Such are some of the causes which militate against the attainment of a high standard in American periodical literature. For some years it went on very swimmingly on credit; but it is exceedingly doubtful, to say the least, if the experiment could be successfully repeated. We have seen that many of these obstacles are directly referable to the fact that the editorship of Monthlies and Quarterlies does not tempt men of capital into it; and it is not difficult to perceive that such of the others as are surmountable, can be most readily overcome by remunerating those engaged in the business. If good critics are well paid, it will be worth men's while to study to become good critics; and if a periodical is supported with real ability, it will make its way in spite of sectional or party prejudices, as we have seen was the case in some instances. And since it is plain that the republication of English magazines must interfere with the home article, the conclusion seems inevitable that the passing of an International Copyright Law would be the greatest benefit that could be conferred on American periodical literature.
IRELAND AND THE MINISTERIAL MEASURES.
It is unnecessary to remind our readers, that on more than one occasion we pointed out to the late so-called Conservative administration the dangers to which they were exposing the country, and the misfortunes which were sure to arise from the fatal policy which they had adopted for the government of Ireland. We told them on those occasions, that the lax manner in which the laws were administered, and the indecisive conduct of the Executive, would lead to the state of things which we then foresaw, and which all parties now deplore. We warned them, that tampering with the incipient evil, instead of boldly striking at its root, would advance its growth instead of diminishing its power; and that the welfare of all classes imperatively demanded at their hands the repression not only of crime itself, but of those causes to which the origin of crime was clearly traceable. Unhappily our advice was unheeded. The Peel government persevered in the same course which its Whig predecessors had pursued, augmented the obstacles which impeded the due administration of the laws, and retarded the pacification of the country by the culpable lenity which marked their proceedings against those who perpetrated crime, as well as towards those, still more criminal, who countenanced and abetted its commission.
The law which empowered the Crown to challenge improper jurors, rendered a dead letter by the Whigs in order to conciliate Mr O'Connell, was allowed so to remain by the Tories; and thus accomplices of the criminals in the dock became arbiters of their associates' fate in the jury-box; and it is unnecessary to say how much the impunity procured by this means tended to increase the audacity of the violators of the law, and to deter the mass of the people from having recourse to the tribunals of the country for justice and protection.
An association openly aiming at the dismemberment of the empire was not only allowed to pursue its seditious course in peace, but its leader was flattered and courted in the senate, until, imboldened by the subserviency of his opponents, and pressed on by the impatience of his followers, he assumed such a menacing position, as compelled the interference of the constituted authorities. He was condemned, imprisoned, released, and permitted again to talk his treason and boast his triumph to an ignorant and excitable people, who witnessed his success without being able to appreciate the causes to which it was attributable. While the feelings of the people were being acted upon by the orators of Conciliation Hall, the English press accomplished the triumph of agrarian outrage by the course which, with few exceptions, was adopted by the leading organs of public opinion. The unfounded statements of the demagogues, both lay and clerical, were adopted with avidity, and commented on with surpassing ability. In every instance the falsehood of those premeditated lies was subsequently established, but that did not prevent the adoption of every future tale, even though emanating from the same polluted source. The strictures based on those untruths were assiduously copied into the Irish papers; and, palliating as they did the crimes of the peasantry, by the ridicule, contempt, and detestation which they excited against the owners of the land, they tended not only to provoke and encourage the peasantry to resistance of the law, but the effect produced by their simulated horrors on the public mind tied up the hands of the Executive, and rendered the acquiescence of Parliament, in such measures as might be necessary for the preservation of the public peace, a thing scarcely to be expected or hoped for, even had the administration the good sense or the manliness to determine on demanding them. The writers in the English press denounced the landlords, under all circumstances, and for all manner of causes. If one of them dispossessed some of his tenantry who held portions of the soil too small to afford them support, even though given for nothing, in order that the holdings of the others should be enlarged to such a size as would enable them to live in comfort, he was denounced as an exterminator, even though he largely remunerated, and then at his own expense sent the dispossessed to countries where land was abundant and labour remunerative, and to which the most affluent of their neighbours were every day voluntarily emigrating. If, deterred by the abuse of the press and the denunciations of the priest, he allowed them to continue in the same state of misery and destitution in which he found them, he was represented as heedless and unfeeling, and the poverty of his tenantry (which, though willing, he dared not remedy) was made an article of dittay against him. If he endeavoured to enforce his rents, he was a tyrant. If he allowed them (as did Mr Ormsby Gore,) from mistaken compassion, to run ten and twelve years in arrear, he was pronounced to be "culpably negligent." In fact, no matter what he did, he was wrong; and in their desire to convict the Irish proprietors, the press acted on the principle of the Cork juror—"If he did not murder the man, my Lord, he stole my gray mare."
