The Express.
London, England, 1851-12-30 00:00:00

Vu erprelso.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.
• roma &Mica .1" Tr &pram" Natalia', the
ousai." le rehashed sway Tuesday sad Map .test, is tlet•
raiL
Aftretisemob.lirtarled he "TM !Uproot," Leedom 'weft pip.,,
mot best the Oars, If. Boaminsatrisi, b Iwo es Ike
1111 pablisadva.

HIOH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
TO Dar—lierstag, I. 71. 23m.
Teassonow—Xuraist. 7n. 41s. ..... Afteraoss. U. lift.

LONDON, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 30.

Iris not a little amusing to observe the precipi
tancy with which certain of our contemporaries have
begun to mark out a new course fur Lord PALMER,.
TON, and to determine the aims of his future career-
As is naturnl, their interpretations of his purpose
differ widely. An evening journal known for it,
devotion to the cause of rehgio-political toryuoms
claims the ex-minister as the appointed champion of
its faith; while a morning print professing the most
opposite political opinions, is ready to sympathise in
the same polemic 'Cam and thinks it not unseemly to
inquire into the theological leanings of the newly-
appointed foreign secretary's domestic circle ; as if
the policy of a great and free people were depen-
dent on the formularies or the doctrines held in de-
vout respect lee any individual of either sex, or of
an♦ station m life. The Standard insists upon
crimping the discarded minister as just the man who
was wanted to fill the post of protectionist chief in
the Commons; while the Arteertiser is ready to
inaugurate him tribune of the people of Islington,
Finsbury, and the Tower Hamlets, and to share with
him the laurels intended exclusively for KOSSUTH.
And, to cap the climax, the Times, evidently in much
alarm, occupies itself with logical difficulties, which it
plaintively submits stand in the way of Lord PAL-
iiHut4ToN'A becoming the executioner of the free-trade
party and the extinguisher of the free-trade policy of
the country.
Really it is time to have done with these hys-
terics. `Lord PALMERSTON and his colleagues dis-
agreed about the course to bo pursued by England
in the present condition of things abroad; and the
noble viscount discovering rather too late that lie
was in a minority of one on certain important points,
has been unexpectedly obliged to give way. That
sorb n termination of their official connexion must
have been painful on both sides, cannot be doubted ;
and that, had not the matters in dispute been con-
sidered of the highest moment, such a rup-
ture would have gladly been avoided, nobody
can seriously dislx lieve. They as well as he
had everything to lose and nothing to gain by such
a breach. Supposing the whigs the most sordid and
shortsighted of men, it is impossible that with a
House of Commons to face wherein they had last
session but a majority of fourteen, they should wil-
lingly alienate a friend whose personal followers
may 'he understated as amounting to at least double
that number. And, for what? Not for the sake
of a inning over any rival statesman of higher powers
Of more extensive connexions, hut in so far as yet
sills an, only to give unexpected promotion to an
amiable and accomplished, but still very junior and
wholly untried professor of the diplomatic art. We
retard, that it is utterly incredible to suppose that
voluntarily, or with any other feelings than those of the
most sincere, because the most self-interested regret,
the cabinet of Lord JOHN Russet!. would hese
brought themselves as a cabinet at such a juncture us
the present, to say to one of their ablest and most in-'
fluential colleagues—we can no longer act together.
AVe have put the question on the lowest and most
common-place ground, upon the side of the majority of
the administrai ion. tat us apply the same rule to the
other. It is nut pretended by the organs of the iso-
lated statesman that his retirement was a willing one.
The man who has spent two-thirds of his life in
office, while he retains all the vigour and fresh-
ness of his prime, is not likely to withdraw,
from caprice or whim, from a poet which afford*,
po moth of the intellectual and moral ex-
citement, to which he has become habituated,
and whose duties, however onerous to one less used
to their performance, have by time and practice
grown comparatively light to him. It is admitted
on all hands that Lord PALMERSTON would have
retained his position if he could. But it had become
impossible. Ile had committed himself irretrievubly ;
and he cause lie disdained previously to consult the
opinions and wishes of others, lie suddenly found
himself acting in a spirit contrary to theirs: and
this in the conduct of our relations with our nearest
and nimit powerful eontinental neighbour. It is no
longer a seeret, that the imprudence, to use the mildest
term. which rendered an open severance unavoidable,
Was that into which the impetuous Viscount was
pelf-betrayed iu reference to French affairs. Ac-
cording to sonic, his real aim, in all he wrote and
said upon the subject of the new order of things in
France, was thoroughly consistent with the broad
principles he has uniformly professed; that he hoped
by an intimate understanding with the Elysee :to
exercise a liberalising influence over its counsels •
and to form a Western league against Eastern atm:
lutism. Others refuse to credit this eventual pur-
pose, and reproach him severely with apparently fla-
grant abandonment of consistency and constitutional-
ism. In all candour and fair play we repeat that
all are bound to reserve final judgment on this
point until we have had the benefit of hearing his
own defence. But whilst waiting for hie explana-
nation, it is nut necessary to set him up in opposition
to the Whig ministry. Upon the success or failure of
his defence will principally depend the degree of
estimation in which hereafter he will be held
in his own country as well as out of it. But
that is precisely thequestion which our impatient con-
temporaries are in no mood just now to consider.
According to them the ex-secretary must foithwith
rush to one side or the other in quest of personal
vengeance ; it being tacitly assumed that the veteran
whose lead they severally covet, has no convictions,
no sense of political honour, and no discernment of
the spirit of the time.
Lord PALMERSTON may, perhaps, successfully
vindicate his conduct and his system in 1852, as ho
did in 1819: and we can conceive his looking for-
ward to the ultimate triumph of his principles by a
resumption of power, when the heats and irritations
of the present disagreement shall have passed
away. But we cannot realise so abject or lament-
able. a termination of a great career as would be
involved in his turning sham fanatic or palter-
ing with Protection. As a liberal statesman of
versatility, energy, and experience, he may yet play
a worthy and popular part. But as an apostate he
would speedily become valueless, and those who now
are so desirous of winning him on any terms he might
think proper to prescribe, would soon be ready to get
rid of him on their own.

