The Express.
London, England, 1848-01-17 00:00:00

lie Owing*

MAILS
The overland eshils for Gibraltar, Malts, Greece, the Johan Islands
'rept, Aden, Ceylon, India, Ilong-Kong, and China, rie Soulzunapton
will be mode up on the morning of the 30th January.
The overhand closed =ids, rot Marseilles, to tag Mediterranean
Egypt, Aden, Ceylou, Hong Kong, me., will be made up on th,
evening of tbe 21th January.
The mails for Vigo, upon.
Lisbon, Lisbon, Madeira, Cadiz, and Gibraltar
will be made up en the morning of the 27th January.
The mails for Britiah North America, Bermuda, and the United
&ales, will be made up on the evening of the 24th January.
The mails for South Wales, Von Inernen's Laud, aad New
Zealand will be made up on the erenine of the Sl4 January.
The moils for the West Coast of Africa and Madeira will be made
up on the evening of the 31st
The West India Mails, including Bermuda, Simon, Theism's.
nonituras, New Orleans, Vera Crux, Tampion, and Porto Rico, and
excluding thorn for Madeira, Jacrnel, (Urthagens, cant. m.,row,
Magna% Panama, West Count of south America, and St Jmin-Ale-
IliCaralrtia, will be mode up on the morning of the 2nd February.
The mails for the Brazils, the River Plate, Monte Video, Yenisei',
bum Bahia, Madeira. and Buenos Ayres, will be made up on the
craning of the 111 February.

CORSUPON DENTS.
Irtyrioemeste launder% kw • The Tarn..." d. *vete. poor, nese.
be aloe. 10. bosynio•ornot. by Tyro tea fire day of publlloottoo.

MOM W ATM At LONDON BtiOOD.
T. Dsv—alsastat, Ala. seat Alterama. 5.3 rata. past
Zsallleasow—llaratags 0 atia. paat 0 ; ZS an past 0.

LONDON, MONDAY, JAN. 17. I
AT the inaugural dinner recently given by the
Lord Mayor of Dublin, Lord CLARENDON appears to
have gracefully availed himself of the opportunity
afforded him, in returning thanks when his health
was proposed, to give expression to the sentiments by
which the government of Irel and is animated. Aban-
doning
.the obsolete tone of commonplace by which
others in similar circumstances used to endeavour
elaborately to avoid saying anything which people
eared to hear, he spoke frankly of the " difficulties
and dangers " attendant on the country's position, yet
fearlessly and manfully as to the result, were
the various classes of society but true to
themselves. On the duty and interest of each
in being so, the LORD-LIEUTENANT dwelt briefly
but forcibly. It seemed s though he had re-
solved to appeal from t ahe fallacious expecta-
tions of the community to the means of self-depen-
dence they might hope to secure by persevering
industry. He reminded those whom he addressed
that the commercial events of the past year had, to
a great degree, incapacitated the people of England
from contributing to the relief of their Irish brethren ;
that the failure of the cotton crop had as directly
caused a deprivation of food to the inhabitants of Lan-
sasbire, as the failuretof the potato crop to the popu-
lation of Donegal and Mayo; and that until returning
plenty should visit each, the property of the locality
must be made to contribute, as far as it was capable,
to preserve the life of labour, involuntarily reduced to
idleness for the time being. Lord CLARENDON spoke
with confidence of the probability that the impedi-
ments in the well-working of the extended poor law
would speedily be overcome. We are glad of this.
We have too recently had occasion to express our ap-
prehensions of a different result in many districts of
Ireland, and the practical grounds of our apprehen-
sions. Most earnestly do we pray that our fears may
soon be dissipated, and that the owners of pro-
perty may be awakened to a sense of the
guilt and folly of their course hitherto, of the
infatuation of their indiscriminate evictions, and the
criminality of their neglect and evasion of the rates.
Lord CLARENDON, in his own apt way, reminds them
that if in defence of property restraint is to be im-
posed upon the many, so also for the protection of
poverty constraint mast be laid upon the few. The
Inch executive hears coercion in either hand; for the
rich, when they would lot the poor man starve ; for
the poor, when they would assail the rich man's life.
This is the inexorable function of just rule, to
resist the double evil that would rend society in
pieces, and to reduce to equal obedience those selfish
and short-sighted passions that in mutual hostility
are reciprocally destructive.
Nothing on the whole could be better chosen than

