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grace that was not included in his programme . Lilce Agae , in the South-Eastera Bailway robbery , Tie invented it , be conducted it ; but others bear off the booty . The sequel of Agab's story is prophetic : he is undergoing penal servitude ; but he comes forth from the St . Helena of Portland to avenge upon his accomplices the wrongs of Faunt Kay and that little child of whom he is as fond as if it were a Prince Imperial .
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THE TOURISTS' VIEW OF POLITICS . The English public receives its impressions of continental affairs through a threefold medium—the continental journal , the newspaper correspondent , and the tourist . The journalist , inmost parts of Europe , is under compulsion not to be a faithful witness ; the newspaper correspondent must say anything , rather than that there is nothing to say ; of the tourist t \ e official classes hope to make a dupe , while by malcontents he is considered
a ' suspect / and by people in general as anything but a politician . The axiom assumed is , in most cases , that a man , an Englishman especially , goes abroad for pleasure , or for private business ; or , if his object be political , that he is employed by his Government . The consequence is , that he obtains little real information as to the progress of state affairs , or as to the movements of the disaffected . He has no interest in seeing activity where none is visible ; he has no correspondence to
keep ud , no columnar reports to fill with authentic intelligence ; in fact , it is not his occupation to justify the acceptance of a salary , by proving how important it is that the British public should be kept constantly informed , by a special pen , of all that passes at Grema or Castiglione . A gentleman compelled to write a periodical letter covering several pages , from any one of the Italian capitals , could scarcely expect to form one of a highly-paid staff if he had only to report , with variations of language , ' Nothing is
happening liere , or likely to happen . ' If a king ' s demeauour be in question , he must not treat his majesty ' s drive through the streets as though it meant no more than an airing , or an act of locomotion ; it must have * the significances' attached to it , and thus become a piece of political news . Of course we are treating the body of
correspond-Pans , unless he had friends amongst the permanent residents , who would act as his media of communication with the unseen world of intrigue , and action , and conspiracy ? He might know one warm-blooded liberal sympathizer , who -would tell him that a vast combination had been organized , to overthrow the Emperor , and was certain of success . He
might be told , elsewhere , that Trance had been petrifiedby the coup d ' etat , that the revolutionary class had been destroyed , that the army was devoted to the Emperor , tlat no street fignt in Paris could last more than an hour , that public confidence -was in a fair way of being restored , and that the probabilities of change had no more existence than they had in 1855 . ^ Between these accounts the
imagination might well be bewildered . We do not intend to imply that the means of arriving at the truth do not exist : but they are not within the reach of the casual visitor . As the regular correspondent in the exercise of his metier is apt to exaggerate the rapidity and the importance of local events , sa the occasional visitor is apt to mistake a serene surface for the torpor of content , or the lassitude of despair . "When we note the diversities of opinion among professional correspondents , engaged in the selection and
arrangement of ' continental news '—how one corroborates ^ what another denies , how one flatters the hopes of commercial circles and another excites the expectations of sympathetic politicians—it is obvious that even a statesman suddenly arriving In . a capital in which his acquaintances are few , will run much , risk of being misled by fictitious
appearances . Suppose him to arrive even in Grenoa , where the discussion of public affairs is carried on with tolerable freedom , he has no chance of knowing , unless furnished with party pass-words , what the republicans are doing . Who , for instance , can tell us which province of Italy it is that , as the first to revolt against Austria , is likely to receive the ten thousand muskets ?
Something , then , must be deducted on both sides . If Italy and France are not so ripe for change as some persons believe them to be , they are not altogether sunk in despond . It is enough to contemplate the actual system of government in Europe , to know that sedition must be generated far and wide , and it would be irrational to suppose that , with diplomacy in its present attitude , and with serious questions hastening to solution in all quarters of the continent , Government alone is incessantly active , and the people universally resigned .
