The Press.
London, England, 1856-05-10 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

SATURDAY,

expenditure for the year ending the 31st of March last, independent of
all military and naval charges, amounted to 33,880,0001. This included
the interest on the Funded and Unfunded Debt, the Civil Service,
&c. The military and naval services for the current year were origi-
nally estimated at 55,070,1511., which would raise the whole expendi-
ture to 90,950,151/. But since the conclusion of peace revised esti-
mates have been published, showing a total reduction to the extent of
17,558,981/. The real expenditure to be provided for, therefore,
in this first year of peace, amounts to 73,391,1901. Now, the revenue
for the last year, including the new taxes imposed, amounted to
63,361,605/. ; and, assuming it be the same for the current year, the
deficiency will be 10,026,5651. The figures speak for themselves. Our
expenditure has grown to such enormous proportions that it will
require a master-mind to reduce it again within proper bounds—to
clear off all liabilities of the war. and to place our finances on a solid
and satisfactory footing. The loan of 5,000,0001., announced yester-
day, cannot meet the deficiency indicated by the above figures.

The death of Sir WILLIAM HAMILTON has created a gap in the
scanty ranks of British metaphysicians which will not soon be filled
up. Uniting intellectual qualities rarely conjoined in the same indi-
vidual—the inventive genius of the discoverer with the massive learn-
ing of the mere scholar, extensiveness and accuracy, profundity and
acuteness—he seems, in addition, to have possessed a strength of will
and to have displayed, under the tedious pressure of a severe and
lengthened illness, an un tiring devotion to duty which it is hardly an
exaggeration to say would have rendered him remarkable, among lite-
rary men, had he possessed no other claims to distinction. His great
logical innovation, known as the " Doctrine of the Quantified Predi-
cate," and his " Theory of Perception distinguished as the Doctrine of
Natural Realism," are sufficient of themselves to place their author in
the highest class of philosophical inventors ; while his various contri-
butions to the Edinburgh Review, his editions of the works of RF.ID and
STEWART, enriched with notes touching on every great question of
philosophy from the very first dawn of speculation, display an amount
of learning too rarely shown in these days of " rash assertion and
" slovenly inference." Those who have admired his intellectual power
will be surprised to hear that for many years this distinguished philo-
sopher had been entirely deprived of the use of one side by hemi-
plegid. Sir WILLIAM HAMILTON was a son of the late WILLIAM HAMIL-
TON, Esq., Professor of Anatomy in the University of Glasgow. He
was horn in 1789, and received his early education at Glasgow, and
Balliol College, Oxford, where lie took first-class honours in 1811. He
was ninth baronet of his line de jure, though only third in actual pos-
session, the title not having been assumed since the death of the
second baronet in 1701, whose son squandered away the family estates.
Sir WILLIAM was second heir male in general to his father in 1816, and
in 1829 married his cousin Janet. daughter of H. MARSHALL, Esq.

The gallant General whose name is so honourably connected with
the defence of Kars, and who is rewarded with a Baronetcy and a
pension of 1,000/. a year, is comparatively a young man in the prime
of life. We believe (he was born about 1810, and, having received his
early education at Woolwich, obtained a commission in the Artillery
in 1825, in which he rose by gradual promotion. His first military
employment was in Turkey, from 1840 to 1843, when he was rewarded
with promotion to the rank of Major, and four years later took part
in negotiating the important treaty of Erzeroum. In the following
year he was engaged in settling the Turko-Persian frontier, which he
effected with great skill and tact. About a year and a half ago he was
selected as her Majesty's Commissioner to the Turkish forces, and
promoted to the rank of Brigadier-General : he had continued to dis-
charge the duties of that post with distinguished ability, when the
battle on the heights of Kars (Sept. 29, 1855) suddenly brought him
out from a civil into a military character. In this engagement his
coolness and courage was the greatest service in repulsing the forces
of MOCRAVIEFF, and had he been adequately supported by the
Turkish and British Governments subsequently, there can be little
doubt that he would have been spared the mortification of seeing the
fortress which he had saved in September evacuated in the November
following, and of capitulating to the very general whom he had so
nobly defeated. But upon this we have said enough of !ate. For his
success at Kars General WILLIAMS was advanced to the barren dignity
of a K.O B. ; and when he capitulated, the whole nation felt that the
failure was not his own, but belonged to the officials of her Majesty s
Government. And, now that he is on his way home from Russia,
where he has been a prisoner since December last, the same Govern-
ment which offered him up as a victim to their own remissness. Is
forced to come forward and bestow upon him a pension of 1,0001.
a year and a Baronetcy, by the name, style, and title, of " Sir WILLIAM
FENWICK WILLIAMS, of Kars," as a compensation for the injuries he
has sustained at their hands. So much for the tardy recognition of
General WILLIA3is' splendid services. But we cannot let pass the
opportunity of calling attention to his brave colleagues in arms.
Colonel LAKE, Mr. TEESDALE, Mr. THOMPSON, and Dr. SANDWITH are,
we understand, to be rewarded by the honourable, but still some
what barren, title of Knight Commander of the Bath. 1s it not
fair to ask whether their reward is to stop here? We love to call our
selves an eminently practical nation; is the title of K.C.B. a really
practical reward for such men ?

ORIENTAL DIALuLrUE S.
The King of DUDE :
Annexation is a vexation,
The King of BIIRMAH :
Invasion's twice as bad ;
INDIA GENERALLY :

The rule of D
Did trouble me,

JOHN BULL:

But his pension drives me mad

MAY 10, 1856.

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