The Press. — London, England, 1857-11-14 00:00:00

PARLIAMENTARY REFORM MOVEMEN F. A MEETISU, attended by, among others, Mr. Roe buck, 31. P.; Sir John Shelley, M.P.; Mr. W. Williams, M.P. ; Mr. Donald Nicoll, M.P.; Mr. Ayrton, M.P.; Mr. Samuel Morley, and Mr. Edward Miall, was held a few evenings ago at the Guildhall Coffee-house, Gresham-street, in reference to the subject of parliamentary reform. It appears that for some time past efforts have been made, and are still being made, by certain gentlemen in the metropolis, of whom it is believed the above-named are among theinurnber, to ascertain by means of correspondence the extent to which " advanced " parliamentary reformers throughout the kingdom can be induced to agree to the general outline of a measure for the amendment of our representative system. The mode of doing that has been, or is, to submit to the known reformers in all parts of the country a draught plan or programme of reform, to invite and collate their opinions upon it, and then to modify or remould the scheme in the hope of securing for it the largest amount of concurrence and support. Having in this way found a common basis of operations, the intention is to make known the result in such a shape as may carry with it the united authority of the party. It does not appear to be in contemplation to bring this before Parlia ment as a substantive measure, in opposition to or in the absence of any bill emanating from the Govern ment, but rather to unfurl it as "the banner"—to use the language of an organ of the party, or one in sympathy with the movement—" under which indi viduals of differing shades of opinion would be willing to enlist." In the event of Lord Palmerston intro ducing a scheme of reform next session, they hope thus to bring the great body of reformers as much as possible into agreement on the general question. Their apologists, in reply to certain strictures in a part of the weekly metropolitan press on the mode in which they are moving in this matter, " deny that they are constructing any national organisation, contemplating any noisy agitation, or laying the plans for the accumulation of political influence." The meeting at the Guildhall Coffee house was strictly private, so that nothing is yet publicly known of the plan of reform the party is about to propound ; but a weekly contemporary, which professes to be in the secret, states that it proposes to confer a large extension of the suffrage on the owners and occupants, in part or whole, of premises rated for the relief of the poor; establishes the principle of secret voting on the Australian plan, and of triennial Parliaments ; abolishes the property qualification of members ; and redistributes the con stituencies so as to give a majority of representatives to a majority of electors. THE CLERGY AND THE DIVORCE ACT. AN address to the Qtreen is now in course of sig nature among the clergy in various parts of the provinces, representing the painful position in which they are placed by the Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act, and the restraint it imposes on their consciences. They state that the act contains pro visions in direct conflict with the Act of Uniformity, and that there is no word, either in the form of solemnisation of matrimony prescribed by the Book of Common Prayer, or iu any other of the formularies of the Church of England, to show or suggest that it has been at any time the judgment of the Church that marriage, once lawfully contracted, is dissolvable except by death. They add that the Act of Unifor mity binds every benificed clergyman to " declare, openly and publicly before the congregation, his unfeigned assent and consent to the use of all things contained and prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer, and to use the morning prayer, evening prayer, celebration and administration of both the sacraments, and all other the public and common prayer in such order and form as is mentioned in the said book." They contend, therefore, that the Divorce Act has indirectly repealed a material portion of the Act of Uniformity, which is the legal and con stitutional basis of the public ministrations of the Church of England. This preJedent, they say, is most alarming, inasmuch as it is manifest that if the principle of repealing any material portion of the Act of Uniformity indirectly and by implication be once admitted, the plain meaning of the Prayer Book may be nullified, and its express directions imperceptibly abrogated, in so far as the statutable obligation of these is concerned, and that fundamental alterations may be thereby effected in the relations of the Church to the State without the attention of the laity or clergy having been awakened to the legislative process by which such alterations shall have been made. They state, moreover, that the indirect repeal of the material portion in question of the Act of Uniformity by ti.e Divorce Act is accompanied by a circumstance with out parallel, as they conceive, in the giglation which has hitherto affected the United Church of England and Ireland—namely, the exemption of one portion of that United