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Leader (1850-1860), 4th December 1858, Edition 1 of 2, Page 1323, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      magistracy should be no longer allowed to act upon the country and City benches ; the whole system of bail should be rooted up ; and every prisoner awaiting trial should be kept in safe custody , but provided wdth a home , and every other liberty and co mfort suitable to his social position , and in Jiarmony with the theory of the law . Until this is done , let us hear no more of the inouldy com mou-place . that a man is considered innocent until proved guilty by a jury of liis countrymen .

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      THE INDIAN MUTINY . Tite recent intelligence from India is not altogether of the most consolatory character . We are still lighting , beating , and pursuing an enemy almost ubiquitous , and " seemingly without limit as to numbers . Let us again put the question that we have put more than once in this journal—Are the best means being- taken by the military authorities in India to tread out the remaining but numerous sparks of this tremendous mutiny ? In short , is Lord Clyde doing what is most needful with the enormous means now at his command to crush

      the bands of brigauds that are devastating the North-west Provinces , and by their example keepiu " alive the smouldering feeling of discontent and fallacious hope which is known to pervade , several other districts and races under our sway ? We fear that either Lord Clyde is not the man for the disastrous emergency , or that the infirmities and tardiness of age unlit him for dealing with a foe like the mutinous Sepoys ; or . that , . possibly ,, he may be too much absorbed in studying what will be most agreeable to the authorities at home . In any one of these cases it would be a positive misfortune

      to the country and an irreparable source of mischief to India . Why does not Lord Clyde , instead of arraying the military force in India against the rebels in scientific order and in army-like masses , direct the various sections of the military to attack when and where they can come up with their enemy . If this guerilla system were pursued , a few months would suffice to see all India tranqnfllised . If formal war is to be carried on , then another year will elapse before rebellion , is effectually crushed , and millions upon millions more will have to be expended . We do not make these remarks from even the remotest wish to detract

      from the known merits and abilities of Lord Clyde or the Governor-General who , singularly enough , finds it necessary to be where the Conunander-in-Chicf of the forces is ; \ ve know what we have said will find a vide echo in Indian circles .

      Thyvrmttt* T74otq To"N Stmt75ttnw≪« Thoughts, Facts, Ajtd Suggestions

      Sir Hamilton Seymour returned from St . Petersburg , where he had rendered sueh memorable service to his country , and sacrificed his own high position by his patriotic conduct there , he was in no hurry to form a domestic establishment in London - was there any sense or reason therefore that lie should be disqualified for performing the most ordinary act as a British freeman ? When Captain . Denman , worn out with his exertions to put down the slave trade on the coast of Africa , sought rest and health for a season among hisi relatives in Ens-land , was it decent or fit that he should

      be made to feel that of them all he alone was disfranchised , because , more conspicuously than any of them , he had been engaged in the service of lud country , and had not stayed at home to pay rates and taxes ? Dr . Livingstone , the intrepid missionary and explorer of the previously unknown regions of the Zambesi , spent last year amongst us : was it right that he should be debarred from legally giving his opinion at the general election that took place before his eyes ? These maybe called exceptional cases ; but they are types of classes of men whom the nation dishonours itself when it disfranchises .

      Again , there are classes of educated and meritorious individuals who have preferred spending their lives in comparative poverty rather than forego the praiseworthy pursuits to which they are devoted . The mathematician , the painter , the man of letters , the inventor of new forms of mechanism , the schoolmaster , and the minister of religion ^ are oftentimes to be found in humble dwellings which they cannot call their own . Are there in the whole community any set of men whom it would be more scandalous and senseless to treat with political slight ? And yet there arc persons calling themselves Liberals , nay . Radicals , who , were Dr . Johnson , Oliver

