The Press. — London, England, 1858-02-27 00:00:00

ma inly thwarted the murderous onslaught at Inkermann ; and the present Lord HARDINGE has talents which, when brought into opera• Lion, will prove the wisdom of the choice, and show that he will not discredit the fame of his illustrious sire. Mr. MILNES has given notice of a motion upon the present vexa tious foreign passport regulations. We doubt if any definite benefit to Englishmen will result from the investigation. There is one point, however, in which some improvement could be effected. The French Government has decided that all passports for France shall be finally vied by a French consular official. At Dover and Folkestone the French consuls are, we believe, both Englishmen, and hence arises considerable inconvenience to persons who reach the coast from the interior, and who rely upon finding a French consul at either of these ports. A fresh workhouse iniquity has lately been brought to light. ALFRED FEIST, late Master of the Newington Workhouse, has been tried for a violation of the Anatomy Act, by disposing of the bodies of paupers contrary to the provisions therein contained. Mr. FEIST, it seems, has been accustomed to send the bodies of paupers to the hos pitals for dissection, and has at times received pecuniary remunera tion. This, it appears, he is not, forbidden to du in all cases where the deceased's relatives are not desirous that the body should be decently interred. The whole casa, as it seems to us, turned on this one word " desirous." What amount of evidence afforis a reasonable presumption that such a desire exists ? But surely this cannot be the real intention of the law, or if so, it requires a speedy alteration. Every body ought to be presumed desirous of seeing his relatives interred who does not make an express declaration to the contrary. The burden of proof should decidedly rest with the officials. At all events, from the means adopted by FEIST to conceal his transactions with the hospi tals, it is pretty clear that he was aware of the indignation they would excite among the friends of his victims. Such persons would be shown the genuine corpse in the office, but before interment it would be plundered for dissection, and its 'place filled up by the mangled re mains of a previous victim. And yet it seems probable that Mr. FEIST will escape, because it is uncertain if Ile violated the wishes of the poor dupes who believed they were following the body of a parent or brother to the grave. The Anatomy Act requires speedy alteration, if such a loophole exist in it as this. The " peculiar" literature has been banished from Holywell-street to reappear in Printing-house-squire. What was unfit for perusal in the gaudy shop-window of a twopenny bookseller becomes " inte resting," " striking," " graphic," and an " instructive lesson," in the columns of the leading journal. In the letter of " One More Unfortu nate." on Wednesday last there wore passages of as unquestionable pruriency as could be fbund in the professed annals of vice, and all the more mischievous that something was left to the imagination. That the picture was striking and graphic we do not deny ; but so are the worst passages of DRYDEN and FARQUHAR, and 80 doubtless is much of the unmentionable literature. But we utterly deny that any useful lesson is conveyed by it. It cannot be calculated to deter, for it is not calculated to disgust. On the contrary, any young woman reading the epistle in question will first be excited by hearing that a " new source of enjoyment" is opened to ber when she loses her virtue, and then relieved from all fear of the consequences, by finding that the miseries which she has been taught to associate with a vicious life have no real existence. Together with the new and varied pleasures which money can nrocure for her comes an increase of respect and assiduity. Tradesmen court her custom, landladies are obsequious, box-keepers are polite ; she comes in contact with nobody who betrays any con seiousness of her degradation, or arouses any sense of it within herself. Where is th 3 moral lesson of all this? Surely to the only class for whom it can be intended it is a highly immoral one ! We doubt if it would be possible to paint the path of prostitution in more attractive colours, or more deftly to disarm it of all those repellant features which it has hitherto possessed. On the other hand, as a piece of in formation to philanthropists, it is wholly unnecessary. The gentlemen at present engaged in the investigation of this subject are perfectly aware of the truth. They know, and have told the world they know, all which is contained in the letters published by the Times ; and we cannot but attribute the insertion of such communications either to considerable ignorance of human nature or of the stage to which the inquiries of social reformers have now reached. The room in which the committee met for the investigation of the charges against Mr. ISAAC BuTr, M.P., has been crowded during the week. The Chairman (Sir J. GRALIAII) very properly prohibited ally comments on the proceedings, and at present we forbear from all s:tictures on the evidence. As might have been expected from the