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November 15,1856.] THE LEADER. 1093 — ~*...
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THE TOURISTS' VIEW OF POLITICS. The Engl...
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WIZA11D HARRISON AND HIS ACCOMPLICES. On...
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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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.
Of Prance. The Story Is Simple. Russia B...
grace that was not included in his programme . Like A gar , in the South-Eastern JJailway robbery , Tie invented it , he conducted it ; but others bear off the booty . The sequel of Agar ' s story is prophetic : he is undergoing penal servitude ; but he comes forth from the St . Helena of Portland to avenge upon his accomplices the wrongs of Fanny 3 £ ay and . that little child of whom he is as fond as if it were a Prince Imperial .
November 15,1856.] The Leader. 1093 — ~*...
November 15 , 1856 . ] THE LEADER . 1093 — ~* * _ ^ _ ^ —__ i . . _ — ¦ — '
The Tourists' View Of Politics. The Engl...
THE TOURISTS' VIEW OF POLITICS . The English public receives its impressions of continental affairs through a threefold medium—the continental journal , the newspaper correspondent , and the tourist . The journalist , in most parts of Europe , is under compulsion not to be a faithful witness ; the newspaper correspondent must say anything , rather than that there is nothing to say ; of the tourist the official classes hope to make a
jdupe , while by malcontents he is considered a ' suspect , ' and by people in general as anything but a politician . The axiom assumed is , in most cases , that a man , an Englishman especially , goes abroad for pleasure ; , or for private business ; or , if his object be political , that he is employed by his Government . The consequence is , that he obtains little real information as to the progress of state affairs , or as to the movements of the disaffected .
He has no interest in seeing activit } 7- vrliere none is visible ; he has no correspondence to keep up , no columnar reports to fill with authentic intelligence ; in fact , it is not his occupation to justify the acceptance of a salary , by proving how important it is that the British public should be kept constantly informed , by a special pen , of all that passes at Crema or Castiglione . A gentleman compelled to write a periodical letter covering several pages , from any one of the Italian
capitals , could scarcely expect to form one of a highly-paid staff if he had only to report , with variations of language , ' Nothing is happening here , or likely to happen . ' If a king ' s demeanour be in question , he must not treat his majesty ' s drive through the streets as though it meant no more than an airing , or an act of locomotion ; it must have ' the significances' attached to it , and thus become a piece of political news . Of course
we are treating the body of correspondents as high-bred and honourable men , whose belief in the importance of their communications / home' is altogether unaffected ; but it is impossible not to observe the influences that beset them , and the effect of constant listening in filling the ear with unreal noises and rumours . Moreover , Europe swarms with expectants , the antipodes of the official class . To hear these men
converse for half an hour , in Paris , or Qenoa or Borne , and to accept their statements , would be to believe that , in less than a month , the great military powers would be engulphed by a universal revolution . They discern the clouds that blacken over Europe , and they imagine daily that the Apocalypse has come . On the other hand , the ordinary tourist—We except those men accustomed to politics , whoae sight pierces through the veil of appearance—is liable to misconceptions of
another kind . In a capital in which lie hau no personal friends , it is probable that he "Will meet not a single person ablo and willing to explain the real condition of affairs . He jvill hear nothing at the embassy , nothing at JW hotel , the aspect of the public places will tell him nothing ; he may troad a territory Jained by sedition ; yet all may seem listless , hopeless , stagnant . The storm begins to ajutter only a short time before it bursts . What , for example , could the best-informed ¦ Kng liehman learn from a fortnight ' s stay in
Paris , unless he had friends amongst the permanent residents , who would act as his media of communication with , the unseen world of intrigue , and action , and conspiracy ? He might know one warm-blooded liberal sympathizer , who would tell him that a vast combination had been organized to overthrow the Emperor , and was pertain , of success . He might be told , elsewhere , that France had b een petrified by the coup d'etat , tbat the revolutionary class had been destroyed , that the army
was devoted to the Emperor , that no street fight in Paris could last more than , an hour , that public confidence was In a fair way of being restored , and that the probabilities of change had no more existence than they "had in 1855 . Between these accounts the imagination might well "be bewildered . "We do not intend to imply that the means of arriving at the truth do not exist : but they are not within the reach of the casual visitor . As the regular correspondent in the exercise of his 'metier is apt to exaggerate the
rapidity and the importance of local events , so the occasional visitor is apt to mistake a serene surface for the torpor of content ; or the lassitude of despair . When we note the diversities of opinion among professional correspondents , engaged in the selection and arrangement of ' continental news '—how one corroborates what another denies , how one natters the hopes of commercial circles and another excites the expectations of sympathetic politicians—it is obvious that even a
statesman suddenly arriving in a capital in which his acquaintances are few , will run much risk of being misled by fictitious apr pearances . Suppose him to arrive even in Genoa , where the discussion of public affairs is carried on -with , tolerable freedoni , he has no chance of knowing , unless furnished with party pass-words , wliafc the republicans are doing . "Who , for instance , can tell us which province of Italy it is that , as the first to revolt against Austria , is likely to receive the ten thousand niu skefcs ?
