The Press.
London, England, 1858-01-09 00:00:00

THE PRESS, JANUARY 9,1858.

sure that the impression left upon the minds of such poor men as
struggled into Westminster Abbey on Sunday last will smack more of
the Surrey than of heaven. It is difficult to say which is the greater
profanation, to turn a church into a theatre or a theatre into a church.
But there can be no doubt which will have the greater effect in
destroying those reverential feelings which the supporters of this
movement especially desire to foster. Wo trust that with better
management and greater diffusion of these services all cause for com-
plaint will cease, and that in the complete success of this well-timed
adaptation to our wants will be found a sufficient answer to those who
seek to remedy them by uncongenial, if not inimical reforms.

In connection with the accounts of the war in India it may be
interesting to our readers to have sone information of the manner in
which officers and men are forwarded up the country from Calcutta.
They proceed by railroad 1.10 miles to Raneegunge, where there is a
standing camp, and from thence are sent on by three modes of con-
veyance—namely, horse dik, bullock dak, and coolie dak. The first is
used only for officers in command and on the staff, and consists of a
covered van in which the traveller can lie at length. It is drawn by
horses, which gallop all the way, and are changed every four or five
miles. Eighty miles a day can thus be accomplished. A native ser-
vant, and in some cases an English soldier as a guard, are seated on
the top. The bullock and coolie desks are also covered vans, drawn by
bullocks or borne by ten natives. Each accommodates four soldiers,
and two march, who are carried in turn. In this manner thirty miles
a day can be traversed, and 250 men are thus daily sent to the front.

The appointment of Mr. Sergeant BYLES to the Bench reflects
great credit on Lord CRANWORTIL The new Judge is a Conservative ;
and though he has eminently distinguished himself as a political
writer, he has not been made, like certain members of his profession
in Ireland, to pay a penalty for his political opinions. If Mr. Sergeant
BYLES had teen at the Irish Bar, the present Government would not
have raised him to the Bench unless he went through a previous
process of political sanctification at the hands of the electoral priests
of some county or city. The law is the same in both countries ; and
why should not merit at the Bar be promoted in Ireland without
exclusive regard to political opinions ? We do not deny that political
services, along with other claims, may form fair pleas for professional
advancement ; but mere steady voting at the voice of a whipper-in is
an improper means of rising to the Bench, and facility in finding a
constituency is not the test by which great officers should be chosen.
Waiving these considerations, we must express our sincere satisfaction
that Mr. Sergeant BYLES has received the promotion due to his high
legal abilities ; and we are convinced that the new Judge with his
clear intellect and cogent logic will prove himself a great ornament to
the Bench.

It is essential to the dignity of every established author or
periodical that he or it should have a plagiarist. Mr. THACKERAY has
his, Mr. TENNYSON his, Miss BRONTE had hers ; and so, too, the Satur-
day Review is determined to have its plagiarist. After apparently
waiting a long time before he could find a single syllable of his own
repeated by any journal which it was worth while to criminate, our con-
temporary has been fortunate enough to pounce upon some expressions
of THE PRESS which are forthwith paraded with all the ostentation of
parallel columns. It is a proud moment when we discover our first
plagiarist. No hen over her first egg, no mother over her first child,
no boy over his first bird's nest could cackle, gloat, and crow with more
uncontrollable delight than our contemporary over this long-sought,
late-found tribute to his originality. We had happened, in writing of
the delay in sending troops to India, to use an illustration in which
the ward " waggon" occurred. Our contemporary had introduced that
particular word in an illustration of the same subject, and therefore,
notwithstanding the fact that the two illustrations are perfectly dis-
tinct in substance, we are taxed with plagiarism on account of this
s'ngle word. Our vocabulary may be limited, but we are still vain enough
t o think we could have found the word " waggon " without the aid of
our learned contemporary. The next point over which the Saturday
.Review " claps the glad hand and lifts the exulting voice" is that we
have copied their contributor in calling Sir CHARLES Woon
diffident. Now, it is, or rather was, a discovery doubtless
that the Honourable Baronet is affected by that infirmity
of public men. Yet, while it pains us to rob our contemporary of those
honours of paternity which give him so much innocent pleasure, truth
compels us to state that the discovery is not his. It is often difficult
to name a really first inventor. Savants are still divided as to who
invented the safety-lamp, and who invented the steam-engine. But
whoever was literally the first to acquaint the world with the fact of
the worthy Baronet's modesty, the world knew it at least as long ago
as 1552. Had our contemporary a little longer experience of ills
business, he would not make such blunders as this. At present, as
was prophesied of GOLDSMITH, he brings home a wheelbarrow, and
thinks he has made a great discovery. Our contemporary must be
very hard up for original ideas if he sets such store by these. We are,
however, very happy to have afforded him this long-coveted, though
mistaken, opportunity of gratifying his authorial vanity; and let him
be assured that as long as he continues to express sentiments so
agreeable to our own upon public questions, we shall probably
afford him many more.

