The Press. — London, England, 1857-05-23 00:00:00

MAY 23, 1857. building has not been inconveniently crowded. Her Majesty during her visit will remain at Worsley, the Earl of Ellesmere having placed the hall at her Majesty's disposal. A TREMENDOUS BLAST OF 11oci took place at Holy head on Thursday, when 160,000 tons of quartz rock were dislodged by a charge of :21,000165. of powder. It is described as the most splendid sight, when, at the word, "Fire," a vast section of the mountain ap peared and came over like an avalanche, leaving a huge space of nearly live hundred feet long, sixty broad, and one hundred and twenty high. Upwards of 10,000 persons were present. Obituarg. Mns. JOHNSTONE, widow of Governor Johnstone, a man distinguished in India, and brother to Sir John Lowther Johnstone, Bart., of Westerhall Castle, in Scotland, and the Annandale estate, died last week at her house in Eaton place. His son, Sir Frederick, married the sister of Earl Craven, and his sisters are Mrs. Escourt, of Gloucestershire, Mrs. 11. Buckley, and the Countess of Verulam. SLR Enwsun HAGGERSTON, seventh baronet of Haggerston Castle, Northumberland, died at his residence near Hexham a few days since, in his 68th year. He bad long been in an ailing state of health. He was the second son of the late Thomas Hagger ston, Esq. (eldest son of the fifth baronet), by Winifred, daughter of Edward Charlton, Esq., who died in 1829, before succeeding to his father's title. Sir Edward himself was born in 1797, and succeeded to the family title and estates on the sudden death of his eldest brother, caused likewise by an apoplectic seizure, in December, 1842. The baronet recently deceased was never married, and consequently the title passes to his next surviving brother, John, formerly a captain in the army, who married a few years since Sarah Anne, daughter of Henry Knight, Esq., of Axminster, Devon, Miss MACNAGHTEN, eldest daughter of Sir Edmund C. Macnaghten, Bart., met with a distressing accident on Monday forenoon, which, we regret to add, termi nated fatally. The young lady had been occupied in the drawing-room in writing a letter, and accidentally treading upon a lucifer match set fire to her muslin dress. Feeling the heat, she appears to have lost her presence of mind and to have rushed from the room, shrieking loudly, and descended the stair case to the hall entirely enveloped in flames. One of the domestics, alarmed by her cries, ran upstairs, and, perceiving the shocking state Miss Macnaghten was in, rushed into the dining-room, and, seizing a baize table-cover, had the presence of mind to wrap it round the unfortunate lady. Alarm was instantly- given, and medical aid was promptly obtained, when it was ascertained that she was dreadfully burnt, and the professional gentlemen gave no hopes of her re covery. She continued to linger up to eight o'clock on 'Monday evening, when death relieved her from her sufferings. This distressing occurrence has caused the liveliest sensation in the town. LADY MILDMAY died on the oth inst. She was the daughter and heiress of Carew Mildmay, Esq., of Shawford-house, Hants, and married in 1786 Sir Henry.Paulet St. John, by whom she bad nine sons and four daughters, of whom two only survive—the present rector of Chelmsford, and Edward, the sixth son. Sir Henry assumed, by royal permission, the surname and arms of Mildmay, in pursuance of the testamentary injunction of Carew-Hervey Mildmay, Esq., of Hulse-grove, Somersetshire, and Marks, in the county of Essex. rtlant. A SECOND LETTER FROM MR. JAMES SADLEIR has appeared in the Irish papers. It is intended as a reply to the charge of " cooking the books " preferred against James Sadleir by the Master of the Rolls, on the ground furnished by a note of instructions from John Sadleir, found in the papers of James after the bank stopped. James Sadleir denies that he acted as his brother John wished, and maintains that he did not alter " one figure " in the accounts. The comments of the Evening Post dispose of Mr. James Sadleir and put the true state of the case on record very lucidly : According to himself, James Sudleir is an innocent victim to his credulity. He certainly did not carry out John's atrocious suggestions in form ; but yet, when the affairs of the Tipperary Bank were in total and hopeless insolvency —with assets not amounting to the sixth part of the money plundered from the creditors, the victims of the nefarious system carried out by John through the in strumentality of James—he, as the managing director, produced and signed a report which represented the affairs of the bank as in a most flourishing condition. THE EMIGRATION ABOUT KERRY still continues. One of the journals has the following statement respecting the progress of the population drain in that quarter ; THE PRESS. Emigration on an extensive scale is going on—an emi gration that embraces some of the very best of the working classes, particularly in the rural districts. Already have four large vessels sailed from Tralee for transatlantic ports with emigrants, chiefly young farm servants of both sexes, and two others are announced to leave before the close of the current month. Besides this emigration direct from the county-town, people are every week leaving different parts of Kerry for America via Liverpool. Nor must we omit to notice in connection with this subject that a diffe rent class of emigrants are leaving our county for Aug. tralia in no small numbers—we refer now to the younger ions of the more comfortable farmers. FARMING PROSPECTS are satisfactory. gat' ad AN INQUEST was held on Tuesday to inquire into the death of Captain Brown, of the 2:3rd Welsh Fusiliers, a member of the Junior United Service Club, who shot himself with a revolver, at his lodgings, No. 8, Charles-street, St. James's, on Friday week. It appeared from the evidence of a medical gentleman, Dr. Tothill, that since an attack of fever which he had last month, deceased had seemed not quite right in his mind. Dr. Tothill bad called for deceased to take a ride with hire, and was just out• side the door of the room when the report of the pistol was heard. Deceased, who had heard him knock, and called out " Who's there ?" shot himself the instant after. The jury returned a verdict of " Temporary insanity." THE PRISONER BACON, acquitted last week of the murder of his children, was on Wednesday fully committed at Stamford, after a preliminary exami nation, on the charge of having poisoned his mother with arsenic in March, 1855. The trial will take place at the next Lincoln Assizes. A CASE OF CHILD POISONING has just been dis covered near Truro. One Beard and his daughter have been arrested on the charge of poisoning with arsenic the daughter's illegitimate child, a girl of four years of age. The mother admits having purchased the poison, and says she believes her father poisoned the child. The woman, it appears, was