The Press.
London, England, 1858-09-11 00:00:00

THE PRESS, SEPTEMBER 11, 1858

inn the press and the people, he at last presented his de-
lighted audience with no less than six of these important entities.
There was indeed a slight confusion in the Hon. Member's statement,
seeing that the " three estates of the realm" are not Queen, Lords, and
Commons, but the Lords spiritual and temporal and the Commons. But
what of that ? The speaker's intentions were equally good, and were
listened to with equal enthusiasm. Now, to recur to our original remark,
it is precisely upon such occasions as these that the more amiable half of
the Englishman is displayed ; and by comparing this with the other half of
his character, we gain a fair insight into that strange mixture of bad logic
and sound sense which constitutes British public opinion. The Briton
grumbles at everything about him on principle, and loves everything
about him by instinct. Ile grumbles at the parson, he grumbles at the
mayor, he grumbles at the chairman of quarter sessions; but let him once
be fairly asked for his opinion of the systems they represent, and a burst of
enthusiasm follows. It is as well, therefore, that every now and then an
opportunity should be afforded him of publishing these sentiments to the
world, and of correcting the acidity of Parliamentary debates by a little
generous sentimental ardour.

It is impossible to peruse without emotion the dignified and touching
language in which the Duchess of ORLEANS has couched her last bequest
to her children. The solemnity of her exhortations to them is in propor-
tion to the strength of the faith she possesses in their destiny. In her eyes
they are still the future rulers of France ; and, considering the experience
of the past, she may be excused for believing that when their country
amain shall become desirous of constitutional government, it is to them
that she will naturally recur. Different dynasties are frequently associated
with some particular idea. In France the Count DE CHAMBORD and the
Count DE PARIS are now respectively the representatives of legitimacy and
constitutionalism, as the STCARTS and the Giimmis were in England.
But in France that has happened which fortunately for us did not take
place in this country : not only one, but both kinds of monarchy, have
proved unequal to the difficulties of government. And thus not only have
the descendants of Louts PHILIPPE their natural rival to contend with in
the representative of hereditary right, but also the principles of democracy
and imperialism, both developed through the errors of the House of
Bourbon. The fatal fact that the wisdom of their grandfather "on
which France relied for the consolidation of a Liberal monarchy, turned
to foolishness when confronted with a crisis, must always be a powerful
impediment to the pretensions of the Orleanist Princes. The present
Emperor of the FRENCH is believed to possess liberal inclinations : in
addition to these he clearly is master of that vigour and
promptitude in which the Citizen King was deficient. May not the
constitutional party gradually begin to see in this combination of
qualities a better guarantee for the ultimate welfare of France than in the
restoration of the monarchy ? A constitutional empire is a phrase that
strikes strangely on our ears. But France has to all appearance entered
on a course of political experiments ; and why not that as well as others ?
Such an idea probably never occurred for one moment to the Duchess of
ORLEANS. Imbued as she naturally was with all the Orleanist traditions,
and beholding in the Emperor NAPOLEON nothing but the usurper of her
children's rights, she would have deserved our admiration less had she
appreciated his Government more. Yet the aspirations even of this high-
minded and truly royal lady must not be permitted to blind us to the
actual facts of the case. The promise of the House of Orleans has ever
been greater than its performances. Unsteadiness has been its besetting
sin. If there is one thing more than another which the present condition
of France demands from her rulers, it is unflinching determination of pur-
pose. Those who knew him used to say that the late Duke of ORLEANS
was possessed of this virtue. It may, of course, have descended to his
son. But that is at best but a probability. While in the character of her
present ruler it is perhaps the most conspicuous feature. In the next
place, it is most desirable for the French people that their
government, whatever it be, should acquire an clement of
permanence. The feverish condition of society can never be assuaged—
the severe vigilance of the Imperial regime can never be relaxed—until
something of prescriptive sanctity shall have grown up around the Govern-
ment. We ask our readers how far the periodical revival of the claims of
a rival dynasty can he conducive to that desirable result. This perpetual
reopening of old sores must for ever prevent the French people from
settling down into that frame of mind which alone is capable of constitu-
tional government. The comparison which has been instituted between
the functions of a rival French dynasty and those of our own Parlia-
mentary Opposition is more fanciful than just. When cur Parliamentary
Opposition was the advocate of a counter revolution, it might have borne
some resemblance to the situation of the House of Orleans. But at present,
although that family may perform the part of the Eastern monarch's slave
who reminded his master every morning that he was mortal, yet we must
remember that this service is eminently contradictory to our own English
maxim that the King never dies ; and strikes at the root of that stability
which is one of the first essentials towards the restoration of good order in
France.

