The Press. — London, England, 1856-12-27 00:00:00

1236 THE WEEK. THE Christmas of 1856 presents in some points a happy contrast to the Christmas of 1855. We have no longer an army wintering in the Crimea with a prospect of bloody combats when the rigour of winter should allow hostilities to recommence ; we are no longer horrified by details of the cruel sufferings experienced by the garrison of Kars in their fruitless resistance to the enemy. The great war has closed ; but, as if to remind us not to expect too much felicity, a little war has begun. No direct accounts from the expedition in the Persian Gulf have yet reached us. But our private advices from Constantinople warn us that the negotiations with the Persian Government were not proceed ing favorably. The opportunity for a declaration of war seems to have been seized by the British Government with considerabl e haste and alacrity. Is there never to be peace on earth even between nations in the first rank of civilisation ? The Governments of Prussia and Switzerland are passing the season which brought tidings of great joy—glory to God in the highest, and peace and good will to men—in preparations for deadly strife. The Court of Prussia declares that, having exhausted all means of peaceful solution, it is compelled to dispose its troops for an attack on the territory of the Confederation, and the 2nd of January next is at present fixed for the Prussian army to advance. France and Germany propose to station armies of observation at points coun terminous to the territory where the first shock of war, if no arrange ment can be effected, must take place. It has been the subject of much remark in political circles that in the note in the Moniteur no reference whatever was made to England. How is this fact reconcileable with the assertions of our Ministerial prints that France and England are still closely allied on questions of European policy ? We believe the truth to be, that the Emperor of the FRENCH solicited the English Cabinet to join him in mediating between the opposed Governments. Had such joint mediation taken place, it could scarcely have been refused, and the necessity for an appeal to arms would have been avoided. We are curious to learn the grounds on which our Administration declined to interfere. The contest, once commenced, may probably swell to gigantic proportions, and lead to a great continental war. In our columns we have lately dwelt on the benefits conferred by the forty years' peace on our own land. In no like period of human annals has progress in all social arts promoting the convenience and happiness of life been so marked and rapid. On the Continent the advance has been proportionably great. The devastations of the last great war have been repaired, and each succeeding year the springs of industry rise and play with greater elasticity, and social ease and wealth advance with perceptible movement. It is humiliating to reflect that this progress may be arrested, and the Continent again be torn by desperate strife, through want of kindly, but decisive, media tion at a time when it might easily have been composed. The Emperor of the FRENCH has, we are assured, determined on giving the world one more proof of his good faith, and of his freedom from all personal and ambitious motives, in taking up arms for the defence of Turkey. If we are rightly informed, it has been arranged between the Governments of France and England that their troops shall speedily evacuate Greece. France will then have nobly com pleted her part for the settlement of the Eastern question. The accounts from the United States are sittisflictory. The generous and graceful act of sending the Resolute as a present to the Queen, has had the happiest effect in promoting cordial good-will between the people of the two countries. The question of convict treatment is gradually assuming those dimensions which we from the first anticipated. The presence of a criminal population amongst us is felt to be such an intolerable evil that people will not stay to balance pros and cons. Got rid of they must be. If we cannot send them to foreign countries, we must go ourselves. That is the simple state of the cane. Several important letters have appeared in the Times upon this subject during Vic past week, in which the two principal points started are the possibility of procuring fresh penal colonies, and, on the assumption that this is impossible, the best method of dealing with the convict at home. Mr. MONCKTON MILNES is adverse to any increased severity of punish ment—first, because he doubts if we should have the resolution to carry out such a system ; secondly, because, even if we had, he doubts its deterrent power. The former objection is possibly well founded, but if we are to accept the latter we shall be driven to acknowledge the futility of all law ; for law ceases to be law when no penalty is entailed by the transgression of it, and penalties cease to be penalties when men no longer fear them. In fact, if punishments do not deter, the whole question is at an end. Another letter on this subject. with the well-known signature of " S. G. 0.," we have read with great satisfaction. His positions—that adult criminals are usually incorri gible, and that therefore to make their reformation the primary point in their puni s h men t, i s s i m pl e f o ll y, an d th a t un d er no c i rcums t ances will released convicts be able to compete in the labour market with the as yet unbranded workmen—seem unimpeachable. It is useless to fight agai ns t an i nera di ca bl e pr i nc i p l e of human nature. A criminal may be..ceformed up to a pitch of excellence which should throw a dozen serious ladies into eestacies; but for all that you THE PRESS. SATURDAY, will never get farmers and tradesmen to intrust him with the care of horses, cattle, or money, while other