The Press. — London, England, 1854-02-11 00:00:00

124 the companies or of contractors, 41 were trespassers on the line or chance passers-by. Of the injured 121 were passengers, 63 servants of the companies or of contractors, 7 were trespassers or persons injured while accidentally crossing. From these facts a practical conclusion may be drawn. The total of passengers conveyed during the half year was 45,080,310 —forty-five millions in round numbers. Now, as 24 only were killed, it results that in the case of each individual performing a railway journey the chances of life as against death are 4.44z0,r00, or 1,875,000 to 1 ; which may be more popularly estimated as follows :—that if a man were to perform a journey of average length by railroad every day in the year, Sundays included, the chances of safety during five years of such continuous travelling would still be as 1,000 to 1 in his favour, with something over. But taking into account all injuries, slight or grave, we have in the half year 121 such cases, plus the 21 deaths : total, 145 ; which gives the chances of injury from accident to escape as, for each journey uh lete erre , or something less than lin 300,000. In tamer words, if a man travel 300 day by railroad (or nearly every day for a year, Sundays not included), his chances of safety as against injury from accident during the whole of that time would be 1,000 to 1, and something more. A popular panic cannot be dissipated by statistical calculations ; but those who can reason and calculate may find in the above statement some cause to retract or modify exaggerated charges, as well as some security against irrational apprehensions. We have, indeed, left the case to stand more unfavour ably to the companies than justice warrants ; for it should be noticed that of the 24 deaths 14 are ascribed to " misconduct or want of caution " on the part of the sufferers, and 10 only to "causes beyond " their own control," which is to say, that cf 45,000,000 passengers entrusted to their care the companies are answerable for the deaths of only 10, or lin 4,500,000. We purposely confine our inquiry to the case of passengers, as this more immediately affects the public ; but considering the various causes which in this country militate against oareful railway management—the crowded traffic, the fre quent trains, the high rates of speed, the occasional severity of weather, the necessity of running by night as well as by day, the innumerable stoppages, the impossibility, except in extreme cases, of discon tinuing the running of trains, in order to repair damages to rails, banks, or retaining walls—we are not inclined to judge harshly of the short comings of directors or their servants. The public is a hard master, and sometimes an unreason able one. THE CIVIL SERVICE. TO THE EDITOR OF " THE PRESS." Sir,—lt has been determined on that appointments to India, in the service of the East India Company, shall be regulated by public competition; and it is proposed to throw open the civil appointments in this country to the same competition. By very high authorities and by many voices this system is sanctioned, and large hopes are entertained of its success in providing India and Cheat Britain with wiser, more upright, and altogether superior and more able public servants than were ever secured by any other scheme. As they have long had this method in practice in China, and by its means have succeeded in producing a greater amount of cruel injustice and venality in appointing to office, and a more terrible system of bribery, corruption, legal robbery, and notorious lying and jobbery, than are to he found in any equally civilised nation under heaven, I should like to know why results so different are to be looked for in India and Britain. I can imagine it being alleged that Britons are Christians, and that therefore the examiners will all be acute and honest, and the precocious brilliancies will all be eminently trustworthy and perma nently laborious ; and I can fancy that a certain party feel pretty sure that they will always prove the successful com petitors ; and I can suppose some are satisfied that the respect due to talent, acknowledged in the officials, will more than counterbalance the life of prestige which patron. age at present casts as a protecting halo around the human repositories of the Divine trust—power. A judicious admixture of varied patronage and compe tition would more nearly harmonise with our complex yet excellent constitution, and would probably escape the dangers whilst it secured many of the advantages of each method. I am, sir, yours respectfully, GOOD IN EVERYTIIINC. !'' THE official report of the juries, published by the au thority of the directors of the New York Exhibition, reports the distribution ofl6B silver medals, 1,084 bronze medals, with about the same number of honourable mentions. Of the 168 silver medals awarded, English exhibitors obtained ten, viz. :—Sir Henry dela Beche, for geological maps ; A. D. Edwards and Co., Scotland, for tow thread ; W. G. Rogers, London, for superb carvings in wood ; Sitamox, Pemberton, and Sons, Birmingham, for brass work ; El kington and Co., London, for electro plate work ; Garrard and Co., London, for subjects in silver; Hunt and Co., London, for silver and fine jewellery ; T. Sharpe, London, for silver cups, &cc.; H. Minton and Co., for encaustic tiles ; De La Rue and Co., for excellent paper. THE PRESS. Vrotttbinp Varliantent. PEACE OR WAR. Notice of a question whether the country