The Press.
London, England, 1857-01-24 00:00:00

JANUARY 24, 1857.

resolution deprecating the recent hostilities against
China, expressed an opinion that, like the last war
against China, they had arisen out of a contraband
trade in opium. He reviewed the history and
general condition of China, and, after entering into
various details to show the injurious effects of the
traffic in opium, quoted the official correspondence
from the London Gazette, and expressed an opinion
that we bad not a clear ground of quarrel against the
Chinese on the present occasion. All the circum-
stances, he said, proved that the sudden resort to
arms could not be justified. The Rev. C. Vence,
who seconded the resolution, said that the proceed-
ings of the British fleet had been hurried and pre-
cipitate, and that the conflict was as unmanly as it
was unjustifiable. This resolution, and one con-
demning the war against Persia as an unrighteous
aggression, were agreed to, and petitions to both
Houses of Parliament founded upon them were
adopted.
AT WAX sets., last week, a meeting of the principal
inhabitants was held at the Guildhall to express dis-
approval of the Chinese war and of the threatened
hostilities with Persia. Mr. Jabez Marshall and Mr.
Arthur O'Neill both made eloquent speeches, when
Mr. Scholey moved the following resolution :

That we feel called upon to express regret and indigna-
tion at the cruel and destructive bombardment of Canton,
no sufficient cause baring been shown for such operations.
We have also heard with regret of approaching hostilities
with Persia, war having been declared without the sanc-
tion of Parliament, on the pretext of supporting an
alliance with a turbulent tribe of Affilians, of the merits
of whose position we know nothing. We recommend
that a memorial be prepared, praying the Government to
stay further proceedings in these disputes, till the nation
at large can express its opinion on the meeting of Par-
liament.

Mr. Davis seconded the motion, whioh was adopted
without a single dissentient.

rtiropolitan.

THE SECOND GREAT MEETING OF UNEMPLOYED
WORKMEN was held at Smithfield on Monday. The
number of people present, who, with the exception
of a few holiday folk, appeared to be bona-fide work
ing men, generally connected with the building
trades, did not at any time exceed 4,000, or at most
5,000, although it was generally admitted that the
meeting was twice as numerous as that of the pre-
vious Monday. The proceedings were of the most
orderly description, and the meeting, with some few
exceptions, characterised by moderation of ex-
pression.
A Mr. PIERCE, a cabinetmaker, opened the pro-
ceedings by calling upon the workmen of England to
combine in association. What could not the
20,000,000 of English workmen obtain by combina-
tion ?

The working classes had been taxed with want of unity,
and it had been said that if one of them proposed anything
the rest of the working population laughed at him ; but
they would now combine to procure the repeal of those
laws which their conquerors told them had been made for
their good. The poor law said that every man had a right
to live, and, acting upon that principle, he said that the
people had a right to an equal division of property until
their wants were satisfied. . . . So, let them impress
on the Government that they wanted a living, and that,
while they saw grandeur and luxury about them, they
meant to have it. But they must appeal to the laws, and
not break them, and if any man among them saw another
do anything to disturb the public peace, let him arrest him
in that endeavour, and so show that the British workman
was the true conservator of the peace of the country. Let
them all be constables of order. Their only object was the
amelioration of their condit►on, and they did nut want the
police to come and cudgel them; they would he their own
police, and take care at the same time of the publio peace
and their own interests.

Mr. MACRAY (shoemaker) then moved the follow-
ing resolution :
That this meeting, consisting chiefly of operatives unem-
ployed (by causes for which we are not responsible), demand of
the authorities that the means of existence be extended within
our reach by useful and protttable employment in agriculture
and manufactures. That, until such employment be afforded,
we fall back upon our ancient and indisputable right to paro-
chial assistance, unaccompanied by the Insulting, debasing, and
infamous conditions at present persisted in.

