The Press. — London, England, 1858-03-13 00:00:00

THE PRESS, MARCH 13, 1858. Mr. V. SMITH should have had no "public correspondence" with Mr. Burr, and that, while the latter gentleman's letters were marked "pri vate " or " confidential," Mr. SMITH should have kept no copies of his own. Mr. SMITH seems to have been actuated by that constitutional modesty which he really carries to an excess : "he thought so little of them." On the other hand, Mr. Burr was actuated in his desire for secrecy by an unwillingness in case of an appeal to Parliament to be met by the Directors ►with his own proposals for a compromise. We now come to the pecuniary part of the affair. About the 20th of June, 1857, the Ameer offered Mr. BUTT 10,0001. to go to India, in consequence of the remittal of his case to Bombay. Whether this added any urgency to Mr. Burr's interviews with the Directors in July, we are left to conjec ture, but the offer seems not have been accepted till the end of July, and, therefore, not till after the compromise had been effected. Mr Burr certainly made no secret of the proposal, and consulted several members and gentlemen of position respecting it; among others, Mr. SEYMOUR FITZOERALD, the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. He was to have 3,0001. down, the residue in bills payable in India. On the 11th of August he received 3001., subsequently 2,0001. more. The Ameer was on his way to Bombay, and TAr. Burr was preparing to follow him, when, on the 14th of September, came a letter from the Board of Control, representing that the Ameer could get no account from COFFEY as to expenditure of certain moneys which ho had re ceived. Mr. Burr saw Sir GEORGE CLERK, and tho sums not accounted for proved to be the 300/. and the 2,0001. which he had himself re ceived. He did not, however, tell Sir GEORGE that he knew the impu tation to be unjust, which he attributes to the fact that Sir GEORGE just then chanced "to hurriedly change the conversation." Tt was, at least, unfortunate that it should be Mr. Burr's duty to proceed to Trieste immediately afterwards, and dismiss COFFEY for slandering the Ameer to the British Embassy at Vienna. Whence the wrath of CoFFLY and the above curious disclosures ! It is only fair to conclude an article, already overlong, by stating that Mr. Burr still considers himself bound to proceed eventually to India, or return the money. " From the start at Cork Hill, and along the whole route to the " place of embarkation, there were but few and faint ebullitions of " popular sympathy" Such is the mode in which the Dublin corre spondent of the Times of Friday recounts the public departure from Ireland of the Earl of CARLISLE. Such is the end of Lord CARLISLE'S system of governing Ireland to please certain cliques of place-hunting agitators. A few years ago the feelings towards Lord CARLISLE were of a different kind, and grand public dinners were got up to console him for having been beaten at Yorkshire in the West Riding, and in the city of Dublin at the same general election. It is worthy of historical record that at the great dinner then given in honour of the " beloved Mourne( " the chair was taken by—the Marquis of CLANRICARDE! It is now the year 1855, and Lord CLANai- CARDS is to act next week on the principle of " every man his own Boswell," while Lord CARLISLE leaves Ireland under "few and faint " ebullitions of applause." After that, will any one deny that we arc living in an " ago of progress"? On personal grounds Lord CARLISLE has many claims to respect. He is kindly and genial, but we believe that Lord CARLISLE was not enough of an actor to conceal his disgust at some small politicians, while rehearsing their parts behind the scenes; and we fear that Lord CARLISLE, with the best intentions, ad mitted to his social intimacy a class of persons that ought not to have enjoyed the Viceregal hospitalities, unless it had been designed to bring the office of Lord Lieutenant into disfavour with the gentry of Ireland. Lord CARLISLE has many virtues calculated to adorn private life, and even his warmest friends will admit that his Lordship would appear to more advantage at Castle Howard than in the Castle of Dublin. The indifference of the Irish Liberals at Lord CAR LISLE'S leaving Ireland shows that the system of " Mulgravism " is completely worn out. We have received a pamphlet entitled " The Case of the Reforn: ers in the Literary Fund," stated by Messrs. DIME ; DICKENS. and FOSTER ; and we have read its contents and compared it. with the Report of the last annual meeting with great interest. As far as we can see at pre sent, the Reformers have failed in establishing a case against the managing committee. Some of their grievances are untrue, some have been repealed, and others are inevitable. For instance, the Reformers say that the sum distributed in relieving claimants was during the past year 1.2251., while the expense of its distribution was 5321. Now, it appears that whereas the sum of 1,2251. represents only the amount distributed in relief, the 5321. applies to the whole income of the society, which is 2,6641.—that is to say, includes not only the expense of distribution, but the expense of collection as well, the salary of secretary, and, indeed, the entire expenses of the society. The same kind of confusion occurs in giving the number of subscribers now and m 1802. As an instance of a grievance which has been repealed, we may mention that periodical writers are now admitted to rank as lite rary men, which they formerly were not. A complaint is also made that the man who seeks the relief of this society, " no matter what his " genius or his learning, no matter how manifoll his reasons for keep " ing secret his temporary distress, no matter how direful his need for " prompt and immediate aid, must produce to the committee testi " ' menials of two or more respectable persons authenticating the " facts' on which his application was grounded, and must lodge such " testimonials with the secretary at least seven days before the meet ": ing which was to determine their credibility." What we contend for is, that there ought to be nothing more humiliating about the action of the Literary Fund