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

842 deductions made by a leading journal from the manner in which the Hindoos and Parsees of Bombay observed the day of prayer and humiliation. This observance, it would ap pear, is deemed to be the most satisfactory indication possible of the extent to which the Company's rule is loved and revered in India. A little examination will serve to dissipate this idea. In the first place, demonstrations in favour of any absolute Government are things to which but little weight can be attached, for we see the Wallachians welcome ODIER PACHA to-day, having welcomed the Russians previously. In the next place, the conduct of the Hindoos and Parsees of Bom bay affords no indication of the feelings of other natives -of India, men of races dis tinct from them and existing under circum stances wholly different. The Hindoos of Bombay are sleek men of business, " pursy traders," as the Times would call them—people who never girded on a sword in their lives, and who under no com• pulsion whatever could be made to do so— men who never touch a gun even when un loaded, for fear it should go off, and who have about as much in common with the Sikhs and Mahrattas, the Goorkas and Rajpoots,—in short, with the warlike races of the Hindoos of India,—as a bailie of the Canon gate had with a Highland cateran in the year of grace 1745. indeed, the ridiculous panic which these people were described to be in, a mail or two ago,—suspending all business, burying their money, and preparing for flight into the interior,—at the bare thought of two or three Russian vessels-of-war being in the Indian seas, must be sufficient to prove the value of such men's aid and support to us, by showing precisely the stuff of which they are made. That they acted very meritoriously, and showed great good feeling in praying for the success of her Majesty's arms, we most freely admit ; but their adherence to us is not to be taken as an indication that we have laid a secure foundation for our Eastern empire in the respect and affection of the people of India. As to the Parsees, they are the small re mains of the fire-worshippers, persecuted out of Persia by the Mahomedans, and are as much aliens in India as we are ; and, though person ally men of great manliness and courage, they on principle eschew the profession of arms, like the body to which they bear a great resemblance—the Society of Friends in Eng land. They are content with the influence derived from their intelligence, their energy, and their wealth. But, so far from being ad mirers of the Company's system, they are for the most part the bitterest enemies to it which that system has Though warm friends of the English connection, they are strongly op posed to the arbitrary spirit of the Company's rule, and, in order to protect themselves from being subjected to it, they always when they can locate themselves within the jurisdiction of the Supreme Courts ofJ udicature appointed by the Crown at the different Presidencies. There, as far as person and property are con cerned, they are as safe from injustice as any man in England, for there neither person nor property can be attacked, except through the Instrumentality of a process in courts presided over• by judges independent of the Company, and selected by the Crown from the bar of England. Before one of these courts the lowest native at the Presidencies stands as the equal, in the eye of the law, of the highest ser vant of the Company. Beyond the magic circle of its jurisdiction, his house may be levelled or his lands resumed by the collector ; within it, if the attempt be made, he files his suit and his title under the plea of immemorial possession ; prescriptive usage is affirmed, and proves destructive of the illegal pretensions of the Company. Beyond the magic circle, a public func tionary may deal with any native as he chooses ; within it, the magistrate who goes beyond his functions is subjected to an action, and the dread of this keeps him perpetually on his good behaviour. Beyond the magic circle, the Company violates the engagements entered into by its servants with the cultivators at plea- \ THE PRESS. sure ; within it, it is compelled to adhere rigidly to all its stipulations. Beyond the magic circle, torture may be, and is, still largely used by subordinates, to enforce confession of crime or pay ment of rent, being winked at by many local officers, though it is prohibited by the regulations ; while within the circle any one attempting to use torture to a prisoner or debtor, on any pretence, would soon find himself In irons. In short, beyond the magic circle, the only real law is the Government's will and pleasure . while within it, all those checks exist which, even if the governors and their subordinates were angels, would still be found necessary to ensure security, and its consequences—public confidence, social do velopment, and commercial prosperity and wealth. Accordingly, we see within the magic circles the whole district to be a perfect nest of riches, comfort, and independence ; while such large portions of India beyond them are pic tures of misery, misrule, and discontent. The original intention of the Legislature was that the Company should always, and throughout its entire dominions, be subjected to this wholesome and most necessary check — a check that would still leave it as much power as is possessed by the Crown of England—a power surely sufficient, more es pecially considering the hands in which it is placed. The infamous conduct of IMPEY, how ever, led the friends of India to attach less weight in the outset than they should have done to the importance of this check, and the Company were in consequence ably afterwards to munceuvre so as to confine its operation to the narrow circles around the cities of Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta, over which it then exer (Amid sovereign sway. To this narrow circum scription of the jurisdiction of these Supreme Courts we owe the contrasts that in India everywhere meet us—of misery and injustice in the provinces, and wealth and confidence at the Presidencies. This is the great cause of the discrepancy between the sufferings of the wretched ryot, and the prayers offered for us by the wealthy and contented Hindoos and Parsees. In the latter case all the blessings which the supplicants to the Deity feel grate ful for are blessings derived exclusively from the Crown ; in the former case all the miseries sustained are miseries inflicted entirely by the system of the Company—a system of which the evils are greatly aggravated by the absence of all proper control on the part of Sir CHARLES Woon. ARCHDEACON WILBERFORCE THE following correspondence has been made public within the last few days : " Burton Agnes, Ang. 30, 1854. "My Lord Archbishop,—The step which I now take would have been taken somewhat sooner but for the ru mours that my work on the Holy Eucharist would be made the subject of legal investigation. 