On this page
-
Text (4)
-
MabcH 3,1855.] THE 1EADEB, 209
-
Bentleifs Miscellany has a sympathetic p...
-
We have just received from Brussels a co...
-
Doctor Vkbon contributes some singular c...
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
The Magazines Have Not Gone Out With The...
' eidering unfair towards the Established Church . The writer seems to thmk that national education should be more indirect than the forcing process would have it ; and , by way of a temporary panacea , he suggests that there should be a theatre at one end of every village , and a church at the other There may be more sagacity in this suggestion than at first appears ; but it may be doubted whether the r ival establishments would- be found to flourish together , we do not say to » pay . " Of the political contribution on the ministerial changes we shall only say , " Is it not written in the Morning Herald and the Press ? ' We must add , however , that the Derbyite advocate fails \ q extricate his clients from the predicament in which Lord Paxmjebston landed them when he made a " waiting race" it , and when he inveigled Lord Debby into an attempt at Coalition with the very men whom the weekly organ of the Tories ( originally started under the title of Anti-Coalition ) had most unscrupulously assailed for the last two years . We may here repeat an inquiry we have heard in many directions without reply : What is the raison d ' etre of a journal created for the express purpose of destroying the Coalition , when the founders of that journal are the very men to " fill an obvious void" in their ranks , by the admission of the most conspicuous of the Peelite Coalitionists ? We can only suppose that the present policy of the party which the " A nti- Coalition" journal celebrates , is to steal a Radical programme , as in 1852 they were ready to hold power in the service of Free-trade . As the political article in Blackwood is a warmedup version of the Tory newspapers , so the political article in Fraser is an inconclusive grouping of phrases familiar to the readersof the Ttmesandof other more consistently Liberal journalsof late , on the subject of " The Government ; the Aristocracy , and the Country ? " The leading paper m Fraser is an elaborate eulogistic notice of Dr . Mayo ' s " Croonean Lectures on Insanity . " Dr . Mayo is known in the profession rather as an able theorist on this the most serious of all diseases , than as a physician familiar by constant and intimate practice with all the peculiar difficulties that surround the treatment of insanity . But his lectures have received the fiat of Sir Benjamin Bbodie , and they are full of suggestive observation . The theory of " moral insanity" is , we believe , almost universally abandoned ; it is impossible , except metaphysically , to separate disease of the mind from disease pf the physical organ or instrument of the mind ; and whether ihe disease be merely functional , or structural arid organic , it must be dealt -with-like other diseases of the material frame . This does not exclude , however , the possibility of reaching the disease , in certain stages , through Its external symptoms , by an impression upon the moral feelings . The present-reviewer of Dr . Mayo ' s lectures , disposed to theorise with considerable vivacity on his own account , comments upon the evidence given by no less an authority than Dr . Forbes Winslow , at the trial of Ann Bbough for the murder of her children . He calls Dr . Winslow ' s evidence " perilous , " and he even hints that it is " subversive of the safety of society . " We think this vivacious reviewer would have done well to deal a little more respectfully with the evidence of such a witness as Dr . Fokbes Winslow . If he had read the Lettsomian Lectures on Insanity ( which we reviewed some months since ) , he would have found a most complete refutation of Dr . , Pbichabd ' s thepryjoJL Moral Insanity , to which he rashly insinuates the Doctor has lent his influence . And if he had studied the subject itself a little less superficially , he would have known that under certain morbid conditions of the brain homicidal impulses are almost irrepressible ; they are commonly directed against the nearest or dearest relations of the insane . It was not until Ann Bbough ' s brain was relieved by the discharge of blood from her throat that she was aware of the nature of the horrible murders she had committed . And then , what was her first act ? Not to accuse her husband , but with her failing strength , to put out of the window a bloody pillow to call the attention of the passers-by . If Ann Brough had killed a dozen children , she would not have deserved to be hanged the more , if there was reason to believe that she committed the murders under the uncontrollable influence of a disease of all others deserving human pity the most . Better that a hundred guilty should be spared than that one innocent should be punished is , we believe , the doctrine of the soundest humanity , whatever the present slashing reviewer , writing like an unscrupulous advocate , may say . On the recent extraordinary trial of n French governess in Paris for unheard-of cruelties towards her pupils > two young English ladies , a case was cited of a young man who committed suicide last November , and who left in writing the following explanation of the act : — " Ever since I came to years of discretion I have been pursued by a mania for assassination ; I strove against it , but some day or other I may be overcome , and I would rather die than dishonour my family . " Buffo u ( it was observed on this occasion ) relates that on one occasion an t honest and industrious working man , of a kind disposition , and n good father , came to him one day and said that he was possessed with a mania for committing violence ; he had a wife whom he adored , and an only child , who wtiB the delight of his life , but he was so absorbed by this idea of killing that he was obliged to keep everything in the shape of a knife out of roach , lest he should put his wife and child to death . BurroN considered this to be a case of mental alienation , and / recommended thp poor man a certain regimen . The patient , however , lived to assassinate his best friend .
