COBBETT.

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 323, 23 November 1860, Page 3

COBBETT.

Advice to Young Men and incidentally to Young Women in the. Middle and Higher Banks of Life. By William Cobbett. Tllfi.works of Cobbett are literally the history of his life and feelings. This perhaps constitutes their value. He bore about with,him an ideal of pur national character, and every opinion, sensation, and expression was prompted by that Idola. Sana mens in corpore sano were gifts which formed the secret of his power. He was an early riser, a hard worker both with his body and his mind, ate with an appetite, drank strictly within the limit of hygiene without the least asceticism, went to \ bed early, he was an ardent lover, a devoted almost uxorious husband, a kind father. By instinct he observed the rulesof health. Asound and natural moral and mental economy preserved him from inordinate desires and sophisticated appetites, He was one of those really wise men who discovered the true conditions of human happiness, and had the resolution and virtue to live by them, vivere convenicnter naturae. If we. add that all his speculation radiated a good deal round himself, that his sympathies were much less cosmopolitan than national, and that the domestic group of feelings swayed his being much more than thejhigher sentiments, that he was a man and an Enolishman rather than a human soul and a spiritual intelligence, we shall have cleared the way for an apprehension of the subject of our study.

Here is a small book, and in our apprehension also a very great one, enough for one man's immortality. That 'Advice to Young Men and Incidentally to Young Women' is a domestic Gospel, pandects ol the fireside, the very manual of common life. It.is a thesis which in a classic age would have easily won the diploma of the Eighth sage of Greece. Beginning with the Youth, he tells him he has no right to live unless he clears the debt by work, that he ought to leave Government officss to the feeble and low-minded, and that he who lives on anything but his own labor must fall back upon servility. Here is a word abou t DRESS. Extravagance in dress, in the haunting of playhouses, in horses, in everything else, is to be avoided, and in youths and young men extravagance in dress particularly. This sort of extravagance, this waste of money on the decoration of the body, arises solely from vanity, and from vanity of the most contemptible sort. It arises from the notion that all the people in the street, for instance, will be looking at you as soon as you walk out; and that they will, in a greater or less degree, think the better of you on account of your fine dress. Never was notion more false. All the sensible people that happen to see you will think nothing at all about you; those who are filled with the same vain notion as you are will perceive your attempt to impose on them, and will despise you accordingly: rich people will wholly disregard you, and you will be envied and hated by those who have the same vanity that you have without the means of gratifying it. Dress should be suited to your rank and station. A surgeon or physician should not dress like a carpenter ; but there is no reason why a tradesman, a merchant's clerk, or clerk of any kind, or why a shopkeeper or manufacturer, or even a merchant—no reason at all why any of these should dress in an expensive manner. It is a great mistake to suppose that they j derive any advantage from exterior decoration. Men are estimated by other men according to their capacity and willingness to be in some way or other useful; and though with the foolish and vain part of women fine clothes frequently do something, yet the greater part of the sex are much too penetrating to draw their conclusions solely from the outside show of a man. They look deeper and find other criterions whereby to judge. And, after all, if the fine clothes obtain yon a wife, will they bring you, in that wife, frugality, good sense, and that sort of attachment that is likely to be lasting'? Natural beauty of person is quite another thing: this always has, it always will and must have, some weight, even with men, and great weigh*, with women. But this does not want to be set off by expensive clothes. Female eyes are, in such cases, very sharp ; they can discover beauty though half hidden by beard and even by dirt, and surrounded by rags: and take this as a secret worth half a fortune to you, that women, however personally vain they may be themselves, despise personal vanity in men. We pass over the excellent observations on the tendency of all to live like gentlemen, to sneak out of work and duty, to aspire to privileges beyond their station, and to seem more than they are, and to let him speak on GLUTTONY AND DRUNKENNESS. Such indulgences are, in the first place, very expensive. The materials are costly, and the preparations still more so. What a monstrous thing that in order to satisfy the appetite of a man there must be a person or two at work every day! More fuel, culinary implements, kitchen-room; what! all this merely to tickle the palate of four or five people, and especially people who can hardly pay their way! And the then loss of time; tbe time spent in pleasing the palate. It is truly horrible to behold people who ought to be at work, sitting at the three meals not less than three of the about fourteen hours that they are out of their beds! ■ A youth habituated to this sort of indulgence cannot be valuable to any employer. Such a youth cannot be deprived of his table enjoyments on any account; his eating and drinking form the momentous concern of his life; if business interfere with that, business must give way.

