1830.] on Affairs in General. 101 



derer. The old apology of the cantons is superfluity of population, and 

 the desire to provide for their people. But no ground can be valid fo* 

 sending out yearly multitudes to commit slaughter for money, on men 

 against whom they can have no possible cause of quarrel. In the various 

 foreign services the Swiss are generally employed in guarding fortresses, 

 or the persons of the government, but they are liable to be ordered into 

 the field, and actually do take the field on the order of the government 

 which pays them ; one only stipulation being made, that they are not to 

 be opposed to their own countrym'en in the various services. A stipula- 

 tion, however, which has been often broken in the exigencies of the field, 

 and sometimes voluntarily by the Swiss themselves, who have opposed 

 each other, regiment by regiment, and perished by mutual slaughter. It 

 is remarkable that the Swiss have been the only nation who have habitually 

 hired out their troops ; the German principalities, in the few instances 

 in which they attempted it, having been in general shamed out of so 

 atrocious a practice by the outcry of Europe. But the Swiss still perse- 

 vere, and with all their pretended virtues, are the only mercenary 

 butchers of Europe. 



" Mr. Wood and Miss Paton are announced to perform together at 

 the Dublin Theatre. It was hinted, we understand, to the gentleman, 

 that in the modest capital of the Sister Kingdom it would be necessary 

 to be very circumspect, as if the Irish moralists find that in their case 

 plurality of lodgings may be dispensed with, not even hisses will suffice 

 for the expression of their virtuous indignation ; crim. con. being con- 

 sidered, as Mr. C. Phillips expresses it, ' an imported vice.' " 



We see no possible reason why the virtuous pair should not be met 

 by the strongest national scorn. Knowing nothing, and condescending 

 to know nothing of such people but through the public prints, we 

 hold it to be a stigma upon public decency that their " imported vice" 

 should be tolerated in their instance, unquestionably one of the most 

 daring and rankest that has ever come before the public. 



As to the affectation that the public have nothing to do with the con- 

 duct of actors and actresses, the whole affair is nonsense. How can the 

 public help knowing their licentiousness? And how can they help 

 forming an opinion upon it ? They see before them a wretched creature 

 whom every newspaper in the country declares to have committed, 

 within the last twenty-four hours, some vileness that would drive any 

 other woman out of all society to the last day she had to live. They 

 see this miserable culprit brazening out the public scorn, exulting in 

 her crime, and defying the natural disgust and abhorrence which every 

 one must feel at voluntary profligacy. And how is it possible that an 

 opinion must not be formed by the audience within a threatre, as well 

 as by the same individuals under every other roof? 



We are called on largely to pay public respect to an actress of cha- 

 racter, and public respect is unquestionably at all times paid to cha- 

 racter on the stage. But if we are to exercise judgment in the one in- 

 stance, we have an equal right in the other. And what has been the re- 

 sult ? While Siddons remained upon the stage, it was the public custom 

 to exact propriety of manners from the players, and the natural con- 

 sequence followed ; they were singularly well conducted, the few in- 

 stances in which ill conduct evinced itself, were instantly marked by the 

 public, and the degraded actress served as a warning to her profession 

 by her loss of patronage. But of late years a new system has been 



