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February 9, 1856.] THE LEADER 133
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HOW TO GET RID OF A WIFE. Truth is stran...
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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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' Training For Soldiers. Suppose Peace C...
class ; not only the noblest fighters , but the noblest men . It is far too low , too wasteful a -view of an army to look upon common soldiers as food for powder "—the fashion of fifty , nay five years ago . It is bad economy , it is bad philosophy , it is bad policy . A Government which is entrusted with the privilege of raising and Aviolding a standing army is in the position of the servant to whom , much was given and of whom nruch was required . Such a Government is in utter possession , so far as
one set of Luman beings can be in possession of others , of the souls and bodies of say nearly a quarter of a million of men ; and such a Government seriously mistakes or neglects its duty towards those men and towards the nation tolerating their rule , if they do not consider them , at all titties , as talents entrusted to their keeping , and therefore
not to be kept wrapt up in a napkin ; in other words , not merely to be physically drilled , but morally and intellectually disciplined aud ennobled . No schoolmaster has such an opportunity ; no university ; no prison even . Adequate care , adequate system , wise , generous , manly , would make of each regiment , not a band of scholars certainly—we do not want scholars , but of men and soldiers .
"We lay great stress upon the moral as well as the physical discipline . A soldier should have a spiritual life of a higher kind than he has been accustomed to . He should obey orders , not from fear , but an intelligent sense of duty ; he should be trained to habits of sobriety , not from apprehension of the cat , or the black hole , but from dread of doing wrong . He should be imbued * quite as much as his officers , with
a spirit of honour , and a fear of doing dishonourable actions ; and he should be taught to love excellence in everything . Not " that ¦ will do , " but " nothing except that will do , " should be liis motto . He should be taught to help himself ; to be equal to the situation if left alone ; to be able to act intelligently and promptly , if throAvn on lus own resources ; but he should be also tausrht that "
self-renunciation " with which , as Goethe says , " life begins ; " that idea of comradeship and duty , Avbich alone ennobles the life of the richest and the poorest , and makes the most ignorant in his sphere equal to the highest . And in his more purely military education , he should live as ia his moral life—always as if he were in the presence of the enemy . Depend upon it , you will never have perfect soldiers until you have men taught to consider themselves as always in the very face of death
They should be chilled with that kept in view . No absurd no squeamish delicacy should prevent proper exercises . At the risk of life men should be taught to run , to leap , to endure heat and cold , to wrestle , to take long inarches , to camp out sometimes and feed themselves , to bo left in uncertainty as to the moi * row ; in short , to undergo as far as possible the severest trials , in order that they might be equal to any situation . They should go through a regular probationary course ; good conduct badges should be looked on as the inferior steps in an
order of military chivalry , and each step upward should confer additional honour , as well as additional power and means . Every man in the ranks should be looked upon and taught to look upon himself as one who may become a gentleman ; and every man who bears the Queen's commission should , ipso facto , become entitled to all the privileges of a gentleman in society . The way to make an invincible fighting machine , is to make a machine composed of gentlemen in soul and aspirations , animated by the highest principles of action which you can draw out of man . In short , you must take this fact as the basis of your training , that though a soldier is not
the highest , yet that he is very high in the scale of workers—rightly used , he is the purifier of the world , the judge of the most tremendous causes—and that the calling of common soldier is , in due proportion , as noble as the calling of officer ; in short , you must make men strong , self-helping , and self-respectful ; and you must rectify the excess of self , by drawing forth the spirit of companionship , the community of life and death , and its noble sacrifices will be sure to follow . The best army will be that composed of the best and noblest men . If this be so , how much depends on the officers \ re select ! But that is a topic for a separate paper .
February 9, 1856.] The Leader 133
February 9 , 1856 . ] THE LEADER 133
How To Get Rid Of A Wife. Truth Is Stran...
HOW TO GET RID OF A WIFE . Truth is stranger than fiction , not only by deceiving ordinary expectation and thus departing more from verisimilitude than fiction safely can , but by producing events which , save for their occurrence , we might declare to be impossible . If a writer of fiction were to invent a tale , in which a husband could concoct a conspiracy with his ovrn servants to defame his wife ; should carry on his plans in open day , and with a transparent failure in
his testimony ; yet should succeed with the concurrence of a court of justice and the testimony of the impugned woman herself , critics would laugh at the * ' arbitrary" incidents . And yet we have before us a grave statement , purporting to be a simple relation of facts , * which gives us this ultra-romantic romance with strong corroboration . " We have already alluded to this case : it comes before us again , justice still tinrendered ; and the story is told with new and damning facts .
