The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-01-24 00:00:00

SKETCHES OF RADIC.ALS•

THE RADICAL FEMALE. -
(Front the Press,)
Women are born Conservatives. This is a fact. °I,
which there cannot be any doubt. Hence the Rall
female is, at 'best, an unnatural exception ; and,e
never, for my own part, think of her except as of
" Pig-headed lady," or other monstrous creation.
dical females are rare and curious, and as little know
:as mermaids ; but never bestow the same attention °
their personal appearance as those interesting creat<
A paper might be written, indeed, showing how much OP
Conservative owes to the Radicals' wives and danghten'
When the severe and terrible Podger advances to the Pe:
riod of baldness, and becomes fat, he finds that he bil'e
been nourishing a brood to turn upon him. His o„li,`,
branches, with the beautiful peacefulness which the 011,`,
symbolises, put him at peace with the powers of his natl„`t
land. Young Podger will hear of nothing but a Ca%..,,
regiment, and here has Podger, all his life, been abuslu;
war and soldiers, and kicking up a hubbub about the
being kept up to support an oligarchy ! But the Nti:
Podger are far more intractable. Those charming 61yi
turn up their noses (Nature having arranged that Of
shall be an easy performance) at the Cottonville yor,
men. At watering-places, or on the Continent, or e;
where, they meet with the sprouts of good families ;I'i
the county where Podger has bought a slice of the Innai
a Jacobite family (he will ask the Whigs for the attalow,
title, some day !) they come within the influence of 2;
entirely new set of ideas, and will not revere Podger. ro;
youngest boy goes to the navy, and is " sobbed ' with '
sword scabbard for proposing Cobden's health, &c.,
What is an old fellow to do ?

Non ego hoc ferrem, calidus juventa,
he might exclaim, had he any acquaintance with the writ
who makes the exclamation. But he is getting elk
he must die with the awful consciousness that he has bete
bestowing his warmth on the hatching of a brood of ar4
tocrats. However, when women are Radicals, they go
entire animal. Miss Piper,the poetess, the elderly anthore'
of " Letters on the Human Anatomy" (that masterly CO11:,
futation of Paley), is a frightful example. All the Bloonle,
are examples. From the lady of Sir Barnaby Crabs, AI
(who writes leaders in the " Rasper," and is constanw,,
inserting a paragraph to the effect that we hear Sir Baran
Crabs, M.P., will be " offered the"—anything that
vacant)—to the youngest Bloomer, the female agitat°rj
are more violent than the male ones. Sproggs is opPo.7t
to capital punishment (naturally enough), and would le
the scoundrel live ; but Miss Piper sees in him a " crusir
humanity," a "dormant goodness," and would substita?
for his chains garlands of roses. The Radical Femslll,B
sometimes a " thing of impulse," but the commoner tyr
is a woman of " strong good sense." She is an over-doh,
woman, or an under-done man. The Piper, for install
is a very good little girl, but she got her head turned,,.2
one of the geniuses who turns the heads of the Baal,
Mystics. The Piper writes, and with her feminine rice-1:0,
ness she adopted the antagonistic attitude. She threw
of;
her warmth into " new views." The plain meaniKA
the Piperean view is simply this : she is a sentimentv7t
and raves about Reformers just as other girls do
music, poetry, ruins, moonlight, or whatever their speTl
rage may be. She is a lively, soft-hearted girl, and if 541
chooses to call her quick apprehensions "intuitions," No.,
where's the harm ? There is only one event which can be
pected to make Miss Piper practical, and that, of course, '
—marriage. There was poor Margaret Fuller, a queer
woman in her way : when she married and had
Angelo, she became (as you see by her biography) q"
an intelligible woman, and capital wife and mother..
fact simply is with regard to these high-flying damFll
that they see a great deal existing in the institutiouL,
Europe which is by no means so pleasant to contemPPL
as moonlight or " Locksley Hall." They would like;
abolish all evil out of the world, and sprinkle it with rov',,
water ; and I would like to have strawberries for bro:d
fast, only it is winter time, and I cannot get them. 15
Miss Piper's reasonableness and practicality, then,
we must wait till she is married. But she won't nisP#
Nubibus, or any of -those speculative gentlemen vibs
writings she loves •, it being, I remark, the o
invaris,,
custom of those fellows to marry quiet, pretty girls, 15',/
titute of enlarged views, who adore them, and give w
to them, and make them very comfortable. So that old
Piper will probably " throw herself away" on some OP;
fellow, and make him pay for a new edition of
" Poems" on the very finest paper. The gifted _
Scragg is the female Radical of another type. You vo!';
see Miss Scragg, at the British Museum, fearlessly
_ie."-i
3.
amining huge books of anatomical plates. She vfo,w
like, when she hears of an abuse, to " put her fee" I
on it—and, between ourselves, if that did not crush ibm
know not what would. I would rather be reverenced
any man than by a Scragg—for they give you an
" scrunch" on the part of the oppressed sex. She ate`
leaders and reviews, and goes to the office to eorreof
proof—like a man, in fact. She is a man, indeed-",
spoiled man ; a man not quite manly enough. It w',",
Miss Scragg who wrote those angry letters to the " Val
when the affected Destriver published his " Sonnet tI).A
Poppet." She overwhelmed him with scorn ; repndis7„
the vile homage of the man as an insult to the "
standing "of the whole sex. The fact is, the sonnet ‘O7.
not intended for Miss Scragg ; it was no more her bg-,
ness than it was Ben Caunt's to engage in the on ile
versy. But she has a perfectly just suspicion that tof
charms of her mind are not so attractive as the graces_2
" that empty little goose" Miss Flowerbell. And, hid
I cannot see why Miss Scragg should expect to exero,
the rule both of man and woman too. She is a viger6clie
minded woman enough; but there are as clever Pella
about as she ; and she is really so like a man that I Ivo ,
almost as soon think of flirting with the Pope as with b
—The Press.