WITH the exception of an occasional burglary or
an isolated highway robbery, the only crimes com-
mitted in England which are constantly and syste-
matically accompanied with violence, are breaches of
the game-laws. The dark lanes and lonely byways
of our most sequestered rural districts may be safely
traversed by the feeble or the timid, by day or by
night, without interruption and without fear. The
most exposed property in the world, the stock and
crops of the farmer, is seldom the subject of depreda-
tion, and the tenants of the sheepfold and the hen-
roost arc rarely molested by the nightly marauder.
Making a single exception, we may venture to say
that the ordinary modern criminality of nn agricul-
tural parish consists in a few pillages in the turnip
fields, and some not very serious cases of hedge-
breaking; and by some vigilance and tiromisse on
the part of the owners of the turnips mod the
hedge-rows, such offences are easily choked. But to
this generally favourable state of the 11111111 districts,
as regards crime, there is OM Mast toatilal :on,
that is, in reference to ganos•isw
In every pnri..h where the owe= st
low, we find a normal school kr aims
there the most reckless disregard at the Alps 40..
rate property is constantly manifested, mil the sat
savage deeds of violence are perpetrated. Wad, hi
our agricultural counties the only roil sod mhos
business of the rural polies will be hood to consist
in poaching cases, sad the affrays sod violenoes
which arise out of the paassrcation draw.
Not hog ago we Isd voider to comment upon a
desperate assester bowmen a large pasty of Lord
Sena aonovon4beepers and al= MOM stow
ram b* at in whisk theatralep sod Naar li
-
Mom Any as both dims was mere that st
subs ha boar issaltma, or a hada haven

