CHAGRIN FOR OLD COMMODORES.
A recent leading article in the Times quotes a return, which has been obtained by Mr. Hume, of certain statistics relative to flogging in the Navy; whence it appears that the amount of human torture inflicted on British sailors, represented in the aggregate by 40,545 lashes during the year 1848, had declined in 1852 to 17,571. In commenting on this decrease in the torment of seamen, the Times remarks, that this "odious species of punishment is falling more and more into disuse;" and, moreover, that
"Anything like a frequent resort to it is taken to reflect discredit, not only upon the whole ship's company, but upon the officers in command."
If a return could be procured of the number of imprecations uttered on reading the above passage, by bluff old retired admirals and superannuated sea-captains, in clubs and coffee-rooms at our various sea-ports, where they are accustomed to growl over the degeneracy of the service, we should probably be presented with a startling array of figures. By the stigma which is cast upon the discipline which these veterans, for the most part, boast of having maintained, their feelings must be as cruelly lacerated as they themselves ever caused the backs of their men to be.
POISONOUS PUFFS.
Something has been done, of late, towards the abatement of nuisances. Cinder-heaps have been swept away, sewers trapped, cesspools closed, and laystalls removed from under our noses. There still remains, however, a great deal of noxious and offensive stuff to be got rid of; particularly since, instead of merely contaminating our air and water, it infects the fountains of our current information. It taints the library, it defiles the drawing-room table. This graveolent evil is the pest of soiled newspapers—journals of ill savour—not imparted by any fetid sort of printers' ink, but by vile advertisements, whereat the physical nostrils, indeed, are not offended: but the moral nose is in great indignation.
An obscure and narrow street through which few respectable persons, and no ladies, ever pass, bears a scandalous name, and is considered a disgrace to the metropolis, by reason of the sort of literature displayed in its windows, which is precisely of the same quality as the advertisements alluded to; and these, in the columns of reputable and even "serious" journals, get introduced into families, and lie about the house, to attract the notice, and obtain the perusal, of the younger members of the establishment, male and female.
You may take up—or what is of more consequence—your little boy or girl may take up—a newspaper, and read, on one side of it, a leading article which might be preached out of a pulpit: on the other a series of turpitudes unfit for utterance under any circumstances.