THE APPEAL TO PHYSICAL FORCE.
THERE has been a great deal said against the late outrages of the mob,--and very properly ; for violence is an exceedingly bad argument, and convinces nobody. Men, however, whose heads are hot and empty, and whose hands are full and ready, are natu- rally prone to a rash application of force. No persons have ex- emplified this proposition more strikingly than some of the Peers themselves. Did not, a short time ap,the Marquis of Loivnoet- DERRY, in the extremity of his wrath and the poverty of his wit,. challenge the Lord Chancellor on the Woolsack, in the midst of a deliberative assembly, composed of men highest in station, i and professing to be first in wisdom ? Was this gross outrage- punished in any way ? was the brutal ordeal alluded to scoffed at, and the proposer of it expelled the House ? When, again, the mob had been guilty of some excesses, what was the first idea that darted across the bright genius of this hereditary legislator ? —that he would pistol the people! In his place in the House of Lords, he declared his intention of arming himself for that purpose. Was it pointed out to hint by any one, that he was about to pro- ceed under the seine blind and ignorant feelings that actuated the very mob be despised so much? Who was the leveller here? Another noble Lord, stung by some article in a newspaper, immediately recurred to those means of preventing the repetition of such papers which he deemed the readiest : he talked of putting the writer to death before he slept, or he himself would be the victim sacrificed on the barbarous altar of revenge. Here is a lord, God save the mark ! who has thousands and tens of thousands spent upon his education, upon furnishing his brain, polishing his intellect, and preparing him for the duties he was born to ; and yet has remained in so rude a state of mere animal feeling, that when a writer is to be opposed, he can hit upon no better scheme than would have occurred to a drayman in the street. He should- have stripped his jacket, thrown it at the feet of the Chancellor to hold, and squared his fists at the Ministerial benches, and the transaction would have been complete, and the noble Lord in his element: Lord WINCHILSEA shalt put down the Press with fistie (mite, and Lord LONDONDERRY shall extinguish popular excitement with a pocket-pistol. The charge against the mob of London, by this brave cavalry officer, pistol in hand, must have been as fine a sight as that of Mrs. Partington taking her mop to puddle out the Atlantic Ocean. In the new Tory Administration, his Lord- ship must be Master of the Ordnance ; and this famous pistol must be preserved in the Tower by the side of the trophies of the Spanish Armada.
The Lower House sets a similar bad example. One night this week, Colonel TRENCH took offence at something said by the peaceful Member for Middlesex ; who averred that a statement made by the Colonel, respecting Mr. HUME'S behaviour in the mob on Wednesday, was not true. What thereupon did the gal- lant Colonel ?—Say that he could prove the truth of what he had stated, and offer to call such evidence as would satisfy any impar- tial person ? No—he insinuated that he would fight Mr. HuatE on the occasion.
Is the conduct of the mob more brutal than this ? and do not rioters proceed on the very same principle ? One person can con- vince by arguments, when thousands can cock pistols, throw stones, and give bloody noses. The mob declares the House of Lords to be in the wrong, and absurdly lays hands on some of the most vio- lent of its opponents. Lord LONDONDERRY is aggrieved by the observations of the Chancellor, and says to the head of the Law and the Magistracy—" Come out and fight; and if, by a bullet through some part of those intellectual integuments which shroud your wisdom, I do not prove you wrong as plain as holes can speak, then have I no mob-logic." Can wrong Duke of NEWCASTLE be astonished if the rioters of Nottingham are no wiser than Peers andellerabers of Parliament, and use the self-same argument?
True courage is a noble quality, but it does not consist in strut- ting through a crowd of pickpockets and dirty boys, like a turkey- cock ; nor in presenting a pistol in the face of a hissing and hooting mob ; nor in threatening to assassinate a writer in a news- paper; nor in challenging a man of business and inoffensive habits, to decide a question of fact by single combat. Neither, on the other hand, does it lie in stoning Lord LONDONDERRY, or in unstoning Nottingham Castle : but while the violence of a peo- ple threatened with ruin and starvation is met by universal exe- cration, let not the violent and outrageous acts of their superiors be pardoned and forgotten.
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