1 find it difficult to believe that the intention is seriously entertained, for the warmest opponents of that work deny baptismal regenera tion, the priestly commission, and the validity of absolution. Now, these doctrines are so positively affirmed in the formu laries of our Church that for one passage in them which presents difficulties in my system there are hundreds by which that of my opponents is plainly contradicted. I oan hardly imagine that they desire a rigour in in terpreting our formularies which must be fatal to them selves. But I should have felt it due, both to my opinions and to those who shared them, to defend myself to the utmost against such an assault. My book, however, has now been nearly a year and four months before the public, and no legal proceedings, so far as I know, have been com menced. And in the meantime my attention has been drawn to another part of our Church's system, with which I have become painfully conscious that I can no longer concur. I refer to the royal supremacy. lam as ready as ever to allow her Majesty to be supreme over all persona, and in all temporal causes, within her dominions, and shall always render her, 1 trust, a loyal obedience ; but that she, or any other temporal ruler, is supreme in all things or causes I can no longer admit. If the act of 1832 were all on which my difficulties were founded, I might justify myself, as I have heretofore done, by the consideration that it was probably passed through inadvertence, and had re ceived no formal sanction from the Church. But my pre sent objection extends to the act of 1533, by which this power was bestowed upon the King in Chancery, and to the Ist article in the 86th canon, which is founded upon it. With the grounds of my objection I need not trouble your grace, though I shall shortly state them to the public through the press. To your grace, however, I desire to state, that I recal my subscription to the Ist article in the 36th canon, as believing it to be contrary to the law of God. It remains, of course, that I should offer to divest myself of the trusts and preferments of which this subscription 1 SATURDAY, was a condition; and put myself, so fares it is possible, into the condition of a mere lay member of the Church. I therefore tender my resignation to your grace.—l remain, my lord archbishop, your grace's obedient servant, ROBERT I. WILBERFORCE. " To his Grace the Lord Archbishop of York." " Bishopstborpe, York, August 31, 1854. " My dear cannot affect to be at all surprised at the contents of your letter just received. It is not neces• nary for me now to enter upon a discussion of the questions alluded to in your letter. But, ea far as by law I may, I accept of your resignation of the preferments you hold in the diocese of York. You arc aware, however, that, in or• der to give lull legal effect to your intentions, a formal re• signation should be made before myself in person, or before a notary public. With every feeling of personal respect and esteem, 1 remain, my dear sir, your faithful servant, " T. Esoa " The Rev. R. I. Wilberforce." - - - After the specimens of the Archdeacon's teaching which we set before our readers in the PRESS of last Saturday, we cannot affect to regret that, by a voluntary resignation of his offices, he has saved the Church from the pain and scandal of a judicial conflict on one of the most sacred of her doctrines. We do not exactly understand the archidiaconal logic, it is true. How Mr. WILBERFORCE "finds it diffi " cult to believe" that he is to be brought to account for holding Romish doctrine because somebody else doesn't hold something or other ; or what the royal supremacy has to do with his work on the Eucharist ; or why, if lie " should have felt it due," &c. &c., " to defend " himself to the utmost against an assault" on his book, he now runs away just when the as sault is about to be made, we do not quite comprehend. However, the conclusion is satis factory—never mind the premises. We are promised in a few days " An Enquiry into the Principles of Church Authority ; or, Reasons for Withdrawing my Subscription to the Royal Supremacy," and can afford to wait for them with much equanimity. The "mere lay mem " bers of the Church," who are " merely" nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand in her communion, may not, perhaps, be much flattered at the tone of their new conscript's accession ; but the archdeacoury will be deli vered from some wearisome annual charges and perpetual meddling and vexation, while the Church will no longer appear to sanction writings which (we are told by the Romanist organ) " teach the full Roman doctrine" ou one of the great questions of the Reformation. If Mr. WILBERFORCE imagines that "lay com munion" will long satisfy any one who has been active and zealous in the ministry of the Church, he either knows less of human nature, or has been less active in the duties of his pro fession than at present we give him credit for. He will add another to the melancholy list of Cardinal WISEMAN'S conquests before long. That the Archdeacon of TAUNTON, who has sinned at least as deeply against the Church's doctrine, and far more perseveringly against her peace, will follow the good example set him by his colleague of the East Riding, we have no great hope. But, in any case, her duty, and our own as Protestants, is plain. The half dozen Romanisers who for the last ten years have been making such perpetual experiments on her forbearance must be put in their right place, and promptly. Were this element of mischief once eliminated, there is nothing to hinder the revival of that congenial Protestant Conservatism in the Church which the well being of the State, no less than the peace and progress of the Church herself, demands. TREATMENT OF CHOLERA• WHEN that malignant disease which we term cholera first appeared in India, the question was much debated whether it would totally disappear when its rage expired, or whether it would remain as a permanent type of disease in the countries it had once visited. The experience of seven and thirty years shows that, whatever may be its nature or predisposing cause, it has obtained some lasting hold of human organism, and that we must deal with it as with an enemy that is always lurking in secret to attack us. If, breaking from its ambush, it takes us unawares, we are at its mercy. Much may be done to prevent, little to resist, it. The sanitary ma- \