The Press.
London, England, 1855-09-01 00:00:00

822

I

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flag of revolt in her own territories, and
attempt to find employment for her forces at
home ?
If the Conservative principle, be not alto-
gether a sham in thrill country; it must
applicable in a great* less dtitik% to ev
political situation, an 4 eially to 4
Bitua n
so momentous and ftming the present.
Leave Lord PALMERAIN atone, avid the chances
are that he will, iiot ihugh any ook
of policy, but siMply Its factiii.Y Dn. mis-
chief, make this war a contest between the
principles of democratic and of absolute
power.
In the face of this danger differences of
opinion among men of Conservative principle
must give way. It is folly to dwell on errors
and mistakes when a time of common peril
calls for common action. We do not say what
that action should be, but we confidently aver
that it is only by a cordial union of the essen-
tial Conservative feeling and principle of the
country that the State can be rescued from
those difficulties which have gradually been
closing round it since Lord DERBY'S Admi-
nistration was overthrown, which deepened
immediately after Lord PALMERSTON was called
to the head of affairs, and which have now
•assumed a shape of such portentous magni-
tude as to demand the serious reflection of
every rational mind in the kingdom.

MR. HAYTER AND HAPPY WELLS.
HAPPY, thrice happy Wells ! A short cut to
California has been discovered for its ten-
pounders by the enterprising Mr. HAYTER.
None of its small shopkeepers in difficulties
need think any more of emigrating to the
gold countries. Let them tarry at home, and
Mr HAYTER will undertake to deposit huge
Treasury nuggets at their doors. Themselves,
and their brothers, and their sons, shall be
taken care of by the beneficent gentleman who
has an innate propensity for lavishing official
places upon his voters. After such an an
nouncement, we are afraid that there will be
an overflow of population into a borough
where a man with a vote can make his
livelihood. Bnt let strangers seeking to make
an acquaintance with fortune ani Mr. HATTER
carefully observe—that " None but electors
"need apply." To breathe the air of Wells, and
ti) exercise honourable industry there, will not
be sufficient. Proper votes in proper places
will be wanted before Mr. HAYTER showers his
favours. Register your vote, plump or split
as Mr. HATTER likes, and ask for what you
Want.

Happy, thrice happy Wells ! In our last
number we copied from the Herts Guardian a
column of small type containing the catalogue
of a great portion of the places bestowed by
' Mr. HAYTER upon the electors of Wells. A
cornucopia should be his crest. Plenty of
public money—plenty of offices, for the vir-
tuous electors of Wells. Such, in a word, is
the system of Mr. HArrss, who has such a
horror of illicit influence, that he advocates
" Vote by Ballot." Oh! those virtuous
Liberals !

Seriously, we must say that Mr. Hex's
exploits in place-giving are wonderful. To
nearly every letter of the alphabet amongst
the electors of Wells he has paid his respects,
commencing with ALLEN, the printer, whom he
popped into the Customs, and ending with
YOUNG, the baker, whose oven he set up in the
Excise. He left out the last letter of the
alphabet purposely, in order to suggest a cry
of—Zounds I But his political ABC he un-
derstood perfectly well. Choristers, and
coopers, and carpenters, butchers and basket
makers, tailors and tinmen, sawyers and

Shoemakers—every sort of occupation was
honoured by this philanthropic official. To
give, and not to say, " good things " was the
mission of Mr. HAYTER. Take the " Trades
• Directory," and there is not an occupation in
it for which he did not show his affectionate

regard.
Of course there is no official scandal in such
a profusion of places ; nor could any ono dream
that systematic exercise of patronage in ono

THE PRESS.

direction could ever approach corruption. Of
course not. Nor could any one taunt Mr.
ciii
i f
HATTER with his ex ordinary affection for
his constituei • j put of the purest affec-
tion for them at nukes choristers i o
Oa* offs , a
,changes grocers '
gang .. Ho ud liking JAMES Bu
choris •,
and 0e it such a name was no
" the t m for choir, so Mr. HArrE,
I
put into C , ~. s. Two other get.
sons o were " .te ".y name and profft-
sion he provided iu the Excise, and of
course their appoint tuts had nothing to do
with their relationship to his partisans. The
two Emmen he snugly located in the Royal
dockyard and the Post-office. The name of
the FoxwELLs had a sentimental claim on his
regard ; the first syllable reminded hini of the
Whig orator, and the last of the virtuous
borough whose patriotic and independent
electors he represents. Their claims as suns
of voters did not weigh a feather in the scale
with Mr. HAYTER.

Nor has Mr. HAYTER forgotten the claims of
Literature. MILTON was neglected, and got
only five pounds for " Paradise Lost," but
Mr. HATTER has discovered a couple of
MILTONS at Wells, and he has appreciated the
tuneful way in which their kinsfolk recorded
their votes. In honour of the glorious name Mr.
HAYTER sends MILTON, the tailor, along with
his goose, into a good berth at Somerset-
house, and he does not less for the tailor's
son. He loves the sound of old Whig names,
and Boa RUSSELL, the currier, and NED
RUSSELL, the shoemaker, get places out of
traditional respect for Woburn Abbey. Mr.
HATTER also wished to show that he was tole-
rant of the infirmities of human nature. Boa
PARSONS got a good place from him ; but
" Bigamy Bob " had a weakness for having
two wives, and when legally convicted of that
offence, the gentle and clement HAYTER sighed
over his case, as Boa lost his post ; and he
then gave another to the brother of that
highly distinguished person, who, like Mr.
HATTER (though not in the same sense), had
" once figured at the bar." What gentleness !
What loving kindness ! What clemency to
fallen virtue ! What disinterested apprecia-
tion of neglected merit !

