The Express.
London, England, 1865-12-23 00:00:00

'MN BROOM'S GOLD BROOCH C %kiln.

MOSS& WATHERSTON and SON,
Goldsmiths and Jewellers.
••• Hare Reedy for Inspection a Great Verlety of JEWELLERY,
of the Latest Designs, suitable for
CHRISTMAS P
12RESENTS and
NEM-YRAITS GIFTS.
, Palldaall East, &W.

THE EXP.

of theory which a treaty involves. Mr.M'Corzoca,
however, discloses another reason for wishing not
to renew the Treaty. lie says : "The people of the
" United States cannot consent to be taxed as
" producers, while those outside of our boundaries,
" exempt from our burdens, shall be permitted, as
" competitors, to have free access to our markets."
Now we must acknowledge that we did not
before know that the people of the United States
were taxed as producers. We had supposed that
they were so many good citizens who had cheer-
fully submitted to the burden of heavy taxation
rather than surrender their institutions and forfeit
their national unity. Suppose we were to say that
the people of the United states were taxed as
consumers, or satraders supplying foreign consumers
—and this statement would be quite as true as Mr.
lii`Cui.Locu's—would it not follow that they
ought, precisely on accountof their burdens, to be
allowed to buy in the very cheapest market they
can find f We certainly cannot see why the
citizen who has to pay a heavy war tax ahould be
bound to pay a further tax to his fellow-citizen.
These are some of the objections which we are
compelled to make to Mr. M'CoLiocu's reason-
ing. We are happy, however, to observe that in
discussing this subject be confines himself to
economical arguments, and avoids the arbitrary
introduction of those political considerations
which have been sometimes brought forward to
hinder the amicable adjustment of the com-
mercial relations between the United States and
Canada.

(PRIZE MEDAL AWARDED.)
LLEN'S PATENT PORTMANTEAUS and
TIitATZLLINO BAGS with square
LADLE& WARDROBE TRUNKS, DRESSVMOS, with
War BUMP.
DESPATCH BOX, WRITING and DRESSING CASES, and
OM other articles for home er continental travelling. Illustrated
antelogues post tree.
Also Alien's Barrack Furniture Catalogue of Portable Bed
Mends, Drawers, Fees Chairs, Wasithandetands, Canteens, Oc..
nest tree.
J. W. AILIL`i, Manufacturer ant Patentee. 37, West Wrand.
leaden. W.C.

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

CTHIS DAY.)

THZ rotmonom OF SOUTH=
The acquittal of Stephen Forwood, alias Ernest
Southey, on the ground of inanity would, the Times thinks,
have been so fatal a precedent that his conviction must be
welcomed as an important triumph of justice. Both of his
murders were prompted by vindictive motives, of which
the origin was distiaotly traced to his own heartless mis-
conduct, and both ware effected with a ruthless delibera-
tion absolutely inconsistent with any form of madness re-
cognised by law. The =as may, perhaps, serve ss a correc-
tive, if not as a reductio ad absurdum, of some popular
fallacies. Of these, per the most common, as
it is certainly the most transparent, is the assump-
tion that the legal and medical definition of insanity ought
to be the sans. The =ewer to this assumption is that the
law gives no definition of insanity at all, but only recognises
mental incompetence as • condition incompatible with a
criminal intent. Absence of will, ignorance of what he is
doing, or ignorance of its criminality, absolve a man from
legal responsibility, and it is for objectors tog how whet
better tests could be applied. Nothing is gain by insist-
ing that one may act consciously and freely, with •a perfect
knowledge of all that is implied in the action, and of all
that will follow upon it, and yet be foe many purposes •
madman. The question is whether • madman so acting
ought not to be punished if he commits a murder.
The result of the trial is pronounced by the Daily News
en a positive relief to • civilised and rational community. A
villainy rank as that of Forward is only an excessive dove-
'opulent of such • nature and organisation as belong to hun-
dreds of dissatisfied vagabonds, who are never convicted all
their lives ; though to the appetites, the tsetse, the
vanity, and the vices of monkeys, they unite the
selfish and sly ferocity of half-tamed tigers. The life
of these creatures is • long disease, which may often
be only fatal to themselves ; if it becomes malignant, and
infectious, and commits ravages, it becomes the duty of •
civilised moiety to suppress it. There can be no objection
to call crime disease, only let it be understood that the
gaoler is the physic •° who attends it, and that the
hangman is the surgeon who suppresses it.
Had Forward's endeavor= to produce • belief in his in-
sanity been successful, observes the Herald, he would pro-
bably have congratulated himself upon his clever-
ness, and would have written volumes of impious
rant in his cell, to prove that he was very badly used in
not being allowed to go st large with such an allowance
from the public purse se would satisfy en iaterestisg peni-
tent of his tastes sad pretensions. His extravagant acting
in court, his savings, his affected utterances, his simulated
tremblings, his counterfeit emotion, his real hypocrisy, his
repudiation of his counsel's aid, his application for • post-
ponement of his trial—were all so many expedients,
adopted in order to impress the jury with an utterly un-
founded belief that he was not sufficienUy sane to plead to
the indictment or to be dealt with ea • reasonable being.

