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[IN THIS BEPAimiElST, AS AU OPINION'S , ...
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There is no learned man but will confess...
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THE .LAWS RELATING TO THE PROPERTY OF MA...
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NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS. It is impossi...
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SATURDAY, AT11IL 18, 1857.
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There is nothing so revolutionary, becau...
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TUG FRANCE OJ? TO-DAY. Who can imagine t...
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.
1 . ' '. ¦ '¦ -. ¦ . ¦ • ¦ ' ¦ . Jk - ¦ ...
1 . ' ' . ¦ '¦ -. ¦ . ¦ ¦ ' ¦ . jk - ¦ " April 18 , 1857 . ] THE XEAPEB , 3 gl
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[In This Bepaimielst, As Au Opinion's , ...
[ IN THIS BEPAimiElST , AS AU OPINION'S , nOWEVER EXTRE 3 IE , ARE ALLOWED AJf EXPEBSSION , IKE EDI TOE A'ECfc'SSAIMZr HOIKS HIMSELF IVESrOSSIBLE FOB XOSB . l
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 , tie tolerablefor his advers ary to "write 1—JIiltoh ' .
The .Laws Relating To The Property Of Ma...
THE . LAWS RELATING TO THE PROPERTY OF MARKIBD WOMEN . ( To ike Editor of the Leader . } Sir , — -I now come to the 5 th clause of the petition , ¦ which declares that "it is pidved by well-known cases of hardships suffered by -women of station , and also by professional women earning large incomes by pursuit of the arts , how real is the injury inflicted . " We may leave to Mrs . Norton ' s eloquent pen the task of dilating on the first part of this clause , since it is from a " woman of station" of the class most obviously protected in England by the habits of their class in regard to -wives and daughters , that the most emphatic and p ersevering succession
of appeals has come . Mrs . ^ Norton , possessing an acute and practical mind , wilLing to take what she can get , and fitting all her arguments to the peculiar habits of mind of those in power , is the very voice to touch the class to which she belongs by birth and education . Appealing less to abstract right than to the chivalry and sentiments of the Lords and Commons , she is ever dramatic , poetical , and womanly . Her bitterness is forgiven to one-who has suffered so severely , and her indignation is coloured by the fiery blood of the Sheridans , which gives her a prescriptive right to uncompromising language . But as the Court Guide is but a fraction , of the Directory , so the " women of station" who
suffer from careless settlements or spendthrift husbands are but a fraction compared to the great army of workers , "beginning -with artists in every realm of genius , and descending to the shopwoman , the sempstress , and the shabby , but honest and hardworking drudge who " chars" iu gentlemen ' s houses . To begin with professional women of the highest order : Sarah Siddous , whose monument is in Westminster Abbey if I recollect rightly , the only woman -whose statue is placed there by right of genius , wrote a letter when slie was ill , begging her husband not to make certain legal dispositions of the money she had earned for her family , the prospect of which caused her great chagrin ; and Mrs . Glover , ¦ who deserted b
was y her husband , and -who by her own exertions made an income on the stage for her children , actually found her salary demanded by her husband from the manager , though lie was living ¦ with another woman ; and tlie judge to whom she appealed was forced to declare the law on Ms side ( vide Westminster Review for October , 1856 ) . The large salaries of all our actresses and singers are wholly at the mercy of their husbands , good , bad , or indifferent , and cannot be efficiently secured to their own use for their children . The tales which were rumoured of Jenny Lind having suffered severely from this legal injustice may or may not have been true , * but their prevalence showed the belief in the public raind that such robbery was quite possible and far ironi
improbable . It must be remembered that musical and dramatic artists , while they are the only women who as yet have in England amassed large fortunes , are infinitely more exposed by the ordinary chances of their life to make imprudent marriages than other women . To none is it more necessary to be shielded by the protection of tl \ c law , to none ia it more desirable that they should be able to secure to themselves and to their daughters an honourable position of social independence ; upon none docs the present state of the law press more heavily than upon these public servants—these women to whom tho public owes so much , and to whom it accords so little—who exchange their grojit gifts for fame and for money , yet live in perpetual of the
danger seeing one tarnished and tho other lost . Now that tho great tragedians of every country are , singularly enough , of the female sex , surely the question of fortunes gained by womon in pursuit of the arts is no longer m atter of im agination . In England we havo no women who as yet gain largo sums by painting , but were Mdllc . Rosa Bonheur an Englishwoman , and married , tho 2000 / . eho received for tho " Horse Fair , " and the golden currents which flow from every country into her etudio in exchange for animals and landscapes , would bo utterly at the mercy of a domestic fiend wlfo night—it is within the _ range of masculine possibility - ^ dissipate them in cigars and lockets , or speculations on 'Change . In literature we have a largo class of Englishwomen ^ who earn considemblc sums
of money . Take the At / tcuaum of any week , und cast an eye over tho advertisements ; what a mass oi literary labour is got through by women . How * Wo believe tlioy -were cutiroly imaginary . —Ei > . L .
