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August 2, 1856.J THE LEADER, 733
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PARTIES AT LEISURE. Tub liberty of tho r...
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THE COMING BISHOP. The see of London is ...
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Transcript
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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.
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The Political Season. The General Electi...
have been many other instances of the same kind . "We remember the case of a man who believed himself to be beset by personages of Scripture , not in any metaphorical or nonnatural sense , but positively in the body and the very letter . The cases , however , were entirely different , 2 S ichoi . ai knew that the figures which he saw were imaginary , and he was in no respects affected by the apparition ; the other person believed the delusion , and was of course open to be misled by any
phenomena arising from it . To him a definitive instruction from Moses or Paul would have been of course a sufficient warrant for any act counter to the inferior law of Queen , Lords , and Commons . His judgment was therefore liable to be overridden on every point besides the particular delusion , and he could not distinguish between the legality or illegality of an act , still less between the necessity or the absence of necessity . But it is the illusory belief in the necessity which as often impels the insane to crime as any corrupt or passionate
motive . "I must kill you ! " said a young lady to her sister , who , on waking , found a knife at her throat . The girl who proclaimed this painful necessity was as amiable as any of her sex could be ; she was quite incapable of explaining the nature of the necessity ; yet from subsequent acts on her parb , and the well-known constitutional tendencies of her family , there could be no doubt that the impromptu proposal to cut her sister ' s throat was the first symptom of insanity . Prom that period , however , and for some timo after , her judgment "in other respects" was quite
sound . The whole of these considerations tend to show that it is impossible to draw a clear line between those who are morally iusane on account of physical insanity , and those who are nothing but brutal , reckless , and dangerous persons . In fact , the two conditions so closely resemble each other in their symptoms , that they cannot be divided . Dove was a dangerous brute , whether he was sane or insane . lie took a
pleasure in cruelty to defenceless creatures , he treated the most serious subjects with levity : to separate from his wife , to abandon the separation , to procure her medicines , to poison her , appear to have been purposes equally powerful with him . Whether or not he could estimate consequences , in the legal sense , it is evident that , intellectually and morally , he had a very feeble sense of them . The distinctions between stupidity and madness , brutality and idiotcy , the delirium tremena of intoxication n , nd the delirium of
mania , will , perhaps , never bo exactly laid down . It does not at all follow , however , that practical science needs be at fault proportionately with theoretical science . Although we cannot tell whether Dovi !) is brute or madman , it is more than probable that the same kind of treatment would be the best for
him in either caso ; and if tho best for him , the best for an example to his like . If ho is a brutally disposed lunatic , the proper course of treatment would bo strict regimen and dicipline : he should be watched , regulated in diet , broken in as a wild beast is broken in ; and that probably is exactly tho style of treatment that would have moro terrors for tho sane brute—if any brute is sane—than the momentary paroxysm of hanging .
August 2, 1856.J The Leader, 733
August 2 , 1856 . J THE LEADER , 733
Parties At Leisure. Tub Liberty Of Tho R...
PARTIES AT LEISURE . Tub liberty of tho recess will bo turned to account by expectant parties . Tho Tories have already reBolvod to raiao now political capital with which to trade in 1857 . Their first necessity , however , ia a Restoration . It ia perceived and confessed that the old union exists no longer . Tho acknowledged
principles of the party have become so diversified that no predominating colour remains . Leaders have lost their followers , and followers their leaders . The Carlton Club is split into factions , and has avowedly ceased to represent the doctrines of pure Toryism alone . Its opinions are indistinct , its action is irregular , the outline of its influence is faintly marked ; its chiefs are themselves subalterns without a recognized commander . There is a cry of anarchy in the camp , certain stragglers having returned from service under the Coalition , others having taken counsel with the leading liberal minds , others having ceased to support or oppose , systematically , any particular set of ideas . It is easy to impute this result to the disruption of political ties , and the contempt of political compacts attributed to Sir Robert Peel , whose sons are now the understrappers of a Whig administration . It is easy to accuse Lord Aberdeen , who was a minister with a conscience , of abandoning the ancient standards of consistency ; and it is still easier to find in Lord Pai-jiebston's ductile policy the reason why the discipline of parties is not so powerful as formerly ; but the truth is , that Toryism , like monarchy , has no longer a real meaning in England . It meant something when the Whigs introduced new principles , and the Tories resisted them ; when the faith of some men was fixed to tradition , and the faith of others to progress ; when liVhiggery was supposed to imply a faint toleration , and Toryism a deep reverence of tlie fundamental institutions of the country . It meant something in 1841 , when a compact p halanx of more than three hundred Members