The Press. — London, England, 1857-06-13 00:00:00

JUNE 13, 1857. Nor do we see, generally, how any extension of the system of beer houses could tend to produce any such desirable result. Monopoly is an ugly word, and people are readily set against a system by the application of it. But the question of pure beer and free trade in beer seem to us entirely distinct. The depravation of the metropolitan palate is so complete, that the beerhouse-keeper would not find it to his advantage to sell pure beer, and at all events we may be quite sure that in these cases cheapness will carry the (lay against goodness, provided only the drink be sufficiently stimulating ; while it is quite Obvious that pure beer cannot be sold as cheap as adulterated beer. There is one reason, no doubt, that renders the extension of beershops desirable, and that is, that it is alcohol rather than malt liquor that produces the largest and the most dangerous intoxication, and that anything which tends to diminish the sale of spirits must he regarded as a benetit to the community. But this by no means settles the question. We have, on the other hand, the indefinite multiplication of establishments more or less devoted to inebriety, and the injury inflicted on a body of men like the licensed victuallers, who " have given hostages " in the shape of large payments to the State, which is a point by no means to be overlooked by lovers of justice. The circle of London wits has lost its brightest star this week. DOUGLAS JERROLD has passed away. Always brilliant, and often bitter, his poignancy pleased by its sparkles, and pained by its corrosiveness. His wit was rapid, electric, and vivid ; but it was also cynical and narrow, and its sharpness was unrelieved by poetical colour. A beautiful saying, picturesquely worded, and touching by its pathos. rarely came from his caustic tongue. With less gall, his faculty would have shone brighter ; but for a long part of his life DOUGLAS JERROLD seemed to have aspired to the fame of an epigrammatic terrorist. Friends and foes alike came in for the strokes of his mordant humour, and no eminent wit ever uncorked so much sour champagne; but it must be remembered that though his vintage was occasionally to be criticised, JERROLD was never caught offering gooseberry for grapejuice. He had little of the rich humour of THEODORE HOOK; and he could not be classed with SYDNEY SMITH, whose benevolence of heart beamed as brightly as his brilliancy of thought. To etch people in aquafortis was his idea of drawing from nature ; and not a few persons in literary and dramatic circles had reason to quail before the dazzling derision of his scintillating and sarcastic lips ; while some social pretenders will respire more freely on being delivered from the rack of his excru ciating mockery. For many years JERROLD'S airy bitterness re tarded his just social pretensions ; but his talents were un deniable, and were sterling in their kind, and he had many per sonal merits of the highest order. He rose without a patron, and under unfavourable auspices ; but his self-reliance on his own re markable literary powers was fully justified. In an age when popular authors have injured English style by their diffuseness, JERROLD set the example of writing with scholarly conciseness ; and with more leisure for study and reflection, his works would have had a richness of illustration and breadth of view now wanting in them Some of his dramatic pieces are extremely clever, and many of his essays are like Dutch paintings in their finished and fanciful tracery. But his conversational wit was his main distinction. While its quality was often too lurid, its quantity was truly surprising. It flashed forth in sheet and forked lightning. He had nothinc , in common with a jest book on two legs ; he was no wag passing off for a humorist ; he was a true wit, with a peculiar neatness in the turn of his points. For hours JERROLD could without the least fatigue keep up the small-sword exercise of conversational carte and tierce. Gentleman PALMER said of the elder 'MATHEWS before he came to London that " he was the tallest man and the funniest man you ever saw in your life, and had " got no mouth at all, but spoke from a little slit in the left cheek;" and of JERROLD it might be said that " he was • "An abridgment of all that was poignant in man, " and had got no tongue, but two inches and a half of a scimitar, " which was never idle." This scalping propensity had, greatly to his credit, diminished much of late years, and he was a favoured guest in the choicest and most refined circles. That there was something unhappy in his temperament, some unexplained cause of aching pain, appears probable. As a politi cal writer he failed iu argument, and he was deficient in solid informa tion, but his pen was ready in its rancour and satirically light in its cutting comments. He was never without a bunch of nettles, and he stung if he could not crush, and punished when he could not convince. It is to be regretted that he did not more cultivate his vein of humour, to which he did not do justice. In some of his political writings there were passages of grave irony not unworthy of Swirl.. Amongst the wits of the last hundred years, JERROLD will probably be placed midway between FOOTE and JAMES Small. It is not unlikely that his reputation will sink with time, but enough will remain to preserve his name buoyant for many generations ; and though his portable battery of sarcasm left him with not a few foes, his many good qualities will be remembered to his honour by a large circle of admiring and tole rating friends. The Deputation of Slave-trade Abolitionists which waited upon Lord PALMERSTON on Wednesday last, suggested to the Noble Lord certain measures for the extinction of the slave trade, excellent in theory, but impracticable. The main features of the scheme were the blockade of the coasts of Cuba and the conclusion of such treaties with Spain and other slave countries as would substitute by emigration free African labour in lieu of the slave labour now imported. We doubt, in the first place, whether it would be possible to conclude such treaties; andlin