The Government (said the speaker) had recently ex•
pended millions for the sake of civilising Turkey, and
could they not spend one or two millions in civilising this
country ? They were just now, too, civilising China, and
the money which they were going to expend there would
place the unemployed working people of :his country in
ease and comfort. The British workman now, when out
of work, was absolutely valueless. There was a time when
his dead body would fetch IW., but it was not worth that
now ; for the ."
base, brutal, and bloody Whigs," to whom
they owed nothing but their detestation, first sent them to
the workhouse, and then gave their bodies to dissection.
He wished to see men as they ought to be—not in work to.
day and out again to-morrow, but with always sufficient,
and of that there was no hope under the present system,
nor until they got possession of political power, for those
who made the laws would make them to suit themselves,
and not for the working people. There was emigration as
one remedy to their present state ; but the Government
would do nothing is t4t way; yugeq. it wag to lot theta

T H

scuttled. If the Government wanted them to fight their
battles they would pay 1001. per man for their passage in
the Himalaya, but for their own good they would not give
them a hundred pence. The working classes were robbed
annually of 300,000,0001. more than they consumed, and
therefore their oppressors would not mind spending
100,000,0001., if necessary, to keep them down. The
governing classes would care nothing for their meetings if
they said they only wanted to be fed, and cared nothing
for politics ; they would then feed them as they did their
horses—( A Voice : " I wish they would ")—and be glad of
such a bargain. In conclusion, God helped those who
helped themselves, and let them do the same.
Several other speeches were delivered and the
resolution carried unanimously ; and an address
prepared by the committee was read, the principal
object of which was to impress upon the meeting the
necessity of regaining possession of the land of their
forefathers, and the organisation of a free system of
emigration.
Mr. KEITH seconded and Mr. FORBES and Mr.
BLIGH supported the adoption of the address, which
was unanimously agreed to, as was also a resolution
declaring the National Association of Unemployed
of Great Britain to be deserving of support. In the
course of the proceedings it was mentioned that the
number of unemployed in London belonging to the
principal trades is at present as follows :
Carpenters
Plasterers
Painters
Stonemasons

•
Bricklayers ( with labourers)
Smiths, moulders, decorators, cte.

Total

The committee have abandoned their design of a
simultaneous application to the metropolitan parishes
for relief, as last week decided upon, advising instead
independent action in each parish.

THE QUESTION OF THE VALUE OF DOCK WARRANTS
so recently brought to issue by the decision of the
Court of Error, in the case of " Kingsford and Swin-
ford v. Merry," gave rise to a public meeting of mer-
chants at the London Tavern on Monday. Baron
Lionel Rothschild presided, and in opening the pro-
ceedings explained that it was now the opinion that
holders of bills of lading, delivery orders, or dock
warrants, who had given full value for such docu-
ments, or advanced money on the same, were not
the legal owners of the goods which the warrants
represented, unless they could prove that the title
of every person through whose hands the documents
had passed was perfectly valid. It was, therefore,
for the meeting to consider whether it would be best
for the law to remain as it was, or whether it was
desirable to endeavour to prevail on the Government
to propose an alteration. Mr. S. Gregson, M.P.,
moved the first resolution, viz.:—

