The Press. — London, England, 1854-09-30 00:00:00

914 able, rates grow when corn does not, bankers are "tightening," the farmer is in difficulties, and is forced into the market with corn in bad condition and stock unfattened. And then, money is dear, trade stagnant, the country shop has " po erders 1 !of Manchps ter—it can't get in its bus ; little pilly go unbreeched annt,her year—Mighly afford it ; so " the shop " wants po break cloth from Leeds. And tildn, the poof starved labourpr; d Ai* " Opp ? " m o pe close-fisted and exacting than ever, his children crying for food, his hearthstone cold—his heart alone on fire ; one only tvu4e, one " labourer," is in baleful actiyit.y , the Quaker cornfactor is making money by thousands ; and every thousand that he gains in the price of his corn is multiplied in that of flour—multiplied again in that of bread. They who would really know what " harvest-home means must go into strange places, and hear strange voices—must see, as some of us have seen, the winters of '47 in the factories, or '4O in the fens—their recklessness, their famine, and their " fires." From all this, and from all the miseries that war and pestilence would have added to its terrible reality, not our forethought, but Gon's gift, has set us at least comparatively free, The war is desolating other homes than ours ; the pestilence, we hope, is passing ; the worst of the three scourges we are spared altogether. And surely we cannot fail to observe here, as always, how thoroughly the curses are of our own earning, the blessings of (":}on's The war still endures, and is likely to endure, through the unhappy incapacity of the " Talents," but for whom it need never have arisen ; the cholera has told us, in plainest utterance, that it is the natural necessary reward of the filth we have allowed, after so many warnings, to accumulate at our very doors, while Boards of Health, Guardians, Sewers (we hardly know " which is which " among them), have been squabbling over their respective property in the common abomina tions : the harvest it has been, happily, beyond the power of our perversity to injure. Then let us be thankful, as we should ; let us learn, now when we are so lovingly taught, for we have much yet to do, of which we cannot here speak more at large. For the present, what works of mercy every man may do among his neighbours he will best learn by using his ears in church and his eyes in the streets. Our harvest has added many millions to our national wealth—has added not a little to the store of every one of us. Let the thanksgiving of the hand follow the thankful ness of the heart. Let us remember that the pestilence has made many a widow and or) than—the war many ; and it will make many more. Even while we write to-day, and are thankful tomorrow, it is making (or has made) many a heart desolate that as yet, in mercy, knows it not. LORD DENMAN. Drum° the greater part of an extended career, Lord DENMAN was one of the most dignified illustrations of British forensic life. He had a presence such as is rarely bestowed on the sons of men by Nature even in her most lavish moods. His figure was commanding; his face had a noble expression of majesty, tempered with mildness, and a sculptor might have selected it as a model for a statue of the Antonines. His voice was a grandly swelling organ in point of power, though it had not the thrilling melody of (Yew--mu:B, or the mas culine resonance of Lord LYNDHUReftI. But, with a great assemblage of the physical qualifications for an orator, Lord DENMAN wasted sustained force of reason and that sapidity of argumentation on facts indispen sable to first-class pa►liamentary life. In his prepared displays be was a rhetorician; his diction, though copious and correct, was never terse or vivid; he gracefidly passed over the obvious commonplaces, and never dived pro foundly, though sometimes) be gallantly THE PRESS. • aspired. We recollect nearly all his public exereitations, and we observe that our con temporaries have overlooked the bestir - his no pe displays. Th e undoubtedly during the debates o e o . ..o Bill in '3l and '32, whan le i ci - .. of Lord ALTHORP 14 a ape% er tiwor ;T 4l,torney-General l u ta adilitkiiiiil p 'way. His replies to ,fil attack* of fjp4l6l.Eil WETHERELL were gracefill and 0 egpili s and he showed mor readipssa . than hill rriefeds had antieipate4 ; but he wanted the piuscularity of intellect required for grappliog Nyith Mr. CHOICER, in the athletic style displayed by Mr. STANLEY. That Sir THoIIAS DENU4N, however, then con siderably rose in reputation as a speaker is indisputable. But his moral qualities, by their superior lustre, cast his mental faculties into shade. He was a fine specimen of the English cha racter, tinctured not ungracefully with the peculiar formalism of the gownsmen of West minster-hall. He was not mawkishly suave, nor was he an empty mannerist, wreathing his face into smiles, like a conventional caterer for personal popularity. He was too proud to stoop, and too dignified to offend. Though he could smart under a critical taunt (and he was more than once so exposed), his nature was placable with that manly kindness and generous forgetfulness of transient hostility that is one of the instincts of a gentleman. As occasions warranted he could be both per sonal and severe, but he never could be sour or pitifully splenetic. The man predominated in his acts and words. Such qualities bound to him through life a host of friends, and left him without a personal enemy at the last hour. As a politician he passed through Parliament with untainted honour, and his personal pro vocations were numerous, and his temptations not a few. As a barrister he fought for his client with a zeal that redeemed his errors, even when he was indiscreet. A s a great magistrate of the law he was insensible to menace, and would have spurned Golconda if offered as a lure. And (rarer virtue !) he would have scorned a guiltily-earned popu larity, though