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130 THE EXAMINER
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enemy; we still see their skirmishers lurking in the ditches,
from which we must drive them; nor are there wanting
deserters of doubtful fidelity, who might stab their new
leaders in the back, should they find an unguarded opportunity.
On these we have our eyes—we will show no quarter
detecting treachery.

As far as the Chancellor's plans are developed, they will
be best collected from his speech (of which we need not say
that it was luminous, eloquent, and powerfully sarcastic);
they resolve themselves into these heads: The substitution of
a judge of the superior courts of Westminster in certain
cases, for the commissioners of lunatics; the formation of a
board to secure the proper treatment of those unfortunate
wards of the crown; the substitution of ten judges for the
seventy commissioners of bankrupts, and the consolidation of
that jurisdiction in one court; the regulation of the Master's
offices, the Registers, and six clerks, with the general abolition
of fees, copy money, and gratuities; an appellate tribunal
in lieu, or improvement, of the Privy Council; and lastly, the
substitution of viva voce examination, for the present mode of
taking written depositions and affidavits in Chancery. It is
obviously possible to review these matters in detail, within
any ordinary space; we shall yet probably notice them, from
time to time, as they are dicussed in Parliament, especially
if any insidious attempt be made to mar the matter in
committee.

-----

THE QUARTERLY REVIEW ON REFORM.
"The cry is still they come."
It is recorded that when the Devil saw the building of Lincoln
Cathedral he was touched with a new concern for economy, and
rebukefully exclaimed, "Why all this waste?" In the darkness of his
lost soul he supposed cathedrals detrimental to his infernal interests,
and thus pretended marvel at the occasion for their construction. In
a similar spirit, but with more reason, a Quarterly Reviewer asks,
"Why all this clamour for Reform?" What can account for the all
but universal dissatisfaction with the present system of crruption?
Why is a new remedy sought for an old disease? Why do the people
unanimously demand a real representation, and why do men of
conflicting opinions concur as to the necessity of some change? Are
things worse than they have been before? Is there more jobbing, or
more expenditure? Is the House worse constituted now, that it
entertains the proposal of self-reformation, than it was when it declared
itself immaculate, and refused to consider of improvement? Is not an
Assembly that, with a view to beneficial objects, consents to amend
its constitution, as good as one actually amended to the degree
projected?

"What are those important measures for the relief and advantage of
the public which a Reformed Parliament will be able and willing to accomplish,
but which are beyond the competency of the Legislature as at present
constituted?"—"A Parliament willing to reform itself must à fortiori
be willing to do any other thing that the public voice requires of it."

By a parity of reasoning—Is not a man with a broken leg, who
desires to have it set and cured, as effective as if his leg actually were
set and cured—for what does he wish to do when sound which he
does not also wish to do when crippled? Further, is it not shocking
and surprising that unhappy dowagers and decayed scions of noble
families on the Pension List should be paraded before the country?
Is it not clearly no injury to the laborious millions of Britain that
little should be taken from each of them, and the amount divided in
heaps among a favoured few who employ coach-makers, wine-merchants,
tailors, and milliners, who would otherwise be unemployed—
while poor people, it must be supposed by the Quarterly Reviewer,
would give employment to no trades were the little drawn from
them in taxation left to them; for it is always assumed that the items
of the sums accumulated by taxation would not be applied to the
employment of industry by the tax-payers, and that ten thousand shillings
in ten thousand hands are as ten thousand pieces of dirt, while in one
hand they are good for trade. This argument is as fit for highwaymen
as for the State, and as appropriate to Jonathan Wild as to the
Quarterly Review.

Further, the reviewer shows a tender concern for rats; and is in
great horror at the enormity of Cobbett, who confesses a taste for
hunting that rapacious vermin. The article will, indeed, be made
perfectly intelligible by the writer's reception of the following
masterly picture by Cobbett:—

"'How many years have I been at these pensions, sinecures, and grants!
All my readers know how fond I am of country affairs. Country occupations,
country amusements, all things appertaining to country life, are
enticing to me. But, when even a boy, I had my scruples at some of its
amusements. Who has followed in a hare-hunt: seen her started from
her seat of tranquility and innocence, and flee before six-and-thirty
bloodthirsty and roaring dogs, and perhaps as many hallooing boys and men,
without thinking to himself, What has she done to deserve this? Who
has seen her, in the course of the hunt, soaked in mud and wet, stopping
and pricking up her ears to find if her double have defeated her pursuers,
her eyes starting from her head with terror every muscle quivering, and
her heart beating so as even to be heard three or four yards off; who
has seen this, without, at least, wishing her safe from her foes? But who,
on seeing her, after all her amazing exertions to save her life by flight, and
by many dexterous arts to deceive; who has seen her give up all hope, and
run half the length of the last field uttering the most appalling shrieks of
death; who has seen and heard this, and not felt that hare-hunting has its
alloy? I cannot; and were it not for the many things that can be said in
favour of field sports, I should think them sanguinary and unjustifiable.
But I never had this feeling about me at a rat-hunt. A rat-hunt is laudable


