The Press. — London, England, 1857-01-17 00:00:00

... THE PRESS. JANUARY 17, 1857. houses, or waft ships across seas, or fertilise the soil, or set idle looms in motion, instead of being paid to the tax-collector. The question is before the country, and we have done our best to throw it into an in telligible shape. The speech of Mr. NIONCKTON MILNER at Halifax opens up one of the most interesting, yet at the same time one of the least practical ques tions in the whole range of ethical or political science. How far virtue depends upon education, taken in the sense of knowledge, is a question as old as SOCRATES, if not as the Garden of Eden The more you teach a man the more you sharpen his intellect ; and the more you sharpen his intellect the more you adapt him for the conception of those in genious devices by which dishonest men live, and for the appreciation of those subtle arguments by which right and wrong are con founded. It is a very remarkable fact that concurrent with the spread of education has been the increase in the number of educated criminals. A Redpath and an Agar are difficult phenomena for reasoners like Mr. MONCKTON MILNES to deal with. - Yet what are we to say? That education should be checked ? Most decidedly nobody who advocated such a theory would at the present day have the slightest chance of a hearing. It is, in fact, imppossible to believe that the spread of knowledge ought to lead to the increase of crime. If it does, the fault is not in the knowledge, but in the administration of that knowledge. All we contend for is, that it does not lead to the diminution of it; that it is simply neutral ; and, apart from the cultivation of the whole human nature, may be turned to either good or bad account, as accident may determine. On this subject of education we merely encounter the old story, that its advocates run into an extreme which seems to afford a temporary justification to its enemies. Let us cease to regard education as a universal case, and it may then, and then only, become a very general one. The question of the " working clergy" has been constantly coming before the public for some months past. The letters of various " incumbents" which have recently appeared in the Times all throw more or less light uponl they subject. But the point to be deter mined, before the clergy are condemned as a body, is whether on the average they do as much work as other professions. Now, let us sec how the case stands. Let us take the four professions, the Church, the Army, the Bar, and Medicine. In the two latter the title of bari is er or doctor is purely nominal ; it does not follow that a man does any work because he is either the one or the other. But if he does work, be it remembered, he is well paid. He may get little enough work to do, and on that account he may be poor. But the supply is regulated by the demand, and when he enters the profession he takes his chance. In the army the case is different. Every member of that profession is liable at any moment to be called upon for a discharge of duties the neglect of which would involve the loss of his position. In return for this weight of responsibility his pay is almost ridiculously small. But what is true of the officer is true with tenfold force of the clergyman. The officer may be called upon—the clergyman necessarily is. The most idle members of the clerical profession hove a certain routine to go through, compared with which the life of an idle man in any other profession is absolute inertia. What, then, is to be said of its work ing members? In fact, the whole charge against the clergy as a body is so manifestly untrue dist we find it impossible to believe in its sin cerity. What motive may have prompted it w 3 do not undertake to determine. But that more work is got out of the clergy as a body than out of any other profession ; that the idle ones are less idle, and the working ores more industrious than those of any other profes- sion, are matters of public notoriety. A subscription is being got up at Dublin in behalf of Mr. LiTTLE's family, who are left in great destitution by his terrible and untimely death. It is almost superfluous for us to recommend their sad case to the generous consideration of the public. Were nothing known of the murdered man, still the position of his relatives would be almost sure to enlist the sympathy of Irishmen and Englishmen alike in their behalf. But in this particular case there is the additional argument that Mr. LITTLE was himself a most amiable, charitable, and warm hearted man—that he was the sole support of a mother and sister ; and the loss of a most affectionate son and brother is aggravated by dis tressing circumstances. This simple statement of the case is, we are sure, all that is necessary. English landholders are threatened with a" Court for Encumbered Estates," copied from the Irish pattern at Dublin. Before even taking such a proposition into legislative consideration, it would be well to ascertain how far nuch a peculiar kind of judicature is entitled to confidence. When Parliament assembles we suppose some expla nation will be given of the reason why Mr. Baron RICHARDS was removed from the Chief Commissionership. Legitimate curiosity might also be satisfied as to the practical working of the court in question. It is asserted that there are considerable arrears of business to he settled, and if such be the case, the reduction of the court would appear to be an equivocal act of economy. Such a court, so inquisitorial and so summary, ought to be invested with prestige ; and the removal of a Baron of the Exchequer and a Privy Councillor from the Chief Commissionership does not strengthen its claims to forensic respect, or to public influence. 