The Press.
London, England, 1854-09-09 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

sure ; within it, it is compelled to adhere
rigidly to all its stipulations.
Beyond the magic circle, torture may be,
and is, still largely used by subordinates,
to enforce confession of crime or pay-
ment of rent, being winked at by many
local officers, though it is prohibited by
the regulations ; while within the circle
any one attempting to use torture to a prisoner
or debtor, on any pretence, would soon find
himself In irons.
In short, beyond the magic circle, the
only real law is the Government's will
and pleasure . while within it, all those
checks exist which, even if the governors and
their subordinates were angels, would still be
found necessary to ensure security, and its
consequences—public confidence, social do
velopment, and commercial prosperity and
wealth. Accordingly, we see within the magic
circles the whole district to be a perfect nest of
riches, comfort, and independence ; while such
large portions of India beyond them are pic-
tures of misery, misrule, and discontent.
The original intention of the Legislature
was that the Company should always, and
throughout its entire dominions, be subjected
to this wholesome and most necessary check—
a check that would still leave it as much
power as is possessed by the Crown of
England—a power surely sufficient, more es-
pecially considering the hands in which it is
placed. The infamous conduct of IMPEY, how-
ever, led the friends of India to attach less
weight in the outset than they should have
done to the importance of this check, and the
Company were in consequence ably afterwards
to munceuvre so as to confine its operation to
the narrow circles around the cities of Bombay,
Madras, and Calcutta, over which it then exer
(Amid sovereign sway. To this narrow circum-
scription of the jurisdiction of these Supreme
Courts we owe the contrasts that in India
everywhere meet us—of misery and injustice
in the provinces, and wealth and confidence at
the Presidencies. This is the great cause of
the discrepancy between the sufferings of the
wretched ryot, and the prayers offered for us
by the wealthy and contented Hindoos and
Parsees. In the latter case all the blessings
which the supplicants to the Deity feel grate-
ful for are blessings derived exclusively from
the Crown ; in the former case all the miseries
sustained are miseries inflicted entirely by the
system of the Company—a system of which
the evils are greatly aggravated by the absence
of all proper control on the part of Sir CHARLES
Woon.

ARCHDEACON WILBERFORCE
THE following correspondence has been made
public within the last few days :
" Burton Agnes, Ang. 30, 1854.
"My Lord Archbishop,—The step which I now take
would have been taken somewhat sooner but for the ru-
mours that my work on the Holy Eucharist would be made
the subject of legal investigation. 1 find it difficult to
believe that the intention is seriously entertained, for the
warmest opponents of that work deny baptismal regenera-
tion, the priestly commission, and the validity of absolution.
Now, these doctrines are so positively affirmed in the formu-
laries of our Church that for one passage in them which
presents difficulties in my system there are hundreds by
which that of my opponents is plainly contradicted.
I oan hardly imagine that they desire a rigour in in-
terpreting our formularies which must be fatal to them-
selves. But I should have felt it due, both to my opinions
and to those who shared them, to defend myself to the
utmost against such an assault. My book, however, has now
been nearly a year and four months before the public, and
no legal proceedings, so far as I know, have been com-
menced. And in the meantime my attention has been
drawn to another part of our Church's system, with which
I have become painfully conscious that I can no longer
concur. I refer to the royal supremacy. lam as ready as
ever to allow her Majesty to be supreme over all persona,
and in all temporal causes, within her dominions, and shall
always render her, 1 trust, a loyal obedience ; but that she,
or any other temporal ruler, is supreme in all things or
causes I can no longer admit. If the act of 1832 were all
on which my difficulties were founded, I might justify
myself, as I have heretofore done, by the consideration that
it was probably passed through inadvertence, and had re-
ceived no formal sanction from the Church. But my pre-
sent objection extends to the act of 1533, by which this
power was bestowed upon the King in Chancery, and to
the Ist article in the 86th canon, which is founded upon it.
With the grounds of my objection I need not trouble your
grace, though I shall shortly state them to the public
through the press. To your grace, however, I desire to
state, that I recal my subscription to the Ist article in the
36th canon, as believing it to be contrary to the law of
God. It remains, of course, that I should offer to divest myself
of the trusts and preferments of which this subscription

