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PBiyATE OR PUBLIC.
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THE SPIRITUALISTS. at times of
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or abolisli our wine duties . It will be impossible , we believe , for the foreign grower to raise his priees in consequence ot our little additional demand . Throughout southern Europe the bulk of the population consume wine . The amount produced is very little , if any , -short of three thousand million gallons , while the total of our imports of wine from all parts of the wor d does not exceed nine million gallons . Supposing the import should increase four limes , of which there is no immediate probability it would then amount to only thirty-six million gallons winch is a And if it he
mere trifle compared to the wine produce of Europe . . snid that our consumption is confined to the choicer sorts ot which the quantity is much more limited , it may be replied that in all the neighbourhoods of these choicer sorts wines similar to ttiem are found , and they may probably be increased in quantity . Mr . Lumley supplies a receipt lor converting common Spanish wine into Bordeaux , making its value , by a simple process , rise from five sons a bottle to fifty . The same wine is bought from the Spaniards lor the small sum and sold to them for the large sum . There is , therefore , no reason to believe that the choice kinds of wine cannot be supplied in quantities sufficient to meet the demand . _ of the worldto doubt deny Pro
It is diffienlt , at this period , or a - vidential government of the affairs of society ; and the vine disease , prompting a new trade in wine , and making it now peculiarly suitable for us to reduce our wine duties , must be classed with the discoveries of gold and other kindred phenomena , now obviously tending to promote a more extensive and friendly union by trade amongst all the families of mankind . We shall best do our part in this great work by studying our own interests , which now counsel us , in the strongest manner , to put an end to the unsocial wine duties , which have made our trade with Southern Europe a ' secondary consideration , " compared to our trade with Australia , America , and further Asia . .
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TTTE regret to perceive that the advocates of closed courts are VV resinning their unsuccessful agitation . We hoped , against our conviction , that the deliberate refusal of- the Legislature , last session ^ to place any restriction on the publicity ot justice , would have settled the question for once and for all . Enthusiasts are , proverbially , a stiff-necked generation . And of all enthusiasts , moral enthusiasts are the worst . In the present case , they nave v > bt hold of half a truth , orrather the fraction ot a truth , ami are unable to perceive that a part is not the- same thing as the whole . We know , by experience , that for this sort of delusion there- . little hope of cure . It is true , most undeniably true ,. . tjii ^ t the perusal of equivocal causes cilebreis , and of our legal Holy well tetreet literature , is not , to say the least , a generally profitable or beneficial employment , or one that conduces to the morality of ' its pursuers . Therefore , our amicable enthusiasts assert , morality would be benefited by the suppression of these reports . It is no use objecting conclusion
would be put in motion to draw a veil over the disclosures . \\ e should have privacy for the rich and publicity for the poor . Then , too , in such cases you riiay be certain that thiere are family quarrels , . and that the . witnesses are interested parties . If the terror of giving evidence in public were removed , one great , if not the greatest , inducement to truthful speaking would be reinoyed . More important ; also , is the consideration , ' that the mil gain to public morality consists not in such cases being kept secret , but in their not occurring ; and the fear of a public exposure under our present system is a ihost powerful instrument in hindering men from committing gross outrages , and outstepping all restraints of decency . There is , however , a higher and more general ground on which we should be most reluctant to see the principle of privacy ever introduced among us . We are convinced that the standard of morality is higher in England than in any-continental country , and we attribute this fact chiefiv ( paradoxical as the expression may seem ) to the publicity of vice ' amongst us .. There is no mystery about Vice in England , no attempt to whitewash sepulchres . It an Englishman chooses to be vicious , he does so with his eyes open ; he has not the excuse that , for the benefit of society , the repulsive features < 1 vice were kept from him . It is on this ground that we have always opposed well-meant and ill-advised schemes for clearing our streets of the outward manifestation of profligacy , for making men ^ sober by shutting up public-houses , and moral by taking from them immoral publications . We believe , ourselves , that . half the immorality in the world is caiised by a romantic , unmal . ter-of-fa . Gfc conception ot the pleasures of vice . When men have learnt the plain truth , that vice is as commonplace as virtue , and that neither by virtue nor vice can one rise above the every-day dry details of this dull existence , they will have learnt a lesson worth learning ' , tew facts teach this truth more forcibly than a perusal of our Divorce Court procedings . This view of morality is perhaps not an exalted one , but we suspect it is sound .
