The Press. — London, England, 1854-08-19 00:00:00

MP MI 770 The principal measure of the session—the Oxford University Bill—owes its success wholly to the care bestowed on it by Mr. WALPOLE. Thoroughly master of his subject, he directed his attention, with admirable assiduity, to the remodelling of the bill, and converted it from a compulsory into a permis sive measure, such as Lord' DERBY'S Govern ment were prepared to introduce. In the frequent discusgions on the bill, the clear and statesmanlike views Of Mr: WALPOLE' COM manded the respect of the whole House. From the Opposition bench he spoke with the authority of a Minister. His conduct of this measure alone is sufficient to establish his claim to administrative talents of the highest order, and to win for him the confidence of the country. The Protestant securities of our Constitu tion, invaded by Lord J. RussEtt's insidious Oaths Bill, were nobly vindicated by Sir FRE DERICK 'NEMER. Was this faction? If so, a majority in Parliament, and a much greater majority in the country, must be implicated in the charge. To Sir JOHN PAKINOTON belongs the merit of exposing the organised corruption of the Duke of NEWCASTLE and his colleague Mr. GLADSTONE. No one doubts that the country is deeply in debted to Sir JOHN for dragging into day the particulars of Mr. LAwLEY'S culpability ; and the artifice is too gross for a moment's accep tation to attempt to smother services like his under a general charge of violence and faction. It is to perpetrate one of those foolish calumnies which recoil on the heads of their authors without once touching the in tended victim. Whether the conduct of the Opposition be viewed in respect to those measures of the Government which it helped to avert or de feat, or those which it took under its protec tion and improved, or those, again, which it tacitly suffered to pass as necessary to the public service,—its policy appears to equal ad vantage. In discharging the duties of opposi tion, it has not forgotten its responsibilities to the Crown and the country, and has risen in public opinion even faster than the repu tation of the Ministry has declined. SIR BENJAMIN HALL AND RADICAL PLACE-HUNTERS. WE ar© not amongst those surprised an appointment of Sir BENJAMIN .I:PaiD official position. The metropolitan members have always been infected with the place hunting epidemic, which nowhere rages more fiercely than in the wealthy and parvenu professors of claptrap politics. Tribunes on the platform and courtiers in the antecham ber, intriguing for honours and inveighing against aristocracy, the metropolitan senators represent only too vividly the spurious charac ter of that party which apes independence, while it always comes to the rescue of any, " Liberal" Ministry in distress. The patri cian demagogue of the last century was bad enough, but he often redeemed his political vices by brilliant personal qualities, or by some gallant feats of generous daring. It is only the worst features of his character that are copied by brawling baronets, who sigh for a peerage, and shout for the ballot. With loud professions on their lips, their public career is at once timid and tortuous. Distracted in their petty ambition, irresolute even in their Insincerity, they keep vibrating between May Fair and Marylebone, quailing before the sneers of Almacks, and shuddering at the groans of a parish vestry. Sir BENJAMIN HALL has only gone through one of the developments of his nature in taking office under Lord ABERDEEN. He taunted long enough as a demagogue, and he now desires to flatter as a Minister. He tells IN in his speech that "he took office only " for the good of his country," and he will keep the same form of words stereotyped for that joyous time, which he fondly dreams of, when he is to bid good-bye to the Marylebone Radicals, and announce to them that he has become a peer " for the good of his country." THE PRESS. It is really somewhat surprising to think of all the rewards that these Radical metropolitan members have contrived to engross. Sir WIL LIAM MoLEswoRTE, of Southwark, has become a Cabinet Minister ; wad a quondam member for the same constituency, Mr. D. W. HARVEY, by a change similar to what often takes place in continental capitals, frOm a tribune of the zpleAsieloped into a commissioner of pol ice. WILLkAM CLAY, of the Tower Hamlets, blooms, like Sir BENJAMIN himself, as a full blown baronet, still odorous of recent crea tion. Mr. BENJAMIN HAWES was advanced to being an under-secretary of state, and the consequences thereof we need not mention. His old colleague, Mr. TENNYSON D'EYNCOURT , was sworn a " Privy Counciller," without going through the usual responsibilities of office. Mr. CHARLES PEARSON, another metro politan Radical, and ex-M.P. for Lambeth, is the City Solicitor. Mr. WARLEY, of Finsbury, advertised himself by his parliamentary exer tions into the most lucrative coronorship in England. Sir Ds LACY EVANS, of Westminster, obtains a generalship of division; and the locality which he represents reminds us how a Hobhouse became a peer and a subdued Whig. Admiral DoNeAs, at the head of the clamorous ten-pounders of Greenwich, suc ceeded in storming the Admiralty, and by vigorous parliamentary bombardments won his appointment in spite of sharp vollies of criticism from Whig lords and others. De ducting the four members for the city of London from the eighteen metropolitan seats, it will be found that during the last twenty years the fourteen seats we have named have commanded a greater share of titular and offi cial rewards than any similar number of boroughs in the electoral map of England. Yet not even one of the parasitical politicians of Marylebone would affirm that. as a class, the metropolitan members, with Sir BENJAMIN at their head, and Sir JOHN FAILURE SHELLEY at their tail, were up to the average of the representatives of England. The oratory of Mr. APBLEY PELLATT and the profound think ing of Mr. WILLIAMS faithfully illustrate their pretensions to distinction. Sir BENJAMIN, therefore, has only been " standing by his order" in graduating as a Minister. Such is metropolitan