That the decision of the Court of Error in the case of " Kings-
ford and Swinford v. Merry," appears to involve a principle
which is calculated to render the recognised and well-under-
stood course and practice of trade insecure and uncertain, and
to destroy confidence in delivery orders, warrants, bills of
lading, and other mercan:ile documents essential to the safe
transaction of business and development of trade, and that
immediate action for the remedy of this evil is desirable.
The law was, it seemed, in accordance with a declaration
of Lord Campbell in a previous case, that a bill of lading
did not pass like a bill of exchange or a promissory note ;
that if it were stolen or transferred without authority, no
advance which bad been made upon it could be recovered.
The question to be considered was, therefore, what change
should be made in the law? He might observe, that up to
1821 no pledge was good unless it were a pledge by the
owner. Up to thit period, if a person residing in India
sent a bill of lading to an agent in London, not drawing
against it, and he (the agent) obtained an advance upon
it, the owner might follow the goods. The law was then
alteted, and it was enacted that if the owner intrusted a
person in London with a certain document, that document
should be quite sufficient authority to the public fur an
advance. There was some further relaxation of the law
in 1842, and the law was then made what it is at present.
As regarded the nature of the alteration required, he
thought the meeting would hardly go so far as to say that,
under all circumstances whatever, a person making an
advance should be justified in retaining the document.
Mr. Moffat, M.P., seconded the resolution, which
was then put and carried unanimously. Mr. Wegue-
lin rose to move the next resolution, viz.:—
That a committee, consisting of Baron Rothschild,
Messrs. Gassiot, Gregson, Hall, Scovell, Hastie, Cook,
Corrie, Moffat, Hodgson, Crawford, and Travers, with
power to add to their number, b,..t appointed to confer with
the Government, in the view of procuring, by legislative
enactment, such a full and final settlement of the state of
the law as shall be calculated to afford due security to the
negotiations of trade, and to protect the bouti•fide bolder
of those commercial docinnents, which, both by the custom
of trade and the necessities of commerce, are recognised
as obligatory among merchants.

Alter a short discussion the committee was appointed
and the proceedings terminated. _ _

The circumstances fof the case of " Kingsford v.
Merry," were these : A man named Anderson pur-
chased from Kingsford a certain quantity of tartaric
acid lying in a warehouse at the Custom-house Quay,
receiving what merchants call a delivery order for
the same, and at the same time having them trans-

81

ferred to his name in the books at the warehouse.
Anderson immediately afterwards borrowed from
Merry the sum of 2,0001. on the security of these
goods, giving over to the latter the delivery warrant.
It then appeared that Anderson had obtained pos-
session of them by means of falsely representing
himself as the agent of another person, and the
question simply was which of two innocent parties
should lose the money thus advanced to Anderson
on security of the delivery order. Both Kingsford,
who had transferred the goods into Anderson's name,
and Merry, who had advanced the money upon
them, had acted in perfect good faith and in strict
accordance with mercantile usage, and the Court of
Exchequer, before which the point was first discussed,
held that the loss should fall on the former. The
principle of law was declared by the Lord Chief Baron
to be as follows :

That when a purchaser obtains possession of a chattel,
with the intention by the seller to transfer both the
property and the possession, although the purchaser has
made a false and fraudulent representation in order to
effect a contract or to obtain the possession, the property
vests in the purchaser until the seller does some act to
disaffirm the transaction ; and the legal consequence is,
that if before the disaffirruance the fraudulent purchases
has transferred over the whole or any part of thu chattel to
an innocent transferee, the title of such transferee is good
against the seller.

This decision has been reversed on appeal to the
Exchequer Chamber, chiefly, if not solely. on the
ground that Anderson had obtained possession of
the goods by means of fraud, and it is at this latter
conclusion that the City merchants have expressed
dissatisfaction and alarm.

A MEETING OF BOOTMAKERS, presided over by Mr.
Medwin, of Regent street, was held at the Free-
masons' Tavern, on Monday evening, to consider the
propriety of advancing the price of boots and shoes,
in consequence of the extraordinary and continued
rise in the price of leather. From the statement of
Mr. Medwin it appeared that during the last eighteen
months or two years there had been a rise in some
descriptions of leather amounting to from fifty to
seventy•fiva per cent.—while the rise in raw hides
had been from 211 or 3d. to 10d. or 1011 per lb.,
which was equal to 400 per cent. Now, there was no
prospect of a fall in the price of leather:—
Formerly France sent us a great many bides, now she
consumed them all herself. Ten years ago perhaps fifteen
out of every twenty Frenchmen wore wooden shoes, now
he did not believe there were ten in that number who wore
sabots. The same sort of thing had happened also in
Germany. In Buenos Ayres and other countries in South
America there were formerly vast herds of wild or semi-
wild cattle, which were killed only for the sake of their
akin, and nearly the whole of that stock had been de-
stroyed. Again, a great demand had sprung np in the
United States. The Amencan people were not a beef or
a mutton eating people. They preferred pork ; but they
nevertheless required boots and shoes, and so they were
becoming immense customers to France and Germany as
well as ourselves. From Liverpool and other ports there
were thousands of hides daily sent away. in a word, he
did nut see an-, prospect whatever of increasing the supply,
and he believed that prices would within twelve months be
double their present exorbitant rate.
Mr. Moore, of the firm of Burrell and Co., moved
the following resolution :
That in consequence of the extraordinary and sustained
advance in the price of leather, it is necessary that a cor-
responding advance in the prices of boots and shoes should
be made to the public ; and that this meeting adopt and
recommend the adoption of such rise in proportion to the
rise in the price of leather.
The resolution was unanimously agreed to.

