The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-08-31 00:00:00

MRS. NORTON AND THE BRITISH & FOREIGN

REVIEW.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN REVIEW.

Sir,—l have just read, with some astonishment, a very
long, very coarse, and very violent attack upon me in the
British and Foreign Quarterly, apropos of the discussions of
the infants' custody bill, the introduction of my name being
prefaced by the following flourish .—" Now that we have
here followed the plan of those base inuendo•making das-
tards who dare snake insinuations against persons which they
dare not afterwards substantiate, but had every reason to
believe they were false at the time they made them, we are
certain that the readers of the British and Foreign Review
will not for an instant suppose. We abhor all such con-
duct." How far such conduct may be abhorred I know not,
but this is precisely what has been done in the article re-
ferred to.
In asserting in your title-page. that I am the authoress of a
Statement of the thongs of Women, you have printed and
published a direct falsehood. Your." wish" may have been
" father to the thought" that I was the author, but I am not.
I did not write it; I have never even read it; nor knew of
its existence till I saw it named in your review.
In asserting that I have, as a "renowned agitatrice," cir-
culated a work on sexual equality," you have printed and
published another falsehood. Nothing I have ever written,
nothing I have ever said, will bear out the assertion that such
are my sentiments; on the contray, in my novel of The Wife
you will find precisely the contrary argument, with your
favourite Milton quoted in support of it. I believe the beauty
and devotion of a woman's character mainly to depend on
the consciousness of her inferiority to man, and that the
greatest suffering a right-minded and pure-hearted woman
can feel is the being unable to respect and look up to her
husband. Had you read the pamphlet on the mother's
claim. from which so many twisted and misquoted fragments
are taken, you would have found in it no violence, although
so much violence has been lavished upon me, nothing that
militated against the religious duty a woman owes her hus-
band, or the inferiority of the position she is intended to
occupy; not a line that the purest woman that ever writhed
under unmerited slander need have been ashamed of writing.
In asserting that that pamphlet was written with the as-
sistance and advice of Serjeant Talfourd--that his measure
was framed and brought forward in consequence of our be-
ing " intimate friends," &c.; you have printed and publish-
ed another falsehood. However proud I might have felt had
Serjeant Talfourd considered me of sufficient ability to be
his coadjutor in any literary task, your assertion that he or-
so is false, for this simple reason, that I was not then so for-
' tunate as to have made his acquaintance. It may suit the,
opponents of this measure to ride it out on the strength of the
prejudice they can create against me, and to throw other
cases into the shade; but the notes for my pamphlet were
made before I knew that I should ever have a direct and per-
sonal interest in the subject; they were made on the case
Mrs. Greenhill, whose story and whose petition are so care-
fully slurred over by the writer of the article in your Review;
and- after the introduction of Serjeant Talfourd's bill, an
abridgement, alluding to that measure, was circulated, com-
posed principally of selections from the original pamphlet, (as
the article in your Review was composed from selections
from a pamphlet against the bill, privately distributed
amongst the lords.) That a person in my position, parted
from her children (the eldest not seven years of age) should
take an interest, a deep interest, in the " infants' custody
-bill," was natural, was inevitable; that Serjeant Talfourd,
with his acknowledged intellect and noble character, should
bring forward an important public measure, disbelieving in
its justice and utility, merely to gratify the caprice of a com-
plaining wuman, is an idea too ridiculous to have entered the
mind of any but the Orlando Furioso who wrote the attack in
your Review.
In asserting or insinuating that the delay in the progress
of the bill arose from " the Norton negotiations taking a
more favourable turn," you have printed and published
another absurd falsehood; the delay was, as I believe, to im-
prove the details of the bill; and for my own part, did it
please God to restore my children to-morrow, I should still