Strangely enough, no man whose name
began with H got a place from him. Any
alliterative connection with his own name
Mr. HATTER deemed a disqualification, and he
" excised " the H's of Wells with the desperation
of a Cockney asking for the "'Ounds and
'Orses 'Otel." They would, however, have
preferred being " excised " in another fashion.
But Mr. HAYTER'S rigid virtue prevailed. He
bestowed nothing, also, on any one whose
name commenced with " T," being desirous to
rebuke the empty egotism and eternal " T "
of place•hunters without votes.
Happy, thrice happy, Wells ! The
electors and their representatives are worthy
of their union. There is a reciprocity of
admiration between them. " I like a good
hater," said Doctor JOHNSON, and the electors
of Wells declare that they positively love a
" good enough " one The surname of their
Member is all they wish to have changed.
It sounds of discord, while it unpleasantly
suggests the recollection of the " Adminis-
trative Reform Society," whose members call
themselves—the Haters of Corruption

MR. PEEL AND MR. BAKEWELL.
THE " Leading Journal" has a long article to
show how widely the Sir ROBERT PEEL would
have differed, on such a vital question as the
conduct and policy of the present war, from
the disciples who are pleased to call them
selves by his name. The writer in the Times,
we think, takes a philosophical view of the
course likely to be adopted in the present
posture of affairs by that illustrious but vacil-
lating statesman—judging by his living an-
tecedents. But he, of all public men, was the
one whose attitude on any coming question
it was most imprudent to prophesy from the
mere data of his former proceedings under
somewhat analagous circumstances.

SATURDAY,

But if his followers have fallen away from
his principles, so far as those principles can
be discetted, wialit li by said of his sons 1
With itg. his FAO*, Sir ROBERT was a
man ht gkitire charalliti• (Ltd statesmanlike de.
meatbur. In Ida hitch tilt dignity of Prime
Min
ole r, 1g1• oi. ",Lktder di her Majesty's Op-
posi n,",lvertality haVO suffered. He was a
flee he English Ilpfthtlai. He was respected
abro apnost as much as at home. And,
with all his solemnity and reserve, he was a
man of stronger feelings and of warmer sym•
pathies than the world commonly supposed.

But who are these Ministerial subordinates
who bear his name ? His eldest son, the
wearer of his honour and his territorial suc-
cessor, is a wrong-headed eitourdi, whose esca-
pades have successively furnished materials for
gossip at Madrid, and Berne, and London ;
and who, in his endeavours to subside into
respectability,has only contrived to make him-
self the laughingstock of society, by his swag-
gering graciousness and by his inconceivable
ignorance—which he lavishly imparts, now to
a literary reunion at Marylebone, now to a
mechanics' institute at Tamworth—while his
superiors, who secured him for the sake of his
name, see in him only an enfant terrible, who
compromises his colleagues by the wildness of
his assertions at Polish meetings and to
Italian regenerators, and astounds the public
by his new discoveries in political history and
geography.

- - - -
But, if not very wise or very modest, he has,
at any rate a certain amount of dash which
makes him popular elsewhere as well as on
the hustings, and consequently exhibits him
in very favorable contrast to his brother FRE-
DERICK, who is intensely unpopular everywhere.
Putting aside all question of intellectual
power, in which he is more deficient probably
than any one of the 658 members of the Lower
House, he has neither the quiet dignity of
his father, nor the genial itourderie of his
elder brother. He is distinguished for nothing
save a pedantry as offensive as bis talents are
contemptible ; for a deification of red tape and
routine, behind which he always entrenches
himself, when his department is accused of
culpable neglect or cruel indifference. He
has calmly vented many safe insults, and
made numerous unfeeling speeches ; but the
heat of debate has never once betrayed him
into generosity, and under the most exciting
circumstances he has never been known to
lapse into enthusiasm. He appears to be an
automaton with no human virtue, and with
only the least human and basest of passions.
Spitefulness is the only feeling of any kind in
which he indulges. But if ho is abstemious
in, or utterly abstinent from, the kindlier
passions, he but hugs his darling vice the
closer with all the fondness of the most sen-
suous Sybarite. His " appetite but grows
" with what it feeds on." After tasting night
after night during the session the sweet de-
light of sneering at every member who. like
Mr. &WORD, or Colonel DUNNE, or Sir DE
LACY rvANs, spoke with the humanity of
Christians, or the feelings of soldiers, of our
poor fellows in the Crimea, their hardships,
their stoppages from their meagre pay, their
sickness, he hails with malicious joy, in the re-
cess, an opportunity of insulting the feelings
of an old gentleman whose son's professional
prospects have been ruined.

We wish to be clearly understood. General
Simpsos, in dismissing young BAKEWELL, acted
we have no doubt from a sense of imperative
duty, and lAA PANMIIRE, in sanctioning the
sentence, probably felt that no discretionary
power was really left him.
But who except FREDERICK PEEL would
have written so cruel a letter to 13AxEwELL's
father, rejoicing in the young man's ruin, de-
nouncing him as a" calumniator," and chuckling
at being the organ to announce the hopeless-
ness of his restoration to the service ?

The story is a sad one. We know not whether
to rejoice that the unpleasant task of writing
to the father fell on an official to whom it was
congenial, or to regret that it could not
devolve on a gentleman who might have
tempered justice with sympathy, and quali-
fied determination with compassion.

X

bib._