ents as high-bred and honourable men , whose belief in the importance of their communications 'home' is altogether unaffected ; but it is impossible not to observe the influences that beset them , and the effect of constant listening in filling the ear with unreal noises and rumours . Moreover , Europe swarms with , expectants , the antipodes of the official class . To hear these men
converse for half an hour , in Paris , or Q-enoa , or Eome , and to accept their statements , would be to believe that , in less than a month , the great military powers would be engulphedby a universal revolution . They discern the clouds that blacken over Europe , and they imagine daily that the Apocalypse has come . On the other hand , the ordinary touristwe except thoso men accustomed to politics , whose siglit pierces through the veil of appearance—is liable to misconceptions of another kind . In a capital in which he has
no personal friends , it is probable that he will meet not a single person able and willing to explain fcho real condition of affairs . He will hear nothing at the embassy , nothing at his hotel , the aspect of the public places will tell him nothing ; he may tread a territory mined by sedition ; yet all may seem listless , hopeless , stagnant . The Btorm begins to mutter only a short time before it bursts . VVhat , for example , could the best-informed Englishman learn from a fortnight ' s stay in
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him her " lodger ; " and yefc there is a statement that they are actually husband and wife . ^ This man , Harbison , lives well with his neighbours , some of whom appear to be respectable persons . They meet him , and are hail fellow well met ; they treat him at the public-house , and are treated by him . They have suspicions with respect to Mrs . Beown ; but there is nothing on the surface , and ' his money is as good in its colour as another man ' s . ' What , then , is his business ?
Ha . kb . ison" was a native of Leeds ; originally he was a common labourer at a dye-house , and we understand he was formerly sent to prison for stealing stuff pieces from his employers . Subsequently , he was convicted again , and imprisoned , for pilfering garden vegetables . The vegetables were discovered by the owner , who had marked them , and who saw them in Harbison ' s house , when he went there for a purpose curious enough : he went to consult Habbisok how he should discover the loss . 3 ? or , tired
of dyeing , Habbison had set up as * a wise man . He had become a ruler of the planets , a decipherer of the phenomena of the creation ; easier trades far , as he carried them on , than daily labour . The man who could not keep his vegetables to himself , could hit upon no better method of finding out how to recover the loss , than by going to the thief : a direct process enough , only the despoiled cabbage owner went to Haeeisokt , not as thief , but as philosopher - The single act is , in itself , a sufficient commentary upon the confusion of ideas in certain classes . It would seem that
after his return from the penance for these aberrations into the cabbage-bed , Harbison set up a new department . With his wisemaiiship , he became " astrological doctor and water caster , "— -so said his sign ; and , according to all outward appearances , he grew fat upon the business . His stock in trade was not very extensive . He bad a few astrological books , which he had learning enough to spell through . He liad a couple of globes made of glass . On one was engraved the word " Nature ; " the other was
plain , but it was his best instrument . The client who came to consult him as to persona in distant places , or in the future , was instructed to look into the globe ; and there he , or more usually she , saw a vision . For instance , a figure painted upon plain glass , seen through that medium , assumed the dim shape of ' a fascinating man . ' Cards , horoscopes , and verses were amongst the wise man ' s stock . With this apparatus he managed to pay his rent to Mrs . Beowjst and to subsist .
But , lilce all great men , Habrison had his weaknesses , and we all know , too , what is the principal weakness of great men . Haebisost was married , and his wife is said to have died ; but two others were soon found for him . Indeed , there is some doubt whether the first wife is actually dead , and whether they will nofc be all three produced at a future trial . He married Janij Bbatshaw in 1833 , Elizabeth Bbown in 184 i 6 , and Jane Steele in 1850 . But even this
threepiled hyperbole of marriage was too slow for him , and his calling opened opportunities for extending his relations without the tardy process of matrimony . Not long since , Eliza Cboft , a young girl , servant at a small inn , found her lover , to whom she was engaged to bo married , inattentive ; she desired to recover him . Sho was ignorant , unsuspicious , perfectly simple . Some neighbour probably told her to consult the Wise Man , and sho went to him . He undertook the
WIZARD HARRISON AND HIS ACCOMPLICES . One of the most respectable streets in Leeds is South-market . At one end of the street is a Methodist chapel , at which the congregation is much given to ' revivals ; ' at the other end is an Evangelical Dissenters' meeting-house , where ' the Word ' is preached in its integrity , with great zeal . Both these institutions are active ; their prayer meetings , class meetings , missionary meetings , day schools , and Sunday schools are numerously attended ; tracts are lent , and the missionaries are not idle . The dwellers in
the street are respectable . There are houses and shops , and life goes on as we are accustomed to view it in English towns . Who would expect that in the . midst of that very street , we should discover an abode consecrated to ignorance and vice of the grossest kind ? In one of the houses of that street lives a Mrs . Bbown . She has a share in a greengrocer ' s shop , not . far off ; and in her dwelling there is a Mr . Harrison . To others , ho calls her his " housekeeper ; " to at rangers , sho calls
labour of bringing back John Stevenson ; but there was a condition which , ho said , was essentially necessary to success . It is rather curious . In Muaaulmau countries there is
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November 15 , 1856 . ] THE LE APE B . 1093
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 15, 1856, page 1093, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2167/page/13/
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