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. ' - ' /iNitT>tt ffTrHTttrtl VHz-Ut li VibUUUl II*
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To Political despotism , to pecuniary exactions , are now added the % ww * evil of all , religious nersecu-Son Aa for Sardinia , she must feel grateful to Aus-SforhavLg thus given her a great opportunity of Sn £ g the ^ mpathy of the whole Itaimn people When Piedmont shall send her army to the field fas ere long , we hope , she will do ) against the now apparently powerful Austrian domination , she will , to her flag of National Independence and Liberty , add yet another , which shall restore that religious toleration which Austria would now destroy .
Under all aspects , Sardinia acts the nohlest part allotted to any nation during our eventful century . She has every external advantage , she has carefully prepared herself for the coming struggle , she looks to this country for encouragement , which she will assuredly find , but more than all she depends on the sympathy of the Italian nation . Let no mistaken patriotism frustrate her great attempt . Let Italian patriots remember Balbo ' s sentence : — " When foreign rulers no longer find false Italians in Italy , they , numbering themselves , will find they are but few . "
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fur this dbpastmbbt , as all opinions , , ABB AIXOWBB AH EXPRESSION , IHB EDITOB MXCESSABILT aO&SB HlitSBt-F BESPONSIBIB FOB SOHB . ] There is no learned man "brut -will confess h . e hath much profited by reading controversies , his senses awakened , and his judgment sharpened . If , then , i % _ be profitable for him to read , why should it not , at least , be tolerable for his adversary to write ?—Milton .
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WHAT SHALL WE GAIN BY THE WAR ? ( To the Editor of the Leader . ) Sir , —There are few calamities common to the human race which do not carry with them some counter-balancing or incidental advantages . This is especially the case with that most grievous calamity —a war between Christian nations . Let us glance at these small casual benefits , and have done with them before we advance further into the subject . Many people , in talking of benefits resulting from war , seem to relapse into childishness ; they do not reason , but merely prattle incoherently . Charles Lamb has a capital story about the discovery of roast pig by the Chinese . Pork , as a dish , was at first unknown , but a Chinese citizen accidentally set fire to his house , and in the conflagration a pig chanced to be roasted . The savoury odour enticed the Chinaman first to taste , and then to devour . In a few weeks his house was again burnt down , and again a pig was roasted in the flames . Very soon the custom spread , and every night there was a house burnt down in one street or another , a pig duly roasted , and duly devoured . The process was expensive , but it was a long time before the Chinese public discovered that in order to roast a pig it was not absolutely necessary to burn a whole house down to the ground . In like manner it is possible to acquire advantages which are popularly ascribed to war , and yet to remain at peace . For instance , there is £ no doubt that much heroism , much fortitude ^ much chivalrous self-sacrifice , are exhibited in time of war . Great trials call into action great qualities . Danger and pain are occasions for the exercise of high courage and steadfast endurance . War does not , however , creato these virtues ; it only puts them to the test , and gives thorn opportunities of external notion . But . lemembor first , that this exhibition of man ' s nobler qualities , if ) in the case of war accompanied by the display of such as are the worst and most hideous . Hear Shelley : — " The Imttlo became ghastlier ; in tho midst I paused , and suw bow ugly and how fell , O Hatol thou art , oven -when thy Hfo thou shedd ' st For love . Tho ground in many a Httlo doll " Was broken , up and down whoso steeps befel Alternate victory and dofoat , and thoro Tito combatant * witu rago most howl bio Strovo , and their oyes started w ith cracking stare , And Impotent their tongues they lolled into tho air , Flaccid and foamy—" This IB but . one phase of what may bo called the black side of tUo pioture ; leaB horrible , indeed , than the sack of n town and the frantic orgies of soldiers flushed with long-delayed triumph . Let us pans over this aubjoot lightly . Remember , secondly , that tho virtues , as wo may call them , stimulated into action by war may bo ovokod—may be exorcised—in the tuno of profou ndeBt peace . War is not a neooanary condition of tlioir existence . Pooplo talk of war , na if there wero not trials enough , and griefs enough , and dangers enough , in tho common courso of human life to put us on our inettlo , and provo what wo aro worth . It is but a small portion of a population which enduros the worst horrors of war , and hns the privilege of exhibiting heroism and . devotion . Wo