Something , then , must be deducted on both sides . If Italy and France are not so ripe for change as some persons believe them to be , tliey are not altogether sunk in despond . It is enough to contemplate the actual system of government in Europe , to know that sedition must be generated far and wide , and it would be irrational to suppose that , with diplomacy in its present attitude , and with serious questions hastening to solution in ali quarters of the contiuent , Government alone is incessantly active , and the people universally resigned .
Wiza11d Harrison And His Accomplices. On...
WIZA 11 D HARRISON AND HIS ACCOMPLICES . One . of the most respectable streets in Leeds is South-market . Afc one end of the street is a Methodist chapel , at which the congregation is much given to ' revivals ; ' at the other end is an Evangelical Dissenters' meeting-house , where ' the Word ' is preached in its integrity , with great zeal . Both these institutions are active ; their prayer
meetings , class meetings , missionary meetiugs , day schools , and Sunday schools are numerously attended ; tracts are lent , and the missionaries are not idle . The dwellers in the street are respectable There are houses and shops , and life goes on as we are accustomed to view it in English towns . Who would expect that in the midst of that very street , we should discover an abode consecrated to ignorance and vice of the grossest kind ?
In ono of the houses of that street lives a Mrs . Brown . Slie has a share in a greengrocer ' s shop , not far oft '; iind in her dwelling there is a Mr . Hamuson . To others , he calls her his " housekeeper ; " to strangers , she calls
him her " lodger ; " and yet there is a statement that they are actually husband and wife . This man , Harbison , lives well with his neighbours , some of whom appear to be respectable persons . They meet him ,, and are hail fellow well met ; they treat him at the public-house , and are treated by him . They have suspicions with respect to Mrs . Brown ; but there is nothing on the surface , and 'his money is as good in . its colour as another man's . ' What , then , is his business ?
Harbison was a native of Leeds ; originally he was a common labourer at a dye-house , and we understand he was formerly sent to prison for stealing Btuff pieces from his employers . Subsequently , he was convicted again , and imprisoned , for pilfering garden vegetables . The vegetables were discovered by the owner , who had marked them , and who saw them in Harris on' s house , when he went there for a purpose curious enough : he went to consult Harrison how he should discover the loss . Por , tired
of dyeing , Harrison had set up as ' a wise man . ' He had become a ruler of the planets , a decipherer of the phenomena of the creation ; easier trades far , as he carried them on , than daily labour . The man who could not keep his vegetables to himself , could Jhit upon no better . method of finding out how to recover the loss , than by going to the thief : a direct process enough , only the despoiled cabbage owner went to Harbison , not as thief , but as philosopher . The single act is , in itself , a sufficient commentary upon the confusion of ideas in certain classes . It would seem that
after his return from the penance for these aberrations into the cabbage-bed , Harbison set up a hew department . With his wisemanship , he became " astrological doctor and water caster , " - —so said his sign ; and , according to all outward appearances , he grew fat upon the business . His stock in trade was not very extensive . He had a few astrological books , which he had learning enough to spell through . He had a couple of globes made of glass . On one was engraved the word " Nature ; " the other was
plain , hut it was his best instrument . The client irho came to consult him as to persons in distant places , or in the future , was instructed to look into the globe and there he , or more usually she , saw a vision . For instance , a figure painted upon plain glass , seen through that medium , assumed the dim shape of ' a fascinating man . ' Cards , horoscopes , and verses were amongst the wise man ' s stock . With this apparatus he managed to pay his rent to Mrs . Brown and to subsist .
But , like all great men , Harrison had his weaknesses , and we all know , too , what is the principal weakness of great men . Harrison was married , and his wife is said to have died ; but two others were soon found for him . Indeed , there is some doubt whether the first wife is actually dead , and whether they will not be all three produced at a future trial . He married Jane Bratshaw
in 1833 , Eiizabeth Brown in 1846 , and Jane Steelb in 1850 . But even this threepiled hyperbole of marriage was too slow for him , and Ins calling opened opportunities for extending liis relations without the tardy process of matrimony . Not long since , Eliza Ckoft , a young girl , servant at a smalL inn , found her lover , to whom she was engaged to be married , inattentive ; she desired to recover him . She was ignorant , unsuspicious , perfectly simple . Some neighbour probably told her to consult the Wise Man , and she went to him . He undertook the
labour of bringing back John Stevenson ; but there was a condition which , ho said , was essentially necessary to success . It is rather curious . In Mussulman countries there ia
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 15, 1856, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_15111856/page/13/
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