The Press. — London, England, 1855-10-20 00:00:00

OcTonn 20, 1855. has been copied into some London journals, and o.een much canvassed, as it gives the French military view of the British assault on the Redan." I have not seen the letter which is referred to, but I can assure you that itoires not written by me ; and I sm not aware that lOisCher person of my name is a professor i• any university. As Ido not wish to be held responsible for the opinions of others, you will oblige me by giving a place to this note in the columns of your nest publication.—l remain, sir, ,your very obedient servant, W. EDMONDSTOUNE AYTGUN. Eccles Thornhill, Oct. 17, 1855. [The letter in question, though commented on by us, was copied from our morning contemporaries, and therefore we are not responsible for the error.— .ED. PRESS.] BRITISH DINNERS IN GERMANY. TO THE EDITOR OF "THE PRESS." Sir,—The Tinges and other journals remark that the speech of Sir Alexander Malet at Hombourg was meals on neutral ground, and at a private dinner. Hombourg is nine inile3 from Frankfort and the Diet to which the British Minister is accredited. It is four and a half from Bonames, the frontier village. The dinner was of authorised publicity. British officers of high standing and repute were amongst the stewards, or committee so called, and the re spective places at the table were officially marked. The i'rench Resident and secretaries at the Diet were invited, and it was publicly announced at the Kursaal, again and again, that the English Minister would take the cbair. The report of the speeches in the English journals was correct, excepting always that the observations were softened down from a con sciousness that a gross mistake had been made.— tours obediently, A CONSERVATIVE, ONE WHO WAS PRESENT AT THE DINNER. Oct 16. The following letters were left over from last week. " A" is, for reasons we dare say he will comprehend, omitted : MINISTERIAL POLICY. TO THE EDITOR OF "THE PRESS." Sir,—My signature will show you that I belong to n particular class, and you may be inclined to ask why I do not send my notions to the journal of that .class ? I reply, that that journal seems to me to be .swept away with the general tide of pOpular delusion, and hence I cannot hope for admission to the fol lowing complainings. Your paper, only, seems to me to be showing signs of sanity just now, and I propose, therefore, to try if you will find room for some views .of the war which are not popular. I have long viewed the conduct of the Government with wonder and alarm ; yet I have not the least sympathy with Mr. Bright, and Mr. Gladstone I think the worst of the three. Can there be.a fourth course ? Yes, I *hall soon show you that there can ; and show also, I trust, that it is the course of common sense. Nor ;am I quite in the position of the man who said that he thought all the world mad, and the world thought him mad ; and so the world, being the litrongest, shut him up in Bedlam. There are rational men going about. the world, who coincide with my views. I lately fell in with that honest John Bull, Henry Kemble, late M.P. for East Surrey, and 'found him thinking much as I thought. Nor is he the only one by many hundreds. Briefly to explain my position, then, .I will admit at 'once that Russia gave us cause for war ; and that as she invaded Turkey, we had a right to send, and probably were called upon to send, substantial help to our ally. I therefore differ from Mr. Bright at the outset. And I differ still more from Mr. Glad stone, inasmuch as I think that whatever course we took, should have been taken deliberately and with a view to a'settled policy. But now, eschewing alike the Bright and the Gladstone policy, I come t 3 the system, or rather no-system, adopted by the Government. This seems to me to have consisted, mainly, in a reckless dis regard of the commonest rules of life. No school boy can play. a decent game at chess without con sidering, at each step, what will probably be the next two or three moves. The British Government seems to me to have disregarded, from the first, this commonplace rule. Now, what has chiefly given me a sinking of heart, all through this campaign, has been, that I could not discover that either the Ministers themselves, or any of their friends or abettors, bad the slightest idea as to what the next move was to be. I will not go back to our position in March last, or in July. I am content to take our present position, and to ask, Does our Government, do any of their supporters, now know what the next move is to be ? I have put the question to members of the Legislature—l have put it to Ministerial journalists—but I can get no answer. The cry is, "Drive the Russians out of the Crimea." Well, I ask, and when this is done—which may be done, perhaps, in a month, or in the course THE PRESS. of next year—what do you mean to do with the Crimea ? Every creature shirks this question. One says, " Oh, it