The Press. — London, England, 1855-07-21 00:00:00

THE WEEK. THE debates in the Commons have been extremely animated this week, and have brought forth nearly every orator of note in the Lower House. Lord JOHN Russau. having fled in terror from the mere flash and glitter of Sir EDWARD Lyrron's approach in the distance, the motion, of course, fell to the ground. Yet the speech in which Sir EDWARD withdrew it was a masterly résumé of the case against the Government, and seems to have stung the Premier deeply, as he replied to it in a blatant style very offensive to the feelings of the House. His defiant " come on " tone was the less excusable, as he had sacrificed his colleague rather than fairly meet the motion, his own creatures having been foremost iu the " round robin " movement against Lord JoHN. An unguarded expression of Sir EDWARD'S was seized upon, and worried and mangled with spiteful pertinacity. The retort of Mr. DISRAELI was one of his happiest efforts. There are passages in it which must be classed among the wittiest and most eloquent flights of Parliamentary oratory. The strictures ou the cabal among the Ministerial subordinates, and the allusions to CANNING'S candid friend, were received with uproario us delight. Those passages in which the " patrician bullying " of the Treasury Bench was chastised have never been surpass ed for ()haste but scathing sarcasm. The discussion on Mr. ROEBUCK'S motion passed off somewhat tamely the first evening, but the adjourned debate on Thursday night was interesting as a rhetorical tournament, though it wanted the excitement of a close party contest. The ATTORNEY-GENERAL made one of his least successful efforts. He had either the servility or the indiscretion to attempt defending Lord PALMERSTON, on the grounds that the Premier had been attending to the Home Depart ment, while the army was perishing in the Crimea. It was strange to hear " a hardbrowed lawyer" propounding such a theory on Minis terial responsibility, and the rhetoric of Sir ALEXANDER C OCKBURN did not make amends for his bad logic. The House is beginning to sus pect that he was greatly overrated as an orator, and his moderate suc cesses almost tempt one to think that his fame wilt be of the " single speech" school. He was followed by Mr. WHITESIDE, who, though less impassioned than usual, made a successful and brilliant oration. Lord JOHN RUSSELL attempted one of his " retriever speeches." It was carefully conned, and bore the marks of deliberate effort in its cut and polished sentences, which to a practised auditor suggested the labour of the pen. His sketch of Mr. ROEBUCK, a man of exor diums and perorations, and always deficient in the narrative part of a speech, was really very clever, and was as smart and sparkling as if it had been written by one of the social essayists of the last cent ury. " There are the beak and talons of the bird of prey, but the inside is " nothing but straw," was an amusing description of the Member for Sheffield. But the sarcasm was also not inapplicable to the Noble Lord's speech, in which the satirical portions were far better than the argumentative. Two of the most remarkable addresses were the brilliant speech of Mr. BRIGHT and the confessions of Sir DE LACY EVANS. The Member for Manchester inflicted on the Premier a tremendous castigation, and the manner in which he contrasted his leadership of the House of Commons with the way in which Sir ROBERT PEEL, Lord Jour; RUSSELL, and Mr. DISRAELI discharged their functions, told with great effect. We specially com mend to our readers the entire of that masterly passage, in which the Member for Manchester described the heroic struggle of Mr. DISRAELI on the fall of Lord DERBY from office :—" Assailed with unusual " virulence, assailed by those who were anxious to devour him, the "Right Honourable Gentleman fell; but he left no stain on the " distinguished office which he had held,"—a sentence which was hailed with a burst of cheers from the House of Commcns. The statements of Sir DR LACY EVANS on the present state of the country, in relation to its military affairs, considerably affect the reputation of the Premier as a War Minister, and confirm all that we have said on the non-efficiency of the Cabinet. It is a striking sympton of the political changes that are taking place when the Gallant General the Member for Wesminster says—" I am of no party in this House or the country." In the debate upon the Turkish Loan last night the Government were reduced to great extremity, and only narrowly escaped defeat upon a question of " vital importance," according to Lord PALMERSTON, by a majority of three! If the object of this Loan is to insure the independence of Turkey, how can that possibly be attained by foreign Governments holding liens upon the revenues of the State ? The plan proposed is one beset with difficulties ; certain to weaken the influence of Turkey in her own dominions ; it is calculated to endanger 'our alliance with France ; and produce that diticord between the Western Powers whit Russia so earnestly desires to ivittieset. mgr., 1.... THE PRESS. SATURDAY, The inquiry into the conduct of the police during the riots in Hyde•park upon the Ist of July has commenced this week, and, although it would be premature to offer an opinion in this eaely stage of the