The Express.
London, England, 1851-05-26 00:00:00

LONDON, MONDAY, MAY 26.

Wr. are sick of the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, and
of the oceans of puerility and twaddle which it has
prowl the eYelbe of inundating the world withal.
Nut but the law proposed is a just, a lenient, and a
new eery one. hut had the dith-rent parties in par-
liameut kugued in order to weary the country out
of its v-al, and disgust it with all attempts of the
legislature to deal with religious intolerance or sacer-
dotal asauteptiou, they could nut have devised their
tfhats with more RUMMY, to what we cannot but
consider an untoward result.
There is ti 'thing so thoroughly vmservative as the
fact of the C•Aintry looking towards the legislature
with Nvmpittity and respect, which' must be the MC
on boiling its own thonghts and feelings echoed
there, its own roars participated in. its own wishes
carried out, and all with the superior talent, earnest-
Hiss, oath polititul wisdom to he ex/meted in a body
of men who have made public affairs their pro-
fession.
We ngn t to say that the people of England have
not found in the flow* of Commonttany one of there
things. Frowds awl tommunities have been moved
in au parts of the enuntry, and all chores of society.
by the papal aggression, yet nut one of these in-
dignant omimunitits has found any adequate ex-
prroitio or -dist:teflon of th-ir feelings in the MOM
of Commte:s. As to the conservatives, who set up for
sueh on:veined champions of the church., they have
done not 1. but mar and olstruet the defence of that
church, oh+ cling to everything practical, recommend-
ing ever) thing that WWI vague and wild. coquetting
and manouvring with the moat unscrupulous servitors
of Wis Est vs and Mutsu., and displaying them.
I. Ives in the light of misehievote, boy., rather than
of either stattsmen or religionists.
As to the Pechter, they are mere CoAplatirri ; their
whole and wile aim 1s to govern, to he in place;
and their anxiety is to esehew and avoid all
that may give them trouble in place. Add to
this, the l'uaeyite tendencies of the younger meutbers
of the party: the prudence of the with the an-
tiquated piety of the other, have merely combined to
prodare In notable political nostrum, that high
chord, as.atnption should in all things be favoured,
nod that, even in the shape of catholicism, it is pre-
ferable to liberal and lay christianity.
As to mini tern, in thew days of subdivision of
junks, what an they do but tack, and conciliate,
and steer latween difficaltiot and objections, t.nn
with carrying thou• main points of repression.
which ull tlic• chicanery of !metal. in °inanition or
sensioniposition durst not refine ; although, all, even
to the representativot of the most protestant rommu-
nitiot, um really anxious and active to throw out
a hill that tusts up the slightest iambic &fume of
the prottstunt church against the
We could lent• understood very gnat and various
titijettions to the ministerial plan. We could have
undenitoml the old church school indignant at papal
nArnution, repentant even of emancipation, and
Curer to mature protestant ascendancy to the
full. Again, we could understand that a tarty
bieh under consisted of priet huh and ennimon
stost• twits. though sinee his death it has come'
merely to contii.t of imprarticable and mystic -
we could understand this party, entering completely.
minutely, and dett nninately, into the relitt s
tweet, the Mate awl the catholies und g the
polioas pratoical pliticians by the attempt. Instead
of Cod, we find a nacre in to papa aggro,-
$1,511, suggodtsl by l'useyite views. and this initil-
feresei: made the foundation for the adoption of a
Al is-at Ittewts police, it Saturnian alienation from all
religious and steenit al matters. We are startled to
find men calling themselves turies and professing to
lie administrators, when they belie the first principle
of the one. umd shirk the first duties of the other.

