The Press. — London, England, 1854-01-14 00:00:00

THE PRESS. 36 T H E PEELITE S. TO THE EDITOIs OF "THE PRESS•" Sts,—As I conclude you partake the antipathy to the "following" of Lord ABERDEEN which is now so common in the House and country, perhaps you will permit me to offer what you are at liberty, if you please, to regard as an apology for this unpopular remnant. In speaking of the Aberdeen following I must premise that it is necessary to distinguish for which section of that little flock I am interested. I say section, for as even the minutest quantities are capable of subdivision, so here in the smallest of existing parties there are elements so distinct and one would have imagined so oppugnant that nothing but misery could have brought them acquainted as bed fellows. There is the Peelite proper, whose case I am about to consider. There are the two divisions of the Peelite improper, the Tadpoles and the Traducers, those who deal in politics as a traffic, and those who libel in politics as an art. For these, though they may have some in definite connection with " the three " courses which all Peelites are prepared to take in conjunction, I have nothing to offer at present, but confine my defence to those purer spirits whose affliction it is in this sublunary state to be obliged, however reluctantly, to rely on such coadjutors. The Peelito proper, I will primarily insist, is not to be esti mated by rules which apply to ordinary politicians. To account for his present predicament it is necessary to study him in em bryo ; for thence we shall perceive that ho is the innocent but unconscious victim of a frail organisation. As a baby he was not as other babies,—as a boy not as other boys. His teething was pro tracted, his chicken-pox scant, and his measles by no means a florid development. The rustic who to the question, " Have you ever been confirmed? " answered, " No, air ! but I have been vaccinated," re versed the conditions of the Peelite's adolescence ; for it is only the former process which in his case can be ascertained to have been achieved with any degree of certainty. - - It is yet in the power of the curious to verify the resulting evidence of these imperfect antecedents. Any one who will observe the Peelites as a class (and the statement is based upon a pretty wide induction) will remark the faint-blooded type of their anatomy. They possess in common a delicate cuticle stretched upon a framework of bone and muscle, the latter combined in gentlemanly proportions. But their blood appears to contain a portion of cream of tartar or some other alterative, and as a party they may be said to look as if permanently under the influence of medicine. It might be worth while to inquire how much of their idiosyncrasy is as due to a light regimen as to a slight constitution. No one will properly estimate the position of the Peelites who does not avail him self of the clue which may be afforded by an examination of their College Battel Bills. We suspect it would be found that beef and suck bore an almost infinitesimal proportion to " Commons," and that the limits of their self-indulgence were sweetbreads or veal cutlets. If Mr. GLA DSTONE has yet any sins of which to shrive himself, I make hold to surmise that his most torturing reminiscence may have been some youthful debauch on raspberry vinegar. Those who watched the college career of himself and his companions will generally have little occasion to remember their infirmities. They never drove tandems, or " sported oaks," or petted terriers, or scoffed at Dons. The Chancellor of the Exchequer must have been a pattern to " Peekwater ; " the President of the Board of Trade, we will venture to say, never trampled irreverently on Dr. JENKINS'S garden plat. The Colonial Secretary is not a likely person to have been fre quently " gated." Of only ono of them have we heard that he ever sowed any wild oats in the manner of other young gentlemen of his time, and in his ease it is said the particular sample was by no means of the least known or cultivated quality. Had their station permitted, these well-conducted alumni would have made exemplary curates or tutors, but it was their misfortune as a class that their circumstances (lid not impose the necessity of professional labour. They were deprived from this cause of the oppor tunities of discipline enjoyed, for instance, by" the Good Apprentice," while their easy present and indefinite future procured them, on the other hand, the temptations of Telemachus. Of course they submitted themselves to the direction of a chosen Mentor, but in this respect they were influenced by the fashion of their generation. It was no Athenian goddess who was permitted to whisper in their ear, but the voice of affected wisdom which conveyed the insinuations of the JESUIT. But for his monitions it is exceedingly probable that they would never have ventured on the stage of the world. Their pulses would have trembled and their breath exhaled in some sphere adapted to SATURDAY, their interesting weakness. As they shared the taste for Papal devices for " postures and impostures," the want of fervour which protected them from a crisis would have served to prolong indefinitely the languor of their prostration. They might have been, as others of their associates are still, meek-eyed clergymen, deposited in seclusion, reduced by their college fever to a state of chronic debility, and dreaming away a rural existence in a state of suspension between the prospects of a