will be time enough to think of that when we hive got it." Another, " Oh, no matter what is done with it, so Russia does not have IL" But a rational answer, a well.coneidered plan for disposing of the Crimea when we have conquered it, I never yet saw or heard. The exceeding difficulty of this question is suffi ciently proved by the fact that an able and acute Ministerial journal, the Manchester Guardian, en deavouring to find an answer, discusses every possible plan, and at last comes to the conoluslop that the Crimea must be given to Sardinia ! The fact is, that the question cannot be answered. Of the four allied powers, neither Turkey, nor England, nor Sardinia can pretend to hold the Crimea by military force against the power of Russia. France might do it : but have we carried on this war for the purpose of settling a French army within two days sail of Constantinople? I repeat, therefore, that my heart is saddened to see the British Government and people carrying on war blindfold; striving to conquer a territory, the possession of which would terribly embarrass them ; and, when they are besought to consider what they really mean to do, preferring to shut their eyes, and say, " It will be time enough to think of that when the time comes." But I may be asked whether I myself have any clearer view of our position and our duties. I answer, that I have no other view now than I have entertained all along. And this may be thus stated : 1. We have a sufficient ground of quarrel with Russia. 2. But we ere not likely to bring that great and haughty power to terms by invading her territory. Even Napoleon the First lived to repent this ex periment. 3. Our strength lies in our navy. Employing this arm, we might imprison Russia within her own terri tory and render her very wretched. 4. At a comparatively small expense we might carry on such a warfare for seven years, losing few men and little money, but perplexing Russia ex ceedingly. 5. Russia's last resort is always patient endurance. Show her that you are prepared, and intend, to carry on a blockading system for seven years, or for seven teen if necessary, and she will begin to think of finding out some way of accommodation. But wound her pride by absolute invasion, and engage in a warfare which costs you great sacrifices, then Rus sia says, "You will soon grow tired of this. I will never treat with you till you evacuate my territory." I have now probably sufficiently trespassed on your patience, and shall only subscribe myself in conclusion, sir, your obedient servant, Oct. 10, 1855. ' A RECORDITE. SLAVE LABOUR. TO THE EDITOR OF " THE PRESS." Sir,—ln your paper of the 29th September you did me the favour to insert a letter containing an extract from the Jamaica Morning Journal of August 4,—a journal which promulgates free-trade ideas, and which intimated that if the planters of Jamaica had to pay their labourers wages, "however low such wages may be," they could not compete with slave owners. In another part of the same journal I find an article from the Anti-Slavery Reporter inserted, respecting an experiment which bad been made, with the object of reducing ordinary cane•juice to the form of a concrete, and which winds up thus:— To the friends of the negro this important discovery recommends itself chiefly because one hundred labourers are made equal to two hundred We submit that the foregoing facts are a sufficient reply to the charge that has been brought against us of having puffed off a process practically worthless. That the discovery would be practically worthless, so far as giving the employer of free labour in the West Indies, or in any tropical climate, an advantage over the slave-owner, must, I think, be at once ad mitted even by the most prejudiced, as, if the dis covery could make one hundred free labourers equal to two hundred, it is evident the same result would be obtained from a like number of slaves; and if the Jamaica Morning Journal be correct, "that planters there could not compete with slave-owners, if they have to pay their labourers wages," any process by which free labour can be made more e dent will, in proportion, give similar advantage`to the slave-owner, and to a very much larger extent, inasmuch as he can get from twelve to eighteen hours of steady, continuous, and efficient labour per day from an able slave at a cost of tenpcnce, while the employer of the free negro has to pay him from ls. to Is. 3d. for six or eight ,hours of uncertain, often scampish, and desultory work. , The Morning Journal•also says. t' that the emigra • tion of more day labourers to Jamaica to cultivate sugar has signally failed," and " that the negro is the only legitimate labourer for that climate." Will not this statement make the Yankee slave owners more pertinacious than ever in the retention 1007 of their vile system, fostered and encouraged as that system has been by the noble lord the member for London, to his lasting disgrace and those who aided and abetted him in his iniquitous Slave-Produce Admission. Act of 1848? Aud is not Lord John Russell, in his present fallen state, already receiving • foretaste of that denunciation with which posterity will assail his insatiable thirst for power and place at any price and at all hazards, in order that pure and immaculate Whigs of the house of Bedford might have the patronage and hold the purse strings of the kingdom'—Yours, sir, most obedi ent l y , October 1. 