11ith respect to the real American school, and to
the men who consistently with all their other prin-
ciples of policy maintain that the state should ignore
all churches, we must admit, that there is no con-
:.uliction or hisincerity, or security in the line they
adopt. and the rules they adopt. It is quite intel-
ligible. and plain, and Xtruightrorward, and forms no
small dithrulty with the whigs. lint these are not the
sentiments, nor the desires of the Iwo* of England.
•cter the people may he ',might to aequitsce
therein from disgust and despair of the legislature
agreeing upon or adopting any nwoture that is not u
mom t..rch of discord when agitated. and a nullity
„hen
It' trump the conduct of parties we tarn to the
utrorta of individuals, we are at a hre, to find any one
speaker, who u ith sincerity, talent, power. and
worth. so aks the feelings of any large body of
Engli•linten.

We know right well what the country squire and
the country parson think upon this subject. Who in
porlianient carcases their thoughts ? Lord Si %N-
-EW( Ile has treated the whole concern us aeck-
light. Mr. IhsgxEit ? Need we answer? Sir JANE:.
lix%littl? Would he find an echo from before tiny
hustings in England Surely on such a subject Mr.
lii..6.cumn would pour forth such deep eonvietinn as
intuit. even if erroneous, sommind respect. But no.
Mr. 01..%theroxes oratorical effort could not mount
above a Jesuit's and party inantruvrc. If
rhumb, and squireerehs, end moversitc. have then
gone u iimpresented. whi•re have the middle, the citizen
religious class, found a spoke.nim ? We should have
export ted from several representatives of this class
sons:thug; above mere party eonsideraf , Ktonething
superior to either backing or backbiting the whigs.
is.methirig worthy of our middle class, of it+ deep
feelings. its now educated intellect. With pro-
found regret we have to remark that the English
religious middle class has on this question been
uiteri) unrepresented in pirlianwnt.
'l'll.'ll there are many communities of liberal and
enlightened and unnionkish catholic.. Where have
liven heard their voice,l? Yet of what weight and
worth might they have been! And not even this
class of Roman eatholics, but of the even bigoted and
sincere worshippers of papal saeerdotal6m, them
have been a dearth. The fight has been left to a
few protestant o.•ol,,ltieri, men picked up by 11'6E-
%.1. or enlisted and drilled by NUM And
whilst the Church of Oxford has no plainer exponent
Omit the amphibious oExusroNE, the Church of
Rome has no divine doctor to be its champion an
exponent save Mr. IlExxot.us!

At present, what with the English lawyens on one
side. who have rendered the question utterly unintel-
ligible by their contradictions and refining. and verbal
tnaddlings, and *HALL'/ pack of beagles on the
other. !ha debate on the Ecclesiastical Bill is suite
is•yond either the taste or patience of any rational
man to witness. In ancient Rome when man or
thing became thoroughly worthless and utterly con-
thinned. the victim was flung to the animals in the
circus to tear as they listed—he was Um aqx I.e.
as the French express it. And this prweisely roma the
MIC with the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill.

Tut: facts already discloged on the (gap Cross in-
, I
'est indicate how eompletely. even under the
direction of the very best general rules and orders.
the safety of u train and the lives'and limbs of all it
t,ndains may be at the mercy of careless, indilfereut,
and ill-informed servants; thereby proving how in-
dispensable it is that the general ehanwter of railway
services should he improved and elevated.
The habitsof the 1:1141ish peoplerrgnire great six ed.
a large number of trains, and the utmost regularity
and precision iu their progre-s, iu railo ay trart

