The Press. — London, England, 1857-08-15 00:00:00

THE PRE S S, AUGUST 15, 1857. dinner on the bill of fare is cheap. Nobody would dine upon the joint and a pint of stout at the " Star and Garter." Nor would the proprietor of such establishment ever take the trouble of making these cheap dinners good. All these are difficulties which it is perhaps possible to overcome by a combination of peculiar talents with great industry and honesty. But the combination is so rare that we despair of the result being accomplished. Our attention has been directed to the proceedings of the House of Commons last week in connection with the Leases and Sales of Settled Estates Bill. Sir THOMAS MARYON WILSON. lord of the manor of Hampstead-heath, and, freehold proprietor of two farms known as the Finchley-road Estate, by an omission in the terms of the will under which he inherited them, being unable to build on the property, has re peatedly, and, though the judges had reported in his favour, unsuccess fully, endeavoured to obtain a private Act of Parliament enabling him to do so. By a bill carried last year by the Attoraey-General it was provided that persons similarly circumstanced should be able to avoid the expense of an application to Parliament by conferring on the Lord Chancellor the power of entertaining these appeals and deciding them at his own discretion. But, with the view of enabling the Metropolitan Board of Works to purchase Hampstead-heath. within the year, a clause was introduced into the Bill disabling all such persons as had previously been refused a private bill by Parliament from renew ing their efforts in the Court of Chancery. The Metropolitan Board having neglected to avail themselves of this opportunity to purchase the property, a Bill was introduced this session by Mr. WHITESIDE to set aside this clause, and came on for the second reading on Tuesday, August 4th. The debate was adjourned, when the Bill was finally carried by 77 against 59. Sir F. BARING, Mr. E. P. BOUVERIE, Mr. H. FITZROY, Sir G. C. LEWIS, Sir JOHN RAMSDEN, and Mr. JAMES %VILSON, voted in the majority, besides Sir JAMES GRAHAM and various influen tial members of the Conservative party. The Attorney General, on the introduction of a slight alteration by Mr. WHITESIDE, gave in his adherence, and the matter appeared to be settled On the following morning, however, after one o'clock, when the Bill was in committee, a motion was made " That the Chairman do now leave the chair." This was opposed by the votes of the Right Hon. E. P. BOUVERIE, Sir G. CORNEWALL LEWIS, R. LOWE, W. N. NIASSET, Sir JOHN W. RAMSDEN, and JAMES WILSON, as ve 11 RS by Sir W. G. H. JOLLIFFE, &C. Notwith standing this, by the votes and exertions and the influence of the whippers-in, were six members of her Majesty's Government placed in a minority, and a blot upon English legislation continued in existence by a majority of one. It is curious to examine the votes secured on this occasion by Lord MULGRAVE and Mr. HATTER against the members of their own Government. Out of the .15 votes, of which the majority consisted, there were 2 new members, scarcely half a dozen of whom had heard the discussion on the second reading. Parliament legis lated in respect to Sir 'l'. M. WILSON'S land by compelling him to give up part of it for the Finchley-road, which passes through the estate from north to south, and part of it for the Hampstead Junction Rail way, which crosses it from east to west. Yet they now refuse him permission to turn the property to the best account by devoting it to purposes which we are assured would never interfere with Hampstead heath in the slightest degree. The farms are his own freehold, but the heath is common, and he can no more pretend to build upon it, says Mr. WIIITESIDE, than "on the top of St. Paul's." Under these circumstances Mr. HATTER'S manoeuvre certainly seems both dis creditable and unaccountable. No explanation, however, will, we sup pose, be vouchsafed, though we doubt if public sympathy will not be thereby turned more in favour of Sir T. M. WILSON than it hitherto has been. We cannot compliment the authorities at Dublin on the skill shown in trying to detect the murderer of Mr. Ltrri.v.. On the verdict of the jury we have nothing to say, but that we take for granted no other finding could be expected in the evidence laid before them. Even on the facts as stated by the Attorney-General, supposing that they all had been proved, it would have been difficult to have expected a verdict of " Guilty ;" but when Mrs. STOLLEN informed the police that part of the money was hid in a certain place (which she correctly indicated) we think that means should have been taken to allow the accused man to commit himself. Instead of that, SPOLLEN was pre maturely denounced ; and it was only to be inferred that, whoever may have been the murderer, all connecting links would have been removed with the exception of the bloody booty. There was an over whelming case of suspicion of the gravest kind, but still only suspicion, against STOLLEN ; but the circumstantial links failed in many places: and we think that the Attorney-General overstated his case, which was weak in several points. The padlock, sa much relied on by the Attorney-General, might have belonged to any one, and the evidence of the prisoner's children was not reliable. STOLLEN'S character is not cleared by the verdict; and it is an extraordinary cirzurnstance that a wife should have accused her husband of such a crime, and furnished remarkable evidence, and yet that the case should have failed. A certain amount of indirect feeling was shown at Dublin for SPOLLEN. It was desired that he should be convicted only on the proof; and he ha-I no reason to complain of the trial. The judges were most impartial and painstaking; and Mr. BREWSTER, ill his speech to evidence in the Crown, assumed a judicial tone. When the authorities were first informed by Mrs. STOLLEN of certain facts, STOLLEN should have been placed (as many innocent persons had previously been in this identical ease) under strict surveillance, and it is not impossible that another issue might ha ve been presented. The eminent counsel, Mr. BREWSTER and Mr. FITZGIBBON, were not retained until the Crown had committed itself by at once accusing