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WHAT SARDINIA HAS DONE AND WHAT SHE MAY DO . ( From the Correspondent . ) The family of Nations , as well as the human family , possesses few . individualities and many generalities . In the social body , the power of initiation possessed by a few individuals , causes them to be regarded as geniuses , the res t form but a flock that f ollows a leader , or the established rules of society . The case is precisely the same among every people . There are few leaders and many imitators . Russia , gifted with , the genius of despotism , has Austria , Prussia , Germany , and Naples bound to her , even as satellites to a planet j Fiance , with the power to initiate x-evolutions , has been , and long
will continue to be , the rallying-point for all who eitlier expect or desire a revolution ; while England , by a happy fusion pf compensating powers , has become the only nation where the system of progressive freedom is realised without the risk of lessening her power . To this system the King of Sardinia and his people have given in their adhesion . This was an example much needed on the Continent , not so much for the purpose of showing the excellence of our institutions , as for the sake of humanity ; for , that humanity will be greatly benefited in Italy by the enlightened policy of Sardinia , is a point on which no reasonable doubt can be entertained .
The only problem which to some minds may seem difficult to solve is , what means are practicable to accomplish this great end . The character of the man , and of the people whom he governs , will doubtless , have some influence , but the great results will be chiefly determined by the expansive power of the principle he represents . Sardinia , as she happily exists in our day , may justly excite our wonder . Placed between two despotic powers tenfold stronger than herself , she is struggling for civil , religious , and political liberty , while they are aiming at the restoration of civil , religious , and political despotism . Hated and menaced on all sides , she , with one hand , represses the conspiracies of priests , monks , and nuns , who are seeking to regain their lost privileges , and with the other arrests the thunderbolts of Home , and resists
the natural combinations of the Republican party . I 3 y her liberal propag anda she d isturbs the dreams of the Emperor of Austria , and by the free expressions of her Press , troubles the French Emperor engaged in the unholy task of enchaining a great people . She despises the threats of Russia , coolly disregards her neighbour ' s exhorbitant demands , inspires the confidence of England by the compact union of king , parliament , and people , cheerfully bears the heavy taxes which war , hard times , and a state of transition necessarily impose upon her , while , by her valour on the battle-field , she claims our admiration and our respect . What state in Europe , though tenfold larger in extent and population than Sardinia , luis in the course of seven years done so much to advance human
progress ? !•/« . The rest of Italy cannot long remain indifferent to the glorious results of these seven yarns of freedom . That Italy has roused herself already is shown by the changes which have taken place in her political parties since the revolution of 1848 . Although ruin would have been the inevitable consequence of a defeat , yet , when factions began to see some chance of renewing the struggle for national independence , Piedmont became the rallying point , not only for every patriotic monarchical purty , but also for the more enlightened section of the Republicans ; and thus , despite all obstacles , has
increased her prestige . Many will ask , " Will Piedmont , when called upon to perform her hard duties against her l >» vvcrful antagonist , be able to fulfil so many hopes Y We can scarcely tloubt this when we behold tlie proud and despotic house of llap-sburgh tvying to prop itself on the frailest authority of our ngo . is not this nnxietv of Auatria to avail lier # eH or the infamous aid of clerical corruption ami < Ib" > o »« ' »" tion , alone a confession of weakn < « . s ' * " « " » will fc « w .. v « r . bo unable quietly thus to accomplish has
ler despot c measures , for Piedmont on y anufpatcTuL dominant . nirif » rtl . o neighbouring noimlatio . The squalid , demoralised , and imoS o Austrian provinces are irritated beyond i 5 bounds by the shameful Concordat with Rome .
