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Leader (1850-1860), 30th August 1856, Edition 2 of 2, Page 4

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      Accidents And Sujdden Deaths. A Dbflbrtb...

      253 SiiffiS 55 WSSSrTffl £ ? 8 £ s ^ ssFsrs . is sspjxs Inf £ oU some bevel wheels . Whilst so engaged , the SdS sUp ^ ran ^ n trying to save himself he caught Lr fd of thfshaft , his hand getting amongst the wheels « nHI the greater portion of the arm was dragged in and rat off . near the elbow . He also died at the Manchester Infirmary . The verdict in both cases was " Accidental death . "—A deaf and dumb woman has been run down on the rail near Carmarthen . The driver , perceiving the woman , sounded his whistle , but the poor creature could not hear him , and , though he applied the breaks , it was too late to save her . She was picked up quite dead ; but the only mark on her person was a scratch on one

      arm . A fatal accident has occurred in the Medway . Three men , three women , and a boy , were going on board the ship Trafalgar . The boat in which they were being conveyed drifted astern , and the sea capsized it , and upset all the seven persons into the water . Five -were rescued ; but a man and a woman were drowned . The body of the woman had not been recovered . —A steamer off Herne Bay ran into some oyster boats a few days ago , and cut one completely in two . The crew of three men were thrown into the water , but were ultimately saved . One man was a good deal inj ured on the arm by the paddle-wheel of the steamer , the captain of which afforded all the assistance he could . —Mr . " William Reid ,

      of London , has been carried off by the sea on the coast of Cumberland , and drowned . He was bathing , and he fell into a hole In the sand , recently scooped out by the violence of the sea . Being unable to swim , he was drifted away , and perished in the presence of his brother and nephew , who were unable to assist him .

      T Tt Forcein Word T Nobod Businessand Qo...

      QOA THE LEADER . [ No . 336 , Saturday , o 2 SU . ' .

      Nobody, Somebody, And Everybody. (From H...

      NOBODY , SOMEBODY , AND EVERYBODY . ( From Household Words . " ) The power of Nobody is becoming so enormous in England , and he alone is responsible for so many proceedings , both in the way of commission and omission ; he has so much to answer for , and is so constantly called to account , that a few remarks upon him may not be illtimed . The hand which this surprising person had in the late war is amazing to consider . It was he who left the tents behind , who left the baggage behind , who chose the worst possible ground for encampments , who provided no means of transport , who killed the horses , who paralyzed the commissariat , who knew nothing of the business he professed to know and monopolized , who decimated the English army . It was Nobody who gave out the famous uaroasted coffee , it was Nobody who made the hospitals more Horrible than language can describe , it was Nobody who occasioned all the dire confusion of Balaklava harbour , it was even Nobody -who ordered the fatal Balaklava cavalry charge . The non-reliof of Kars was the work of Nobody , and Nobody has justly and severely suffered for that infamous transaction .

      It is difficult for the mind to span the career of Nobody . The sphere of action opened to this wonderful person so enlarges every day , that the limited faculties of Anybody are too weak to compass it . Yet , the nature of the last tribunal expressly appointed for the detection and punishment of Nobody may , as a part of his stupendous history , be glanced at without winking . At the Old Bailey , when a person under strong suspicion of malpractices is tried , it is the custom ( the rather as the strong suspicion has been found , by a

      previous inquiry , to exist ) to conduct the trial on stringent principles , and to confide it to impartial hands . It has not yet become th « practice of the criminal , or even of the civil courts—but they , indeed , are constituted for the punishment of Somebody—to invite the prisoner ' defendant ' s friends to talk the matter over with him in a cosy , tea-and-mufnn sort of way , and make out a verdict together , that shall be what a deposed iron king called making things ' pleasant . ' But , when Nobody was shown within these few weeks to have occoai 6 ned

      intolerable misery and loss in the late war , and to have incurred a vast amount of guilt in bringing to pass results which all morally sane persons can understand to be fraught with fatal consequences , far beyond present calculation , this cosy course of proceeding was the course pursued . My Lord , intent upon establishing the responsibility of Nobody , walked into court , as he would walk into a ball-room ; and My Lord ' s friends and admirers toadied and fawned upon him in court , as they would toady him and fawn upon him in the other

      assembly . My Lord carried his head very high , and took a mighty great tone with the common people ; and there was no question as to anything My Lord did or said , and Nobody got triumphantly fixed . Ignorance enough ***<* incompetency enough to bring any country that the iTi 2 J ? 8 ever Beon to defoat aTul shame , and to lay any bead , that eY ( kr y , ^ in in it j woro provo ( 1 beyond q « e « tlon ; but My Lord iui * a «' On Nobody ' s eyes be it I and My Lord ' s impaneled chorus cried , " There is no impoBtor but Nobody ; on him bo tho shame and blame 1 " Surely , this is a rather wonderful Btat « of things to be reallaing itaolf no long after the Flood , in such a country

      as England . Surely , it suggests to us with some force , that wherever this ubiquitous Nobody is , there mischief is and there danger is . For , it is especially to be borne in mind that wherever failure is accomplished , there Nobody lurks . With success , he has nothing to do . That is Everybody ' s business , and all manner of improbable people will invariably be found at the bottom of it . But , it is the great feature of the present epoch that all public disaster in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland is assuredly , and to a dead certainty , Nobody ' s work .

