The Press. — London, England, 1854-03-04 00:00:00

MARCH 4, 1854. THE BISHOP OF SALISBURY was seized on Wednes day morning with a violent bilious attack, which as night approached began to assume a somewhat alarming character. His lordship has kept his bed since his illness commenced, but was reported as being rather better on Thursday afternoon. THE MEMBERS OF THE REFORM CLUB intend to give agrand dinner to Sir Charles Nilpier, previously tohis departure to take the command of the fleet. Upwards of 160 gentlemen have already subscribed their names. THE Dui OF SAXE COBURG GOTHA has setout on a journey to the Courts of Berlin, Brussels, and Paris. Volitual auls etntrai. THE CONDUCT OF PRIVATE BUSINESS IN PARLIA MENT is the subject of a letter just addressed by Lord Stanley to Sir J. Pakington, the chairman of the recently-appointed committee entrusted to con sider the present system and suggest improvements upon it. Lord Stanley describes the present mode of discussing and deciding private bills in the House of Commons, and thus sums up his objections thereto : " The proceeding is rather judicial than legislative, and is nevertheless conducted with an entire departure from judicial forms. The tribunal before which it takes place is uncertain in numbers, and irregular in attendance ; its members are indifferent for the most part to the matter in hand, and do not act under any sense of personal judicial responsibility. I have known members vote in ignorance, not only of the merits of the case, but of the very name and purport of the bill which they were helping to carry or to throw out. It follows that there is no real security either for a good bill being allowed to go to a committee, or for a bad one being stopped." While indicating the grievance, his lordship does not propose any precise remedy, but suggests, as a step towards it, that a preliminary inquiry into the merits of every private bill should be made by a select com mittee or appointed functionary of the house, and a report founded on that inquiry be presented to the house prior to the second reading of the bill. This process, he urges, might guide, without controlling, the opinions of members ; and as the inquiry would, at all events, elicit whether the measure contained anything contrary to precedent, public policy, or pri vate rights, the private-bill list would be winnowed, and the house relieved from much of its present trouble and responsibility, through unfair or imprac ticable projects being checked at the outset. CABINET COUNCILS were held on Saturday and Wednesday last. On Sunday the Ministers assembled at Lord Clarendon's, and remained in consultation nearly three hours. This unwonted meeting was caused by the receipt of important despatches brought by Mr. Townley from the east of Europe. Mr. Blackwood was sent off with the resolve of the Cabinet in reply on Sunday night to Constan tinople: A PLAN OF SELF-REFORM has been drawn up by the Court of Common Council of the City of London, in compliance with the invitation of the commissioners appointed to inquire into the affairs of the corpora tion. By this scheme it is propssed to give the right of voting for aldermen, councilmen, or ward officers, to occupiers of premises, whether shops, offices, or residences, who are rated to the police rate at 101. per annum. All such persons are to be eligible as alder men and councilmen, bankrupts and insolvents being disqualified. The Lord Mayor to be elected in common-hall from the aldermen who have served as sheriffs, and the election to be absolute. Aldermen to be elected by the wards for life, and without liabi lity to veto. The number of councilmen to remain as at present. Aldermen becoming bankrupt and compounding with creditors or absenting themselves from duty to lose the office. The Court of Lord Mayor and Aldermen to remain a separate court for some special purposes, but to have no power over the City cash; and the legislative power to be in the general Court of Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Com mon Council. The laws forbidding non-freemen to trade to be repealed, and the City street-tolls abolished. The powers of the several City courts to be consolidated and amended, and there to be only two such courts for the trial and hearing of civil causes within the City—namely, the Mayor's Court and the Sheriffs' Court, as regulated by the Small Debts Act. CoLosin. W. B. SYKES, H.E.1.C.5., was on Wednes day elected Lord Rector of the University of Aber been for the current year. Colonel Sykes has commended himself to the favourable notice of the university by placing at the disposal of the senators an appointment in the medical department of the East India Company's service which is under his patronage. VICE-ADMIRAL SIR CHARLES NAPIER, K.C.8., having been appointed to the command of the fleet intended for operations in the Baltic, proceeded to Woolwich on Saturday last, and hoisted his flag onboard the Figgard flag-ship at that port. THE PRESS. THE NEW REFORM Bus, was discussed on Monday at a meeting of Messrs. Gibson and Bright's election committee, held at the League Rooms in Manchester, as a preliminary to mo►e public meetings on the subject. Mr. Bright was the chief speaker, and urged numerous objections to the measure " He complained that, whereas a ten-pound householder need only have been in possession for