The Press.
London, England, 1855-08-11 00:00:00

LORD JOHN RUSSELL ON ITALY.

THE only public character now remaining to
Lord JOHN RUSSELL is that of Member for the
City of London. We cannot congratulate his
constituents on the acts of their representa-
tive. The master of criticism has said of
HOMER that the poet occasionally slumbered.
Lord JOHN'S late eccentric performances would
almost suggest somnambulism as his normal
state, unless, indeed, we are to assume that
he has recently been under the influence of
some deleterious narcotic. It is, at all events,
inconceivable that a man once so distinguished
as Lord JOHN RUSSELL should, while in the
full possession of his senses, adopt a tone and
a mode of action so fatal to his own career
and damaging to the reputation of public
men.

The foregoing reflections have been gene-
rally forced on our consideration by the sen-
timents put forth in his speech on Tuesday
last by our late Colonial Secretary; but in the
few remarks we have to offer we shall confine
ourselves to that portion only of his speech
relating to the present state of Italy. Pom
pously announced the day previous, probably
discussed for a space of time in a family coun-
cil, his dissertation on Italy was evidently the
topic on which he laid the greatest stress—
the specific intended as the restorative of his
fallen fortunes. _

Few feel more fully than ourselves the tin-
satisfactory position of affairs in the Italian
States south of Piedmont We are quite
ready to admit Lord JOHN'S assertions in this
respect. We know that religious persecution
exists in Tuscany. We know that men of

751

noble sentiments are groaning in the dungeons
of Naples. We know that the Roman Go-
vernment is upheld only by a double foreign
occupation. We know these facts; they have
been almost a natural consequence of the
events of 1848 and 1849, so much promoted
by Lord JOHN'S colleague, emissary, and
father in•law. But they have existed in far
greater force than at present for the last five
or six years, during which time Lord JOHN
RUSSELL occupied the most influential offices
in the State, and enjoyed every opportunity
of supplying a remedy. While Europe was
tranquil, while great interests were at risk, we
have noticed undisturbed the occupation of
Rome, according to Lord JOHN the prime
cause of these various evils. " The balance
"of power in Europe " was endangered
thereby then quite as much as at present.
Yet it does not appear that the Noble Lord
ever attempted " in concert with the Govern-
" ment of France to devise some system of
" government for those Roman States, con-
" sistent with the interests of the people,
" and with the rules of justice."
Since the last revolutions in Italy we re-
member but one mission, but one public step,
having for an evident object the settlement
of Italian affairs. We recollect in the year
1R52, during the Administration of Lord
DERBY, that Sir HENRY BULWER, then our
Minister at Florence, one of our first diplo-
matists, was despatched to Rome, where he
remained for some months, occupied, as was
known, in the discussion of public matters
with the most influential of the Roman
Hierarchy. . . _

This occurred but a abort time before Lord
Totires accession to office as Foreign Minister.
Yet we saw no further attempt made for a
renewal or continuance of negotiation. Lord
JOHN'S only known transaction in the field of
Italian politics was his famous despatch in the
case of the Madiai, wherein he spoiled a good
case by an affected display of the erudition of
a schoolboy.
By what process of ratiocination, therefore,
does Lord SouN RUSSELL consider himself en-
titled to offer advice such as that volunteered
on Tuesday ? We have already stated our
conviction that his faculties are dormant, but
we recollect at the same time that houses have
been set on fire by a sleepwalker. We trust
that this act of incendiarism on his part has
been unconscious. We rejoice to notice the
little attention paid to his observations. They
are calculated to place Austria in open hostility,
to weaken, if not to endanger, the existence of
our amicable relations with France, while they
offer encouragement to schemes already fos-
tered by the wiles of the demagogue, and only
too readily accepted by the inflammable spirits
of the young Italians.
It is already but too well known that the
Monarchy of the Sicilies is in a state of almost
open enmity to our policy and interests. It is
a fact almost as notorious that the agents of
Russia are acting in conjunction with those of
MAZZINI and his crew, and exciting acrimony
amongst the Italians against the interests of
the Western alliance. The presence of the Aus-
trian and French troops alone maintains tran-
quillity in the Peninsula. We cannot view but
with a thrill of horror the immediate conse-
quences of their departure—a sanguinary
chaos of conflicting interests, evil passions,
and enormous crimes. Situated as we now
are, it requires but little imagination to con-
ceive how far more critical would be our
position were Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S proposals
to take effect—were Rome revolutionised,
Naples in arms, and our ally Piedmont, the
frontier State of France, a victim of contending
factions. We thank GOD that Lord JOHN
RUSSELL is powerless. We advise him, during
the period of his disgrace, to take counsel with
some more soberminded friend, and when he
next appears in his place in Parliament to ab-
stain froin enunciating opinions so crude and
theories so wild as to make us feel ashamed
that he should ever have been allowed to hold
high office in this country.

