The Press. — London, England, 1857-12-12 00:00:00

THE PRE S S, DECEMBER 12,1857. force, but 2,000 of them. Not that they believed these men would arrive sooner at their destination—for, said Mr. VERNON SMITH, " at "this period of the year sailing-ships are even swifter than steamers" —but "to excite a rivalry" between the sailing and steam ships, the better to insure "an expeditious passage "! About as wise a piovisiou as if in case of riots in the north we despatched one half of the troops from Aldershott by railway and sent the rest by waggon. A week after this we find Sir CHARLES WOOD assuring us that it was "a mistake altogether " to suppose that steam-vessels were preferable to sailing-ships for the "rapid transpert of troops," and asserting with all that diffidence peculiar to the Right Honourable Baronet, that " long voyages at "certain periods of the year were accomplished quicker, or as " quick, by sailing-ships as by steam vessels, and that the " particular case now under consideration was one of them " ! Such were the views and opinions of Ministers. On these opinions is impressed that " original vice " of the mean and small con ception with which the intelligence of these Indian disasters was by Ministers first received. They sent a brigade to suppress a rebel' lion, and they trusted to the winds to save an empire. The result we need hardly recapitulate here. After five months' desperate struggling against desperate odds, assistance is at length arriving to the aid of our f e llow-countrymen; but by what means does it arrive but by those very steamers her Majesty's Government on consideration had decided made slower passages than sailing-ships? Thirty-three sailing-ships left England in July, and not one had arrived at its destination before the latest steamer that sailed in August ! More than that, the August steamers had reached Calcutta before those ships which sailed in June. What would have been the effect on India if these steamers had teen despatched in June and July? No admissible objection was ever urged against their employment. It was simply the opinion of "the Government" that sailing-ships would do as well. The influence this opinion has exercised upon the campaign is incalculable. It has sacri ficed many valuable lives ; it has tarried mourning into every home in England ; and it has damped the spirit and wasted the resources of the country. We have on a previous occasion incontestably shown that the Government, in the first instance, underrated the Indian rebellion. It. will need very little inquiry to prove that there is to be added the additional crime of having neglected to take those obvious measures the occasion demanded, and of having refused to despatch the rein forcements in the most expeditious manner at their command. The extraordinary delay which took place in the transmission of the last telegraphic news from India fully bears out the opinion which we gave a short time ago of the inexpediency of trusting to foreign Governments for the delivery of important telegrams. The message having left Malta at 4 p.m. on Friday, the 4th instant, was despatched from Cagliari at 8 p.m. on the same evening, and did not reach the Foreign•oftice until 6.30 p.m. on Monday, the 7th thus, notwith standing the advantage of the submarine telegraph from Malta, hardly anticipating the arrival of the mail by more than► a day. Let us at any rate learn a lesson from this delay. If we cannot at once have a cable of our own from Falmouth to Gibraltar and thence to Malta, let us beware of depending upon foreign Governments for the transmission of our messages at both ends. Let us take care that the telegraphic connection with Alexandria is kept in our own hands. We an sure that the Government will find Englishmen who arc willing to under take the service on terms luite as favourable as those of the Austrian Government; and we cannot but think that the company which has at this late *mason of the year successfully connected Sardinia, Malta, and Corfu by submarine cables, should at all events have the option of still further advancing this great national undertaking. The case of Mr. JOHN EDWARD STEVENS, late Manager of the London and Eastern Banking Company, whose examination at Edinburgh has recently been filling the cclumns of the Times, must evidently not be confounded with the ordinary ruses of bankruptcy produced by the existing crisis. From the first establishment of the bank, between three and four years ago, with a paid-up capital of 250,0001., a series of transactions commenced between the bank and . the notorious Colonel WAUGH , which has ended in leavin g the latter indebted to the company in a sum only a few thousand pounds short of their entire capital. The principal object in the examination of Mr. STEVENS HD to the present time seems to have been to elicit first whether any of this large sum of money went into his own pockets, or whether he was guilty of nothing worse than culpable negligence and ignorance. Mr. STEVENS was apparently not brought up to business, which perhaps accounts for the ardour with which he plunged into it when first apprised of its delights. He was an , assistant-surgeon in the army up to the y ear 1850. Then he returned to England from India, and during the next few years we lose sight of him. We suppose ho became one of that class, of whom we must all have met speci wens, who are always going to make their fortunes by a short cut ; who are invariably deep in the formation of new companies, patents, mines, and the like, and to whose lips the words chairman, directors, inanager, secretary, and so forth , are alway s most si g nificantly present. These men usually live in luxury, and are the standing wonder of a smell circle of intimate friends to whom their pecuniary resources are known, but the resources of their ingenuity are not. After about the average period of expectancy, Mr. STEV ENS accomplished his destiny. A joint-stock bank was formed in which he bad several fingers; and he very soon contrived to get in his whole hand by securing the office of manages at a salary of 1,0001. a year, subsequently raised to 1,5001. Tied, no doubt, by an affectionate remembrance of dangers shared in common, and anxious to meet an an cient comrade, who should " ,f the bank soon after Mr. STEVENS'S 1205 friends embraced each other. Business, however, was business ; and it was partly upon business, it