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123S THE LEABiBB. [No. 301, Saturda y ,
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SATURDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1855.
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There is nothing so revolutionary, becau...
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CHRISTMAS-DAY IN THE PRISON. On Christma...
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A YEAR'S CAMPAIGN. Twelvk months ago the...
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.
Leader Office, Saturday, December 29. La...
NOTICES TO COKRESPON'DEKrTS . No notice can Jbe taken of anonymous communications-Whatever is intended for insertion must beau ' henticated by the name and address of the writer ; not necessarily for publication , but as a guarantee of bis good faith . Communications should always be legibly written , and on one side of the paper only . If long , it increases the difficulty of finding space for them . We cannot undertake to return rejected communications . It is impossible to acknowledge the mass of letters we 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 . " Mr . F . O Wabd and the Engineers ; " " What shall we gain by the War ? " and several literary notices , are unavoidably- omitted this week . Inqdibeb . —We cannot undertake to account for discrepancies between the criticisms of the Leadsr and those of any of our contemporaries . G B . — " Le Roman d'une Femme" was noticed in the Leader gome months ago .
123s The Leabibb. [No. 301, Saturda Y ,
123 S THE LEABiBB . [ No . 301 , Saturda y ,
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Saturday, December 29, 1855.
SATURDAY , DECEMBER 29 , 1855 .
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ffiridit Mairg .
There Is Nothing So Revolutionary, Becau...
There is nothing so revolutionary , because there is nothing so unnatural and . convulsive , as the strain to keep things fixed ¦ when all the world is by the very aw of its creation in eternal progress . —Dr . Arnold .
Christmas-Day In The Prison. On Christma...
CHRISTMAS-DAY IN THE PRISON . On Christmas-day some of us spent no " merry Christmas . " Not that merriness is all in all , even for Christmas . You see that careworn man , with grey hair and time-scarred face on a young body : he is an untutored man who has had to labour his way through a hard world , where " cleverness" and commercial tact rule ; he has seven children to feed out of fifteen shillings a-week , in these days of bread tenpenco a loaf ; and if his " ' " can earn a trifle , it is not much that they have , even with the scanty honorarium for cheerful service called Christmas-box , to make merry withal at this festive season . He had an
accident some months since , and he knows that he shall not be out of debt " for the next six months . " The " honourable" young gentleman whose cab dashes round the corner , splashes worthy John with mud , ancl , takingno heed if he himself be in wanton debt for six months , or six years , holds John in all things his inferior . And honest John , grateful to any one who will but acknowledge him as a fellow-man , almost thinks so too , when he compares the small , hard home allotted to him with the blessings heaped on the " honourable . " John has not seen a merry Christmas ;
but he is fond of his home , and it is not for him that the season is bad . You " disapprove of Christmas-boxes on principle "—and they have beon corrupted ; yet the breach of your too-sweeping principle has added a little to John's Christinas dinner , and not a litlle to his consoling aense that the fellow-mon whom he so cheerfully serves for so small a return , do think of him , and wish him comfort though they give so little . Some of us , perhaps , might not altogether refuse to exchange with John .
It is not cither that grey-headed , sad-faced man : he has not long since learned the death of his son in the Crimea— -just long enough to have jfcarned whnt his loss really is ; so many occasions have happened since to make him think , " Ah ! Gr-xmotf would have dono that "" George would have liked this "—or " Gioouuk would never have suffered such wrong ; " for GEOitaiswas u noble fellow every inch of him . Which makes the grey-headed gentleman sud to face the first Christmas without Qkokojk ; yet makes him also think with pride how many fathers would envy him that son , dead though he is , but worthy to fill a father ' s
thoughts at a time when others are thinking either of the One sacrificed to teach the lesson of devoted love , or of their-own love-warmed homes . It is not that young girl of grave countenance , whose pale face and wasted form betray cares that should be alien to youth . She is " opposed" by her family ; the brotherof whose home she is the very soul —whose " difficulties " her care
concealswhose labours she smoothes—whose troubles she consoles—is severe and hard : those whose gaieties she joins , guess not the cares concealed , although her thoughtful countenance is a mystery . Still Christmas is not sad to her . She trusts , and is trusted ; loves , and is loved ; and ( who can take " him " from her ? The season comes as a mockery to the hundreds of thousands of whom " the houseless beggar old" is the father . Christmas-day amongst the mudlarks , or in the low lodginghouses—in the hundreds of haunts where
penury steals a passing stimulant from debauchery , is a scene which few of us would like to explore ; but even there , perhaps , the anniversary is not without some kind of cheering association—some rough luxury , hideous out of that hell , but called " pleasure " within it . The greatest blank must at present be to those who are absolutely excluded from all communication with the society to which they have belonged . It so happens that some of them have-been rendered familiar to us , in name at least , if not in person . The anniversary must bring strange recollections to them . How different this Christmas-day from the
last to the Baronet , that eminent banker , Sir John Dean Paul , whose word was as good as his bond—and his bond as good as his word . He was not a man to miss any festival of the Church ; he has attended divine service as regularly as the day came round ; he could give yoii chapter and verse for all the allusions Avith which every sermon would abound ; and he can compare this sermon , which he has listened to this year at Millbank , with that of any church from St . Clement ' s to the newest fane in the newest watering-place But with what a commentary in his own reflections ! How different alL the circumstances ; how changed the pew ; how absent the fashionable dresses and the fashionable faces which
were so familiar ; how different even the demeanour of the clergyman—how altered from the passing bow , which could recognise the altar on one side , and the banker on the other , from the abrupt commencement of the discourse in a silent building where many arc together but still isolated ! The same comparison will be observed , with the same changes , in Stjiahan , the person Avho ends the banking line of Snow .