Punctuality, order, courtesy, and capacity are administrative qualities
that seldom "in quaternion run," but when they do, they accelerate and
harmonize all things. Under the late Government public business was
mostly in a passive, impersonal, or reciprocal condition. Nobody attended to
it• It got transacted, or occasionally transacted itself. One department
was continually waiting for another. Time, as Mr. Toots would say,
was "of no consequence" ; it had always been so ; delay was universal

877

and traditional; and in the belief of some functionaries, the whole world,
AS in the liindoo scheme, seemed to be resting coldly and placidly on
the back of an official tortoise. Since the advent of the present Govern-
ment, a sensible, warm motion has pervaded the cold mass ; every one
seems to be conscious of the rate of time and the incapacity of business
suddenly to tranact itself; method and order have been everywhere
introduced, and the " manners," which WILLIAM of WYKEIIAM avers
generally " maketh man," have been held not incompatible with his par-
ticular position as the head or the limb of Government. To Lord
STANLEY we believe that the introduction of this business-like vigour
and alacrity into Government offices is mainly due. The brief report of
the meetings of the new Indian Council sensibly exhibits it. Everybody
arrives rather before than after the time ; and the President takes his
place half an hour before anybody else. Then there is a disposition rather
to act than to talk, and to divide the work so that it may be done in the
best, readiest, and most methodical manner.

We print in another column a petition relating to the dwellings of the
poor, to which we invite the attention of our readers. Curiously enough,
although its subject-matter was detailed at length by Lord 13aouGnAm
in the House of Lords, and, as fully as the forms of the House allowed, by
Mr. SLANEY in the Commons, no mention was made in the reports of the
Parliamentary proceedings in the newspapers that any such petition was
presented ; nor in the official report of the proceedings, signed by Mr.
Speaker, in which the presentation of such petitions is almost invariably
recorded, does any notice of it appear.

It is a delicate matter to question the decisions of our criminal
tribunals, and happily the trial by jury, justly esteemed one of the great
bulwarks of that liberty which is at once the pride and boast of English-
men, works so admirably that there is little necessity of appealing from the
verdict of the few to the bar of public opinion. That jurymen enter on
their duties with a full sense of their deep responsibility, and an earnest
desire to do justice between the Crown and the subject in criminal cases,
and between the litigating parties to civil suits, we conscientiously believe.
If error mark their decisions, it is the error of judgment, and jurors are
not more exempt from such mistakes than other men. The case of
KNIGHT, the cabman, is one in point. This man was indicted on Tuesday
at the Middlesex Sessions, for an assault, with a criminal intent, on MARY
CATHERINE BARRY, and with stealing from her person a purse containing
1/. 19s. 6d. in money, and certain articles of apparel. Stripped of legal
verbiage, the charge against the prisoner may be divided under two heads,
felony and simple larceny.
The facts on which the indictment was laid were shortly these :—The
prosecutrix, a servant at Ashley's-hotel, went in July last to see a lady at
Islington, and on her return rather late at night she hired a cab, of which
the prisoner was driver, to convey her home. On the way KNIGHT
induced her to take a glass of ale. Whether it was drugged or not there
was no evidence to prove ; but from the moment she swallowed it she lost
all consciousness, and recovered her senses on the following morning to
find herself in one of those dens of infamy in which this metropolis
abounds. It was established beyond all doubt that the prisoner had engaged
the room, and had brought the prosecutrix there, "so drunk that she could
" not stand, her head leaning on his shoulder." KNIGHT rummaged
her pockets, and relieved them of their contents, undertaking to be
answerable for them. This act of thoughtful foresight, considering the
character of the lodging which he had provided, was performed in the
presence of a young man named SMITH, who was a servant in the house.
Nay, more, KNIGHT impressed on the attendant the high respectability of
his young friend, and hinted at the advantages which would probably
accrue to those who treated her well. SMITH'S reply was characteristic—
" Well, if she is a respectable woman—and she looks one—this is not the
proper place to bring her to." This is the case, fully corroborated by other
evidence, which established the charge of robbery.
having proceeded so far, KNIGHT requested to be left alone with his
victim ; but in this he was foiled by the refusal of SMITH, who, though en-
gaged in a vile service, was not utterly. lost to all sense of right.
What was the motive which influenced the prisoner to prefer this request ?
He had already secured all that was valuable on the girl's person—his evil
mission was accomplished—and a criminal intent of a fouler crime could
alone have prevented his making off with his ill-gotten booty. The de-
fence was that SMITH and not KNIGHT was the perpetrator of the robbery
and the person who should have stood in the dock in the place of the ill-
used individual who had heaped all this trouble on his head by an act of
charity in procuring a night's lodging for a female, drunk or drugged as the
case may be, but decidedly, in police phraseology, " incapable." This defence
totally and deservedly failed. The Judge summed up, and the Jury
deliberated. The result was the acquittal of the prisoner for the felony
and his conviction for the larcency. In other words, they believed that
JOHN KNIGHT might commit the peccadilloes of a Fagan, but would shrink
from the crimes of a Tarquin. It was, howevei, somewhat unfortunate, as
regards the correctness of this estimate of Mr. KNIGHT'S character, that he
' was proved to have been the keeper of two infamous houses betbre he took
to the more laborious duty of cab-driving, which, by the way, is often ren-
t dered ancillary to his earlier and perhaps more congenial occupation.
The verdict, the propriety of which we cannot endorse, though we do not
question the intention of the Jury, has consigned the prisoner to imprison-
' ment for ten months—during which he may ruminate over the disasters
which attend the "unprotected female "—instead of to that peual servitude
which he 89 richly deserved,