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496 THE LEADER. [No. 426, May 22, 1858.
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A CONGREGATION OF VAPOURS. Compiaints ar...
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THE VACANT GABTER. The spirit of chivalr...
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.
A Duel "Under The Empire. Eveuy One Has ...
that a Creole lady ' with , whom he was in correspondence was surpassingly beautiful , invited her from Spain to act as his mistress , promising to adopt her son as a reward . On her arrival , he found her to be hideous , and kicked her into the streets . Being left utterly helpless in a strange country , she committed suicide . All these circumstances have been freely commented on . For a long time the presence of a soldier in any society has been considered a disgrace .
This feeling was expressed in a very light and easy and general manner some "weeks ago in the TPigaro , by M . de Pene , under the signature of " Nemo . " He jeered at the eternal sub-lieutenant who \ yas always tearing ladies' dresses with his spurs in the saloons of Paris . The joke was not new . It had been made by M . Scribe . De " chiiez leurs tendres coeurs , Mais ne de * chirez pas leurs robes .
But that was in other times . In this Praetorian period thirty or forty officers took offence at once , and the most insulting letters poured in upon Nemo . To one of these he replied publicly . The consequences are now known . He was under the necessity of accepting a challenge , and went to the "Wood of Vezinet to fight . The unfortunate man did not know , however , that he was engaged in a duel a la martingale .: It was resolved to kill or disable him . pForty or fifty furious officers were ready in the neighbourhood to take up the quarrel . They had not time to come tip , however , soon enough
after M . de Pene wounded , his adversary ; That adversary ' s second , a notorious drinker of absinthe , Hyaena by name , advanced towards him as he stood breathless , insulted and struck him in the face . A new conflict was necessary . It now came on as it was commenced , in the most irregular manner . Hyene , who had been a fencing-master in his day , ran his opponent through , the body , and hot satisfied with thatj as he span round , again transfixed him through and through . "What were the seconds about ? They suffered this murder to be committed . In a civilized country Hyene would be hanged , and all other parties present sent to the galleys . In France it is difficult to say what" will he the
result of the trial that is to take place . Will the jury of Versailles dare to take up the cause of the civilians against the brutal violence of the soldiery ? Some say they will be overawed . Meanwhile the bourgeoisie , by its conduct , does not countenance this view . In France there is aii absence of ; what is called civil courage , but there is no absence of personal audacity . The black coat , too , has shown that it knows how to fight . Great prudence will be required to prevent the skirmish between the civil and military which has begun from leading to the most serious consequences .
There is a point of view which seems to be neglected by those who make comments on this deplorable incident—we allude to its bearings on the liberty of the press . French journalism is surely sufficiently gagged by the laws and the police . Every week almost we hear of fresh prosecutions and suppressions of journals . The Revue du Nord , a literary organ , was put down the other day for making some remarks on political economy . Yet here we have a new kind of censorship established . All the idle , dissolute officers of the French army set themselves up as judges of what may or may
not be published . In the article of M . de Peue there was no allusion to an individual . The sting was in the consciousness of the army , that its arrogance has at last become insupportable to well-bred society . Perhaps the sub-lieutenants in question had pursued a less conquering career this season than usual . Their conversation is never remarkable for its quality . The ladies may be tired of it . Besides , Paris beauties have husbands and brothers like other women , and cannot fail to be influenced by the ton which has now become almost -universal . Swords and spurs are at a discount . This may account for a good deal of bitterness . No sublieutenant is capable of answering a witty attack
lie therciore retorts with cold steel . Literary men arc accordingly placed in this dilemma : they must fight , or they must lay down the pen . Most of them seem ready to fight against this new attack on the press ; and we doubt much whether they will not carry the day . Meanwhile ^ it is reported that there is an unusual affluence of writers to the various salles d'armes of Paris . No one feels certain of not having an affair . The action of the Government in such a case must be limited . It is afraid to show partiality to one side or the other . It is a great charge for a military despotism to have une armee qui s ennnie .
496 The Leader. [No. 426, May 22, 1858.
496 THE LEADER . [ No . 426 , May 22 , 1858 .
A Congregation Of Vapours. Compiaints Ar...