A young man, some years ago, offered himself to me, on a particular occasion, as an amanuensis, for which he appeared to be perfectly qualified. The terms were settled, and I, who wanted the job despatched, requested him to sit down and begin ; but he, looking out of the window, whence he could see the church clock, said, somewhat hastily,

'I cannot stop now, Sir; I must go to dinner.' * Oh!' said I,' you must go to dinner, must you! Let the dinner which you must wait upon to day have your constant services, then; for' you and I shall never agree.'

He had told me that he was in great distress for want of employment; and yet, when relief was there before his eyes, he could forego it for the sakeofgetting at his eating anddrinkingthreeor four hours, perhaps, sooner than I should have thought it right for him to leave off work. Such a person cannot be sent from home, except at certain times, he must be near the kitchen at three fixed hours of the day; if he be absent more than four or fivehours he is ill treated. In short, a youth thus pampered ia worth nothing as a person to be employed in business*

And as to friends and acquaintance!?, they will say nothing to you; they will offer you indulgences under their roofs; but the more ready yon are to accept of their offers, and, in fact, the better taste you discover, the less they will like you, and the sooner they will find means of shaking you off; for besides the cost which you occasion them, people do like to have critics sitting in judgment on their bottles and dishes.

Water-drinkers are universally laughed at; but it has always seemed to me that they are amongst the most welcome of guests, and that too, though

the host be by no means of a niggardly turn. The truth is, they give no trouble; they occasion no anxiety to please them ; they are sure not to make their sitting inconveniently long : ; and, which is. the great tiling of all, their example teaches'moderation to the rest of the company/ Your notorious ' lovers of good cheer' are on the contrary, not to be invited without duo reflection; to entertain one of them is a serious business; and as people are not apt voluntarily to undertake such pieces of business, the well-known lovers of good eating and drinking an left very generally to enjoy it by themselves, and at their own expense. But all other considerations aside, health—the most valuable of earthly possessions, and without which all the rest are worth nothing—bids us not only to refrain from excess in eating and drinking, but bids us to stop short of what might be indulged in without any apparent impropriety. The words of Ecciesiastes ought to be read! once a week by every young person in the world, and particularly by the young people of this country at this time : —"Eat modestly that which is set before thee, and devour not, lest thou be hated. When thou sittest amongst many, reach not thine hand out first of all. How little is sufficient for man well taught! A wholesome sleep cometh of a temperate belly. Such a man riseth up in the morning, and is well at ease with himself; Be not too hasty of meats; for excess of meats' bringeth sickness, and choleric disease cometh of gluttony. By surfeit have many perished; and lie that dieteth himself prolotigeth his life. Show not thy valiantness in wine; for wine hath destroyed many. Wine measurably taken, and in season, bringeth gladness and cheerfulness of mind; hut drinking with excess maketh bitterness of mind, brawlings and scoldings." . How true are these words! How well worthy of a constant place in our memories! Yet what pains have been taken to apologise for a life contrary to these precepts! Aud, good God ! what punishment can be too great, what mark of infamy sufficiently signal, for those pernicious villains of talent who have employed that talent in the composition of bacchanalian songs—that is to say, pieces of fine, captivating writing in praise of one of the most odious and destructive vices in the black catalogue of human depravity.