1

SATURDAY,

was a condition; and put myself, so fares it is possible, into
the condition of a mere lay member of the Church. I
therefore tender my resignation to your grace.—l remain,
my lord archbishop, your grace's obedient servant,
ROBERT I. WILBERFORCE.
" To his Grace the Lord Archbishop of York."
" Bishopstborpe, York, August 31, 1854.
" My dear cannot affect to be at all surprised at
the contents of your letter just received. It is not neces•
nary for me now to enter upon a discussion of the questions
alluded to in your letter. But, ea far as by law I may, I
accept of your resignation of the preferments you hold in
the diocese of York. You arc aware, however, that, in or•
der to give lull legal effect to your intentions, a formal re•
signation should be made before myself in person, or before
a notary public. With every feeling of personal respect
and esteem, 1 remain, my dear sir, your faithful servant,
" T. Esoa
" The Rev. R. I. Wilberforce."
- - -

After the specimens of the Archdeacon's
teaching which we set before our readers in
the PRESS of last Saturday, we cannot affect to
regret that, by a voluntary resignation of his
offices, he has saved the Church from the pain
and scandal of a judicial conflict on one of the
most sacred of her doctrines. We do not
exactly understand the archidiaconal logic, it
is true. How Mr. WILBERFORCE "finds it diffi-
" cult to believe" that he is to be brought to
account for holding Romish doctrine because
somebody else doesn't hold something or
other ; or what the royal supremacy has to do
with his work on the Eucharist ; or why, if lie
" should have felt it due," &c. &c., " to defend
" himself to the utmost against an assault" on
his book, he now runs away just when the as-
sault is about to be made, we do not quite
comprehend. However, the conclusion is satis-
factory—never mind the premises. We are
promised in a few days " An Enquiry into the
Principles of Church Authority ; or, Reasons
for Withdrawing my Subscription to the Royal
Supremacy," and can afford to wait for them
with much equanimity. The "mere lay mem-
" bers of the Church," who are " merely" nine
hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand
in her communion, may not, perhaps, be much
flattered at the tone of their new conscript's
accession ; but the archdeacoury will be deli-
vered from some wearisome annual charges
and perpetual meddling and vexation, while
the Church will no longer appear to sanction
writings which (we are told by the Romanist
organ) " teach the full Roman doctrine" ou
one of the great questions of the Reformation.
If Mr. WILBERFORCE imagines that "lay com-
munion" will long satisfy any one who has
been active and zealous in the ministry of the
Church, he either knows less of human nature,
or has been less active in the duties of his pro-
fession than at present we give him credit for.
He will add another to the melancholy list of
Cardinal WISEMAN'S conquests before long.
That the Archdeacon of TAUNTON, who has
sinned at least as deeply against the Church's
doctrine, and far more perseveringly against
her peace, will follow the good example set him
by his colleague of the East Riding, we have
no great hope. But, in any case, her duty, and
our own as Protestants, is plain. The half-
dozen Romanisers who for the last ten years
have been making such perpetual experiments
on her forbearance must be put in their right
place, and promptly. Were this element of
mischief once eliminated, there is nothing to
hinder the revival of that congenial Protestant
Conservatism in the Church which the well-
being of the State, no less than the peace and
progress of the Church herself, demands.