nature of the charge, there was strong interest in the case. The general spectators included a large portion of the habitual loungers of THE PRESS, FEBRUARY 27,1858. London, mingled with several Irish gentlemen. The room was son *- times extremely crowded, but there was more decorum preserved and more absence of noise than are usual even in the courts of justice at Westminster. A highly favourable idea of our Parliamentary system is gained by the observation of the mode in which committees on special occasions administer justice. They sit as a court of political equity, bound by certain rules, and their tact and discretion are highly commendable. Strong interest was manifested by a variety of persons in the proceedings, and the expected " disclosures" were looked for as most interesting. Nothing, certainly, could be more grave or decorous than the course of the investigation, as far as we saw it during the first three or four days. It may be observed that the representa tive of the petitioner (Mr. ROEBUCK), and the learnel counsel for Mr , Burr (Mr. Sergeant DEASY, M.P.), both sat d own as mem b ers of the' committee. The examination in chief was conducted by Mr. ROEBUCK' and from Mr. COFFEY'S own minutes Mr. Burr certainly made a judicious selection of his counsel. There was no noise or bluster in the mode in which Mr. Sergeant DEASY conducted his cross-examination. His manner was quiet, guarded, and grave, and at times extremely effec tive, without ever sinking into the unseemly tone of a browbeater. Sergeant DEASY is a Chancery and not a Nisi Prins barrister, and a bystander might have at first supposed from his judicial manner that the learned gentleman was an ordinary member of the committee ; but the adroitness of his questions, and the art with which they were worded, revealed a forensic practitioner of great experience. Tho interest in the proceedings seems to grow daily, and the ease, without offering any opinion one way or the other, presents most curious aspects. We have perused with great interest the letter of " Indolphilus in the Times of yesterday, ',leaded " The Currency of India," and ad vocating a gold coinage for our Eastern empire. But the idea and the arguments on which it is based bear so remarkable a resemhlance to those contained in the article headed " Indian Finance—COreney," in THE Puss of the 21st of November last, that we think that " In dolphilus " was hardly justified in giving them to the world as a novelty, the product of his own fertile, or rather assimilative, brain. Every one who has frequented the lobby of the House of Commons must have often heard the remark, " What a merry set the Irish "members are ! " During the last week any spectator must have often heard rather uproarious felicitations on the fact of " small potato es " being "out." Not being versed in Hibernian localisms, we cannot undertake to explain the meaning of" small potatoes," for we suppose it does not refer to some merely vegetable export from the " Emerald Isle." We have looked for an explanation of the term, but we have sought in vain. What is unusual in Irish cases is the fact that joy at both sides was visible amongst the Irish M.P.'s at "small potatoes" being " down " and "out," and they mixed up the agricultural price•current with forensic news, in a manner that would bewilder the editor of Isl'CuLtockes "Encyclopaedia of Commerce." Sometimes they referred to " potatoes "as " they," and at other times they associated " he" even with with the plurality of what Cos BETT used to call " the accursed root." The matter is entirely beyond our comprehension, and we only notice it as indicating the universal feeling of joy amongst Irish Members, both Conservatives and Liberals. Even Whigs acknowledge that Lord CLARE:grows suggestion (adopted by Lord PALMERSTON) tO answer Count IVALEWSILL'S d ispatch orally, and not by writing, was entirely unworthy of the procedure of this country in affairs of such immense diplomatic importance. The most unprejudiced persons admit that Lord Cowutv's attempt to explain matters has rather made them worse. The language used by Lord COWLEY is ill-considered, and its tone is ill-chosen, and (even if the supposition might nut be inferred otherwise) the letter of Lord COWLEY suggests that Lord CLARENDON had proposed the forwarding of such an epistle. The course would only be in unison with the Noble Earl's proceedings in various other cases that we shall not here recall. We need not remind our readers of Lord CLARENDON'S letters to the Roman Catholic. Archbishop NicuouwN (published by a late Ro manist Peer), or to his surreptitious connection with the " Orangemen of Ireland," orto a variety of other transactions in which the Noble Earl played a most subtle part. To act openly, and in a frank way, was never supposed to he the habit of Lord CLARENDON. Astute and spe cious, insinuating but insincere, the Noble Earl has pursued a tor tuous course in his diplomatic life. It has been said that " Lord CLA " HENDON has many small and skilful arts, but not one great faculty and such would seem to be the case. One great result has certainly been brought about by Lord CLARENDON, and that is, the downfall of Lord PALMERSTON.