a House of Commons had sought to cow him. In the display of these high qualities there was nothing of histrionic artifice or forensic simulation. _ . . Over the grave of such a noble spirit we are in no mood for criticising the bounds of his intellect, or fathoming the depth of his law. If not dazzling, he was truly dignified ; if not to be reverenced as a sage, he was to be re spected as an estimable being; if in his Intel lect there was no genius, neither was there any guile ; and he carried his good qualities without the pride of a Pharisee, for his cour teous virtue had none of that unamiable surli ness which in some men gives a repulsive tone to their integrity. He was a true gentleman in all things, and was universally looked up to for the moral dignity of his character, which clothed him during life with a great public regard denied to men who have excelled him as a legislator and a judge. The respect paid to his memory teaches a deep lesson for us all. THE LATE OUTRAGE IN ULSTER. As might have been anticipated, the railway outrage in Ulster, in exciting horror, has di rected the public mind to the consideration of society in the north of Ireland. What must be the state of that country, where a body of citizens, without any political object in view, cannot be allowed to pass unharmed from one county into another? But, even if there had been any political or party reason for the En niskillen excursionists going to Derry, were they not entitled to the liberties of the Queen's subjects? We never heard of the Protestants of Ireland entering into cowardly plots to as sassinate the leaders of " Young Ireland," or to contrive the barbarous mutilation of Mr. O'CONNELL when he was crowned King of Tara. In a free country it is the right of citizens to assemble for the purposes of poli tical sympathy : if their objects be treasonable, or their proceedings illegal, there exist means of legally and even vigorously opposing them. SATURDAY, -• . _ But in the case of the Enniskilleners IL) party object was uiwied at, and no language uttered or proceedings contemplated of a kind calcu lated to offwnd. While #II partisa join in expressing abhor rence ikt, tko crime, irip re vet to observe that i the p n4illen people luty* been scolded as if they td ictually pevokik4 the crime. Now, if dip nniakillenerfaiad lapen all Roman Catho -4 lies, we vfon.ld kniki 04r tliat they had a per fect ng4 to vim al* friends in Derry or elsewiwgre ; and we c aim for all her Majesty's subjects in Ireland the right to travel unmo lested, while they are not doing aught that is illegal. The exorbitant claims of the. Roman Catholics, it'd' their excessive susceptibility, have of late displayed themselves to such an extent that we should not be surprised if going to a Protestant place of worship were held to be offensive to their irritable nerves. Nor, indeed, in this latter point is there much room for doubt. During this week, at Liverpool, the Archbishop of DUBLIN gave indisputable testimony to the fact that con verts to the Protestant faith in Ireland suf%r grievous persecution from the Roman Catho lics. To such an extent has it gone, that a " Society for the Rights of Conscience" has been established, in order to protect the recently-enrolled members of the Protestant Church from the consequences of their con version. It seems that intimidation has been carried so far, that Protestant landlords have been actually afraid to employ, as labourers, the seceders from the Church of Rome ! And yet there are to be found censors in the pre sence of such facts who chide the excursion ists to Derry as if they had been persecuting their fellow-subjects in the Romanist fashion. We cannot forget the facts brought across the Atlantic by the American press. In all the religious feuds in Canada and the States, the Irish Romanists have been invariably the aggressors. Even this week we read of their outrages at New Orleans, reminding us of their anti-Gavazzi riots at Quebec. Their pugnacious temperament, and minds intoxi cated with the "Jesuit's elixir " of propagandism, make them matchless proficients in the great Irish science of getting up rows. Taken in connection with the statements of the Arch bishop of Duarmr, and the recent outrage near Enniskillen, the intolerant spirit of Romanism is becoming a subject which cannot possibly longer be overlooked by the friends of civil and religious liberty. MR. GLADSTONE. Mn. GLADSTONE became Chancellor of the Exchequer on the 27th of December, 1852. He had earned this distinction by the ener getic part he had taken in defeating Mr. DISRAELI'S budget, and by the sacrifices of private feeling, of principle, and of public con- sistency which ho made in associating himself for that purpose with the Whigs, Radicals, and Revolutionist:, in the House of Commons. Having regard to his antecedents, to his professions, to his general character, to the feelings and opinions of his constituents, Mr. GLADSTONE, of all men living, was the person who ought to have stood by the Conservative interest when endangered by the probable failure of Lord DERBY'S Government. Even admitting that the budget proposed by Mr. DISRAELI was in some respects objectionable to Mr. GLADSTONE'S section, the time had come when the diffe re nces in the great Conservative party, occasioned by the mea sures of 1848, might have been healed, and when honest and patriotic men would have endeavoured to heal them. The cause of those differences existed no longer. Lord DERBY had bowed to the decision of the country as regarded our commercial policy The section of Peelites, too, had to some extent purified themselves—a slough had taken place. Sir JAMES GRAHAM, dissociating himself personally, as well as politically, from Mr. GLADSTONE, had become the disciple of pro. gress ; while Mr. GOULBURN, and, if we nos' take not, Mr. GLADSTONE himself, had Po' raised to some of their constituents a q ualified suppoll, or, at least, a Illy trutl, to g•li•iminlmMONJ ft lib.