The Press. — London, England, 1858-07-31 00:00:00

724 surprising though by no means analogous feat. Out of the number of different games which it has played in the course of the past session it has, according to its own account, at any rate gainedone. In all, indeed, it has displayed similarly eminent qualities to those possessed by Mr. MORPHY, the great American chess player. Experienced bystanders have been equally perplexed, bewildered, lost in surprise. The brilliance of invention, the boldness of attack, the ferocity of onslaught, the ingenuity of combination, the provocative and vexatious art, the remarkable temperament, and, above all, the eminent fearlessness exercised by this ac complished adversary, have been matters of public admiration, as they cannot fail to be topics of private surprise. Leaving conscientiousness and every sort of scrupulous talent out of the question, and taking into consideration its varied array of resources and acquirements, the Times appears to justify the eulogium which an enthu siastic American editor has this week passed on it of being " The most splendid example of the " greatest modern Power." If humble contempo raries like ourselves may be permitted to desire for the Times any faculty which it does not pos sess, it would be, possibly, a better memory. The Times, generally speaking, finds it conve nient to forget, rather than to remember. This week, however, it is convenient to remember, and it makes a plaintive appeal to the public on a matter which might have been forgotten. Posi tively, our contemporary affirms, and he reite rates it in the ears of an ungrateful public, during the last session he has been right once! He has been successful in his prediction respect ing the East India Company ! 'p We will give our contemporary credit for the talent he has displayed to prove himself a true instead of a false prophet. We will give him credit for an excellemit game played in favour of Lord PALMERSTON, for the ingenious diver- sion attempted to be made to the disadvantage of Lord DERBY. We will allow his repeated efforts to procure the deportation of negroes from Africa under the pretext of an apprenticeship system, and the brilliant invention displayed in his endeavour to embroil this country with France—an endeavour which, we are happy to note, he is retreating from under the cover of well-masked correspondence. We will own the rapid combination which attributed the mutiny in India to missionary interference, and, when the popular current took a missionary turn, and reverted in favour of religion, the cleverness of the Times in making use of religious terms and phrases. We may justly note the ability of the Times in manoeuvres meant to harass its political opponents, and give it all the benefit of its brilliant style, as Indicated in its desire that Lord CHELMSFORD " might gnaw his bone in that growling," in its request to Lord JOHN MANNERS "to take a cool pot of Serpentine," or the exhortation to the I'rench admiral to go up the Peiho river " and bite a cherry," terms which may perhaps be considered as goodnatured familiarities, and by no means as vulgarities, on the of the Times. Allowing and admitting all tre r s t e remarkable items of unsuccessful ability, we may congratulate the Times on the one success which it reports. It is this. In the beginning of the session, by information peculiar to itself; our contemporary was enabled to announce (we will quote its own simple and authoritative words), that "the then Govern " ment intended to abolish the East India " Company." A series of unexpected circumstances inter vened which prevented " the then Government " from fulfilling their excellent intention. Another Government came in, and did what the former one was not enabled to do—which is pretty much the same thing. They carried the measure, as any Government must carry a measure, by the help of the Times. The process is remark able and noteworthy. After the Times has given its support to any Bill, the Bill, by a bold figure of speech, may be designed as no longer the Measure of the Government, but simply and ex• pressively the measure of the Times. The argument is odd. Has our epigrammatic con temporary forgotten his Martial ? Quem recitas mess est, oh Fidentine, Sed aisle quum recites incipit ease taus. In three successive leaders of this week our contemporary calls attention to the accuracy of its predictions. One of its predictions respecting k& HE PRESS, JULY 31, 1858. India nine days ago has been, we are informed, literally fulfilled. It reported that " all would be well," and by the latest telegram all seems far from well ! We do not envy, and can only wonder, when the Times on two successive days finds it necessary to take up a standing in the literary thoroughfare, make an appeal to the public passing by, and pray it plaintively, " Ne " date obolum calumniatoribus "—Don't encou- rage other calumnious weekly papers. THE LATE LUNACY CASE. TIIE late lamentable case of Mrs. TURNER is a curious instance of charity beginning abroad. Not, however, that it is by any means a solitary one. There is a large section of what we rather vaguely term the middle classes, who when thrown upon a bed of sickness are unable to pro cure medical attendance nearly so good as that which is to be found in the hospitals which their own liberality supports. Such are the superior advantages which organization and systematic supervision are certain to bring with them, with out which the most affectionate intentions and even the most lavish outlay are frequently wasted. None of our readers can have perused the re ports of, we cannot say the extraordinary inquiry, for we believe similar cases of brutality, though not brought to light, occur daily, but we will say of the distressing disclosures which have been made during the present week relative to the treatment received by Mrs. TURNER at the hands of Mr. METCALFE, the manager and pro prietor of a private lunatic asylum, without feeling the deepest commiseration for the unhappy sufferer. We believe, therefore, that this is not an inopportune moment for calling public attention to the inadequate provision which at present exists for securing to members of the middle classes suffering from insanity such