The Press. — London, England, 1854-01-28 00:00:00

76 lettion /Intelligente. OXFORD CITTVERSFTY.-Dr. Twigs has declined to become a candidate, and it is almost certain that Sir W. Heathcote will be returned without opposition. BRECON.—Our fears have been painfully realised by the death of Mr. Morgan, at the early age of 25. On receipt of the intelligence Colonel Lloyd Vaughan Watkins announced his intention of contesting the vacant seat. The Conservative party will not an nounce any candidate until after the funeral of their late member. SOUTH StaoP.—The lamented decease of Mr. Clive causes a vacancy in the representation of this strictly agricultural constituency. It is expected that Mr. Robert Clive, M.P., will be brought forward to fill his father's seat. Should this course not be adopted, either Sir Baldwin Leighton, Bart., or the Right Hon. Colonel Cecil Forester, M.P., are looked upon as the candidate. L►. - nLow.—ln the event of Mr. Clive standing for South Salop, a contest is anticipated for this borough between Mr. Boffield and Colonel Salwey. Sours DEVON.—The death of Sir Ralph Lopes has left a ♦acancy in the representation of the southern division of Devonshire. No candidate has yet been named, with any degree of certainty. STROUD.—Rumours (on what authority we know not) are afloat here of a vacancy on the meeting of Parliament by the resignation of Mr. Horsmau. 11l health is assigned as the cause by some; the accep tance of the lordship of the Treasury vacated by Mr. Sadleir the reason attributed by others. We consider the report to be devoid of foundation. In anticipa tion, however, of the event, the friends of Mr. J. C. Symons are bestirring themselves ; but we hope, after the example set in the eastern division, the Con servatives of Stroud will, at all events, fight for a share in the representation. Sourn Srirrolu).—Both parties are closely occu pied with their canvass. TIIE PREPARATIONS FOR THE NATAL ESTIMATES for the financial year 1854-5 are now in an advanced state, and it is expected there will be considerable alterations in the items for which votes will have to be taken. In reference to the increase in one branch of the service, the steam fleet, it appears that, while a few years since we possessed only about 14,000 horse power, the British navy on the Ist inst. included no less than 202 steam-vessels of all descriptions, with a nominal power of steam machinery representing no less than 55,300 horses. A NEW PATENT SUBSTITUTE FOR GUANO, consisting of decomposed and concentrated seaweed, is about to be introduced by Mr. Long-maid, with the view of claiming the prize of 1,000/. offered by the Royal Agricultural Society. The material is reduced to a powder, and is rendered suitable to be applied by the drill. Many experiments with regard to its fer tilising powers are said to have besn made during the past year. The process is stated to be simple, the price is estimated at 51. per ton or under, and it is contemplated to establish manufactories at various stations on the coast. An analysis by Professor Way has resulted in showing that this product contains in every 100 parts 65.62 of organic matter, 13.65 of soda, and about 16. of soluble salts. Nitrogen is present in the proportion of 3.23, equivalent to about 4• of ammonia. NEW CHURCH AT READING, IN BERKS.—In the cen tre of the Castle-hill estate, fronting the Bath road, in Reading, a plot of ground had been apportioned by the original proprietor of the property for a square, which was surrounded by a very handsome iron pali sading with large gates at each corner. The land having been recently purchased for the Conservative Land Society, the executive committee have decided that the ground in the centre of the square shall be given for the erection of a new church, the increasing population of Reading rendering this gift very useful and beneficial to the locality. This is the second grant of land for the building of a church by the Conservative Land Society. THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH has been made the foundation of a furious farce at the Palais Royal Theatre. The whole plot consists of blunders and mystifications conveyed by the electric wires, and nearly all the characters are supposed employes of the telegraphic-offices in Paris and Lyons. . _ AN ORIGINAL PIECE by a Belgian author has been produced at Brussels, where the theatres for many a year have been accustomed to subsist upon dramas borrowed from Paris. This phenomenon is called Le Cornett a Bruxelles. Tat ASPECT OF POLITICAL AFFAIRS has produced almost a panic in the Lyons silk-market, lately so prosperous. The daily amount of the silk conditioned in that city is now less than half the average quantity in December. TIIE PRESS. THE CITY POLICE. AT Tuesday's sitting of the City Corporation Inquiry Commissioners, Mr. D. W. Harvey was examined, and gave the following statement respecting the civic police force under his command, and which he was, of course, most reluctant to see amalgamated with the general body of metropolitan police. He said : " The suggestion has been made that the police should be incorporated into one general metropolitan system. Upon that point I would say that, in the event of such a system being determined on, its real heart and centre ought to be in the City, and not in Scotland-yard. Where there is one detective case brought before the metro politan police there are ten such cases brought before the City police ; and I believe that great injury and insecurity to the City would arise from merging the smaller juris diction with the larger, and combining, for instance, Cheapside with Whitechapel, and Bishopsgate with Shore ditch, without reference to the peculiarities of each district. The City police consists of 579 men and the metropolitan force of 5,492. Last year the cost of the City police amounted to 44,3411., or 741. 