The Press. — London, England, 1857-08-01 00:00:00

T Calcutta become acquainted with that most ominous event, the dissatisfaction upon religious grounds of the sepoys, which took place within eight miles of the Govern. went House. The Government then began to act. Three more letters are written, and two days more elapse before it is communicated even at Barrackpore that the objection of the sepoys is removed, and another day, or nearly another day, must elapse before that communication is made to the Government. On the 28th of January General Hearsey complains of what he considers an im• proper order, given by the officer commanding the 53rd ltegiment, at Fort William, to the officer commanding the wing of that regiment at Dumdum, and an explanation is asked for from that officer. Eight days elapse before the explanation is received ; nine letters are written, the officers being within a mile of Government House the whole time, so that in one hour the whole explanation might have been given and received. The noble lord concluded by expressing a hope that when confidence in the intentions of the Government was restored in the native mind we might again trust the sepoy regiments. Lord GRANVILLE could not explain the omission of the proclamation. With respect to the noble lord's comments on the Indian system of govern ment, he thought that the conduct of Lord Can ning in this trying emergency had been such as to raise him immensely in the estimation of the public. After some further discussion the matter dropped. The Reformatory Schools Bill passed through committee. • • • Some other business was then despatched, and their lordships adjourned. HOUSE OF COMMONS—Tnuasn Ar. At the early sitting, the house went into committee on the Police (Scotland) Bill, the clauses of which were agreed to after much discussion. On the order for the second reading of the New Zealand Loan Guarantee Bill, Sir J. TRELAWNY moved to dofer it for six months, suggesting that, as the Colonial Assembly had not recommended the matter unanimously, it would be better to postpone the bill until next session. Mr. LABOUCHERE said the question bad been con sidered by a select committee; that the security for the loan was ample, and that the loan .was essential to the colony to enable it to place their financial and political affairs on a substantial footing. The debate was adjourned by the lapse of time. SUPERANNUATION BILL. Lord PALMERSTON, in the evening, in reply to Mr. S. Fitzgerald, said that the house having by a con siderable majority affirmed the second reading of the Civil Service Superannuation Bill, the Government would not offer any further opposition to its progress. Sir C. Wool), in answer to Mr. ' Stafford, gave lame explanations respecting the delay of the Go vernment advices by telegraph from India, but promised an inquiry upon the part of Government. GOVERNMENT BUSINESS. A motion by Lord PALMERSTON, that on Tuesdays, during the session, Government orders shall have precedence, led to a discussion of a very miscella neous character, Lord JOHN RUSSELL observing that the resolution passed by the Lords, that they will not read bills a second time which come from the Commons after the 7th of August, unless of a certain kind, was a very extraordinary order, looking at the short time the Commons had sat; and expressed a hope that the Government were not consenting parties. Lord PALMERSTON reminded Lord John Russell that the practice of flAing a time after which no bill would be read a second time had been followed when he himself was a member of the Government. He had no doubt that the Lords would relax the order, as they had done on previous occasions, on reason able cause being shown. The motion was agreed to. GOVERNMENT MEASURES. Lord PALMERSTON, in answer to questions as to the Ministerial intentions on the subject of pressing certain bills, stated that the Government did intend to persevere with the Probate and the Divorce Bills. Ilti expressed a hope that the house would be in clined to take the Lord Chancellor's eight Law Con solidation Bills. "on trust," so as to allow them to pass this session. DIVORCE BILL. The ATTOUNEY-GENER,II, moved the second read ing of the Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Bill, which had been received from the Housn of Lords. This measure, he observed, bad excited in the country at large great anxiety, and he might say great alarm, which was, however, entirely groundless. The bill embodied long•establislied principles, and only removed inconveniences attending a remedy hitherto administered by a judicial tribunal. What ever alarm had been entertained, therefore, must be the result of misapprehension or misrepresentation. lie then proceeded to explain the progress of the marriage law of England, in what manner it had been judicially administered, and how it had been dealt with ny the