61 THE METEMPSYCHOSIS OF PEEL. Quoth Peel the loquacious—" I'm one who supposes There's a good deal of truth in the metempsychosis : For I am Ulysses, the polytropic, And my own words and deeds arc my favourite topic. Those pretty Circassians who caused me to slip so Often behind, must descend from Calypso ; And that dreadful Sourochokotf, *limning to scheme as Myself very near, is a new Polyphemus." Say we, in reply—" Well, y m both had your Odyssey's, And your charming enchantresses, heedless of bodices ; Yet you differ. With wax did the Hero completely Fill his followers ears, when the Syrens sang sweetly ; While you, quite a contrary bias betraying, Receive whacks on your back, and make answer by braying. He got windbags from zEolus ; you, garrulous elf, Are nothing at all but a windbag yourself. NOTICES FOR THE COMING SESSION. AmoNo the Notices which have been placed on the paper, in readiness for the now rapidly approaching session, are the following:— Mr. ROEBUCK.—TO ask Lord Palmerston whether Sir Robert Peel, in applying the term " brick" to a certain Russian Governor, who has since been degraded for smacking people's faces, spoke as the organ of Ministers or not, and, in the former case, to ask, further, what mean ing her Majesty's Government affixes to the term brick. Mr. COLLIER.—To ask her Majesty's Government the reason why the Solicitor-Generalship was given to Mr. Wortley, and not to himself. Sergeant SHEE.—To ask a question in exactly the same words. Mr. J. G. PHILLIMORE.—To do the same. NINE OTHER (CONSTANTLY) RISING LIBERAL BARRISTERS.—The same. Mr. MIIRROUGH.—To move that " Big Ben " be brought into the House of Commons and experimented upon by Mr. Denison and Sir Benjamin Hall, in presence of the House, and to move that a call of the House be made for such occasion, " as it is most unmeet to indulge in hasty (metallic) legislation for unborn myriads." Sir JOSHUA WAT.MSLEY.—TO ask Lord Palmerston whether he will promise to direct Mr Hayter to keep a House for the next night on which Sir Joshua proposes to introduce his Reform Bill ; and also to ask Lord John Russell whether he has any objection to second the motion for leave to brinr , in such bill. Mr. ANDREWS (should lw get in for Southampton).—To ask Lord Palmerston what he means by saying as how I ben't a vit and proper parson fur to be Member for Southampton, and how he likes my getting in spoite of him and his letters loike. Mr. TITE.—To move that it be an instruction to the sweeper at the corner of Parliament street to hold up his broom when ho sees a Member of that House desirous to cross, and that this be a signal to all vehicles to pull up to enable him to do so. With other suggestions for Administrative Reform. Mr. APSLEY PELLArr.—To move that the Chaplain of the House of Commons shall be a Dissenter from the Established Church. Mr OLIVELRA.—To move that it be an instruction to the Speaker of that House, at his Parliamentary dinners, to place upon his table no wine except claret at one and twopence a bottle, until such time as the wine duties shall be taken off. Mr. HAYTER.—TO move in the event of the previous motion being carried, to add to it that pale brandy and a medical man shall be sup plied out of the Consolidated Fund. Mr. MUNTz.—To move that a conference be appointed between himself and " Mercator," better known as Lord Overtwentystone, upon the subject of the Currency Question, and that the survivor be ap• pointed Governor of the Bank of England. Mr. SPOONER.—To move as an amendment that both the Hon. Memter and the Noble Lord be committed to the Bank cellar until the further pleasure of the House is made known, neither at all compre hending the subject in question. Mr BOWYER.—To move that no Roman Catholic culprit shall ever be hanged any more, except with a procession accompanying him, all the bells in the town in which he is to suffer tolling, and a general suspension of business on that day throughout the country. Also, that any Protestant who shall try to convert such culprit shall be liable to transportation. Mr. EwART.—To move as an amendment that no person shall ever be hanged any more, except persons conscientiously opposed to the abolition of the punishment of death. Mr. W. WILLIAMS. -- To move for a return of the expense of blow ing up Rochester bridge ; and such return to state whether the pow der used for that purpose came out of the pockets of the pe o pl e , an d if so, by what authority it was so used, and whether it can be used again. Mr. V. SCCLLY.—TO move for the recognition of tenant-right, whether a tenant can write or not ; and also that the landlord he bound to remunerate the tenant for any improvements the landlord may have made in the property. Mr. OTWAY. — To move that no member be entitled to count the House out without giving a week's notice of his intention to do so. A DISTINCTION WITHOUT A DIFFERENCE. Between Sir Robert mi.—Sir Robert ma. Who talks of difference, utters heterodoxy ; Rob's " forbears" (to their honour ! let me say) Were cotton-men, and he . a " homo flocci.'