The Press. — London, England, 1857-09-05 00:00:00

THE PRESS, SEPTEMBER 5, 1857. heretofore and usually borne by the Czars of Russia. When the I Jagellon dynasty terminated in Poland the hereditary and Lithuanian right of succession ceased also, and the nobles again resorted to the elective system. If this had been really the case, on the partition of Poland the royalty would have been utterly extinguished, without the power of any one to claim it except - by usurpation. But the head of the house of Hapsburg must remember. that by the Czartoriski Reform Bill in Poland, and which was carried at the meeting of Polish nobles, the Crown was made hereditary ; and although a member of the house of Saxony was elected to fill it, CATHARINE of Russia, at the instigation of Prince HENRY of Prussia, interfered in sufficient time to carry her point, and annex the Crown of Poland and that of Russia by the very act of the Polish and Czartoriski Reform Bill. That t h e Czartoriski party and the Polish refugees have a right to protest against the usurpation must be conceded, but the possession of the country evi dently- gives the power of the Emperor to assume the title of king. Upon the same principle as that now enunciated by the Emperor of AUSTRIA, SMITH O'BRIEN and MEAGHER of the sword-United Irishmen may so deny, and do deny, the right of Queen VICTORIA to assume the royalty of Ireland. This is a question resting between the Emperor of RUSSIA and the exiled Poles, and with which the Emperor of AUSTRIA and the potentates of Europe have nothing to do. It is somewhat amusing under these circumstances to recall the fact that the impe rial title assumed by Austria does not rest upon a very sure founda tion. FRANCIS in 1815 declined to visit the PRINCE REGENT for the reason that the Emperor ALEXANDER I. claimed precedence, and had somewhat sternly announced to Prince METTERNICH at Paris that his (METTEaxicies) master and sovereign was Emperor of Germany, or no Emperor at all, and further signified that it was in special courtesy towards FRANCIS that he consented to admit his equivocal nomination by the First NAPOLEON to the Imperial title of Austria. These may prove awkward reminiscences. As the few remarks we offered to our readers last week, on pre cautions to be observed in shooting, have been circulated by our daily contemporaries under the head of " Weekly Paper," we shall venture on a few further observations in reference to the second unfortunate acci dent which has occurred in Ireland, and the letter of Mr. RIPPINGILLE in the Times. The accident which occurred to Mr. SMITH was occasioned purely by his cousin's mode of carrying his gun. Had Mr. EDWARDS re membered to reflect upon who was in front of him, and on the rule, never to point his gun " not merely at, but not even in the direction of," any one else, the accident never would have happened. Running with a loaded gun is indeed at all times a most objectionable practice ; it makes dogs wild, and should always be avoided if possible. But still, the one golden rule is, in our opinion, to take care that the gun is so held that, even if it does go off, nobody can be hurt. Mr. RIPPINGILLE'S safety-lock certainly seems very simple, but so many plans have been tried and failed that, till we know more about it, we must repeat that sportsmen, and especially young sportsmen, should not learn to look on the accidental explosion of their gun as an impossibility. They should almost wholly confine their attention to rendering it innocuous. Some of our contemporaries have quoted Sir THOMAS MUNRO'S minute, written in the year 1822, as decisive against allowing freedom to the press of India; forgetful, apparently, that the press of India was made free by the late Lord NIETCALIE, an Indian statesman of infinitely higher intellect, and more extensive and more varied expe rience. Forgetful, also, that Sir THOMAS MUNRO was equally opposed to the admission of independent Europeans into India; to the open ing of the trade of India to the nation generally; and to the abolition of the Company's exclusive right to trade with China. Forgetful that he supported his narrow views on these points by saying that if Europeans were allowed free admission into India they would not take advantage of the privilege; that if the trade of India was opened to the natives generally, it would still be found incapable of extension, as the natives would never think of preferring our cotton goods and other manufactured articles to their own, and that the taking away the exclusive trade with China from the Company would prove de structive of our Indian and of the British empire. The forebodings of Sir THOMAS NIUNRO on all these points having proved so fallacious, we need trouble ourselves little about his opinions regard ing the freedom of the press. The more especially, as it is clear that the freedom of the press has nothing to do with the Indian outbreak, which has been caused by a long course of miseovernment culmi uating in the unjustifiable seizure of Oude. The fact is that Sir THOMAS MUNRO, though a most worthy and excellent public servant, acting conscientiously according to the lights that were in him, was not a very farseeing man, as the utter failure of the only great public measure with which his name is associated proves. The exact extent of Sir THOMAS MUNRO'S political sagacity may be found in the condi tion to which his ryotwarry land-revenue system has reduced the Pi e sidency of Madras. As to the rest, it is no wonder that one who was born in the year 1760, and who left England in 1778, should not have had any very advanced ideas regarding public matters ; and we find him accordingly, in 1813, speaking of Ministers of the school of Per ceval, and Liverpool, and Sidmouth, and Eldon, and Castlereagh, as innovators whose advanced Liberalism was likely to prove most dan gerous to the country ! That such a man should have been opposed to granting freedom to the press of India is not surprising, nor is it more so that his opinions should now find an echo in the breast of our present Premier, who was then a pupil in that school. But that professedly Liberal journals should repeat the cry does certainly astonish us, more particularly as there is not a single argument for the coercion of the European press in India which would not tell with equal force in favour of a similar gag being put upon the press in England. RAMSBOTTOM ; OR, THE LAST MAN IN TOWN. 869 You know Ramsbottom? Of course you do : the tall gawky thing for ever riding up and down Rotten•row on a strawberry cob, an active member of the Reform Club, though he failed twice to get in for the borough of Coppockton. Well, though all the world laughs and sneers at Ramsbottom, I do enjoy the poor devil thoroughly, espe cially when he is so hard up as to be the last man in town !