The Press. — London, England, 1854-03-04 00:00:00

MARCH 4, 1854. conspiracy, such, for instance, as the present prac tice of the Roman Catholic journals, whenever public meetings or assemblies of pleasure are recorded, to put the names of the Protestant gentry after the shopkeepers, clerks or " half Sirs" who happen to be Roman Catholics. Not to descend, however, to such contemptible details, there are certain other indications of a pressure in this direction which are becoming of more importance. In a leading organ of the St. Germans' press at Dublin there has been for sometime past an ominous series of attacks upon the constitution of Irish grand juries, and, in accordance with its bitter partisan pretensions, we hear of unfair proceedings in various directions. We have been shown a list of the " Record Jurors" for a county where the Roman Catholic gentry is a very small minority, yet, under the auspices of a Roman Catholic High Sheriff, exactly one-half of that body has been placed upon the list, though not entitled to the honour by their social station. Again, we hear of instances in various parts of Ireland where the Roman Catholics of a very subordinate rank have been privileged to write J. P. after their names, to the great astonishment of the local gentry even of their own persuasion. The nominations made to the bench by a certain Whig peer in the south-east of Ireland have been loudly complained of, while similar strictures have been passed on official freaks in other parts. In the county of Louth, where the recent Ministerial victory afforded occasion for some comments in our last week's number on a similar abuse of local influence, we find from the list of deputy lieutenants in Thom's Almanack, that Lord IlEitzw, the Lord Lieutenant of the county, has exercised his patronage in this fashion. Seven of the thirteen are Roman Catholics, who, however, are gentlemen of very small property in the county, one of them, Mr. O'CALLAGHAN, being the famous divisional magistrate of Capel-street, Dublin. Of the six Protestants, only two are Con servatives; the rest are Whig Radicals, some of them not having even residences in the county. Thus we may account for the result of the Louth election, at the same time that we see in this and in other instances an evidence of the agencies by which the Coalition secures the support of its Romanist allies. For our own parts, we could desire that the civil feud of Protestant and Roman Catholic had ceased to embitter the politics of Ireland, but we will steadily watch and resist any movement towards Catholic ascendancy. PUBLIC DECENCY AND THE PUBLIC PRESS. WlTimm assuming to be censors of our contempo raries, and especially repudiating any prudish pre tensions to superior virtue or morality, we yet think there is one subject on which the conductors of the newspaper press of England would do well to reflect —we allude to the reports of proceedings in the Police and other Courts of Law. Within the last fortnight, cases combining every conceivable ingredient of impurity, filth, corruption, and indecency, have been investigated, and by the daily papers faithfully, we may almost say verbatim, reported. On the part of the magistrate there was a disgusting, yet necessary, duty to perform : he has to bring crime to punishment. The press also has its duty to discharge. Rightly understood, and faithfully and discreetly carried out, the office of the journalist is lofty and honourable. It is to instruct the ignorant, to encourage the good, to protect the weak, and, above all, to unmask and to brand vice, when the crime or the offender is beyond the reach of law. Yet, to do this, is it necessary to report literally the evidence of pandars, and to recount with disgusting exactitude the iniquities of the brothel ? Occasionally one may read in the leading articles of a newspaper an eloquent discourse, which would do honour to the pulpit, denouncing the im morality of the cheap publications of the day, and calling the attention of the police to the indecent prints in Holywell-street. Turn to the police reports of the same paper, and the reader will see pruriency which Holywell-street cannot surpass. " Change places bandy-dandy, which is the justice—which the thief"? It is easy to say that the press must faithfully report the proceedings of courts of justice; but a repot t can he faithful without being minute. For our own part, we confess we cannot see any difference in effect between publishing to the last particular accounts of vice that have actually occurred, and inventing imaginary scenes of impurity, to acquire wealth by corrupting the minds of the ignorant. THE PRESS. THE NEW REVELATION.