CLIPPINGS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2973, 22 July 1870, Page 3

CLIPPINGS.

( From ’ the Spectator .) The Deceased Wife’s Sister came up for her annual discussion on April 27, the main feature of the debate being Sir Eoundeli Palmer’s speech against the Bill for legalizing marriage with her, —which he rested, of course, on the old ground that a wife should have as much facility for seeing her sisters after her marriage as before, and could not have it, unless they were to be genuinely her husb »nd’s sisters as well as her own. This argument seems to us, we confess, to assume a double falsehood, —a prevalence of unnatural and universal speculation on the possible results of a wife’s death, and a magic power in the law to prevent such speculations in the minds of those to whom they are not otherwise unnatural. The last at least is conspicuously false. The class of men likely to speculate on such matters would be quite as likely to feel the law an additional motive for evil as a motive against it. Sir Roundel! Palmer was more cogent when he criticised the isolated nature of the proposed provision, and asked why all marriages of affinity were not to' be placed on the same footing. The Bill

was read a second time, in a rather thin House, by a majority of 70—184 to 114—and passed through Committee. The Times, always the warm friend of the little birds, publishes letters complaining of tbe slaughter of some golden orioles which have lately visited our shores. They are tuneful and beautiful, and are consequently shot wherever seen. Would it n6t be possible to devote one of the national parks to the experiment tried by Mr Waterton, that of maintaining a natural asylum for all feathered things F He suffered no dog and no gun within his demesne, and the birds came from all parts of the country. The experiment might be tried on a very large scale at Richmond without expense, and with less annoyance than is caused by the severe preserving at Windsor. The controversy as to permitting the women medical students at Edinburgh to attend the classes formed for young men has been going on very warmly during the week, and on Monday the Times, which is sufficiently severe on the monstrous argument of some of the Edinburgh professors that women of bad character might pay the fees (!) and take to studying medicine on purpose for the sake of association with the male students, —puts in a plea of its own against the common teaching, which seems to us exceedingly weak. “ It would be a loss to both sexes,” it remarks, “ if the respectful reserve hitherto maintained between them were lessened, and we fear this would not fail in a great measure to be the result of indiscriminate instruction in mixed classes.” Why, it can at most affect the medical students of both sexes, and not the sexes at large. Ho doubt, “ the softening veil of simplicity and privacy” of which the Times speaks is a great advantage, to both men and women, but do not both men and women who enter the medical profession of necessity give it up for the sake of a higher end P Miss Garrett’s argument in Tuesday’s Times, that so long as young medical women are restricted to the teaching of special women classes, they will often necessarily lose what they most need, —both the best teachers and the most elaborate teaching,—seems to us final in the matter. It is curious enough that just at this moment when the greatest jealousy of the Catholic Church is felt in England, so that Mr Newdegate carries with him an exceptional sympathy in his motion for the Committee on monastic institutions, tbe American convents appear to be in unusual favour among the politicians of America. At Washington, the House of Representatives has just voted a grant of £4OOO (20,000 dols.) to the Sisters of Mercy at Charleston to rebuild their Orphanage which had been destroyed in the war, by a majority of 110 votes against 45. Mr Bowen, a representative of South Carolina, in supporting this vote, asserted that the services of the sisters “ could not be repaid by money,” and that in the performance of their various services the sisters “ had displayed the courage of the soldier united with the wisdom of the statesman.” Mr Bowen is no Catholic, at least our Catholic contemporaries call him a Protestant, but he added, “ The Catholic Church is always the pioneer on our frontier, bringing to civilisation the blessings of Christianity.” The Protestant feeling in England is very far, indeed, from that, and so much the worse for us, for as far as we understand the state of Ireland, Mr Newdegate’s motion seems little less than a misfortune. The prospect of a prying investigation into the condition of the Catholic convents seems to have already kindled in Ireland a feeling little short of rage and hatred. The alliance between the Tories and Nationalists, which is the great present fact of Ireland, is becoming more definite. Captain Harman, the Tory candidate for Mayo, for example, has issued a second address, containing this sentence: —“ From a well-grounded conviction that Irishmen alone are entitled and competent to regulate the affairs of their native country, I firmly believe that the time has come when they should claim the restoration of their native Parliament, and upon that platform —Home Rule—l boldly take my stand.” The National papers welcome this utterance, and mistaken as we believe the policy to be, we disagree utterly with its English critics. They say an Irish Tory who utters such sentiments is necessarily a dishonest man. Why ? We can quite see why a wise Irishman would cling to the Empire rather than to the province, but we do not see why the Tory should not be as national as the Ultra-Radical. Indeed, we can foresee conditions under which the National role should befit tbe Tory rather than the Liberal, just as we foresee conditions under which the Protestant, and not the Catholic, will claim the United States as an ally. Texan ladies eat snuff, are always eating it, and are sallow in consequence. So do women throughout the Southern States. “ Horrible! ” say English papers, and of course, therefore, there is horror in the practice, but we should like to know why. It is quite open to anybody to say tobacco is a poison, and quite true besides —the writer speaks from the experience of years and of to-day—but why is that particular mode of imbibing poison so very bad ? Swallowing tobacco through the mouth would appear to be at least as natural as swallowing it through tbe nose, and our grandmothers all did that. It is curious to observe the only point on which civilised men still maintain a morality of the stomach differing as between the sexes. For a man to drink spirits is a bad habit, for a woman it is a vicious one. A male snuff-taker is a person with a dirty way, a female snuff-eater is a criminal. Yesterday week (April 29) a plot against the Emperor’s life was discovered, to have been discovered, in Paris. A soldier aqd deserter of bad character, of the name of Baurie, was arrested, who is stated to have had documents on his person proving his intention to assassinate the Emperor on that same day. The documents