----------
the topics of the Viceroy's eucech; nothing more
judicious than the mode of their expression; and, we
are bound to add, nothing could be more cordial than
the manner in which they were received.
In this respect, as well as in most others, a great
and salutary change has come over the temper of our
time. It is just five and twenty years since the Mar-
quis WELLESLEY, the then representative of Majesty
in Ireland, was fain to quit the selfsame banquetting-
room, in order to avoid sanctioning by his presence
one of those insensate ebullitions of sectarian frenzy
which were, at that period, of ordinary occurrence.
Orangeista then boasted of its ascendancy in church
and state ; and the municipal festivals were peculiarly
marked by the exuberance of its riot. Pelted in tho
theatre, and menaced with the proposition of offen-
sive toasts at the table of the first magistrate of the
city, Lord WELtenev,though as fearless and eloquent
as his successor, could not have obtained, had he
sought it, such a public hearing as that cheerfully
accorded to Lord CLARENnoN. The very constitution of
the recent civic assembly is indicative of the progress
which has been made during the interval in political
and religious civilisation. Instead of the gathering
of corrupt and exclusive corporate clans, gorged with
political plunder and drunk with bigotry—the catho-
lic mayor of the first city in Ireland, surrounded by
his fellow-citizens of every creed, is found enter-
taining the Viceroy, with as little fear of the festive
harmony being inteirupted by bitter or unwelcome
recollections, as though the halls wherein they eat
had never echoed with the wild shout of sectarian
tyranny, or the frantic vow of "No surrender."
We can quite understand the vexation manifested
by that portion of the repeal press which have con-
sistently pursued with inveterate vituperation every
act of the liberal government of Ireland—at the gene-
ral enthusiasm kindled by Lord CLARENDON'S address,
and more especially at the frank and direct adoption,
without reserve, of all his Excellency's sentiments by
the hon. member for Dublin.
Gifted by nature with great shrewdness of percep-
tion, Mr. REYNOLDS is just the man not to allow a
favourable opportunity to slip for want of time to
tliink, or to consult others as to what ought to be
done. The contrast between him and Mr. JOHN
O'CONNELL is one on which we hardly like to dwell.
• •
But in justice we must own ,ifdd by fe-
-1 tune those hereditary claims and paternenieal sinlesson
the art and mystery of an agitator which fall tattle lot
of few, Mr. REYNOLDS is far more than compensated
by the possession of superior versatility and vigour,
by the power of mastering details, and making their
arrangement and connexion clear—by the faculty of
saying well whatever can be said fur a bad cause, and
seldom paying ill what is to be said for a good one
—by the knack of keeping up attention when a
mffnect is intrinsically dull, and never wearying his
auditory by common-place or secand-hand illustra-
tions—above all, by broad and palpable humour,
sometimes coarse, but always genuine and racy. In all
of these respects Mr. REY:sows manifests a larger
stock of tribunitian powers than his young master.
The practical difference between the two men was
never more marked than on the late occasion. Afraid
to seem to acquiesce in the wise and peaceable views
propounded by the chief go vernor, and afraid to pro-
voke the disapprobation of the assembly around him,
whose minds he felt coneeciow he could neither di-
rect nor delude, Mr. JoliN (YCONN ELL first stammered
out a clumsy evasion of the topics in question,
and when that was received with a silent
stare, he sulkily eat down. Mr. REYNOLDS daw the
error of hie incapable chief and strove to repair it.
Ile saw which way the feeling of those around him
went, and, true to the maxim of the illustrious apostle
of agitation—never to throw away the chance of a
cheer—the ready representative of the city of Dublin
was loudly applauded when he adopted the vice-regal
sentiment—a sentiment which every rational man in
the community has long been persuaded of, but which
it suits not the pauper policy of Conciliation Hall to
keep in popular remembrance, " That the man whose
life is spent in profitable labour, is a better man and
a better citizen, than he who is sustained in idleness
on the earnings of another."