THE GENTLEMAN RADI'A'L.
Where now is the good old Gentleman Bader'
Where are the braves who wrote down in large lel'
that mankind were free and equal, and signed thelliiv
selves "Persons of Quality"? Where is the
Brutus of Liberalism ? Where is the old classic Raul
breathing of the ancient republics ? We look aroul],
Europe in vain for that school now-a-days. Y__„„r'
they :are gone—those haters of tyrants—the fiery
tlemen who quoted Lucan ! They sleep free from P:;
insulting air of kings, under tables of Latinity, and ve7t
large escutcheons ! Undoubtedly a Radical of this 50,„y
would be stoned by the party at the present day. Fan'y
how a man who does a thing as an affection is loved ki
the man who does it as a trade ! The " days of Romul!!A,
having come up, the " republic of Plato" has disappeo",
Brutus is in a "coalition," establishing a Whiggoi
mercial, pseudo-liberal, anything arian oligarchy, y 1
of
trade for a religion, and capital for a god. Clodius nof
able to go the pace, like the old Clodii. Nay, the days
the Clodii are gone by. They cannot drink even l'(?..e
and, in the happy minglings of political life, Clodil
would bring his sister to meet Cicero and his wife and
party of the Sacred College. Milo and Clodius in our e ,„4
waive all private differences and take places for the
of the country, and the Radical Gentleman blends /13;
moniously with " stern and unbending" Conservativ of
For we hear (often enough, to be sure) that the age
d tbe
parties is past, along with the age of " eloquence,"
antulate
age of everything else, and are requested to conr-,(yra die
ourselves on the change. The Radical Gentleman "
as
tJ
appeared in this general confusion. Occasionally a Libe.o
lord, loving a little applause (the nature of which he gloo
misunderstands), gets a burst of after-dinner cheering I,
saying that the days are gone when his order could esS,
cise hateful privileges (Hear hear)—or presume to 4;1
vance in front of the great body of their countrYor;
(Great applause) What a melancholy exhibition !
man who laid bare his bosom to show his scars was nI
ing an appeal that was respectable ; but a man brag
of his feebleness is not a cheerful spectacle. if the libe,
lord thinks so meanly of his order in its present ste
why don't he go in for being an Aztec Lilliputian ?
fact is, however, be means little, or nothing, or anything
-
according to the taste of the hearer ! 'Where, then, sr
~.e
we to look for our Radical Gentleman? That on,
species we never hear of. The Wilkeses neither utter b°,4
mots nor edit Catullus ; and, if they happen to be biboll;
and blasphemous, are not so on a scale grand euortgli I
j
attract public attention. When one does appear, ,e_.„,/
with a scintillation of parts (yet different, indeed, Irv,.
such a man as Horne Tooke,) he buries his talents in a Or,
rade
kin as a well-paid Coalition waiter. The lively, free-t ,he
dinner Radical Gentleman is silent and forgotten. n
acrid, eager, critical Radical Gentleman, with a sm"10
form and a large constituency, is reading French nove/14
the country, and terrified for fear of being asked..llo
opinion about the strike. And the hopes of- Radical";
proper are in the Pottses and the Cockroaches, the 30;j
kers, and the Dobbses. There are, indeed, young men
culture, and refinement, and aspiration to be met, who
dissatisfied with English politics, and whom people Car,
Radicals. -.But the Radical proper is quite a different an
from these gentlemen. A part of their conversation 04
action is perhaps favourable to what is loosely called all,e
ranked as Radicalism. But these young men (who ft)
to be known by their combining sarcasm with melancK,
are quite sure to develop under the two most Conserva',:i,
ing of all influences—viz., acquaintance with Radicals dry
sonally, and study of the traditions of England.---'`
Press.

