The Press.
London, England, 1856-11-22 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

But let us now mark a still more striking
illustration of the active injustice committed
by what we fear must be called " the pro-
" Romanist and platform system " organised
by the Whigs.

Along with the four Protestant barristers
retained for Mr. O'CONNELL'S defence, there
were six other barristers, who are to be placed
on the Roman Catholic and the pro-Romanist
interest. There were Messrs. Moons and
HATCH ELL (Protestants, and perverts to Whig-
gery at an advanced period of their lives) ;
and of Roman Catholics there were Mr PIOOT,
Mr. MONAHAN, Mr. O'Hoo,ts, and Sir COLMAN
O'LOGHLAN. Each and every one of those last
six gentlemen have since received judicial
appointments!
These facts are formidably strong, but
stronger still remain. _ _

Take the high-treason cases. Mr. WEITESIDE,
Mr. BUTT, and Mr. FRANCIS FITZGERALD were
leaders for the accused; three Protestant
Queen's Counsel. Take the great Mount-
garrett case, recently tried, where a title, ten
thousand a year, and family character were
all at stake. In that extraordinary case,
Messrs. BREWSTER and WHITESIDE were on
one side, and Messrs. Burr and NAPIER on
the other ; or take the " Wilson case,"
Mr. BREWSTER, Mr. MARTLEY, and Mr. NA-
PIER on the one side ; Mr. WHITESIDE and
Mr. DENOGH on the other. In those cases all
the lenders were Protestants.

In fact, wherever life or property are con-
cerned (and then one may take for granted
that the selection is made solely with refer-
ence to ability and learning), the very men
who are the first chosen, and placed by clients
in the foremost rank , sire those who are ex-
cluded by the " Liberal " policy from all hope
or chance of judicial preferment. Thus " the
system" exhibits the twofold injustice of the
neglect of the higher merits, and the partisan
preference of the less meritorious.
The facts advanced by us are beyond con-
troversy, and they are pregnant with infer-
ences of momentous impertinence. A Warren
and a Bennett were allowed to go to their
honoured graves, while Mr. BRADY was made a
Lord Chancellor over their heads, and Mr.
HATCHELL was sent to Parliament as Attorney-
General, to keep up the fame of the Irish Bar.
These are facts that lacerate the feelings not
only of Protestant working barristers, but of
Protestant households throughout the length
and breadth of Ireland. The system is gross,
coarse, unfeeling, and unjust; and we say to
the Queen's Ministers in Downing-street and
Dublin Castle :

Pudet oppmbria robin
Et dici potuisse, et non potuisse refelli.

THE CASE OF MR. HENRY CORT.
IT was a question much mooted among
ancient casuists whether a man could injure
himself. If some of those persons had existed
during the last two centuries, and been located
in the British Islands, they would have had
abundant opportunities of obtaining a prac-
tical answer to their query. They were fond
of regarding individuals and nations as coun-
terparts of each other ; and in so far as the
British people may be considered as one man
we can have no hesitation in saying that it has
very frequently injured itself; for a man can
do himself no greater injury than to deter
people from endeavouring to serve him, and
our conduct as a nation towards public bene-
factors has decidedly for many generations
been the reverse of encouraging.
One of the most flagrant instances of the in-
justice and oppression to which the British
inventor is liable will, if the alleged facts are
true, be found in the case of the gentleman
whose name stands at the head of our article.
These facts have been so recently before the
public that we shall content ourselves with a
very brief recapitulation.
Mr. HENRY CORT, of Gosport, about the year
1780, invented that process of preparing iron
which was in universal use for the subsequent