tribes of hostile savages, than like en occurrence in
a civilised and law-governed community. And now
witlis is hat ten or fourteen days we have had to
ao leas than four of these most flagrant and
doposehl outrages. Of these three were not less
lomalablit than the affray at Ruffen& At Barton
front Nottingham, the gamekeepers
d MINIM Sir ARTHUR CLIFTON were attacked
end overpowered by no less than forty poachers, who
left them, as is stated, in " a dreadfully mutilated"
audition. The county police were called, and the
estate and neighbourhood placed in what, on the con-
tinent, would be termed a state of siege, but none of
tits delinquents appear to have been captured.
In Norfolk, at Lefton Hall, near Dereham, the
estate of Mr. GURDON, a most "murderous affray"
took place between the gamekeepers, assisted by
some of the rural police, and a gang of 15 or 20
poachers. A division of the Swatlhain police force,
consisting of 14 men headed by the superintendent
was stationed on the game preserved estate in antici-
pation of a poaching foray. " About 12 o'clock at
night," says the report, " the discharge of guns was
heard in the woods, and the superintendent with his
men at once proceeded in the direction of the report.
At length they came up with a body of poachers, in
number nine, who apparently had noticed the
approach of the officers, and had prepared themselves
for a desperate resistance. Elevating their guns,
they shouted " stand off;" and before the con-
stables could proceed a step further, three
of the guns were fired at them, and Mr. PARKER
(the superintendent), being at the head of his force,
ascoived nearly the whole of the charge of one of the
pin in his face." He fell desperately wounded;
and another of the police was slightly wounded, the
principal part of a charge having entered the trunk
of a tree close to his head. After some sharp fight-
ing three of the poachers were apprehended; and
four others were subsequently captured. The men
were all found to be disguised, and had blackened
their faces with gunpowder that they might not be
recognised ; and all of them have been committed to
take their trial for the offence at the spring assizes.
Now, though such outrages on the part of the
poachers are neither to be defended nor palliated,
there is another aspect in which this affray will be
regarded by the public. It will be asked, and pro-
perly asked, what is it,—what is the description of pro-
perty,—what are the private rights Mr. GURDON
calls upon a whole division of the county police to
defend? And when the inevitable answer must be,
that all this array of force—all this savagery, con-
flict, and strife—are called forth in order that Mr.
GUIDON may breed and maintain on his estate a
swarm of wild animals, which cannot be confined or
identified,—and, in fact, continue to he his no longer
than while they remain upon his own land,—who can
avoid the reflection, why arc such things permitted—
eye, encouraged, by a special code of peculiarly
severe law—in this well-peopled and cultivated land.?
The industrious population of Norfolk, the farmers,
the shopkeepers of the towns and the village s,
and others, are all taxed to the county
rate, are required to provide a costly constabu-
lary force, in order that Mr. CIVRDON and his
brother game preservers may enjoy a few battues
yearly! Nor is that all the burdcu gamepreserving
throws on the industry of Norfolk. There are seven
of the poachers taken, the police are stated to be on
the track of two more, and there can be little doubt
of the conviction of these nine men. The cost of
their prosecution, and the expenses of their main-
tenance prior to trial and after conviction, will fall
upon the county and the public in general; while
their families will become burdens upon the parish
funds. And all this is to uphold the landowner's
sport; all this loss and misery and crime exist that the
rich man may enjoy a bathic,—muy spend his holiday
in the wholesale slaughter of quasi-wild animals.
It has been well remarked by an able writer
in MORTON'S " Cyclopedia of Agriculture," that
" the whole system of preserving game on
cultivated lands is aboard and unnatural. Wild
animals are intended only for countries uninhabited
by man or thinly peopled; and as population in•
creases, and the soil is brought under cultivation,
they gradually disappear. In this kingdom the
population is dense, and is every day pressing more
and more against the means of subsistence ; and at
the base of our social system is a vast mass of
poverty, much of which is created by the competition
for employment, and the difficulty of procuring even
a bare subsistence. At the some time we have a
great number of estates, forming altogether no in-
considerable portion of this island, over which game
is rigidly preserved, as though some great national
interest were concerned in the breeding and rearing of
wild animals." Here we have a concise but com-
prehensive explanation of the origin of such woeful
events as those which have recently taken place on
Mr. Grneos's estate, in Norfolk, and on General
Ceirroe's property, in Nottinghamshire. And let it
be understood that this absurd and unnatural system
of preserving, artificially, wild animals in peopled
and cultivated districts could not be continued with-
out the aid of that barbarous code, the game-laws—
a code admitted by every man of intelligence and
reflection to be a national disgrace.
There is a third view of the recent poaching case
which deserves notice. These mess, disguised,
with their faces blackened, and armed with pistols,
bludgeons, and quicklime, to throw in the eyes of
their assailants, were found poaching in Bagley
Wood, belonging —to whom think you, reader ?—to
the President and Fellows of St. John's College,
Oxford! Squirm' may be naturally supposed to be-
guile their vacant hours in sporting, or retired
soldiers may indulge in the petty slaughter of the
&Wire, but what possible excuse can there be for the
President and Fellows of St. John's College, Oxford,
for preserving " a great head of game," and demora-
lising the neighbourhood in which they hold pro-
perty? Indeed, it is time that this matter of game-
preserving and the game-laws should be effectually
looked into, fur —it cannot be too often repeated—
these game-laws are the chief source of all the crime
and much of the poverty and misery of our agricul-
tural districts. If the farmers called out for " Pro-
tection" from Game, Game-keepers, Game-stealers
and the coat of Game-law prosecutions, and the
burden of Game-law created paupers—there would
be some meaning and wisdom in their demand.