CRIMINAL REFORMATION was discussed at a nume-
rous and highly influential meeting of the inhabitants
of Chelsea, held on Monday evening, in support of
establishing a reformatory at Brixton. The meeting
was addressed by the rector of St. George's, South-
wark, and the Rev. Mr. Robinson, who gave some
interesting details, showing bow persons discharged
from prisons were suspected and avoided by friends
and society, and, without character and the means to
obtain food by their labour, were driven to the com-
mission of fresh crimes to obtain the means to sus-
tain existence. 'I o remedy this evil the Criminal
Reformatory came forward, and, giving a home to
the discharged criminal, taught him some industrial
occupation, and restored him to society a useful
member, instead of a pest. The Rev. Mr. Cohen,
chaplain to the City Prison, detailed his prison ex-
periences, showing that many were driven to the
commission of crime from the lack of any alterna-
tive. Resolutions approving the object and princi-
ples of the reformatory were adopted, and subscrip-
tions entered into.
THE STATE OF WHITECROSS STREET PRISON was
this week brought under the notice of the Court of
Aldermen. The existing evils are described as "a
want of cleanliness, great laxity of discipline, occa-
sional disturbances, disregard of the governor's
authority, sometimes a display of insulting and vio-
lent conduct towards solicitors, &c., and a wercori
bearing towaidi new-owning ininatea,"

/'1

.82

A Damn:non composed of the rector, church-
wardens, and vestrymen of the parish of St. James,
Westminster, had an interview with Sir George Grey,
on Saturday, in order to call his attention to the
increasingjnumber of houses of ill-fame and betting-
offices in that part of London. A memorial was
read entering into all the details of the question, re-
questing that sonic law should be framed to remedy
both the grievances complained of. Sir George
Grey said that he would refer the first complaint to
the Attorney-General. As to the betting-houses,
the complaint was rather against the administration
of the law than the law itself. After replying to
several statements made by members of the deputa-
tion, Sir George Grey intimated that the memorial
should have his consideration, and that he would
communicate with the Attorney-General in reference
to the most effective steps for carrying the existing
law bearing on the subjects brought under his notice
into operation. The result of this communication
was apparent on Wednesday evening, when the police
made a descent on the notaious neighbourhood of
Regent-circus, and carried out a regular foray among
the French and Belgian prostitutes and their houses
et call. Women and landlords were arrested and
warned, and for the future it is to be hoped that
some change will be effected.

THE CITY OF LONDON UNION INVESTIGATION COH•
WITTEE brought up a report at the board meeting on
Tuesday, in which they stated that no tidings had
yet been heard of Nanini, and therefore they had
raised the reward offered for his apprehension from
601. to 2001. The committee also advised that a