feel the deepest anxiety for the success of that measure. My
interest in it did not begin with my own misfortunes, and
will not end with them. I should still think it a gross injus-
tice that a mothe.r may be prevented from nursing, or even
from gaining intelligence of her sick and dying child, by the
caprice of an angry husband; I should still think it a gross
injustice that a man may forsake his legitimate wife for a
mistress, and give her innocent legitimate child into the case
of that mistress (as in the case of Skinner v. Skinner,) and
the English law have no remedy for such a wrong.
For any answer to the arguments on the ostensible and no-
minal subject of the article in your Review, (namely, the
bill itself,) this is not the place. For anything I know the
House of Lords may decide next session that Serjeant Tal-
fourd and the great majority of the House of Commons who
supported him are fools, and know not what they are doing;
that so likewise are such of the lords who supported Lord
Lyndhurst, as well as Lord Lyndhurst himself (though he
has been twice Lord Chancellor of England, and .has iswed
that position not to the adventitious aid of circumstances,
but simply to the superiority of his own natural talents;) and
that the only true wise or great man is the writer of the
attack in the. British and Foreign Review. But I feel called
upon for a contradiction of the four or five distinct false-
hoods which have becn published respecting myself, as si-
lence might seem to admit that what you have stated is no
more than the truth. I declare all those assertions to be
false, and consequently the vehement abuse and contemptu-
ous arguments founded on those falsehoods, are so many mis-
representations. 1 contradict them thus openly, because I
perceive a cunning and plausible attempt, as I have already
said, to create • prejudice against the bill by mixing up my
affair with its discussion. .
You have said that 1 "courted publicity." It is attacks of
the nature you have made on me which force that publicity.
It would, no doubt, suit the author of that article, and other
known or unknown foes, that I should always preserve si-
lence, let what will be said of me. " Do not court publicity!"
that is, "let the publicity. be all on one side ; let us assert
a hat we choose; let us invent what we can; let us pour out
what venom and scurrility we please on your name; and do
not you venture to deny the falsehood, or reply to the attack ;
it is not fit the tru:h should be known, and if we can bully
you into silence, we will " It is one of the many falsehoods
in that long abusive article, that I have courted publicity, or
sought any sympathy but that of my family and friends, and
the proof is, that to this hour no explanation of the. very
strange events which have cursed my name with painful no-
toriety, has been given to the world. ldid not " court" the
gross and public slander by which four or five unworthy
plotters hoped to obtain a temporary political triumph. I did
not " court the advertisement which went day by day forth
in the public papers; nor the abuse and ribaldry which, by
means of law reports and comments upon law reports, has
clung to my name wherever English newspapervare Sent. I
did not "court" the vehement and tedious article In your
Review, the abuse of its writer, or the assertions which it
contains; but since these things have fallen upon me; since
publicity is to attach to me and my affairs;, since I cannot
evade or esceape from it ; since every editor of a paper or a
review thinks he has a right to publish what he pleases in
connexion with my name, I will at least so far court publicity
on the other hand, as to deny assertions which, were they
true, would disgrace rue. When that pompous article was
written, and the utter inferiority of women commented on,
, it might have struck the writer that in proportion to the infe-
riority and helplessness of their position towards men,
, should be the generosity and forbearance exercised towards
them by men; it might have. struck him, while he sneered at
the sufferings of a mother parted from her child, and made
assertions he could not prove, that it was suffering enough to
be so parted, and to have youth blighted, and "life's life lied
away," without his adding comments whose virulence and
, injustice would better have become, a low newspaper squib
than the discussion of a Parliamentary question in the pages
of a work professing. nobler ends, and bearing the motto—
"ln priinisque hominis est propria veri inquisitio atque
investigatio."