„col
A MODEL MINISTER.—” How do you like
minister ?" " Like him," says the Squire, " why lof
him first-rate ; for he never meddles with polities,
religion, or temperance."
sf
A FRENCHMAN IN A FIX.—A Frenchman, newl9, et
rived in London, impatient to see the town, but fearfny
not finding his way back to his hotel, carefully cord
upon a card the name painted on the wall at the cornet
the street in which it was situated. This done, he 'D'r
himself safe, and set out for a ramble, much upon
principle vulgarly known as ." following one's nose."
whole day long he strolled and stared to his heart's cettt
tent : wearied, at last, he jumped into a cab, and with ,
easy confident air of a man who feels perfectly at hog
he read from the card he had prudently preserved
name of the street he dwelt in. The cabman grinned R'i"
ribly. "This English pronunciation is sadly diffic,:rie
said the Frenchman to himself ; "he does not enders e,
me." And "he placed the card before the man's 00,
Cabby grinned more than ever, gazed in his fare's 10.
tonished face, and ended by sticking his hands in
pockets and roaring with laughter. Indignation er,io
part of the foreigner ; he appealed to the passers by, y
gravely listened to him at first, but, upon beholding 05‘
card, joined, one and all, in chorus with the coach?3;to'
The Frenchman now got furious, swore, stamped, get' 0
hated, like a candidate for bedlam. He went so far
threaten the laughers • a crowd assembled, ever" scei
sympathised with him till they learned the circurnstV,
of the case, when they forthwith joined in the infee'L e(
hilarity. Up came the police, those guardian ange'og'
bewildered foreigners in London's labyrinth. The .e
grieved Gaul felt sure of sympathy, succour, and receolie
He was never more mistaken. The gentlemen in ,„ it
roared like the rest. They evidently could not Ilecer
Compunction mingled with their mirth, but they re
theless guffawed exceedingly. To what extremities
,to
desperate Frenchman might have proceeded it is ,igilli46l
sible to say, had not a gentleman acquainted
language appeared upon the scene. He, too, 1074evi
violently on beholding the card, and when he had srg
a few words to the Frenchman, the Frenchman 1,
likewise, which was a signal for a recommencementti#
general hilarity. The address so carefully copied
foreigner at the corner of his street, was the follow', •
"Commit no nuisance."—Blackwood's Mapa;ine.