A CONGREGATION OF VAPOURS . Compiaints are sometimes made of the few worshippers in City churches—but this is because the pew-openers do not count a part of the congregation . The City bankers do not come in from tlieir country villas—but the dead come from tlieir graves . There are , it is calculated , about " sixteen thousand corpses beneath the pews occupied in the City churches by Sunday congregations . " The vaults are so badly secured that the dead burst their cerements and join the congregation . How ? not to the sight ? Very nearly so , but at least to the smell . " It is generally noticed at night when the church is lighted up with gas , and the warm rarefied air rises out of the church and draws from the
graves and vaults the mephitic gases , which liave accumulated during the week . " What an idea to preside over evening prayer ? the gases from the corpses of old parishioners stealing out to the accustomed pew , hovering over the old prayer-book , perhaps coming with a kind of memory , making sick and faint to the orphan daughter , or the bereft widow . " Here is fine revolution , an we had the trick to see it : " a City vampire coming from the grave to stifle his own children ; But fancies and fictions are p > ale beside the simple fact told by Dr . Iietheby , in his Sanitary Report , published this week - — - ¦ ¦
"In some cases the effluvium from the vaults is most offensive , for although it is the general practice to confine the body in a lead coffin , yet the metal gives way after a longer or a shorter time , and there oozes out a dark treacle-like liquid , which stinks abominably , and which is , I believe , a most deadly poison . I have seen this escaping from a lead coffin that had been deposited in the vault for more than a hundred gears—so that there is no saying for how long a time the mischief of
decay and slow corruption may be carried on . " A hundred years I Poisoned by a grea ' t-gra . dfatlier , to whose portrait in the dress of the period we look with veneration ! In one of her pleasing letters , Miss Anna Seward ( a blue-stocking of the last century , whose name all our readers xnav not have heard ) gives a story of the plague renewed in a country village by digging up clothes over a ¦ . hundred , years buried in a plague graveyard ' :. so immoi-tal are some essences of poison . But the City congregations ¦ have , only themselves to blame .
" In many cases the vaults are entered by imperfectly closed traps or doors from tlie general area of the church , and the vaults are either not ventilated at all , ox they are ventilated into the public way , so that there streams out incessantly a poisonous vapour . " In most cases , " ¦ Precaution is taken to shut in the vapours by means of stone and cement ; but so powerful in its action is the diffusive law of gases , that , with all our precautions of wood , and lead , and stone , the vapours will find an outlet , and will mix with the surrounding atmosphere . The remedy , therefore , for the evil is to divert the gases from the vaults into a proper channel , and by conveying them through a shaft to a high level they may be safely disposed of . "
" We have neglected the dead , and they ' have made a terrible retaliation . May we not in imagination trace the dust of an energetic vestryman until we find it stifling a churchwarden ?
The Vacant Gabter. The Spirit Of Chivalr...
THE VACANT GABTER . The spirit of chivalry is not dead hut only dormant , and dormant only amongst us at home . If , indeed , we were to look only to the centres of civilisation , Paris and London , the two great , eyes of the intellectual world , we might be inclined to think that chivalry was dead and buried—that it had become an antiquity , a tradition—a memory as antiquated as the Lord Mayor ' s Show , and almost as foolish . A gentleman no longer wears a sword , and one consequence is , that in assemblies where gentlemen meet , language is used , taunts are uttered , which would , in better davs , have been kept in check . Good taste can always restrain tho real gentleman .
