The Statesman.
London, England, 1822-07-29 00:00:00

'ATESMAN

sad, Me* if possible, melee Sighs/me* as Sletste
able monsters as the Tacks owl Italians are.
In the first place, we by ao means plead guile/ to
the charge of the Chronicle, of having made • vice
lent assault upon the press. That which is just can
eat be virulent. Virulence mass pelswommesse. NW'
ally "4WD( ; and. applied in this way, it means ea-
just severity ; and we are not aware, that oar censer,
on the daily press has been or could have been hi this
ease ovjosßy severe. Had the Chi...Sete dose its duty,
in the first inetance. not a word of assure wooed it
have received from us. It was its duty to lead we
and vas It imagine that it is to be guilty of such gross
neglect of duty ; such aspertionable partiality. with-
out being told of it; and witheatbeing to'd of it. too,
in a way that tends to its owe degradation?
The Chronicle, however, is consisteot, here : for it
seems to have cooked up on the pruseat occasion a
dectrias of general impunity; or, at least, a doctrine
that would prevent every crime from Wag exposed ;
and, of course, the very serious crime of conducting a
partial and corrupt press. As to this doctrine, we are.
however, completely at issue with the Chronicle. The
Chronicle, la order to cover itself, says that it has
been found fault with for sot hoeing in the first im-
amate emblazoned in Its most disgusting colours the
late horrible occurrence ; and it afterwards talks about
the duty of journalists to keep gross objects frost the
public view. Now, in the first place, here is a false
issionatio• against the STATESMAN and the Register.
Six articles on the subject have appeared in the,
STATISMAN ; sixty-four column. OS the subject are
contained im the last Register r and we defy the
Chronicle, aided sad assisted by the whole baud of
Edinburgh Reviewers, to point out one single passage
or phrase in the whole of that masa of writing, of-
fensive in the smallest degree, to the eye or mind of
the most delicate person.
But, it is the general doctrine of tiseCkroaiele that we
moat dislike. It says, that there is reason to believe
that the knowledge of the existence of such practices
is ierived from judicial imvestigation ; and " it list
" been the opiuioa of many excelled persons, issuers
"as well as moralists, that the interests of purity and
" virtue would be better consulted by abstaining alto-
"getker from prosecution then to cause publicity by
" the means of punishment." This is perfectly mon-
strous all through.
The CAromick does not tall us who those lawyers
and moralists are; who those " eseeffeat persons"
are, who think that prosecution, ie such CUM ought
not to take place. As to lawyers. we bare not found
them in general thebest judges as to aserals,and should
be very sorry, indeed, loose the morals of our country
committed to their care ; bat if cos may (ghee the opi-
Dim of lawyers from the laws themselves, and from
the decisions of Courts of Justice, which we think of
great deal better authority tbao the bare assertion of
the Chronicle, we must conclude that lawyers are for
legal puoisbutent of the crime. With regent to nerd-
ists, we know few persons, the soundness of whose
judgment we should sooner suspect thee your professed
moralists. Dr. JOIINSON was called the great moral-
ist of the age, and as such his statue at public szpence
was plocedia St. Paul's. His books, as far es 'boy Mato
to morals are a tissue of Tales, maxims sad obsern-
tioms tending to the dispiriting and degrading of man-
kind; to the souring of men's tempers; to the pro-
dotting of melancholy; to the checking of all exer-
doss ; to the damping of all hope; is short, to the
making cf the whole of a man's life one coatlnead
curse; sad yet the Doctor was not what sue would
call a wicked man, and appears really to have thought
that he was giving lessons of virtue.
So that as to moralists. is the first place we must
know who they are; and is the next place, be these
moralists of the Chronicle who they may. we mu-A
take leave to say that they most be very stupid men,
sad very impudent, also. to set up their opinions, not
only against the opinions of mankind in general, bat
against that, which has been the basis of all criminal
law in all countries sod ages, namely, that crime is to
be prevented by the publicity and exposure which
necessarily attend public punishment According to
the doctrine of the Cliromirte, every species of vice
must pass with impunity ; because, to punish is to
make its existence known ; is to
about; and, according to this new doctrine. by that
very means to promote the vice. to i the
practice of it and to render it national. Much better:
then, for the husband to be a contested cuckold .
much better for the wife to say sot a word about the
husband's infidelity. Why what a monstrous thing is
this ! How long does the Chronicle think it will be.
if the dread of exposure was completely removed ;
how long does be think it would be before a state
of promiscuous intercourse would exist very seedy
approaching to that of locks and droves? Ando.' tot's@
particular and abominable vice itself, the Chronicle
told us but the other day. that the hellish Turks bad
seised immense Bombers of the Grecian boys fur that
atrocious purpose, which we need not describe, and
which was SO common among the Turks. This is
sweetly consistent in the Chronicle, to be sere! It is
so very delicate, that it cannot, even when called upon
in a voice of Thaider by public justice in England,
say a word about a Bishop of the Church of England,
though the act bed taken place in London itself ; it is
so very delicate that it cannot consealeate the Wel-
ligene• of this deed to the English people, lest it
should communicate the knowledge of the existence of
such practices; yet it can, day after day, describe
these practices as varied on by the Turks, and that, too,
in allusions much more broad and terms much more
gross, than we have made use of in the whole coarse of
our writing upon the subject. This is very consistent no
the part of the Chronicle. Many days before the
Bishop's affair took place, the Chronicle was emitter:-
jag the conduct of the Turks. The public might
Mare said, indeed, and not without reason, why is this
hateful vice pourtrayed so plainly. and exhibited to
the eyes of the English people. who have very little to do
with the Turks, thank Hod ; but at any rate, when this
hatefiil vice came to be practised by a Bishop in Lon-
don ; when there was the circumstance of the hail ;
when the character of courts and of the admiuistra ion
of public jubilee came so be implicated and mixed up
with the atisir ; whoa this bail was what it was in
comparison with the hail demanded of poor JUSEPII
SICANAI, who had CO endure throe months of imprisan-
meat, as a foretaste of the four years and a half of im-
prisonment which were to follow on conviction : whoa
that labouring man had to enders three months impacts-
seat for want optsi4 making his whole imprisooment