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** 1224 x ¦ THE LE APE R. j[No. 300, Sat...
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POISON IN THE PRESCRIPTION. "Knowledge i...
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THE SARDINIAN STATES: THE III HISTORT', ...
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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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The Eegius Professor's Submission. Our R...
restigate the grounds of religion for themselves , Mi-. Jowett ' s case shows that no clergyman , not even the strongest pietist and a man of the highest religious character and influence can venture so far to depart from ecclesiastical tradition and clerical forms of belief as to admit , even in such an age as the present , that God is not unjust .
** 1224 X ¦ The Le Ape R. J[No. 300, Sat...
** 1224 x ¦ THE LE APE R . j [ No . 300 , Saturday ,
Poison In The Prescription. "Knowledge I...
POISON IN THE PRESCRIPTION . " Knowledge is power" to do mischief as well as good , unless the knowledge be completed and consecrated by that which is the better part of knowledge , the simple inspiration of nature . Mere learning can teach men to forget their best instincts , although complete learning will bring them back to the better simplicity from which they started . " Useful knowledge" defeats itself , unless it be accompanied by the know-Ledge that is in the breast of every untaught child . It would seem from recent events as if civilisation could not invent protection half go fast as the means of destruction .
Fortifications failed before the ' ¦ ' ¦ feu cFenfer ; we preserve the peace in our towns at the expense , to judge by the present , of locking up discord in our families ; we preserve outward morals , by covering up the unhealthy cankers of society ; we discover tests for the detection of poisons , but not so fast as the poisons and their use . A Bedtvillieks or a Borgia is checked in brilliant wickedness , but a homely malignity finds a shelter under the veil of prudish propriety . The very regularity of our lives suggests a means for the malefactor to arrive at his purpose , just as the innumerable
legal securities for the protection of money transactions furnish opportunities for the forger . The question of poisoning grows more interesting every week ; recently we had the case of Mts . ^ Woolek , who is pronounced to have been poisoned , though the culprit is undetected . This week , besides others of a minor kind , we have the case of Cook , who is poisoned , though the poisoner is unaccused . These were clumsy cases ; they prove to us that the propensity for poisoning exists ; but that , if there is an imperfect detection of the crime in these ill-contrived plots , we must not suppose no plots to exist and to succeed without detection .
In both these cases medicines were used , and several people had some hand in administering them . At once we perceive , that if medicines are , taken for the cure of disease , a new opportunity is offered for the production of disease . A cunning hand can introduce poison into the daily dose , and suspicion may be excited ; but , it appears the quiet of our civilisation is undermining the moral courage which ¦ makes men utter their suspicion . In both cases there was suspicion of poisoning ; in both the suspicion was neglected ; in both the victim , died .
The evidence in one case appeared to be regarded as setting aside all suspicion , because there was proof of kindness . Now we do not intend to insinuate the slightest doubt with respect to Mr . Wooler ' s innocence , —quite the reverse , we believe he was not guilty ; but kindness is no disproof of poisoning . Wainwright , who killed his sister by slow poisoning in order to realise the insurance upon her life , was studiously kind and attentive . In fact ,
assiduous attendance is evidently an opportunity for the prisoner . A thousand ways might bo suggested for placing poison in the same path with medicaments . One method is suggested by the last case . If a person acquainted with drugs knew that a medical man had prepared medicines for a patient , it would require very little sleight of hand to copy those medicines for all outward appearances , and to place deadly counterparts in their room . For example , an effervescing draught
and a couple of pills would constitute a very usual form of prescription for a bilious attack —the pills probably containing some form of mercury . "What more easy than to make up poison into two pills—some powerful poison that acts suddenly ? In such a case , evidence would be produced that two pills and a draught had been prescribed , delivered , and administered to the patient . If his natural tendency was to over-excitement and
spasmodic vehemence , a drug increasing over-excitement and spasmodic vehemence would appear only like a remedy too weak for arresting the progress of a terrible disease . Give a medical man motives for getting rid of his patient , and it is clear that he has the man at his mercy . Without a metaphor , your medical man can always poison you if he chooses ; and unless he is very clumsy—unless he fails to calculate the effect of the negative symptoms , he can
poison you without detection . The brother can poison the sister for the insurance which he has effected on her life ; the husband can poison the wife , to be rid of her ; the sister-in-law can poison the wife , to take her place ; the boon companion can poison the sportsman , to obtain possession of the money in his pocket ; the envious man can poison the successful , to be relieved of an odious comparison . We do not see where the counteractive lies . It might consist in a sense of religious responsibility ; but religion had asserted its own infallibility with the force of such incredible dogmas , that it provoked contradiction , and we are only now emerging from a state of the world in which the influence of
religion was entirely neutralised . Man can co-operate in the laws of the Creatok , whieh give life ; he can carry out the secondary laws which destroy life ; and if unguided by a sense of religious responsibility he will use the destruction at his pleasure . There is , as we observed lately , one other influence to paralyse crime—it is affection . The babe is at the mercy of its mother , who can stifle it at
any moment ; the son can poison his father ; the wife her husband ; the physician his patient . It is natural instinct which makes us feel terror at the idea of death—anxiety to preserve the life of our fellow-creatures . For the few who have used their opportunitieswho have been traitors to the sanctity of home or friendship , or professional trust—there are hundreds of thousands—millions , to whom
such treachery is absolutely prohibited . Tins is the true safeguard—not the factitious detectives of science or law , which suggest their own deadly counterparts and evasions , and fail us as fast as they serve us . After all , then , our best trust is in the early , simple guarantees which were given to human nature at its birth . With them , civilisation is power ; without them , it is corruption ;—with them , it is redoubled life ; without them , it is death .