treatment as would be most likely to conduce to their recovery, and at the same time afford them a safe guard against improper detention in asylums. Pauper lunatics are placed in institutions built and maintained at the expense of the several counties. The medical men and attendants are paid fixed salaries, and the internal economy of each asylum is under the immediate control of a committee of magistrates, selected by the Court of Quarter Sessions from the whole magistracy of the county. Now, none of these parties can be in the slightest degree benefited by detaining a patient in the asylum a moment longer than is absolutely necessary. To the medical superintendent it is a matter of credit that he should cure as many patients as he can ; and the magistrates who visit the institu tion at least once in each week, to hear com plaints, and to watch over its management, are, of course, only too glad to free the ratepayers from the charge of maintaining a pauper the moment he is capable of maintain ing► himself. Now, let us look how the rich man fares in a private asylum, or retreat, as these places are poetically called by their proprietors, lie is placed there very possibly at the instance of interested rela tions, by whom a liberal sum is annually paid to the proprietor so long as the victim remains in his clutches. What opportunities has he for com plaining of maltreatment ? Save at the chance visits of the Lunacy Commissioners, he sees only his keepers and quarterly visitors ; the latter in the form of two or three neighbouring magis trates and a medical practitioner, whose notions on the proper treatment of lunatics have, in all probability, not far travelled beyond the old scourge and strait-waistcoat school of their childhood. These gentlemen, moreover, having but little power and no hand in the management of these houses, do only what the law absolutely compels them to do ; while in many instances the proprietor even does not reside at his asylum, and we find one medical man, with a large private prac tice, living and practising in the neighbourhood of Oxford-street, and at the same time owning two private asylums in the neighbourhood of Fulham. When Mr. TITE brings forward his motion on the subject next session, we most sin cerely trust that the matter will be thoroughly looked into ; also that the opinions of others besides professional men will be taken on this lie question. When the keepersof private asy l um , are so jealous of all visitation of their bowi es that, as we know to be the case, even the medi ca l superintendents of county establishments are not permitted to go over them or see the inmates, we cannot help thinking that something m ust b e wrong. JESUITISM. THE stronghold of religion in all times, an d among all nations, has been in the heart of the common people. It is there that the gre at truths of natural law, and there that the dogma s of a real or a supposed revelation, have their deepest and most impregnable seat. The natural religiousness of mankind is the reason why all great revolutions have been, more or less, the result of moral and religious causes. The easy corruption of religion into superstition is the reason why religions, once organized, easily gro w into engines of State polity. Our natural self-complacency keeps us from remembering that " the thing which hath been " is that which shall be," and that what is now " hath been already of old time." Great as has been, great as is likely to be, the intellectual progress of the word, morally man is now, sad morally man will ever continue to be, just what he was at the fall of ADAM—eager and ambitious to acquire, still more eager and ambitious the more he has acquired. And, as ambition grows with might, master and slave, soldier and serf, become in rude times the normal relationship of man to man. In the progress of events, how ever, and from the universal aptitude for super stition, craft and knowledge come to divide with might the masterdom of what has become pro prietary mankind. The priest shares with the soldier the profits and the honours of ownership and cultivation. It requires no great sagacity to see that men in the mass were likely to gain but little from such co-partnership ; especially if there be mixed up with the religion which is adopted so much of really Divine truth as to give a healthful savour to the human ordinance itselt. What is called the conversion of CONSTANTINE was not only s heavy blow to true Christianity; it was not only a crushing aggression upon rising Europe; it wan a conspiracy by which a sacerdotal caste was to divide sovereignty over peoples with the powers legitimately ordained, a conspiracy to organise and regenerate steady obstructions to all human progress in the joint interests of despotism and superstition. It would seem, then, a mistake to think that Jesuitism took its first rise with LOYOLA. It was only the machinery that was a new invention in the system which beautiful GIULIA BORGIAS Cardinal, ALLESSANDRO FARNESE, embodied and canonized as PAUL 111. Jesuitism in its elements is simply the sinister application of religion to political _purposes. Whatever uses religion sys tematically in the interests of a governing caste or class, as a means to degrade political society, is Jesuitism ; and the beginnings of Jesuitism in Christendom were earlier even than CONSTANTINE. They were, indeed, rude and clumsy, but auda cious ; perhaps all the more prosperous and more durable because so rude and so audacious. Still it is hardly too much to say that the foundation of the whole actual politico-ecclesiastical system of Continental Europe was laid by CoNsTar.-Ttsc. CHARLEMAGNE was another mighty master of the art ; but he was to Comsrrayrnix only what BRAMANTE was to MICHAEL ANGELO. Little credit however is due to either for the durability of their great work. The principles of the Jesuit or Papal scheme, as they then began to be agreed upon, were the discovery of no one or two indi v►duals.. Step by step they were the gradua l developments of one stupendous falsehood, .1° divinum, taken for a truth, supported and propa gated for a truth by all the brute force of military despotisms and all the spiritual agency of schools and universities, of the pulpit and the confer'