but now that society has adopted a general uniform -without the sword , there is no distinction between the gentleman and the bully . The ' sword is left entirely to the soldier , which in England means cither a man of high birth who cixu purchase rank m the army , or a professional man who is liable to be sent abroad in order to serve as police for colonies . In France tho soldier has become a caste , and so completely has the spirit of chivalry died out there under the fatal breath of despotism , that forty soldiers can form a conspiracy to fight successive duels with one man until he shall be killed , ilia faithful quittance in the first battle , his apology , his bravery , his manly candour , go for
nothing . In England , we say a gentleman and officer ; in France , the phrase has been translated an officer and a butcher . , France and England have adopted widely different forms of the anti-chivalric—France the " brutal England the effeminate . In France , the soldier ' who is pampered with wines , trained to run , drilled to trample on his own country , takes the brutal form of the anti-chivalric . In England , the march of hi tellect has put down our national sports . The police forbid boxing in the streets , or elsewhere in public . If men still go to look at horse-races , it is no longer to sec the finest types of horseflesh tryinothe -wind of the men that ride them , but it is to see
swindling bets settled in a few seconds by galloways trained to run short distances , the very men who go down to witness the sport wearing veils against the sun and dust , as women alone used to do . If we look into the mirror which Art holds up to Nature at the present moment in England , what anti-chivalric forms fill its dull plain !—but how extolled is the truthfulness of the painting ' . No picture has ever been so crowded by sight-seers as Frith's Epsom Race-course . A policeman is stationed to prevent the picture being destroyed by its admirers . And what , is there in xt ? A cTov . d , a heap of faces moved by small and superficial emotions;—amusement , the comedy of life ; not a particle of interest , not a shadow of feeling .
At every step the aiiti chivalric meets us . "We come upon it in high places as . in low . We go into Parliament and find the authenticated statesmen of the day fighting to maintain the principles of their quondam opponents , because Tones can keep pace only . 50 long as they uphold Liberal principles . We find leading Liberals making the agonized empire of India mere pretext for - recovering place . If Mr . Veinon Smith commits the equivocal mistake of suppressing a letter , his censors are more at fault : he ^ stumbles , and then there is a compctitioji to kick him . because he is down . We look
for the patriots in Committee-room No . 11 , and find that they cannot hold together even to the number of _ a score , for want of anything like patriotic object , national purpose , or fixed purpose of any kind . The fact is , that each man is thinking of what he can do best for himself , or how he can best display himself . We go to still higher places . The Queen is holding a Chapter of the Garter . Around her stand some old gentlemen who have never drawn a sword , admitting another old gentleman to be one of the order whose motto is Honi soit qui mat' y pen . se , because he has been a' sharp-tongued partisan , and adds to that chivalrous quality high rank not earned by himself , and great wealth .
Philosophers tell us that the day of chivalry is gone , because the time is passed when the sword decided anything . Oh ! blind thai they arc ! "Why , at this moment , Europe is governed by 1 hc sword , held by men who are dcatli to hlc . is , who hate Ilie very name of ideas , who will send their police after any single itlca , if they hear that one is lurking in the purlieus of their capitals . Civilization lias not suppressed chivalry , it has shrunk , away from it ; and by withdrawing nobility and intellect from 1 hose who held the sword , it has divorced understanding and heart front the brute strength which rules the world : and that is the result of modern
political philosophy . The sword is held by lladctsky or Hyene , while a Gladstone preaches ideas enough to stimulate insurrection , or . to lead on a Sardinia — -for a British Grand Cross of the Bath to abandon . But the spirit of chivalry-is no > fc dead , it is only abroad . In our own day we sec Victor Emmanuel surrounded by great powers , abandoned by great powers , and not , quailing for an instant . We see a Camillo Cavour generously proclaiming his predecessor , Massimo d'Azeglio , whose ideas ho has adopted and so magnificentl y carried forth . We sec a James Outram , waiving his rank , serving under Htivclock and afterwavds , when he lias received his command , forgetting his own exploits to expatiate on llic help ' which , he has had from others . We sec a
llavolock , marching through hordes of \\ w . enemy , braving death , misconstruction , defeat , apparent hopelessness , not only to fulfil the cruise of duty , but , to prove that hope and clFort never leave the heart of a gentleman . And there is the chivalry , too , of womanhood faithful unto deal )) , we scu llelem ; d'Orlcans preserving patientl y ) through a whole life , tin ; mission bequeathed to her l ) y her husband ; maintaining , single-handed , the dignity of si dynasty unabated for her son : a pat riinony which the successful despot could not , confiscate . No ; the order of the Garter , by which the world should be ruled , is not extinguished , —H is only vacant .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 22, 1858, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_22051858/page/16/
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