Legislature for the last 150 years. IV* been, hp said, too i4Fh the WO* 9f 17449 rGUST 1, 1857. P4ESS, and of speakers upon this subject to regard marriage as, by the law of England, indissoluble; that a new law was about to be introduced ; but the House of Lords, followed by that house, had for nearly two centuries exercised the jurisdiction of separating parties, according to certain rules, u vinculo matri. monii. Except in relation to malicious desertion, this bill was an expression of the existing law, trans ferring the tribune' for administering it to one more desirable and beneficial. The form of proceeding was altered, and divested of all those circumstances which constituted the objections to the mode of administering the law as it existed. The law re mained; the mode of administering it only was changed. The indissolubility of marriage had never been urged by a spiritual peer in the House of Lords as an objection to a bill for a divorce ; yet, if mar riage by the Scriptures was indissoluble, every divorce bill was a violation of Scripture, and, if this measure was rejected upon that ground, no bill of divorce could hereafter be passed. Referring to the clause in the bill which imposed a fine upon the adulterer, and to some of the subordinate details of the bill, he discussed the expediency of prohibiting guilty parties from intermarrying, and, in conclusion, he reiterated his assertion that the bill merely ex pressed and embodied what had been the law of England for nearly two centuries, and called upon the house with confidence to read it a second time. Sir W. HEATHCOTE moved to defer the second e ading for three months. He regarded bills of ivorce as proofs that, by the law of England, mar riage was not dissoluble, and as protests against a change of the law. He disputed the correctness of the inferences drawn by the Attorney-General from scriptural texts, which were at variance, he said, with the construction put upon them by the early Christian Church, which held the indissolubility of marriage. The " Reformatio Legum," to which the Attorney-General had appealed, did not support the enactments of this bill ; it recognised the equality of the woman with the man. He believed that if this bill passed we should be ultimately brought into the unfortunate condition of Prussia, and that it could not be carried into effect without a wholesale perse cution of the ministers of the Church. Mr. DRUMMOND and Mr. LYGON opposed the bill. Mr. PULLER objected to the obligation enforced on the clergy, and the power of fine by the judge. In other respects he supported the bill. Mr. Wigram, Mr. Hatchell, Mr. Bowyer, and Mr. Malins opposed the bill. Lord J. MANNERS reviewed the two grounds upon which, he said, the Attorney General had based his arguments in support of this bill—first, that the dis solubility of marriage was the received law of the Church and the State ever since the Reformation ; second, that it was in harmony with declarations in Holy Scripture. ..He disputed both propositions. It had been said, he remarked, that the principle of this bill bad been well considered in the House of Lords; hut, with great respect to that branch of the Legislature, this was a question affecting the people of this country, and it was not only the right but the duty of that house to see that it received the most deliberate discussion. A change of this kind was not to be effected without reference to other countries where a laxity of the marriage tie was permitted, and he found that in Prussia the number of divorces was ten a day, and he mentioned an instance of a man who had been sit times divorced and seven times married. He warmly advocated the claim of the clergy to be exempted from obligations imposed upon them by the bill, which they felt to be incon sistent with the dictates of their conscience. He should give his most determined opposition to the bill. Mr. GLADSTONE moved that the debate be ad journed; but this motion was negatived on division by 188 to 125. Mr. HENLEY moved that the house do adjourn, but this motion being opposed it was withdrawn. Lord LOVAINE then moved that the debate be adjourned, which was agreed to. The house then went into committee upon the Ecclesiastical Commission, Sec., Bill ; but, after some clauses had been gone through, the Chairman was ordered to report progress. Several bills were then forwarded a stage. On the order for going into committee upon the Superannuation Act Amendment Bill, Mr. GLADSTONE inquired what were the intentions of the Government as to the revision of salaries. The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER declined entering upon the discussion at so late an hour (a quarter to two o'clock), and suggested the post ponement of the committee. On clause 1, _ _ Mr. AYRTON moved that the house do adjourn, but this motion was negatived after some discussion ; and