Public nuisance

“ In that city, where all the nobler organs of expression are closed by political conditions, the viler channels run continual filth and poison, and the people, shut out from public and free discussion of religious and political themes, occupy themselves with private slander, and rend each other in their abject desperation. ”

“ No one more sincerely regrets the insults offered his person, and the injury done to his property; but I cannot restrain my indignation, when I hear the public virtue, that so promptly recoils from undue violence, stigmatized as time-serving conwardice. ”

“ One sees that craving for a burst of misrule in quite unexpected enthusiasms for things remote from our lives, in great senseless mobs furious about minor things—the minor actions of a campaign or the minor details of law-making—in the public clamour about the misfortunes of some foreign prisoner or the politics of some alien State. ”

“ In the half absurdity of the charges, the half development of ominous truths, the public was thrown into a long fever of terror and curiosity, and seemed to lose its judgment and discretion, and to be ready to destroy its noblest citizens on the evidence of the most despicable of mankind. ”

“ In this state of bestial fanaticism, utterly ignoring the ordinary rules of public decorum, and literally intoxicated with the glory of the meritorious act, the deluded mob, preceded by musicians, proceed from one house to another in the neighbourhood where the image has been set up, sing obscene songs, and otherwise make indecent gestures which are alike an outrage on public morals and common decency. ”

“ How many riots, how many hangings, how many special commissions we can trace back, all proceeding from the delusions of the public press! How many persons have lost their lives for plundering, pulling down, and burning the property of millers, butchers, and bakers; how much blood has been spilt, every drop of which blood may be fairly placed at the door of those who urged these poor fellows on, and instigated them to acts of violence against those classes of persons, by falsely accusing them of being the cause of the high price of provisions. ”

“ While we regret that the necessary for such scenes should have existed, we are proud of the public spirit and indignation against offenders displayed by the citizens, and congratulate them on having at length banished a class of individuals, whose shameless vices and daring outrages have long poisoned the springs of morality, and interrupted the relations of society. ”

“ This is the plan, the plot, the conspiracy, and the insurrection scheme! And, what an impudent, what an incorrigible, what a hardened impostor, must this writer be, who can tell the public, that this hand-bill excited much apprehension! Apprehension, I believe, indeed, in him and his associates and encouragers; for it furnishes the clue to unravel all their falsehoods and to expose them to scorn and to detestation; but, it is calculated to excite 'apprehension' in nobody else. The public indignation is fast collecting and winding up to a high pitch ”

“ But I am assured that if the fear of the upper police did not restrain the disturbers, the brawlers, they would publicly express an opinion contrary to the principles of the government.... Public opinion is daily going down. ”

“ Were we, however, if only from an abstract point of view, to venture an opinion on the vexed question as to why so many have a leaning towards the seamy and sinister side of life, we should be disposed to consider that, apart from the allurement of the abnormal and the inclination to indulge a morbid curiosity, perhaps [298] the chief influence serving to stimulate the mind of the public when a great crime has been perpetrated in a genuine concern that a serious outrage has been made on society, constituting a veritable menace to its security. ”

“ Such an outrage, so offensive in every respect, not only to the Constitution, but also to the whole system of order by which the universe is governed, can be nothing but a national nuisance, which, for the general welfare, and in the name of justice, ought to be abated. ”

“ When I go to the city and perceive what creatures wield the power there, when I watch the trickery, the iniquity, the audacious infamy, of the cliques that control the machinery of that great government, and when I look, as I do sometimes, into the faces of those who are thus leagued for plunder and power, only to see there vulgarity, ignorance, vice and general moral filthiness, my soul is made sick. ”

“ This agitation they have maintained by orations, harangues, and seditious speeches at public meetings—by publications through a licentious press—by exaggerations—by forgeries—and by all other means which it is in the power of that description of persons to use, in order to excite the multitude; and then, when they are excited, to make them appear in large bodies to terrify and over-awe the people. ”

“ Every few days chronicle some new outrage, present to the public a further infringement of law and shows that human passion is gaining a fearfully powerful ascendency. Almost every public print brings to light some new development of human depravity. ”

“ By a natural process minorities of agitators cast cowardly and selfish members out of their ranks; in other words, they weed out the useless, the feeble, the derogatory elements, and the elements which, being dependent upon the favour of the public, or susceptible to public criticism, flinch if subjected to unfavourable judgment. ”

“ As a rule, it has slumbered peacefully until some flagrant outrage on decency and the health of the community aroused it to noisy but ephemeral indignation, or until a dreaded epidemic knocked at our door. ”

“ The quantity of snobbish and anti-social public opinion thus manufactured is formidable; and a new sort of crime—the incitement by newspapers of mobs to outrage and even murder—hitherto tried only on religious impostors, is beginning to be applied to politics. ”

“ Everywhere, especially in the more respectable section of society, a feeling of disgust mingled with fear prevailed. The public was in favour of severe measures. All seriously minded people gave it as their opinion that the prevailing licence of manners, and especially the effrontery of the young men, must be curbed, if the Empire was not to crumble into decay. ”

“ A third species of real injuries to a man’s lands and tenements, is by nusance. Nusance, nocumentum, or annoyance, signifies any thing that worketh hurt, inconvenience, or damage. And nusances are of two kinds; public or common nusances, which affect the public, and are an annoyance to all the king’s subjects; for which reason we must refer them to the class of public wrongs, or crimes and misdemesnors: and private nusances; which are the objects of our present consideration, and may be defined, any thing done to the hurt or annoyance of the lands, tenements, or hereditaments of another [1] . ”

