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pssarv submission of a dependent , is a fact ^ Id ive vis pause . Here is a close relation f life the closest we can conceive , bound up ¦ + h w orldly progress , the love of common \ ndren and the comfort of a common hearth Vnv the ' most ordinary happiness of that hearth something like good feeling is required between the two A quarrel arises ; in a drunken mood , nr stung by the many bitter things which needy npovle hare to bear , the man beats his wife . into her
We straightway put a vengeful weapon hands and she locks up her husband for six month ' s , rolls his tortured feet on a treadwheel , or whip ' s him at the carts' tail through the public streets , herself and children starving meanwhile . It is not in the nature of things that that man can return to his home a kindlier husband ; a rankling memory must remain . Vagabondage and vice are the resources of the woman ; some coarse companion replaces her in her home ; the children become thieves and grow up to perpetuate the festering sore—the great sin of great
cities . , -I , 1 ' . Where have the " lower classes learned this vice ? E-ieh people do not beat their wives , and gentlemen do not maim their sweethearts . Yet daily in our streets / and in the life of our ' better classes , ' is an example which homely instincts quickly imitate . A gentleman meets a poor girl . He does not treat her with open roughness ; he knows a better game . He sees her weak in comforts , poor in worldly goods , bare indeed even of the cheapest pleasures . He strikes at her with the stron g temptations of comfort * clothes ,
pleasures ; and robs her of her honour . She becomes the victim of a brutality as gross as that of the wretch now on a treadmill for trampling on an enceinte wife . She loses her chance of decent living ; finds the burden of a living shame thrown on her for support ; and is an outcast from the homes of all good people . If the silly wretch do not drown herself , she may accuse the gentleman , and when the case is fully proved , he is fined half-a-crown a-week . From the class of women
thus treated the working men must select their wives ; and yet we wonder that they treat them badly ! We allow well-dressed men to set the pattern , and we cry out for the whip when men in fustian better the example . If the young lady who flung herself into the water at Southampton the other day had been insulted or outraged by a working man ; if her arm had been bruised or her face cut , the revenue of the law had been
terrible . But she was only betrayed and deserted by a gentleman ; her life and fame were only blasted , and the gentleman sailed away to India with flying colours and a gallant reputation . Working men live among peoplo who talk freely of such coarse facts ; they note the facts , and take up the manly tone . They have not the finesse to seduce or the art to betray ; but they gratify their passion with bludgeon blows or win consent to their lust by rude force . We are too delicate to talk on these incidents , and too refined to apply to the evil direct legislation . Wo gracefully yeil the sins of the seducers ; wo do not talk of them in tho drawing-room , nor compile statistics of them in the office ; but their
existence is the cui'rent cant in any meeting of young men . Working men imitate our actions and ' follow out our practices in their own way . It would bo wrong to say that a full remedy for brutality towards women would bo a just punishinont of all kinds of outrages upon them comniitted by all kinds of men . Wo know well that Iho (; au 8 ea of this constant crime lie deeper . Tho JHiuiy social customs which cramp woman ' s power of earning bread , and tho many laws and rules
whuth fetter all kinds of industry , are among tho obvious causes which place her at the morcy of man ; while a materialized tone of society , making tfood dinners and strong stimulants the chief K <><>< 1 , and innocent amusement an oddity , establish l | io dominance of man , and abridge woman ' s own ( «> munw —tlio pleasure-ground , tho ball-room , " 'Hi the home . But strict equity in meting moa-Hur <> ( , ) r Im ,, lHul . | ; o nij w j lo ( j o wron ^ would at I ' mark the public sense of justice , and 'bring ! , 'M' « r social tone through the spirit rather than ' ¦ "rough tho letter of a new legislation .
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THE WILKINSON CASE . Mit . BraoirrJH to bo congratulated that , after all , ' " . <> result , of his rash communication to tho ouho of Cominons of a private conversation with Mr . w . A . Wilkinson , m regard to tho proloutod sale of an Indian cadctship , has only coat
that gentleman , and his brother , Mr . Norman Wilkinson , some few hundred pounds for law charges incurred in resisting the virtuously indignant persecution of the East India Directors . The public verdict upon this whole affair is very simple y that Mr . Bright was indiscreet ; that the Messrs . "Wilkinson , compromised unexpectedly , have exhibited the most carefulhohour ; and that the Directors have gained nothing by insisting upon national attention to the charge , but , on the contrary , have only deepened the impression , which this particular case merely illustratesthat Indian patronage is sold as a commodity in the city market at the purchase of good , and wealthy , and safe families . But the moral of the case , as it was closed , is a special one ,
applying to the laws of " honour . " Mr . W . A . Wilkinson was bound , as a gentleman , —and his demeanour in court indicates the perfect gentleman—not to give up the name of the implicated person- Mr . Norman Wilkinson preserves at once his character for veracity , and his reliability as the receiver of a confidential communication . But clear as was the course for these gentlemen to take , and unimpeachable as is the decision of the Lord Mayor upon so much of the facts as came before him , the course which should have been taken by the third party—the
implicated individual — he is spoken of as " a gentleman" — -is equally plain . He ought to have declared himself , before either of the Messrs . Wilkinson was placed in the witness-box , bringing down on him , if necessary , the whole edifice of East Indian corruption . We suggeat to the Directors , as they will be in earnest , to make some such appeal to him now that they have failed in eliciting any thing from the Messr * . Wilkinson on the Mansion House raek . There is another point for the consideration of this game gentleman—ought he or ought Mr . Bright to pay the Messrs . Wilkinsons' law costs ?
