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aafcUt of which sects tha ^ e fBB LEABBB...
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LEGALISED THEFT. Tub belief in witchcraf...
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THE ITALIAN PORTSMOUTH. The Sardinian Go...
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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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Up And Down London. From Paddington To L...
Bridge , to supply the Surrey and Kent people with a share of Mr . M * eciiex , i , * s magnificence . Begent-street was constructed , from PbB-xnall to Portland-plaeej between the y ears 1813 and 1823 , at the trifling cost , including the purchase of property , vested interests ,, sewers , and law-charges , of 1 , 533 , 582 ? . It is a mile and a half in ideal streetfour
length ; but Mitchell ' s , miles long , is calculated to cost 6- , 50 O , Q © 0 ?' ., the railway 1 , 900 ; OOOZ ., the new palace and improvements at Kensington 1 , 500 * 000 ? ., amounting in the gross to nearly ten millions sterling . But he thinks the ground-rent and traffic- would yield nearly three per cent . not a large promise for a prospectus .
Another civil engineer , Mr . 1 \ W . Bammeii , proposes to intersect London with railways . He objects , very reasonably , to underground schemes . " We should have to undermine or displace a vast complication of sewers , water-pipes , and gas-pipes , and keep clear of a city . of cellars and foundations . As a nation , we hate tunnels , dark , moist , impure , filled with noise and steam . Mr . ItoooLr , would carry the rails , on iron
frames , level with our first-floor windows , and work the trains by means of an atmospheric machinery . His railway would consist simply of a narrow line of rails , with an atmospheric tube between them , resting upon single rows of columns , planted along the kerb . Houses already in existence might be converted into stations ; the trains should run upon an endless course , always in one direction , so as to avoid danger ; a high average of speed should be maintained , with low , fares , but
large profits to the projectors . Circular boulevards , with new streets radiating from a centre , tramways for heavy traffic along each side of the great thoroughfares , a new attempt to govern locomotives upon common , roads , have been among the suggestions for an improvement of metropolitan communications . We may not accept any
of these schemes ,, which treat blocks of houses as cream cheese , and capitalists as nuggets to be melted down ; but we must adopt one plan or another ,, for , as time progresses , the opposite ends of Ijondon will be separated by an impassable wilderness , and the people of the parts about Primrose Hill will know no more of the dwellers in Globe Town than Aboukir knows of Table Bay .
Aafcut Of Which Sects Tha ^ E Fbb Leabbb...
^ fBB LEABBBL [ No . 37 % , S £ xxekba x
Legalised Theft. Tub Belief In Witchcraf...
LEGALISED THEFT . Tub belief in witchcraft , which the British public has lately affected much surprise at finding full-blown among us , is only a coarser form of that superstition concerning the Oath which still lingers on the magisterial bench , and , in spite of law reformers , still upon the statute books . Nonconformity lias established itself all over the country , and , after some trouble , has got itself recognised in our institutions . No form of disbelief , however
extreme , do law officers now attempt to punish . Sixteen years have elapsed since the po-we * of adjudging punishment to heresy was taken entirely out of the hands of magistrates , and no court high or low has the power to revive any such proceeding without the special , consent of the Crown . But while the right of nonconformity is established' m . the streets , there lingers the old t t
supersition thathe world cannot go on without conformity in the witness-box . Whatever a man may believe as a private individual , he must have , or profess , one common- belief in . the witness-box , or he is outlawed . Every possible latitude is now allowed him as to the manner of swearing . He-may hold up his right arm , ov his left ; he may kiss the Bible , or ho may break a saucer ; he may swear by a false god ; but he
must swear . During the . first century of our rule over India we insisted upon swearing the pagans " on the true faith of a * Christian ¦ ; " but our oath not being binding on their consciences , it was found that they disregarded it . Our Indian statesmen ,, more liberal t han our English statesmen , changed the fornr of oath , and permitted that form to be used which was binding oca the pagan conscience . Now the Hindoo swears by what we regard as a false god ; but the plan , answers , and the pagan witness tells the truth as satisfactorily as the Christian . The
force of the oath lies not in conformity of belief , but in an appeal to the swearer ' s highest sense of veracity . We take it that a free English subject is entitled to as much respect as a conquered pagan , and when an English deponent appears in our courts declaring his intention solemnly and conscientiously to speak " the truth , the whole truth , and nothing but the truth , " and binds himself by all the consequences of the laws of perjury , we cannot see why English law should refuse that man credibility , refuse him the protection of justice , and abandon him , defenceless , to outrage and to plunder .
3 ? or some time past the newspapers have teemed with cases of this kind . A short time ago an Edinburgh thief , having a spite against a respectable tradesman whom he knew to have a conscientious objection to an oath , took the opportunity of robbing him ; being detected and brought before the sheriff , he reported the prosecutor ' s inability to take the oath , when the said sheriff , or whatever was his legal designation as a magistrate , liberated the thief , and sentenced the prosecutor to ten days' imprisonment for the offence of refusing to swear . We are not quite sure whether the robbery came about
by pre-calculation exactly as we state , but this was the way it might have come about ; this , however , was the way the prosecutor was treated , and license given to every thief who listed to go and do likewise . The other day , in Newcastle-upon-Tyne , a witness indebted to a tradesman pleaded , on being sued for payment of his claim , that his creditor was destitute of the conventional belief necessary to enable him to take the oath . The court connived at the proceeding , the law leaving the judge no other course ; and the crafty defaulter evaded the payment of the debt .