vacant earth and a watery heaven. Or they might, if their circum stances had required the venture, have straggled up to town as law students, have turned over the pages of " Contingent Remainders," been shocked by the admissions of their fellow-pupils as to the accom. paniments of last evening's oysters, and in the hurry of fluttered virtue have slunk back to their Academe. They were qualified for a different part by those subtle distinctions which the discipline of LovoLA instilled into their minds. It was this which prepared them for public affairs, which made Under Secretaries out of candidates for Canonization, and converted Galahads into Dugald Dalgetties. Through the medium of their casuistic scruples, and self-questionings, the plethora of their graces and virtues became available to the world. It is difficult to estimate fully the benefits thereby conferred upon society through the instrumentality of the Jesuit's art. There have been times when young gentlemen of a similar disposition to the Peelites have been lost to mankind for the want of such intervention. In a critical age there is always an abundance of well-disposed youths who model themselves after the daintiest examples which are going There were such in the later days of Rome and Greece—men who shut themselves up in a learned retirement with Atticus, and who chirupped before Socavrxs--bibbers whom the latter strong-headed philosopher put quietly under the table before taking his morning's walk and bath in the Ilyssus. There have been such in England from the time when the break up of the mediaeval system perplexed men with the antago nism of duties and righis. But the misfortune has been that hitherto these personages have been sequestered from the walks of public life by their tastes or their principles. Euphuists and Arcadians in the time of ELlZABETH—Sonnetteers who caressed spaniels in the days of the Merry Monarch—Collectors of china and keepers of diaries under Queen ANNE and the house of Brunswick—what a waste of worthy energies does not history record ! Fifty years back my Peelite friends would have been lounging about the Cocoa Tree repeating the bon-mots of SHERlDAN—firing off, for all we know, some fainter ones of their own. In that case they would have been no great benefit to society ; but now, with the aspirations of amiable St. Bernards, by the Jesuit's art they are converted to account in common life. The world has been premature in condemning Jesuitry before it had wit nessed this, its most recent, triumph. For my own part I abjure PASCAL evermore. By Jesuitry we have converted hommes d'affaires out of materials which were described as " too good for earth, but not good " enough for heaven." By Jesuitry we have engaged the services of a bevy of political Pamelas, and enjoy the present spectacle of their " virtue rewarded." I may have more to say for them if you treat me civilly; but for the present I remain, sir, your humble servitor, JOHN OF THE FUNNELS. ELECTRIC SHOCKS TO MINISTERIAL FEELINGS. THE statement which appeared in some of our contemporaries to the effect that great confusion and inconvenience had been caused upon the English and foreign telegraph lines by the recent frosts and snows has received confirmation. The messages despatched during the in tenser weather appear to have run into one another, changed contents or addresses, and to have arrived in fragments, or huddled in heaps, as the case might be. Our excellent contemporary the Journal of Science accounts for this in a way which, though we do not profess to under stand it the least in the world, seems to us perfectly satisfactory. The accomplished writer says :—" The wires got connected either by icicles or by sheets of frozen snow. Now, though water is a conductor, ice, which partakes of the nature of glass, is not, and therefore, at first sight, it would be difficult to say why any disturbance of the electric current has taken place. But consideration shows that, though ice in an abnormal state is a non-conductor, ice, subjected to electric action, and exposed to the air, becomes charged with hyposulphurous acid, which, reacting upon the wire, generates a precipitated hydriodic, or even bichloride of insoluble pyrophosphoric acid, by which limited decomposition is at once set up, and connection established." The confusion being thus accounted for, we may proceed to mention a few of its results. Lord PALMERSTON received the following message from Belgium : " The Czar is delighted with your long-tried fidelity, and begs you to persevere. One more tangle of diplomacy and his fleets and armies . are safe for the winter. Your earldom ought to be made a dukedo m." The noble Viscount could not conceive for whom this gracious message was intended, but felt it his duty to lay it before the - head of the Government. who crumpled it up rather hastily, said it WRS nothing, and changed the conversation. The Home Secretary went out, humming the Vaudeville air, " Qu'as to done, mon Leopold ?" The Earl of ABERDEZN received a despatch, to the sender of which he could obtain no clue ; but it congratulated him on hav ing irremediably damaged the Cabinet by resigning, and then returning, in order to place both the Radical and Peelite Coalitionists in a fahio position; and the despatch also intimated the pleasure with which its author would look for certain merciless " explanations " which would smash the Ministry. It ended, " Surge, carnifex." _Jildbmiliiillili. ..,F..+ r -- - - -- WI r lib. hob.