To the many internal causes which tended to aggravate the evils of Ireland, another, and one arising from circumstances of an extraneous nature, was added. The British minister determined to abolish the corn laws—to shelter himself against the attacks of his betrayed followers, and to enlist public sympathy in his support. He fabricated an Irish famine a year before that scourge actually visited the land; and, to prove the sincerity of his convictions and the truth of his statements, he had recourse to the establishment of food depots at the public expense, and to the system of public works, which effectually demoralised the bulk of the population; and the pernicious consequences of these measures, although now fully admitted, are yet far from having arrived at that portentous magnitude which they are daily threatening to assume.
While those continued and unremitting attacks of the English press led the peasantry to look with distrust and hatred on the class above them, the system of gratuitous relief and remuneration without labour, which Sir Robert Peel was forced to adopt, in order to evince his own conviction as to the truth of his statements in the House of Commons, told with fearful effect on the morals of the people; for if it was no crime to destroy a tyrant, so it was considered no disgrace to beg instead of to earn; and men who a few months before would have blushed at the thoughts of receiving public relief, were seen daily seeking for their rations, although they had cows, horses, and sheep, and in many instances profitable employment, which they abandoned to obtain gratuitous support. With a feeble and apathetic government, and with a powerful and talented press advocating their cause, influencing public opinion in their favour, and attributing with success to the misconduct of others the misery and destitution fairly assignable to their own indolence and dishonesty, it is not much to be wondered at, that the Irish peasantry should have become still more reckless and inattentive than they were before. When the principal protection which the law provided for the due administration of justice was withdrawn, it is not surprising that they should have become still more turbulent and criminal; and with the fierce denunciations of the lay and clerical demagogues ringing in the ears of an excitable and ignorant people, we cannot marvel at the scenes of horror and the deeds of death now enacting in their degraded country. And yet even the appalling catalogue laid before Parliament, gives but a faint idea of the fearful state of society in Ireland. It is but a list of the "faits accomplis;" and cannot depict the condition of those unhappy men who "live in death," who know their doom has been sealed, whose execution is openly spoken of as a thing certain to occur, who have no protection but God's mercy to rely on, and who are so circumstanced, in many instances, as not to have the means of fleeing from a country which has become the charnel-house of their class. And who can paint the feelings of the wives and families of those unfortunates? We ourselves know instances of their sufferings which would harrow the soul of any person possessed of the smallest portion of humanity.
But the other day, the wife of a clergyman, as amiable and charitable a man as lives, drove into a neighbouring town, and in the shop of a tradesman heard an expression of regret that certain gentlemen in the neighbourhood were so soon to be murdered, and amongst others, her own husband, whose charities and attention to the poor she vainly hoped would have secured his safety. Hurrying home, she found he had gone to attend one of his congregation, to whose sick bed he had been summoned. Distracted by her apprehensions, she went to an adjacent police station, and sent two of the men in the direction her husband had taken. He returned alive—her precaution had saved him,—but when she learned from his lips that the call was but a snare to bring him within reach of his assassins, the shock overpowered a weak constitution; she fell in a fit, and died entreating with her last breath mercy for the father of her children from the assassins, by whom in her delirium she fancied him to be surrounded. She left a large and helpless family, whose only protection is a broken-hearted and a doomed man; and yet there are to be found in the Senate those who protect the system to which this amiable woman has fallen a victim, by refusing to support even the paltry measure introduced by the government for its suppression.