We must leave out all notice of the * Young Man ' to come to the advice 'To a Lover.' We are puzzled, not to know what to quote, but what to leave out. To us it seems every letter ought to be written in gold. Of a youth madly in love it is observed :—

But the worst of it is that on this point we have the girls (and women too) against us! for they look upon it as right that every lover should be a little maddish, and every attempt to rescue him from the thraldom imposed by their charms they look upon as an overt act of treason against their natural sovereignty. No girl ever liked a young man less for his having done things foolish and wild and ridiculous, provided she was sure that love of her had been the cause. Let her but be satisfied upon this score, and there are very few things which she will not forgive. And, though wholly unconscious of the fact, she is a great and sound philosopher after all; for, from the nature of things the rearing of a family always has been, is, and must ever be, attended with cares and troubles, which must infallibly produce at times feelings to be combated and overcome by nothing short of that ardent affection which first brought the parties together. So that, talk as long as Parson Malchus likes about ' moral restraint;' and report as long as the committees of Parliament -please about preventing 'premature and improvident marriages' amongst the laboring classes, the passion that they would restrain, while it is necessary to the existence of mankind, is the greatest of all the compensations for the inevitable cares, troubles, hardships, and sorrows of life; and as to the marriages, if they could once be rendered universally provident, every generous sentiment would quickly be banished from the world,

Love for money-bags is thus estimated :—

The other description of lovers with whom it is is useless to reason are those who love according to the rules of arithmetic, or who measure their matrimonial expectations by the chain of the landsurveyor. These are not love and marriage; they are bargain and sale. Young men will naturally, and almost necessarily, fix their choice on young ' women in their own rank in life, because from habit and intercourse they will know them best. But if the length of the girl's purse, present or contingent, be a consideration with the* man, or the length of his purse, present or contingent, be a consideration with her, it is an affair of bargain and sale And here is a disadvantage which, as far as real enjoyment of life is concerned more than counterbalances all the advantages that they (the great) possess over the rest of the community You generally find even very vulgar rich men making a sacrifice of their natural and rational taste to their mean and ridiculous pride, and thereby pro vidingfor themselves an amplesupply of misery for life. By preferring provident marriages to marriages of love they think to secure themselves against all the evils of poverty; but if poverty come—and come it may, and frequently does, in spite of the best laid plans and best modes of conduct—if poverty come, then where is the counterbalance for that ardent mutual affection which troubles and losses and crosses always increase rather than diminish, and which, amidst all the calamities that can befal a man, whispers to his heart that his best possession isstillleft him unimpaired ? The Worcestershire Baronet who has had to endure the sneers of fools on account of his marriage with a beautiful and virtuous servantmaid, would, were the present ruinous measures of the Government to drive him from his mansion to a cottage, still have a source of happiness; while many of those who might fall, in company with him, would, in addition to all their other troubles, have perhaps to endure the reproaches of wives to whom poverty, or even humble life would be insupportable.

Was there ever a better sermon than this on CHASTITY. It is not enough that a young woman abstain from approaching towards indecorum in her behaviour towards men; it is, with me, not enough that she cast down her eyes, or turn aside her head with a smile, when she hears an indelicate allusion ; she ought to appear not to understand it, and to receive from it no more impression than if she were a post. A loose woman is a disagreeable acquaintance; what must she be, then, as a wife ? Love is so blind and vanity is so busy in persuading us that our own qualities will be sufficient to insurejfidelity that we are very apt to think nothing, or at any rate very little, of trifling symptoms of levity ; but if such symptoms shew themselves now, we may be well assured that we shall never possess the, power of effecting a cure. If prudery means false modesty it is to be despised, but if it mean modesty pushed to the utmost extent, I confess that 1 like it. Your "free and hearty" girls I have liked very well to talk and laugh with, but never for one moment did it enter into my mind that .1 could have endured a "free and hearty girl "for a wife. The last, and, indeed, the only effectual safeguard, is to begin well; to make a good choice; to let the beginning be such as to render infidelity and jealousy next to impossible. If you begin in grossness; if you couple yourself on to one with whom you have taken liberties, infidelity is the natural and just consequence. When a Peer of the realm, who had not been over fortunate in his matrimonial affairs, was urging Major Cartwright to seek for nothing more than "moderate reform,'* the Major, forgetting the domestic circumstance of his lordship, asked him how he should relish " moderate chastity " in a wife! The bare use of the two words, thus coupled together, is sufficient to excite disgust. Yet with this "moderate chastity " you must and ought to be, content, if you have entered into marriage with one in whom you have ever discovered'" the slightest approach towards lewdness, either in deeds, }words, or looks. To marry has been your own act; you have made the contract for your own gratification you know the character of the other

