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prove to the Liberal party throughout England that the Reform Bill of 1832 is worn out , and that the House of Commons is false to its very heart , selfish , cowardly , and supremely incapable . Lord Pa . lmbbsxon rises in bis place , recants a former statement , confesses that two British subjects have been so brutally treated at Naples that one of them was driven to commit suicide , and the only voice of protest heard is silenced by shouts of c Order . ' The exhibition is most discreditable to Parliament , most insulting to the country . We recommend the Newcastle public to renew their agitation , and to force the rights and claims of their unhappy townsmen upon the attention of the Legislature .
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PUBLIC SPIRIT IN ERA . NCE . The English public naturally watches with interest the perils and adventures encountered b y the Liberal press in France in its difficult navigation through the narrow straits to which Imperial will confines it . Nor are we at all exclusive in tin ' s matter . By ' liberal' we do not understand any particular section or the Opposition of whose princi ples we more especially approve . " Wherever there is an aspiration for libertyj or even for regular and legal existence under a form of government recognized by modern philosophy and identified with the tradition of a powerful and respectable class , we are always willing to direct our sympathies . When the Spectateur , having risen from the ashes of the Assemblee Rationale—suppressed by the police—was threatened in its existence recently by a ' warning' for some harmless pleasantries on the guests of Compiegne , and when the Gazette du Languedoc , a Legitimist journal , was definitively crushed , we felt as if the reign of violence was extending , and as if our own friends had received the blow . But the suppression of Tm Presse for two months is with reason regarded as the most significant and important fact in this war of free thought and expression with angry and irresponsible power , that has occurred since the coup d ' etat . Lovers of coincidence point out that it was on the Second of December that the obnoxious article by M . Peyra . 1 was written . It is more worthy of remark that , during the few days that have elapsed since this exertion of arbitrary power , a feeling of desolation has come over the Paris public . Although nothing can be more distinct in character than the two periods , people constantly refer back from the present to the terrible June days of 1848—the only other occasion on which La Presse lias ceased to be
cned on the Boulevards . To give an idea of the number of people who are daily annoyed , and reminded by this circumstance alone of the stern regime under which they live , it will be sufficient to mention that the number containing the article for which the journal was suppressed , sold that evening fourteen thousand two hundred copies in the streets and on the boulevards of Paris , in addition to those supplied to town and country subscribers , cafes , &c , which form of course the chief circulation .
The obnoxious number was not seized . The subject was the elections . The object was to condemn abstention . The tone did not strike the inferior Censor as dangerous . It was M . BiLiAUiiT himself who denounced the article . A council was called to deliberate on the course to pursue . The suppression was hastily resolved , and will be as leisurely repealed . For it is not a light matter to strike out of existence , permanently or for two months , the principal journal of a country . Imagine England waking up and finding itself deprived of the Times ! If anything could provoke us to revolution , assuredly that would . The disappearance of the Presse is not
quite so serious . Still , it is a fact of a very important character . All the subscribers are up in arms , and eager to seize this opportunity of making a sort of political demonstration . The proprietors have sent out a circular , stating that at the end of two months the distribution of the journal will be recommenced as if those two months had never existed , so that they and not the subscribers will be the losers . The answer is a shoal of letters , containing offers to repeat the payment , and the warmest encouragements to the editor to proceed as he has begun . So far from the suspension of the Presse causing it any pecuniary damage , it will probably augment its resources—certainl y its reputation .
That is , if matters are allowed to take their natural course . The situation of the Presse at the present moment is peculiar . Our readers will remembor that recently much noise was made nbout
the purchase of the journal from M . de Girardin by M . MiMjAUD , a suddenly enriched speculator , who , it was supposed , did not want this property so much for the political as for the industrial influence it would give . It was expected every , day that a new colour would be given to the articles ; but this was not the case . Indeed it was noticed that a wearisome series of lucubrations on matters of trade began to make way for more popular topics . This indifference of M . MiLiA-UD astonished , and made people fancy he was playing some very diabolieal game . But the truth was brought out the other day before the Tribunal de Commerce . M- Millaud
imagined that in buying the principal part of the shares , and the title of gerant , ne Iiaa acquired complete influence over the paper , with the right to name himself or another as chief editor . Not so . The company still remained under the title of Rouy et C "; and M . Rouy , invested with the name and the power of principal manager , asserted his right to govern all matters connected with the paper , editorial or not . M . Mim-aud , therefore , found that instead of purchasing the cleverness or " the influence of M . de Girardin , he had simply purchased shares in a speculation which returned twelve or fifteen per cent ., but in the management of which he was not allowed to interfere in the
slightest degree . Wealth is proud as well as genius . M . Mili-Add could not submit to this disappointment , and determined to try whether he could not by degrees , as principal proprietor , obtain the influence which was denied him in the borid . Matters came to a crisis when M . Peyrat was named by M . Rotjy Chief Editor . M . Mill . vud had no personal objection to make . He knew the ability , the honesty , and the stainless dignity of the new editor , and wrote to him in his own name conferring the appointment which had already been conferred by the competent person . Hence the trial which has now to be decided . A provisional decision has maintained M . Rou y in his post , invested with all the rights he claims ; but this is only that the property implicated may not suffer . Next week the tribunal -will decide .
At first the question , m so far as the public is concerned , was of slight importance . Provided M . Peyrat remained Editor of the Presse , it little mattered from whom he received his appointment . It seems evident that M . de Girardin meant to sell , and the impatient speculator thought to buy , not only snares in the journal , out the right to edit it . We shall soon see whether one lias not sold and the other bought
what was not in the market . All this appears , no doubt , very mystical and confused to English readers , who forget the peculiar state of the press in France , that every paper is obliged to propose a gerant to Government and wait on its acceptance , and that , in order to deprive M . Rouy ( unless that gentleman lias totally misunderstood his position ) of the right to name an editor , a dissolution of partnership must take place .