Church from the operation of THE PRESS, NOVEMBER 14,1857. the Divorce Act, which has seen carefully framed so as to leave the Church of Ireland unaffected by its provisions ; that the United Church is, therefore, disunited in respect of a material point by the act in question, inasmuch as in Ireland marriage remains indissolvable by the general law while in England it has become dissolvable. They add that the act can not come into operation except upon or after the Ist of January next, by an order of the Queen in council ; and they pray that her Majesty will be graciously pleased to withhold such order until time shall have been given for Parliament so to amend the act that the confusion, inconvenience, and scandal which must arise from a state of the law contradictory to itself may be avoided ; and that, in the event of Par liament seeing fit to abide by so much of the act as provides by process of law for the dissolution, a vin cula of marriages lawfully contracted, care at least be taken that, whatever the Legislature may enact concerning the dissolution of the civil contract, no violence be done to the plain language of the Prayer Book, the consciences of the clergy and laity of the United Church of England and Ireland, and to the law of the Church, as it has been identified by the Act of Uniformity with the law of the State. THE CAMP AT ALDERSIIOTT. FROM the daily-increasing force of militia centred here the camp at Aldershott is gradually resuming that military status which the drain of troops for India threatened seriously to reduce. The strength of the force now collected in camp amounts to some 9,000 men, and as the Southdown and Limerick regiments are expected in camp next week the effec tive force will be raised to about 11,000 men. With such a force General Knollys is enabled to resume, on a small scale, and on fine days, those manoeuvres which last year rendered Aldershott such an attrac tion to the public. On Wednesday a grand field-day was held; the scale of operations was large, and the forces of the camp were mustered for a sudden gene ral attack upon a neighbouring military institution— the Cadets' College at Sandhurst. This plan in volved manceavres of all kinds, and required the assistance of the three branches of the service; and as the first step was a march of some seven or eight miles, the whole force was under arms in camp by eight o'clock. The troops were in heavy marching order, each man carrying so many rounds of blank cartridge, and apparently a good many rounds of ammunition of a more pleasant kind in their havre sacks. Some waggons accompanied the troops with barrels of beer for their further support during the fatigue of the attack. There were several regiments of infantry, a strong force of artillery, with the sixth battalion of the Military Train, and part of the first battalion, in all between 7,000 and 8,000 men. But the force in appearance looked far more imposing, occupying a good two miles of country road. The whole force marched from camp along the road to Farnborough, and so ou through Frimley to Sandhurst, where it strived shortly before eleven. The day was unusually fine, the sun bright and clear, the air keen but bracing, and the mists that lay about in and among the trees and valleys only added greater variety to the picturesqueness of the scene. A very large concourse of visitors trom the surrounding neighbourhood had assembled in the grounds round the college, which were freely thrown open to all comers, and from which the best view of the proceedings could be gained. lne attacking force outnumbered the cadets nearly fifty to one for the latter, who were divided into three companies, were not 200 strong, and were only assisted by some fifteen or twenty cavalry, with a party of engineers to work their four small guns. The nature of their position may be soon told. The large sheet of ornamental water in front of the college terminated at either end in a broad and deep canal, crossed by several bridges, which of course formed the keys of their whole position, and was de fended on the right, left, and centre. The left was the main point of defence. It was defended by a chevaux-de-trise and abattis, in rear of which again was a strong work called Adams's redoubt, strength. ened with a stockade and mined with a heavy charge of powat.r. In rear of all was the 01(1 Flagstaff Bat tery, the cadets'last resource and rallying point. The plan of attack was a feint on the right of the college position at Forest-lodge--a real attack on the left at King's bridge, to be followed and supported by an attack on the centre from Yoik Town. The affair commenced with a skirmishing fire on the right, which continued for some time, now rising to the noisy dignity of a regular fusillade, and then again dropping to a mere random shot at long inter vals. Vedettes scoured about, but the nature of the ground was against good reconnoitring, and thick woods almost completely concealed their movements and preparations on the right and centre. Under cover of these, and protected by their skirmishers in front, the main attack advanced against King's bridge, whets they