The Sardinian States: The Iii Histort', ...
THE SARDINIAN STATES : THE III HISTORT ' , GOVERNMENT , AND & A . WS . , ( From a CotTespondent ) . At Turin , in 1789 , just as Charles Emmanuel had signed away the last vestige of his nominal power to the French , an heir to that throne which he should never more ascend , was born in Charles Albert , son of the Prince of Carignano , and a lineal
descendant of Charles Emmanuel I . At hi » birth , no one could have divined his future rank . Charles Emmanuel IV . was still young , and might have son *; his brothers and the sons that they might have had still to reign . So the young Prince of Carignano was sent to be educated at Geneva and Paris , and at an early age received from Napoleon a commission in one of his regiments . The thought , "jo serai Roi , " first flashed on Charles Albert in 1814 , when the King of Sardinia abdicated , and brother succeeded brother , and
each was sonless . He too returned to Turin , and was soon surrounded b y the patriots and liberals of the day , who , writhing with shame and indignation at the Austrian yoke , now in its first blush of insolent and brutal power , did concert , have done so ever since , and do so at this hour , schemes to crush that power , and break that -yoke "We will enter here into no discussion of the merits or demerits of the setle , which it is now the custom to denounce so bitterly . Each time has its own needs , and gives birth to its own experiences . Unless we conclude that might is right ; that because Austria has her butchers and
slaughterhouses , Italians should be meek and dumb ; it is vain to censure them for seizing on the only means within their reach of ridding themselves of the oppressor . That men should plot in England , or in Piedmont , where they may face God and man with their needs and wrongs , and obtain a certain , if tardy redress , would be absurd ; but while French bayonets uphold the Papal throne ; while the true heirs of Italian ; , Polish , and Hungarian soil , wander through the earth , with souls and bodies alike blasted , seeking vainly for justice and redress ; while the blood-hounds , who have driven them thence , feast upon their spoil ; plots , conspiracies ,
and revolts cannot cease . Let the tyrants who goad human souls beyond the pale of endurance , and the cowards who look on and enjoy the sport be made answerable for the result of their tyranny and cowardice . We know that too often the effort , to snap a chain that chafes , rivets it closer j this is a bitter truth , containing matter for deep thought , whence vital lessons may be drawn . The exile patriot is but ill fitted for a physician . He is suffering too keenly from his own wounds : maddened by the groans and death struggles of Ins best ones ; stifled by his very energies and talents , that find no space for
utterance . Down on a level with all this , he clutches at the quickest remedy for the most painful wound ; he has no power or time to rise above the whole ; and studying each case , to judge what shall eradicate the disease from the vital part . This one sidedness has been one of the great impediments to the recovery of Italian freedom in the years to whieh we now refer ; but we have trust in the experience of the past , to furnish calmness and wisdom in the future . Assuredly , we have no sympathy with men who use these failures on the one hand , to taunt the Italians with their unfitness for , their indifference to , freedom ; and on
the other , as plausible arguments , to induce them to desist from any attempt to regain it . It is difficult to say , how far Charles Albert was linked in with the schemes of the liberals , whose views with regard ho himself , and whose general projects , were manifest to all . King of Sardinia thou shalt be , and King of Italy thou may'st become , was the prophecy for ever sounded in his ears . And by way of reconciling his conscience with his ambition " , they represented to him how his influence might aid the then reigning king to realise the project so near to an Italian prince ' s heart . Let the Piedmontese army be but once arrayed against Austria , whose best troops and generals were engaged in Naples ; let Lombardy be invaded . Italv revolutionised . What sceptre
but that of Savoy could be chosen to rule the newly constituted kingdom , from which the foreigner had been expelled ? Then the constitution which they demanded . Had not their brethren in principles wrested it from the perjured Kings of Spain ? Had it cost much ado in Naples ? Why should not Victor Emmanuel I . set on bis subjects that seal of freedom which should enable them to go forth as heralds of national liberty ; proclaiming him its champion , and in consequence , the fittest guardian thereof ? It would be useless to deny that , from the age of sixteen , Charles Albert was aware that these were the principles and schemings of the liberal party . That cold , reserved , timid nature of his j the generous patriotic sentiments which , expressed by him from time to time , fed the hope that he would sanction their undertaking ; his natural attachment to the throne
of Savoy ; his clinging to monarchical prerogatives which had often damped that hope ; baffled tJic efforts of the liberals to come to a clear understanding as to what they might or might not expect from him . Their own testimony proves that he committed himself to no promise , up act . " Wo must do our best to keep the prince m our ranks , " wrote one of the ringleaders , " but « 1 Vt : ftV " mistrust him j for I do not beliove he has suniciei " ; elevation of soul to aid our schemes . » X J
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 22, 1855, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_22121855/page/12/
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