recommendation contained in a former report, for
dismissing Eldred and Hampton, the two assistant
clerks employed in Mr. Rowsell's office, should at
once be carried out, and that they should be paid
the amount of their salaries up to the present time.
The adoption of the report was moved and seconded,
but on a letter from Hampton being read, exculpat-
i.ig Himself on the ground of his having always, as
ledger dell, posted under the instructions of Paul
and Manini, and having never been permitted to see
the bankers' pass book, so much of the report as
related to his dismissal was struck out, and the re-
isn't was then carried by a large majority.
A GREAT FIRE broke out in Spktalfields on Thurs.
dly morning at Mr. Weston's public-house in Pearl-
s reet. The inmates were aroused and made their
e•-cape. A strong force of fire-engines were soon
on the spot, and, as the supply of water was plenti-
ful, N‘e..e quickly at work. About eight the back wall
fell in, burying some firemen, who with some diffi.
out y were rescued comparatively unhurt. The fire
burnt itself out by nine o'clock.
THE BISHOP OF Rim's, 1)r. Bickersteth, was
presented with a handsome vase candelabrum on
Monday by his late parishioners of St. Giles's-in-the
Fields.

Sin C. R. Liouros, Bart., Vicar of Ellastone,
Staffordshire, has been appointed hon. secretary
to the Society for Irish Missions to the Roman
Catholics in the room of Dr. Robert Bickersteth,
Bishop of Ripon.

BARON ALDERSON is seriously ill. The learned judge
was attacked a short time Hith determination of blood
to the head, but at the commencement of the present
week he became much better, and strong hopes were
entertained of his ultimate recovery, but an attack
of paralysis came on, which has affected his lower
extremities, and rendered him completely powerless.
He is described as being insensible, and as lying in
a state of total exhaustion. Baron Alderson was
appointed vacation judge, but it has now been
arranged that Mr. Justice Coleridge shall take that
duty, and Mr. Sergeant Channel will be placed on
the commission for the Homo. Circuit at the forth-
coming assizes in the place of Mr. Justice Coleridge.
In the event of Baron Alderson's recovery, he will
retire from the bench on his pension of 3,5001. a
year, to which be is entitled for upwards of fifteen
years' service.

A NEW EDUCATIONAL MUSEUM will open at the
New Buildings, South Kensington, in the spring.
The museum will exhibit, under a proper classifica-
tion, all important books, diagrams, illustrations, and
apparatus connected with education already in use,
or which may be published from time to time, either
at borne or abroad. The public will be admitted
free, as to a public exhibition, on certain days of the
week, and on other days, which will be reserved for
students, opportunity will be given to examine and
consult the objects with the utmost freedom. A
catalogue will be prepared which will contain the
price lists which exhibitors may furnish for insertion.
The books and objects will be grouped under the
fo'lowiug divisions:-1. School buildings and fit-
tings, forms, desks, slates, Flans, models, &c. 2.
General education, including reading, writing, gram-
mar, arithmetic, mathematics, foreign languages,
hist wies. 3. Drawing and the fine arts. 4. Music.
8. Household economy. O. Geography and astro-
float . 7. Natural history. 8. Chemistry, 9.
r‘gysics. 10. Mechanics. 11. Apparatus for teach-
ing On Pad sad iba deaf and dwub,

THE P

E S S.

THE SOCIETY FOR THE AMENDMENT OF THE LAW
met on Monday night, Mr. Pitt Taylor in the chair,
when the report of the committee on the Testamen-
tary Bills of Sir R. Bethel!, Sir F. Kelly, and Mr.
Collier, introduced last session, was rend and ordered
to be printed. The committee, after analysing the
measures of those hon. and learned gentlemen, re-
commended the establishment of a central court of
probate, to consist of three of the !common-law
judges. They proposed that the existing powers of
construction and administration should be continued
in the Court of Chancery, and that in all cases not
exceeding 3001. the county courts should have juris-
diction. A discussion ensued, in which Mr. Collier,
M.P., Mr. Pritchard, and Mr. Williams took part.
TILE REGISTRAR GENERAL'S RETURNS for the week
show a mortality of 1,171. The births for the same
period reached 1,784 A summary of the births and
deaths in London for the last fifteen years, compiled
chiefly front the weekly returns, has just been pub-
lished. In that period 88,833 children were born,
viz., 44,159 boys, and 442,674 girls. In the same
period 56,786 persons died, of which 28,894 were
men, and 27,892 women.