a year, the term was three years in the case of a six-pound householder; that a man drawing 31. out of his MM. deposit in a savings-bank to apprentice his child, for instance, was to lose his right to vote; that it would rest with employers whether their men, receiving 21. a week, should have votes, because it would be for them to choose whether they would make advances for current necessities, and pay the balance quarterly ; and that the different franchises were too com plex, and no one would know to whom he ought to object. He observed that some of the disfranchised boroughs are perfectly pure, and some perfectly free ; and you might give members to larger bodies under such circumstances that a very few sitting at a private dinner-table shall decide who are to be members. The bill, he insisted, shows an inuate hostility to popular representation, and a distrust of the people. Seats are to be given to the inns of court, he said, not because lawyers are wanted, but to prevent more seats being bestowed on the large towns. Though counties with a few more than 100,000 people were to have an additional member, Lancashire was not to have an in crease proportioned to its vast numbers. A man accepting office ought to go before his constituents; a Minister ought to have their confidence as well as the confidence of the Crown. The object of the minority-representation clause, he said, was to give the Whigs some of the forty-six new county seats ; but Whig county members were of a class that only put a drag on a Liberal Government, as much so as if they were Tories. Why, again, were eight or nine great towns to send a member to Parliament to vote in opposition to their opinions? It was most ungrateful to those eight or nine towns, which had been mainly in strunental in doing everything on which Lord J. Russell now defended the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832. Minorities were already so well represented that a Govern ment could get but a narrow majority. But this clause was the pivot of the bill, and without it the bill would en sure a TOI y majority. The truth was, that the distribution of members was so arranged in the bill as to give power to the territorial interest. The bill would not give a repre sentation in accordance with the opinions of the great bulk of the people ; and he had no wish to see the measure pass into a law." THE EMPEROR AND THE QUAKERS.—The following official reply to the address presented to the Czar by the deputation from the Society of Friends was transmitted to Messrs. Pease and Sturge before their departure from St. Petersburg : " Se Majeste l'Empereur a men l'adresse presents par la deputation de la Societe des Amis avec une vive satis faction, comme l'expression de sentimens entierement conformes a ceux dont il est anime Sa Majeste a horreur, comme eux, de la guerre, et desire sincerement le maintien de la pain. Pour y arriver, elle eat prete a oublier insulter et offenses personnelles, tendre le premier la main a ses ennemis, et a faire toutes les concessions compatibles avec l'honneur. Sa Majeste n'attaquera pas ; elle ne fera que se defendre, et sera toujours disposee a entendre des offres de pain. " L'Empereur regrette vivement l'etat actuel des chores, et il en rejette loin de lui la responsabilite. Il a constam ment desire vivre en bonne entente avec l'Angleterre ; it a nne sincere affection pour la Reine, estime comme Souveraine, femme, epouse, et mere, et il lui a donne des preuves non equivoques de confiance et d'egardes. Sa Majeste repudie touts idee ambitiense de conquete on d'ingerence injuste dans les affaires de la Turquie. Elle n'y reclame que ce qu'elle a le droit de demander en vertu des traites explicites conclus par sea devanciers et par elle-meme. Le lien pni unit la Ilussie a ses co-religionaires en Orient date d'il y a 900 ans ; c'est de l'ancien empire Grec que lui est venu le Chris tianisme, et depuis ce teens une communaute constants d'interets rehgieux a ete maintenue entre la Rnssie et l'empire de Byzance jusqu'a sa chute. Debarrassee elle mime du joug des Tartares, la Russie s'est depuis ce terns constamment appliquee a ameliorer le sort de see co religionaires ; elle y a travaille avec succes. Elle ne saurait recuser ses sympathies religieuses pour eux et renoncer une influence legitime acquise au prix de son sang. Msis l'Empereur ne vent rien audell. II n'en vent nullement aux Tures, et il serait henreux de voir l'Angleterre rendre meillenre justice an mobile qui a guide ses actions. II ne croit pas lui avoir jamais donne le moindre motif de plainte, et il en appelle au temoignage de tons les Anglais etablis dans ce pays, qui n'hesiteront pas, Sa Majeste en est convaincue, a declarer qu'ils n'ont eu toujours qu'a se loner de l'accueil qu'ils ont trouve en Russie. " NESSELRODE. " St. Petersbourg, le 1 (13) Fevrier, 1854." LORD RAGLAN AND THE HON. COLONEL DE Rolls arrived in Paris on Saturday night, for the purpose of coming to an understanding with the French authorities with respect to the plans to be adopted by the forces of the two powers in their joint expedition to Turkey. On Sunday his lordship was received by the Emperor in a private audience, in the evening he visited the Emperor and Empress at the Palace of the Tuileries, and left Paris for London on Wednesday morning. It is understood that the present hurried