---page break---
in every view that one can take of it. The wretch itself is odious to
the sight; it is an animal always on the look-out for thefts; it lives in no
settled manner, and in no particular place; nor earth nor water can be
called its proper element, for it lives in both; nor town nor country, but
both; it feeds on no particular species of food; flesh, fish, grain, all are
alike in its food, and in every way disguised; nothing comes amiss to it, and
its gluttony is beyond comparison. It is, too, a most unnatural thing,
neglecting (according to the naturalists) its aged parents, and devouring its
feeble young! It has no one good quality, and yet devours more, or spoils
more, than any created animal; it has appetite for every thing, and never
seems satisfied. It is, in short, the pensioner of nature; and all useful
and industrious creatures are interested in its destruction. A rat-hunt,
therefore, has charms for me unbounded! at all hours, in all weather, any
day, I am ready for the chasse aux rats. I go to it in perfect lightness of
heart; for, if any thing can make it justifiable to amuse oneself in observing
the arts of the timid, unoffending, and harmless hare when pursued by
enemies, how much more justifiable to amuse oneself at seeing those of the
rat, whose destruction is positive good! For this reason I like rat-hunting;
I recommend rat-hunting. It is really amusing. How often have I
stood in the floor of a barn, watching the progress of this sort of fun. How
I have laughed when all the straw has been moved to within a few trusses
of the bottom; then begins the sport. The dog's sagacity, the boy's rashness,
and then the man's experience—how all these are severally displayed when
it comes to within a few trusses of the nests of the nasty, stinking, plundering
herd. A general rustle under the little remaining straw makes every
creature intent. And, Oh! my God! how I have laughed to see one
moment after, a shoal of vermin pour forth: how I have laughed to see the
dogs snap them up, the boys bewilder one another with cries of "There
they go! there they go! there they go!" and the men, after roaring to the
boys not to strike before the dogs: not to hit the dogs' noses; give way
to the general enthusiasm, and knock and bang and trample and halloo as
loud as any: THE STRAW IS BEING MOVED.'—p. 380—382.

"We doubt whether among most of those who are likely to read this
passage in our pages, it will excite a stronger feeling of horror or of
admiration. It is horrible to know that we are living in the same place with
even one human creature so capable, avowedly and exultingly capable, of
every brutality that could degrade the name of man; but it is impossible
not to admit that, considered merely as a piece of composition, this manifesto
of bloodthirsty ruffianism stands above any thing that Cobbett ever
before wrote."

Now, if rats wrote in Quarterly Reviews—as perhaps rats
sometimes do—one of these rats, on the movement of the straw would
write just such an article on the wonderment and disgust as that before
us. He would ask, why this derangement of the barn? Has not
the straw lain thus for many a prosperous day; and why not leave
well alone? Is it that you thirst for the innocent blood of rats
because they are nourished by your grain, and gnaw for a livelihood?
Who but ruffians would seek the destruction of rats, fruge consumere
nati
, appointed, by Providence, to live on the toil of others, and
privileged to pillage?

The sympathy with the rats may serve as sample of the whole
argument of the writer. We confess with Cobbett a great joy at
seeing the straw moved, and the vermin in trepidation.

But according to the reviewer, an impatience of pillage is not the
cause of the demand for reform or the consent to it, but a dread of
the physical force
. That is to say, it being admitted that the people
are all but unanimous—the body politic is moved to the demand of
reform by dread of its own physical force! Such is Quarterly
reasoning!

The reviewer truly says that things are not worse now than in
former times, when corruption was more patiently borne; but there is
now a resolution to obtain securities against the recurrence of such
abuses. An enduring person, on removing from a bad neighbourhood,
said he had given it a fair trial, and his patience was at last
exhausted; for, added he, "I have been knocked down and robbed
regularly every night for two years, and now I think it time to move."
Such has been the case of John Bull, who, after long suffering,
thinks it time to change the plan. The Quarterly says, "a
parliament willing to reform itself must à fortiori be willing to do any
other thing that the public voice requires of it." As well might it
be said, that "a king willing to grant a charter determining his own
powers, must be willing to do any other thing that the public voice
requires of him." When the Devil is sick, the Devil a saint will be;
but if we would have him permanently saint, we must undevil him
altogether, or change his satanic constitution.

We have read with great delight Mr. Charles Buller's witty
and argumentative pamphlet "on the necessity of Radical Reform,"
and shall take an opportunity of giving some spice of its quality to
our readers.

-----

THE EMIGRATION BILL.
The Government has introduced a bill for facilitating voluntary
Emigration, by creating a board of commissioners, authorised to
contract with individuals or with parishes, on the security of their
poor-rates, for conveying pauper labourers, with their own consent,
to Canada or Australia.

In so far as this measure evinces a just conception of the great
cause of low wages, excessive competition for employment; and in
so far as the board which it will call into existence, may be considered
as a commission for inquiring into the means of rendering
the vast productive resources of our colonies available for the
employment and comfortable subsistence of the unemployed poor of
our own country; to that extent Lord Howick's bill is an indication
of laudable dispositions and an earnest of improvement. Our praise
can go no farther.

We have no faith in the efficacy of any plan of emigration, which,
for every labourer whom it removes, implies the permanent alienation
of a portion of the national capital. Lord Howick states that the
expense of the emigration of a labouring man, his wife, and two
children, is sixty-six pounds, and that their maintenance as paupers
costs twenty-five pounds annually; on which text he proceeds to
dissert upo the benefits of his plan, saying that an annuity of
twenty-five pounds may be redeemed, by the advance of a sum falling




Identifier: | JB/004/070/002
"JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 4.

Date_1

1831-02-27

Marginal Summary Numbering

Box

004

Main Headings

lord brougham displayed

Folio number

070

Info in main headings field

Image

002

Titles

the examiner / sunday, february 27, 1831 / no. 1204

Category

printed material

Number of Pages

8

Recto/Verso

recto

Page Numbering

(130-144)

Penner

Watermarks

Marginals

Paper Producer

Corrections

jeremy bentham

Paper Produced in Year

Notes public

[[notes_public::"john fonblanques eulogium on brougham" [note in bentham's hand]]]

ID Number

1991

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