Without such accommodation they wilfaot be Ratin-
fied ; and, to furnish them in the higlkest perfection
accompanied with the greatest salt V, requires, we
are persuaded, in all departments, down to the very
lowest, a degree of intelligent*, respeetability, re-
sponsibility, and self-respect on the part of railway
servants, such as, it is very apparent, has not yet
i been reached: mainly, puhaps, fyr this "ale
treason. that the number of persons competently edu-
! rated is very far short of the great and increasing
i demand fur them, for in no condition of life is there
any superabundance of good men.
No doubt the primary cause of this fatality is to be
found in starting a luggage train five minutes after
an express train from 1./erby; that is, the collision
could not have occurred if this qui( k succession of
trains had not been going on ; therefore, it may bo
' granted the administration of the Midlands Company
is so far blameable. But, to press that remote con-
nexion against the company on the present occasion,
to the exclusion of other considerations, is to over-
look the actual and immediate causes of the acci-
dent, and, with them, what is most important to the
public.
As usual, those causes are apparently of a complex
character; but apparently only. The express train '
started twenty minutes late ; being, of course, de-
pendent on the southern train coming in ; and that
delay in leaving Derby is said to have been habitual.
For, states THOMPSON, its guard, '• we are gene-
rally late at Chesterfield, sometimes half an hour—
occasionally
more :" and for a delay in the arrival at ;
that station caused by the starting at Derby, it is
iteipsusible to fine the engine driver, unlesi it were
increased en route to Chesterfield. But concurrently
with this habitual delay in the arrival of tho
express at that station, we have the luggage
train us habitually arriving there '2O or 2•'l minutes
' before it is due, in order that the guard may have
ample time to do easily what is to be done there
without the luggage being behind time in leaving!
' again. Thus we have a delay of half an boor its '
! the express reaching Chesterfield. and an arrival by'
' the luggage there of nearly half an hour before it us
due; and, w'eile the delay is. app trendy, mrrvoid•
able. the pre•-arrival is obvionaly a breach of all rule
by the servants of the luggage train.
Just mark how this disregard of rule operated
on the evening of Monday, the 19th. The luggage
`train started five minutes utter the express; that is
at 9.30. At the junction it was only five minutes
behind the express; so also at Helper; so too at
Wingfield; and at Clay Cross, notwithstanding it
had not started until 29 minutes after its usual hour,'
it was there, according to Me its TI ANT the guard, six
minutes before time. Who eau wonder that travel-
ling and tearing away at this rate, keeping at the
tail of the express trails in this way, the luggage
train should have run into it? Here, then, we have
the servants of the company, to save themselves
trouble at Chesterfield; to enable themselves to do
that slowly and deliberately and easily there which
otherwise they might have to do hurriedly, and with
additional help, disre;,mrding every rule of luggage-
train travelling; and, by such disregard, carrying
death, and destruction, and dismay before• them. Can
there be stronger evidence of what we will not say is
NMc•, but what, at all events, is II great want of rail-
way service —vie., superior men?
Probably the guard of the express train might
have done more in the way of signalling the
stoppage ; mi••ht have run further back with his
signal', than lie did; but it seems very improbable
that any exertions he could have made, or any acti-
vity he might have displayed, could have arrested
the progress of this terrible luggage train going
with its sixteen vans at a greater than express rate,
and resolved to be at Chesterfield, as usual, half un
hour before its time.

If further evidence he needed, we have it in the
difference of opinion in the guard and driver of the
luggage train a to which of the two is responsible
fur the speed of the train. The guard says the driver;
and the driver says the guard. Now, with a rail-
way service properly constituted, such as that of the
Sappers and Miners, or the linyul Engineers,
this dispute could nut occur. Fur competent per-
sons will nut engage in duties that are
not precisely, plainly, and unmistakeably de-
fined; and until railway services are conducted on
something like military principles this distinctness
of responsibility cannot be attained: but when at-
tained, those services will become industrial schools
of the greatest value to the country; and in the way
of the organisation of labour be worth all Louis
ISLAM'S nonsensical schemes.

The excuse for this diversity of opinion is, that
there was nu rule on the point ; and this apology
alopeurs so far to be justified by the extraor-
' dinary statement of the superintendent of the work-
ing of the goods trains at Derby; for, according to
him, „the printed rules do not apply to the goods
trains. and there arc no other rules.' This is so in-
enslible, that we must wait for further testimony
before we venture to draw any int'erenee frim it;
suffice it, therefore, for to-day, to draw public atten-
tion to a point on which better explanation must be
given at the inquest, to be resumed this morning.