the house ultimately went into committee on the bill, which underwent much discussion. Mr. AYRTON moved to add to it the word:, " that the salaries of the oivil servants shall be revised, having due regard to the amount of reduction hereby msde." 745 The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER opposed the amendment, because practically it would put the civil servants in a worse position than they were in at present. Mr. AYRTON withdrew his amendment. Sir J. TRELAWNY moved the addition of the follow ing words, Provided it can be proved that any individual has lost any advantages which without this act he would have enjoyed, he shall receive CJI:11- pensation tc. an equivalent extent." The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER said that the amendment could not be considered, as it would not bo competent for the house to make such a charge upon the Exchequer without a committee of the whole house. Sir J. TRELAWNY was very unwilling to proceed with the debate at such an hour in the morning—ten minutes past three. The house was to meet again at twelve, and the pressure was exceedingly heavy upon the Speaker, upon members, and upon the gentlemen who had to report the debates. He moved as an amendment that the chairman report progress, and obtain leave to sit again. On a division there appeared— _ _ For reporting progress Against it .. Majority . . 20 . . 55 . • -35 . _ The clause was ultimately agreed to, and, the house having resumed, the bill was reported amidst cheers. The other orders were disposed of, and the house adjourned at half past three. lortign gortzsponttutt. PARIS, July 29. THE Indian news, which has arrived by way of Trieste, is more or less disastrous ; but, as a set-off and a consolation in these untoward circumstances, it is most gratifying to witness the general sympathy that the French people of all political classes and of all grades evince for England in this grave con• juncture. There is no exaggerated display of feeling, but an honest desire that the old country, "la vielle Angleterre," should secure and place beyond all harm her magnificent empire in the East. In a word, the Anglo-Frank alliance is firmer than ever. Count Nesselrado disclaims having any political object in his visit, an assurance that must be natu rally accepted with a certain reserve. At an evening party at the Countess of Walewski's, he observed, "Je ne suis qu'un touriste ; jai voulu revoir Paris, et constaterpar moi meme sa transformation." The Emperor left Plombieres tbis day (Wednes day), and reached Paris at six p.m. His Majesty drove along the Boulevards unattended by any escort, and was received with the warmest enthusiasm. About the sth of August his Majesty will pay his promised visit to the Queen at Osborne, and after the fetes of the 15th will proceed to Biarritz, where he will receive the visit of the King of Wurtem burg,—travelling under the name of the Count de Tieck. The Indipendance continues, with persevering assiduity, to propagate its absurd " canards." Among others, it announces as positive the visit of the Queen of England to Fontainebleau and Compiegne; and then reasserts, in spite of official contradiction in the Moniteur, that England has requested the aid of French troops for the prosecution of the Chinese war. The departure of a French fleet for Tunis is not a matter of much importance, although an attempt has been made to give it the air of a hostile expedition. The Dey has ordered an investigation of the execu tion or rather murder, of a Jew by the legal autho rities of Tunis, and has already made a show of reparation by providing for the family of the unfor• tunate victim. Some English journals, friendly, as a matter of course, to Ledru Rollin, Alazzini, and the other Republican associates, in their Orleans and anti-Napoleonic zeal, have gone beyond the bounds of historical prudence. If they err through igno rane,e, they furnish evidence of an unfitness to be public instructors,—if, en the contrary, they wilfully put forth false statements, their moral is far below respectable average. It is said, in regard to the ap proaching trials of the Franco•ltalian conspira tors :- But there is to be a trial—A trial!—a mockery! Ire all know how political offenders are dealt with in France. The proceedings are carried on for months in secrecy AGAINST LI BERALS WHO HAVE NOT BEEN SUCCESSFUL. Then the appointed day comes on. The court is packed. No witnesses are allowed for the defence. The verdict is hurried on—the sentence is pronounced—the scaffold is raised with disgraceful precipitation--the condemned it dragged under the knife, his remonstrances are stifled, and, as the French reporters phrase it, " human justice" is satisfied. In the first place, the application of the term " an unsuccessful Liberal" to an assassin is too nitgit 1:0444F. 4.n phe pe;t place ? tbeae - Tiers