were encountered in the wood by the cadets, and a heavy fire instantly commenced. This, as more and more of the camp f orces c ame into action, was maintained with additional vigour 1111 each moment, and at last swelled into a long-sus tained rattle, which instantly showed the non-pro fessional public where the great onset was, and thither they flocked accordingly. The cadets made a long fight of it, disputing every inch of ground, and making every brake and tree a temporary lodgment for their sharpshooters. At length the superiority of numbers of the enemy compelled them to give way and retire under the abattis at the King's bridge. This they did in good order, still fighting as they retreated. The shots now resounded from every part of the wood, which was filled with a dense smoke, amid which the masses of the enemy were almost hidden, until, overcoming all obstacles, they emerged on the banks of the canal in front of the abattis and chevaux-de-frise. These held them in check for a considerable time. While the attack upon it was pressed with vigour, and orders were sent to hurry up the field battery and force it, the 4th Light Dragoons, a troop of horse artillery, a party of Engineers, with the pontoons and military train, and the 22nd Regiment, were sent higher up the canal to effect a passage at another point. A , ew minutes after this force had been sent off on a mission so fatal to the defenders, the artillery came into play in the &battle, sending its massive red streaks of flame into the very centre of the felled trees, and scattering their leaves and twigs like spray. At the same moment the attack was pressed upon the centre, and now all along the border of the lake were posted cannon, while the woods swarmed with troops, and every gun and Mime in the force converged upon two points and poured a volley of flame and smoke upon the King's and centre bridges. There were a few minutes of terrific uproar, during which the whole college and ground became so densely wrapped in smoke that it was quite impossible, save for those actually with the troops, to see what was passing. In the midst o f this scene, the whole line of the enemy advanced a gainst the two bridges. At the centre the attack was repulsed, amid an awful din of small arms ; at King's-bridge it was successful the cadets retired, and by this movement lost the day. They fell back' into Adams's redoubt, which, as we have said, was a very strong work, deeply trenched and stockaded at the entrance, and which had been mined in case of their being compelled to abandon it. The enemy, however, after losing some time in destroying the abattis, crossed King's bridge, and attacked the redoubt with artillery, while the detached force, which had crossed higher up in pontoons and by the Chinese-bridge, attacked it from the other side. The redoubt became untenable, and the cadets lit their mine and abandoned it, retiring into the Flagstaff Battery, while the centre and right division also fell back. To cover this movement their handful of cavalry charged the camp troops, which were crossing the bridges and defiling in the open ground beyond, and compelled them to halt and form squares in their own defence. At the same time the mine in the redoubt blew up with a fearful explosion, lifting a loose cloud of earth and stones high into the air. These two checks, however, were only temporary. The attack was pressed with a charge of the 4th Dragoons, which swept the open ground like a whirlwind of men and horses, leaving a broad deep track of scattered tur where they bad passed. This last onset effectually drove the cadets back to the very colonnade of the college, whither they were pursued, when both par ties came to a stand, and a general delivery of all the spare ammunition took place on all sides, and this sulphureous climax brought the proceedings to a close. Vilitarg uttiligattr, WE believe that a communication will be sent by the mail which leaves for India this evening, to the effect that her Majesty has desired that Sir John Lawrence shall be promoted to the first class (Grand Cross) of the Order of the Bath.—Globe, Tuesday. THE Gibraltar Chronicle states that the Paeba of Egypt has expressed his surprise that the British Government has not availed itself of the facilities of the railway in le:gypt for passing English troops through that country to put down :he mutiny in India. THE SECRETARY-AT WAR has issued orders direct ing that the following Irish militia regiments shall forthwith embark for England, viz.—The Antrim Rifles, Cork Rifles, North Down Rifles, Limerick Artillery, and Dublin (City) Militia. The latter corps will proceed to Aldershott, and the others will take garrison duty fur the purpcse of relieving regi ments of the line ordered on Indian service. THE MEN OF THE (NTH LIGHT INFANTRY, under oilers to embark for India in the Australasian, were invited by their officers to partake of a fare well dinner in the concert-room of the Crystal ralace at one o'clock on Thursday. The presence of the wive•: and children of many of the men added much to the interest of the occasion. The 09th Infantry proceed to India overland.