      We have , it is not to be denied , punished Nobody , with exemplary rigour . We have , as a nation , allowed ourselves to be deluded by no influences or insolences of office or rank , but have dealt with Nobody in a spirit of equal and uncompromising justice that has moved the admiration of the world . I have had some opportunities of remarking , out of England , the impression made on other peoples by the stern Saxon spirit with which , the default proved and the wrong done , we have tracked down and punished the defaulter and wrong-doer . And I do here declare my solemn belief , founded on much I have seen , that the remembrance of our frightful failures within the last three years , and of our retaliation upon Nobody , will be more vivid and potent in Europe ( mayhap in Asia , too , and in America ) for years upon years to come than all our successes since the days of the Spanish Armada .

      In civil matters we have Nobody equally active . When a civil office breaks down , the break-down is sure to be in Nobody ' s department . I entreat on my reader , dubious of this proposition , to wait until the next breakdown ( the reader is certain not to have to wait long ) , and to observe , whether or no , it is in Nobody ' s department . A despatch of the greatest moment is sent to a minister abroad , at a most important crisis ; Nobody reads it . British subjects are affronted in a foreign territory ; Nobody interferes . Our own loyal fellow-subjects , a few thousand miles away , want to exchange political , commercial , and domestic intelligence with us ; Nobody stops the niaiL The Government , with all its mighty means and appliances , is invariably beaten and outstripped by private enterprize ; which we all know to be Nobody ' s fault . Something will be the national death of us , some day ; and who can doubt that Nobodywill be brought in Guilty ?

      Now , might it not be well , if it were only for the novelty of the experiment , to try Somebody a little ? Reserving Nobody for statues , and stars and garters , and batons , and places and pensions without duties , what if we were to try Somebody for real work ? More than that , what if we were to punish Somebody with a most inflexible and grim severity , when we caught him pompously undertaking in holiday-time to do work , and found him , when the working-time came , altogether unable to do it ? Where do I , as an Englishman , want Somebody ? Before high Heaven , I want him everywhere ! I look round the whole dull horizon , and I want Somebody to do work while the Brazen Head , already hoarse with crying

      " Time is ! " passes into the second warning , " Time was !" I don ' t want Somebody to let off Parliamentary penny crackers against evils that need to be stormed by the thunderbolts of Jove . I don ' t want Somebody to sustain , for Parliamentary and Club entertainment , and by the desire of several persons of distinction , the character of a light old gentleman , or a fast old gentleman , or a debating old gentleman , or a dandy old gentleman , or a free-and-easy old gentleman , or a capital old gentleman considering his years . I want somebody to bo clever in doing the business , not olever in evading it . The more clever he is in tho latter quality ( which has been the making of Nobody ) , tho worse I hold it to be for me and

      my children and for all men and their children . I want Somebody who shall bo no fiction ; but a capable , good , determined workman . For it seems to me that from the moment when I accept Anybody in a high place , whose function in that place is to oatehango winks with me instead of doing the serious deeds that belong to it , I set afloat a system of false pretence and general swindling , the taint of which soon begins to manifest itself in every department of life , from Newgate to tho Court of Bankruptcy , and thence to the highest Court of Appeal . For this reason , above all others , I want to see the working Somebody in every responsible position which tho winking Somebody and Nobody now monopolize between them .

      And this brings mo back to Nobody ; to tho great irresponsible , guilty , wicked , blind giant of this timo . O friends , countrymen , and lovers , look at that carcase smelling strong of prussic ucld ( drunk out of a silver milkpot , which was a part of tho plunder , or as the Icsh pernicious thieves call it , tho swng ) , cumbering Hninpstead Heath by London town ! Think of tho history of which that abomination is at once the beginning and the end : of tho dark social scenes dugiiorrcotyped in it ;

      and of tho Lordship of your Treasury to winch Nobody , driving a ahamoful bargain , raised this creature when ho was alive . Follow tho whole story , and finish by listening to the parliamentary lawyers as they tell you that Nobody known anything about it ; that Nobody is ontitled ( from tho attorney point of view ) to believe that there over was such a business at all ; thnt Nobody can be allowed to demand , for decency ' s sake , the swift expulsion from tho lawmaking'fcody of tho surviving instrument in tho heap of crime ; that such expulsion is ,

      in a word , just Nobody ' s business , and most at present be constitutionally left to Nobody to do . There is a great fire raging in the land , and by all the polite precedents and prescriptions !—you shall leave it to Nobody to put it out with a squirt , expected home in a year or so . There are inundations bursting on the valleys , and—by the same precedents and prescriptions ! —you shall trust to Nobody to bale the water out with a bottomless tin kettle . Nobody being res ponsible to you for his perfect success in these little feats , and you confiding in him , you shall go to heaven . Ask for Somebody in his stead , and you shall go in quite the contrary direction . And yet , for the sake of Everybody , give me Somebody ! I raise my voice in the wilderness for Somebody . My heart , as the ballad says , is sore for Somebody . Nobody has done more harm in this single generation than Everybody can mend in ten generations . Come , responsible Somebody ; accountable Blockhead , come !