1107

sixty years. Up to the time of his invention
we had been dependent upon Norway and
Sweden for all our wrought iron, England not
possessing sufficient supplies of wood to fur-
nish the charcoal which was necessary for the
old-fashioned process. What we then paid to
these countries was about a million and a half
per annum. Let any reader reflect on the
increase in our demand for that metal which
has taken place since the end of the last cen-
tury, and he will have some remote idea of the
extent to which Mr. CORT, by enabling us to
make our own wrought iron, has benefited the
finances of the country. Mr. CORT patented
his process, and the leading ironmasters of the
country contracted to pay him ten shillings
per ton on all the iron so manufactured.
In an evil hour for himself Mr CORT entered
into partnership with a Mr. ADAM JELLICOE,
of the Navy Pay-office, London, who, becom-
ing a defaulter in his accounts, deposited with
the Navy-office the patents and contracts be-
longing to his unfortunate partner. What
was done with these documents, or to what
account they were turned, is a mystery ; for
at JELLICOE'S death, a few years after, the
defalcation hal only been reduced from
27,500/. to 24,8461., though the contracts were
bringing in from 15,0001. to 20,0001, a year.
For this balance of 24,8461. Mr. Cola was held
answerable, as JELLICOE'S partner ; his pre-
inises and machinery were seized, and he
became a ruined man. Fourteen years after
Mr. PITT allowed him a pension of 2001. a
year, and at his death his two unmarried
daughters received pensions almost too pitiful
to mention-201. a year each. We should also
not omit to add, that since the facts have
come to light through the public press, a pen-
sion of 501. a year has been granted to the
sole surviving son of the Gosport manufac-
turer. But this cannot be accepted as the
slightest mitigation of an injury which in -
volves more than as many thousands.
We should, probably, rather prejudice than
advance the claims of Mr. CORTE; family, by
raking up long-forgotten scandals, and en-
deavouring to account for the disappearance
of the patents and contracts. Whatever
might have been the motive which prompted
their destruction, there can, at least, be no
doubt of the terrible wrong done to the in-
ventor. During the eleven years that his
patents lasted, while in the hands of the
Government, the profits must have exceeded
200.0001., yet his children are now penniless,
while notorious public delinquents left large
sums to their posterity.

The moralists tell us that virtue is its own
reward. Public virtue, we presume, is an ex-
ception. Science devoted to the public is
certainly its own punishment. Mr. CORT, for
saving to this country an outlay of 500,000,000/.,
was mulcted in the sum of 240,0001.; for he
lost a considerable private fortune in addition
to the profits of this discovery. And gentle-
men under whose management 200,000/ dis-
appeared from the public accounts, were
rewarded to nearly as great an extent as Mr.
CORT was punished.
The concluding words of Mr. COAT'S petit
tion are as follows
Your petitioners, therefore, humbly pray that your
Honourable House will be pleased to institute such inquiry
as may lead to an adequate provision for their declining
years, a reward commensurate with the gratitude of a
great nation to its benefactor for having added to its
wealth five times the cost of the late war, and saving be-
sides sixty millions yearly (a sum progressing and in-
creasing) ; that when rewards and honours are scattered
with liberal hand, and festivities inctituted to celebrate
peace, it may no longer go forth to the world, and be re
echoed by foreign tongues, that the Government of the
British empire have underrated for more than half a ctn.
tury, the services of one who has so prodigiously enriched
his own country by leaving two of his aged daughters to
exist on small pensions of only 191. per annum each ; and
his only surviving son. your petitioner, with one other
daughter wholly destitute of any pension whatever.
We sincerely hope that this inquiry will be
accorded. The question has now gained a
publicity which makes it as important to the
country to prove the falsehood of Mr. Coax's
statement, it' false, as for Mr. CORT'S children
to prove it true. Let us either make restitu-
tion manfully, or relieve ourselves at once
from the stigma of such treachery and in.
justice as the annals of State corruption would
be hard pressed to rival.

1108

Sortipt C,orrcspalOtate.

BRUSSELS, Nov. 20.
BRUSSELS is as a city of the dead. Nu pulse extra-
ordinary stirs the phlegmatic Belgian—semi-
Flemish, semi-Brabancon—save the irritation con-
sequent on the sight of an Englishman. It is
passing strange that the country which upholds,
singly and solely, the representative systems of
Belgium and Sardinia, should iu the case of the

