The Press. — London, England, 1855-03-24 00:00:00

MARCH 24, 1855. After some further discussion of little importance, the resolutions were agreed to. IRISH GRAND JURIES. On Tuesday Sir D. NORREYS moved for leave to bring in a bill to relieve grand juries from fiscal duties, and to place the administration of local affairs in Ireland in elective councils. In the discussion which followed it was argued that at present the sheriff and the grand jury held office only for a year, and in consequence the vast payment of county rates was altogether uncontrolled. It was, in fact, payment by one class and assessment by another. Mr. Hoasmin, on the part of the Government, approved the bringing in of the bill, and leave was granted accordingly. SANDHURST. On Tuesday Colonel NORTH moved a resolution having for its object a considerable increase both in the number and extent of the foundations at Sand hurst. . . . Mr. PELL objected to the resolution on the simple ground of expense, and Lord PALMERSTON, after some discussion, said that it was by the effort of a financial reformer that the establishment at Sand• burst was reduced. He agreed to a suggestion on the subject of a committee of inquiry, which, he said, he should move for himself. LAW OF PARTNERSHIP. The Earl of DERBY on Thursday asked the Government when it WWI intended to introduce a bill for establishing the principle of limited liability in partnership. Lord STANLEY OF ALDERLEY said that a bill was in preparation, and it would be introduced shortly after Easter. DAY OF HUMILIATION. THE general fast and humiliation was kept on Wed nesday in London and throughout the country by an almost universal cessation from business, and by the attendance of a very large proportion of the population of all classes at their respective places of public worship. The closing of shops, &c., was as gene ral as on Sundays, and the aspect of the metropolis and its inhabitants during the day betokened the seriousness and solemnity with which the day was associated. In Ireland, also, we learn that the day was observed with equal strictness. From the many appropriate discourses delivered on the occasion, at the various London churches and chapels, we must extract the following eloquent passages in the sermon preached by the Rev. H. Melville, in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, before the House of Commons. The Speaker, ac companied by all the officers of the House, and about 150 members, attended the service. Among the members were Lord Palmerston, Sir James Graham, Mr. Disraeli, Lord Ebrington, Sir Stafford Northoote, Lord Naas, Sir G. Grey, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Walpole, Mr. Henley, Mr. Wilson, Mr. Spooner, Mr. Crossley, Sir H. Willoughby, Lor d Lovaine, Mr. Cayley, Mr. Hankey, Lord Alfred Paget, Mr. E. Ball, &c. The prayers were read by the Rev. W. Cureton, the Rector of St. Margaret's; the communion service by the Rev. H. Melville; and the Epistle by the Rev. Mr. Davies. Mr. Melville chose for his text the following :—The Bth chapter Ist Kings, 44th and 45th verses—" if thy people go out to battle against their enemy whithersoever thou shalt send them, and shall pray unto the Lord towards the city which thou bast chosen, and towards the house which I have built for thy name ; then hear thou in heaven their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause." - . - The preacher commenced by reference to instances re corded in Scripture of the success which had attended acts of national humiliation. From these he argued that such acts were acceptable to God, though it could not be denied that it was their sincerity, and that alone, which caused them to find favour. He then thus alluded to the circum stances of the present humiliation. We were not sum moned as a nation to humble ourselves before God because we were engaged in a war which, if it had been fruitful in triumphs, had entailed on us no common disasters, and because it rested with the Almighty alone, who was empha tically and repeatedly in Scripture called t he: Lord of Hosts, to give the victory which we desired to our fleets and armies. We entered into this war with no selfish purpose: we saw that Europe was already darkened by the shadow of a colossal power, which was ever pushing forward its boundary; and it was not for England to sit tamely by whilst country after country lost its independence. If we had no fears for ourselves—if we could not contemplate the probability that the advancing tide would break on our own shores, at least it was in our charter not to suffer the weak to be borne down by the strong. Therefore did we give ourselves to the war. It was no war of ambition, no war of aggrandisement. We took up the championship of the oppressed, and if we looked beyond the immediate case it was that we saw the world's liberties in peril, and resolved ere too late to make a stand for civilisatimi, enlightenment, human progress, and human happiness. And if we had unsheathed the sword only to maintain rights which ought not to have been invaded, and to prevent aggressions which threatened even worse disasters than themselves, we might tie better hope that Ceod would look favorably on our hu• THE PRESS. miliation, and that he would not turn a deaf ear when, falling low at his footstool, the ashes in our hearts, and the sackcloth on our souls, we exclaimed in the words of the text. " Hear thou in Heaven our prayer and supplication, and maintain our cause." We had sent forth our arunea to the war. In spite of all their courage, all their con stancy, and all their conquest, they were wasted and worn —hardship