TREATMENT OF CHOLERA•

WHEN that malignant disease which we term
cholera first appeared in India, the question
was much debated whether it would totally
disappear when its rage expired, or whether
it would remain as a permanent type of
disease in the countries it had once visited.
The experience of seven and thirty years
shows that, whatever may be its nature or
predisposing cause, it has obtained some
lasting hold of human organism, and that we
must deal with it as with an enemy that is
always lurking in secret to attack us. If,
breaking from its ambush, it takes us unawares,
we are at its mercy. Much may be done to
prevent, little to resist, it. The sanitary ma-

SEPTEMBER 9, 1854.

chinery called into action by its actual pre-
sence may inspire confidence and gratify our
sense of duty, but, we fear, can have little
effect in arresting its ravages. The appoint-
ment of medical commissions, with all other
measures inspired by a sense of danger, comes
too late to eradicate the seeds of mortality
which the pestilence has been suffered to sow
without heed. It is to be feared that the very
steps taken to mitigate its virulence may but
rouse it to new fury, just as fire is nourished
by stirring.
- - -

Of all physical laws, those connected with
pestilence are the most awful and mysterious.
Science has yet done nothing to elucidate
them, though we can trace in their operations
a kind of order and regularity, showing that
they work by rule, and have their parts as-
signed them in the economy of nature. The
progress of the cholera at present is much
like its progress in 1849. We see some broad
features of resemblance, but, when we attempt
to systematise, we meet with conditions which
no theory will satisfy. Till within these last
few days it was conceived that the low-lying
districts of the metropolis were most exposed
to the pest ; but the outbreak in the neigh
bourhood of Golden-square, which, from its
elevation, should be a healthy district, warns us
that no absolute reliance can be placed upon this
principle, rational as it appears. It has been
suggested that the disturbance of the ground
for the construction of sewers may have origin-
ated the pest. Strange facts are revealed
when the soil on which our thickly-populated
streets are built is broken. It was said that
this excavation ran through the ground used
for a huge burial pit at the Limo of the great
plague ; but the fact does not appear to be so.
Great Marlborough street stands on that site,
and when, some time ago, the ground was
broken, the earth was found to be black and
foul, and the soil was hastily replaced. Yet
the outbreak of pestilence in immediate prox-
imity to this great plague-sepulchre suggests
some connection between the two, more espe-
cially as the ground will long retain infection
in its bosom.

Scarcely yet has one point been settled as
to the causes, nature, or treatment of this great
pestilence of modern times. Its title is a mis-
nomer. Derived from xoxel, bile, and pew, to
flow, the evacuations are remarkably destitute
of bile. We know not yet in what element it
specially resides—whether it floats in the air,
or issues from the earth, or is contained in
water—whether or no it be contagious—whe-
ther it primarily affects the blood, the brain,
or the bowels. In this uncertainty, all kinds
of nostrums are confidently put forward as
certain remedies. One fool recommends salt,
another ice, while medical men seem pretty
equally divided between opium and castor oil.
The College of Physicians is silent, and the
Board of Health has no more sensible advice
to give than "live just as usual, and don't be
" alarmed,"—advice which can very little com-
fort the poor, panic-stricken inhabitants of an
infected district.

In what are termed the premonitory stages
cholera medical aid may do much; but,
when we are told that the disorder, as a
general rule, is amenable to medical treatment,
we are compelled to look at ugly facts which
negative the assertion. In a vast number of
cases, and in most of the fatal ones, there are
no premonitory symptoms. The patient is
seized with sudden prostration, nature has
scarcely power to make an effort to throw off
the disorder, and dissolution ensues as surely
as from the most virulent of poisons. There
are cases in which the victim has died within
an hour from the first seizure ; and commonly
the disease runs its course in from six to
eight hours. In these cases medical skill is
powerless—it scarcely attempts a remedy. The
prescribed modes of treatment are clearly
useless, and it becomes a question whether, if
but as an experiment, some more energetic
course might not be advisable. Diseases, in
translation from one country to another, may
be modified in form, yet in the case of cholera
the Asiatic type is marked among us with
sufficient distinctness to raise a presumption
that the treatment which proved most success-
ful in the country of its birth may be tried
here with some hope of favourable results.