Before that day of social gathering , too , Palmhu was running his horses , as Paul was running his bills ; was booking his bets as Paut , was calculating his operation to raise money ; whs "watching his associate Cook , as Paul was watching his customer GuiiTmi . Everything prospered—even the bankruptcy of the bankers prospered ; they got along ; they l'aised their money ; they made both ends meet year after year , and had succeeded in
erecting an established insolvency with a current income from the very source of deficiency . So Palmer nmy look back , and ask himself , sitting there during tho dull parts of the sermon , how it came that ho , who was afterwards to bo accused of poisoning Cook , should prophetically confer upon ono of tho horses that was to win for him the name of Strychnine ? Murder , they say , will out ; and strange thinking will seize equally upon the
guilty mind and the mind innocently accused . The man who has done a crime cannot refrain from talking about it , because he thinks about it ; he has a morbid desire to test his own safety , by continually tampering with proofs of his guilt , and almost hinting at them . On the other hand , the weak mind , earnestly accused and crushed by forged proofs of guilt , will , at last , as if at the mercy of a technical logic , disbelieve itself and assist at its own condemnation ; Either way Palmier has passed the Christmas-day , eating nothing , it is said , comparing his present restraint with his past freedom , his amusements , his companionships , and their result . What a day !
Marcus Beresford desperately wanted a few pounds ; he could have had _ the money by giving a piece of paper into a bank , if a pedantic banker had not refused to take the cheque without another man ' s signature . Most ill-naturedly the other man refused to execute the signature ; so Beresford was driven to the expedient of putting his obstinate friend ' s name upon the cheque without his obstinate
friend ' s leave . The malignant banker discovers the expedient , rudely calls it " forgery , " brings Bekesfokd before the Criminal Court , and he now , for that single act of penmanship , lies in prison under sentence of transportation for fifteen years . Marcus , however , had undergone various ups and downs in life , and the comfortless Christmas-day Avill be no novelty for him . He has been in the Church , and no doubt will have criticised the sermon : still it
must have been a variety , even m his experience , to hear the sermon of the condemned . And Abraham Baker , avIio last Christmas-day Avas still alive ; still hoping to many Naomi King swell still ready to enjoy , grace said , his roast-beef and plum-pudding . To him , perhaps , least of all Avill ¦ this Christmasday make real difference . His v \ orst happened at the moment Avhen , as he expresses it , he " used
that fatal Aveapon . " Nothing so bad can happen to him after that . His sole , as it had been then almost his chief purpose , is iioav to fulfil the offices of the Church ; and to him the sermon is a sermon . Yet the day Avill have been a dream jarring with the dream of Ilie past . And Christianity sees its anniversary go by yearly , Avith so few rescued from the purgatory of brick Avails—" the Jug ; " so great a number fantastically elected by detection to expiate the undetected crimes of society !
A Year's Campaign. Twelvk Months Ago The...
A YEAR'S CAMPAIGN . Twelvk months ago there Avere rumours of peace , similar to those which are iioav occupying attention . The treaty of the 2 nd December was to produce astonishing results , and ihc mediator in the strife of nations , then as now , Avas Austria . That treaty , so loudly bruited , Avas followed by no act on the part of Austria stepping beyond the bounds of neutrality ; Mint mediator , so much exalted , entirely failed . It may Avell be that the effort to procure si peace in December , 1855-G , may share tho fate of the effort made in 1854-5 . In tho meantime , except in Mingrelia and Tinnieritm , there is a lull in the storm of Avar ; and wo may be allowed to note how avc stand in case Count Estkhiia & y brings pence from St . Petersburg . It is ' impossible to look back and not bo struck Avith the truly . stupendous character oi the contest . Within twelve * months we have seen two armies of not less than 200 , 000 men each contending in the Crimea for tho po « iession of a fortress , chiefly improvised on w » e spur of a moment . Wo have scon a sloaiu fleet of nearly a hundred sail in tho Jiiwicj and a second fleet , scarcely inferior in number , in the Black Sea . And more numerous stiu
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 29, 1855, page 10, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_29121855/page/10/
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