the next, if concluded, we venture to think that 581 those treaties would fail tol!accomplish any practical result, for no free African would voluntarily emigrate. The free labour must be made up from the domestic slaves of Africa. Now, the African slave is by nature but an indifferent emigrant. Freed and removed from his native soil he accepts his liberty as an immunity from all labour, and if permitted to remain free would " squat " in the bush and do no more work than was necessary for his own subsistence. But how is his freedom to be secured in countries where slavery is permitted to exist ? Clearly, the time has not yet come when free African emigrants may be safely landed in Cuba, Brazil, or the Southern States of America. It is better at once to go to the root of the evil in Africa itself, and by developing the vast resources of that fine country, and giving em ployment to the domestic slaves of the different states and kingdoms therein, on the one hand to encourage, and on the other, by a strict blockade of the coasts, compel their retention in Africa in preference to their exportation abroad. It is to the spread of commerce in Africa that we must mainly look for the abolition of its foreign slave trade. Mere philanthropic measures will fail. The native African better comprehends the material advantages of trade. Let the Government, therefore, foster and protect our African traders. Let them, aided by the wealth and power of the Abolitionists, encourage expeditions to the interior of the country, the establishment of factories on its coasts, the opening up of the different rivers, and the maintenance of friendly relations with the different Sovereigns of the country. They are eager for trade. Their percep tion is not so dull but that they quickly discern and readily acknow ledge its advantages. Show them practically that it is more to their profit and prosperity to employ their slaves upon home production than to sell them to the foreign trader, and in a few years—for time is a great element in such measures—we shall have little need to watch Africa or to blockade Cuba. The journey of Plus TX.. through the Romagna was undertaken against the wish of the Cardinal Minister ANTONELLI—it may be said, in the very teeth of his protest. In persisting to make the visitation progress, the Holy Father had a fair and legitimate object. It had been the policy of Cardinal ANTONELLI to persuade the Pope that the Roman people were adverse to the Papal system altogether, and it was to test the veracity of this statement that the journey was expressly undertaken. His Holiness is universally acknowledged to he a kind and benevolent man, and that since his elevation to the chair of St. Peter the friends of his youth and of middle life have not found any diminution of personal regard. It may be easily imagined, therefore, that the journey through the Romagna has been one continued ovation. At Sinigaglia, the birthplace of the Pontiff, his reception has assumed the character of a welcome given to a parent after a long absence. Of the sincerity of this affectionate greeting, even the most sceptical cannot entertain a doubt. Together with these complimentary effusions, various hints have been given on the iniquity of the Antonelli Government, and of the resolve of the people to separate ipich legislative misdeeds from any personal connection with the Holy Father. Although surrounded by the spies of the Minister, who never quit the presence, yet means have been amply obtained to convey the truth and to establish the justice of popular complaint. The Pope will return to the Vatican a wiser man, and with an accession of knowledge not favourable to the Cardinal son of the Velletic brigand. A few weeks since we remarked that the Bengal mutinies were far more serious than the Government felt disposed to admit. The last mail from India brings us news of the spread of disaffection, of incendiarism, of open mutiny and bloodshed in one regiment—the 3rd Cavalry—and of the discovery of a correspondence seriously in volving the native officers of several other regiments. The Earl of ELLENHOROLIGH on Monday called the attention of the Lords to the fact, and the Noble Earl did not trench upon improbable ground when he insisted that the existing state of affairs indicated danger to our rule. It would be beyond our limits to enter at length into the causes which appear to have originated the Bengal mutinies ; but we may ask, when Sepoys find their pay reduced, their time of service for pension extended, their terms of enlistment rendered more general and onerous, their duties increased, their marches greatly lengthened, and the consequent deductions from their pay very largely swelled, is it unreasonable that they should exhibit symptoms of discontent? More than this, they see their religious feelings daily slighted, the subscrip tions of the English officers to their festivals withdrawn under the pre tence that they are idolatrous, and the line more and more plainly marked which separates them from the ruling race. At the same time the staff of the army is most imprudently reduced, while that army itself is filled with those adventurous but undisciplined spirits which in former times looked rather for service in the Punjatib, in Gwalior, and in (Jude. The safety-valves, as Sir JOHN NIAL coLm called the native States, are now closed. Then, again, to crown all, a fierce agitation against the Company has sprung up in the Calcutta European world. No wonder that the crisis creates alarm. Lord METCALFE, that eminent Indian statesman, has told us—and no one can controvert the truth of his statement—that we have no root in the country, that the natives are thoroughly disaffected, and that if our native army prove unfaithful India may be lost in a day. We hope that Lord CANNING may prove equal to his task; it is no easy one, and he most assuredly will fail, if he be not prepared frankly to admit that it is the Government and its servants even more than tho Sepoys who are really to blame. Meanwhile, we are by no means dis posed unconditionally to accept Mr. VERNON SMITH'S statement that the " disaffection is at an end." THE PRESS.