Another case which has never yet been reported , in some respects more flagrant than either of these , occurred the other day in the Staffordshire Potteries . At the police-court , Hanley , before T . B . Rose and Joiiar Ridgway , Esqs ., on . Monday , March 9 th , a man named Josepii Taylok , was charged by his employer , Mr . J . B . Bebbington , with stealmoulds
ing a wheelbarrow , a quantity of , gum , porcelain ornaments , scales , weights , & c . The whole of the stolen property was p roduced in court , having been taken out of the house of the prisoner by the police , acting ; under a search-warrant . On the prisoner being called forward and the New Testament handed to the prosecutor , the following dialogue ensued : — Btate
Proa . Before taking tho oath I wiah to make a - menfc . Magist . Well , what is it ? Proa . I wish to state thut I regard tho oath as a civil , and not as a religious ceremony . C 7 er / 8 . He does not believe tho Scriptures . Ma-gist . Then I cannot ) take your evidence . Now ,, air , I nauat have * tho matter more plainly out : You have in your hands a copy of tho Holy Scriptures—do you or do you not believe in their divine origin ? It would bo a perfect farce to swear a man on a book ho does not believe . [ The magistrate after some consultation with Mr . Ridgwuy , rammed : ]
I am quite clear in this case . Tho law allows us to take tho evidence of Ciuakors , Moravians , and some other sects under an affirmation dinpenning with tho
aafcU , to none of which sects tha prosecutor says he belongs j but it gives us no power to take the evidence of a person who says he disbelieves the Holy Scri pture ? Pros . T did not say that . < J Magist . It is a matter of inference . However tha magistrates have determined to take a note of ' your declaration , and then to . take upon themselves the responsibility of refusing your evidence . Now , sir , you will please to attend : — " This witness before being sworn j made a declaration that ; he regarded the oath as civilly but not reli giously binding , whereon , & c . " Is that correct ? Pros . Assented .
Magist . Then there is no case against the prisoner . I never , in the whole course of my experience , met with but one case of this kind before . That was the case of a man named Yates—since , I believe , dead—the late Jeremiah , Yates , who , on presenting himself before me to be sworn in as special constable , at . a time when hig refusal would have brought upon him a fine of five , pounds , said that he did not believe the oath , but that he would take it to save the five pounds . I ordered him out of court , saying that I would have neither his services nor his five pounds , and that I did not consider him a fit person to serve her Majesty . There is no casa against the prisoner , let him be discharged , and let the property be taken back to the place from whence it was brought by the officers who executed the
searchwarrant . In all the dialogues between witnesses and the bench touching the oath , the exact point at issue has never been pub more clearly , nor in language more unobjectionable , than by Mr . BEBBiNGKroN in this instance . There was no syllable jarring on the faith of the court—no obtrusion of any opinion held by the prosecutor—nothing but a simple , respectful , and decided declaration that theoath was binding on his conscience to all intents and purposes as a civil ceremony—
and as a civil ceremony only . Mr . Rose followed up this by an impertinent and illogical commentary . He had no evidence whatever before him on which to ground his inference ( that the prosecutor disbelieved the Holy Scriptures ) , and he proceeded to employ the officers of the court in removing the stolen property , which occupied a considerable space before the bench , to the house of the thief , who was dismissed , with something like triumph , to enjoy the fruits of hia plunder . With the knowledge that this is the kind of treatment which may be expected by a conscientious prosecutor , no wonder beiore
that Mr . Rose has not had many cases him . This clear-headed Solon relieves Jeremiah Yates of the duty of serving Heb Majesty , and excuses him the fine of five pounds after his coarse profession of inuuference respecting the oath—a profession betraying no consciousness of moral obligation in the matter . After this tenderness to Jeremiah Yates , Mr . Rose refuses , with a sort of unction , protection to Mr . Bebbinc } - ton , who professes a manly respect for civil veracity , and hands over his property to the undisputed custody of the thief . The sooner the law , which not merely permits , but instructs magistrates to commit these outrages ] , is amended , the better for public justice .
The Italian Portsmouth. The Sardinian Go...
THE ITALIAN PORTSMOUTH . The Sardinian Government has for-some time been proposing to transfer the naval arsenal from Genoa to Spezaia , and it meets with a double resistance , combining elements reaiiy incompatible . "We shall understand the nature of this resistance better when wo perceive the real character of the project , me port of Genoa lies at the bottom of a spacious 1 / . .. / iii . a . linurovnr . of tho port however
culf . The construction , , would not readily admit of expansions viBttout a very great expense . Even a W f ™™ a century ago tho space was barel y suffifflent for tho commerce '; and with the . increase o trade , tho growth of , steam , navigation ana paflBongor transit , and tho naing importance of tho Sardinian States ns a political power in tho Mediterranean , tho port m booming oucidedly too small to be , as it has already won
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 9, 1857, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_09051857/page/14/
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