to the form of the syllogism , or to the validity ot the . We are always met with the fundamental assertion , that the perusal of immoral cases is an immoral act , and find , in consequence , that we are only arguing in a vicious circle . For the benefit , however , < if those who have taken up no particular . hobby on the subject , and are likely to be influenced by those fine sounding declarations about public morality , it is worth while to state the real evils , both of secrecy and publicity . Every now and then , there conic before our courts of law -certain oases , of a character we need not specify , in which , for the onds of justice , extremely disgusting details , and evidence of a very revolting character , have to he brought forward . The purist party recommend that on these occasions the evidence should be Uiken m privateand the public excluded from court . Now , in the first
in-, stance , wo believe the amount of actual evil produced by the hearing or perusal of these class of cases . to be grossly exaggerated . Oil such occasions , the court is always cleared of woanen and boys , and if grown up men like to remain , they do so with full warning of what they are likely to hear . In cases of this character , u very sniallportionof whutis stilted in court ever -appears in . thepublio prints . Even if there were-no judgment exercised by the managers ot our newspapers , consideration for their interests would cause them to keep out of their columns whatever was grossly offensive to pubhe delicacy . The phtin truth is , that nobody " can " hear the trial of such eases , or " neod" peruse thoir reports , unless , either from personal interest ; in the caso or depravity of miml , ho deliberately resolves to learn the whole facts . There arc persons undoubtedly lor whom such details have a struniro and peculiar attraction . Uho
class from whom Stkrnk and Swift and Kabi ^ ais sprang will iiover . be wanting to supply faithful worshippers of the clonuinian mysteries ; but it may bo questioned whether such persons arc notalrortdy perverted to the utmost . " Nemo ropout& lit turpisaimus . " Drunkards don ' t begin with neat spirits , and in the sumo way the mind of a man must have lost its purity before ho sits down greedily to revol in the details of debauchery . In fact , the only class who could profit morally by tho closing of the courts in cases of a disgusting character arc ai not of moral reprobates , who « ro not , much likely to . be made either bettor or worse ; while the evils which tho system would cutaH on thq j ^ oirei-ul public are very obvious . If once our courts of law are closed oivniiy pretence whatever , wo shall have constant application !* lor the extension of tho system . Nobody likes , in any case , to have their private sins j > ubliahed ,-r-their dirty linon , in fact , not washed , but mado fouler atill in public Whenever a wise arose of this nature , in which per * eons of rank and station wore interested , nil tho machinery of Hociuty
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11 is a remarkable phenomenon , ac g- « , - » '"" activity , when men's minds are seething and fermenting under the influence of great events , there is a certain proneness oil the part of a large section of them to give a ready credence to the preternatural and the supernatural . It is . true that there is always a lurking disposition for . the marvellous , even in the most . enlightened and cultivated intellects , and it is a wise provision of nature that it should be so . This is the stimulus which excites to discoveries , and it is familiar to all how the fruitless search after the unseen and the unintelligible has occasionally led to : the real and the intelligible . Even in the dimmest ages of ignorance there has been a belief in ghosts , and what is called education rather conceals than eradicates it . People who have-got to differential calculus , and electric telegraphs , and "that wonderful triumph of civilization , sir , " the steam-engine , affect or really feel a kind of shame at their belief in dreams , omens , and apparitions ; yet we have known men of the highest culture m whose minds faith in these things has been not only hidden , but cherished . It is in times of unusual mental activity that the love of the supernatural is most predominant , and it is not very difficult to discover the cause of this .. In these times especially , when vast discoveries in science are being made , when light is pouring in through every chink , when man finds that his empire over the unknown is daily growing larger and larger , then it is that the million , who have neither the knowledge nor the patience for regular scientific investigation , are jnost determined not to be left in the rear , and will also have their wonders riot less marvellous than those of soienco . Let Mr . Watt have his steam engine , by all means , they seem to say ; wo will have our Ooclf lane ghost , lo Stejphunso ^ be the loc miotive , but giyo us bprmgheeled Jack ; WHEA . TSTONJG and Faraday may bring to the sun ice of man the forces of electricity , we are content with table-turning and clairvoyance . There is something in this frame of mind not exactly to be deplored , but there is also much which requires the shrewdest and most uncompromising vigilance on the part of those whoso duty it is to preserve intact tho standard of scientific truth . We believe that at no time more . than the present have so many marvellous theories and speculations upon the unseen been ( inured to tho consideration of the curious . Mesmerism , wo believe , begun it ; and then came clairvoyance . Tho former was accounted for by the sceptical as a form of epilepsy , and tho latter as a trick ; but although it ia Sortum that tho specific disease will produce many phenomena similar to those which occur during the mesmeric state , and although conjurors have succeeded , by trickery , in deceiving people into a bolioV that real clairvoyance has taken place , it is not to be denied that there is a vast number of intelligent , enlightened , and sincere people whoso faith , both in mesmerism and clairvoyance is unshaken , and who testif y * upon evidence which can neither bo ignored nor lightly impugned , to phenomena which are not lo Do accounted for by the hypotheses above stated . After mesmerism oume tablo-tumiiitf-, which turned the noaas as well as tho tables of thousands— which thousands still believe , in , and which Professor Fakaim y attempted to disperse by a lonnUla which , in our opinion , at any rate , was exceedingly unsatia actory . Mr . Fauaday , it should bo recollected , owes the place which ho occupies in tho first rank of sciontilio inon entn-dy to the fact that ho is the first electrician in Choworld . In no other branch ol se . onco is his authority first-rute , and it is through being unaware , ut this that so many people oamo to bo of opinion that his thtoiy or " resultant muscular force" was conclusive < md unanswerable . But the irroat marvel which now occupies every ones "' . ma is
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Feb . 4 , 1860 . J The leader and Saturday Analyst \ 11 « s . \
Pbiyate Or Public.
PRIVATE OR PUBLIC .
The Spiritualists. At Times Of
THE SPIRITUAUST 3 .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 4, 1860, page 113, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2332/page/13/
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