former meet at its hands abuse from the public
journals, social discourtesies by word and deed from
the higher classes, and unbounded insolence from
the bigot exclusives of the "part pretre." So it is.
Without diving far into the histories of human
motives, it may not be inapt to quote the words of a
German convert to Roman Catholicism, Frederic
Schlegel, reiterated in his " Philosophy of Life and
Philosophy of History," and say, " that it is sad to re-
cord the fact that hatred too often follows obligation."
In his comparison of man with brutes, the distin-
guished philosopher observes, that the abuses of
reason often degrade man beneath the honest
instinct of animals. In high contrast to these
underbred crudities is the personal attention and
kindness of the King and the Royal Family towards
the subjects of her Majesty of England. Uniform
and gracious have been their courtesies. It is
pleasing, therefore, to witness their satisfaction at
the approaching marriage of the Princess Charlotte
with the Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria.
There is a lingering sympathy for the house of
Austria in Belgium that will make this union ex-
remely popular. .
The priest party has met with a serious rebut in
the Belgian Chambers. M. Dedecker, Minister of
the Interior, proposed a slight alteration of tht,
address in answer to the King's speech. It was
adopted by the left, and not opposed by the priest
party of the right. One of the leaders of the latter
placing a Jesuitical construction on the proposed
words, a member of the left instantly denominated
this prevarication to be a shop policy, " pensie de
boutique" ; whereupon a shurp discussion ensued, in
which the bigots were utterly discomfited. The
Ministers MM. Dedecker and Vilain XIV. are
pursuing a straightforward and upright course of
conduct. Any other would imperil the Constitution.
The Emperor and Empress of Austria, with their
Court, accompanied by Sir Ham;lton Seymour, were
to leave Vienna for Milan on the 17th. As a mark
of conciliation the Emperor has re established the
central congregations of the Lombardo-Venetian
kingdom. In each of the nine provinces—Milan,
Como, Sondrio, Pavia, Lodi, Bergamo, Brescia,
Cremona, and Mantua—there are to be three repre-
sentatives,—the first for the landed territories of
the nobility, as it were a county member; the
second for the small towns to which titles are
annexed ; and the third for the chief town of the
district. As these members of the congregations are '
chosen by the Emperor without any reference to
popular election, the principle of representation be-
comes a farce. The eight Venetian provinces—
Venice, Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Rovigo, Treviso,
I3elluno, and Udino—have similar privileges. The
members have been chosen by the Emperor en-
tirely from the nobility who hitherto have been per-
sonally adverse to him on all occasions. It may
have the effect of conciliating a few, but these will
become mere recipients of imperial favour, and pas-
sive agents of Government.
A sign of greater promise consists in the engage-
ment entered into by the Sardinian Government with
Austria to continue the railroad from Turin to
Butfalora, within a short distance of &Man. Either
it must be construed as the herald of a new era of
conciliation on which the Emperor relies with confi•
dence, or it may contain a still deeper meaning.
The Sardinian Ministry is not free from disunion.
The pattisatv; of M. Cavour are violent in their
attacks on MM. Ratazzi and Lanza, but without in-
terfering with the general policy of the Ministry.
M. Gallenga has been pardoned by the King—an
act of policy which ought to be generally acceptable.
Lord John Russell and Mr. Bright are busy-
ing themselves in ascertaining the true state of
Italian affairs, and perhaps Lord Tinto may be in-
duced to afford the advantage of his experience.
I'io Norm has reviewed his troops in person. Whilst
some large detachments were going through the usual
miluary evolutions in the open ground near the Ponte
Molle the Pope suddenly appeared in the midst of
them. His coming was perfectly unexpected, and
ire was received with great enthusiasm. They de•
*led before him, and were complimented with an
especial benediction.

C. A. H.

THE PRESS.

$o reign and Colonial ,(nttiligenre.

FRANCE.

A Council of Ministers was held on Wednesday at
St. Cloud. The Emperor presided in person.
The Marquis Antonini, the Neapolitan Ambas•
sador, leaves Paris this day. M. Walewski has in-
timated to his Excellency that his passports are at
his disposal during the " interruption" of the official
relations between the two Governments.

The Moniteur of Wednesday contained a detailed
account of the arrival and reception at Rome of
General Goyon, the new commander in-chief of the
French division. General Montreal has returned to
Paris.

The Emperor gave an audience on Sunday to the
Baron de Holmfeld, who presented to his Majesty
letters accrediting him as Envoy Extraordinary and
Minister Plenipotentiary to the King of Denmark.
The Constitutionnel of the 17th contained a curious
article upon the foreign policy of France. After
protesting against the attacks of the English press,
the Constitutionnel praises the disinterested modera-
tion of the Emperor throughout the war, and
concludes:—

These things should not be forgotten; and if they were
not forgotten, if people did not forget the manifest proofs of
the energy and loyalty of a policy which, while feeling
itself strong enough to be calm and moderate, has never
failed in any real duty, in any honourable engagement,
or in any really serious matter, they would no more fear
its weakness in the East than its violence in Italy, and its
adversaries of all camps and of all countries might have
spared Europe the afflicting spectacle of these po'enriics, as
foolish, as irritating, which agitate public opinion for
nothing.
General Dufour, the Swiss Envoy, has had several
conferences with Count Walewski on the affairs of
Neufchatel.

Prince Frederick William of Prussia is expected
shortly in Paris.
The IndiTendance Belge says that M. de Morny
has been recalled from St. Petersburg; some of the
count's horses, carriages, and furniture have already
a. rived at Havre.
The official returns of the customs revenue for
October show an increase of 3,033,404 f. on the
corresponding month of last year.