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reporting the fact in Blue Books , and reiterating the truth for nearly forty years , Parliament still leases the unhappy beings under treatment reserved for the vilest class in the country !
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THE LADY FERRERS CASE . Strange is the tendency of the Ferrers famil y to heroism in causes celebres . Tyburn is lost in Tyburnia : and possibly even , a footman in the Ferrers family , of course resident in that region , could not now guide the children or the lapdog-s to the spot over which dangled the celebrated silken rope to which an " eminent novelist" has hung a tale . Besides , hanging las gone out Tnth that fashion in deference to which a Lord Ferrers or a Lord Mohun . made
for manslaughter , as a pastime- Your great personage submits , nowra-days , to the mediocrity of an age shaken b y French revolutions into some hypocrisy : and -we , thus , see a Lady Ferrers humbly seeking a distinction by steering for Newgate . She has been saved by a Lord Chancellor , who , it may be , apprehended the intercessions to which a French official of his caste was exposed when the young Count ; killed the jeweller— that was ¦ when France was as aristocratic as England
now is ; and the tipstaffs of the Court of Chancery , their democratic fingers tickling , perhaps , to clutch at the cloak of a Countess , have been kept oflf by a Judge whose parvenu feelings were touched , and whose bowels of compassion—for a Countess - ^— seem proportionate to the amount of hair in his wig—a wig ^ which the Constitution requires should fee copious , because it has to cover , or to hide , not only his own conscience , but the conscience of his sovereign . Think of a Countess being in Newgate ! And what if Newgate , in , its
capacity as connected with the offended Court of Chancery , should partake of the Tetentiveness of that Aula , and keep a prisoner as long as the court reserves a cause ! That is a consideration which , during this week , must have been perplexing the confined mind of that distinguished Irish clerk of the peace ( an absentee clerk of the peace—no doubt a rule of such officers—which accounts for the disturbed state of Ireland—or which , otherwise , may be explained on the ground that there is no peace for the clerks to look after ) , the Hon . Mr . Chichester .
The story of « Thomhill and Thornhill "which we elsewhere relate with scrupulous elaborateness—bears its own moral , and sufficiently stigmatises the contemptible characters of the brother and sister engaged in the ailstocratic pursuit of burglary—we do not mean entering a house for plate , but for heiresses . But i ; he general moral of the matter , as illustrating the manners of the time , is not quite so obvious , and is -worth some attention . This moral is not at all affected by any sort of answer
to the question inevitably raised by the report of the case as to whether the young lady , who is the heroine , is quite so angelic as the venerable Lord Chancellor , on her assurance , assured the court she was . Very likely the lady was amusing herself with her amorous clerk of the peace , and enjoyed the chase to which—a very knowing doer—she subjected herself . If not an ingenue , more shame to Lady Ferrers , for this would mnke her ladyship guilty , not only
or improprieties , but of stupidities . Tho English public is aware of the weaknesses of our male aristocracy . Because our male aristocracy is fighting well in the Crimea —at which tho aristocratic press crows , as though tliey had expeoted our male aristocracy to run away , and as though tho highly-fed fine fellows , feeing English , could be loss brave than privates Brown , Robinson , and Jones—we are asked , ina manner assuming that there cannot by possibility b « any answer , to overlook those
weaknesses . That , however , would be illogical ; and , for present purposes , a statement of such weaknesses will be interesting . Our male aristocracy pretends to a right to have complete governmental domination in these islands ; and though , in theory , that right is somewhat lazily denied by these islands , yet , practically , the male aristocracy manages to get moat of its own way . It crushes the Crown ; it monopolises the upper House ; and has two-thirds of
the Lower House of Legislature—the twothirds sufficing for a working majority , while the other estates are secured , and while the Cabinet excludes all but peers , or the tools of peers . It has the Church for its younger sons ; the colonies , so far as ready-made fortunes in the shape of good situations are concerned , ditto ; and in the army , as we see in a case . turning up this week , it obtains , if not all the commissions , at least all the commissions
" without purchase —and which lead to anything . The tid-bits of British life are its own ; only . the crumbs of * the constitutional feast reach the aspiring members of the classes who , though " well-clothed" and horribly stupid , ate not li well-born . " These advantages it obtains by considerable political wrong : by rendering our Parliament a delusion—rendering our Parliament a delusion , among other means , by bribing and corrupting our picked electors A Stonor case—a Stafford case- —a Keoghcase
—a Lawley case—these cases , familiar in the short memory of the careless public , explain the system . Yet we have heard of palliations . When , during the era of the Derby Ministry and the elective committee inquiries of 1853 , all England was holding its patriotic nose , offended by the stench of universal political corruption , we were referred to consolations ; for practical
men , your " man of the world , sir , " told us that all such things signified as nothing—that where everything was understood nobody was deceived —that though all were thieves , yet that enough was gained if there were the honour which prevails among depredators — - and that , in fine , there was something ~ coTnpensating for the atrocities of public life—there was the exquisiteness of the purity of private life .