who are at home too often read the tale as we should a romance fresh from the press . To hail war as a direct means of evoking lofty thoughts and aspirations—to allow the idea to dull and blunt our eager desire for peace—is as insanely presumptuous as if we welcomed the advent of Asiatic cholera with a merry peal of churdh bells , and carefully disseminated the contagion , in order to test the fortitude of the poor , and furnish a fine field of self-devotion to ^ parish-doetors and hospital nurses . And so with other results of the war ; most were attainable in time of peace , and would have been attained , only a little more slowly . Army reform we have not yet got ; possibly the war may expedite the matter , but whyen we hear that Sir Colin Campbell , the best general we have , was politely offered a quiet shelf at Malta , we do not feel very sanguine . But this by the way ; some improvements doubtless have occurred , and more may follow . Let all this be granted . War is a hot-bed which forces on improvements ; but we should have got them time enough without , and perhaps—to cany on the same analogy — better matured and more hardy . Another thing is to be borne in mind—the idea of improvements in military art cuts two ways . We have Captain Disney ' s new stink-pots ; the Emperor of the French has his shell-proof gun-boats . Military inventions , especially in these days of practical science , multiply in time of war , but the benefit is seldom monopolised by one nation . The end of it usually is that more soldiers and sailors on each side are destroyed in a shorter time than formerly . After the first start the combatants gradually resume their relative positions . Progress in the art of slaughter and devastation has certainly been made , but it has not been made on one side only . The contending powers have all progressed together ; they have taken honours in explosive combustibles , and got their degrees in carnage and rapine . But the gain is equally shared by friend and by foe . As respects the profits accruing to certain trades and businesses galvanized into activity by war , and the harvest reaped by army contractors , not to mention the proprietors of daily journals , I scarce think it is worth while to allude to them . Mr . Porter , in his " Progress of the Nation " rightly compares the gains of such to the spoils hastily gathered by unscrupulous individuals in the general conflagration of a town ; a few are fortunate , but the many suffer . And with respect to the agriculturists , who are certainly pretty well off just now , I am convinced that if they do not put by the bulk of their profits , and prudently provide for the future , they will suffer severely when peace with its reaction of prices once more comes back to us . It was the case after the last great war , and will be the case again , if landowners raise their rents , or let their farms on higher terms , as they are already beginning to do ; and if the farmers live up to their incomes , and leave no margin for the future , as is too much the fashion with . them . In this way the present agricultural prosperity will prove merely a snare , and a prelude to misfortune , and cannot be regarded as a permanent gain to the agricultural interest . The material profits of war bear the same sort of relation to the gains of peace , as dram-drinking does to a good wholesome meal of bread and meat . I find I must postpone the more important aspect of the question , namely , what we shall gain by the war in a political point of view , to another letter , and must for tho present conclude . YourB truly , Arthuh Hallam Elton . Clevedon Court , Nov . 26 , 1855 .
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THEORY OF CONSUMPTION . ( To the Editor of the Leader . ) Sin , —I have boen amused to-clay in reading in your last number a review of Dr . M'Corruack ' fl book on consumption , to find that ho lays claim to the discovery (?) of the true cause of that ruthless destroyer of tho human race . Dr . M'Cormack seems to think that ho is tho firwt clearly to enunciate the theory of tho insufficient or imperfect performance of tho respiratory function us the fons malonun . I have not Dr . M'Cortnack's book to refer to , for the full details and grounds of this theory , if they are presented more at largo than in tho paragraph you quote . But I think it only duo to myself to state that in my work ontitlod " Tho Wator Cure in Consumption , &c , " published by MoHHrs . Longman in Juno of last year , and roviowed in the Leader of July 22 , 1854 , I
put forth ivt considerable length precisely tho samo theory—aomprisod in pagos 87 to 47 . That theory has been aeuoptod by ovory competent professional judge an tho most feasible theory of tho origin of tubercular disease hitherto propounded . But Ood forbid that I should lay tho lluttaring unction to my eoul that such theory was so confirmed and indisputable as to entitlo its promulgutor to ul ' aim tho honour of a discovery . Not so fast . Time enough for that yet . I nni content to put forth my tmggostion as a simplo theory to bo ostabJiHhod or invalidated by chemical roBonroh , how far tho oil and albumen of tho chyle of tubercular subjects oxq dcowydatcd . For it is alone by the chcuilcal analysis of the plastic elements of
the blood of the Phthisical , that the question of the proximate causation of tubercle will ever be settled . I am afraid it is hopeless to expect much li ght on that deficient OEiiL-action by which , the low vitality of the tubercular condition of the blood is manifested . Allow me to conclude with a short extract from my exposition of the theory in question . " Imperfect blood-purification—deficient play of the excretory functions , and not directly bad digestion , or faulty blood-making—is the primary source of the vitiation of the solids and fluids characteristic of scrofula and consumption . " " A careful analysis of all the phenomena of tubercular disease , and . all the best ascertained facts regarding its causation , as well as all sound analogical reasoning , lead to the conclusion that the fons et origo mali is to be located in the defective performance of the grand depurating economy of the body , and principally , if not exclusively , in impairment of the functions of the lungs and skin ; in other words , in the want of adequate supplies of oxygen to combine with the carbonaceous waste of the body , and so to effect its complete expulsion from the system . " I have the honour to be , sir , Your very obedient servant , John Balbirnie , M . A ., M . D . Bridge of Allan , Stirlingshire ^ Nov . 19 , 1855 .
