The Press. — London, England, 1858-11-20 00:00:00

THE PRESS, NOVEMBEA 20, 1858. 1126 of our best officers, Admiral Sir Michael Seymour, when captain of the fleet in the Baltic :—" If there are ships the commanding officers of which have complained of their crews on their first landing, a modification of such opinion has t►ken place; and, though there are some ships better circumstanced and inure efficient than others, we know of no ship that would not accomplish good service in operation against an enemy." Let Lord Hardwick° go to Harry Keppal, H dl, Paget, Codrington, and fifty other men; they would tell him the true story. They never sent him a complaint, but, on the contrary, gave the highest praise to both officers and men. He could, however, understand a Cabinet Minister saying these things, because he wished the country to grant larger supplies for the maintenance of the navy. He agreed with the noble earl that the navy must be increased ; lie %vas not satisfied that it wa3 large enough; but what the) had would defy competition with any other navy. LORD BROUGHAM ON THE WRONGS OF WOMEN. AT the great meeting at York, on the 12th instant, Lord Baonotwa made the following remarks on the Wrongs and Hardships of Women," which were received by the meeting with deep intaest, and at their conclusion with loud applause : Another objectionwas taken to our proceedings at Liver pool, and that was by persons of great distinction, in• eluding some from the Continent of the highest rank of all—l mean by some upon the throne—and this objection was, that we did not at that Congress sufficiently attend to the wrongs and hardships of women. The two branches to which our attention has been directed by those who thus chide us for the omission are most important matters —are which has been somewhat cultivated in this country, and another which, I grieve to say, has not been attended to at all. rite one that has been cultivated is this—the eitsblishment of what the French call Sisters of Charity —persons who, in that country, being a Catholic country, are Nuns, and bound by what we in this Protestant country hold not only cheap, but hold in very great dislike —namely, vows, and vows to restrain them from leaving the establishment ; but in other countries, where there are Protestant establishments, and no vows at all, the same institution has taken place with the same most happy —I will add most blessed results. They are the comfort of the hospitals; they are the great consolation of the prison as well as the hospital; they are the persons who make up, who distribute, who administer all the medicines ; they are, as I can answer from my own knowledge mai catty in the matter, as well acquainted with the chemical preparations as the professional men themselves, and neglecting rest, utterly careless of reward—(for reward they have not and cannot have by the laws of the institu tion )—all their time, often by night as well as by day, is thus devoted to the pions performance of these most pious works. I have said this has not been altogether neglected in this country, though unhappily our attention at the Con• greaa at Liverpool was not eutticimtly attracted to it ; but it has been well discussed in a most able tract by Mr 4. Jameson, which she has printed and circulated lately ez• presaly upon that subject. The other branch to which our attention has, by the remarks which have fallen from high quarters, been directed, I am sorry to say, has received no attention whatever in this country. Nothing is so lament- able as the position of unhappy maidens and gentlewomen, often of considerable position, who happen, on the death of a parent, not having been married, or by the death of a husband, whence they come into widowhood without ample provision—nothing is more wretched than the lot of unhappy gentlewomen of this description. Well, then, they have established chapters abroad—sometimes in Catholic countries, but just as often in Protestant countries, into which—sometimes from royal foundations—some times by the gift of the charitably-disposed humbler indi vidnale—sometimes by subscription judiciously levied— sometimes by a kind of insurance during the life of a parent or during the life of a husband—after their decease presentation is secured, and the entry into these establish• ments is provided. The happiest results have followed from these admirable establishments, and we have been chidden—we of the Association at our Congress have from these high quarters been chidden—for not having our at tention drawn more particularly to this subject. My answer has been that no sooner has it been suggested than I deemed it my duty, as the president of the Association, to bring the matter forward. lam not the president, for my noble friend, Lord John Russell, has been appointed my successor; hut the council still persist that t shall be designated the president of that institution. The commu nication of so interesting a nature from abroad, which I made to my brethren, was very cordially received, and I hope we shall very soon see something like a plan for carrying out the object to which I have referred. I know that great difficulties may arise from various quarters, and among others a difficulty may ue experienced from the very natute of our admirable countrywomen—from the nature of Englishwomen, in some respects higher and better nurtured than any other women in the world; but in this respect they are not exactly adapted for such establishments, as there is a kind of self-will about them which we all of us sometimes have occasion to know. There is that amount of self-will about them which would prevent our experimenting, except on a very small scale, because I feel the managers would not always find it per fectly easy to make them live amicably