party; and the childrensf/any, or the community, are nofiflto. be the sufferers for your gross and corrupt passion. " Moderate chastity "is all that you have, in fact, contracted for; you have it, and you have no reason to complain. Here this on SOBRIETY. There, was never a drunken woman—a woman who loved strong drink—who was chaste if the opportunity of being the contrary presented itself to her Wine! " only a glass or two

of wine at dinner, or so!' As soon as I have married a girl whom I had thought liable to be persuaded to drink habitually " only a glass or two of wine at dinner or) so"—as soon as have married such a girl, I would have taken a strumpet from the streets. And it has not required age to give me this way of thinking; it has always been rooted in my mind from the moment that I began to think the girls prettier than posts. There are Yew things so disgusting as a guzzling woman ;.. a gormandising one is bad enough, but one who tips off he liquor with an appetite, and exclaims." Good; good!" by a smack of her lips, is fit for nothing but a brothel By the word sobriety in a young woman I mean a great deal more than even rigid abstinence from love of drink—l mean sobriety of conduct Skipping, capering, romping, rattling girls are very amusing where allj costs and other consequences are out of the question, and they may become sober; but, while you have no certainty of this, you have a presumptive argument on the other side.

INEQUALITIES OF PUNISHMENT. The peculiarity of verdicts by juries, and the singularities of judgments and punishments by judges and magistrates in Nelson, are sufficient grounds for reproducing the following article from the Sydney Herald. The last paragraph of the article would be applicable where good counsel is common, but when cases are lost through the lack of such, or through other causes which uh" happily exist in small communities, then surely it is the province of the Executive to mitigate severe sentences.

We have heard sentiments sometimes of wonder, sometimes of indignation, and always of regret, expressed on every side at the inequality of the sentences passed upon criminals in our courts of justice. That love of fair play which we commonly ascribe to Englishmen revolts from inequalities which seem to have no foundation but in the peculiar idiosyncrasies of the judge or the degree of popular interest excited by the case. It may be said that if a' sentence does not exceed the law, the criminal has no right to complain ; but it has always been considered that the law gives the maximum of punishment to be dealt out only to the more aggravated forms of offence. To punish with greater severity in one instance than another crimes of the same type, is as clearly an injustice as to pronounce a sentence beyond the limits of the law itself.

When, therefore, it is seen that men whose crimes appear to have no redeeming feature escape with lighter punishments than those who have had everything against them, confidence in the administration of justice is inevitably shaken. Not only does the condemned man abhor the administration of the law, but the criminally disposed are inclined to believe that their punishment will be moderated by caprice, and that although the law may be terrible in its denunciations, it will be held enchained by the placability of the Judge.

We could select from the late trials some illustrations of this inequality of punishment, especially in cases of violence. Perhaps in none other are men apt to form conclusions so essentially different. One judge declares that drunkenness, for example, is an aggravation of crime. He reasons profoundly, that were society to permit intoxication to excuse, those who contemplate the commission of crime would inflame themselves with strong drinkj and find in that very drunkenness which nerved their arm, a plea for lighter punishment. Yet every one knows, and the judges cannot escape the conviction, that men are brought under the influence of strong drink without any criminal purpose whatever—that by intoxication the reason has been for a time dethroned—self-control destroyed, and those crimes perpetrated from which the criminal would have recoiled in his sober hours. Thus it is quite impossible that the judge should look at crimes committed under the influence of intoxication as being similar in their origin. Even while he lays down the inevitable law that drunkenness is no excuse, he feels in the interior of his own mind that it is a plea for mercy where drunkenness was not a part of the criminal design, but the sudden prompter of a criminal passion.