Mr . and Mrs . Talbot were marriedin January , 1845 . They had one child—a daughter born in Octob e r , " The child of the mother ' s unbounded affection , " remarked the judge of the Consistory Court . In 1851 Mr . Talbot inherited from an uncle considerable estates in Eoscommon , which were entailed on the male descent . When Mr . Talbot discovered the arrangement of the will , he expressed dissatisfaction at having no son ; and from that time , it is remarked , he treated Iris wife " with
indifference , coldness , and unkindness . Although he had considerable property , and his wife appears to have been a careful woman , anxious to see her household in order , he left her exceedingly short of money ; so much so , that she was compelled at times to borrow sums as small as 3 s . 6 d . from her own servants , and to repay them in small instalments—fourpenny pieces taken from her child , or postagestamps . No charge was made against the lady
xmtil May , 1852 , seven years after marriage ; and then she was accused of criminal familiarity with a groom . In all respects this accusation ¦ was improbable . Mrs . Talbot appears to have been a woman with little force of character , devoted to her domestic duties , in fear of her husband , constantly accompanied by her daughter , and without motive or impulse of any kind Avhich could have led to sucli a position . There were circumstances which rendered her relation with the
groom almost impossible . The witnesses brought to sustain the case in court , for it was carried into the Consistory Court , and thence into the Court of Delegates , —swore to proceedings which were in their nature absolutely impossible : such as describing a man to have passed through a small square hole in a wall r without assistance , at , a height considerably above his own head . Some of the witnesses asserted that the lady was in the * A letter to hia Excellonoy the Lord . Lieutenant of Ireland , on the judgmont of the High Court of Delegates , in the case of Talbot v . Talbot . By Thoimvs Tortius Pngot , Ebij ., Ridgway , 1850 . [ Wo noticed the subject in the Lewder for July 21 , 1856 . 1
habit of visiting the groom ' s bedroom , and of leaving her daughter in another room , going back to the child subsequently . It appears to have been tme that Mrs . Talbot did visit that room , in succession with all the rooms in the house , " to see that things were neat and tidy , " as she said . Specifically , however , some of the witnesses concentrated on a particular day—the 19 th of May ; when they agreed that Mrs . Talbot was locked in the room with the man-servant— " somebody , " she afterwards remarked , "had turned the key ; " and
this seems highly probable . But it was established beyond doubt , and before the court , that on that day the child , instead of having been left behind , was with her mother the whole time . The witnesses brought to establish the charge were , the servants of the house , and two clergymen to whorn the lady was said to have confessed . The servants disagreed with each other . Two amongst them , who spoke most distinctly , were named Halloran the butler , and Finnerty . ; One of the witnesses called for the prosecution distinctly said that these two men . '' tried to induce her to swear .
false against Mrs . Talbot . The two clergymen who were brought forward as witnesses to show that she had confessed , were the Rev . Mr . M'Clelland , the rectoi \ of MountTalbot , and the Rev . Mj \ G-age . But when in court , Mr . Gage denied that the lady had confessed ; on the contrary , when , the charge was mentioned to her , " she shuddered back '* from it . The other clergyman was not so distinct ; and the relatives of the lady have since collected , and
have published , testimony which they declare themselves prepared to affirm on oath , stating circumstances that in many respects invalidate Mr . M'Clelland ' s account . He had declared ^ that the servants at Mount Talbot were a u bad set : " this he denied in court . He had expressed a hope that he should not be called as a witness in the case , "because he was under pecuniary obligations "to Mr . Talbot . To a brother-in-law of Mrs . Talbot he described
her , the night after the charge was made , as crouching down in a corner of her room , witb every sign of terror : he gave a totally different description in court . Yet , / hi the other hand he did not stand by the averment that she had confessed—which most certainly she did , then or afterwards . As soon as the charge was made , the husband took a course which is unparalleled in modern times . He placed the lady hi charge of two men servants—who were appointed to be watchmen over her during the night . One
of them was Halloran , the butler , who had been discharged from a great number of places for drunkenness . He appears to have been in a state of intoxication that night ; and to have treated the terrified lady with a rough familiarity , as if he -were bent upon substantiating the offence with which she ' was charged . On the next day Mr . Talbot was informed of this conduct on the part of his butler ; but the man was not discharged ; on the contrary , he afterwards received an advance of wages , and when he came up to Dublin , as a witness , his expenses were paid .
The terrified wife entreated that she might be sent to her father ; begged that one of her sisters might come to her ; or that an old family servant might meet her in Dublin . Instead , she was taken in charge of Mr . M'Clelland , to Coffev ' s Hotel , in Dublin ; thence to lodgings at Battigar ; and thence again to a species oi private asylum at Clewer , near Windsor , where she remained in charge of a lady , who passed by a feigned name , until the wife was rescued by her family in November , 1852 . By this time , on more than one occasion , she had confessed . She seems to have presumed that what so many people aa-
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 9, 1856, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_09021856/page/13/
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