together. These difficulties we don't disguise ; but we meet them in front. We shall endeavour, with the blessing of Heaven upon us, to overcome them, and I hope we shall be successful in obtaining this great boon and benefit to our fellow-country- WORM. of the great leading organs of opinion in the country_. although they were . anxiously second e d, as every Govern. ment had been, by the public spirit of the H ouse of Com mons, yet he maintained with confidence that the feeling out of doors among the working claws, the middle classes, and almost all other classes, was rather that they ought to have gone to war sooner than that they went to war too soon. But although he was anxious to preserve peace, he did not admit that all our former wars, anv more than the Russian war, had been wicked or destructive wars. He believed that man) of the wars which this country had waged had been wars as necessary iu their origin as they were glorions in their result. And he thought that we had great cause for gratitude and pride as a nation, when vra looked back at what we had achieved fur our own liberties and for the liberties of Europe by a generous and manly use of the sword. It was one of the many evils of violent language that, acting by irritation upon the minds of som e , and by timidity upon the minds of others, it induced some men to doubt the end and others to mistake the way; but he saw in such evidences as the present meeting clear proof of the social progress of the people; and he held that the reality of social progress was the great and th e only guarantee for the perfect safety of political reform. THE PROROGATION OF PARLIAMENT by the Lord 13th furthero p Chancellor and the Commissioners appointed t o act for her Majesty the Queen took place in the Ro use of Lords on Thursday. Mr. J. C. Lefevre read th e Royal commission, commanding the Commissionersprorogueinpatrhleieuniaemute unlit present, of h l er Th M u a re je d s e t y y : th t e o f January, 1850. As nothing was said about the " despatch of business," the proceedings on that day will b 3 formal. Prior to that time, however, it will be officially made known on what day Parliament will reassemble. Stn E. BULWER Lyrrole has been a third time elected to the Lord Rectorship of Glasgow University, the numbers being for Sir E. B. Lytton, 210; for Lord Shaftesbury, 203 ; for Mr. Dickens, 08. This is the first instance of a similar honour having been done to an Englishman. THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE Of the Common Pleas is again so seriously indisposed as to be unable to attend to his judicial duties. THE HON. FREDERICK BRUCE, brother to Lord Elgin, who mewl as secretary to him during his ern base)! in China, and brought home the treaty of Tiensin, has been appointed the first Ambassador to Pekin under the provisions of the treaty. Mr. Braze was attachtel to the late Lord Ashburton's special mission to Washington in 1842. was Colonial Secretary in Hong Kong from 1844 to 1840, was appointed Consul General in China in 1847, Chargé d'Affaires in Bolivia in 1848, at Montevideo in 1851, and Consul General in Egypt in 1853. THE REV. C. F. WRIGHT, M.A., Mathematical Master at Shrewsbury, and Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, has been appointed to the Mathematical Master:hip of Wellington College. The college will open in February next for 100 boy, of whom eighty-one will be on the foundation. A DESPATCH of Sir John Young to Mr. Labouchere, dated June 10, 1857, treating of the policy of England in the lonian Wands, has been published. It alludes to the restoration of comparative tranquillity, and advises in the plainest terms that the protectorate over five of the islands—Cephalonia, Zanthe, Ithaca, Santa Maura, and Cerigo—shall be given up, and the islands declared part of the neighbouring kingdom of Greece. In return for this concession to the desires of the people, he thinks that we might convert Corfu and Pain into Crown colonies, with forms of administration best fitted to places retained only for military purposes. In reference to this matter an official letter from the Colonial-office, signed by Mr. H. Drummond Wolff, states that " the recent publication of two despatches from the Lord High Commissioner of the lonian Islands took place without the knowledge or sanction, direct or indirect, of her Majesty's Government, and that from the time of their appearance strict inquiry has been in progress into the manner in which they became public." The Daily News adds that the documents were sent to them in an official envelope with a request for pnbli cation, giving a name and address, which they ascertained to be genuine. Other docume nts of equal importance transmitted to the same journal have been given up to the Colonial-office. THE DUKE OF ARGYLL. Ar a meeting held a few days ago for the purpose of inaugurating a new Corn Exchange at Dundee, and which was presided over by Lord Panmure, The Duke of ARGYLL made a speech in which he touched on some political topics. Premising that lie would not say a word which would imply disrespect towards the Emperor of the French or his Govern ment, his grace said : He believed that in very many respects that Govern ment was ahead of the people which it governed. The character of that Government was to a great extent more enlightened than various classes of the French people. Rut, as regards that freedom to speak and write, which we were now enjoying at this moment, France was in a state of comparative decline, although he believed her external power and her influence among other nations to be almost as great as ever it was. But if our liberties of speech were curtailed, if our liberty of writing were curtailed, if any of those liberties which we prize so much were cur