than there is in Queen Anne's Bounty or the Insti tution for the Sons of the Clergy. In all such cases we require testi mony and publicity. There is a college at Oxford at which a lad cannot stand for certain scholarships without a certificate from resi dents in his father's parish that the latter is too poor to support him. Yet there was never considered to bo anything humiliating in this. We are aware of the peculiar reasons why literary men should regard alms as a disgrace. But it is questionable how far it would be desirable to relieve the donations of the Literary Fund, as at present distributed, from every element of the disagreeable. At all events, as there is no legal fund for briefless barristers, or medical or clerical funds for Mr. Bob Sawyer or the Rev. Amos Barton, we think that literary men in whose favour this peculiar exception exists have no right to grumble at what seems to us an inevitable accompaniment. How can precautions be other than disagreeable, and would not iho Fund be bankrupt in six months if it did not take them? We are not at all surprised at the spirited writing that has appeared in the Daily News relative to the rumour that two pensions to a large amount have been granted by the out-going Cabinet to two of its subordinates. We cannot speak of our own knowledge on the point whether those pensions have actually been granted, but there has appeared no contradiction to these rumours. Mr. JAMES WILSON is certainly a most fortunate gentleman. His party are defeated, and he retires after five years' service upon a pension of twelve hundred pounds per annum, and some of the journals have recorded the fact that " Mr. JAMES Wit.sos has taken the mansion of the late Duke of "MARLBOROUGH, in Belgrave-square." In debate Mr. WILSON was known as "a figure member," in which he often met his equals, and sometimes his superiors ; and as a writer on political economy Mr. WILSON has produced nothing on his own side of the question comparable to Mr. M'CoLtocx's productions, or to the works of the late Mr. TOOKE. It has for many years been understood that the official pension due to ex• Ministers cannot be given, except where the claimant states "the inadequacy of his private fortune to " maintain his station in life." The Pension Act is positive in this provision, and it does seem strange that a gentleman with a residence in Belgrave-square should, under the circumstances, claim tbe pen sion. Possibly such an acct might be meant as an acknowledgment of virtuous poverty? We know that when ADDINGTON became Prime Minister, that PITT, after having been seventeen years in office, re ' duced his establishment expenses to a singularly small sum, and went to live in a fourth-rate street. Mr. JAMES Wilson, after five years' service as a subordinate, falls out of office, but rises up in Belgrave square, in the mansion occupied by the late proprietor of Blenheim ; and certainly Belgravia is an odd locality for an "economist" wanting 1,2001 a year to choose for living in! Alluding to Mr. WILSON, and to an ex-subordinate connected with the Admiralty, the Daily News ob serves :—" If it be found that the pensioners live handsomely, hare " large mansions, and great counting-houses, and enter into and com " pete with the luxury and frivolity of fashionable life, the opinion " may prevail that their case was not contemplated by the 4th and " toth William IV., chap. 24, sec 6," and though the letter of the enactment may have been complied with, that its spirit has been violated. WONDERFUL RECOVERY. THE Romanists, it appears, are not to have all the miracles to them selves. Two or three surprising cases have appeared in the Tablet since the beginning of the present year, of old men or women sud denly restored to their sight, or their health, after long deprivation. We now have a remarkable case to set against them, and one in which the celebrity of the individual, and the notoriety of the facts, tend to make a single case equal to a dozen of the ordinary " old-women class." A gentleman, long a member of the House of Commons, of the name of RALPH BERNAL OsBoRNE, was mesmerically treated about five years ago by some empirics of the names of TEMPLE and GORDON. H• was seated in a chair of a peculiar construction, in a house near St. James's-park, and so handled by them, that, although for several years previous he had been a voluble and continual talker, he suddenly lost his speech, and his friends in the House of Commons have had to mourn, for five years past, his strange and sad condition. It appears, however, that there was something peculiar and sym pathetic in the spell, and that it lasted only so long as the conjuror who had himself placed him in the chair, was himself the occupant of a similar chair in a neighbouring house, magnetically connected. A few days ago, the conjuror, HENRY TEMPLE (who sometimes went by the name of "Palmerston ") suddenly quitted his seat, left the house, and, as the event shows, thereby broke the spell, and poor Mr. OSBORNE was at once restored to the use of his speech. This miracle was verified in the hearing of hundreds of persons only yesterday afternoon. Mr. BERNAL OSBORNE appeared as Wiled in the House of Commons, but instead of preserving his usual sad and solemn silence, he suddenly chirped out, as in former times, the fol lowing notice : If the right hon. gentleman (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) did not intimate what the measures were to be, he (Mr. B. Osborne) should not only vote against the grant on credit, but should feel bound to call the attention of the house to the special circumstances under which the present Government had acceded to power, and to ask the house how far they were willing to grant them confidence. _ Thus it appears that Mr. OSBORNE is once more himself again. Strange to say, however, the conjuror still retains some power over him; for he evidently views him new state of freedom with alarm, and " feels no confidence" in any but the aforesaid HENRY TEMPLE. It is fervently to be hoped, however, that no relapse will take place, but that he will continue to enjoy the use of his tongue, amid to keep out of that enchanted chair to the end of his days. B 11