The Press.
London, England, 1857-09-19 00:00:00

rHE PRESS, SEPTEMBER 19, 1857.

" Parliamentary Borough, in each County, in the United Kingdom, and
" of the Population of each Parliamentary Borough, within each
" County, from the Census of 1851." These returns are of great
importance in many respects, and must be carefully studied in order
to understand the present state of the electoral question with which
the new Reform Bill announced by Ministers will have to deal.

Mr. HENLEY'S speech of last week, amid much that is excellent
and valuable, contains one or two statements that we think are
perhaps open to comment. In thinking that interest in the Indian
mutiny will swamp all discussion on Reform, Mr. HENLEY hardly
allows sufficient weight to the progress of events on the ono hand,
and the fickleness of human nature on the other. Before Christmas
the mutineers will in all probability have exhausted their power
to murder, torture, and ravish as they have done for
the last three months. As soon, then, as the struggle shall have assumed
the aspect of an ordinary war on which success is only a question of
time, the public mind is certain to cool down, and to revert to subjects
of permanent interest. Under any circumstances the people like
change, and were beginning even to get tired of Sebastopol, where the
uncertainty was much greater, before its final capture. We fear, too
that Mr. HENLEY'S congratulations upon the rebels remaining at
Delhi is somewhat premature. They stay there now, it is true,
because they have nothing to fear; but who can suppose them
so infatuated, so long as egress is possible, as quietly to wait while a
hostile force surrounds them? Of course they will " walk out " at one
side when there is any tidings of an English army approaching on
the other. We fear that they know too well the importance of their
concentration to us, and of their diffusion at the right moment to
themselves.

The recent accident on the North Kent Railway is one of those
events that seem for the moment to justify the prejudices of WELLING-
Tort and SIBTHORPE. Twelve persons were killed by it. Now, no coach
accident that we have ever heard of came up to this, and we should
doubt if as many persons were killed in fifty yeirs who could afford
the expense of posting. The appalling feature in these railway colli-
sions is, Cis seeming impossibility, we do not say of preventing them,
but of even diminishing their frequency. Not very long
ago the columns of the limes were periodically occupied by the recom
mendations of " A Railway Director," whose plans it has always
seemed to us were certainl.y worth the trial. But when we come to
read carefully the evidence adduced at the trial of the officials con-
cerned in the Lewisham catastrophe, we cannot for the life of us com-
prehend how the most perfect system can insure safety till three or
four station-masters, whether innocent or guilty, have been hanged.We
are confronted in every second or third paragraph with statements of
precautions expected to be taken, and admissions in the same breath
that the witnesses did not take thorn. We really eannot tell how the
case may be. We read the evidence purely as outsiders. But it does
certainly seem strange to be told that one servant looks out, for a
signal, on which the lives of a whole cargo may depend, when
" not otherwise occupied," and that another has so much to do
that he really cannot attend to telegraphic messages. Good
heavens ! aro these the people to whom we are perpetually
incrusting the custody of our life and limbs? Aro these the people to
whom we pay the extortionate second-class fares? and is this
the meaning of those well-worded periods delivered by managers and
shareholders at railway meetings, to the effect " that greater economy
" should be introduced into the management of the line"?
Why, if the guard cannot attend to the signals, nor
the station-master to the telegraph, do we not have somebody
else who can? Never mind the name. Let the station-master and
guard attend to their various and overwhelming avocations, but in the
name of mercy let us have an intelligent boy attached to each, who,
for a very trifling remuneration, might save the lives of hundreds.

A vast amount of twaddle has been talked about the want of
organisation exhibited in the Indian rebellion. In the plenitude
of stupid confidence the Sepoys are called a set of impulsive
mutineers, who rise one after the other, from the mere force of
example, without an object but plunder, and with no trace of secret
and combined influence. We beg to put the Dinapore mutiny to these
wiseacres. Here are four regiments which a short time since, when
Allahabad and Benares were full of British troops, assisted to suppress
a revolt at Patna, and cheerfully offered their services to hang a few of
their own brethren. A few weeks later, when Allahabad and Benares,
denuded of British troops, are at the mercy of the nearest mutineers,
and when the tranquillity of the towns is of vital consequence to us
for the transmission of reinforcements to General HAVELOCK—in a
word, at the most critical moment to us for the peace and possession
of that particular district, these four regiments, on preliminary
symptoms simmering at Benares, revolt and march straight off
for that city and Alh►habad. Is there nothing here of secret organisa-
tion ? We need not multiply instances. The conduct of the troops
on each occasion, from Meerut to Dinapore, shows every evidence of
combination, conspiracy, and design. The htct at last is forcing itself upon
all that this is no military mutiny we have to master, but a national revolt.
Hindoo, Nlahratta, and Maho►nedan. prince, proprietor, and peasant,
are all against us in their hearts, if their hands are less earnestly em-
ployed. " The English," said the mutineers at Indore, " have lost
" their raj from pride and faithlessness." That is the feeling which
animates these men, flushed witl► the vigour of a bloody rebellion, and
determined to encounter ev:Ty hazard than onbiuit to it dominion theS
detest.

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