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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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TO COB . KESPONDENTS . During the Session of Parliament it is often impossible to find , room for correspondence , even the briefest . No notice can be taken of anonymous communications Whatever is intended for insertion must be authenticated by the name and address of the writer ; not necessarily for publication , but as a guarantee of his 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 returnrejected communications . " A Tory" is—a Tory .
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THE GRANVILLE COMMITTEE DE LUNATICO ON RUSSIAN EMPERORS . " Delibant ^ begEs ' . "^ Europe Las had to pay heavily for the lunacy of the Emperor Nicholas . Science often confirms the intuitive perception of early observers . Many a truth is stated in very rude language hy Hippocrates that is now made out on good scientific grounds . " Delirant reges , " said the poet ; and Dr . GtBANTiliiE reduces the history of the Czar ' s outrage upon Europe f . the Jast Jew . years toa question of pathology . No sooner is the Czar dead , than we have a regular clinical lecture on the hereditary malady of the Russian . Imperial family , its causes and tendencies , by A . B . Gbanvix / le , M . D ., formerly physician to Viscount Pai / merston , GKC . B ., and for a time
visiting physician to his Imperial Majesty the Empekou of Aiiii the Rttssias . In July , 1853 , Dr . GnANViiiiiE addressed a letter on the subject to Lord Palmehston , predicting that the Emperor would probably die in the July of this year ; with the remark , that crosses and vexations might precipitate the event . So true was science to itself , that the prediction written in July , 1853 , serves as the clinical lecture over the dead body of the Emperor in March , 1855 . TJnarrested by homoeopathic treatment , the Emperor ' s malady took its course , and we may regard the disease in , its great symptoms—the
extravagant dictates of a pampered will , war , rage , congestivo disease , and death . No " case" could be more clear . But there is more than a family interest in this subject . It appears that this going mad and fanaticism runs in the family . Popular opinion has thought so , find science confirms the judgment . Nicholas only felt
the fatal transmission of hereditary insanity ; but least of all are the insane capable of self-cure . The family generally runs mad between the ages of forty-five and sixty . Paul , at first violent and fanatical , became a perfect lunatic at forty-five ; and was deepatched at forty-seven . Alexander died at Taganrog at forty-eight , having been for
five years capricious and wayward , knocking down the physician who tried to apply leeches to his temple , and dying of congestion of the brain . Constantine , eccentric and cruel , died at fifty-two—same said of cholera , some said of the assassin ; but a physician of the Polish military hospital averred of apoplexy , in a passion . Michael , with enlarged liver , deranged digestion , and determination of blood to the nedd , became irritable , violent , tyrannical , and lunatic , and died of apoplexy .
The poor creatures had inherited the tendency from their parents—eccentricity , violence , cruelty , insanity , and apoplexy . Such is the regular series of symptoms . It is humiliating to think , not only that Kings , but that even Emperors should be subject to these infirmities . But it is not emperors alone , or royal physicians , that bear the consequences . Michael ' s liver becomes congested , and he raves before his army . The veins in Constantine ' s head become
overcharged , and Poland suffers horrible oppression . The liver and lungs of Nicholas swell with congested humours and disappointment , and Europe is lighted up with tne flame of war . The poor Russian nobleman , whose family estate is reduced to insolvency , — -the serf who is carried off to die of ague or the enemy , —the merchant who is called upon to pay taxes out . of a till emptied by the exclusion of commerce from his ports , —they might have a right to suffer , as enjoying the privilege of being ruled by these
morbid Czars . But it is not only the Russian subjects that endure the consequences of the malady : the consequences fall also upon us . We pay taxes because Nicholas was bilious and labouring under the symptoms of pulmonary and cerebral apoplexy , and " the best of the joke is "—as a respectable gentleman once said in detailing the symptoms of which his wife died—that we keep in office men who conspire with our allies to keep this tainted family on the throne .
