The Express.
London, England, 1852-09-22 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 22.

TUE triumphs of the old Romans were ceremonies
which in • most especial manner brought before the
public eye an illustration of the last height to which
the national glory had been elevated. The Roman,
as he gazed upon the interminable procession wind-
ing through the broad streets. saw in each succeeding
feature of the scene some visible image of the great
drama. the catastrophe of which was signalised by
the triumphal cortege. Every division in the long
line bad its own peculiar meaning. The history of a
campaign was written in sensible images in the
great ceremonial.
Now we moderns have very wisely abandoned, in
most instance*, these ancient modes of appealing to
the senses. There are so many means of communi-
cating with the intellect without the cumbrous in-
terposition of pictorial or ceremonial illustrations,
that the latter means have fallen in some measure
into neglect. Instead of being summoned, as in
classical times, to the agora or the forum to listen to
the herald telling, as of some event of national im-
portance, we are made acquainted with the fact in
the columns of our morning paper. Events are com-
municated by lightning to the great central depot of
news, and then transmitted with almost the speed
of lightning along innumerable radii to all the points
of our national circle. The press, in fact, is the great
teacher which tells us more than ever we could learn
through the clumsy agency of the agora or the
forum, and which acts far more powerfully upon the
national heart than any mere machinery of procession
or triumph. What public, material 'demonstration
could hive raised such an interest in the hearts of
Englishmen, as the powerful appeals to their sym-
pathies which have been made during the last week
by the newspaper press ?
Nevertheless there arc times when the mind is
dissatisfied unless the armies as well as the intellect
are appealed to. And such is the case with respect
to the funeral of WELLINGTON. The national feel-
ing requires sonic more definite mode of expression
than that which is accomplished by the pen. We
wish to see the last of the man who has accumulated
in his own person the history of an age.
Let it bo understood, then, that the Duke of WEL-
LINGTON is to have • public funeral, because the
greatness of his deeds, and their influence upon the
welfare of the nation, were such that the pub-
lic cannot rest satisfied unless it participates
in the ceremony which removes tho hero
finally from the scene of his labours. This
consideration will be sufficient surely to guard us
from many mistakes into which an ill-judged perusal
of a few precedents might lead us. There arc, as we
have said before, so few precedents to guide us that
there can be no reason alleged why we should be
bound by them, further than they are coincident with
the dictates of propriety. The funeral of NONE,
neither a great soldier, nor a great or good man, who
obtained a place in history solely because he was
able, by • piece of lucky treachery, to place a
worthless prince upon a throne, can be no
model for the funeral of WELLixGrox, un-
less, indeed, a public funeral be, what we
assert that it ought not to be—a mere business shared
between the herald and the undertaker. NELSON'S
funeral is the one to which we might natu-
rally look back ; but we must remember that NELSON
was emphatically a warrior, and little more; and
that his enotempornries connected him with nothing
but his victories. He was indeed the highest, the
most glorious, representative of England's daring
and maritime supremacy; but his merits were almost
exclusively professional. Those who witnessed his
funeral were absorbed in the mere contemplation
of his victories. The funeral was that of • warrior—
and a warrior alone. Now the Dcxx was not merely
a warrior, he was oi 'statesman. Those who have
differed from him most widely have recognised never-
theless that his views were adopted as the result of
high principle and mature consideration. He was
the repressatative of a large and powerful element
in the Was. and his conscientious struggles to main-
taut dsr that element what he considered its due
supremacy were treated with chivalrous deference
by biseteadiest adversaries. The political history of
tie bet 40 years cannot be written without the name
of WmuicnroN appearing as a prominent feature.
If his political partisans loved him, his political
advenanes admired him, lie is, therefore, national
property. The nation must bury him. The nation
most be the chief mourner. Oarter-ffing-at-Arms,
with all his piebald brethren, damp with mediarval
dew and dazzling with obsolete splendour, may strut
as a fragmentary portion of the procession, but they
must be subservient to the great object in view, the
esadoeting to his last home a great hero, by a grate-
ful aad sorrowing nation. Let this be carefully
berme in mind by those who hare the arrange-
swab of the solemn ceremony committed to
them. Every detail should be so ordered, that
the nation at large should be enabled to participate.
We must not be elbowed out of our rights by a
clique, however aristocratical it may be.
The Dear will, of course, lie in state. A place,
therefore, must be chosen which will afford the
greatest fseilities for large numbers to be present.
Why should not Westminster Hall be selected ? It
is one of oar noblest public buildings. It is coo-
meted with so may of the great events in erstl
national life. that its hiatcry would easigla
• large portion all the history of the Indus
No more tittles lipsliggy of the eWpe
of one who will occupy ge peohint a place is oar
history as " the Mat *NS be d than this. Wm
vastness of the hall—the gnats's of its lidoial
associations—the presence of the bolirdeollholins
deceased—would combine to make is bpi
upon the minds of the spectators that Wadi &lag
be an historical education of itself. Aul, affewfer,
the great covered space there alone to be hand
would satisfy the great demand sure to be ash by
public curiosity.
Opinion may vary as to the respective claims of St.
Paul's and Westminster as the place of sepulture.
Apart, however, from all other considerations,
there are two reasons which, as we before
urged, plead powerfully in favour of the
former—the greater length of the lino through
which the procession would pass, and the greater
epee for the reception of those who attended to wit-
ness the last rites. Every other consideration must
yield to that of making the ceremony a national tri-
bute of respect to the departed hero, and this in-
volves the necessity of affording the greatest
pos-
sible facility for numbers to view the procession. For
this purpose the long line of street from Charing-
cross to St. Paul's seems admirably adapted. It is
scarcely necessary. to remark, that St. Paul's affords
more accommodation within its walls than any other