      Ireland. Destruction Of Weeds.—On This S...

      IRELAND . Destruction of Weeds . —On this subject , the Office of National Education at Dublin has issued the following letter : — " Office of National Education , Aug . 21 . —Sir , —We have the honour of Ia 3 'ing before the Commissioners of National Education your letters of the 10 th of July and the 18 th inst ., relative to the great importance of the destruction of weeds along the sides of highways . We are directed to state in reply , that the commissioners cordially approve of the suggestion you have made , that the children attending the National schools should be instructed by their respective teachers as to the necessity of destroying all weeds found on the farms of their parents , or on the highways adjacent thereto . The commissioners will therefore have much satisfaction in pointing out to their inspectors the steps necessary to be taken for carrying 3 our suggestion into effect .

      Presentation of Colours to the Royal Ibish Regumelnt . —New colours were on Monday presented to the 18 th , or Royal Irish , Regiment , at the Wellington Testimonial in the Phoenix Park , Dublin . General Lord Seaton , G . C . B ., Commander of the Forces , appeared within the enclosure about twenty minutes past three o ' clock , and rode down in front of the line , accompanied by a brilliant staff . His Excellency the Lord-Lieutenant arrived punctually at half-past three o ' clock , attended by Captain Fraser , A . D . C ., Captain Marshall , Captain Chaplin , Captain Everard , Captain Hutchinson , and other members of the Viceregal staff , with a military escort . The colours were presented by the Lord-Lieutenant , after an eloquent speech , in which he

      reviewed the history of the regiment , and eulogised their achievements . Colonel Edwards , in returning thanks , remarked : — " Though for a moment the dark cloucl may appear , when we think that , after an absence of twenty years , on returning to the capital of Vaat country of which we bear the title and havo oorne the title for three centuries , we have not received any public mark of approbation — still it is our duty to forget these things , and to recolloct that , as Ireland ' s sons by birth , by con . nertion , and by association , it is our duty to make these colours show the generous public of Great Britain that Ireland's sons will still do their duty , and will ever wish to place Irish soldiers where I may say with pride they have ever been , and ever shall be . "

      Flax Culture in Ireland . —From the official return of Mr . Donelly it appears that the increase in the number of acres devoted to the culture of flax in the present year amounts to 9875 , or an increase , as compared with last year , of 11 per cent . The extent of land under flax , however , is much less than in any of tho four years preceding the last . The Potato . —The Dublin Freeman ridicules the idea that the potato disease has shown itself to any great extent . The Tiueii Soldiers of the Crimea . —The

      Freeman ' s Journal picks out tho Irish names from the list published in the Moniteur of the soldiers who have been awarded the French military medal for special service in the Crimea , and finds that there is a vast preponderance of Milesians over English and Scotch . " Wo liav-R selected names , " adds tho writer , " which admit of no doubt—all Irish . The doubtful , no doubt , include a considerable percentage of Irishmen , nnd if wo take the moderate number of ten , and add them to tho Irif . li list . wo find tho grand result thus : —224 meduls to tho Knglish infantry , of which 190 wore tho prizes of Irishmen , or , in other wordn , nearly double the number iwva vdcd to TCngliah and Scotch combined . "

      America. Tiuc Latest Feature Of Tlio Pre...

      AMERICA . Tiuc latest feature of tlio Presidential ennvns in ( l » il tho enemies respectively of Mr . Buchanan and Colonel Froraont ( between whom it . in thought tho real content will li «) are getting up charges of peculation against them , in connexion with public situations which tiny ' invc hitherto filled . Instruction ?) have boon Hont . out to M r - Dallas to negotiate for tho settlement of tho ( Vntrnl American question on thn basin of tho ccwHion <> f I ! u » l *»" to Honduras , tho extinguishment of the sovereignty of tho Mosquitoes , and tho establishment of ( jreytown n . s a frt'fi port . A story has found Homo credence ) at Wanhiiitfton , to tho effect that Louis Napoleon dcHiroa to | iiirclinHO Cuba , and that Kngland now winhea . Spain to noil tin ; bland to tho United States . Tho French Minw < < lt

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 30, 1856, page 4, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_30081856/page/4/