—HARMONIAL PROGRESS. SPinrr RAPPING has gone ahead in America. Its disciples do not yet equal the Mormons in numbers, but they fully match them in faith; nor is the material of war wanting. The test of a modern movement is its power to establish an organ ; and the Rappers of New York have established one, largely circulated, respectably written, and sufficiently intolerant in its denunciations of unbelievers to win the sympathies of NICHOLAS or WISEMAN. That last trait of character reconciles us to the rest. We hear so much about the " age of reason" and the " reign of love" that—poor benighted Conservatives as we are—it is pleasant to us to find human nature remaining unchanged in one feature, even though that one be not absolutely the most amiable that exists. The new creed can, at least, be combative. Its votaries are a Church militant, so far as waging war on the whole unconverted world can make them so. Quite natural this : we find no fault with it : only why assume so lofty an air of superiority over all the thousand-and-one beliefs, old and new, which are jostling themselves into notice by the same means? We have spoken of "spirit-rapping " and "rappers :" the words demand an apology. Most sects, political or theological, have two names—one that by which they call themselves, the other that by which every body else calls them. But our American friends are strangers here, and it would be ill manners to introduce a stranger by his nickname. Place then, for the grand " Harmonial Convention" of Auburn ! for Mr. IRA. Hrrcueoca, its president, and those ladies and gentlemen whose unwearied lungs and inexhaustible patience carried them through a sitting of two days and nights, the results of which are rather unfairly condensed into three not very crowded columns of the Spiritual Telegraph. It is probably from this cause that we fail to per ceive any particular connection between the subjects discussed and the result aimed at. Indeed, the usual order of proceedings was reversed. First came the report, or resolutions, the oratory follow ing, and being addressed to no particular end or object. On the same principle we have heard it recommended that the House of Commons should divide first, and debate afterwards. On the resolu tions, it appears, the meeting agreed unanimously. They resolved, in half a column of verbose turgidity, that free arguing is a constitutional prerogative of the human mind ; that " all forms of theologio " sectarianism are anti-progressive and anti • 3ligious ;" that spiritual intercourse between the two worlds exists ; that spirits are reformers and socialists; that " individual reform is impossible, except through a " new social organisation, which shall destroy exist " ing antagonisms between producer and consumer, " between labour and machinery, between interest " and duty ;" " that the Mosaic dispensation was " an age of force; that the Christian dispensation " was an age of love; that the Harmonial dispense " Lion is an age of wisdom." We fear this sublime philosophy suffers in our abridgment; but, if sages will not be concise, the fault is their own. These preliminary points settled, the discussion ensued. The speakers were of two classes—inspired or clair voyant, and uninspired. Among the first:— " Mr. P. B. Randolph, of Utica, N.Y., became clairvoyant, and said that he did not believe in evil, or a principle of evil ; that it was a negative principle, and could not be operative or maintain an existence. That no nega tive currents in nature possess the powers of permea tion or resolution—ergo, evil being negative can not change the most minute particle of goodness by analysis, suppura tion, abrasion. or resolution, because its principle is desti tute of any principle of vitality. That those spirits who wrote the Rune were those who gave it from the plane or stand-point on which they were elevated. If mankind have brains it is their duty to exercise the faculties embodied in those brains. All have a principle sitting enthroned in the temple of reason, which smiles approbation at that which addresses itself to his reason." Mrs. H. C. BARBER, we are told, "spoke some time while in the trance state, but was not reported." Poor Mrs. BARBER ! After the lady came the Presi dent, who is no better treated. But we learn the extent of our loss from the reporter's enthusiastic comment : " Mr. Ira Hitchcock, of Oneida, spoke to the second resolution in a powerful and logical manner. Having torn the cowl and toga from the ermined head of old theology, he, with the utmost decorum, placed the mitre on the brow of young harmony." Likewise did Mrs. SARAH 11. VANDLRSEN, a medium, of Wampsville, Madison County, become clairvoyant, and lift up her voice ; hut, the lady's speech being to us quite incomprehensible, we fear it might prove the same to our readers. ne gentleman, Mr. DAvis, ignored spirits and mediums altogether; and took the opportunity to inveigh in a very moral strain against avarice, slavery, the professions of law and medicine, human nature, and the arrangements of 195 the world generally. It is noticeable that no one seemed to require, or stepped aside to offer, any evidence as to the fact of spiritual intercourse. What need of proofs, where all have faith ? But, though