I am, Sir, your obedient servant.
CAROLINE NORTON.

Fines IN LONDON IN 1838.—More conflagrations have
occurred in the metropolis and its precincts this year than in
any other on record. The following is taken from the re-
ports in the possession of the London fire establishment- In
the year 1836, 651 fires took place; in 1837, 716; and in the
present year—January, 84; February, 65; March, 65;
April, 52; May, 57; June, 60; Juiy, 48; and in August,
37 : amount in the whole, 468. In February and March
nine persons fell victims to the flames.
THE DEVIL THE MAKER OF BLAcK MEN.—We sat at our
evening meal in the bed of the small river; and a strange dis-
cussion took place between old Choubib, Henrick Buys, &c.,
about the difference of colour in the human race, the differ-
ence of language, the creation of man, &c. Of the last some
of the Namaquas entertain this notion, that the Deity having
created white men, the devil became envious, seeing what a
wonderful and handsome creature had been formed; and he
also tried his hand at making a man; but he could not make
him otherwise thanblack like himself ; so, in a rage, he struck
his man a blow on the face, which flattened his nose : and
hence the negro colour and feature.—Alexander's Expedi-
tion into Africa.
- ANSTRIITHER.—ENORSIOUS TAKE OF HERRINGS.—A per-
feet spate of herrings has recently rushed towards our shores,
and the 'take lately has been almost unprecedentedly abun-
dant. Near " The Auld Haiks" the water seems absolutely
alive with fish--swarming and spluttering, crowd above crowd
shoal upon shoal, till the course of vessels seems impeded by
their abundance. Our fishermen are accordingly making a
glorious harvest. Under such unusual and unlooked-for pro-
ductiveness the resources of the fish-curer begin to fail. The
pits of a tan work have been cleaned out, and tons of her-
rings deposited—not certainly with a view of converting
their-hides into leather, but what they may be kept in a tem-
porary pickle of salt and water, till they can be otherwise
disposed of. Meanwhile the fishing in the. north seem to
have been superabundantly prolific.---Fifeshire Journal.
SINGULAR ACCIDENT ON THE LONDON AND BIRNIINGHAm
RAIT, NV A v.—On Thursday evening an accident of a peculiar
nature occurred on the London-and Birmingham Railway,
'about one mile on this side of Denbigh-hall. Previous to
the starting of the Birmingham mail train from -the station
in_ Euston-grove, it was discovered-that three soldiers were
in the Estafette Birmingham coach; which is- conveyed by
the railway train, they having paid their fares by that- con-:
vcyauce. By the order of the railway superintendent they
were removed from their position to one of the second class
open carriages, when it was ascertained that they were rather
I intoxicated, having been paid off from their regiment that
day. The train started, and on its arrival within about a
mile of Denbigh Hall, one of the men, named James-Tier-
nan, having observed what he imagined was a public-house,
declared with an oath that he would not go a step further
without something to drink, at the same time (whilst the
train was at full speed) making a spring from the carriage
into the road. It being nearly dark he was not missed at the
the time, but on the arrival' of the train at Denbigh Hall,
his companions made known the circumstance, on which
some of the officers of the company• was dispatched to the
spot, where they discovered the man lying on his back, and
on examination, found that the whole of his toes, boots and
all had been cut off by the train. Notwithstanding this, the
unfortunate man on being roused got up, and persisted in
walking with them to Denbigh Hall, which feat he accom-
plished
pain arrival,inhis
ahavingmo hadrnconveyedi his
morning's
s
feet and legs, and it was not until medical aid was called in
that he became full sensible of what had befallen him. He
w
stßrtaihrevnar there
Birmingham
hhaaatm night, stable,
by
anndd
Saturdaywa s
tfrlows pvseolaei st
his destination
without
ese se a
tt ild,i,it
a on hriaei
sttomh onva:
ne slightest
remained
naa ceti eti he
complained apparent
train.—London Standard.
FOURTH OF JULY HEeoics.—lt is not a little amusing to
a person of any justness of taste, to read the hyperbolical
patriotism with which the 4th of July is annually greeted in
some of the newspapers. There is no language too extrava-
gant to express the exultation of some of these writers, at the
advent of this great day. Many of the rhapsodies are per-
fectly unintelligible, being made up of all the flowers of i he-
tonic and all the figures of speech of which the language is
capable. One of these delighted editors in Elizabeth Town,
Illinois, indulges his enthusiasm in the following eloquent
strain •—" Flushed with joy at the invincibility of their an-
- e,storst armies, the itomatipeople ofYered sacrifices to their
deities, and as the incense curled on sublimely through the
silvery bowels of the firmanent, there seemed to gush out
streams of affection, which each one deemed the perennial
safe-guard of their liberties." The editor of the Louixtille
Journal, a wight of most excellent humour, but withal, at times,
right caustic, having read the above effusion, annotates upon-
it and its author, in the words following, to wit:—" The chap
that writes these things is very much in the habit of calling
his neighbours `asses;' but we do think, that of all the
asses that ever brayed, or munch thistles, he himself is the
greatest. We are credibly informed that after his berth, not
another ass was foaled in any part of the world for ten years
the whole asinine material-of the universe was used up in his
composition. Nature exhausted herself in that one effort.
If he were to be cut up into ten thousand pieces, each piece
would start up a separate and good sized jackass. Baltimore
Chronicle. 1).
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