certainly prove the existence of a revolutionary conspiracy, and, if genuine, probably of an intention to attempt the Emperor’s life. Irou bombs, or band - grenades, manufactured under pretence of their being velocipedewheels, have also been discovered, to the number of a score or so, very ingeniously made, and, as the Governmenfc alleges, far more powerful than Orsini’s bombs, but there is nothing, except the comparatively small number at present discovered, to show whether they were meant for the purpose of an individual assassination or for use in the streets against the dreaded Chassepot. The l in who had ordered these bombs, and in whose possession they were discovered, by name Roussel, was rescued by the mob without any real struggle with the police,—a suspicious circumstance, which at first inspired great doubts as to the reality of this (for the Government) timely discovery. On the whole, however, there seems sufficient evidence of the existence of a dangerous conspiracy, though, whether against the Emperor’s life, or only against his authority, remains matter of some doubt. It is asserted by the Government that Baurie has confessed. But if the conspiracy had been a political manoeuvre, that is exactly what might have been expected. A barrister of the name of Protot has been also arrested as concerned in the same plot. He seems to have made a very powerful resistance, — being a man of great physical strength, —and to have appealed to the mob to rescue him. The official organs also assert that M. Gustave Elourens, of the Marseillaise, a chief actor in the insurrection of February, now believed to be in exile in London, is implicated in this plot, and has furnished the funds for the bombs, A letter to Baurie, signed only “ Gustave,” and regretting that some communication had not been sent to him “ through Mr Smalley, of the New York Tribune, 13 Pall Mall,” speaks of the danger that “ the man with the patent may go into the country, and all be delayed.” M. de la Guerroniere rejects the notion that M. Elourens could be an assassin, hot-headed revolutionist as he is. But, at least, no denial by M. Elourens has yet been published. Another letter found on Baurie, apparently an unsent letter of his own, says, “ The doctor has ended by declaring in favour of amputation, and speaks of that operation as likely to take place between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.” The Association Internationale seems to be also implicated in the revolutionary designs, but that it can have had any conspiracy of a worse kind confided to it is in the highest degree improbable. Indeed, on tbe very day on which the assassination, as is alleged, was to have taken place, a democratic assembly was dissolved by a commissary of police because one of the speakers, after accusing the Emperor of all sorts of crimes, affected to sentence him, since capital punishment has been virtually abolished in France, to hard labour for life.