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vesfcigate the grounds of religion for themselves * Mr . Jpwett ' s case shows that no clergyman , not even the strongest pietist and a man of the highest religious character and influence can venture so ' far to depart from ecclesiastical tradition and ^ clerical forms of belief as to admit , even in such an age as the present , that CrOD is not unjust .
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* ° . 1224 T H E LEADE B . {[ No . 300 , Saturday ,
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POISON IN THE PRESCRIPTION . " Knowledge is power" to do mischief as well as good , unless the knowledge be completed .-and consecrated by that which is the better part of knowledge , the simple inspiration of nature . Mere learning can teach men to forget their best instincts , although complete learning will bring them back to the better simplicity from which they started . " Useful knowledge" defeats itself , unless it be accompanied by the knowpledge that is in the breast of every untaught child . It would seem from recent events as if civilisation could not invent protection half so fast as the means of destruction . Fortifications failed before the "feu d ? enfer ; " we preserve the peace in our towns at the expense , to judge by the present , of locking up discord in our families ; we preserve outward morals , by covering up the unhealthy cankers of society ; we discover tests for the detection of poisons , but not so fast as the poisons and their use . A Brdtvixlieks or a Bobgia is checked in brilliant wickedness , but a homely malignity finds a shelter under the veil of prudish propriety . The very regularity of our lives suggests a means for the malefactor to arrive at his purpose , just as the innumerable legal securities for the protection of money transactions furnish opportunities for the forger . The . question of poisoning grows more interesting every week ; recently we had the case of Mrs . Wooler , who is pronounced to have been . poisoned , though the culprit is undetected . ^ This week , besides others of a minor kind , we iiave the case of Cook , who is poisoned , though the poisoner is unaccused . These were clumsy cases ; they prove to us that the propensity for poisoning exists ; but that , if there is an imperfect detection of the crime in these ill-coiv * trived plots , we must not suppose no plots to exist and to succeed without detection . In both these cases medicines were used > and several people had some hand in admonis .-tering them . At once we perceive , that if medicines are taken for the cure of disease , a new opportunity is offered for the production of disease . A cunning hand ca » introduce poison into the daily dose , and suspicion may be « . excited ; but , it appears the quiet of our civilisation is undermining the . moral courage which makes men utter thofr suspicion . In both * cases there was suspicion of poisoning ; in » 1 both the suspioion was neglected ; in both the victim died . The evidence in one case appeared to be regarded as setting aside all suspicion , because there was proof of kindness . Now we do not intend to insinuate the slightest doubt with respect to Mr . Wooler ' s innocence , —quite the reverse , we believe he was not guilty ; but kindness is no disproof of poisoning . Wain-WRIGHT , who killed his sister by slow poisoning in order to realise the insurance upon her life , was studiously kind and attentive . In fact , assiduous attendance is evidently an opportunity for tho prisoner . A thousand ways might bo suggested for placing poison in the same path with medicaments . One method is suggested by the last case . If a person acquainted with drugs knew that a medical man had prepared medicines for a patient , it would require very little sleight of hand to copy those medicines for all outward appearances , and to place deadly counterparts in their room . , For example , an effervesoing draught
and a couple of pills would constitute a very usual form of prescription for a bilious attack —the pills probably containing some form of mercury . What more easy than to make up poison into two pills—some powerful poison that acts suddenly ? In such a case , evidence would be produced that two pills and a draught had been prescribed , delivered , and administered to the patient . If his natural tendency was to over-excitement and spasmodic vehemence , a drug increasing over-excitement and spasmodic vehemence ¦ would appear only like a remedy too weak for arresting the progress of a terrible disease . Give a medical man motives for getting rid of his patient , and it is clear that he has the man at his mercy . Without a metaphor , your medical man can always poison you if he chooses ; and unless he is very clumsy—unless he fails to calculate the effect of the negative symptoms , he can poison you without detection . The brother can poison the sister for the insurance which he has effected on * her life ; the husband can poison the wife , to be rid of her ; the sister-in-law can poison the wife , to take her place ; the boon companion can poison the sportsman , to obtain possession of the money in his poeket ; the envious man can poison the successful , to be relieved of an odious comparison . We do not see where the counteractive lies . It might consist in a sense of religious responsibility ; . but religion had asserted its own infallibility with the force of such incredible dogmas , that it provoked contradiction , and we are only now emerging from a state of the world in which the influence of religion was entirely neutralised . Man can co-operate in the laws of the Creator , which give life \ he can carry out the secondary laws which destroy ^ life ; and if unguided by a sense of religious responsibility he will use the . destruction at his pleasure . There is , as we observed lately , one other influence to paralyse crime—it is affection . The babe is at the mercy of its mother , who can stifle it at any moment ; the son can poison his father ; the wife her husband ; the physician his patient . It is natural instinct which makes us feel , terror at the idea of death—anxiety to preserve the life of pur fellow-creatures . For the few who have used their opportunitieswho have been traitors to the sanctity of home or friendship , or professional trust—there are hundreds of thousands—millions , to whom such treachery is absolutely prohibited . This is the true safeguard—not the factitious detectives of science or law , which suggest their own deadly counterparts and evasions , and fail us as fast aa they serve tis .. After all , then , our best trust is in tho early , simple guarantees which were given to human nature at its birth . With them , civilisation is power ; without them , it is corruption ;—with them , it is redoubled life ; without them , it is death .
