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662 THE LEADER. [Saturday,
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BEWARE OF THE DOG. It is an. old proverb...
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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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D1vokce "Next Session." Tuia Lord Chance...
been in life , it must be presumed that he does not belong to the aristocratic or wealthy classes of society : yet he must resort to means which imply the possession of wealth , and esteem himself happy too ; for how many , having the same reasons to claim divorce , have not at command the price of justice ! To all who sought divorce on the same grounds , Lord Cranworth ' s bill afforded the double relief , of concentrating the authority
and diminishing the expense . Ifc would no longer ha , ve been necessary to ohtain three favourable judgments in two courts and in Parliament ; and the cost would have been greatly diminished . Not enough , however , to give the relief to the poor mart : the bill would only-, so to speak , have extended the right of divorce to the middle classes . That was something . But the measure is arrested , and why . ? Because the officers and others interested in the maintenance of the
vicious and condemned Ecclesiastical Courts try to gain time by delays ; and so , to delaythe judgment on the unjust income of those persons , numbers of men and women condemned fco the torture of undissolved though , impracticable union , must continue in their suffering . The expectations which had been formed of the "bill were indeed extravagant ; and many expected under it a release which they would not have had . Others were more correct . A lady writing to the Daily JSTews d & nounces it as " for the first time
flagrantly drawing a distinction between the comparative culpability of men and women in breaking the marriage vow . " " Though it might be bad morality , " said Lord Cranworth , in defending his bill , " there was no blinking the fact that a husband would scarcely lose caste for an offence of this kind [ adultery ] , -whereas a wife would forfeit her station in society . " And on this Mrs . Margaret Hallen sends her protest to our contemporary ;
" Hardly as our sex hnye been treated by the matrimonial statutes of previous ages in England , it is reserved for the boasted civilisation . of the nineteenth century to endeavour to deprive us of the small protection against insult and indignity which law and public opinion have afforded us hitherto ; for whilst by the measure proposed facilities are afforded to the husband to dissolve his union with an unfaithful wife , should the case be reversed , and the wife the injured , party , no redress of grievances , no sundering of the marriage bond , except under the most extreme cases of villany , is procurable . By the measure proposed , the husband may revel in
profligacy , he may convert bis homo into a harem , he may insult hia wife with the presence of the accomplices of his guilt , and yet commit no legal crime which may enable his outraged partner to come before a court of justice for relief . That a measure involving such a principle as this should have emanated from some of the most distinguished personages in the land is a matter that cannot but excite surprise , indignation , and regret in the minds of many a woman in , this country . Must we not feel that that it is because we have no advocate to plead our cawae—that advantage is taken of our silence , weakness , and helplessness , to deny us that justice which man can claim bo forcibly for himself ?"
' No , that is not the reason . The first reason is this ; Lord Cranworth has considered the justice of granting the wife the right of divorce for adultery on the husband ' a part ; but he darod not grant ifcthe ciiaeB that might bo advanced on that ground would T ) o so innumerable , that the very institution of marriage would bo imperilled . Wonderful candour of a Lord Chancellor ! "Wonderful confession of the mamn-ge law as it ia !
The next reason , which Lord Cranworth might justly plead , is , that the real origin of any la , w , good or bad , lies in society itself . The legislature does but ebnpo laws . It ia the absence of distinot practical ideas in society , on this Bubject of marriage , which aro the real source of the
injustice . In the discussion of such questions , true principles are mixed with assumptions founded on customs in distant ages and distant countries , and with religious dogmas . In morals especially men arrogate the title to say that such a practice is " right" or is " wrong , " without taking any pains to judge for themselves , or to test the judgment by tangible aaid practical considerations . They claim the right to exercise private judgment on the existence of a Deity , and all the attendant questions of religion ; and do
accordingly examine into the evidences , and come to some conclusions of their own , or suppose they do . But on the most practical class of questions called moral , they are content to take the dicta of theologists , legists , and Popes , —of Pagan , Jew , and Gentile , ages ago ! "Women abet the men in passing these spurious convictions for real ; and those who cry out for reform in their own case , are as likely as not to turn round and dogmatise ,
even on the old principles , upon the right or wrong of their neighbour's case . Hence , having neither clear ideas , positive conclusions , nor accord of action , those who want the reform must take just so much as a Cranworth may please to give , and when he pleases : the " much" being the bill now thrown to the rats of Doctors' Commons ; the ' " when" that legislative to-morrow " next session . "
662 The Leader. [Saturday,
662 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,
Beware Of The Dog. It Is An. Old Proverb...