proceedings, the evidence yet obtained is so unanimous in proof of the extremely rough and, in some instances, brutal treatment of indi viduals by the police, that we are constrained to look for the origin of their orders to a higher authority than the local Superintendents. For the credit of the police force the question should be thoroughly sifted, and the blame fall upon the right heads. Subordinates in a disciplined force must obey orders, and we shall be glad to know from whence and from whom these " orders " emanated. The telegraph from the camp has brought us little news this week beyond the repulse by the French on the 14th of a Russian sortie against the advanced works of our allies upon the glacis of Malakoff, and of a second sortie upon the 17th ou the Inkermann line of attack. Our works are progressing favorably, but the difficulties which delay the assault increase as we gradually close in upon the Russian works, for, our trenches being then right under the fire of the enemy, they cannot be opened except by night, and the nights at this time of year offer but a short period for work. However, our advanced parallels are now pushed within eighty yards of the Redau, an immense advan tage for the attacking columns, who will have but a short distance to cross under fire. The Russians appear to keep up a most active re connaissance, and to labour incessantly at strengthening both Redan and Malakoff The great northern road, it must be remembered, is still open to the town ; and though there has been a cessation lately of those vast convoys which used to be seen winding their way into the Stone Fort, yet 1,000 waggons and about 3,000 men lately arrived, and day after day barges filled with gabions are hourly towed across from the Sivernaaya to the Admiralty harbour. For what purpose these enormous quantities of gabions can be required, except for the con struction of vast lines of defence within the suburbs, which the outer lines conceal from our observation, it is difficult to say. The experience which we have had of the skill of General TODTLEBEN, the first engineer in Europe, is not such as to lead us to hope that ho would neglect to defend any one tenable point, and there must be many within the town. Since the commencement of the siege he has been raised from the rank of Captain of Engineers to that of General of the Staff. Truly, as a French officer ebserves in his letters, "it will " require steel teeth to crack those morsels." It appears probable that the next assault will be a combined attack by sea and land, as the whole squadron of gun and mortar boats is gradually assembling off Kamiesch. The Russian retreat from Anapa across the Kouban appears after all to have been undertaken " pour reculer bient6t," as PELISSIER said in reference to the repulse of the 18th, for the enemy, reinforced to some extent and under the command of lone of their best generals— MOURAVIEFF—has entered Asia Minor 36,000 sarong, and by the latest advices was encamped within two leagues of Kars, waiting only for the arrival of the siege train from Alexandropol to complete the investment and besiege the town in due form. They have already pushed their advanced posts upon the direct line of communication with Erzeroum, and unless the Turks rival the heroes of Silistria Kars will soon be in the hands of the Russians. The Dibats of the 19th has an extremely good article upon the aspect of the war, in which the various routes to Constantinople open to Russia are discussed, and a conclusion arrived at that the one through Asia Minor is un pleasantly easy to General MOURAVIEVF, and that unless we affor I the Turks assistance in that quarter it is not improbable that while we are besieging Sebastopol General MOURAVIEFF may make his appearance at Scutari ! The tone of the article is in favour of an increased French force at Gallipoli. The full details which we have received during the week of Lord RAGLAN'S funeral have been read with melancholy interest. The cere mony was magnificent ; but there is something supremely touching in the simplicity of that plain pall, with its single crown of immortelles, covering the rough gun-carriage which so worthily bore the remains of one of England's best and bravest sons. The orders of the day from the French and Sardinian Generals bear touching tribute to his virtues, his bravery, and his noble life. The despatches from the Baltic have this week contained a little more lively record of operations than we have hitherto been accus tomed to hear. Captain YELvzaToN, in the Arrogant, accompanied by a small squadron, destroyed bn the 4th inst. the fortifications outside Lovisa ; and Captain STOREY, in the Harrier, burnt and destroyed, off Nystadt, about 20,000 tons of Russian shipping. Furthermore, a sharp boat affair, off Viborg, took place on the 14th, of which we have not yet received further details than having suffered a loss of one ffieer and man killed and eleven wounded. Admiral BAYNES, with his flotilla of gun and mortar boats, was off Cronstadt "looking on" with the rest of the fleet, while the other admirals were consulting at Nargen. The letter of our correspondent speaks despondingly of any chances of active service this campaign, and there is no doubt that such is the universal feeling 'of the met) 'and officers of the fleet. Ai