The Press. — London, England, 1853-09-24 00:00:00

SEPTEMBER 24, 1853. importance to its professors. Lord JOHN RUSSELL. is (anions, too, for his impulsive bursts of a sort of traditionary patriotism. There are certain " cries" that are sacred to the Whigs—their own peculiar property ; so exactly fitted to them anti their position, indeed, as to be almost useless to any other party. Just hint at "the cause of Civil and Religioas Liberty." and Lord JOHN RUSSELL immediately loses all his stereotyped gravity. all his recaLitrant caution, and incontinently " makes up - ibr the part of legitimate successor of him who late(' on the field and the other who died on the scaffold. We have Ault felt puzzled, as observers of Lord ,lolls ItussEta:s career, to determine whether these valorous eseapades have been the genuine and generous outpourings of an hereditary Whig, or only felicitous bombast. In endeavouring to test the value of the tireenock manifestation, we do not find any relief from the :teen/domed difficulty. " Not " once, but meat times," the enthusiastic Seots were reminded, " England has stood faarward " to resist oppression, to maintain the intle " pendence of weaker nations, &e., eic." Anal, further, they were exhorted to perfonn the mgf-appointed duty of Britain, "by our moral " influence, if possible, and maintaining the " inestimable 'dossing of peace ;" but. they were also told, " if peace cannot be maintained " with honour, it is no hanger peace—it be " conies then but a precarious tEllet`, to be " denounced by others whenever they shall " think fit—whenever they think ant opportu " ttutity has occurred to enforce by anus their " unjust deinends either upon us or upon our "allies." And, at each of these scarcely-veiled attacks on the conduct of Russia in the Turkish affair, there arose, according to the reporters, " cheers," "loud cheers," "much cheering." " much and loud cheering." and " continued applause !" Now, we do not quite understand this lett-handed statesmanship. To elicit those cheers, in their intoned variety, was of course a feat of which the orator might na turally be proud ; for he was cajoliing the worthy Seotehmen taut of their senses in a style that would not have been thrown away on that House of Commons. But how does all this bear on the position of the Ministry, in referent.° to the Turkish question? Lord 3011 N 111101ELCS colleagues have pursued a policy the very reverse of that which he sha dowed forth in the passages we have quoted. They have implored peace, "at any price," and without the s!ightest regartl to whether it could be "maintained with honour," or whe ther it was a "precarious truce." Is it in aceordance with the high character assumed for the STATESMAN, thus to obtrude personal views, however honourably entertained, when their very courage anal ittonlinesa clash with the sordid and craven policy of the Cabinet us a whole ? CONVICT PUNISHMENT. WE are certainly not disposed to underrate the difficulty of dealing with the transportation question, and we have always admitted both the indispensable uceessity of limiting the amount of convict emigration to Australia, and even the probability of its being found necessary at :►o distant period to discontinue it altogether. On these points not only all political parties, but all rational men, are agreed. But here unanimity ends. We are cast adrift in an ocean of uncertainty and doubt, with danger on every side, and neither precedent nor ptineiple by which to shape our course. Legislation must be experimental, for a system of transportation, under one form or another, has continued in force ever since the foundation of our colonial empire. The experiment must be tried at the risk of public safety and public morality; tier does it seem easy to fix upon any preferable alternative, in the event of the present scheme of punish• went turning out a failure. We have written " the present scheme of punishment." More correctly we should have said "the present scheme of disposing of cri• THE PRESS. minals after the term of their punishment has expired." For as regards the punishment it self, now that a scarcity of labour is not, and is not likely to be, complained of, it may equally well. and indeed more economieally, be ad- ministered in England to, in a colony. Penal labour on public w►•orks luny possibly be even pro►titxl►lu--it oanuot be 41angerourt. To this substitution, therefore, the more so as it has already for some year" past been pinetieally in (twee. though without parliamentary sanction, no one ham been found to object. The real question is, "riven a conviet whose sentenee has expired, what shall be done with him ?" This difficulty Lord Mimi:lucre:4 undertakes to solve, or, failing to untie the knot, he cuts it. He proposes to allow such eonviet to re main in England, subject only to the necessity 31 making I►is appearanee at stated times I►L fine IL magistrate, under penalty (we presume) -- - „ If being again plaeed in ►onfincement. No Aker provision is added ; nor do we know tow far the examining magistrate is entitled o inquire concerning his habits. mode of life. uul nu•ans of obtaining mutport. On theme all-important details Parliament was left in ignorance. But the public is less in ettrious. The intmluetion nay, the very mune—of a ticket-of-heave system is new in England. We know it only by the practice and precedent of Australia. Hut tho social system of Australia► and that of England arc so widely different that no analogy can fairly be drawn front one to the other. In a colony, especially in the least settled parts of a colony, every individual is known, marked, his habits easily ascertainable, his absence certain to be commented upon. In such a community, therefore, the degree of supervision which ticket of leave implies may be exercised with• out any inquisitorial research, and with a very moderate