was at peace or war had been given by the Marquis of CLAN RICARDE for Monday. When the night arrived, how ever, the noble marquis forbore to press his inquiry, in consideration of the slight hope of peace which still remained. He asked, therefore, only for some information touching the then present status of the diplomatic negotiations. The Earl of CLARENDON acknowledged the for bearance that had been exercised ; and promised to repay it by some definite statement in the course of a few days ; meanwhile, he announced that the last official despatches which hal arrived contained the terms on which the Emperor of Russia expressed his readiness to negotiate a peace. As these despatches had only arrived that afternoon, the noble earl said there had been no opportunity for him to consult his colleagues, but he ventured to assert that the terms in question were altogether inadmissible, and would not even be communicated to the Porte. With re spect to the Russian Ambassador, he added : "On Saturday evening Baron Brunnw called on mo at the Foreign-office, and placed in my hands anote, in which he announced that the answer which he had received from me to the inquiries he was instructed to make by his Go vernment was not of a nature that permitted him to con tinue diplomatic relations with this country, and those di plomatic relations must, for a time, be suspended. He took leave of me on Saturday, but said that it was then too late to leave London, but I understood he would do so early this morning (Monday). (Hear. )" The Earl of ELLENBOROUGH had believed from the first that war would be the inevitable conclusion of the dispute with Russia, and, now that it approached, felt convinced that it must prove one of the most for midable in which the country had ever engaged. The country, he feared, had as yet no idea of its pro bable magnitude, duration, and consequences, and he conjured the advisers of the Crown to redouble their efforts to prepare for its exigencies. Some remarks followed from the Marquis of Clan ricarde, Earl Fitzwilliam, and Lord Beaumont. The last-mentioned peer inquired whether any instruc tions had been given to the British Ambassador at St. Petersburg to terminate his diplomatic functions? The Earl of CLARENDON replied : "As Baron Brunow only called upon me at half past six on Saturday evening, and as was necessary in this as in all other measures which we have adopted, or shall adopt, to have a previous communication with the French Govern ment—(Hear, hear)—it has not been possible at this mo ment to send instructions to her Majesty's Minister at St. Petersburg. But I have already had a communication with the French Ambassador on the subject, and instruc tions will be sent over to Sir Hamilton Seymour to-morrow and to the French Minister at the Court of St. Petersburg, directing them to place themselves exactly on the same footing as the Russian Ambassador here has done, and the diplomatic functions of the two states will be suspended in the same manner. (Hear, hear.)" THE ADMIRALS' LIST. The Earl of HARI:MITRE called the serious atten tion of the Peers, on Tuesday, to the condition of the Navy List, especially as regarded the flag officers of her Majesty's navy. Present contingencies, he remarked, rendered the fullest attainable efficiency in all ranks, and more particularly in the highest ranks, of the service, a matter of the highest im portance. Examining with this view the active list of full admirals, containing twenty-two names, he computed that the youngest among them must be nearly, if not quite, 75 years of agE. Of the vice admirals the most juvenile must be 69. Among the rear-admirals in the active list there were doubtless many officers still competent by age and vigour to command a squadron; but there was another list containing the names of men in all respects as well qualified for command,and yet rendered unavailable by the regulations now in force. This was the reserved list, to which captains were compulsorily removed, if, on reaching the flag, they had not served for the prescribed period afloat, in command of a ship of. war. Detailing the various orders in council under which the present system was organised, the Earl of Hardwicke explained its injurious consequences to the service and gross injustice to individuals : " Taking 16 officers promiscuously from the reserved list, and comparing them with 16 taken at random from the active list, it would be found that the aggregate ages of the 16 on the reserved list amounted to 1,021 years, and those of the 16 on the active list amounted to 1,038 years. Therefore, according to this arrangement, the officers on the active list were the older officers of the tw•o. When an officer entered the navy, a moral contract was entered into with him by the Government, that if he was zealous in his duties, and conducted himself in an officer•like and gentlemanly manner, he might expect to have an opportn. nits of rising to the top of his profession ; and that when he had gone through the whole ordeal of the service, and had, perhaps, been connected with Governments and with Cabinets, and was expecting to attain the highest honour of his profession, he should not have the door to promotion shut in his face. Yet this was what the order in council SATURDAY, actually did, for, if an officer had not served in a rated ship for six years in time of peace, he was compelled to make his bow and retire from the service. Tf every officer had an opportunity of serving offered to him, and