“ Examples of the social devastation produced by official corruption and business dishonesty are too numerous to be detailed; they are seen in what are called civilized countries—in London, Paris, Rome, and across the ocean. The lack of conscience in public and private transactions creates social misery proportioned to its extent. ”

“ Certain alarmists will exclaim that such an alteration in our manners would bring about a public dissoluteness which would be frightful; that the laws, and the customs which prompt the laws, could not after all authorize scandal and immorality; and if certain unavoidable abuses do exist, at least society ought not to sanction them. ”

“ To men and women who had learned from childhood to find a certain brutish titillation in beholding the public humiliation and physical anguish of their acquaintances and fellow-townsmen, the prospect of seeing the scourge actually applied to the backs of envied and hated social superiors, could not be otherwise than delightfully agitating. ”

“ Public disgusting acts are seldom practised by the ambitious, at the beginning of their designs. Such conduct silences and discourages the weak, and the wicked, who would otherwise have been their advocates or accomplices. It is of great consequence, to allow those who, upon any account, are inclined to favor them, something specious to say in their defence. ”

“ They can make any law they want, but they prefer to break such laws as we have. That 'alienates public sympathy,' the newspapers say, but the spectacle of their stupidity and helpless wilfulness is so lamentable that I could almost pity them. ”

“ The stormy passions of the fury-driven mob, reckless and headstrong, show this; and the most terrible moment in all political convulsions is when the people feel, or even suspect, that they have been tricked. ”

“ For thus the cause of individuals is made a public concern, and the general indignation which their wrongs excite, forms at once one of the severest punishments which can be inflicted on the oppressor, and one of the strongest bulwarks that can be raised in defence of the unprotected. ”

“ But there was nothing to protect the citizens against the citizens, and this cloud of public insult, constantly hanging over their heads, did not a little help to maintain the apparently impeccable morality on which the town prided itself. ”

“ This nuisance was introduced some years after our list appeared; and so far from there being any prospect of its abatement, it has increased each year. There is said to be a remedy for every ill under the sun, but none has been found as yet for this one, notwithstanding the ceaseless complaints and protests that we hear from all sides. The rowdy little gamin squeaks and lights and does worse all through the city, to the annoyance and disgust of nearly all persons. ”

“ So whatever brings risk of tumult and disorder, multitudinous processions in the streets of our crowded towns, multitudinous meetings in their public places and parks,— demonstrations perfectly unnecessary in the present course of our affairs,—our best self, or right reason, plainly enjoins us to set our faces against. ”

“ It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosities of one part against another; foments occasional riot and insurrection. ******* “In those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. ”

“ Some of them even declare that colored newspapers are a nuisance; and so they are, in a measure, just as the colored people are a nuisance, in so far as they have a grievance which they persistently obtrude upon the notice of others, who either have no such grievance themselves, or do not wish to be reminded of the fact that they have one. As long, however, as men are struck, they will cry out in protest or indignation until the wrongs are avenged. ”

“ This denunciation is eagerly caught up by the public: away they fling to propagate the distress; sell out at one place, buy in at another, grumble at their governors, shout in mobs, and when they have thus for some time behaved like fools, sit down coolly to argue and talk wisdom, to puzzle each other with syllogism, and prepare for the next report that prevails, which is always attended with the same success. ”

“ Personal hatred, jealousy, and private revenge produce political revolutions, drenching the city with the blood of its children. These revolutions endure for months, perhaps even for years, and end with arbitrary decrees, which are violated or undone the moment they have received magisterial sanction. ”

“ On the denunciation of a domestic who has listened at a door, on the gossip of a washerwoman who has found a scrap of paper in a dressing-gown, on the false interpretation of a letter, on vague indications which it completes and patches together by the strength of its imagination, it forges a coup d'état, makes examinations, domiciliary visits, nocturnal surprises and arrests;2150 it exaggerates, blackens, and comes in public session to denounce the whole affair to the National Assembly. ”

“ A perusal of the following sketches will prove, however, that only those pretenders have obtained any strong hold upon national feeling who have appeared in times of general dissatisfaction or public calamity, and when the people have been only too willing to swear allegiance to any one having the slightest shadow of authority, and who, at the same time, appeared disposed to rectify their grievances. ”

“ Beneath the calm of general society mutterings of discontent from powerful interests could be heard,—occasional outbursts of jealousy, revivals of old and virulent passions, inveterate prejudices, which made as yet but little noise in the Press or in Parliament, but which rankled in the breasts of individuals. ”

“ Whoever wears a black robe, and is not ashamed of filthy garments, and presents a dirty face to the public view, obtains a tyrannical authority.” False miracles, absurd prophecies, and ludicrous visions were the instruments with which these and other impostors established their power. Mad enthusiasts imprisoned themselves in dungeons, or exposed themselves on the tops of pillars, naked, except by the growth of their tangled hair, and the coating of filth upon their persons,—and gained credit among the ignorant for self-denial and abnegation of the world. ”

“ Instead of our 'one thing needful' justifying in us vulgarity, hideousness, ignorance, violence—our vulgarity, hideousness, ignorance, violence are really so many touchstones which try our one thing needful, and which prove that in the state, at any rate, in which we ourselves have it, it is not all we want. ”

“ ANOTHER class of crimes are those which disturb the public tranquillity and the quiet of the citizens; such as tumults and riots in the public streets, which are intended for commerce and the passage of the inhabitants; the discourses of fanatics, which rouse the passions of the curious multitude, and gain strength from the number of their hearers, who, though deaf to calm and solid reasoning, are always affected by obscure and mysterious enthusiasm. ”