1855. ANTI-SLAVERY. •.• " Arm " should apply to a respectable solicitor. We can give her the name of one if she rushes IL tttibtuts an (abuts. TIM SOUTHAMPTON MURDER which occurred last Sunday appears to have been one of a singularly determined and revengeful nature. The poor girl Kingswell, who was 'engaged to her fellow-servant and murderer, Baker, appears to have taken otience at some act of his, and positively relused to look upon him any longer as her suitor. Baker, it is said, endeavoured to explain away whatever it was which had given her so much otfence, but she resolutely re fused to have anything more to do with him. The estrangement appears to have lasted for some days previous to Sunday, when, about one p.m., while Kingswell and another female servant were in the kitchen occupied in the duties of the house, Baker came behind the deceased, and, placing a loaded pistol at the back of her ear, deliberately blew her brains out, killing her on the spot. An alarm was immediately raised by the other servant, who at once rushed to the front doorin a state of the greatest alarm, and, a policeman having arrived, the murderer was taken into custody, and lodged in the police-station. As soon as Baker had murdered his victim he re mained perfectly still, and never attempted in the slightest degree to make his escape, or excuse him self for his horrible conduct. The next morning the prisoner was brought up for examination before the mayor and bench of magistrates, and the following evidence as to the fact of the murder was adduced : Charlotte Lacy, the cook, stated : The prisoner was footman in the same servioe, and that on Sunday, shortly after one p.m., he came into the kitchen, when I asked him if he would lay the luncheon for me. His answer was yes. He then went into the pantry from the kitchen, and prepared the luncheon•trays. He returned into the kitchen, but did not speak. He again went into the pantry) and a third time re-entered the kitchen. Naomi Kings. well (the deceased 1 and myself were talking at one end of the screen which stands before the tire. I had hold of the semen. Batter came up and rested his left elbow on the other side of the screen. He did not speak. His right hand was behind him under his coat. A Magistrate : Were your eyes fixed upon him at this time ? Witness : They were not. I did not look at him. Reexamined : I saw his arm move (ruin behind his back, and immediately heard the report of a pistol. The weapon was pointed in the direction of the deceased. I was so near that I felt the heat from the flash. I then saw the deceased drop. As she was falling she said "Oh I" and the blood flowed from under her left ear. Mr. Welch, a surgeon, stated in evidence that he saw the deceased lying on the door, partly on her back and partly on her side. He felt the pulse, but there was no pulsatiott. He put his ear to the chest, but the heart had ceased to beat. He then examined her head, and observed discoloration of the skin from grains of powder, on the face and neck (left side). She was quite dead. He did not examine the size of the wound. It might have been occasioned by something passing through the head, which might have been a bullet. The wound on the right side was much the largest. Some further evidence having been taken, the pri soner in reply stated that be had "nothing to say at present," and was accordingly committed to take his trial at Winchester upon the charge of "Wilful murder." The establishment in which this dreadful event has occurred is that of a retired clergyman, who was away on a visit, but his lady was at home at the time. The event has caused the greatest excitement in the town. • AT NOTTINGHAM, last Saturday, Johanna Dutton, the wife of a farmer residing at the village of Carlton, near Nottingham, was brought before the county magistrates, charged with wilfully murdering her daughter Mary, a child three years old, by throwing her into a pond near Carlton. The investigation was a very protracted one, and from the evidence adduced it appeared that the prisoner had uniformly ill-treated this, her youngest child, constantly beating her severely, kicking her, and using great cruelty towards her. On the evening of the murder, the child not being found in the house a search was made, and the body at length found in a neighbouring pond. The prisoner was committed to take her trial at the nett assizes upon the charge of " Wilful murder." •