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THE SESSION . Theee is a remarkable consentaneousness in the comments of the journals upon the Session of Parliament which closed last week . By one and all , whatever the reserved references to the Ministers , the House of Commons as a , body is congratulated upon the extent of the work it has accomplished , upon the manner of the performance , and generally upon its capacity to deal with and direct tho complicated affairs of this enormous Empire . Reading these compliments , and studying these eulogiums , it requires a mental exertion to remember , that by universal consent tho next Session is to open with debates upon the best method of revolutionising tho House of Commons—upon tho best method of obtaining Parliamentary Reform !
If it be a fact that tho House of Commons is equal to its functions , and adequately reflects and expounds the wishes and the principles of tho nation , why Parliamentary Reform ? The indiilbrentism of the ago is painfully illustrated in those comments of immoral British journalism , which is craftily careless of being moro alert than its public . But tho fact is to be faced : that it is agreed that wo have Keen the last Session of the unreformed Reformed House of Commons : and it is a fitting period to ascertain where
and what are those- defects in constitution and practico which demand the remedy of a change equivalent to a revolution . Or is the defect simply in tho constitution , and not in tho practice ? Are wo going to have a revolution for tho gratification of our theoretical anxieties , in , despite of tho perfect practical auceest of a theoretically bad system ? On thin point , perhaps , the Queen herself is unintentionally an authority . Her Majesty closed this Session with a speech from tho throno unparalleled for tho varioty and extent of
it « congratulation of Parliament and country upon tho actual work done : her Majesty will open next Session with n speech from tho throne , in which tho prominent paragrap h will ' . suggest the expediency of a consideration of certain nieuHiircB fnuncd for the purpose of remodelling this strangely admirable House of Commons . Can Lord . John Russell expect that tho incon . Histeney will escape his ( £ neon P Tho whole nation niu . it detect it ; and , as it is a practical nation , it may be inclined to regard Lord . John as a visionary politician , risking tho peace for tho aukq of h ' m theories .
But there is no doubt this resource for a Ministry pledged to a measure of Parliamentary Reform—they may repudiate their speech from the throne , and laugh at the laudations of their journals ; and contend that the Session has been an infamous failure , and the Parliament an audacious sham . . Not to take some such course leaves them in a humiliating difficulty ; and strengthens incalculably the hands of those cynical statesmen who are disposed to believe that good government means as little government as possible , and that Parliaments
are good or bad , not in reference to their constitution and origin , but in reference to the excellence or vice of the age in which , the Parliament is placed ; who , consequently , contrasting the concluding declarations of this with the initiatory demands of next Session , will ridicule with effect Lord John Russell ' s scheme on which Lord Aberdeen is now popularly supposed to be brooding . This school of politicians had no chance in 1792 and 1830—the two eras of parliamentary reform agitations : then they were the theorists , and their assailants were the practical men .
They argued that an English House of Commons was simply an assembly of English gentlemen who , when they got together , whatever their separate origins , would , of necessity , do just what any other average meeting of English gentlemen would approve ; that is , that inevitably the House of Commons would , in the end , represent with admirable accuracy contemporaneous educated public opinion : and some of them , even so late as 1830 , pushed their philosophy so far as to suggest that a good , a practical , and a patriotic House of Commons could bo obtained out of an
assembly exclusively nominated by the Crown . But when the people said , irrespective of the theory , " We have no faith in tho House of Commons as at ; present constituted , " it obviously became indispensable to appease the people by a change which should simulate a reform , —as in 1830 . Now , however , what is to resist the reasoning of that school which disbelieves in the virtue that is to arise from closer contact between mob and party ? The people are not demanding < t R'eform : the popular journals see no faults in the career of
the Session : Lord John Russell , therefore , committed by his Queen ' s speech and his newspaper paeans , must , in February , 1854 , when ho rises , puts his elbows in his hands , and mentions Hampden and Sidney , meet the question— " Why should there bo a reform of Parliament ? Admitted that it is not a Parliament theoretically perfect in its constitution : that , statistically , it does not represent tho property , the
intelligence , and tho population of the country , but only sections of the property , species of the intelligence , and classes of tho population ; but what then—does it not work well ? At least you told us no , only last session . " In anticipation of so natural a controversy , admirers of Lord John Russell should preparo materials to show that his last Queen ' s speech was a complete- mistake ; that , as a summary of the nessioii , it
was a wrong one . But a similar contrast , —between ministerial satisfaction with tho past and ministerial intentions for the future , —is , in the Session itself . Two . sets of facts stand out prominent in the Session : it has been a Session of Bribery Committees , and tho Budgot . The Bribery Committoes proved that anyone can buy his way into tho House- of Commons : and the Budget was based on tho Succession Duty Extension Bill , a bill which annihilated class legislation , the noblest , boldest , and most truly national piece of recent legislation . Thus , villunous an is tho source , pure , no far , is tho flow of the Mouse of
Commons . Again : it was a session which commenced undor the influence of , in a House Holectod under tho influence of , a corrupt Tory Ministry ; and at the end of tho session we see firmly minted ( on a broad bottom ) in power , a Ministry whose distinction it is—the distinction of a coalition—that it in not a party and not a class Government ; but that it is a British Government pledged , in nil it undortaluw , to take a national view . Can wo reconcile these contradictions ; and , if wo can , would not the reconcilement bo fatal to the rara avh which is to result from our Pmnior ' H incubation ? In fact , in not the existence- of a coalitiou Government in itself ftW argument ajafainsfc the cry of Parlmtnehtaiy
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August 27 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 829
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 27, 1853, page 829, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2001/page/13/
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