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THE SARDINIAN STATES : THKIH HISTORY , GOVERNMENT , AND LAWS , ( From a Correspondent ) . At Turin , in 1789 , just as Charles Emmanuel had signed away the last vestige of his nominal power to the French , an heir to that throne which he should never more ascend , was born in Charles Albert , son of the Prince of Carignano , and a lineal descendant of Charles Emmanuel I . At hit * birth , no one could have divined his future rank . Charles Emmanuel IV . was still young , and might have sons j his brothers and the sons that they might have had still to reign , So tho young Prince of Carignano was sent to be educated at Geneva and Paris , and at an early age received from Napoleon a commission in one of his regiments ; The thought , "jo serai lloi , " first flashed on Charles Albert in 1814 , when the King of Sardinia abdicated , and brother succeeded brother , and
each was sonless . He too returned to Turin , and was soon surrounded by the patriots and liberals of the day , who , writhing with shame and indignation at the Austrian yoke , now in its first blush of insolent and brutal power , did concert , have done so ever since , and do so at this hour , schemes to crush that power , and break that yoke . We will enter here into no discussion of the merits or demerits of the sette , which it is now the custom to denounce so bitterly . Each time has its own needs , and gives birth to its own experiences . Unless we conclude that might is right ; that because Austria has her butchers and slaughterhouses , Italians should be meek and dumb ; it is vain to censure them for seizing on the only means within their reach of ridding themselves of the oppressor . That men should plot in England , or in Piedmont , where they may face God and man . with their needs and wrongs , and obtain a certain , if tardy redress , would be absurd ; but while French bayonets uphold the Papal throne ; while the true heirs of Italian , Polish , and Hungarian soil , wander through the earth , with souls and bodies alike blasted , seeking vainly for justice and redress ; while the blood-hounds , who have driven them thence , feast upon their spoil ; plots , conspiracies , and revolts cannot cease . Let the tyrants- w&a goad human souls beyond the pale of enduranee > and the cowards who look on and enjoy the sport be made answerable for the result of their tyranny and cowardice . We know that too often tho . effort .. to- snap a chain that chafes , rivets ; it closer ; this is a bitter truth , containing matter for deep thought , whence vital lessons may be drawn . The exile patriot is but ill fitted fora physieiam He is suffering too keenly from hi * own wounds : maddened by the groans and death struggles- of bis- best ones ; stifled by his very energies and talents , that find no space for utterance . Down on . a level with all this , he clutches at the quickest remedy for the most painful wound ; be has no power or time to rise above the whole ; and studying each cose , to judge what shall eradicate the disease from the vital part . This one sidedaess has been one of the great impediments to > the recovery of Italian freedom in the years to which we now refer ; : but we have trust in tbeexperience of the past ,, to . furnish calmness and wisdom in . the future . Assuredly , we have nosympathy with raen who use these failures on the one hand , to taunt the Italians with their unfitness for , their indifference to , freedom ; and onthe other , as plausible arguments , to induce them to desist from any attempt to regain it . It is difficult to say , how far Charles Albert was . linked in with the schemes of the liberals , whose ; views with regard . himself , and whose general projects , were manifest to all . King of Sardinia thou shalt be , and King of Italy thou may ' become , was the prophecy for ever sounded in hisears . And by way of reconciling his conscience with his ambition " , they represented to him how bis influence might aid the then reigning king to realise the project so near to an Italian prince ' s heart . Let the Piedmontese army be but once arrayed against Austria , whose best troops and generals were engaged in Naples ; let I < ombardy be invaded , Italy revolutionised . What sceptre but that of Savoy could be chosen to rule the newly constituted kingdom , from which the foreigner had been expelled ? Then the constitution which they demanded . Had not their brethren in principles wrested it from the perjured Kings of Spain ? Had it cost much ado in Naples ? Why should not Victor Emmanuel I . set on his subjects that seal of freedom which should enable them to go forth as heralds of national liberty ; proclaiming him its champion , and in consequence , the fittest guardian thereof ? It would be useless to deny that , from the age of sixteen , Charles Albert was aware that these were the principles and schemings of the liberal party . That cold , reserved , timid nature of his ; the generous patriotic sentiments which , expressed by him from time to time , fed the hope that he would sanction their undertaking ; his natural attachment to the throne of Savoy ; his clinging to monarchical prerogatives which had often damped that hope ; baffled the efforts of the liberals to come to a clear understanding aa to what they might or might not expect from him . Their own testimony proves that he committed himself to no promise , no act . " Wo must do our best to keep tho prince m our ranks , " wrote one of the ringleaders , " but always mistrust him ; for I do not believe he has sufficient elevation of soul to aid our schemes . " '
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 22, 1855, page 1224, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2120/page/12/
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