anxious to get married to a young man who was courting her, and who did not want to be burdened with the little girl : hence the motive for the crime. The evidence is now being completed. Cornspon7atntt. THE NEW REFORM BILL. Letter HI TO THE EDITOR OF " THE PRESS." Sir,—We have now Lord Palmerston's word for it, that he new Reform Bill will provide for an increase of the electoral body. Who are to be the " classes which are to get votes they have not at present," and under what conditions, if any, the privilege is to be conceded, are questions which it would well become every thoughtful man to consider, for on them de pends the destiny of England. In my two former letters I have endeavoured to trace some of the consequences of an extension of the electoral body, to be effected by lowering the property qualification. I have principally, as yet, directed attention to the effect of such a measure on taxation ; and taking only for granted the proposition, that men, when they have power, will work it in con formity with what appears to be their interests, I concluded that the new voters, whom it is statistically certain will constitute the majority of the electoral body, will prefer direct taxation by which they would be altogether exempted, to indirect taxation by which they are at present forced to pay on an aver- age thirty per cent. on articles of consumption on which they expend fully one half their incomes. I have now to remark that if instead of lowering the property qualification an educational franchise was introduced for the purpose of giving votes to men who have not the present property qualification, the new voters would also be of this way of thinking. For in respect of taxation these intellectual prole tarians would have precisely the same interest as the five-pound voters, with superior acuteness in meeting the arguments of the opposite school of political economists, and special adaptation to the task of agitators for compelling the Legislature to submit to the fiscal revolution. In considering a new Reform Bill involving an increase of the electoral body, we are therefore naturally led to inquire into the political consequences which would ensue from the substitution of direct in place of indirect taxation. In the first place, the governing body would not be the taxpaying body, and would consequently be re lieved from the check which the fact of having indi vidually to contribute to the expense of war imposes on the belligerent tendencies of the ton-pound house holders. Under the new system the five-pound or educational democracy could carry out on a grand scale the Palmerstonian policy without having to pay in the slightest degree for tLe luxury of military glory, and might look forward with considerable confidence to the emancipation of Poland, to the independence of Hungary, and to a united Italy, all to be achieved at the expense of the richer classes of England. Nor would the thirty or forty years' war which this policy would entail be without advantage to the new voters of a more palpable nature. A war expenditure, so long as it lasts, is of great advantage to the lower orders. The price of their labour and of the articles of their production rises, and the Army and Navy open up avenues to fortune which in time of peace have hitherto been shut except to the privileged classes. In the second place, however pleasant this state of things may be to the new governing body, it practically amounts to a measure of confiscation against the upper orders of society. I do not mean to follow this part of the argument any further ; but to those who think my conclusions chime rical because based on the idea that the income tax will he perpetuated —an idea which seems a plain con tradiction to public opinion —I would answer by asking what is this public opinion they deem so conclusive? Can it in the nature of things be any thing else than the opinion of those who pay income tax, exaggerated by the fact that the newspaper editors and proprietors are subject to the burden ? And is it possible to conceive that the rest of the nation can feel any repugnance to an impost from which they are altogether exempt and which presents a ready means of procuring them relief from burdens which they think press unjustly upon them? These reflections suggest that there are other questions besides that of taxation upon which our public opinion may be equally at variance with the opinion of the great majority of the nation ; but if we lower the franchise, these latent opinions, which express the interests—not perhaps the real far sighted interests, but the apparent and immediate interests of the masses—will come to light as convicticns, which it will be in their power to translate into facts ; nor will they want the assistance of leaders from the higher classes or of a demagogic press to advocate measures which, in the new Reform era, will constitute the channels of power.— I am, &c., J. A. G. SECOND EDITION. SATURDAY AFTERNOON. LATEST INTELLIGENCE.' Intelligence from New York to the 9th inst. states that a private despatch, dated Washington, May 9, says the President has declined a proposition of Lord Napier's for the opening of new negotiations with reference to the Central American affairs, and which were to be based upon tho conditional acquiescence of Honduras. Upon this subject the Washington correspondent of the New York Herald, writing on the 7th inst., states that Lord Napier had a long and satisfactory interview that day with the President on the subject of the Dallas Clarendon Treaty, and on the Bth that there was a Cabinet meeting, at which the rejection of the Dallas-Clarendon Treaty was under considera tion. The cabinet were said to be in unison on the important subject. They believe that the statement of the British Government is correct as to Ruatan, but do not esteem it a sufficient reason for the re jection of the treaty. It is stated that Lord Napier deeply regrets the altered state of things. Advices from Constantinople, 'of the 15th, state that the Minister of the United States of America has gone to the Danubian principalities for a political purpose. The tribes of Circassia have met, and have ap pointed a court of justice for each thousand inhabi tants. A telegraphic despatch from Vienna states that Marshal ltadetzky, while walking in his room yester day, fell and broke the upper part of the bone of the left thigh. 7 - HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE Dusr. OF CAMBRIDGE reviewed the troops at Chatham on Wednesday. His Royal Highness also inspected the cavalry at Can terbury on Thursday, and addressed the 2nd and 3rd Dragoons under orders for India. THE FREEDOM OF THE CITY Was presented to Dr. Livingston on Thursday, in recognition of his impor tant services and discoveries in Africa. The Court of Common Council was brilliantly attended. Dr. Livingston was received with warm applause,