THE CRYSTAL PALACE.

THE Report of the Directors of the Crystal Palace
Company shows that the enterprise has succeeded in
some respects, and failed in others. The causes is

75

each case lie on the surface; and, warned by past errors'
it will be the fault of the management alone if the
speculation be not as successful financially as it has
been in magnificence of design and excellence of
execution. It is beyond compare the finest ornament
of the metropolis we have, and the most attractive
place of public resort any capital in the world can
boast of.
Looking at the points of success and failure, as far
as they can be brought out in a balance-sheet, We
find that, if not just such as might have been antici-
pated, they are just such as were deserved. It was an
error of the first magnitude in the Directors to
attempt to tarn such a building into a vast bazaar,
where every person might hire a space for the sale
of the most trivial commodities. The revenue de-
rived from letting off space for such purposes must
have been gained at the expense of the general
attractiveness and character of the building. Lowther-
arcade, with its toys, cheap jewellery, and china, is
very well in its way, but we do not want to see it trans-
ported to the Crystal Palace ; a stall for dolls and
Noah's Arks next door to the Nineveh Court; cheap
perfumery in the midst of Grecian statues, and flash
boating-shirts and neck-ties at the very entrance of
the Alhambra. Such a plan was unfair to the shop-
keepers of London, and showed a grasping, sordid
spirit in the management, most ridiculously at
variance with its claims to public spirit.
The public must rejoice that this part of the
speculation, though at first it looked promising, has
broken down. The rental for space from the opening
to the 30th December la.st reached 17,7381., but from
the commencement of the present year to the 30th
June last only 4,3111. "With regard to the rentals
"for space in the building," said Mr. Laing at the
meeting on Thursday, " that source had en-
" tirely failed." Many persons who were willing
to try the experiment in the first instance
have found it answer so poorly that they have given
up their stalls and removed their goods. Empty
courts and dismantled walls attest in all directions
the failure of this shopkeeping scheme, and detract
sadly from the beauty of the interior. The stalls
which remain are mostly out of character with
surrounding objects. You pass, for instance, from
the German Court, with its noble forms and historical
recollections, to a stall occupied with little machines
for making sausages, and from the Pompeian Court—
one of the prettiest and most perfect spectacles in the
whole Palace—into a 111 ar tof modern upholstery, with
carpets ticketed at so much per yard, and American
rocking-chairs recommended as marvels of cheapness.
If the enterprise is to thrive, all hope of reaping
profit from such tradesmenlike devices must be
abandoned. It is only by making the Palace as
attractive as possible, and by concentrating in and
about the building whatever is most wonderful in
nature and beautiful in art, and curious and instrue-
tive in industry, that people dill 'be drawn in suffi-
cient 'numbers to make the 'scheme commercially
prosperous. It is to the sums received from season-
tickets and entrance money that the Directors must
look for revenue.

We venture to predict that the Exhibition will
rise immeasurably in estimation and revenue as soon
as the paltry notion of deriving profit from letting
stalls and shops is discarded. The Directors would
then have ample space at their command for exhibi
ting—as was done in the Hyde park building—what-
ever might be deserving special notice from novelty
in design, rarity in material, or superiority in work'
nianship. Whatever was shown should have some
defined title to distinction ; nothing commonplace
should be admitted; the productions of modern in-
dustry should vie in merit with those of ancient art;
and the peculiar characteriFtties of the time in which
we live, our triumphs in science, in physical invention,
in mechanical skill, and in manufacturing art, be re-
presented on at least equal terms with the great
remains of countries which are now but a name, and
of ages with whose labours, undertaken with no
reference to utility, we can scarcely sympathise. If
the Directors were to throw open the building to
merit alone, the public would have some sort of
guarantee that nothing would be exhibited which
was not for sumo reason or other worth looking at,
and tLe ugly appearance of bare walls and naked
space would soon be remedied. The more varied and
curious the contents of the building were made, the
more frequently would persons repeat their visits to it.
Now the appearance of the interior is spotted—in
some parts magnificent, in others mean; the galleries
empty, and many courts quite unoccupied.
On another point the Directors have been led
astray by a commendable but still vulgar misconcep-
tion. They seem to have thought that it was part of
their mission, not only to attract, but to instruct the
people. Hence some part of the splendid interior
has been made to resemble those provincial mu-
seums which we recollect in our youth, where hideous
images in wood end waxwork were varied with
stuffed figures of beasts and reptiles. All those
groups of naked negroes and Indians should bo