37

The result of the late Buckinghamshire election is as gratifying
to the Conservative party as many which have ended in the return of
their own candidates. Acting honourably on the old agreement with
their adversaries, that one seat for the county should remain in their
hands, the leading Conservative gentry abstained from taking any
active part in the election. Their tenants, however, were bound by
no similar understanding, and resolutely insisted on making an effort
for a candidate of their own. The result is, indeed, striking. On
behalf of the Whig candidate, as is well known, the whole strength of
the party was exerted. Large sums of money were expended. Yet,
out of a constituency of nearly 6,000, Mr CAVENDISH polled only 1,800
odd ; whereas a mere section of the Conservative party, acting on the
impulse of the moment, under no compulsion, and without any organi-
sation, actually polled more than 1,400. This sufficiently proves what
the Buckinghamshire Conservatives could do as a party. And now
that a precedent for a contest has been established, we have little
doubt that are long that county will be represented in Parliament by
three Conservative members. We may add that we have good reason
for believing that Colonel CARTWATROHT is sure of his seat for South
Northamptonshire. So that the Conservatives will have sustained no
numerical loss by recent changes.

Mr. WArtitnes charge to the grand jury at Hull was directed
against an evil the enormity of which is now, alas ! too generally
acknowledged. Mere roguery has migrated from politics to trade, and
while British Ministers have ceased to put bank-notes under the
plates of their guests, British merchants have learnt to put the bank-
notes of their guests into their own pockets. This would almost seem
to justify the theory that there must always be at every epoch a cer-
tain amount of floating crime in the country which now rests with one
class of the community and now with another. But however this may
be, it must always be worth while to probe the causes which influence
its distribution. And eloquent and pertinent as the various judicial
addresses upon this subject have been, we could wish to see the ques-
tion handled from a different point of view. " The immorality of the
"commercial classes" is indeed a theme which might worthily employ
the profoundest thinkers of the age. Doubtless it requires no ordinary
courage to run counter to the pet prejudices of a class which exercise
so much social and political influence in the country. Yet it would be
well if a warning voice could he raised against modes of life productive
of moral deterioration before they shall become finally sanctioned by
the usage of an irreversible majority. We cannot help attributing
at least some grades in that decline of commercial honour which is
the blot upon our social progress to those erronous views of education to
which even the highest class of our mercantile men are not imper-
vious. While the three or four years immediately preceding man-
hood are withdrawn from those studies which refine the taste, disci-
pline the reason, establish good habits, and develop the more generous
emotions, in order to secure an earlier initiation into pursuits which,
to say the least, do not accomplish these results, so long, we fear, will
this dangerous degeneracy progress with giant strides. Mr. WARREN
is well qualified to set this important truth in a popular and striking
light. We would recommend him to take up the subject. Its impor-
tance cannot be overrated. It is hard to be compelled to choose
between the rule of doctrinaires and of dunces. Yet, as the latter must
lead to the same results as the former, and by a much more dis-
graceful road, we should not hesitate in our selection.

The Scotch University Reformers are going about their work
with the air of men who are in earnest. Lord CAMPBELL has now put
himself at the head of the movement, and his known shrewdness and
worldly wisdom is not likely to have linked him with a losing concern.
To be sure, he may simply be reckoning on the advantage likely to
accrue to himself from being associated with a literary and elmsical
agitation. His Lordship is an author as well as a lawyer, and all the
time he is spouting of BUCHANAN and JOHNSTONL may possibly have
an eye to Albemarle-street. But, whatever be Lord CAMPBELL'S mo-
tives, there is no doubt that his colleagues are perfectly sincere, and
if not convinced by their arguments we cordially coincide with their
feelings. To us it seems that the great obstacle to the realisation of
their visions is the one simple fact that there are no public schools
in Scotland. IfScotland had her Eton and Westminster, she would not
lack her Oxford and Cambridge. Butes it is, the absence of these institu-
tions causes all that class who can afford to study scholarship for its
own sake to be educated at English schools, and the associations and
friendships there formed inevitably lead to their entrance at English
universities. Neither would the better endowment of professorships
be sufficient to attract those classes who do not study Greek for its
own sake, but for what they can get by it. For these there must be
fellowships, scholarships, tutorskips, lectureships, headships, ad W-
I nitum. And we fear that no Parliamentary grant will ever be suffi-
ciently liberal to bring about such results as these. The Scotch
universities, then, seem almost equally unsuited either for amateur
scholars or scholars by profession ; and though it were much to be
wished, for the sake of her great commercial classes, that national
education of a better stamp could be attained, we own we are not so
sanguine as Professor BLAME about its possibility.