The Frankfurt Journal of the 24th inst. publishes
two notes exchanged between M. Hulsemann, the Austrian
Charge d'Affaires in the United States, and Mr. Webster,
an the Austro-Hungarian question. It seems clear, from
the internal evidence of these documents, that they closed
the discussion ; and that Mr. Hulsemann cannot have trans-
mitted to Mr. Webster any further note upon the subject.
Consequently that which has been lately published in the
Augsburg Gazette, and reprinted by the American papers,
would seem to be simply a very clever hoax. It is, indeed.
rarely that diplomatists indulge in such sallies u those
ascrioed to M. Hulsemann; it was still less likely that so
sharp a !is-venue should have been digested quietly on the
other side.—Giobe.

MoNMOUTIISIURE AND GLAMOROANSIDRE BANE-
too COMPANY .—A petition has been presented to the
Court of Chancery pea that the winding-up of the
affairs of this bank, w failed, may be referred for
settlement to the Cemenhakes re of the Bristol District
Court of Bankruptcy, notwitholeeding that the at of par-
liament for winding-up John sloe eampleiss wean that
these mitten, which involve nemarees ties questions in
law and in equity, shall be refereed exclusively to the Mas-
ters in Chancery. The priseipal cosec alleged for the pfo-
poeed reference is on the groused of memnisete to tie par-
ties locally interested, foe tibia peeps" ware the se, •
Master Extraordinary in Charon may ha appointed.
INtarEst ON TIM BODY FOUND IN VlCTORlA-
atterr.—Yesterday. an bequest was held by Mr. Wakley,
M.P.. In the bludgeon of ibibers them Workhouse,
Grays-ism Des, the bah a William Herbert,
nod 43, DM an the employment of the Messrs.
Mavis/ay, W read, whose body was
keel es the isenshot d llotorday last in a vault on the
line a the bessied sew seat (Victoria-street), Clerken-
well. It was sated that es Yrklay night last, about nine
o'clock, deceased bit the empasy of • female at the corner
of Peter-tenet, Ilalberbil Ming that he would seam
la • few mind s, but be arm ono back. The Mewls,
tensing he was Saud by Pellemes Ileibesse le the
vault, when be was rammed Is the weelthewee if Holborn
Union. A post table essaiseiss et the body was
mode by lir. Simple, capes le the workhouse,
who found that his sight OM WU broken, and
that he led resehoi a est over the left eye,
sad another wound es the sight temple. There was also
effu•ion es the aides, sal b the ventricle of the brain.
—Mr. Gam, immasakti eller, said it was a most dan-
gerous spot. sad that IS shiedhs mse another fatal accident
emoted thin. The depth I. chant 14 fret.—Mr. Dixie
said that whirs &teased woo dud them was no thorough-
fare. bet it was bob ess wit wee • war cut to Clerken-

wolleroser : That obooToctioo;oonadty of the street
being gloished.—Mr. Dime rentorbed that be was instructed
by Mr. Pearson to state that the corporation were taking
mamma to complete the Mint lonellesely. The jury
••••••lird • verdict, "not tin deneni dna hat the effu-
ohm es t tin tall." The mew, et die regent et the jury,
mid he wield min $ Vegnereeeine to the Lord Mayor
ups IMP awn= slag el the keilty.