Great concessions would any Minister —French , English , Austrian , or German - —have made to soothe the pampered lunacy of Nicholas . It would really have '" ¦^ aidn ^ ""t"olndte " sbme ~ s " a'Crifice ~ to ~ soothe him . England and France might have subscribed a few millions to buy him a new sceptre , or any other bauble , if that could have assuaged his diseased temj ) er . But while the nations would have been willing to make their sacrifice to pleasure him , he would not sacrifice the smallest thing to avoid the calamity which was fatal to him and grievous
to us . "We are speaking most literally . He would not sacrifice the waistband of his pantaloons . It has been stated , on very probable authority , that Nicholas was advised to slacken the extreme tightness of dress which preserved to him the appearance of a " waist " after nature had decreed that it should begin to disappear . As Adebnetict said to his young ladies : " Tour entrails must go somew 7 iei'e ; and if 3 'ou will not let them be where they ought to be , yon will push them up into your chest , and squeeze your lungs and heart . " And it was so that Ntciiolas served his
lungs and heart , out of vanity that might have shamed a gjrl , with consequences that have cursed empires . Upon such small things do imperial institutions rest . The button of a waistband may bo the point of honour for potentates ; and practical" statesmen , as well as tawdry heralds , keep up the institutions and the lunatic asylums that thus surmount tho world ! The fact is that tho Russian family is convicted by its own acts and history of incapacity . A monarch should be sago , intellectual , steadfast , clear-sighted , healthy , able to sympathise with the sound instincts of entire
nations , entirely under his own command , and capable of transmitting a sound constitution to his followers on the throne . In all these respects the Russian family . is condemned by the judgment of plain science . The Emperors of Russia are madmen ; they cannot govern themselves , their servants , serfs , or empires ; they cannot breed healthy lof the Russian
princes for the suppy throne . Keep them , and that northern part of Europe will be supplied with mad Emperors to the end-of the chapter . Paul was mad , and had to be put out of his pain . Alexandeb was mad , and afflicted Europe . Constantine was mad , and tortured Poland . Nicholas was mad , and has outraged the civilised world . Alexander is the heir to those
men . They say that he is " milder , " that he busies himself less with war and intrigue than with cigars and cards . They- used to tell us that Edwabd the Sixth of England was milder ; although Holbein has handed down to us the undeniable testimony of a countenance as like that of Henby the Eighth ' s as a shrunken pea is like one of full dimensions . Tttleb has shown that the dreams of tyranny and cruelty were only arrested in Edwaed hy death . Disposition runs in families ; the insane propensity to worry kingdoms runs in the family of Romanof ! . As sure as we continue Alexander
on the throne , he will give us trouble some day . As sure as we have been called upon to put a straight waistcoat upon Nicholas , we shall have to call in the keepers to Alexandeb . "Why , then , do we give him scope enough to do mischief , in order that we may prove again that which was discovered in the time of Paul ? If we musihave a Russian Imperial family , at least let us have a sane stock . It would be far more humane to end the whole question at once , than to
dispose of the poor Erciperors individually as they show themselves ; permitting them in the mean while to become a mockery and a jest to the world . It may be a custom sufficient for Russia to bowstring her Pauls in detail ; but Europe , having more power , more civilisation , and more collected wisdom , ought to settle the question in a more general and a more humane way—by placing the unhappy family where it can do less mischief , and might have a chance of recovering its sanity . No treatment could be so shocking for the world as that to which the poor Czars are
subjected . Take any man out of Hanwell , when he receives treatment best chosen for his case , and place him upon the throne of Russia with a sceptre in one hand and a sword in the other , and ask whether a more concentrated and sweeping crime could be invented , than thus to place a lunatic Avhere his caprices can molest empires , and where the opportunities of power can pamper the insatiable imagination of a morbid Czar . It is to give lunacy a sublime excess , and to invest it with a power equalled only by that of the Devil .
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WAKNINGS . It is becoming more and more useful for England to look at her features in the mirror of foreign opiuion . There was a time when she could dispense with such coquetry . The homage of surrounding nations was the best testimony to her youth and boauty . Sho felt , too , vitality tingling through her veins ; and self-consciousness made her ready to woo tho
world as the fair Stewabt wooed tho second Chables . She did not care what secrets sho revealed . Times aro now much changed ' . A twinge is felt hero—a shooting paia there . Nothing serious , of course—a mere temporary derangement—diet andabluo pill , a seton and a bandage , will set all right again . The cheek will appear warmer and tho eye brighter
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There is nothing so revolutionary , because thereis nothing so unnatural and : convulsive , as the strain to keep things fixed when all the world is by the very law o < its creation in eternal progress .- —Db . Aknoid .
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SATURDAY , MARCH 10 , 1855
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TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION TO " 3 C&e aeafcet . " ^ Por a Half-Year . ^ . £ 0 13 0 To be remitted in advance . igT Money Orders should be drawn upon the Sxband Branch Office , and be made payable to Mr . Aipebd E . GAiXOWAX , at No . 7 , Wellington Street , Strand .
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¦ Erratum in our last . — In our Postscript of last week ( Parliamentary Summary , House of Lords ) , for the Earl of Clanricarde read the Earl of Clarendon .
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¦ ' "Jig- \ THE I / EADEB . [ Saturday ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), March 10, 1855, page 228, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2081/page/12/
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