SpoLLEN. _ by the French, was not very discriminative ; and, on the whole, even on English affairs, he cannot be praised for practical sagacity or clear foresight. The gloomy view which ho always took of the national prospects was described by the late Marquis WELLESLEY as emanating from "a spirit of sanguine despondency." He never dis cerned the corrective causes which counterbalanced some of the effects of the Reform Bill. and his lugubrious efforts as the Conservative Cassandra in the Quarterly Review were so monotonous as to invite bad punsters to play upon their writer's ominous name. It has always been supposed that Mr. CROKER was a careful preserver of all his papers, and that he employed much of his leisure on his "Life and Times." His statements must, we fear, bo accepted with caution, as he was a jaundiced observer, and the gall-bladder was too active in his atrabilious com position. Although sarcasm was his favourite weapon, in its employ ment he was far surpassed by some of his adversaries ; and it would be difficult, even for his best friends, to say in what Mr. CROKER ever was first-rate. Yet, undoubtedly he had a mind of extraordinary activity ; he was quick in acquiring knowledge, tenacious in retaining it ; he was polemical by instinct, and controversial by profession ; rarely profound in his views, his standard for measuring right and wrong was purely conventional, but his affectation of at istocratic prejudices, and echoing the fashionable cant of the great and high born, was ridiculous and out of place. On the whole, Mr. CROKER was a literary man whose powers were more active than original, and, even allowing their full force to his acuteness and prompt command of details, wo fear that the defects of his mind counter balanced his merits. For several years his connection with the Quarterly Review had ceased, and he did not at the close of his career enjoy much of the confidence of many of the leaders of the Conservative connection. The heaviest charges against him probably are that ho was never chivalrous in dealing with opponents, and that he never helped the rising talents of his own connection. His self-sufficiency, his jealousy, and his spleen were too often apparent. He did not agree well with the literary supporters of the Conservative party, and one of them (now no more) wrote the coarsest and cleverest epigram since the days of Swirr upon Mr. CROKER'S intimate connection with the late Marquis of HERTFORD. His biographer (if lie have one) will have a most difficult task to perform, and he should be cautious how he lays himself or his prin cipal open to replies; for, judging by what already has appeared in print, we fear little mercy can be expected from political adversaries towards one who exceeded all living journalists and periodical contri butors in the excessive license of disparagement which he claimed. But it is only fair to recollect that the times in which Mr. CROKER was reared were more passionate than our quieter days, and that the tone of " Liberal" writers was extremely abusive—so that a rose water school of reviewing would not have been adequate. On the whole, however, it is to be regretted that Mr. CROKER did not remain in Parliament, where his ready powers of argument, and his political knowledge, would have been much valued after the Reform Bill. He might then have gained a higher weed of fame than even the partiality of friendship or community of political feelings can venture to assign him now. The Crystal Palace a commercial failure ! Hero is an awful business for the apostles of universal knowledge to be acquired per fectly in three lessons. After all, then, gin-palaces and tea-gardens have proved too powerful for statues and antiquities—the Adelphi and Cremorne for Egypt and Assyria, and a living Buckstone for a dead bull. The result does not in the least surprise us. If the poor man is to be interested in exhibitions of art or science they must be brought to him. He will not go to seek them. Or if any additional attraction is held out to him in the way of eating and drinking it must be in a locality appropriate to his own class, where he will be neither elbowed by gents nor patronised by gentlemen. All who know the habits of the labouring man know right well that he cannot enjoy himself under the eyes of the gay and wealthy. It is all very well on certain set occasions, just as a schoolboy may like to take tea with the head master once in a half year. That is an occasion for pride. But he shuns the light of that potentate's counte nance when he unbends for pleasure. If the price of admission were lowered, it might go some little way towards counterbalancing this feeling, but it would not go far enough. The success of the Crystal Palace, as a more exclusively gastronomic institution, is, we think, equally doubtful. The rich already have Greenwich and Richmond, with natural attractions superior to anything at Sydenham. Young men of more moderate resources have Hampstead ant Twicken ham, Hampton Court, and Kew; and poorer classes still would never dream of going to Sydenham to dinner. The fact is, that " combined attractions " frequently fail to attract. One or two qualifications of a first-rate order will make any locality more popular with pleasure hunters than a numper of minor accessories. At Sydenharn there arc the courts and the curiosities, and the concerts, the poultry, the flowers, and the fountains. But the single recommendation of exquisite scenery, or first-rate wine, or some special amusement like tennis or rowing to be enjoyed in perfection, will at once supersede them all. The Crystal Palace of 1s)1 was a novelty in London, and was more splendid within its narrow limits than the present building. People could go there too without the uneasy sense that they ought to he learning something. It was, in fact, alto gether different—a difference which we are sorry the shareholders of Sydenham did not perceive sooner. There is no reason, it may be said, why the Crystal Palace should not unite the cuisine of Greenwich and Richmond with all its present attractions. But then it must depend upon the same class of visitors as Greenwich and Richmond depend upon. It would no longer be the people's palace. If a man wants a cheap dinner, he goes where the hest