servants are at hand. Let him be as penitent as possible, he who has done nothing to repent of is still the better man. In a third letter in the same journal, will be found some useful hints on the subject of new penal settlements. Portions of British North America are stated to be available for the purpose, as containing most of those qualifications which we more than once enumerated as desirable in any country selected for this purpose There seems to be no reason why Borneo should not be made use of in a similar manner. Except New Holland, it is the largest island in the world, its soil tolerably fertile, and the inhabit ants hopeless, brutal, and savage. The murderer of Mr. LITTLE still stalks abroad as free as air. The authorities have tried everything but publicity in their proceedings, and have failed, as a matter of course. Even clairvoyance, resorted to in all that despair which catches at a straw, has apparently produced nothing but a remarkable mesmeric effect upon the officials them selves. To theta a clue is no clue. They find a razor and a mallet, stained with the blood and clotted with the hair, of the murdered man. They find, or rather it is found fur them, a bag of the stolen silver; but to them these things are but razors, mallets, bags, and nothing more. Whence comes this obtuseness ? So horrible a murder, com mitted in any other part of the United Kingdom, would never have remained undiscovered, or at least untraced, forty-eight hours. In Dublin the police authorities have been as many days, and can trace nothing, can offer no solution of the horrible mystery, and though they suspect, possibly suspect in the wrong place, for they arrest two or three innocent persons one after the other, and are compelled, when it comes to the point, to own that they have not a tittle of evidence to offer against their prisoners. This is neither an original nor ingenious mode of assuring the public of the zeal and active energy of the force, and is strangely inconsistent with the boast their authorities make that they know the murderer. If they know him, why in the name of common sense and common honesty do they not arrest him at once, instead of apparently following up every cock-and-bull story? If this is detective finesse, it is not very commendable, and upon this point we may offer a few remarks. How is it in the case of Mr. HARRINGTON, lately arrested on the charge of the murder, and dismissed for want of evidence, that at the last examination there was no counsel for the Crown present ? At least some official should have been there, if only to elicit the quantity of perjury committed upon the occasion. The fact is, the Government authorities have displayed throughout. the whole business a lamentable want of tact and management, and have exhibited rather a notice able indifference to the conduct of the inquiry. With respect to the real culprit, though rumour is rife, and the police, to shield their distressing want of the commonest sagacity, boast of what they know, it is probable that the murderer is just as safe from discovery as he was a week since. One little, though important, fact we may mention en passant. Previous to the discovery of the bag of silver at the station, an order had been issued for the clearing out of all the tanks. A few hours after the issue of the order the bag was found soaking wet, hidden in a hamper This, to stupid minds like our own, would indicate a possibility of the murderer actually be longing to the railway establishment itself. The Dublin police, how ever, see nothing in it. The gallows is bravely swinging out the old year. Jack Ketch has enjoyed the merriest of Christmases. He strung up MARLEY one morning, JACKSON at Chester the next, and finished his Christmas week by turning off three Sicilians at Winchester. Then, by way of ushering in the new year with due solemnity, he will in a few days have the pleasure of attending an entertainment of a similar sort at Maidstone, where the convicts REDANIES and MANSELL now lie awaiting the carrying out of the sentence of the law ; and from them he will possibly make a brief, but brilliant, tour in the provinces, where his services will certainly be engaged. Sir GEORGE GREY seems to have come to the conclusion that hitherto having shown an unwise leniency, he would hang as many as he could catch to make up the annual deficiency. His determination to admit of no extenuating cir cumstances is remarkable. Although in the case of CELESTINA SOMNER, who showed such method in her madness as to put on an old dress previously to cutting her child's head off, he found peculiar cir cumstances to justify a remission of the sentence of death, he could find none to save that wretched boy of eighteen, BARBAALO, at Win chester, of whom his confederates, in the agony of a coward confes sion, said that he was dragged into the piratical conspirac:: on board the Globe by their persuasions, and compelled to aid them by their threats. A boy of eighteen is not usually a hardened ruffian and a confirmed cut-throat. That discretionary power once so freely exer cised by the Home Secretary might have been permitted influence here. But no, Sir GEORGE GREY was inexorable to all reprenentations; he saw no extenuating circumstances in the case ; and this wretched boy, a mere tool in the hands of his villainous confederates, met with them one punishment. It may be a question whether the large discretionary powers invested in the Home Secretary are not altogether wrong in principle. It certainly does not insure that, due administration of justice we desire. At least, it has not in the case of Sir GEORGE GREY ; for last year he had a fit of humanity, and would hang no one, while this year a vio lent reaction appears to have seized him, and he hangs everybody he can. catch. The execution of that boy ou Tuesday last was positively inhuman.