and disease had sapped their strength, and the nation had met this day to entreat the Lord God Almighty that they might be upheld in the struggle, and might yet, i indeed it were for good, plant their colours on the proud forts' walls which they were now besieging. And our hope and comfort should be, that we present this petition where the captain of our salvation, he who, as seen in the sublime vision of the Apocalypse, " seated on a white horse, clothed in a vesture dipped in blood," in righteousness doth judge and make war, where he ever liveth as the advocate of his church. The preacher then recurred in the following terms to topics suggested by the occasion :—We were assembled to confess the hand of the Almighty in the calamities with which we rad been visited, and to beseech of Him that, in his own good time, he would vouchsafe us a secure and prosperous peace. We were not, in that place at least, to look at second causes, but meekly and submissively to own that, whether or not we had done all which might have been done towards procuring success, we had been smitten by God, to whom human errors as well as human triumphs were but as instruments for furthering His will. But at the same time we ought thankfully to acknowledge many bright points in au otherwise dark picture. The war, for example, had set before the world the noble spectacle of two great nations, long separated by jealousies and rival ries, laying aside ancestral enmities, and combining in the cause of civilisation and freedom. All honour to our brave allies! It was a tine augury for the interests of our race that France was one with England in resisting oppression. Then the valour of our troops, their patient endurance of frightful privations, their undaunted bearing, not merely in the face of hostile battalions, but of far worse fees, the biting hunger, the pitiless frost, the sweeping storm ; who could sufficiently admire, sufficiently be thankful for this? Our brave fellows had won other laurels besides thou which were stained with blood, and we gave them in their midnight watchings, in their sufferings (borne without a murmur), in their cold, hunger, and sickness, as high, nay, a higher admiration than when they climbed the perilous steep, or beat back a host numbering hundreds to their tons. Then the evidence of a better education, of a wider diffusion of enlarged and religious sentiment than one had ventured to look for. Why, many of the published letters of private soldiers would do credit to the head and heart of men trained by all the processes of a refined and Christian education. Moreover, the war had given occasion to the display of unexampled generosity. The rich and poor alike, the inhabitants of palaces and inmates of ragged schools, had eagerly contributed to the relief of the widow and the orphan. Nay more, we had seen the most touching and graceful spectacles: royalty itself had bent from its high estate, and the wounded soldier had been gladdened and dignified by the visit of his Queen. Above all, the war had brought oat one fine and noble trait. It had shown that numbers of the weaker sex, though born to wealth and bred in luxury, were ready to renounce every comfort, and brave every hardship, that they might minister to the suffering, tend the wounded in their agony, and soothe the last struggles of the dying. God bless them in that their heroic mission— he had almost said their heroic martyrdom—and he might have said it, for he did think that in walking those long lines of sick-beds, in giving themselves to all the ghastly duties of a hospit al, they were doing a harder thing than was allotted to many who had mounted the scaff o ld or dared the stake. Passing from these cheering circumstances, the preacher dwelt on national sin as producing national cals. mity. He showed in general that we had not acted up to our high calling as a people specially intrusted with the " oracles of God," and that with regard to the present war in particular, we had entered on it in too boastful and con fident a spirit. He called on all classes to do their part in the great wore of national amendment. Legislators, by the countenance they could give to true religion, by the exten sion of the machinery of a sound and Christian education, and by the enactment of measures for repressing vice and ungodliness; others by self examination, by repentance, by holiness of thought, and word, and deed. He concluded as follows : " Yes, it must be done at once. Who will reckon on tomorrow? There came sudden tidings. With bated breath men whispered them one to another; they seemed almost incredible ; and yet it was so. The potentate who had been foremost in this war, the man who stood out from the rest of his race, the most conspicuous, perhaps, in power, in energy, in the strength of will, in the firmness of pur pose, in the sweep of enterprise, he was dead ! Dead, with countless squadrons waiting his bidding; dead, with con vulsed kingdoms watching his movements; dead, whilst a whole world, I might almost say, was being shaken by his tread. Then, I again ask, who will reckon on to-morrow? At once, lest death overtake us, let each resolve to be a better patriot by being a better Christian. Thus may all be instrumental towards obtaining those blessings for which the nation has now bumbled itself in prayer. Better and brighter times may break upon the land. We may live to welcome hack victorious armies. If thousands lie buried on a foreign strand, they lie buried in no ignoble grave; for their resting-place shall lie a spot at which, for ages to come, Valour shall gain fresh life, and Freedom trim