indefatigably they are at work ; how they translate , edit , and abridge ; how they write fox children , for circulating libraries , for periodicals , for newspapers . They aie quite up to the average literary demands of the day , and there are whole departments in which they find remunerative employment almost as easily as men , and with increasing facility . And not a penny of their earnings is legally their own ! One need not look for any ill conduct on the part of the husband , not even for maladrease in business ; but if he becomes security for a friend , and thatfriend , fail , all the hardearned gains of this unfortunate third party , the soverei gns beaten out of toilsome hours over the
desk , in obedience to the impatient printer ' s devil , go into this commercial gulph . Let not any one say these tilings never happen ; in a large population a certain proportion of everything happens , however outrageously improbable . When , for instance , we learn by statistics that eight thousand letters arid newspapers are posted in a year absolutely without any address , and that considerable sums of money are sent on the same wild-goose errand , we may well believe that the particular kind of imprudence I have mentioned is to be found , in assignable proportions , combined with liability of a wife ' s property and earnings to cover the debt .
And , now , it will probably be said that all these risks and liabilities are included in the terras of marriage ; that "in for a penny , in for a pound , " is at once the symbolical and the literal equivalent of that important step ! But tohy ? ,. Why are we to sanctify all the indirect accidents of marriage because marriage itself is lioly ? Why , because a woman is hidissolubly bound to the father of her children , must she be inextricably involved in the strings of his empty purse ? Surely people are silly enough , unlucky enough , and benighted enough for the most malevolent fairy -who ever gave ill gifts at a christening , without helping them legally to fresli misfortunes . They marry on slight pretences , false
pretences , and no pretences at all , and the most spiteful lover of poetical justice need not insist , that like Frederick and Catherine in the old German tale , having irremediably lost one of their two cheeses , they should roll the other down hill after it to find which way the first had run . Yet this is the logic which , insists that in those very cases where the harmony of a household is endangered , its pecuniary welfare shall be cast as holocaust into the same fire ! The very circumstance of a woman having unfortunately married a bad , a stupid , or an imprudent man , is the reason why the law should enable her to protect herself . I remain , sir , yours obediently , Bessie Raynek P-arkes .
Notices To Correspondents. It Is Impossi...
NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS . It is impossible to ' acknowledge the mass of letters wo receive . Their insertion is often delayed , owing to a press of matter ; and when omitted , it is frequently from reasons quite independent of the merits of the communication-Wo cannot xindertakc to return rejected communications . Communications should always be legibly written , and on one side of tlio paper only . If long . it increases the difficulty of finding space for them . During the Sossion of Parliament it is often impossible to lind . room for correspondence , even the briefest .
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Saturday, At11il 18, 1857.
SATURDAY , AT 11 IL 18 , 1857 .
~~ " ~ ^/Citit(11 * Gl-Rvrtmr Jcollulll X!Uuiuw* ' *
^ nliltr Mora . —*—
There Is Nothing So Revolutionary, Becau...
There is nothing so revolutionary , because Lhore ia nothing so unnatuTnl and . convulsive , as the strain to keen things fixed when nil the "worldis "by thevery law of its creaLionnicterii . nl progress . — Du . AuKOL . ii .
