The Press.
London, England, 1858-11-06 00:00:00

THE PRESS, NOVEMBER 6, 1858.

me, or knowledge of, other nations, seem to have done remarkably
well. They have no beggars, little crime or disorder, beautiful scenery,
rich and well cultivated soil, commodious and spacious dwellings, and as
much cleanliness as godliness. Of the Treaty we have just now concluded
with them, the advantages, we suspect, will be mostly on our own side.
Their country is "opened up" to us. But as they do not aspire to terri-
torial acquisition, we scarcely know how they would possibly be better off
than they are, or what good they can derive from Minie rifles and Man-
chester cotton. They are, we are told, a remarkably " go-ahead " people ;
and we may erect,therefore, that they will not be slow to eat of the tree
of knowledge with which Western Europe has tempted them. The first
thing which the Emperor expects is not unnaturally a revolution. Of all
the new ideas introduced to his people, they are sure to take the biggest
suga Plam9 first, and the decapitation of kings will be a delicious novelty
r-
to a people so long the victims of a single reigning House. From this
point of view the yacht presented to the Emperor by Lord ELGLN in the
name of her Majesty, and not inappropriately named the " Dragon," must
have loomed before that potentate something in the light of a comet or
other celestial portent with fear of change perplexing him. We shall
look for intelligence from Japan with the utmost curiosity for some time to
come.

The chronic anarchy to which all those portions of America between the
United States and the empire of Brazil are subject, has again broken out in
Mexico. When, however, we say broken out, we are not using that word in its
ordinary sense; fc r, properly speaking, the complaint has never wholly
subsided. What we mean is, broken out so as to involve the interference
of other countries. As long as they kept their disturbances to themselves
nobody cared. They might "gie one another a slash wi a claymore, or a
stab wi a dirk," and civilized people, perhaps, rather congratulated them-
selves on the thinning of' so troublesome a race. But when the operation
comes to be tried upon our own countrymen, the matter assumes a different
aspect. We really know very little about the gentleman named GARZA
Who has lately made himself master of the town of Tampico, beyond the
fact that he bombarded it for two months last spring, and was then
beaten off. However he has got it now. And the first use he very wisely
made of his new acquisition was, in Chinese language, "to squeeze " the
inhabitants. He made a demand of 1,4001. apiece on all the merchants of
the place, and on their refusal to comply with this request, which he,
perhaps, may have entitled "a benevolence," some twenty of them were
marched off to a dungeon, superior only to the Black-hole of Calcutta in
that it admitted the rain. In the meantime a Britisher, Mr. PETER
HAZEON, strong in the protection of an English Consul, not only refused
to be " squoze," but even spurned the usurper's invitation to a little
quiet talk upon the subject. Clinging, it would seem, with fidelity to the
national dogma that his house was his castle, he continued in that fortress
till summoned to surrender by fcur officers of the enemy. He stoutly
refused compliance, and called in the aid of the Consul. Soldiers were
sent for to overpower the contumacious individual ; and presently, in the
very teeth of the British flag, which was ineffectively flourished in their
faces, the villains dragged PETER HAZEON from his citadel, and cast him
into inner darkness. The last intelligence informs us that he was out again,
as it were, on bail, and that he would be put back again if he didn't pay.
Nor have fiercer suggestions been wanting from the conqueror's military
councillors. To shoot one of the merchants, to encourage the others to pay
up, is becoming a favourite idea—an idea erroneously applied, perhaps, in
this instance, but not unworthy of consideration in regard to a certain class
of British merchants at home. Such, it seems, are the facts of this out-
rageous case. We offer no opinion on the right method of dealing with it.
There arc wiser heads than ours to look to that, as CAXTON observed
%Olen he fired the beacon. GARZA himself may be hanged or shot before
we can touch him ; and there is really no embodied Mexican State which
can be held responsible.

The remarks of his Royal Highness the Duke of CAMBRIDGE on the
recent court-martial upon Ensign Scary will be read with pleasure by the
public. What, in the eyes of that august body, may constitute ungentle-
manly conduct, if this young officer's did not, we shall not trouble ourselves
to conjecture. But it is a very extraordinary thing that while all other pro-
fessions have a tendency to make boys men, that which ought to be the man-
liestof all has a tendency to make men boys. Your young Ensign or Cornet
IS indeed in his own estimation a perfect man, while his seniors are still
at school. His confident bearing, and knowing style of conveNation, lift him
quite above an Oxford or Cambridge Undergraduate. Yet look at the
aifterence in their lives. While at our two Universities the system of
practical joking has become almost as much a thing of the past as the fights
Logic-lane, or the flagellation of refractory students, our bearded
military heroes indulge in amusements for which a fifth-form boy would
despise them. No one can doubt the heartiness, manliness, and geniality
of the present Commander-in-Chief. Ile is not one to have any undue
ImPatby for milksops, to question the propriety of leaving young men, as
far as possible, to themselves, or to take any other than a sound, wholesome
'new of" the may they have in the army." We may therefore very safely
nminit ourselves to his guidance in this matter, and be quite certain that
"Pith% which strikes him as disgraceful and ridiculous is worthy of
immediate eradication.

"If observation with extensive view surveys the world from China to
rtru." it will find very much the same kind of thing going on at each end
Perhaps one good effect of rousing up the Japanese mind may be
.to induce them to co-operate with us in exterminating the pirates which
infest those latitudes. But the destruction of these desperadoes has
hitherto seemed nearly as hopeless a task as the forcible prevention of the
glare trade. After certain regular intervals we hear of a grand battue
among the creeks of the Eastern archipelago : a certain number of pirates