ecclesiastical building in London.
Again, we urge upon those to whom the ordering
of the ceremony is entrusted, to emancipate them-
selves from heralds and undertakers, and Gentlemen's
Magazines. Let the last rites of the greatest soldier
whom England has seen—who at ono time controlled
the destinies of Europe—be such as to tell the spec-
tator in mute, but expressive ceremonial, something
of the solemn history of him who is being carried to
the tomb. Let all unnecessary tinsel and gewgaw
be banished, and nothing be retained that will tend
to disturb the mournful grardi ur of a spectacle, the
remembrance of which will never depart from the
minds of the spectators.

IT is with a mixture of satisfaction and surprise
that persons imperfectly acquainted with the actual
position of English husbandry have observed the in-
creasing interest with which farmers regard new ap-
plications of machinery to the processes of agricul-
ture. Thus it is that the roping machine has
created a sensation in rural circles, of which many
supposed the agricultural mind was scarcely capable
on any topic hie exciting than the price of wheat,
artd the means of making other people pay a high
scarcity price, through protection. Fortunately,
competition is letting a flood of light into the minds
of agriculturists, and they begin to sec that their

hominess is governed by the same economical laws
which control the rest of ear industrious avocations.
They find that he whoa= ealtivate hie fares with
the mat perfect instruments, and can apply the
greatest amount of skill and capital will, all else
being equal, make the most money. Of the exten-
sive perception of such truths amongst farmers, let
the wonderful increase of mechanical and steam
powers, in substitution for manual and horse labour,
which is taking place throughout the agrieul-
turaldistricts,tell. And this increase is coincident with
a diminished supply of manual labour; though in
fact increased employ meat of machinery and steam
power in husbandry, leads directly and indirectly to
a greater demand for human labour. Thwe
is, however, • great difference in the kind of
labour required. On an old-fashioned, routine-
managed farm the manual labour employed is'
chiefly unskilled; mere muscle, to use the spade, the
chaff-cutter, the flail, or the hoe, alone is needed.
Mind, activity, intelligence in the labourer go for
very little, and consequently his wages are low.
On an improved form,w here machines and steam power
arc used as much as possible in the place of manual
labour, the workmen employed are every. day be-
coming more and more skilled labourers; judgment,
dexterity, and self-reliance are required from them,
and their wages tend to advance in proportion
as they have something to offer in exchange for
wages, better than mere animal force. This is fully
appreciated by the agricultural labourers, and wo
firmly believe that the days of machine breaking
and hostility to improved implements are as com-
pletely gone from our agricultural as from the ma-
nufacturing districts. Ignorance there still is in
lamentable abundance, but the circumstances of the
times, and the efforts of farmers to help themselves,
are doing much for the industrial education of our
farm labourers.