appeared, that the Colonel had called. A little discounting proposal, a mere trifle, was gone into—agreed to — further proposals afterwards--and so on, and so on—Colonel WAUGH practising a curious piece of superfluous mystification on the directors by paying them with notes borrowed out of their own bank—until the gallant customer withdrew to Spain for his health, Mr. STEVENS to Edinburgh for his convenience, and the shareholders to their respec tive " studies " to arrange a new start in life, and curse the hour they joined the London and Eastern Banking Company. Now what is the moral of all this? Is it that fresh penal statutes should be enacted— that new meshes should be constantly spread to entangle these sharks of society? Well, all these precautions are very well, but still Mr. STEVENS goes free. We may be sure that while roguery lasts, ohica nery will exist too ; that we can never entirely secure ourselves. In our opinion the moral is simply this, that people must compel themselves to take more trouble in ascertaining the character of those to whom the}• intrust their money ; and that the laxity of commercial morals renders it incumbent upon every good citizen to be more or less am inquisitor. A deputation, consisting of Miss CARPENTER, Lord SHAFTESBUY, Sir JOHN PAKINGTON, Sir ARTHUR ELTON, Dr. W. CARPENTER, and other gen tlemen interested in the question of Reformatories, this week waited upon Lord GRANVILLE to ascertain whether a Minute of the Council of Education withdrawing aid from all such schools as would not certify they received none but legally convicted criminals, or well-known mendicants and vagrants, would not receive the reconsideration of Government. It is well known that one class of boys among whom reformatory institutions have had the greatest success consists of precisely that description of boys who are by this Minute cut off from State assistance. So far from there being any doubt of the existence of a class of boys, some manfully struggling against all but overwhelming tempta tions to a life of crime, others on the brink of ruin, but neither beggars nor criminals, it has actually been made the subject of special study by eminent philanthropists ; analysed, classified, aad its phenomena carefully registered. The " involuntary vagrant," the orphan, or abandoned child, who works hard and lives hard to avoid crime, is well known to the honest investigator of poverty and misery, however little believed in by the red-tapists who affect to control them. Such children as these are eminently fit objects for the reception of State bounty. And in their case we get rid at the threshhold of one great difficulty—namely, the danger of encouraging parental neglect. It is scarcely credible that one reason assigned by Mr. COWPER for discountenancing this class of schools is " the difficulty of stating in the official Minutes, in " formal and technical language, the class which should be admitted " into ragged-schools." Verily, Mr. Commissioner Pordage has not been overdrawn. The fruits of the last general election, and that adroit ruse by which the Prime Minister secured a Palmerstonian Parliament, pledged to nothing but his own support, is becoming each day more apparent. What other House of Commons would have exhibited that " strange subservience " to the will of one man, and that equally strange indifference to the wrongs of their own countrymen, which is exhibited by the Parliament of to-Jay? Twelve months ago Lord PALMERSTON DARE not have treated with indifference the case of the Neapolitan prisoners. Now he revels in his new-found absolutism, and seems determined to try how long the patience of the country will endure him. The question at issue between the King of NAPLES and ourselves is not, be it remembered, whether or no British subjects iu a foreign land are to be tried by the laws of that country. However gloomy a prospect might thus come before them, it is pos sible we should not be justified in interfering. The question is whether British subjects are to be treated, pending their trial, in a manner which modern civilisation, in all countries alike, has declared to be intolerable. The King of NAPLES is not acting contrary merely to our own notions of justice ; he is breaking the law of nations, and England is the victim. Is it that he is acting up to the old maxim which tells us that experiments should be tried on what is worthless ? And is it possible that what neither France, America, nor Russia would endure for a moment, England will submit to in silence ? Ministerial impertinence is still a topic of the week. " Whom " the gods wish to destroy, they first deprive of reason," says the pro verb ; and the infatuated self-importance of certain members of the Government would seem to indicate a similar intention of Providence. But, after all, what is dangerous in the chiefs is only laughaMe in the underlings. And the pompous indignation of Mr. VERNON SMITH on Wednesday last was certainly more funny than fearful. We can very readily excuse the President of the Board of Control for wishing to absent himself from his place in the House as often as he can find an opportunity. It is only natural. But, nevertheless, as long as he continues to be intrusted with the management of this important department, it is his duty, though, doubtless, not his incli nation, to be on the spot when required. Seriously, tho attitude which her Majesty's Ministers are so fond of assuming is unworthy of their status and position. It is unworthy of the respect duo to themselves; still less is it fair or honest towards the Houses of the Legislature. Ministerial responsibility, whatever her Majesty's present advisers may think to the contrary, is a solid and substantial reality. It is no myth. On the contrary, it is an obligation which cannot be hastily assumed nor lightly repudiated; it should be treated as a matter which Ministers should frankly and Aliment should imperatively in common, and anxious to meet an ancient comrade, who shouid oongatiou %MIMI mtunot ue nastily atnau...". make his appearance in the of of the bank soon after Mr. STEVENS'S should be treated as a matter which Ministers should frankly and appointment, but the gallant Colonel WAuott, whom the manager " had freely share, and which the country and Parliament should imperatively known in Judi& "—qui complexus et gaudier quanta faerwit, as the old demand and as rigidly enforce.