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cities . Much of it , indeed , is infamous trash—murder and massacre , Bedlam , and blasphemy , lewdness and hist . But , whatever the moral and literary characteristics of these publications , the point to be considered is this—are they read ? -Are they a sufficient inducement for the lower classes to learn reading ? Their sale , reckoned by hundreds of thousands ^ is the best answer to that inquiry . ^ Regularly as the Saturday comes round trie weekly penny is disbursed , and , as one among many proofs of the interest ¦ which these works create , it may be mentioned that , on the conclusion of a tale , the sale of the serial in which it appears has been known to fall off by 20 , 000 , rising again with the commencement of a new tale . This is , no doubt , very nasty water for the people to swim in , but still they like it , and learn to swim in it . " Our great contemporary supposes that the lower classes prefer those books to Lord Stanley's didactics , because they would rather enjoy a pennyworth , of reading which they can call their own , and can lay iip or take down when they please , than a shilling ' s-worth from a free library . Lord Stanley and his critic act like the whole class of didactic philanthropists — they predetermine what the people " ought" to do , if they were as intelligent as Stanleys or Editors ; and they obstinately refuse to look to that which the people . will da . If the 20 , 000 or 100 , 000 are added to the readers of a publication by the appearance of a tale , there must be a reason why the 100 , 000 are thus attracted to that style of literature ; and if we can get at that reason , we should find whereabouts we must touch the working classes to move and guide them . Perhaps it is that the tale appeals to their affections . Fiction enters the understanding through channels different from reasoning , yet when once there , it guides the mind in taste and action . It may be still without appeal to a faculty that is seldom developed in the multitude , whether high or low—the ratiocinative faculty—but it does guide them . For , in truth , the didactics are a very small part of education , and yet our pedagoguish philanthropists can hardly ever think of anything else . Numbers of working-women in this great ¦ metropolis are doomed to a cheerless existence during the London season . They are in two classes—those who live in the establishments where they work , arid whose lives are nearly suspended during the season ; and those who have lodgings out of doors—cheap lodgings in the neglected neighbourhoods—the interstices between the " respectable" streets—the leavings in our civil distribution where penury and depravity pig together . Lord IIobaijt and other philanthropists have discovered this miserable complement to the existence of the workers , and they have established a home for some few of them at No . 2 , Manchester-street , Manchester-square ; a most praiseworthy and pious attempt . But what a scratch will it be into the mischievous existence of these doomed women ! Before our philanthropists can ever get to the bottom of these difficulties , or thoroughly . remodel the existence of the multitude , they . must grapple with tougher questions than any that they have hitherto prepared to handle . They must go amongst publicans and sinners ;—not as didactic educators , but as Saviours . coming to commune and to inquire . They -might lind some strange things , above all , if they could anatomise the motives of the class so deeply as to learn the dynamics of their likings and dislikings . There is a way of avoiding this entire extinction of life . " Why should I labour the whole day from six o ' clock in the morning till ten at night , as a bootbinder , " asks the reckless reasonor with rouged eheeks , " when I cam spend my day reading the ' Mysteries of the Court , ' or ' Life on the Road ; ' have plenty to cut or drink ; and at night , for the trouble of a walk , get my piece of gold ? " And why should she ?
lands . The women will emigrate too , if they can ; though the Emigration Commissioners have shown rather a preference for women from the Irish poor-houses . So , somewhat oppressed in the choice of a career for life , the " girl of spirit" Avill get hold of the " Mysteries of London , " take a short cut to at least a more bearable state of existence for the hour , and will flaunt in the face of the missionary a philosophy as remarkable for its clear expressions as for its perplexing sophistries—especially perplexing to the missionary , when all society is sophisticating less frankly , but more mortally . UlUlKlUj . _
the master class , or impending bankruptcy , prevents the adoption of shortened make . Somehow or other we have not yet got hold either of the motives of these classes , or at the means of guiding them and modifying their condition so as to save them body or soul . We go to them with preconceived preachments , and offer them instructive libraries , eleemosynary palaces , and palliatives , for which we expect a faithful pliancy in return . Numbers may try the prescriptions with more or less effect ; still larger numbers of the men will shrug their shoulders and emigrate to easier
perfect , and their depravity ends with themselves , sharply cut off . But go with the recruiting sergeant to Manchester , and measure the stunted population ; examine the recruits with the iegimental surgeon ; let the destined wives of those recruits be examined ; and know , that if not unsucceeded by progeny , these half-alive parents transmit with life a half-death to their descendants . Why do they submit to the continued toil which thus stunts and degrades them ? Just now they are asking for short time , and their masters reply that anarchy in
whether the extinction of life is not as complete—as wholesale—for the class in the one case as in the other ; the difference being , perhaps , that there is a slighter taste of lifeof its savour as well as of its depravities . There is , indeed , a more abominable depravity on the side of the virtuous class than the other . For the most part , those who adopt the philosophy avowed by the rouged reader of " Eliza Grimwood , " take a short cut to mortality of the most complete kind , "No son of theirs succeeding , " and no daughter . Their death is
Because , you will say , her choice is immoral , abominable , deadly ; and so it is . It is abominable , because it tends to the extinction of life , which is the material test of immorality ; but if so , liow are we to estimate the morality of trades that prostitute , not the individual , but the class ? Let us admire the self-denying sacrifice of the girl who would rather spend her whole day from six o ' clock in the morning till ten at night making dresses for unseen ladies ; half-starving while she does it , and glad to find an eleemosynary home at No . 2 , Manchester-street , with the use of a library that she is too tired to read . But let us ask
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December 1 , 1855 ] THE LEADER . 1153
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_____ MR . ISAAC IRONSIDE . Some of Mr , Ijsonsidk ' s friends are unnecessarily angry . We made no charge of venality against that gentleman . On the contrary , we ridiculed the- notion that Mr . Ukquhakt ' s ravings were paid for ; and certainly , no man who knows Mr . Ironside , can believe that ho is anything but sincere . We said , and say , that the expletives he flung at the Earl of Clauicndon Averc gross find weak . We said , and say , that no Journal not ; entirely in the hands of tlie Urquhartitcs at Sheffield , would print tl . 2 outpourings of that Hallucination . If Mr . luxNrtiDK is sole possessor of the Free Press , we can understand why that journal should circulate his stormy speeches , and Mr . Ukquiiaut's " old , old story . " We never said that any one would pay Mr . Iuonhidk for
calling Lord Clarendon " a liar , a traitor , and a villain . " This is the advocacy that ruins a bad cause , and degrades a good one .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 1, 1855, page 1153, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2117/page/13/
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