Amongst the reports of the jurors of the Great
Exhibition whichhave lately appeared in ourcolumna
that which relates to agricultural implements is, in
a national point of view, by no means the least in-
teresting. That report tells us that within the last
twelve months the efforts of agricultural mechanists
in improving old implements and devising new ones,
"have been so far successful, as in all the main
branches of farming labour, taken together, to effect
a saving on outgoings of little less than one-half."
Here then we ire that the saving in the cost of
production, relatively to the amount produced, which
has been the main element of the vast success
attained by our manufacturers, has already been
largely brought to bear on the cultivation of the soil.
This is the principle which must henceforth govern
English husbandry. Here we find the finger-post
pointing the only road to successful farming. And
there is no other. Fanners must not, as many of
them do, grow large cropsat a cost disproportioned to
the ultimate value of their produce, for they will bo
driven out of the field by their neighbours, who,
availing themselves of mechanical aids, are enabled
to undersell them; or, what is the same thing, to pay
rents which men who adhere to obsolete practices
cannot continue to pay. So neither will it do
to apply the improved and costly machinery to un-
improved farms, where undrained land, ill-contrived
buildings, or the burdens of timber, superabundant
hedgerows, and game, render it impossible to grow •
anything beyond very moderate crops. On such
farms mechanical aids and attempts to farm highly
will only be money thrown away and labour lost.
How much of co-operation, then, is reouired between
landlords and tenants to carry into effect the clearly
manifested principles of modern husbandry ? We
find this strongly insisted on by the Juror's Report,
which says, " that the new implements require a
new system." Of what use is it to use the drill if
the horse-boo does not follow, or why continue to use
the plough previously, which the drill may have
rendered superfluous? The reformation and re-
arrangement of old practices and operations in hus-
bandry which the new machinery has rendered prac-
ticable, must be thorough, and complete. There
must be no hesitations or compromises. The farmer
who fears to go ahead, according to the nature of his
soil and climate, will do well to consider what are
his chances of profit when in competition with those
who avail themselves of modern advantages and
improvements. Occupiers whose landlords ant unable
or unwilling to make the additions of fixed capital
and permanent improvements on their estates, which
are so notoriously required, should at once look out
for fresh farms; and in their new takings they should
firmly insist on rational leases, and the entire aban-
donment of all those semi-feudal regulations and re-
servations landed proprietors so frequently cling to.
Henceforth agriculture must advance, if it advance
at all, by increasing the amount of production and
reducing its cost, and this can only be accomplished
through the application of capital under the guidance
of practical and scientific knowledge. And land-
owners must cease to oppose, by their pre-
judices, obstacles to agricultural progress; nay
more, they mast assist it by dealing with their land
on sound commercial principles. Tho proprietor of
farms he cannot improve must be content with low
rents,—if he can get any rent at all ; tho land-
lord who has received rent for land half over-
shadowed by timber, must consider whether the
slow returns from a timber plantation or the rent
from farming land will pay him best, for he gannet
have both; and the gams preserver must take his
choice between the profitableness of rent and the
barbarous enjoyments of the battue, for assuredly
the modern farmer cannot plough and sow, and pay
rent, when the landlord retains the right to stock
the farm with game.