No doubt the whole subject is beset with mystery , but the present reviewer seems to be happily unconscious of . any difficulty in pronouncing judgment , even " " where angels fear to tread . "
Mabch 3,1855.] The 1eadeb, 209
MabcH 3 , 1855 . ] THE 1 EADEB , 209
Bentleifs Miscellany Has A Sympathetic P...
Bentleifs Miscellany has a sympathetic paper on " Thomas de Quincey , " and a fragment , declared to be authentic , having been left under a sofa in Jermyn-street , in 1842 , of the journal of a French actress , relating a certain sentimental " passage of arms" with the late Czar during a winter in St . Petersburg . To those who have known St . Petersburg and the Czar , this fragment will possess at least the merit of vraisemblance : There are four papers suggested by the war— " The Russians at Home , " " The Tartars of the Cr imea , " " The Resources of the Anatolian Shores of the Black Sea , " and •* The Conduct of the War , " of which the second and the third are the best . Mr . Ainswobth continues his story " The Spendthrift" ( which we are glad to think he will have no excuse for not concluding ) , and Mr . Shiblet Bkooks contributes a fifty-first chapter to " Aspen Court , " which now occupies the centre of the Miscellany . On the whole , Bentley seems to be looking up . " The National Miscellany appears to be languishing : the papers are short , the type is large and clear , the matter is healthy enough , but it wants animation and variety . Neither " Circassia , " " The Crimea , " nor " Emigration , " nor the " Charitable Associations of Paris , " nor " English Grammar , " receive much novel illustration in these pages .
We Have Just Received From Brussels A Co...
We have just received from Brussels a copy of the pamphlet On the Conduct of the War in the East and the Crimean Expedition * Memoir addressed to the Government of H . M . the Emperor Napoleon III . By a General Officer . The Moniteur , we know , has officially threatened proceedings before the Belgian tribunals against the publisher of this pamphlet , which it attributes to a Russian hand . In spite of the Moniteur , we are convinced , after a summary perusal of its contents , that this pamphlet has been directly inspired by his Imperial Highness Prince Napoleon Jebome , whose feelings towards his cousin are no secret . We think , too , we can pronounce unmistakeably that the redaction of the facts supplied by the Prince is due to the hand of M , Emile 3 > e Gibabdin , whose intimacy with the Jerome branch of the Bonaparte family is no secret . . Proceeding from such a source , it is impossible to dismiss this pamphlet as a common polemical brochure . It contains the gravest charges against the highest people , and it clears up the obscurities of many events hitherto unexplained . We have neither time nor space this week to-extractrfrom the pamphlet at length ; we can only summarise very briefly its contents . We now learn that it was at the Tuileries that the Emperor of the French silently and secretly resolved upon the expedition to the Crimea , withou t consulting even his Minister of War . He despatched a plan of the campaign , traced entirely by his own hand , to Marshal St . Abnaui > , who took the credit of the design to himself , and spoke of the Emperor approving it . The Council of War at Varna unanimously rejected the proposal on the first occasion . The discussions were very warm . Lord Ragman , Admirals Dundas and Hamelin , Prince Napoleon , and the Duke of Cambbidge formally opposed it . Marshal St . Abnaud insisted on the necessity of complying with the Enipei ^ by a ooup de main . Admiral Hamelin , more especially , resisted the proposal , as a " reckless adventure . " Prince Napoleon spoke for three quarters of an hour against the expedition . Nevertheless , Lord Raglan yielded his objections , as did General BosqUet , and the expedition was determined . The pamphlet states that after the battle of Alma , it was , at the instance of Generals Evans , Bkown , and Bosquet , and of the Prince Napoleon , that the army pushed on to the Belbeck . Lord Raglan opposed the idea of attacking Sebastopol on the north side . When St . Abnaud was dying he called General Canbobebt to give him his commission as Commander-in-Chief of the army . General Canbobebt took out of his cloak a packet , evidently soiled by wear , bearing the arms of the Emperor . At this St . Arnaud opened his eyes but expressed no surprise . He only murmured , as his head fell back on his bed , " Cest bien . " The pamphlet speaks of Lor . d Raglan as a man of perfect taste and manners and decided incapacity , and charges him with the responsibility of Inkerman and Balaklava . The treaty with Austria of June 20 has been , the Prince maintains , the capital fault . The Emperor has sacrificed all to his dynastic ambition , and to his desire to escape from the position which ho had himself assumed , of a Parvenu , into the good graces of the Sovereigns of Europe . Such is the pith of the pamphlet , so far as we can jud"C by a single and necessarily hasty perusal ; if on a second more attent ive reading we perceive that our present analysis has omitted points ot interest and importance , we shall give extracts next week .
Doctor Vkbon Contributes Some Singular C...
Doctor Vkbon contributes some singular chapters to the hietory of the Coup d'C-tat of the Second of December . Deriving his materials from peculiar sources of information , ho lets us into the secret of that consummate burglary . We doubt if the light this grotesque cynic throws upon the personages of the present regime in France will increase the respect with which they are regarded by the intelligent class of . the population . It is
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), March 3, 1855, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_03031855/page/17/
-