did not choose to avail himself of it, no injustice would be done to him by denying him promotion ; but when the character of the service was such that they could not employ him, and such opportunities did not occur, then it seemed to him the last profession in the world in which they ought, when a vacancy occurred, to say to a man that because lie had not served the fixed number of years he must retire altogether. It was absolutely necessary, if they wished to promote the efficiency of the service, that the list should at length he revised, and that nothing should be suffered to continue which created well-founded dissatisfaction in the minds of the service. Recently, a very peculiar mode had been adopted to check the advance of officers in the navy. The deaths of admirals were speculated upon, and, when an officer was seen to have approached near to the top of the list, the Government refused to employ him. in order to prevent him from fulfilling the period of service necet• vary to qualify him for a flag. The order in council stated that the reason why an officer was required to have served six years was, that he should be fitted by previous expe rience to take the command. This appeared to be ex tremely sound and right; but how was it carried out? Whilst the regulation precluded a captain from rising to the rank of an active admiral because he had not served the whole time, on the other hand a young officer sometimes received a very magnificent ship, and a broad pennant, with the command of a squadron, who had perhaps never com manded anything but a small frigate in his life, and that, perhaps, only for a period of two or three years. Thus they perfectly stultified the alleged grounds of the system established by the order in council. He might make out a much stronger case before their lordships if he were to enter into minute details, and to point out the case of in. dividnal officers ; but that was a course which, out of deli cacy for private feelings, he would not pursue." The Earl of ABERDEEN admitted that the system was open to criticism ; that in certain instances it fail& to answer the purposes for which it was de signed, and in others occasioned individual injustice ; but he defended it on the ground that it had prac ' tically stood the scrutiny of many successive Boards of Admiralty since the year 1827, none of whom had thought groper to alter it : " After the most full inquiry into the subject, the pre sent board had come to the same decision as all preceding boards had done—viz., that although it was to be regretted that the rule should have operated any hardship upon individual and meritorious officers, yet upon the whole it was the most just and most advantageous regulation that could be devised." The subject (which had been introduced as a formal motion for a committee of inquiry) dropped, after some remarks by Lord Colchester and the Earls of Ellenborough and Waldegrave. PARLIAMENTARY OATHS. The house was asked on Monday to go into com mittee on the subject of parliamentary oaths by Lord J. RUSSELL, who expressed his wish to have the general question discussed, with the view of making, as he contended, the forms of affirmation imposed upon members when taking their seats, or on functionaries when assuming office, at once more sensible, more simple, and more solemn. All oaths taken on occasions of such serious oharacter should be direct in meaning and intelligible in expression, should have relevancy to the present state of things, and should bind the taker of the oath only to what he could engage to perform. Otherwise, his lord ship argued, the ceremony became a terrible mockery and profanation. He then proceeded to examine in succession the three parliamentary oaths of allegiance, supremacy, and abjuration, as they were now im posed on Protestant members. The first he cha racterised as eminently fit and necessary, insomuch that it might be almost supposed to supersede the necessity of the two others, and had, indeed, been held by Lord Eldon to include the oath of supremacy. Respecting that second oath, Lord J. Russell con tended that it had become obsolete in many points, and on others bore only reference to Roman Catholics, who were now not called upon to take it. Dissecting the terms both of this oath and that of abjuration, be recapitulated, with much detail, the well-known his torical origin for every separate clause they contained, and pointed out the special dangers they were de signed to repel. These dangers, he contended, were now extinct. No English subject could be found who believed that the Pope had authority to depose the English Sovereign, or that the interests of the Roman Catholic Church justified assassination, or who could take up arms in behalf of the Pretender's family, whose last scion died long since. He called, therefore, on the Legislature to imitate the common sense proceedings of men in ordinary ,life, and abandon precautions when the peril had ceased. Lord J. Russell then presented the 'following simple oath, which he proposed to substitute for the triple form now imposed, and which he believed to con tain quite enough at least for the security of the Crown:— " I, A B, do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to her Majesty Queen Victoria, and will defend her to the utmost of my power against all conspiracies and attempts whatever which may be made against her person, crown, and dignity ; and that I will do my utmost to en deavour to disclose and make known to her Majesty and I \