visit of the commander-in-chief of the English expe ditionary army will not prevent his again visiting the French capital along with the Duke of Cambridge, on their way to the East. 201 THE MASTER•GENERALSHIP OF THE ORDNANCE will not be filled up during Lord Raglan's absence, but be held in commission until his lordship returns from the East. THE MEMBERS OF BROOKES'S CLUB, following the example of White's, will give a grand banquet this eN • ling (Saturday) to his Royal Highness the Dul a of Cambridge. It is hoped that Lord Raglan will lio present at the entertainment. - THE GOVERNMENTS OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE (ac cording to the Times) have addressed to the Emperor of Russia a formal summons, calling upon him to give within six days from the receipt of that commu nication a solemn promise and engagement that he will cause his troops to evacuate the principalities of the Danube on or before the 30th of April. The couriers who are the bearers of this despatch from London and Paris started on their journey on Monday morning. They were to pass through Berlin and Vienna, whence it is understood that similar demands will be forwarded at the same time by the Cabinets of Prussia and Austria. The refusal on the part of Russia to comply with this just demand or to return a fitting answer will be regarded by the powers as a declaration of war. It is calculated that this com munication would reach St. Petersburg in nine or ten days. THERE IS ♦ CURIOUS STORY in circulation in Paris regarding the different manner in which the Czar treated the English and French Ambassadors prior to their leaving. While his Imperial Majesty behaved with the most studied courtesy to General Castelbajac, he caused to be intimated to Sir Horace Seymour that his passports were ready, conveying the message in such a way as to imply a wish for him to leave as soon as possible, and without further interview. The French Amhassador was, on the contrary, invited to Court, and complimented. The latter had the good taste to tell the Czar, who was trying to excite division in so clumsy a fashion, that he begged to be treated in the same way as Sir Horace Seymour, both being on the like footing, and with identical instructions; nevertheless, the Czar would, with his own hand, de corate the gallant general with the order of Alexander N ewsky. ON THE APPLICATION OF THE COMMITTEE OF SPANISH BONDHOLDERS, the Earl of Clarendon, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, has again consented to instruct Lord Howden, her Majesty's representative at the Court of Madrid, to take any opportunity which he may judge favourable to support the interests of the bondholders, and induce the Spanish Government to pay that portion of the coupons of interest which were not provided for in the settlement of 1851. AT THE MEETING OF THE CRYSTAL PALACE COMPANY held on Tuesday it was agreed to raise 250,0001. more capital, to complete the undertaking. THE DEATHS REGISTERED IN LONDON last week exhibit a considerable increase, having risen from 1,154 in the previous week to 1,334. This return shows an excess above the estimated amount of nearly 100. The number of births registered in the week was great, amounting to 1,795. In the corresponding weeks of the nine years 1645-53 the average number was 1,477. THE SUBJECT OF PRrVATEERINO and the rights of neutrals during the pending war has been frequently mentioned in the House, and excites much interest in the City and at Lloyd's, in connection with the in surances of vessels from war risks. With regard to privateers, it is the general belief amongst the mari time interest that the English Government will not only give no licence for such piratical practices, but that they will discourage the system amongst the maritime nations of Europe with whom they have any influence, and at the same time adopt most stringent measures to suppress the practice. A reform in the old laws relating to this system of warfare is impera tively called for ly the enlightened spirit of the age. As regards neutral vessels, although in the last war the flag was no protection to the cargo, it is hoped that the just discrimination which distinguishes the administration of the present generation will not be wanting in the settlement of this important question. With respect to war risks, there is very little business of this class done at Lloyd's at present. Shipowners, under the belief that war would eventually be averted, or delayed very considerably, have under taken such risks on their own account. It is not until a declaration of war is made that such policies will be asked for at Lloyd's. A Commission has been appointed for inquiring into several modes of promotion and retirement in the army. The commissioners were nominated in Tuesday's Gazette. The list comprises Viscount Hardinge, Lord Raglan, Earl Grey, Earl Cathcart, Lord Panmure, Lord Seaton, Hon. Sidney Herbert, Sir John Pakington, Bart., the Right Hon. Edward Ellice, Colonel G. nner, and Colonel W. T. Knollys. A PARLIAMENTARY PAPER shows the amounts which have been spent on native education in India in each year since 1834. It appears that in 1834-35 the total amount so expended was 4,16,417 Rs. • in 1839-40, it was 5.71,543 Rs. ; in 1844 45, it had increased to 8,23,345 Rs.; and in 1848-49, to 10,36,095R5. In 1852-53 it stood at 10,02,133 Rs. 1