The Press.
London, England, 1853-05-21 00:00:00

MAY 21. 1853.

how clear a man's views or his ease, he was
not singly at match for a plurality of nego-
tiators ; and, therefore, we can hardly exagge
rate the injustice sustained if this were all)
where it is the unit whose conduct is in ques-
tion. The physical strain incurred from day
to day in such a contest is a fearful disability.
But when, in addition to this physical oppres
sion. there Is the moral eonscionsuess that the
solitary combatant is observed—not by indif-
ferent or careless spectators, but by watchful.
eager, unrelenting adversaries—when he hears
at his back the assiduous pens stealthily ye
cording—not the whole evidence--but such
selected portions only of the evidence as may
tell most against hint. especially such a►s may
serve to point the malignant and dastardly
articles of the morrow ;—while pending the
proceedings he finds that every point in his
ease is prejudged and painted in the
foulest colours that the most inveterate of his
high-souled opponents could desire, and the
most parasitical of their• hack writers can in-
dustriously supply.—the odds are, that, if he
comes out of the contest morally unscathed.
he bears with him recollections which are
valuable to every Englishman who may chance
to remember that this ease may be his own.
and which may suggest to the pattlo-post
future Macaulay f►om New Zealand that, in the
zenith of our laws and liberties, we compla-
cently endured a torture which surrendered
the struggles of the witness-box to the pressure
of the Inquisition, and combined the treatment
of the hustings with the tyranny of the Stair

Chamber.
We are altogether ntitaken it' this does not
come home to the sensitiveness, the genero
sity, and the manhood that is extant. If the
virtuous Gladstonites are preoccupied in
counting their presumed party winnings—if
the Radical Argus raises his spectacles in
superfluous horror at the " chops and to-
mato sauce" of the dockyard dinner bill—if
the constituents of this Marylebone Buzfuz"
are more than consoled by the opportune
reflection that the sufferer is a gentleman—this
will nevertheless, we believe, awaken the
honest vigilance and alarm the sympathies of
every candid mind ; nay, it will even deserve
the calmest suggestions of our foresight at the
same time that it demands a response from all
our chivalry.
We are mistaken, iu a second instance, if
there are not other considerations arising from
this inquiry, and equally on the face of it,
which are of pressing and peculiar interest to
our public men. It concerns all the habits of
official life if the distinction between public
and private communications is to be recklessly
obliterated to satisfy the grudges of the hour.
It is not the first time in English history that
this error has been committed, nor the first
time that it. has been reprobated with states-
manlike censure. It was only in our last
number that we quoted the words of Lord
JOHN RUSSELL ill condemnation of similar con-
duct on the part of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN ; and
we know with what effect the Attorney-Ueneral
of that day held up " the man of three letters" to
the indignation of a British jury. The ease of
VANE is in our remembrance as well as in that
of his lordship's, and the proves which
dragged soaring STRAFFORD to the block is to-
day the odious precedent of cur paltry imita-
tion. History may fold up her tablets, and
Downing-street may tremble from attic to
basement, if this practice shall obtain. Even
the private abandon of moments withdrawn
from cares of state is no longer privileged ; awl
although it follows as a ridiculous contsequence
that professional plotters, like the A toltnEENs
and llamas, will be henceforth in-
cluded in the common liability—though the
dining-room of Woburn Abbey and the steps
of the Reform Club must yield their revela-
tions, if party pressure should require, for the
benefit of the public, the secret history of the
Coalition—we are not disposed to welcome
these edifying details, if titey arc purchased
at the expense of the machinery of Govern-
ment, nor would we claim ow' fair " revenges"
to the detriment of the Constitution.
We are further mistaken it' beyond the circle
of official life there be not many thinking minds
already alive to this political infringement of
the social code which has hitherto regulated
the intercourse of men of honour. Where,"