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    Untitled Article

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    HOTtSMANSHIP IN THE COMMONS.

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    Untitled Article

    and where also , it seems—^ . " that patriots learn to steal . Their private perquisites from public weal ; " lines , by the bye , which the prescient pen of a democracy-disgusted English Whig , Tom Moore , indited some five-and-thirty years ago , of * 1 Afist / Trance does her business in the less indictable form of clipping off corners from alien territories , and overreaching in treaties of commerce . What can we expect from pocket-watches when parishclocks are going wrong at this fearful rate ? from these

    How many small rogues will receive encouragement giant swindlers ; and , as usual , comfort themselves by the consideration that they are not the worst ? We dread even the publicity , which can neither be avoided nor seriously disapproved , because it lets the black band know the extent of its own forces ; it is true they are distinct and many in their practices , but they are one in their morals , and that is the main [ question for the public dismay and their own reciprocal encouragement . Do we say that publicity is useful ? Certainly , but only on one condition—when it leads to penalty far more unflinching than what has hitherto been accorded to crime of this class . Unless the commercial air is purged , we shall have commercial pestilence . For our honour , for our safety , let the Legislature devise some form of disgrace , or if disgrace is not enough , some form of suffering which shall save us from being all in our turn victims to this daily spreading spirit of swindling .

    We demand from Government that moderate protection for our property without which Government , with its powers and its penalties , is itself little short of a grand swindle . There is scarcely a family in London , we might almost say in England , which cannot count some victims among its members . We are told that it is the fault of our own want of caution , that suffering will produce care , and that care will produce cure ; but , in many cases tho utmost care is taken—all the care that a private individual can take . Laws are intricate ; Government does not take much pains to simplify them , and ladies do hot know much about law—sometimes lawyers themselves don't . However , the lady goes to her attorney , hitherto a man of undoubted respectability , or at least with every visible aspect of itThe lawyerappropriates the money , or speculates

    who earned England ' s name for commercial honour . 1 he respectability-loving and pure English have absurdly confined their pet term , " immorality , " to matters connected with what is called " the social evil , " either from ignorance of etymology , and the meaning of words , or from a one-eyed contemplation of evil . Perhaps before lonf they will actually go to the length of allowing men who swindle whale families out of their subsistence to be called " immoral men . "

    effect of hanging by the hundred—frequency led to indifference , audacity , and mutual encouragement in evil , naturally ; but still atrocious villany is not to be encountered with studied delicacy . When at opposite corners of the same street one vagabond under the lash winks at another on the . p illory , it will be time to hold then , perhaps . " All will he rogues , and all men laugh at all . We said , in a number or two ago , that falsification and adulteration frauds were no new things , quoting from Addisojn and others , and referring to a book on these matters , recently reviewed by the Times , with copious extracts . We could add a great deal more on opprobrious ways of getting money on a smaller scale than that oil which we have now been dwelling . Lord Bacon says , that in his day there were enough " false weights and measures to make battlements and bells for all the churches . " Parliament after Parliament had to pass acts against exporting arms to enemiesanother of our villanous ways of making money , practised , mdeed ,

    by the corrupt Romans under Justinian , and by him forbidden , as it was by that Charles of France who lost Normandy , and whose degenerate subjects sold weapons to the Northmen . But this direct money-stealing on a large scale is a comparatively new vice for the middle classes , almost unknown to our grandfathers , the old merchants of England , who-stood on their own respectability , and were neither deceived nor corrupted , nor made impudent by divided responsibility , of which we have now-a-days so much . With this state of things , we shall be soon unable to buy even plaister of Paris for bread , or port roughened with that indigenous astringent , the sloe : to the emptied pocket short weights and fair ones will be the same ; and as to arms and enemies , Cantabit vacuus—ouv foreign plunderers will only be able to i-ob our native peculators . The main hard-cash rascality in the days of Anne and the early Georges was nuite in the upper , or quite in the lower regions , not amongst those

    . , with it , and disappears . The same is often the case with the stockbroker ; in both cases the lady has taken the best course open to her for the protection-of her property , and has used all reasonable caution . Would Government dismiss the police force in the suburbs , and caution Mr . Jones not to walk in a suburban road after dark , or , if he must walk , to walk with pockets , double loaded with revolvers , and revolvers double loaded with ball ? Such an edict ¦ w ould produce care , and care woald produce cure , for in all probability Jones would not be robbed or murdered . But , in cases of protection of the person , Government does allow not a little , but , a very considerable amount of personal carelessness , and nevertheless shields , as far as it can , the individual guilty of it . We will venture to sav that Jones ' s aunt takes infinitely more care of her property

    than Jones does of his person ; but our "Jones e s aunts are plucked bare ten times oftener than our Jones's are violently plundered . > --T > 3 ; < W T Av ^ f ifl . y--thfl . L-ilLaU--con fidence is no t to be destroyed , if ( of course in our own absence ) our aunts arc not to be forced , to depoTs ' ifr " their cash in the funds , and in the funds alone , and with their own hands , and their own hands alone , our Legislature is bound to protect us , not against the effects of our own wilful and evident speculation , not against reckless confidence , but against villany , where we haye taken every reasonable precaution against it ; and if this can be

    done in no other way , let us have the pillory , whipping , exposure in iron cages , or " pillars of infamy . " . Some protection we must Lave ; till then we can wish nothing better than that the thieves may have their prime and chief victims among the sentimentalists . A man flogged for thrashing , his wife will thrash her again ; unless , indeed , he is made thoroughly to understand that he will be hanged if he dares to do so ; but a flogged swindler will certainly not flog , and probably will not again swindle hisr former victims , or any other . Certainly all this in coarse—very coarse , but we hato