17s. lid. per man, and the cost of the metropolitan police was 391,8251., or 711. Os. 111. per man ; making the City police cost 3/. 10s. 20. per man more than the metropolitan police. I do not speak under corporate influence, but I consider that the City ought to have an adequate number of police, and that it should have a coequal authority with the Metropolitan Commissioners, because to expect the merchants and bankers of the City, absorbed in business as they are, to go, if they want advice and assistance, all the way to Whitehall-place is as much as to say that they must do without the service of the police altogether. I have upwards of 100 persons coming to my office every day upon various subjects connected with the police, and those persons are not content with seeing my superin tendents, but will see and consult with the highest autho rity. The City police is regarded as a sort of ' parental police.' A great proportion of them are required for special services. A certain number are necessary to keep order in the police courts. From 25 to 80 have cases to attend to ; 18 have the charge of Smithfield on Mondays and Fridays ; and about 30 have to attend at Guildhall on Saturdays, when the omnibus and cab cases are being heard. It frequently happens that from 70 to 80 men are dranghted off in this manner. I am clearly of opinion that the City ought not to be swamped in the general system of metropolitan police, because it should be remembered that, although the actual residents in the City number only 128,851, the number of persons who go into the City daily for business purposes is 316,000, giving a total of 448,8,51. The number of persons passing through Cheapside daily in 14,000 cabs, omnibuses, and other vehicles, is 52,10 J, and the number of pedestrians is 67,500, making the total number 119,600. Another reason why the City requires a greater number of police than the remainder of the metropolis arises from the fact that a vast number of warehouses and places of business, containing large quantities of valuable property, are deserted by the persons engaged in them during the day. The efficiency of the City police may be j udg ed of from the following statistics. In the ten years from 1842 to 1852 they brought before the City magistrates 51,867 persons ; and the metropolitan police within the same period took 660,764 persons before the stipendiary magistrates, Of the total number there were discharged in the City 20,346, or about 39 per cent. ; and in the metropolitan districts there were discharged 333,960, or upwards of 50 per cent. In the City there were summarily convicted 27,268, or 52 per cent. ; while in the metropolitan districts the number was 278A48, or 42 per cent. The committals for trial within the City were 4,113, or 8 per cent.; and in the metropolitan districts 48,456, or 7 per cent. The number tried and con victed in the City was 2,426, or 84 per cent. of those com mitted; while in the metropolitan district it was 37,480, or about 77 per cent. The number tried and acquitted was, in the City, 687, or Iti per cent., and in the metropo litan districts 10,976, or 23 per cent. The number of robberies committed in the City during the same ten years was 15,415, while in the metropolitan districts it amounted to 123,761, or about Bto I. These last figures are appa rently in favour of the metropolitan districts, but the record of robberies committed is not kept so completely in the other districts as in the City. The value of the property stolen in the City was 117,8181., of which 66,t771., or 56 per cent., was reoffered, while in the metropolitan districts the value of the property stolen was 377,8001., the proportion recovered being 86,7701., or only 23 per cent. Every case of robbery committed within the City, from the person or otherwise, is thoroughly investi gated when reported ; and, notwithstanding the great number of persons who come into the City daily, having about them large sums of money, I should be perfectly ready to guarantee that the loss does not on an average amount to more than 30/. a day ; and this I think is some proof of the efficiency of the City police. I now come to the cost of maintaining the City police. The Govern ment pays one-fourth of the expense of the metropolitan police out of the Consolidated Fund ; and a similar contri bution towards the City police is paid out of the City's cash by the Corporation. On the occasion of the Duke of Wellington's funeral the Corporation paid out of their own funds as much as 2,0001. for extra constables ; and they never hesitate to pay considerable sums on occasions of that nature from their own resources. The police-rate in the City amounts to 7d. in the pound, and that of the metropo lis to fid. ; bat the City rate is a net rate, and the metro politan is a gross one. The cost of collection has to be added to the metropolitan rate, which brings it up, in point of fact, to an amount quite equal to that of the City. In the parish of Marylebone the inhabitants pay as much to wards the police as the citizens do ; but Marylebone has only 300 men to the square mile, while the City has 587, with the additional advantage of the entire control over its own S, police. My opinion is, that no insonvenience the metropolis from the existence of tions within it." MIR MILWER LYTTON . ONE of the most brilliant soirees Leeds Mechanics' Institution took day evening, under the presidency The Music-hall in Leeds, as the commodious edifice to be found adopted for the ffte, and densely proceedings being throughout most thusiastic. On taking the chair,' evening made an eloquent and mu, dress to the guests assembled -- "He alluded to his recent visit burgh, with whom knowledge v had then come among those with vs...