The Press.
London, England, 1854-09-23 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

At the time of the passing of this act the
directors of the East India Company appeared
anxious to remove the suspicions which their
previous admi ' ration of the enormous
patronage at eir fill oral had left on the
pubj inipd. lie ng tism alleged against
them hi Lor E 14.11 sneouott was denied,
though Iciis loffiship d fairly appealed to
the Ind militify and twin lists in confirma-
tion of Ille chargo: ,& mot damaging petition
on the subject, aignM by many of the most
influential men conneOpd With India, was by
directorial influence patieured to be withdrawn,
and the public at last, beginning to grow weary
of the discussion, consented for the present to
take the directors, to a great extent, at their
word. Two very important items in their
patronage, however, were by the act, as it
finally passed, struck off. The one the
nomination of students for Haileybury, or, in
other words, members of the civil service; the
other the nomination of assistant-surgeons.
These were the branches of the service in
respect to which previous abuse of patronage
was most clear, and in which any abuse of
patronage must at the same time prove most
injurious; and, therefore, the Legislature en-
acted that in respect of them the power of
appointment should cease in the directors
as regards all vacancies which should occur after
the thirtieth day of April, one thousand eight
hundred and fifty-four.
The meaning of the framers of this act, it is
plain, was that with the date on which the
new law came into operation all appointments
by the directors to vacancies in these two
branches of the public service should cease.
The previous mode of leaving such appoint-
merits in the hands of the directors had been
formally condemned by Parliament as incon-
sistent with the welfare of the people of India,
and that method had as clearly been ordered
to be superseded the very moment that the
existing charter act should have expired.
Such being the act, and such clearly the inten-
tion of the framers of it, great was our surprise
at learning that the directors were evading it
by wholesale, and appointing up to the present
date an endless list of sons, nephews, and
connections to Haileybury. Nay, more,
we found that this patronage had not
been confined to the existing directors,
but that those who were struck out at tha
expiry of the old charter had been allowed
to carry with them into private life a large
share of these appointments. It thus happens
that men no longer holding office—no longer
responsible to the public—men much more
unfit to exercise this patronage than the actual
directors—are thus allowed to continue to job
away offices, the gift of which, on any ground
but that of merit, the Legislature had on
public grounds enacted should cease. That
such a flagrant violation of the intentions of
the Legislature can have no motive of public
good to recommend it is clear. We must,
therefore, be content to view it as a proof of
the extent to which the directors are prepared
to set both law and public opinion at defiance
in the conversion of all the patronage they
can possibly lay hold of to the private benefit
of themselves and their friends. So swamped
has the civil service been by these illegal
nominations, that there will not, we under-
stand, be any chance of an appointment falling
to the public under the new law for nearly the
next two years.
It may be asked how the directors could
possibly manage to get over the terms of an
enactment apparently so very clear. They
have done so by Sir CHARLES \Vocal's conni-
vance : he has allowed them to evade the law
in a manner which no other President of the
Board of Control would tolerate. Their plan
was this : the law deprived them of appoint-
ments to vacancies occurring after the 30th of
April, but at the same time fixed no limits to
the existing numbers of the civil service. The
directors, therefore, deelared as many appoint-
ments as could be absorbed in the ensuing
three years to be vacancies before the 30th of
April, for the purposes specified in the act,
and divided the nominations so created en
masse among their body, leaving each director
to give or job away, from time to time at his
pleasure afterwards, the appointments so
created, until the handsome bonus in the
shape of a &nal division of patronage should

SATURDAY,

be all expended. In this way the objects of
the Legislature are defeated, Parliament
laughed at, and the public tricked ; and in
this way' Ipdian eiyit appoiptments are still
procurable, and will be fur mapy a long day if
the public 4 not iptpyferpt by any one who
pan giyp, it+ the Oqpe of fottronage or other-
wise, ap eqpivaient for the boon. We cannot,
however, think that pithey the Parliament or
the pqblic iyill be eontept to be the victims of
so trapspavent a trick as this ; for every ap-
pointmeilt thus gained by the directors is
taken from the country at large against the
precise and plain direction of the Legislature.
We wish that we could rest here, but other
considerations arise out of this discreditable bu-
siness ; for if such be the mode in which the
directors grasp at patronage intended to be
removed by law from their control, in what
manner are they likely to employ that which
still remains to them ? Common sense forbids
us to think that they would in dispensing it
postpone private interests to the promotion of
the public advantage. A second consideration
that arises is the question how far such adepts
at evading the intentions of the Legislature,
when opposed to their private interests in
England, are likely to be more observant of them
when dealing out justice between them-
selves and their native fellow-subjects in India.
The whole business bears such a taint about
it of selfishness and dishonesty as leaves us
little hope for India so long as men like Sir
JAMES HOGG and company are allowed to rule
that country otherwise than under the strictest
and most watchful control of the President of
the India Board.

THE RAILWAY OUTRAGE AT
ENNISKILLEN.
Iv is long since we read of a more atrocious
crime than the horrible attempt to upset the
excursion-train between Derry and Ennis-
killen. The cruelty of the diabolical project
was only to be equalled by its dastardly
cowardice. The desperado that takes to the
highway, and commits his crimes in the light
of day, and within the surveillance of the
police, may be a criminal, but even still he
remains a man. But what must be that
fiendish nature which, out of the reach of
peril, plots for the mangling and mutilation
unto death of hundreds of human beings of
both sexes, then secretly skulks off to contem-
plate the chances of the wholesale carnage
which it demoniacally contrived !
On such atrocity there can only be one
sentiment amongst all men, and we trust that
the criminals will be made to answer for their
awful outrage. It adds to the wickedness of
the design that it seems to have been planned
in the most deliberate malignity. No polemical
provocation, no recollections of former feuds,
could offer any justification of such utterly
nefarious and cowardly criminality. We are
sorry to see that the opportunity has been
eagerly seized on for vilifying the excursion-
ists, as if they had really given cause for
tempting persons to plot their destruction.
Now, the facts appear to have been that the
excursion was essentially one for friendly in-
tercourse between the citizens of two ancient
towns, bound together by heart-stirring recol-
lections that can fade only with English
history. One half of the excursionists were
not Orangemen at all, but even if they had
been, what crime was it that they should have
visited their friends in Derry? In the address
of the citizens of the latter place to the
inhabitants of Enniskillen we observe with
pleasure that they expressly disclaim any
" intention of invading or interrupting the legal
" rights and privileges of any class or denotntna-
" tion of their fellow-subjects." And we are
bound to say that all their proceedings appear
to have been moderate, and not calculated to
give offence.
The conduct of the Earl of ENNISKILLEN was
worthy of the gallant family of which he is the
head. In order to prevent any party-proceed-
ings he went with the exeuraiouists, and he
bravely exposed himself to danger by travelling
on the engine-carriage, in order to moderate
the speed when it appeared that peril was
apprehended. The heartlessness of the