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564 THE Ii E A P E R. [No. 377, Saturday
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w rtH THI3 DEPARTMENT. A3 All. OPINIONS,...
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There is no learned man but will confess...
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THE JLAWS RELATING TO THE PROPERTY OF MA...
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A veteran EwaxstB.—Tho first engine cons...
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NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS. No notice can...
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SATURDAY, JUNE 13, 1857.
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? There is nothing so revolutionary, bec...
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THE LICENSING SYSTEM. No case ever reste...
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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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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
564 The Ii E A P E R. [No. 377, Saturday
564 THE Ii E A P E R . [ No . 377 , Saturday
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W Rth Thi3 Department. A3 All. Opinions,...
w rtH THI 3 DEPARTMENT . A 3 All . OPINIONS ,- HOWEVKK EXTREMK , AltE ALLOWED AN . EXPRESSION , 1 « B EDITOR NECESSARILY HOLDS UIMSILF BESPOUSIBLS IOR HOafi . ]
There Is No Learned Man But Will Confess...
There is no learned man but will confess he hath much profited by reading controversies , his senses awakened , and his judgment sharpened . If , then , it be profitable for him to . read , why should it not , at least , be tolerable for his adversary to write J—HilTON
The Jlaws Relating To The Property Of Ma...
THE JLAWS RELATING TO THE PROPERTY OF MARRIED WOMEN . ( To the Editor of the Leader . } Sir , —The 7 th , 8 th , and 9 th clauses of the petition were as follows : — ** That newspapers constantly detail instances of mental oppression , " wife-beating" being a new compound noun lately introduced into the English language , and a crime against which English gentlemen have lately enacted stringent regulations ; but that for the robbery by a man of his wife ' s hard earnings there is no redress , against the selfishness of a drunken father , who wrings from a mother her children ' s daily bread , there is no appeal . She may work from morning till night to see the produce of her labour wrested from her and wasted in a gin palace ; and such cases are within the knowledge of
every one . " That the law in depriving the mother of all pecuniary resources , deprives her of the power of giving schooling to her children , and in other ways providing for their moral and physical wellfare , it obliges her , in short , to leave them to the temptations of the street , so fruitful in juvenile crime . " I have but little to say of the se three clauses written out at some length , except to observe that they express the result of a state of domestic feeling which the law encourages with one hand and expresses with the other . After treating the wife as a chattel and non-existent , it is shocked to find that this non-existent is not unfrequently threatened with
loss of limb and life , to have its eyes gouged out , or a chair sent violently flying at its head . The administrators of the law , many of them full of chivalry and mindly feelings and considering women to be citizens of the heavenly kingdom , though denied any status in the earthly one , declare that in certain physical senses the non-existent is to be considered as an entity must be fed and clothed , and that any breaking- of the peace against the said non-existent is severely to be reprehended . Then the man is put in prison , whence it is supposed he will emerge and return to the domestic hearth in a sweeter and tenderer frame of mind . Now suppose , which we do not suppose , that kicking and cuffing are much
reduced by this process ; that the Habeas Corpus Act spreads a broad protecting wing over women of the lower classes , we have but to meet a more silent and subtle kind of ill-treatment . There is the idea of prerogative untouched , and it finds vent in a thousand ways . It is not by stealing money out of a box or from the toe of an old stocking that a man robs his wife . It is rather by a force of domestic opinion engendered by the law : and backed by the law , that it comes into his hands . . In how many thousand instances it must be quietly rendered up to him as the head and the stronger—the possibility of unredressed physical foice iying grimly in the background .
Sometimes the money may be taken and drunk away , sometimes it may be pxit into a bad speculation , little or great . It is not in th ' e broad lights and shades , but in the greys and browns , the delicate tintings of domestic life that these laws work the most evil . All this had been said by Mrs . Jameson in the first part of h « r •« Communion of Labour" far better than I can say it . The latent poison of an injustice is worse than its obvious effects . This particular injustice takes away the mother ' s balance in the family ; it cuts off a hand whereby she might
exercise her just will . It is a screw loose which jars the whole machinery , affecting temper , morals , and mutual respect , in manifold and untold ways , just because it is gentler than a kick it is more efficacious for mischief . Tins law makes unhappiness which no law can cure ; unhappiness which is locked up with the family skeleton , and never comes put till the house is quiet and the law has gone to sleep . I remain , sir , yours obediently , Bessie Rayneu Parkes . Algiers , March 2 , 1357 .
A Veteran Ewaxstb.—Tho First Engine Cons...
A veteran EwaxstB . —Tho first engine constructed . for the Stockton and Darlington Railway—tho patriarch of tho iron roads—Is & till preserved -with groat veneration ; and last Saturday tho foundation atono was laid of a pedestal on which the old locomotive j s to bo placed . It vrao made In the year 1925 by Goorgo Stephonaon ; but , though a wonder for those days , it was very incomplete , and could not go faster than a conch and horaoa . Tho original driver ia atlll living , and so ia tho ' father' of tho railway , Mr . Poase , -who is now very old . Ilia eon proaided on tho proaoiit oooasion . A dinner took place In tho evening .
Notices To Correspondents. No Notice Can...
NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS . No notice can be taken of anonymous correspondence Whatever is intended for insertion must be authenticated bv the name and address of the writer ; not necessarily for ¦ publication ' , but as a guarantee of his good faith . Wo cannot undertake to return rejected communications . Communications should always be legibly written , and on one side of th . e-papor . only . If long . it increases the difficulty of finding space for them . It is iiripossible to' acknowledge tho mass of letters we receive . Their insertion is often delayed , owing to a press of matter ; and when omitted , it is frequently from rea sons quifce independent of the merits of the cominunica tion .