Alas , now , if the ladies should be like the lords ! Can it be that as Britannia is to the Earl , so is Miss Thornhill to the Countess ? That as Mr . Chichester is clerk of the peace absentee , so is Miss Chichester , protectrix of middle-class heiresses , a Cardenite in smooth disguise ? We , conscientious though democratic , have always contended that the dire instances of aristocratic profligacy were exceptional , not systematic , class cases . But we admit to being startled by the Ferrers case , because it is so quiet a case—so unostenof
tatious a case—^ the letters Lady Ferrers being remarkably "lady-like" in their quiet , unaffected , pursuit of what struck her as an everyday object—swindling a rich young girl into marrying a worthless brother , who , if in no other respect an unfit match , could not seek an heiress honourably because ho was , as he would say—and no doubt with an accent worthy of his birth , if not of liis fortune — " crible de dettes . " The question , then , is—Can it be that tho easy impudence of Lady Ferrers is up to the standard of worldly morality recognised in her class ?
Victoria , by the grace of God , and goodwill of her people , Sovereign of these realms , we consent to have plundered by the Lords—that is constitutional ; but let the middle classes look to their Miss Thornhills ! After all , the moat Macnirey of our aristocracy may be tho ladies . It would be a consolation for the democracy to have tho one punished by tlie other ; and the fact might illustrate tho historic theory—that where there is not public virtue there must bo private vice .
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There is no learned man but will confess he h . ath much profited by reading controversiea , hia senses awakened and his . judgment sharpened . If , then It be prout eble for him to read , whs- should it not at least , be tolemblefor tus adversary to write . —Milton-
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BABEL . ( jp ^ rom a various Correspondence . * ) — The case of omnibuses wouldL seem to showthat no man . knows his own business ; just reversing the ordinary maxim . The omnibuses in the metropolis are continually changing their fares , and they find themselves in . this predicament—that if their fares are low , tho expense of working exceeds the profit ; if their fares are high , they have the same result , because they run without passengers , or have too few . In any case the Chancellor of the Exchequer exacts the-running tax whenever they leave the yard , whether they have passengers or not ; and now they go to the Chancellor of the Exchequer , asking him to remove the incubus from , then *
carriages . The omnibuses are steadily falling in number , because the Chancellor of the Exchequer has placed such heavy imposts upon them ; so that , to get a revenue , he not only imposes a tax which prevents the tiling taxed ^ but by the self-same process stops the imcome from the omnibus proprietors which might otherwise exist for the benefit of the income " tax collector ! "Without the tax the proprietors aver that they could ran at the rate of a penny a mile . That , we believe , would be the true rate for London , and probably fo r all great towns . But then the public want some simple index of the mile for the
penny ; and here is a thing in which the authorities could probably help the proprietors aDd public- too . Why not have the whole metropolis . mapped out into square miles ; let every omnibus , then , pay tax upon the number of miles run ; and let the passenger pay a penny for every boundary passed . We lielieve this would really yield the largest revenue both to proprietor and Chancellor ; and the homely public would , in that form , constantly find that the xide in the omnibus saves shoe-leather !
In Glasgow , however * the omnibus has played the most curious of its vagaries . In order to promote the piety of that commercial capital the omnibus aud cab proprietors have ceased running on tho Sabbath-day ; the principal e ct o which is to prevent infirm people from going to church . The fact is , nature has not destined man to arrest all his movements on tho soventh day in the week , "though tho omnibus proprietors seem to think that nature and the God of nature ought to have adopted that regulation . Tho cab and omnibus proprietors have thought to improve upon the Divine government of the universe ; but , as usual , when man attempts that presumptuous correction , the improvement is deterioration . The stoppages of a disturbance proves to be the stoppage of a pious duty .
It turns out , however , that the omnibus proprietors who had been running their carriages on the seventh day , had turned their piety to a very peculiar purpose : although running their omnibus for seven days , and taking tho pro fits f or tho seventh day , they only paid their servants wages for six days . Fronts , it appears , aro tinder some divine blessing ; but payment of wages would be accursed . This is q . uito the one-sided view of piety which suits our commercial 4 vge , and it has been presented to the pious public of Glasgow in so striking a forra that they will perhaps bo driven to some penetrating consideration of the whole subject .
— Two niontlis ago the public would have said that if a good round sum of money was to be collocited , Major Powys was the man to do it . Ho got up tho Centrnl Association on behalf of wives and families as wolL as wklowm » nd orphans ; advertised liberally , talked , generously , and collected 80 , 000 / . or 90 , 000 ? . Ho has since averred that his charity for ¦ wives and families , as well as for widows and orphans , is limited to those cautious females who have only
the moat regular husbands , and also regimontal recognition , ifurthor , tho major will recognise no llomnn Catholic intermediary between the Control Association and any wife or widow . "NoKoman Catholic priest neofl apply" ho posts at the door of hia charity . Flocks of subscribers aTe shocked at tho formal and sectarian distinctions drawn in admi * watering tholr bounty . At almoat every mooting of subscribers to the Patriotic Fund questions aro put to draw forth tho declaration that the official fund has no connexion with Major J ^ owy u . If there wore
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EtW THIS DEPABTMEHT , AS AU OVTXXOKB , HOWEVER , « . »» . ALLOWED AN BXPltESSIOW , TUB &OITOU N ^ jS ^ iJ ?^? ' J * SELF BESFOHSIBUi FOB HONB . J »« -iajSAEU . Y BOIBS HIM-
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1118 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 25, 1854, page 1118, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2066/page/14/
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