amount of difficulty. It is otherwise here. Large towns give a degree of privacy which is not found even in the wilderness. The backwoodsman—the Australian shepherd —may have few neighbours to criticise or eon trol his actions ; but at least his comings-in anti goings-out can be watched ; anti his very tnu•k betrays him. In London—in Liverpool - Manehester— in every city containing many thousands of inhabitants—it is in the power of any individual, without the exercise of extraordinary ingenuity or skill, but from the mere tact of its being impossible to follow him in a crowd, to escape the Roane of the most vigilant police. A mall may reside in this metropolis under half a dozen aliases, and yet be unsuspected. In a practical, as well as a poetical, sense, there is no solitude like the solitude of a densely-peopled city. Is it certain that the residence—the pursuits— the morality—of the reclaimed felon can be inquired into by the magistrate ; that the an nual muster, the annual investigation, will not decline into a matter of mere routine? And if otherwise, how is a strict and constant guard to be kept over these liberated prison ers, without exposinif honest men to the annoyance of similar inquiries ? We are well aware that a prartire like that recommended for our adoption prevails in France. But it prevails only through the agency of spies, in formers, gendarmes without number, and a passport system vigorously enforced. These things have never been tried, and %%sill never be tolerated, among us. It is idle to criticise a measure which has become law ; but we cannot hesitate to reiterate our conviction that a great legal reform—inevitable in some respects, in others co►nmendable—hats been inaugurated with a degree of haste and carelessness inexcusable in a matter of such magnitude, and which it will be well if we have not cause to repent. AN ENGLISH JLAI►IAI. A\ English lady, Miss CV:4111N011.04. has been distributing Protestant tracts in some villages in Tllheitlly, thus contravening conventions' laws mot awaiting ineinivenience to diplomat fists, in obedience tow high sense of thltY• 'Wing coinineneeil her proeeedings at the of laigliano. and having been warned id" that plaee, partly by well-disposed persona and partly by the hostile manifestations of the. priest-ridden lieitsantry, she eontiniosi hilt ing tracts at another Lauri., called Here, at the instigation or th e priest, she "„ s arrested, ronveyeil by an °dicer of gendar merie to the priaon of Lures, mud only permit, ted the company of one friend, o n th e ex p ress stipulation that all conversation should pe e s in Milian. A word of English, or of any language not understood by the °nicer, and they were to be separated, and Miss CUNNING HAM thereafter kept in solitary elintinement. Anil this for attempting to make the benighteil victims or Papal superstition acquainted %%ilk setiptural truth The Pram' Duke having been applied to by some of the English residents, his soma el. that the 1,1 11' Noma take its memo! That laa , muter a new code, inflicts IMPRISONMENT for FITE or TNN TEARS, with HASH LABOUR pUll islllllClll., considering the change in manners, seareely less severe than those awarded to the martyrs of old, and yet bruised by a single and defenceless woman in the cause of the Uospel of CHRIST! The person by whom this intelligence is communieated to a contemporary sights him gulf "Au Englishman." He preaunieti to say. that "no one can for one moment entertain a doubt of the gross eulpability of WINS CUNNINii- HAWS proceedings, or of her excessive folly in offending the religious feelings of a nation whose hospitality has been extended to her." As to the first of these propositions. we venture to say that few Christian men, natives of the country claimed as his birthplace by this Italianised " Englishman." will i t w i t h any other feeling than scorn ; and as tOr the imputation of " folly," it comets quite naturally from one who, dating from the Baths of Lucca, almost proclaim+ that his mond sense ha s beeome - blunted by southern indulgenee, and the futilities so freely offered to the religiously lax by the institutions fostered by Rome for her own enslaving purposes. On 01w point. we apprehend, then , really 101 be "no doubt " that is to say, that in this nineteeth venture, and after all the maerilieem mankind hay" 11111110 to secure freedom of thought end speech. it militia lung be tolerated that such laws shall eontinue in force in any civilised state. Nations owe reciprocal duties, and there is a highest duty of all that overrides these conventional rules. As a %%ninth. Miss CUNNINfiIIAM Wits deilig lilt more than her duty. Priesteraft awl 4 Obsenratitihni way for a time pre% ail to, crush such persons, but the stiligith• is 'me lo o ' 4 ' nit 1 . .. Ma must lie clearly seen loon the homy of its commence ment. THE lithographic news sheet ot• Berlin states that oil the 17th the I'rls••ian tiovenunrnt sent to M. Wiltlettlirtt , h, its nmbas►•ador at Conatentinopk, tlcepatehes, etkiolnitig him to induce the Ottoman Porte to accept without modification the note to Vienita. THE Madrid . ;otitiotl , of the 17th ci•ulain long details of the entrant.► of the duet n, the king, and Royal Family into the capital, nil their return from 1.1: (et anja. 'l•ntt: newspaper called the Joke of the People had suispendell its publication. IN tal.•ing leave of the lineen before his &paella° from itlairitt, Mr. Porringer, the late United states at that Court, is stated to have saitl •. 1 UM Irectvil by the Pro.itlent to expires the we, lity'd alo.urances of his *Wee►', desire to Mailitialti the relation* of the two ►rmnni►te—to t.tt 'molten idol yttyhd the friendly intYreourse how happily '.ulisipting briery!' the two tioverinuenta, and to ►ream to the pebple of both t►atioar a runtintiove of the I.okaiiiiips from that iutt•rcottrae '•