democracy ! But in more than one instance, Lambeth to wit, the stool of office has been the stool of repen- tance ; by the test of personal responsibility the censorious scold of the platform has often been convicted of official incapacity. As Sir BENJAMIN has imitated a Hobhouse in the art of rising, he may, perhaps, copy a Hawes or a Chadwick in the art of falling. "He had a " bad fall up stairs," said a wit, of a newly ennobled orator of the Commons; and Sir BENJAMIN may yet find that he has tumbled on all fours into the Board of Health. Yet he certainly has some colorable pretensions to being thought adequate for dealing with the parochial mind. He has bustled in the baronetage with the fussy airs of an old vestryman, and he has strutted amidst ad miring beadles with the portentous dignity of a'• newly-titled Radical. If the cholera will not abate its virulence before such a mighty personage, capable of assailing unfortunate Irish landlords, or insulting English bishops, the disease must be more dreadful than ever. We sincerely wish that we could add that it was likely Sir BENJAMIN could abate the epidemic with as much ease as certain morbid humours of Marylebone may be drained off by flushing the Radical sewage with Pactolean streams of public money. FRESH LAWLEY SCANDAL. SIR JAMES GRAHAM once called the Melbourne Cabinet by the vituperative nickname of " the " Magdalen Ministry." We were reminded of the phrase by the announcement that Mr. GLADSTONE had shriven Mr. FRANCIS LAWLEY, and accepted his ignominious exposure as sufficient " penance " for his breaches of official integrity. Mr. GLADSTONE'S ideas of right are beyond our control, as the ethics of an amateur Jesuit are entirely above our com prehension. But positive acts are within our sphere of observation, and the manner in SATURDAY, which Mr. FRANCIS LAWLEY is reinstated in the public service, is even more discreditable than the extraordinary fact of his fresh ap- pointment. Upon the very day (August 12th) on which Parliament was prorogued, a letter appeared in the City article of the Times, referring to coffee and chicory, and signed "W. E. Glad stone." Up to that time, the last day of the session, every person thought that Mr. LAWLEY, for his malpractices, had been removed from the public service. Four days afterwards, a letter dated " Downing Street, August 15th," appears_ in the public prints, signed " Francis " Lawley." GLADSTONE conceals from Parliament the fact that Mr. LAWLEY had re sumed his duties of a most confidential nature at the Exchequer! We have Mr. GLADSTONE'S own statement that " the office of Private Se " cretary to the Minister of Finance was more " responsible than being the head of other " departments." Yet this important position is again assigned to an individual who drew down on himself the censure of Parliament. The gravamen of the charge against Mr. LAWLEY is, that his object was to snake money for himself, by abusing his knowledge of his Sovereign's ser vice. Scandals have arisen from indiscreet anxiety to serve a party and to promote the cause in which men have embarked their sym pathies. But the vileness of the Lawley scandal stands out prominently in the fact that the auri sacra fames was at the bottom of his dishonourable speculations in the funds. At the very time when he had the " private " papers of the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER under his " confidential" cognisance this gentleman played with loaded dice in the gambling shop of the Stock Exchange. Nor is that all. Mr. LAWLEY, to the last, falsely persisted in his first statements of his innocence. It was only in the awe of inevi table exposure that his audacity gave way, and, quailing before Sir JOHN PAXINOTON'S formidable circumstantiality, he abjectly con fessed his offence. The " City of London" must be differently constituted from former days, if it will tamely acquiesce in the insult offered to its mercantile integrity, by the appointment of a convicted schemer to a post which ensures him full knowledge of the closest secrets of our national finances. DR. WISEMAN UNMASKED. THE remarkable case of " Boyle v. Wiseman," tried last week at Guildford, disclosed more unfavourable aspects of Doctor WISEMAN, ill his personal character, than have previously appeared. The peculiar manner in which the case was defended gives us a near view of the internal working of the Romanist ma chinery. It was an action of libel, in which a Roman Catholic priest sought to recover damages for a letter, avowedly written by Dr. WISEMAN. The plaintiff, Mr. BOYLE, belonged to the moderate party amongst the Romanibts; and it seems that a controversy had been maintained in France, between the Ultramon tanist organ, the Univers, and the Moderate, or " Cisalpine," journal, called the Anti de la Reli gion. The proceedings of " Cardinal" WISEMAN were commented on in the latter, and objected to in a series of letters written from London. Doctor WISEMAN assumed that these letters were the productions of Mr. BOYLE 'S pen, and he forthwith assailed that gentleman in the Univers, in language of unmeasured severity, and vilified his character as a clergyman who neglected his duties, and had shown himself insubordinate to his superiors, The letter written by Doctor WISEMAN was copied into several English Roman Catholic journals, and, of course, grievously damaged the character of Mr. BOYLE. Then comes the really extraordinary fea tures of the case. It turns out upon investi gation that the critical strictures upon Doctor WISEMAN were never written by Mr. BOYLE, the aggrieved party in the case. Their author was another Roman Catholic clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Noss, who went in the witness box, and, after stating that he was " Incum- Lseman," 341 more MAN, ill eviously hich the view of List ma- in which recover a by Dr. belonged manibts ; .ad been ltramon- derate, or !e WISEMAN objected L London. se letters pen, and m in the severity, (man who n himself he letter ,pied into nul ls, and, character inary fea- m investi- lon Doctor BoYLE, keir author yman, the e witness - ; " inetlina