BEWARE OF THE DOG . It is an . old proverb that when you give a dog a had name you . hang him . But it appears that the result to the dog is . much'the same even when you give him . a good name - —in the sense of speaking in his favour . Benevolent people have had a " movement " to release dogs from the cart specially known among vehicles as the dog-cart ; the Lords are passing a bill to prohibit such use , and the owners of such dogs are preparing , accordingly , to hang their dogs thus usedthe dogs being 20 , 000 in numher . That , however , one would think is merely the dogs ' affair ; we make this generation of canine cart-drawers suffer , but we bless future generations of dogs—that is , yve prohibit the possible propagation of varieties of supernumerary curs ; and we , in no way , hurt ourselves —merely indulging what one noble lord called our philanthropy , " severely indifferent as to the fate of those we insist on benefiting . But the Earl of Uglintoun warns us that
there's not an end of the dog , when he dangles from a rope ia the popular back yard ; it is intimated to us that the dog will' reappear in the popular pie j and his lordship warns us , who despise Chinese tastes , to be careful of quasi-pork during the period of what should bo the dog days . Kow , if it could bo conditioned that the " philanthropists " alone should eat all the pork pies to bo produced during the next throe months , TtTA TtfAlilrl nnvn Tin y ^ Vk £ / i ^ 4-i **\ v \ 4 * r \ fl- « rw Vvill - * -mn .-. — ivwvm Vk / IVVUlV
. » v * . « , *• - «• * w * J . V U UW VIAU WKKM . iSiljUk )"' ing . But the " philanthropists" will do nothing of the kind ; to a suggestion of that sort they would answer , like llahelaia ' a coolc consulting with tlie chickens , who objected both to roasting as well as boiling , that we were wandering from the question . We must submit , therefore , to a new species of " adulteration , " under that systom of which wo have spoken in another article . Consequently ,
cave oancm . Lord Eglintoun's hint , however , is 00 carclosaly forcible na to urge to the consideration : why abould wo , tv kind-hoartod people , bo generous to dogs , and cruel to tho human masticators of pork-pioa ? It looks moritorioua to enfranchise dogs : and the . Lorda' measure will bo spoken " of aa an advance in " civilisation . " Yet it strikes certain Peers with
horror that animals of soft paws should be used for draught , while it only excites a laugh when a grave Peer refers to the notorious and more hideous fact that our Christian tradesmen engaged in . certain departments of the provision trade would , without compunction , put " Dash" into a pork-pie . Do we , thus , set off one national sin against another by arranging only to be experimentally good in corpore vili , —our national cur ? The gentleman who was shocked at the use of a goose , in cleansing , —by being flappingly drawn upa chimney , and who recommended that two
ducks should be used , in that way , instead , was perhaps only guilty of the national logic . In certain districts of Ireland the literary market—engaged in denunciations of the oppressor—is supplied with quills gathered from the living and screaming goose : and the peasants , remonstrated with , Sbquire , " would you have us , then , starve ? " There is some syllogistic process developed in that question . But the English public is to be forced into goodness to dogs , in order that they , the public , may eat—what they don't like .
Still larger questions arise out of this debate —managed too frivolously . Opinions were divided for and against the dog- —the dog alone being able to determine which were the true ayes , and which were the veritable noes ; several young Peers improperly absenting themselves on an occasion when their order would have been indebted to them for an opinion . The Peers who were in favour of the use of dogs in carts , contended tliat the dogs did not suffer ; by which they meant
that they didn't suffer more than was good for them , their paws being accommodated to their functions , and their masters having an interest in talcing care of them . On the other hand , other Peers quoted the intentions of Providence , as printed in the said paws , and argued , generally , that physical organisations should not be "diverted to artificial purposes . This is an awkward first principle for a Peer to venture on : and Lord Jjyndhurst ' s cynical enquiry when the
Government would bring in a bill to proTide for the comfort of industrious fleas , pointed the moral of that line of argument . Is the House of Lords prepared to arrange for the " eternal fitness of things ? " No doubt , among the benefactors of dogs who voted waa the venerable nobleman who provided for the " accomplished party" lately in a court of law suing Mr . llolt for board and lodging expenses : —did the venerable nobleman consider that it was the intention , of Providence that women should be prostitutes
—there being no benevolent law against such a diversion of moral organisation ? Was it intended that lobsters should pass one phase among lettuce , eggs , and mustard , in broad dishes : or that the foie gras should be developed before a good fire ? Aro Smithfield and Billingsgate visible intentions of Providence ? were old gentlemen , with certain numbers of acres , intended to be hereditary legislators , and decree tho general suspension of unsus picious dogs , felicitous under the caresses of thoir several Launces P
When Madame Poitevin , the Europa of tho minute , went up , and came down , in a bullock-harnessed balloon , the Jupiter coming down dead , tUo secretary to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals killed several horses , perhaps , in hunting about for evidence ; tho witnesses dining together on boef winch luid been dragged to Smithfield : and that sort of inconsistency , very innocent , cannot be overlooked on such occasions as thie Dog-cart Debate . How many Peers talking of " humanity" on Monday had " books" atoeplechnsea ; how many kept hunters ; how many used caba ; how man y preserved , precisely for tho purpose- of finally wounding and
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 15, 1854, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_15071854/page/14/
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