A judge most undoubtedly should take into account a great many particulars in apportioning a righteous sentence. He has to look at the mind of the legislator—to ascertain the policy of the law—why, without reference to the moral turpitude of an offence, or chiefly regarding its influence on society, the penalty has been made more severe than the moral feeling of the world would demand. A judge cannot ignore the purpose of the law in its bearing on society to protect from a special danger, or to check aggressions peculiarly pernicious. He then has to consider whether these offences have been of frequent occurrence. The prevalence of a crime is undoubtedly a sound reason for the increasing severity of the punishment, although the fact seems rather to diminish than increase its turpitude. The more common an action, the more powerful the example under which it may be committed, and the less individual hardihood and wickedness seems to belong to the transgressor. But when a judge deals out punishment, he is obliged to abandon these distinctions, and to consider the very number of the guilty a reason for enforcing with more rigor the severity of the law. The judge, while protecting society, cannot overlook the former character and the probable future conduct of the criminal. If young—it misled by artful and wicked advisers— if manifesting moral susceptibility and repentance —if peculiarly sinned against in the neglect of those restraints and helps which are due to the dependence of childhood or the passion of youth— if any or all these considerations combine, —surely a judge, after having considered the policy of the law and the protection of society, may well turn his thoughts to the interests of the condemned before him! We are not iron men, we cannot deal with our feilowrcreatures as if they were stone. No laws can be inflexibly applied. Human affections cannot be disowned. Surrounding circumstances will create a temperature which must influence every mind, however philosophical— however inflexible. To murmur against this state of things is to complain of that constitution of our nature from which our highest social blessings flow.

We state these points that our readers may perceive we do not overlook considerations which must be present with a judge—that we do not presume to condemn a sentence merely because it differs from one already given. We fully admit the right of the Court to determine the actual punishment required. We must confide discretion somewhere, and in no aspect of the question can we leave it so surely as in the hands of the judge. But after making all these reservations we are bound to say, that the sentences of our courts of law justify surprises, if not complaint. It is irapo&sible to see the reasons for those differences in punishment, which are sometimes so striking as to awaken sentiments of disgust. These; ;differences can only be traced to a want of concert among the administrators of the law. The numerous courts that now try criminal questions are all liable to such variations. Unless the Judges, both of the Supreme and District Courts, come to some understanding, we shall sometimes find men condemned to the same punishment for crimes which both law _$d common sense declare to be of a very different dye. In one court, we shall have an assault punished by a nominal fine—^in another, visited with a long imprisonment. We shall see

manslaughter in one instance punished with a severity intended for crimes which have nearly all the moral characteristics of murder, and other instances of all but equal turpitude placed on a level with vagrancy.

The very policy of apportioning punishment not according to the nature of the indictment, but the character of the cri ninal and the pecularities of the evidence, puts it out of the power of the legislature to provide certain retribution for particular crimes. Devolving as it does an onerous and delicate duty upon the judges of our courts, it entitles them to the most respectful construction. But the flagrant inequality in sentences for similar crimes, must leave, even in the most confiding, an impression of wrong. By what means the courts could harmonise their sentences, we do not precisely see, except by joint deliberation. We are aware that the Executive possesses power to abridge a sentence, and this should always be exercised where facts unknown to the Judge can be proved. It is, however, not easy to imagine the mischief which results from a capricious interference with judicial sentences. It is an intermingling of functions which it is the business of the Constitution carefully to separate. We cannot conceive an Executive justified in disturbing the sentence of a Court unless previous sentences have clearly thrown upon it a suspicion of injustice, or unless new facts would justify the assumption that thesentence was pronounced in error.