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

THE PRESS.

has lately, we believe, proposed to give up some part of the revenues
of his chair, which amount to 1,0001., to augment the poorer professor-
ships. We cougratulato the Premier on having such good men to
choose from.

The electors of Hull seem singled out for victimisation by the
jackals of politics. First comes that ardent and sincere Liberal Mr.
EDwIN JAMES, the mention of whose name in connection with the
Solicitor-Generalship was an insult to the legal profession—a mere
Nisi Prins tumbler, and one of the very few Queen's Counsel whom
the benchers of his time have resolutely refused to elect. First comes
this eloquent patriot with a farrago of Liberalism, enough to bewilder
an ordinary practical statesman, and on his retirement to Southampton,
where he has been endeavouring to prove that in the whole cycle of politics
there is no question on which his own opinion would not be more valua-
ble than that of any other man, forward comes Mr. JAMES CLAY, with a
wink and a smirk, after dodging the " Corrupt Practices at Elections "
Act, and announces himself as a candidate for the suffrages of this
free and enlightened borough. Having been unseated for bribery
once, the public would have supposed him incapable of re-entering the
present Parliament; but, through a cheery flaw in the Act above
mentioned, he is ready to creep in again with undiminished confidence
in himself. The Act in question, as a correspondent has explained to
us, practically repealed for the present the provisions of the sth and 6th
of Victoria, by enacting that whoso shall be guilty of bribery, shall &c., &c.
Thus Mr. CLAY'S bribery having been proved before the Act was passed,
instead of after, is not affected by its regulations. A piece of corrup-
tion, which was one of the main causes of the Act being passed at all,
is by that very Act transmuted into purity. Mr CLAY has been re-
leased from the consequences of his actions by a law intended to
make those consequences more stringent., and he now comes forward
with rather the air of an injured man who had been kept out of his
rights. But we live in an age of fraud, political, commercial, and
religious, and it is useless to complain of what is now, in some shapo
or other, an almost every-day occurrence.

In SwiFr's works there is an erratum quoted from Faulkner's Dublin
Journal:—" for' Her Grace the Duke,' read 'His Grace the Duchess.' "
A ridiculous correction of the same kind has appeared in the Globe.
In endeavouring to rectify a statement in our columns, the Globe has
committed two original blunders of its own. We never said that
Colonel KEOGH was " a violent Roman Catholic." We inferred that the
gallant officer was of the Romanist persuasion in religion on account
of the peculiar way in which that gentleman was alluded to by persons
at the last Carlow election. Any English journalist would be war-
ranted in draWing the same conclusion, but we shall not print
extracts to justify us. as we would then, perhaps, be reflecting
on high official persons not now before the public. Let
the correction stand—" In place of the Honourable Mr. FFRENCH
(a Roman Catholic), Lord CARLISLE has appointed Lieutenant-Colonel
KEOGH, one of the Liberal Protestants of Carlow." Just at the present
time it shows much temerity in the Globe to stir the mud of " Sad-
leirism." It was only the other day that the unseemly spectacle was
seen of two Irish judges—one a " Liberal Protestant," and the other a
" Roman Catholic"—canvassing for promotion. In support of the
claims of the latter, official aid, not unconnected with Carlow elec-
tioneering, was employed ; and if the Globe would refer to the " special
authority" before which it bows, " well-informed Irish friends" might
advise it to keep clear of " Carlow Catholics," whether in or out of
office. Thus the Globe has been doubly wrong : first, in reporting lan-
guage of THE PRESS never used by us ; and secondly, in raking up
recollections which are annoying to its own supporters.