf ; W ^ ffij *^ Alion ot Judge Cbesswijll declared ? tnaxrefrwfreja , . the fruit of marriage between WJ ^ W ^ MSfc ^ Mtiirbhe sister of his deceased wife , ""we iraftlfilmwg ^ althougli the marriage was JJpS'ii'WipuraiiiJBMItiSpjito the law of the country Tma ^ 'm&mm&ivere domiciled . The

      ^ P ^^ T ^ OTS ^ > thafc ifc ia Poetically afehanfeefeitni ^ tIiMIjrord Lyndhtjust ' s " A ^ ( passed / r . it ^ is l ^^ ri ^ ll y . to relieve an 'iiMmdual ) legaHzed ^ 9 |[ egtt ^ rjages if con-• traced before a certia ^ mi ^^^ aiijitit has been heW ^ in irtore ^^>^\ one * l ^ & ^^ WEng lish law hod simply to irii ^ iEet : v «^ til $ ^ of the marriage had a . ioc ^ leg ^ ity ; . « 5 rjoy 2 fcing

      on tins view ot the : lavv /^ Besr ^ rmi ^ najriagtia have been made ; and now ^ i ' a uevi ^ clffcipioh breaks up many happy . ^ Bg iiBh , '> Bpiioes , jby , declaring the wife a concubine andithfy ^ li- ' threnillegitimate . . < . . . ... a ^; :, ' , ^ ju It is a delicate and difficult queatio ^ wciwni 4 aa a matter of morality and social etffltdjSiL ' Amongst women in society ohe tlteara thr ^ ej -xipiniana against such marriages for . oiie ' in

      favour of them . But we do not lay much stress on vague sentiments about a question which those who speak scarcely regard as possible to their own experience . No unmarried woman contemplates whether she shall ever have to accept or refuse an offer of marriage from her sister ' s husband , and her opinion on either side of the general question is not worth much . But there are many pure-minded women in England who , without a . scruple of conscience , have accepted the

      position of wife to the husband of their deceased sister ; intensely loving wives liave on their death-bed asked their husbands to take as a second wife the sister of the first ; and dying mothers have asked sisters to be second ruothers to their orphan children . These facts teach us that the heart of womanhood finds nothing intrinsically repugnant to its delicate instinct of right in the marriage of a woman with the husband of her dead sister .

      Custom involves itself with the argument , and the manners of our homes embarrass the question . Husbands of easy , affectionate disposition almost marry tlie whole family . To say nothing of the mother-in-law , we see how the husband of Miss Jones is on tlie easiest and pleasantest terms with the younger sisters . They are with him Lizzie , Mary :, and Bessie ^—not the young Miss Joneses ; he kisses them all round , and

      quizzes them about their lovers , as if-they were his own sisters ; and they visit at the house more readily than even at tlie house of a married brother . In their sister ' s illness one of them is deputy-keeper of the keys and vice-president of the tea-table , and husbands temporarily deprived of a wife ' s presence find comfort in a lady companion almost as familiar as the absent wife . Why disturb all these cordial customs to gratify the love of some exceptional sister-in-law ?

      These customs certainly suggest that ,. , in . nine cases out of ten , there is no difficulty , yet , in the tenth case , there may be terrible cruelty . A good girl , loving an elder sister with intense-love , respecting and loving that sister ' s husband and cherishing their children , finds at her sister ' s death that her brotherin-law cannot marry her . She must either give up her fair fame and her prospects of an

      honourable home by staying to protect the children of her sister , or she must tear herself from them , leaving them without a woman's cherishing , or to a stranger's care . And yet to the marriage there is no impediment but that of law , not even the physiological objections alleged by many against the marriage of cousins . This latter relationship reminds us of a consideration akin to the

      argument . Were marriages ot cousins now forbidden by a law , any proposal of its repeal would be met by the cry that such a change would destroy the loving confidence between cousins . Such a change was made when England became Protestant ; and yet at the coming Christmas-gatherings we hope to have it from many lips that mutual love between cousins is not all gone , aud that Cousin John and Cousin Mary love the mistletoe

      as well as though that terrihlc permission to marry were not hanging over their heads . There ia another point . Tour marriage imposes on you no responsibility or relationship towards your wife s sister . You are not bound to love her nor to teach her the Catechism , nor to support her . It gives her no claim on you , and you no claim on her- You are not her relative in law or religion ; you ; jnlierit none of her property , you are not her ip&xjb of kin . ' If , then , the marriage with her ftMPteir confers on her or you no qualification , ## j i ^ yeji a , qualified consanguinity , how can ^ JfehQldjtQ , impose any disability—any disqualklcation of consanguinity ? You see

      Miss Maby Smith ; she is a stranger to you , and you are free to marry her , she consenting , Is it to be said that if you marry hep sister the only effect as to Miss Smith is tliafc you can never marry her ? It suggests a ludicrous way of escape for a young man persecuted by an unloved lady- —marry her sister . Laws do not change customs , nor alter the quiet strength of true delicacy in the hearts of Englishwomen . But laws may inflict pain on sensitive women who cannot ( and God forbid they should !) disregard the worldly future and good name of their children . We

      respect and reverence the scrupulous feelings of the woman who could not ' bring lierself ' to marry ' poor Luc y's husband ; ' but we cannot but think with pain of the homes where , in good faith and good feeling , such marriages have taken place , and which are darkened today by Judge Cbessweel ' s decision .

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      CHRISTMAS AND ITS TRIALS . Let all who can , keep their Christmas merrily . While it is cowardly not to face evils which ought , in justice or for prudence' sake , to be met , it is .-not ¦ unworthy of the truest courage to brace its nerves and clieer its spirit for encounter , be it with prayer , reflection , conference , or even wine and wassail . A . time of trial is coming for vast numbers of the people of England , against which let all who can make provision—none better than a cheerful spirit ..

      A paragraph of the Royal Speech foreshadowed the coming gloom . It said : — - "I have observed with great regret that the disturbed state of commercial transactions in general has occasioned a diminution of employment in the manufacturing districts , which , I fear , cannot fail to be attended with much local distress ; I trust , however , that this evil may not be of long duration , and that the abundant harvest with which , it has graciously pleased Divine Providence to bless this land , will , I hope , in some degree , mitigate the sufferings which this state of things

      must unavoidably produce . Unavoidably ; for the assistance given by Government to commerce in the hour of panic fear has only saved it from running to headlong destruction . It has not saved it from the losses in money and time which the failures of the commerce of other countries have entailed upon all who have had dealings with the aliens . It has not , and could not

      have , averted the consequent derangement of our manufactures , with the inevitably-following misery of the working classes . ' Thus bad begins , and worse remains behind ; ' for at no period of the crisis whicli we have lately passed have the prospects of our trado appeared so dark and unpromising aB at present .

      The effects of the crisis upon the trade of America have been too severe to be rapidly worked off ; and until something like a state of recovery be attained it will bo impossible for our commerce to look to America for tlie means of retrieving our own disasters . On the Continent , the effects have been pretty much the same , and the news which daily

      reaches ua from Hamburg , the monetary capital of the North , gives no warrant for hope of speedy restoration . The number of bankruptcies and suspensions which have taken place within the last few weeks , moro or less consequent upon the embarrassments in America and on the Continent , is sufficient evidence of the severity of the disorder and of the unlikelihood of easy cure .

      Throughout the manufacturing districts there ia a dead level of gloom . Even the most hopeful sec no chanco of better timca till after the turn of the year . In Manchester , the export trade is almost at a dead

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      1 212 TflE LEADE R . [ No . 404 , December 19 , 1857 .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 19, 1857, page 1212, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2222/page/12/