the convention was silent on this subject, we find in the Telegraph evidence enough, and to spare. Elec tric wires are going out of fashion as agents for the transmission of news. One gentleman, living in Baltimore, makes a supernatural appointment to meet his friends at New York at 8 p.m. of a parti cular day. Another sends a long gossiping account of his journey to Pittsburgh through the same con venient agency. The manner of performing the operation is minutely described : " The process of receiving these spiritually telegraph messages is this. A friend in a circle at New York, for instance, wishes to communicate with a circle in Washing ton, on an evening when he knows such circle will be in session. Upon ascertaining that a spirit is present who will take the communication which he wishes to send, he either speaks it aloud or writes it, and the nest moment the medium in the circle at Washington is taken with a sudden shaking of the arm, and the fingers are made to draw upon the table with a clear, regular ticking sound, very similar to that produced by the instruments em ployed in the offices of Morris's telegraph Soon the message is commenced to be slN3ken through the medium—slowly, irregularly, and somewhat indis tinctly at first, but becoming stronger and clearer in tone as it proceeds." The only omission—a strange one for America— is that no mention appears of the price per message. Here we are disappointed. We should have liked to know whether the telegraph is being undersold. In England, where the rates of charge are so much heavier, the information might have been turned to account. But perhaps the dignity, as well as novelty, of the new method recommends it. Think of HENRY CLAY'S spirit taking errands from Baltimore to New York ! Who would grudge an extra dollar to such a carrier Our limits force us to stop. We take the liberty to laugh freely—unrestrained by the slightest sym pathy with this Bedlam let loose—at absurdities such as no civilised community has yet witnessed. But, while we do this, we protest against being sup posed to include either in our ridicule or censure the great bulk of the American people. They, we may be assured, laugh as heartily as we do, only with some admixture of shame for their country's cre dulity. The movement may for a while spread and endure, for great is the vitality of folly ; and the hard materialism of transatlantic life finds its compensation in these wild outbreaks of unreason. But, sooner or later, common sense will return, anti the Harmonial Convention be remembered by its authors only as a delirious or drunken dream. DR. ARNOLD ON THE EASTERN QUESTION. WE extract a reflection of Dr. Anxorm for its singular application to the present conjuncture " What surer way of keeping the Russians from Con stantinople than to bind our alliance with France triply fast, thus keeping for ever before the eyes of Russia a control which she dared not to disregard? What Ruasian soldier would ever set foot across the Balkan if England and France, indissolubly joined together as the protectors of the old civilisation of Europe, were ready at an instant to pour their fleets into the Black Sea, and, without re peating the folly of the march to Moscow, to strike at the life of Russia through her vulnerable heel; to drive her back behind the froth ; to thrust her away from the shores of the Euxine ; and, by occupying the Crimea as an im pregnable fortress, to seal up the only outlet by which the evil spirit of Russian ambition can issue forth to trouble the world? "—Miscellaneous Works, p. 511. OPENING OF THE FRENCH CHAMBERS. THE legislative session of the Chambers commenced on Thursday, with the accustomed pomp. The Emperor delivered a formal address on the occasion. After referring to topics of internal administration, his Majesty adverted to matters of European interest. He said that, to avoid a collision, he had gene as far as honour permitted, and, if France now draws the sword, it is only that she has been com pelled to do it. France has no idea of aggrandise ment; she wishes to resist dangerous encroach ments; the days of conquest have passed, never to return : " These, then, are the results of an. unselfish and frank policy :—We have England, our former rival, forming with us the bonds of an alliance which becomes from day to day more intimate, because the opinions which w e defend are also those of the English people. Germany, which the remembrance of former wars rendered still distrustful, and which on that account has given for the last forty years perhaps too many proofs of her deference for the policy of the Cabinet of St. Petersburg, has already re covered her independence of action, and considers freely on what side her interests lie. _ " Austria, above all, which could not see with intliffer• ence the events which were in progress will enter into an alliance, and will thus attest the just siid moral character of the war which we are undertaking. ; ~~ 3 ,M