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Saturday, June 13, 1857.
SATURDAY , JUNE 13 , 1857 .
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? There Is Nothing So Revolutionary, Bec...
? There is nothing so revolutionary , because there is nothing so ¦ unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to keepthings fixed when all the worldis by thevery law of its creation in eternal progress . —Dk . Aesoid . — *
The Licensing System. No Case Ever Reste...
THE LICENSING SYSTEM . No case ever rested more completely on the gro 3 S assumptions and perversions of truth than that of Mr . Haiidy , in proposing to extend the restrictions of the public-house licensing system to beer-houses . According to his description , beer-houses are the theatre in-which . every kind of crime is concocted ; there is no check upon the character of those
who apply for beer licenses ; many beer-shops are houses of a low character in disguise — gambling-houses , and worse ; and in 1035 , Lord Keeper Coventry declared that " alehouses and tippling-houses were the greatest pests in the country . " Mr . Hakdy is obliged to resort to the middle ages , illustrations of drunkenness in Sweden , and gross
misrepresentations of present facts in England , in order to vamp up his case . Now the truth is , that the statistics show the beerhouses on the whole to be quite as well conducted as the public-houses , if not better . If some beer-houses are only blinds for establishments of a worse order , so are publichouses . If you want to arrange a sporting visit—8 ay to some boxing match—you will learn how to manage it at a well-known public-house . The licensing system has fallen
very much into a routine . In fact , the licence is given less for the character of the applicant than for a general concurrence of the brewer , the builder , and the licensing justice in distributing the licenses , and they do it by favour . The licensing system is a monopoly , and the privileges of all monopolies in connexion with trade may bo bought . They have almost nothing to do with character . Nor are public-houses and beershops the only blinds for questionable
establishments . If it wore thought necessary to put down whole branches of trade because the shop maybe made the blind lor vice ,, tlio same argument might bring the bonnetmakers or the milliners within tho restriction of the licensing system . Before froetrade was established , the linendrapora might have boen equally the subjects of license , because tho shop would bo tho blind for tlio smuggler ' s business . Tho whole plan of protection on that ground completely fails .
In fact , the system which was to protect tlio morals of those who frequent publichouses has only had tho effect of undermining tho morals ot those that administered the systein . It was stated by tho committee , which inquired into the subject , that the clerks to justices and police-offices have bocome actually the servants of brewers and of
license d publicans ; the justice's clerk assist ing the brewers and publicans to obtain the license , the police clerk assisting to forefend inconvenient results to publicans or brewers on informations laid before the court A system which draws some of the most respectable men—magistrates and public offi .- ' into
cers— a conspiracy against the public interests and laws , is thoroughly bad , aud can scarcely have any really moral result Ineffective , then , for its direct purposes practically resulting in mischief , the publichouse licensing system is not one to be extended to beer-shops , even if the t \ r 0 classes of establishments were alike .
But they are not . The dealer in wines and spirits trades in luxuries ; the seller dt beer sells that which is rather a necessary in this country ; so that if the one should be restrained , the other at least should be free . There is another distinction : the man who drinks beer , as a general rule , works hard the man who drinks spirits , still speaking generally , is not such ; a hard worker . The beer-drinker is poorer than the wine-drinker or the spirit-drinker ; and to tax the draught of the poor man is as bad as to tax the loaf of bread .
Sir Geoege G-uey promised to reconsider the whole subject during the recess , and to introduce a measure next session . In making this promise , he made also some excellent observations against Mr . Hardy's interference . A certain form of licensing- where goods of the kind are sold is quite proper . If persons intend to make their own residences in their nature public , they ought to give notice to the authorities , in order that protection of the public may be extended within what would otherwise be the inmate's ' castle . '
It is for these ' reasons that inns , taverns , public-houses , and beer-shops are more open to the entrance of the police than private dwelling-houses . A sufficient charge to pay for the expences of this kind of surveillance , is a charge which , with freedom of trade in other respects , would fall upon the consumer . But beyond this the interference of the State can ouly be mischievous . So far as police intervention is concerned , let it be effectual ; but let the police interference be limited to the maintenance of order and the enforcementoflaw : nothing else .
If , indeed , Government desire to draw revenue from the fees exacted upon granting licences , well and good . ; the house of public entertainment is n proper subject for taxation , but the limit for tlio charge would then be that point at which the largest revenue accrued ; and , in order to obtain the largest revenue of trade , should be perfectly treo , without restraint in multiplying establishments . Revenue considerations , therefore , aro quite counter to any artificial restraints upon tho number of such houses , or the mode
of conducting them . . It is most probable , from tho facts stated before the committees of Parliament ana repeated in the debate the other night , that public order would bo directly promoted by throwing tho trade open to perfect freedom . Applications ior iconces greatly exceed the number ol licences granted ; the trade , therefore , is i"J | hcianj restrained to n limited number . _ Iho
ootaming of a licence , or evon ot tlio puoi » chouso itself , becomes an object oi intrigue , tho character of the occupant ia oinj a secondary consideration , in comparison w his connexion with tho brewer and tno brewer ' s friends . In many cases tho ouo rooter of the goods that ho sell * W oo inferior , and yet ho may retain tho posit on secured to him by a virtual monopoly . W » matters it to him that his customers < W ft £ that tho beer ia watery , tho spirits vftjm ' ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 13, 1857, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_13061857/page/12/
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