tailed even by a hair's breadth, we should feel that, as regarded the best elements of our national life, we were passing under the shadow of a great eclipse. One of the most eminent Frenchmen had lately been subjected to prosecution for a most eloquent writing in which he praised the institutions of our country. But in that document he said he knew his hopes were useless, he knew that the weight of authority and the weight of numbers were against him, and that the people of France were contented with the condition in which they now found them. This showed that there might be a moral decline without any decline of material force. Turning to the United States, it was the testimony of the best and most intelligent American citizens that he had met with in this country, that in many respects, although the power of the Union was as great as ever it was, although they believe, and he to a great extent also believed, that the destiny of the American people would be ultimately a great and a glorious one, the existing condition of that country, in many respects, as regardel moral character, showed transition and decline. They said that there was less and less possibility of getting the highest characters to take an interest in public affairs ; that there was less and less freedom of opinion for opinions unpopular with the masses; and that there was even a sensible and visible decline in respect for the authority of the law. Looking at these examples, we were all interested in asking if we our selves were passing under any decline, or if we were advancing ? The duke found the answer in meetings such as that he addressed, and, adverting to the recent speech of Mr. Bright, said : He did not, indeed, reckon among those evils one which was mentioned by a distinguished orator the other day in England. Mr. Bright was good enough the other day to torn his eye northwards to the poor naked land of Scot land, and he mentioned as one of the great evils of our condition that there were various persons in the country whose mainstay was oatmeal porridge. He could only way to Mr. Bright that he wished Mr. Bright had one-half the chance of good health and long life and vigour of many of those healthy mountaineers whom he Lad seen bred up on oatmeal porridge. But he freely admitted that, without counting oatmeal porridge among them, many evils affected our social state, and possibly some also affected our politi cal condition. But he saw that there was a steady pro. press towards meeting those evils, and that the various classes of society were un►ting together for the purpose of rectirying them. Those were the best and the surest symptoms of national progress—the surest and most certain sign that there was no national decay. He felt with con fidence that we were a progressive people, not merely that our empire abroad was as sound and as extensive as it ever was, but that at the heart and core of the people we were better, more united among ourselves, than we ever were at any former period of our history ; and that confidence was not abated because the distinguished orator to whom he lately referred, speaking in the name of peace and progress, and taking those great names in vain, had 'oven endeavouring to raise animosities which were now extinct, and to divide those whom the good providence of God and the course of events had, year by year, been bringing more and more close together. He looked for the remedy of all evils to the enlightened operation of public opinion. He trusted that we might long continue to enjoy the blessings of peace. He did not express this wish as if it were not expressed by others. He did not, as Mr. Bright lately did, quote the great names of Sir Robert Walpole, of Lord Grey, and of Sir Robert Peel, as Ministers who desired to preserve the blessings of peace ; because he believed that every Minister who had governed this country hart more or less desired to preserve peace, if it could be pre— served with justice and with honour. But he repudiated the doctrine which had been held by Mr. Bright, that the wars of this country hail been mainly due to any one class of the community. He appealed to Mr. Bright himself if he had not recently censured the work►ng classes of this country for those generous sympathies which made them unite heart and soul in the late great war with Russia? He could name a Minister who was as anxious for peace as ever was Sir Robert Walpole, or Lord Grey, or Sir Robert Peel—that very Minister by whose exertions Sir Robert Peel was enabled to maintain peace during more than one critical passage of our national history—lie meant Lord Aberdeen. He said Kith confidence that Lord Aberdeen desired to preserve peace not more from the instincts of a virtuous character than from the deep convictions of Christian duty. And he said that every member of that Cabinet, of which he had the honour to be a member, was anxious and desirous to preserve peace, and yet they were not successful. And although the efforts of the Government were seconded by remark• able moderation of tone on the part of two or three rtirogalitan. THE GoVERNMENT MEASURE or CORPORATIor REFORM was reported on at a special Court of the Common Council on Monday. This being the first meeting in the new mayoralty , the Lord MsPr made a short speech to the cour t, and was loudly oration cheered. Mr. J. Wood, chairma n of the Corp Inquiry Committee, brought up the report from that committee, which was read by the deputy town clerk. Mr. Wood then, in moving that the report be ag reed to, gave an account of the proceedings of the corn. mittee, which gave rise to a long discussion, and Mr. Ferrer moved, as an amendment, t hat it be added a t the end of the report, " That before ag reeing to anY proposition or arrangement the committee obeli