—f or, after all, he is a man. The commercial influence of his father and other less seemly aids have succeeded in making Ramsbottom somebody out of nothing, and he has risen so high in the community as to be in agony lest he should be mistaken fur a man of business. Not a single country house has opened to receive him during the recess. No party to the Highlands has invited him to join in war against the grouse ; and poor, forgotten, miserable Ramsbottom is as utterly neglected by the objects of his toadyism as Sir Benjamin Brawl or Ralph Rollicker will be in the history of the reign of Queen Victoria. The poor wretch has been biding all through August in the back rooms of his house in Chesterfield-street, May-fair. He has been terrified lest Lady Helena may hear of his desolate condition, and far a second time raise the dread laugh of the world against him. But who is Lady Helena? That half-foolish, half-clever, sarcastic, and yet sentimental creature who five years ago ran away with the Puseyite curate, Frank Red grave, who is a cousin of Ramsbottom. Lady Helena has always treated Ramsbottom as a butt for her arrows. She has detected him in his arts of appearing to know the nobility ; she has hunted out his well-thumbed Debrett, caught him blundering about the brunette Lady Sophia Waterton having blue eyes and light hair, and the blonde Lady Frances Polkingham being a dark beauty. Lady Helena delights in exposing the pitiful arts of Ramsbottom to appear as a May-fair notability, and her sarcasm has the more edge as her husband is poor and Ramsbottom is tolerably rich. And so for the last few weeks he has been writhing lest Lady Helena should ascer• taro that he has not been asked anywhere at all, that even Lord Ballvragrun has not taken him to the steppes of Connaught, or Sir Charles Seagull sailed him round the North Foreland in his light rigged yacht, The Bullet Girl. And that, too, after his boasting of his intimacy with the Fitzeapels, and the Do Spinnerleighs, and Lord Cottonborough, and Lord Charles Turfton, to sa3 nothing of the dis tinguished Scotch Peeress, the Countess Dowager of Thistleton, at whose the dansante, near the wilds of Highgate, poor Ramsbottom was mistaken fin. a waiter by the great Polish savan Kutmynosoffski. His apprehension was further increased by his recollecting how his ignorance of the fashionable world was detected at the Italian Plays. Lady Helena went to see Ristori as Lady Macbeth, and Ramsbottom resolved to make two Reform Club dandy democrats jealous by show ing that he was on speaking terms with an Earl's daughter, and he stalled himself next Lady Helena Redgrave He had told her on previous occasions that he knew Sir Henry Whitehead intimately, that they used sometimes club together for season tickets, and that with Sir Henry he was "so often behind the scenes," and that they enjoyed the greenroom so amazingly together. " And Sir Henry " was such a capital fellow—so much to be liked, and such a splendid "specimen of the fine never-be old English gentleman." " Here is your " friend, Sir Henry Whitehead !" said Lady Helena, with a sarcastic chuckle, as the blooming Baronet, with towering figure, strode to a stool close by Ramsbottom. " What? Not know you! Why, surely, " you told me at Oakleigh at dinner "—and Ramsbottom was shown as a finished actor in the part of—Longbow ! But, to continue my story, as illduck would have it, who should pass through town this week but Lady Helena and her hus band. While in London they wished to ascertain Ramsbottom's exact address, as he was a Managing Director of " The Happy-go- Lucky Grand Junction Mesmeric Patent Destruction Company,' whose scrip was decidedly going down, and of which the poor Red graves were unfortunately holders. They drove to Chesterfield-street, found the house closed up, apparently—blinds down, and a dismal sparrow hornpiping it on the drawing-room window-sill. The look of the street, with its ghastly deserted houses, made Lady Helena shudder. Little did Ramsbottom, who was in the back drawing-room, know who was at his hall-door ! He bad been told by a Bond-street picture dealer that on that afternoon Alderman Fipkins and " his lady " would call to look at three sham " Murillos " that Ramsbottom wanted to get rid of, as they had more than once been found out to be as great counterfeits as their owner. " Tell the " lady and gentleman to walk into the front drawing-room and opeu " the shutters," said he to the housemaid, who officiated in the absence of his butler, who had gone crystalising to Sydenham. Up came the visiters. With trembling horror Ramsbottom heard Lady Helena's voice on the stairs ! Before he could beat a retreat he was terrified with the words, " We had better come into the back room, as the front " windows are closed." The door opened ; with her pretty half-mali cious air in came Lady Helena, and she beheld Ramsbottom with grievous terror in his face. " What ! Con it be possible? Hat ! ha! " ha! Why, we've caught you! Oh! Mr. Ramsbottom, and so you are " really, what I have for years and years been longing to sec—the Lust " Man in Town ! Ha! ha! ha! You look it—you act it—up to nature " Hah ! bah ! Frank, did you ever --?" "No ! never ! " Hah ! huh ! Oh ! Ramsbottom! Ramsbottom! You are utterly " undone ! 'Tis too ridiculous ! Hah ! hah ! hah ! Will Ilayter ever " give you a borough after this? Poor Ramsbottom ! I feel for you. ■