      Goldsmith , or Samuel Coleridge now alive , would bid them stand aside while thousands whom such men were fitted to teach marched confidently to the poll . The true friends of reform are they who wish to infuse into English institutions all those elements of worth and greatness that England traditionally loves . They seek to graft no exotic boughs upon our native stem . They feel and know that little reliance in rough weather can be placed on that which is not only indi g enous , but is universally acknowledged to' be so . Curious plants may be brought . alive . from far , and by dint of forcing and tending made to look for a while as though they were capable of being acclimatised ; but their roots strike not deep into the soil ; there is no shelter beneath their branches ; the truth of natural growth

      is not in them ; and prized and lauded as they may be by a dilettanti few , their eventual destiny is decay and disappearance . Now , if there be two things which are habitually and instinctively associated in the English mind with national health and vigour , it is the principle of taxation and representation going hand in hand , and the principle that the public ought to be served by the best intellects hi-the community . No rational man recommends household suffrage on the false pretence that nil householders are equally intelligent , discerning , or wise in political affairs ; nobody who is not a uasc and lyiug flatterer of the people will venture to sny that there arc not among the ratepayers of every county and town a great many stupid ana ignorant individuals . The true and honest ground of their claim , is that as all of them contribute out

      THOUGHTS , FACTS , AJTD SUGGESTIONS ON PARLIAMENTARY REFORM . Ko . iy . Household suffrage would enfranchise the industry of the country . JJut it is equally desirable that intellect should be endued with the rights of citizenship . That the hands by which the national bread is earned , and the national iiag defended , should be enlisted in the political service of the state , is the wish of every just and grateful man . That the lmrd heads , who , in the various walks of science , literature , morals , law , invention , and art , contribute to the glory and happiness of the nation , should be at the same time specially invested with civil privileges , is the thought of every reflecting and far-sighted man amongst us . Industry and intellect ~ thcse arc the two great elements ot tho incroased vitality wo hope to sec imparted to the constitution . Not the indubtiy alone without the intellect , . or tho intellect to tho exclusion of the industry , but both together , in right of the specific and positive good that is in it , and for the sake of the augmented strength and stability which eaoh is capable of imparting to existing institutions .

      I hero are , no doubt , some narrow-minded persons who boliovo in nothing but bricks and mortar , aucl who look with " jealousy on . tho proposal to cufranchise a physician , an artist , a scholar , or u soldier , unless ho happons to pay u few shillings poorrates in his own namo , and to rout a hc-uso of his own . When Sir Colin . Campbell came back from the Crirnea if ho had not taken to housekeeping , these churlish fellows would not havo suffered him to vote at tho election of a member of Parliament \ ? ot no sooner was our Indian Empire in jeopardy l > ftu they were glad . enough to get the gallant old Sonera ! to go forth , to rosouo it from rum . When

      of their industry to sxipport the State , all should be recognised as having a standing within its pale . But after this great admission is made , there will still remain the opposite ( not conflicting ) chum ou the score of learning , thought , and skill which no oiviliscd country can or will ignore . Every graduate of a university , every member of the bar , every licentiate of the medical profession , every retired soldier or sailor who has served his country for a given time , every minister of religion , every professor of science or teacher of youth , every engineer and inventor , every skilled artisan who has served his time or who has for so many years practised his trade as a printer , a machinist ,. a cabiuetmrtkor , &o ., ought to be entitled to register for the district where ho statedly ,, resides , whether he bo a householder ov not .

      Untitled Article

      the Idiot—nicknamed by the Yiennese " Ferdinand with the My-flap , " from its having been his wont to devote most of his royal attention to the kingly occupation of killing flies—had hitherto been suffered to figure as head of the state . But now , when the gory work of striking down revolution , and offering up hecatombs of victims to the Moloch of Reaction , had to be performed , it was deemed necessary , by the military party then forming the council of the Court , to set up a sovereign better fitted for the horrible work about to be undertaken . The supreme power of the Government , it must be

      remembered , was at that time centred in a fevr generals of that portion of the army which had remained faithful to the . cause of the dynasty There were Radetzky , Windischgratz , Haynau , Jellachich , Clam-Gallas , and some other leaders of the VTallenstein stamp , who held the fortunes of the House of Hapsburg in their hands . These men , of the sword set themselves up as a sort of military oligarchy . They dubbed themselves ostentatiously enough " Die HoAe Generalitdt" a denomination through which their ambitious aspirations were made sufficiently apparent .