    Pharisaical sepulchres , " So fuir without , bo deadly foul within ;" rotten refinement , corruption with a sentimental film over it whioh scarcely acts ns a fig-leaf . In' some things , the external acts powerfully on the internal ; external politeness tends to internal suavity ; a face of cheerfulness , oven if assumed , is said to mako the . heart gradually lighter ? a mere forced habit at last nets upon the principlo ; strict decency tends gradually to morality , and so forth . " We wish , in the case now before us , that the sweetness and delicacy of the outside flesh would gradually spread inwardly ; we wish that our pro-suppositions of honesty would create it ; wo wish that crime would moderate itsolf , so ns only to deservo existing penalties ; we wish the blissful consummation that , by ceasing to be Bunished altosrether . people would cense altogether to deserve

    punishment . Butjt will not do . We have sighed ,-and , mourned , and spared , and sentimentalized , till we are sick of it—almost na eiok as wo are of being * swindled / and wo want a severity almost Draconian . Strange J if it were a little persecution—a little peruecution of conscience , and of things done for conscience' pake—one might soon have a corps of backers , at almost every creed and calibre , mnny of thorn not very lenient in their appliances ; but when wo want to encourage a' spirit of persecution—not of conscience , or of religion , but tho utter want of both—pcoplo are bo delicate , tho ago i « so advanced , that breach of trust ami pecuniary dishonesty of nil kinds are rife nnd rampant , trusting to evasion or daring our penalties , such us they are . We know what was tho

    Untitled Article

    ON Monday last the Legislative arena was the scene of a rapid and fearless act of Horsmanship , -which lefLlthe performance of Mazeppa and the bounding Brothers of Babylon , far behind . The curtain drew up upon the right honourable member for Stroud mounted upon the Pegasus of Printing-house-square . As fiddling upon one string is more wonderful than fiddling upon four , so the performance of the right honourable gentleman mounted on one newspaper proprietor , was a more attractive spectacle than his old feat of riding the whole Bench of Bishops , a la Andrew Puchow . After the second reading- of the Reform Bill the performance formed a very agreeable interlude , while the scones were being set behind forthepantoinimeofHarlequinLicensingBill . endingwiththeastonishing transformation of the Pastry Cook ' s Shop into a Public-house . —Let-usldescribe the plot and criticise the actors in this equestrian

    drama . The scene opens upon air . VVALTPElC ^ Pr ~ foT—ttaricsHirej and part proprietor of the Times newspaper , rising to move the adjournment of the House , in order that he may enter into a personal explanation . The right honourable member for Stroud had written him a private letter complaining of a speech which he ( Mr . Walter ) had made in the House on the Reform BUI , in connection with an article which appeared on the day after in the Times . In that speech Mr . Wai / tee expressed the opinion that certain members might not be so indifferent , or so opposed to the Reform Bill , if they were assured that the passing of the measure would not entail an immediate dissolution of Parliament . It so happened that , in next day ' s number of the Times , this remark was repeated in connection with the name of Mr . Horsman . Whereupon that

    gentleman concludes that the leading article was written by the same person who made the speech , and incontinently complains , in a letter to John Walter , Esq ., M . P ., that he ( John Walter ) had , in the Times newspaper , used the name of Edward Horsman , Esq ., M . P ., " for no other purpose but as illustrative of tho general measures of the House of Commons . " "Surely , " wrote Mr . Walter in reply , " your letter must have been written in a moment of irritation , and under circumstances of misapprehension , which your cooler judgment must have led you to regret . " Thus Mr . Walter . To him Mr . Horsman : — " Sir , —I did not write under feelings of misapprehension , and still less of irritation , and have not the smallest regret to express ; " and Mr . Hobsman , at No . 1 , Richmorid-terrace , having time on his hands , that evening writes Richmorid-terrace , having time on his hands , that evening writes

    Mr . Walter along epistle on tho duties , obligations , and responsibilities of a journalist . As journalists ourselves , we arc fluttered by tho high regard which Mr , Hobsman entertains for tho members of our calling j and wo fancy Mr . Walter himHolf must have been not a little proud to be mistaken for the editor of the Times . Fancy tho feelings of Jones when he hears himself pointed out to n country coiuin as " the great Thackeray , Sir , " " the immortal Bos , Sir . " Fancy how much taller Mr . Walteb must have felt himself when ho rend this : — " I bolievo . ' you to be tho proprietor of the Times , the lender of its councils , and more than any other man responsible for its acts . I think I may do tho public good service if 1 am induce you to weigh well the remarks now privately offered . You combine iu your own person tho two moat powerful attributes that an Englishman can possess—as a talented member of tho legislative body , and the supreme head of tho press which governs the world . "

    Untitled Article

    446 The Leader and [ Saturday Analyst [ May 12 , 1860 .

    Hottsmanship In The Commons.

    HOTISMANSHIP IN THE COMMONS .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), May 12, 1860, page 446, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2347/page/10/