WE have often commented upon the present system
of poor law medical relief and its concomitant evils.
Scarcely a week passes over but we have to record
instances of neglect, attended with fatal results, arising
from this system. Yet nothing is dune. We have never
been wholesale contemners or upholders of the New
Poor Law. In some instances it has worked admi-
rably, and saved whole districts fr •rn utter ruin. We
believe its most defective p tint is the administration
of medical relief. Here it ac's tyrannously towards
the officers it employs, and frequently sacrifices rather
than protects the poor. We shall not stop to inquire
to-day into the necessary effects of underpaying those
who are employed to afford. medical add. They
are paid in such a way that they must
either act unjustly to their patients or themselves.
Although we have the highest opinion of the honour-
able feeling of the medical profession, yet there are
always circumstances which will induce men to under-
take duties for the sake of the position which their
means will not allow them to fulfil. Such may or
may not have been the ease with the medical officer
of Croydon, whose gross neglect of a poor woman
during her labour resulted in her death, and a coroner's
inquiry, which wail reported fully in our paper of
Wednesday. We have no apology to offer for Mr.
BERNCASTLE. His owe account condemns him. He was
called to attend a woman in her extremity, in a case
that required continuous watching from beginning to
end. He administered a powerful remedy (not
" secala" as misspelt in the report, but the secalo cor-
nutum, ergot of rye of the pharmacopeia), and, in-
stead of waiting anxiously for its effects he leaves
his patient in the midst of her trouble, and refuses to
carry on the attendance he bad begun. And why? Be-
cause the patient had not got an order from the parish.
Here again is this abominable order system used as
an apology for the sacrifice of human life. We have
before stated our deliberate opinion that if the poor
law refuned all orders for medical relief, the poor
would be better attended. The common feelings of
humanity, independent of any prospect of being paid,
would dictate to a medical man to attend a fellow-crea-
ture in suffering, especially under such suffering as that
ef the poor woman in question. But the order system is
madutheexcuse for not giving attendance. Medical men
who are not parish surgeons say to the poor, " Go to
the parish surgeon; 1 will not attend you." The
parish surgeon says, " Get an order, or I will not
attend you ;" and if the relieving officer, in all the
dignity of office, is not at home, or chooses to refuse
the order, the poor sick one either gets well without
medical attendance or dies. This is no imaginary
case : we believe we could find scores which have
come before the coroners' inquest during the last
year; and where one case finds its way to the public
there are fifty never heard of. If Mr. Beettcssvte
had not been parish surgeon he would have said at
first to the poor woman Howsrto, "I cannot,
or will not attend you ;" or if he had
gone at first he would never have given up the
case. Much as we think his conduct to be
reprehended, we make no doubt that it was the first
case of midwifery from which he abruptly withdrew,
and it could never have occurred to him to do so but for
this miserable order system. The poor patient had no
" order" when he first went, and from his own account
he was more anxious about the " order" than the suf.
faring woman. Yes, Mr. BERNCASTLE, your heart was
more set on the half guinea fee that the order would
bring you, titan on the life ef your patient; for no
sooner did you hear that there was no " order," and,
consequently, little prospect of your fee, than you left
the poor woman to shift for herself.
But although all parish surgeons may not be Baas-
CASTLES, we deny altogether the right of the govern-
ment or the pubhc to take advantage of the humanity,
need, ambition, or emulation of the medical profes-
sion, for the purpose of fulfilling their duties to the
poor. Especially do we protest against the present sys-
tem of " orders" as one that not only in all cases must
increase the difficulties of obtaining medical attend-
ance, but as one that is not unfrequeutly the cause of
death itself.

COUNT ST.AULAIRE'S speech upon Italy in the French
Chamber of Peers contains assertions respecting facts
that have become matter of history, so startling and
so utterly false as really to give us pain for the veteran
diplomatist's reputation.
The Moniteur reports the ex-ambassador to have
stated three facto:—'that the banishment of the Ita-
lian exiles of 1831 was purely voluntary, for that the
Papal government gave no reason to any party to
adopt such a step as voluntary expatriation ; that
when he left Rome not a single prisoner was in the
Castle of &Angelo ; and lastly, that neither blood was
shed nor confiscations of property were made by order
of the Papal government in consequence of the tron-