— holiday. But in both these communities, university and in the busy manufact, the same grand idea—the recognition supreme arbiter of all those questions were either settled by force or -- - which are even stronger than law fold fully of despising peat ages t one in which we live, the disposit disdain the generations that ha savages, without railways and at sentimentally despise the present and vulgar, complain that we ha great ideas, and that railways and care for, Sir Edward said he should persons at their market worth, and s valuation. Our ancestors needed • had made us free. Looking out up at present, he found quite enough 1 men. There was no doubt of our also members of the great family down a map of the world, and see it is yet civilised at all. Africa of savages and wild beasts ; Asia civilisation which produced slid Babylon ; and, even in Europe, tories, once the seat of empires, or degenerate civilisation ! In valleys of the richest soil ; the corn withers as it stands. In Italy the a is stifled, men's minds are divided less infidelity and the most abject cany, which gave to modern Europe literature and freedom, the very sl condemn you to the Austrian's sabre , sentative of the learned Medici thinks coming together if an English gentl in the cottage of the poor. While civilised world, happily as yet •'• barriers of nature, the Emperor , over barbarous millions, and shocks and religion of this century by Crusader to disguise the ambi of all Europe there are only t— are in the full vigour of progressive manic race, in which is included ' of the Baltic, such as Sweden populations, also kindred, of the people of France ; and the p, These three great European races, aspects of civilisation, all had some common. There was first the milder This spirit had rained up all those heard of in the last century, affecting t people ; it was this which sought to ca liness into the abodes of misery directed merciful attention even to tho society, seeking to reform criminals them ; which had introduced '- prison -houses, and, except in rare punishment of death out of ow comitant with this development takes a more material and less _ in the last century. He could not be less spiritual or poetical either i covers that the divine beneficence nature, even to the gas which had escaped from us in smoke, with the wildest tales of the Eastern is baronet then spoke of the educational great races and of our own country, an I trust that education in this country ther paid for and altogether regulated hear.) I hope in this, as in all, that with the vital principle of self-government tinction to centralisation. (AT -. shall live to see the day when J., America, the education of the people desire of the people, consenting, in local . rate upon themselves for oducation— . (. thus interested in seeing that the educao kind that their money can produce. some rigid and inflexible state - every improvement which the can suggest to the emulation plause.)" The meeting was afterwards tary of the institution, the M. Mayor of York, Mr. Charles Goodman, M.P., Mr. Edward gentlemen. A vote of thanks Lytton for his presence and proceedings. SATURDAp no ineonvenience trims t o ace of two police juxi s d, c. roN AT LEEDS, soirees ever held by the took place on We 4 dency of Sir E. B. Lyttes. as the largest and most found in the town, was usely crowded, the whole rat most spirited and en- hair, the president of the rid much - applauded ad Id sit to the students of Edia. was taakwork, whereas he th whom knowledge was a communities, in the quirt nufacturing town, he found nition of intelligence as the stions which, a century is,, stilled by those prejnebees tw. Adverting to the two and of undervaluing that sition which leads a man to have gone before as dad I steam-engines, sad Kill ent time as commonplace have no great men, and no oci steam-engines are all we should like to buy those and sell them at their own ed no justibeatiost, for they upon the world as it estate gh to justify us as Engtah• our progress • hut we were ily of man. Let them take see how small s preload a remains the same &mall is has fallen back from the uch cities as Nineveh and what vast and fertile tern• now present only a crude Spain yea pass din:rash torn where it is lazily sows the arts languish, literature ided between the most life ject superstition. In l'ne rope the earliest lessons of ^y shape of your hat idgit sabre ; and the royal ream thinks heaven and earthen gentlewoman drops a bible While on the borders of the tt divided from ne by the or of all the Rushee nips cocks alike the eiviliaatim ty affecting the zeal of the bition of the Vandal. Oat y three great races *bid waive life—the great Ote milder d e r rill thosee I 41 ,0 ni j mh, Belgium dirp e u grea k ewi u ff i ir o e f r : ° ; : l 7,: : : dpe.a r a t ia " ihn t o l n i trity a" B °llAndtallieli cie r e i r:t i o all acting the condition of the it to carry health and oar miseryto urinals d t ease., had shgctoisißlhcodCsitn p iellba e. chl ne im: r ssa t of humanity, philosophy speculative direetdon in t oe i l o n °he t e t r yn suhrnnt cen t s agencies tr see y ea g dp eas rproportion a ? e in ;b: lae fro tan : ll 6 : 7tl !s e e r i;ir tu:l v zt el *aril di. sl nd 41 [ 112 ,. pgoT t p r i El aw d t ern b :w w em. e i ) thil ent s ene h S all y : tat in e nt r n e con : tor. _ "".(ll.lr c ' sa r : e lel ac e o reoe n h at—a i li n lia ( dis e y l r : y 7 , d rininegignc bu /s PF: 4ltil ope w : , he en edu c ation cxpee,araeonntdr iea adapted of o ne p c o r t f ; : : : :; ; . _ i ; addressed by the seple; ;A rl an lardaesY speee k ° s rKnßo W ainfig h Lhaa' S termnsw eet if Ssan'ir • tbd p G _ e t .°lle°4lll:l o..• =NM II \