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 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 156.: FRENCH NEWS [55] EXAMINER, 8 APR., 1832, P. 232 - The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II

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Subject Area: Political Theory
Collection: The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill

156.: FRENCH NEWS [55] EXAMINER, 8 APR., 1832, P. 232 - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II [1831]

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The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II, ed. Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson, Introduction by Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986).

Part of: Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, in 33 vols.

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Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


156.

FRENCH NEWS [55]

EXAMINER, 8 APR., 1832, P. 232

For the entry in Mill’s bibliography, see No. 116. The item, headed “London, April 8, 1832,” is listed as “Article on France” and enclosed in square brackets in the Somerville College set of the Examiner.

the total number of persons who have been attacked by the cholera in Paris, from the commencement of the disease (that is, within one week) is 1,052. Of these, 395 have died. When considered with relation to the amount of population in the two cities, the disease has been in the proportion of three to one more destructive in Paris than in London. This greatly exceeds any proportion which we should have anticipated from the comparative unhealthiness, and greater average rate of mortality, in ordinary times, in Paris than in London.

The epidemic has also appeared in several parts of France simultaneously, and all quarantine restrictions have consequently been withdrawn.

There has been a riot at Paris (which seems to have been grossly exaggerated by some of the English papers),1 excited chiefly by the chiffonniers, or rag-pickers. This is an unfortunate class of men, more numerous than the nature of their occupation might have led us to expect, who gain their living by going with lanterns at night and picking up such rags as are to be found in the sweepings which are thrown out of the houses in the evening and carried away by the scavengers before morning. A new system which has been adopted, it seems, for cleaning the streets, threatened to deprive all or some of these poor creatures of their miserable livelihood; and this, together with some absurd misconceptions by the populace of Paris concerning the cholera and the sanitary measures of the civic authorities, gave rise to the disturbances.

The Bill for the amendment of the Corn Laws has passed the Chamber of Deputies, having first been mulcted of all its valuable provisions, except that which puts an end to absolute prohibition.2 Importation will in no case hereafter be prohibited, but only subjected to duties tantamount to a prohibition. This proves that on the great questions of commercial legislation, the Périer ministry, though not coming up to several of the leading members of the Opposition, is far ahead of the great bulk of either party. It is most unfortunate that the secret voting, so mischievously established by the regulations of the Chamber,3 prevents the disclosure of the names of the Deputies composing the majority and minority. Were these published, France would see who among the clamorous advocates of democratic principles are the real friends of the people, and who are merely disappointed aspirants for place.

The bill for the re-establishment of divorce, which had passed the Chamber of Deputies almost unanimously, has been thrown out, by a large majority, in the Chamber of Peers.4 Every day now widens the breach between the two Chambers. Nothing else was to be expected without an entire recomposition, as the French would say, of the personnel of the Second Chamber.

[1 ]For example, Mill’s bête noire, The Times, 5 Apr., 1832, p. 2, reported that three groups promoted the riots: the financial speculators, the republicans, and the Carlists, the last group being accused of putting arsenic in the wine butts to convince the lowest classes that the government wanted to poison them.

[2 ]The Bill (see No. 125, n2), as amended, was approved by the Deputies on 31 Mar. (Moniteur, 1832, pp. 942-6).

[3 ]By Art. 32 of Règlement pour la chambre des députés (25 June, 1814), ibid., 1814, p. 711.

[4 ]The Bill (see No. 133, n10), having passed the Deputies, was recommended against by the Commission of the Peers (ibid., 14 Mar., 1832, Supplement, pp. i-vi), and it was defeated on 31 Mar. (ibid., pp. 897-900).