of Parliament stood behind a Conservative minister , fighting for pi-ivileges which have since been thrown into the air . But it began to decay when , instead of standing upon its antique basis of territorial influence , it was compelled to make use of the Keform Bill which it had resisted , to cry "Register " when others cried " Agitate , " to contend for Toryism with the weapons of Liberality . Toryism has no meaning now . It is merely a false form of "Whiggery . Its only chance of gaining political momentum consists in the appeal it has made to the Liberal party . What are its promises f A sincere and prompt amendment of the official system , a plan of national education , military reform , the purification of political influences , a thorough revision of finance . "Wh y , this is the liberal programme stolen by the Tory party , which is so simple as to believe that Liberals will empower Tories to carry out their ideas , that reformers will trust to men Avho have never laboured in the spirit of reform . In tho meantime , Toryism is as cold , vain , and factious as ever . "Without commanding the services of a single brilliant writer , its regular literature is only on a par with tho squib and cracker doggrel of an election . One of its organs wheezes daily for tho edification of the old-fashioned country members ^ while a minute sect , to which serious politics are " a bore , " is satisfied with the lampoons of a tenth-rate Charivari . The party was once able to produce epigrams ; it can now bo no more than indecently dull . There is another party which might be effective in Parliament if it could forget Convocation . Though little heard of now , except in connexion with ecclesiastic hairsplitting , it has occupied an historical position , derived from tho namo of their founder . But of what value to the commonwealth are these chiaroscuro politicians ? Allying thomselvcs with a Ts eoplal : onic sect , composed of clerical gentlemen devoted to tho reconciliation of irreconcilable convictions , they stand apart from stivto affairs , and , crowded in a cloistered , by-wuy of Jotters , have
scarcely voice or influence . There is a morbid pallor in their opinions , and this sickli-. ness pervades their oratory , their journalism , and their literature , disconnecting it from all that is healthy , vigorous , and hopeful in England . It is the sentimentalism of a sect , and produces nothing but scholastic casuistry , scepticism , and langour . As in the Tory , party we see a great political
combination parting into fragments , ruined in character , without efficient or respectable leaders , losing its hold upon the classes which once gave it life and power , so in the Oxford party Ave see a set of men , in whom many hopes were laid up , degenerating into querulous sentimentality , and gradually becoming of as little practical import in the discussions of the day , as the stained glass and iron-work of the sixteenth century .
"We have never concealed the confused condition of the Liberal party . The Manchester leaders have , for a time , ceased to act upon any defined policy . The war precluded them from action . Other bodies of Liberals have been broken up . Xet , uuless an aristocracy succeeds in bewildering the nation by distracting the Continent , we expect to see this party rising amid the fluctuations of its political rivals during the next session of
Parliament . More than two hundred political committees have recently been organized in London and the provinces . Their operations cannot fail to influence the constituencies , especially as they have- resolved upon a new system of tactics , totally in contrast with the paltry , violent , chimerical ag ij tation of past years . When we indicate , ill detail , the progress of this organization , ifc will be evident that whatever the Tories and
Whigs may effect , and whatever the Oxford party may dreamily and mediaevally desire , the Liberals are at length disposed to be active , and to concentrate their activity .
The Coming Bishop. The See Of London Is ...
THE COMING BISHOP . The see of London is to be vacated . The new bishop would probably accept it , on the condition that it may be divided . There are many questions at j > resent agitating and dividing the Anglican Church . One question is made the subject of a police case , T ) r . LusHnsrGTON sitting as magistrate in lieu of the Bishop of Exeter , and Archdeacon Djsnison being the accused . It is not indeed easy to know what he is accused of . He lias some peculiar views respecting the elements used in the communion : now , it ia rather remarkable that in a Church which has such a large diversity of opinions—repecting the period , for example , nt "which grace may come , whether before or after , and the amount of mutation which ia undergone by the elements—that in such a Church a mere singularity of view should be made the subject of a penal charge which may result in seriouy loss to tho accused . It is wonderful to us that while all tho energy of tho members of the Church is devoted to splitting hairs on questions which cannot be fully grasped by the human mind , in order to increase tho divisions among it , no man appeal's to have raised the question which can restore union to tho Church , and perhaps unite to it other persuasions that have lapsed . It is also rather curious to us that in thin very question of tho oucharist tho disputants do not look for their interpretation to the very conduct , to tho human life of tho groat Founder of Christianity . Thoy will discover him taking his human shape among the working classes : ia that , no lesson that they should seek for tho great commentary upon tho obscurities of the subject in the common , humanity , and in the influence of the rites of Christianity upon tho largest number ? la
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 2, 1856, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_02081856/page/13/
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