her torch. We may live to rejoice that they have not died in vain—that their death has procured for us a peace se curing the rights of nations, and throwing up a rampart against future aggressions. Then, in the beautiful imagery of prophecy, we may ' sit every man under his vine and under his tig-tree, and none shall make us afraid.' Ihere shall be ' no decay, no leading into captivity, and no com plaining in our streets ; ' but we shall experience all the emphasis, all the richness of the saving— Happy is that people that is in such a case ; yea, * happy is that people whose God is the Lord.'" EXPENSES or THE REVENUE DEPARTMENTS. THE sums required for the expenses of collecting the revenue in its different de amments are now fur the first time included in the votes brought before the Rouse of Commons. The estimates for this service were moved on Monday night, and the dis cussion on the various items was then begun. The gross total presented in these estimates, including the Customs Inland Revenue and Post-office for the year ending the 31st of March, 1856, is 4,870,6451. — viz., 4,385,9511. for salaries and expenses, and 484,6941. for superannuation allowances, d;c. The Customs Department figures for 1,500,0661., the Inland Re venue for 1,044,5851., and the Post•office for 1,665,3941. Th a salaries and expenses of the Customs amount to 835,1821., and the cost of the Coast Guard to 483,2:381. The salaries and expenses of the Post office amount to 1,638,8011., and the salaries and ex penses of the Inland Revenue (including the revenue police of Ireland) to 1,428,6701. The gross increase on all the estimates, as compared with 1854, amounts to 333,1481. The items of the Post-office exp, nditure are thus specified—viz., 395,7971. for the chief offices in London, Dublin, and Edinburgh ; 36,318/. for surveyors; 341,623/. for provincial establishments in h:ngland ; 43,7291. for the same in Ireland, and 52,5281. for the same in Scotland; 18,1841. for colo nial establishments and agents abroad ; 693,7171. for the conveyance of mails; 17,0651. for buildings and repairs ; and 38,0001. for the manufacture of postage envelopes and stamps, including 8,0001. for the new stamp for the postage of newspapers. The sums to be paid for the conveyance of mails in the United Kingdom are estimated as follows :—viz., for mails conveyed by railways, 480,7121.; by mail coaches, 18,1671.; by carts and omnibuses, 118,0001.; by con • tract packets, 13,7671.; and by private ships, 6,0501. These sums do not include the wages and clothing of mail guards and other incidental expenses, which raise the gross total expense of the conveyance of mails to 693,7171. The total number of employes in tho Post o ce is 21,221, against 20,037 last year. The items of the two other departments of revenue are given too much iu detail to admit of a similar summary. THE following list contains the various Govern ment estimates for the war service of the ensuing financial year, pointing out the increase over those of the year now closing : Army /13,721,158 Navy Trausport Service Orduance • Comings', ist TOtal C39,820,322 Increase. 1C,553,674 299,019 1,591 4 ,901 1,541,3 &b 1,74,745 Pastime Fur u.—An exertion is now being made, under the auspices of persons in the hikhest ranks in this country, to raise a fund for the relief of widows and orphans of officers who fall in the war with Russia. The mode in which it is sought to raise this fund is worthy of all commendation, and affords a striking proof of the culture of the times. An exhibition and sale of works of art will take place at the Gallery of Art, 121, Pall-mall, the proceeds of which will be applied to the above-mentioned honourable purpose. Great ardour is being manifested by all the promoters of this most praiseworthy undertaking. Al! the works, either for exhibition or sale, will be contri buted gratuitously, and the services of all who are actively engaged in the good work will be freely and cheerfully given towards its accomplishment. The exhibition will open next week, and promises to he of the most interesting kind. Besides very liberal donations by many of the nobility of works by their own hands, the collection will be enriched with artistic productions by members of the Royal Family. The Princess Royal, the Prince of Wales, and the Princesses Alice and Helena, have already contri buted some of their own drawings. A sum of 1,3111. 13s. has been forwarded from Geelong, Aus tralia, to the Lord Mayor of London, to be banded over to the wive' and children of soldiers and sailors serving in the war against Russia. AFTER the House of Commons was cleared on Tuesday evening for a division on the Sunday open ing of the Museum proposition, some amusement was caused to the tellers and the doorkeepers by the discovery of la member asleep in the gallery. The Earl of M ulgrave called out from the floor of the house, °Hi! wake Ill.!' but without effect; the hon. member's slumbers were too profound to be lightly disturbed, and he was only brought to a sense of his undignified position by a gentle shake on the shoulder from one of the doorkeepers. The hen. gentleman at once ap preciating the situation, jumped up, and hastily quitted the gallery. We are unable to state bow he voted, or whether be submitted himself to that ordeal. LAST Saturday afternoon two well-dressed men were arrested in Paris on a charge of forging Eng lish bank-notes. As they were crossing the Pont Notre Dame, guarded by gendarmes, on their way to the prefecture of police, one of them jumped into the river. His body w as carried away by the rapid current, and has not yet been found.