Tug France Oj? To-Day. Who Can Imagine T...
TUG FRANCE OJ ? TO-DAY . Who can imagine tho effect of an announcement thnfc tho [ British nation had ceaaed growing ? Between the years 1 S 19 and 1855 we contributed two million thrco hundred thousand immigrants to tho population of the United States ; within tho same poriod we transmitted vast numbers of colonists to Canada and Australia ; since 1800 the inhabitants of our own islands have doubled , in apito of a groat famine ; what , then , should we think it" this process of expansion were suddenly to bo arrested ? Yet such a susponsion of national vitality haa taken place in Prance . From 1841 to 184 G , 1 , 170 , 000
prodigious army--after another , amounting to a total of two millions , was a ^ niMlated under the flag of Napoieon , the idol of the Empire , when it was twice found necessary to reduce the military standard , when boys were marched to Lutzen and Leipsie , liecause the supply of men had failed ; but-the fact interposes , that during the reign of Lottis Philippe the energies of ^ France seemed to revive , and more than a million , was added to her population within five years . " We ¦ ¦ w ill allow all duo importance to the influence of small agricultural
holdmay go oacK to ttie great wars , wnen one souls were added to the population ; from 1851 to 1856 , only 256 , 000 ; in 1854 and 1855 , the deaths actually exceeded ihe births . Statists are seeking for explanations of this formidable result ; many causes are suggested ; to each of these we wish to assign , ¦ -its . ¦ full - value—even to emigration , although not more than . , ten thousand persons annually quit France for the colonies , England , or America- —a number compensated for by the arrival of foreigners . "We may go back to the great wars , when one
ings , jR-oducing an inexorable entail of poverty , to ' 'the extension of the Malthusian economy from the capital to the villages , to the succession of bad harvests , grape bliglits , silkworm failures , and other discouragements ; these details cannot fairly be left out of the calculation ; but do they account for the astonishing and -alarming cessation of vital energy we now witness in France ? In what have the Trench people so materially changed since the five years from 184 * 1 , ' when , with the
same division of property , the same aversion to large families , and no exemption from natural inflictions , they multiplied with comparative rapidity ? Whatever change of manners took place after 1851 was certainly preceded by a wholesale change of institutions . In front of the whole inquiry stands the conspicuous certainty that , under the Ent ire , the growth of population has everywhere been checked ; while in inany places tho births have not made up for the deaths .
ISTot that France is overcrowded . Belgium contains 147 inhabitants to the square mile ; England 130 ; Trance only 08 ; yet , with amplo scope for development , the body of the nation dwindles instead of dilating . At the same time , the necessaries of life are produced in smaller quantities in the provinces , and luxury flourishes at the capital ; the poor congregate in . the great cities ; an immense displacement of wealth is paraded for prosperity ; Paris , Lyons ,
Marseilles , St . Etienno are swollen by the formation of new faubourgs ; thousands forsalto the field without entering the factory ; tho proportion ,. of deaths among adults is singularly large ; but what other process is going on at tho same time ? Tho capital that was formerly employed in cultivation or in manufacturing industry , has since 1851 been absorbed in Paris and expended in loana or in luxury ; prices riae ; bread is artificially cheapened for tho dangerous populations of tho faubourgs ; ' to tho peasantry it ia
become dearer ; Franco is boing gradually reduced in these ' respects to the level of ISpain and Turkey . Ia tho meantime the public expenditure increases enormously ; tho Empire wears literally a mural crown . ; its works in . stono and mortar aro confessedly imnosing . It has its G olden House ; it delights ia tho colossal ; with Dion Cassius , Louis Napoleon perceives no difference between public and private funds ; while the life of Franco is drained away as by a mysterioue disease , broad , strategical streets , and ornamental facades aro certainly added to Paris .
Wo may take advantage of anothoj opportunity to estimates tho value oi Louis Napoleon ' s monuments . Our pre-
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 18, 1857, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_18041857/page/11/
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