But since the attitude taken by M . Peykat and the ill-advised conduct of the Government , all these minor points disappear . It was at first rumoured that the suppression of the paper was in some way connected with the dispute , we liave related—that there were tricks on tins side and tricks on thatthat Prince Napoleon was mixed up in the intrigue , now as the patron of M . Peyba . t , now as his adversary . Nothing of all this is true . The arr « teof M . Billault was intended sitnply to warn the Liberal party that , although the Government might affect to desire the revival of political life and movement , there was nothing in reality it so much feared . The Emperor himself is reported to have said , with reference to this
discussion : " No enemies to institutions arc so dangerous as those who affect to acknowledge in order to destroy them . I would rather see the Republicans behind the barricades than in tlic Corps L 6 gislatif . We have cannon for them in the one case ; but what can we do against thcin in the otlier ? " The impression that this is the view of the Government is now so strong , that M . IIijnou , who in taking ; the oath plainly admitted his hostility , though at first lampooned , is now held up as a model . We shall
have no more refusals of the oath . This is well . It was a step to abandon the system of abstention and come up to the polling-phiccs . It is another step—after the example of the refusal of the oath has been given repeatedly—to set aside squeamish scruples , and endeavour to gel , within arm ' s length of the common foe—irresponsible authority . M . Pkyrat wrote in this sense , though so moderately , that muny people supposed lie only intended a 'dynastic opposition , ' with Prince
Napoleon at its head—a sort of parody of the Whigs patronized by Prince Geokge . We are not surprised , therefore , that M . Miixmjd has just sent into Court a fresh accusation against M . Rouy , asking for enormous damages , and accusing him of having named as redacteur en , chef of the Presse a . well-known revolutionist , and a factious opponent of the Government ! This is rather too bad after the letters—which have all been handed into Courtin which M . Millaud , a month ago , disputed with M . Houy the honour of choosing so distinguished a man . But we know that when capitalists are in a passion they can not onl y say hard things , but strike hard blows—witness MM . Mirks and Millaud in the foyer of the Gymnase , ventina : their mut ual
wrath , utterly unmindful that all Paris next day would be laughing at them . We shall wait the report of this trial with curiosity . Meanwhile , the Paris public has not been led astray . With admirable tact , as soon as the . suspension of the Presse became known , first one person , then another , without communication , in different quarters , suggested that M . Peyiiat , in whose person journalism had been attacked , should be chosen _ as Opposition candidate for one of the circumscriptions of Paris in the approaching election . In a very few days a sort of movement had taken place , and something like a result had been
come to . Proposals were made by the third circumscription , vacant by the death of General Cav . yigktac , and by the sixth , vacant by the resignation of M . Goudchaux . Decisive energy was displayed by the fifth . Several deputations from that quarter have . waited on M . Peyrat , and there can be little doubt that he . will not only accept the contest , but obtain a triumphant vindication . We k . now that at present free men can be of slight use in the Corps Legislatif—the proces-verbal oi the Moniteur of this
last petty session informs us haw poor M . Olxivier was pooh-poohed by M . de Mount for imagining himself ¦ ¦ in the Assemblee Nationale of old—but their numbers will gradually increase . Let once the country become accustomed to these electoral contests , leading to some practical result , and a good minority may at length be elected which , multiplied in-strength by its virtue and its genius , may overawe the hireling multitude that cringes to the President ' s voice and votes ' with enthusiasm' all decrees submitted to it in the dress of ' laws . '
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SMITHFIELD CLUB CATTLE-SHOW . Justice Shallow . —How a score of ewes now ? Silence . — -Thereafter as may be ; a score of good ewea may be -worth ten pounds . Shakspbarb . —Henry IV . The gifted son of the Stratford woolstapler and butcher—for in a small country-town the two callings were and are identical—has put on record the price of one class of farm produce in the days of merry Queen Bess . The best pasture-land then paying from half-a-crown to five shillings per acre ; prime grass-fed five-year-old wethers could he
purchased at the rate of two for a twenty-shilling gold piece . Mangolds , swedes , cow-cabbage , ana oil-cake—the mainstay of modern graziers—were unknown . Jacoh Tusser , a quaint writer of Shakspe are ' s age , ever and anon , in his Five Hundred Points of Good Htisbandry , laments over the losses and crosses endured by himself and neighbours when a dry , ungenial autumn destroyed their hopes of abundant aftergrass . They liad nothing to fall back on . Hence arose the thrifty custom , still prevalent in remote country places , of . killing an ox about Christmas when he had arrived at a condition which , from the precarious supply of fodder , could not be maintained . Having thus prov ided for his own domestic wants , the farmer drove tlic remainder of his lean , half-starved stock to the
city , there to dispose of them for whatever be could get , and where they were immediately slaughtered for the salting-tubs . In fact , our ancestors , even of the highest rank and fortune , consumed very little fresh meat ; and the entries in the ' household book' of the great J 3 uke of Noiithumbkrland describe his Grace and Duchess , sons , daughters , and suite , living on corned beef and mutton for throe parts of tho year , with salted herrings and stockfish on the jours mair / res of Old Mother Church . Such was husbandry three centuries ago . Gkorok 11 , 1 ., in his inaturer years , gave the first impulse to the march towards that perfection , to which , in breeding animals destined for human food , we ' are doubtless rapidly advancing . His ttistes wore decidedly for bucolic life : and the royal « xami ) lc spcodily influenced the noblest and wealthiest of tlic land . Rising from some long and
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No . 40 B , December 12 , 1857 . ] THE LEADER . lig 9
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 12, 1857, page 1189, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2221/page/13/
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