,Egg, SATURDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 2

dead would so motors hoe ors& that she would be the
stronger for her imbsniasion to aneasity.
What the necenitios of the Italian government are may
be seen, gays the Mar, from tide brief statement : That the
sum required fur payment of Interest on the national debt
amounts to nearly half the whole revenue, the latter being
it trifle more than thirty-seven milieus sterling, and the
interest seventeen millions and three quarters that of
the remainder the army and navy absorb in round numbers
a half, baying for the whole of the civil administration
and gecerel requirements of the state jolt one-fourth of
the entire revenue raised, or leis than ten millions sterling.
These figures prove clearly enough, even if we had not
learned the lessen from our own experience, that people
cannot achieve unity and constitutional government with-

ititelleetand vapid moderation, presided over by sea who,
having never heartily believed is their protegee& greed,
have at length fortunately found out that they have
abandoned it.
The Saturday Review thinks that it is probable, if not
certain, that the enjoyment of Christmas by the poor at
large is very peat. If any philanthropist in London could
be sure of producing every year as much happiness as is
produced by a single goose-club, he might set down con-
tented to his Christmes feast. At this welcome seism the
Bumbles of the world are understood to relax, and work-
house peepers themselves are not excluded from the
general joy. Yet, after all, the thought that there
are eo many people in the world to whom
being helped twice to meat is • great and ex-
traordinary event, though • thought that comae
in the train of Christmas, is not otherwise than •
gloomy one. ft is quite right that it should come to us,
if it only comes to us once • year. And if it com
eses
to us in the middle of • Christmas banquet, it will
berm. When all is calculated and weighed, the sum of
the world's pleasure falls far short of the world's pain.
Why it should be so is a problem as old as philosophy, and
one which religion and Christianity can only feebly and
inadequately solve. The pleasures of children, and the
merriment of Christas merrymakers, go far to
make up the one sidme of the account. The other
scale of the Winos is weighed down by the
innumerable cares and anxietim, the hunger, and the
trouble and the weariness so rife among mankind, which
seem all the darker for the one gleam that breaks over the
prospect at Christmas-time. The waste of energy and life,
and tho waste of pain, with which the world is full, are far
more than all the other waste of nature with which natural
philosophers are so familiar. Christmas, and the events
which Christmas is supposed to commemorate, are pro-
perly considered as so much gain ; but, at the best there
is • leaven even in the idea of Christmas, and in the ides
of Christmas pleasures, which sensible men never an
forget, and which on occasions it befits them openly to re-
cognise.

out paying for them.
The Times publishes some advice to travellers in Italy—
advice which will equally apply to other portions of Europe
to whisk the adventurous tourist resorts. The public is re-
minded that owing to the withdrawal of the French troops
from the Papal States there is reason to expect that the
crime of brigandage will for a time increase within the Papal
territory and in the country adjoining it. The leas adven-
turous tourist may enjoy himself to the full ; be may hurry
through picture galleries and stare at the ceremonies of
Roman churches, but if he wishes to g ase on famous landscapes
or to " verify" historical sites, he may expect to spend some
three or four months among some of the most ferocious sava-
ges in Christendom, with the fear of death or mutila-
tion continually before him, and the knowledge that at
at bast he will not amp* without paying an enormous

ransom.
The Times sees in the Convention concluded on the Bth
of last mouth between the empire of France and the
little principality of Monaco, establishing a Customs' Union
and commercial relations of the most open and equal
character, a curious difficulty which may one day grow
up Into larger dimension. The fourth article of this con-
vention declares that henceforth " French ships shall pay
in the ports of the principality the same dotted es those to
which they would be subject in French porta ; and, recipro-
cally, Macaw ships shall be treated In the porta of the
empire the same as French ships." How far this
goes to establish a complete customs union between the
two states is not fully explained in anything that
appears; bat our neighbours, hopefully or anxiously.
aro comparing the above wage with the " most favoured
nation" clause in our ownCommereial Treaty with Francs. In
the 19th Article of that treety it is declared that "each of
the two high contracting powers binds itself to make the
other power profit by every favour, every privilege or di-
minution in the tariffs of duties on the importation of the
articles mentioned in the present treaty, which one of
them shall accord to a third power. They bind themselves,
moreover, not to declare, the one towards the other, any
prohibition of importation, or exportation, which is
not at the gime time applicable to other nations."
There appear to be considerable doubts as to the
meaning of this article, and whether it does really compel
France to extend to os the privileges now granted to
Monaco. The Times presumes that in the opinion of our
neighbours at the liberal school the convention just made
will practically operate as a reduction of duties between
these two powers, and adds that if it be so, we must by all
means cultivate the acquaintance of Monaco and place our-
selves under its friendly aegis. If, as the military gentle-
men eay, it is by this road that France is to enter Italy, let
us take the same way into Francs. The breach once made
in the citadel all England may rush in, and Monaco, ex-
piring as an independent power, may yet live in English
history as the destroyer of the French navigation laws.
Whether that be the result, or whether the difficulty is to
be met in another way by the absorption of Monaco into
the empire of France, is prob ably a matter of much indiffe-
rence to the Emperor himself.