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THE AUSTRIANS IN ITALY . ( To the Editor of the Leader . ) Sib , —In your notice of my History of Piedmont ( Nov . 11 th ) you say the author " is strangely tolerant of French insolence and Austrian usurpation , and even professes admiration of English interference . " I have certainly , out of regard to what seems to me truth , praised Radetzky for military skill , and the Austrians for dogged perseverance . But I think no man ever detested , not only A ustrian usurpation and French interference , hut even all foreign diplomatic or political influence , more sincerely than I do . If aught occurs in my work that may lead to a different conclusion ( and I am not aware of it ) I beg most distinctly to retract it , and to make through your journal a public profession of my true faith and sentiments . I am , Sir , Your obedient servant , Kennington Gate , Nov . 15 . A . Gallexga .
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LORD JOHN" RUSSELL'S LECTURE . ( To the Editor of the Leader . ) Sib—I fully agree with you that , in the string of well turned common-places which Lord John Russell delivered the other day in Exeter-hall , there was an evident desire to humour the genius loci and the sentiments which might 'be supposed to prevail among an association affecting a peculiar or exclusive title to the epithet Christian . Hence no doubt the apparently irrelevant hits levelled more or less indirectly against the Roman Catholic Church ; and , in particular , the old story of Galileo's imprisonment .
Now , sir , it might promote the growth of charity amongst us if we were to consider , in searching out these sore places of history as materials for abusing our fellow Christians , how far we are laying the saddle on the right horse ; take , for instance , this case of Galileo ' s : true tho Pope and Cardinals imprisoned him , and therefore , of courso , Rome is everlastingly twitted with the offence . But why should Rome as she now exists bo responsible for what was done by Roman tribunals two hundred years ago ' ( In fact it is
much more reasonable to charge the imprisonment of Galileo as a blot on 1 ' roteatantism . For tho princijilc which influenced this pei-secution waa , unquestionably , that idolatrous notion of the verbal inspiration of Scripture , which , out of tho wuddon ubundimco of printed Bibles , grow up both in and out of tho Church of Rome , and on which Protestantism Imh especially boon driven to rely in its efforts to depress tho authority of the Church a « a guide in matters of fnith . The samo dootrino wo lmvo lately seem applied in England to oonvict goologiBtn of infidelity .
So the other day wo had Hernions preached on the throe hundredth anniversary of tho burning of Ridley and Latimor , all of courso designed to nth * tho onibor » of anti-RomiBh bigotry . Would it not luivu been wiser to have naul that it was not so jnuuh Jiojjio that wan guilty of that not , n « tho noll' -Hiimo spirit of intoloranco which wan now ovokotl in honour of their memory ¥ " Your fathom indeed killed them , find ye build thoir nopulohros : " both actuated by much tho same fooling , porlmjw , though oxoitod in a < liUbront direction . I urn , nil " , yours , &c , Axulioanus .
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' — ; THE LEADER . [ No . 297 , Saturday , 11 * 34 .... - ¦ - ' ¦ - ' ii ¦¦ him inn n
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Tub An < h . o Itama-N Lkoion . —Tho Minintor of War at Turin , in order to favour onrolmontu in tUo Anglo-Italian Logion , haw decided that o / licors of tlio Sardinian army , now in tho roooipt of pouiJiuuH , who ontor that corps , shall not loso oifchor thoir pon . iiou or tho rank which thoy had attained .
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 1, 1855, page 1154, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2117/page/14/
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