IRRELEVANT IMPUTATIONS.
HISTORY records no Minister who cultivated with such success the art of making himself disliked as Sir James Graham : his talent in this line rises almost to genius. Few public men have attained his curiosa felicitas in making a measure in itself un- popular more unpopular by his defence, and vesting in his own person a monopoly of the odium. But the uncalled-for and ir- relevant imputation against Mr. Mazzini which he threw out in the debate on Mr. Sheil's motion, has irretrievably distanced all competitors. The story which he pressed into his service was in itself suffi- ciently incredible. It reads like a plagiarism from a class of ro- mances long consigned to the trunkmakers—tales of the mys- terious crimes of the Vehm-Gericht, the Illuminati, and other terrible secret associations. But even according to Sir James's own version of the romance, it was unsupported by a shadow of evidence. The warrant for assassination attributed to Mazzini was said to be printed from a copy: no one ever told who made the copy, or transmitted it to the Moniteur. The issuing of such a warrant would have been a gross breach of the laws of France : the law-officers of the French Government never took any steps against Mr. Mazzini: the contempt with which they treated this gross and palpable fiction would have justified his leaving it un- contradieted,—supposing Sir James Graham had been correct in his assumption that Mr. Mazzini had taken no steps to vindicate himself.
John Bull likes fair play ; and though the John Bulls who frequent one-sided public meetings (the only kind now held) are often carried away at the moment by irrelevant insinuations, when cool reflection comes with the morrow they uniformly con- demn him who has had recourse to them. The case of Sir James Graham will be no exception to this rule : yet is the charge which he insinuated against Mr. Mazzini so horrible—the evidence upon which it rested so rotten and worthless—the accusation itself so incapable of strengthening his defence—that the out- rageous wantonness of his deviation from the rules of fair con- troversy almost makes it useless as an example to be avoided. Men may be warned by having their attention drawn to minor offences, which they admit they may commit; but they revolt from the insinuation that seems to be couched under an advice to take warning from some gross offence. Reckless scatterers of
iverylpp imputations are more likely to become reconciled to ,,,.pipvoffences, than cautioned against repeating them, when yeare compared with the ungenerous attack of the Home Se- cretary on Mr. Mazzini. Sir James Graham's offence against the laws of fair controversy cannot even be used to " point a moral." It is useless except in so far as, by, affording a glance into the constitution of his mind, it throws light on the secret of his universal unpopularity.
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