      Perhaps , had they been able to agree among themselves " as to . their respective shares of the plunder , they would have had but few scruples in tearing up the Austrian Empire into semi-independent satrapies . This , at least , was the aim and object of that Pan-Sclavist arch-conspirator the 13 anus Jellachich of Crotia . But , fortunately for the Imperial House , the rivalry among the members of the Hohe General itcit was too strong , and their fear of the power of the revolution too great , for them to pursue any other policy than that of endeavouring to re-establish the throne on a firmer basis . Thus Francis

      Joseph was , as it were , elected by them as Ernperor , after Ferdinand had been dethroned , and his legitimate successor , Francis Charles , the father of the present ruler ,, prevailed -upon to . resign-Ms * claims to the purple . The young Emperor had no sooner commenced governing under the auspices of his unprincipled mother , Archduchess Sophia , than the reign of terror , initiated in November , ISiS , by the murder of Robert Blum , was extended over all the provinces of the empire . Henceforth , the crackling ^ sound of court-martial fusillades never ceased , i ' or

      yearsthe hangman ' s office was a laborious one , plying , as he did , his accursed trade on the best and bravest of the country . The morose temperament of Francis Joseph found a congenial occupation in . superintending these wholesale executions ; it seemed as if Charles IX ., the butcher of St . Bartholomew ' s night , was again in the flesh . The people gazed in horror at the unceasing red libations that the youthful Nero poured daily out to satisfy the cravings of his unrelenting hate . Wherever mea yet dared to tell to each other their griefs and fears ,

      they vented their curses on the " tigress '—for this was the name under which that Catherine , the Archduchess Sophia , was generally known . The sobriquet bestowed upon the Emperor himself was of a similar character . The epithet is , however , most difficult to render into English , the significance of it lying in tho play of words , most graphic in . German , but lost m the translation . He was called der Blut-Tunge — literally meaning" young iu blood , " an appellation in which his extreme youth is contrasted with the amount of blood already on those boyish hands . Indeed , his ambition seemed day by clay to more fully merit this horrible surname . The hideous dramatic

      eifect he contrived at the execution of tho academiclegionaries at Vienna , where tho victims were compelled to dig their own (/ raves before baring thoii breasts for the bullet that was to consign them to the earth they had just disturbed—the scenes of flogging to death that occurred in Hungary and . Lombardy—the hanging , at Arad , of the most distinguished generals ana statesmon of Hungary , amoug them a near relation of tho Queen of this country—tho indiscriminate- murders committed by 4 Ka ii \ iv \ Aninl * Dn * - » # l « - \ ii ¦• £ > i ^ ii'l Q > vni * nnr 7 niina niYAinfill

      whole villages that were accused of disaffeotion , where every species of atrocity was enacted , men , women , and children destroyed by stool and by lire , some oven dragged to death at tho tails of horsos , — - all this , dono under tho sanction and approval pj his Imperial , Royal , and Apostplio Majesty , would lead tho render to suppose ho has before nun rather tho history of Genghis-Khan pr Iwnerlane than tho story of a policy pursued by a civilised Government some brief Imlf-dozon yews smoo . Nor 1 mb Francis Joseph , singe " order has boon re-established , " dono anything to obUtorato the

      BIOGRAPHIES OF GERMAN PRINCES , ' No . IV . FBANCIS JOSEPH , EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA . When tho present Emperor ascended the throne , in tho midst of tho turmoil of insurrections spreading over the cntiro surface of tho empire , he was but oighteen years of ago . His uncle , Ferdinand

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      No . 4 . U , December 4 , 1858 . 1 THE DEADER . 1323

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 4, 1858, page 1323, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2271/page/19/