The Express.
London, England, 1849-01-16 00:00:00

Tali EXPRESS, TUESDAY EVEN]NO, JANUARY 16, 1649.

111111 seitiellim here within eight of the sea at YU per tea!
.—tbe miss at Liverpool is, Me ou bout, lti to Ids. per
ta..l 44" for the essamoneen sgrieultaral parpases, 354. per
ins. Zee weeder that their ploughs are two hundred yean
Nomad on; MSS ; the eddy iron used I. them being the tip
sm. aim The asw Preaked Ms seeing to de but m-
g". the IsnAlishmeate, great revenue duties an all moms
sbown &imports, reduce the bareaureey merkelf,
nohow rum is Co., and he will be sere popular then
use bin neen. way nits the reel permit of Frame. • • •
we bane nhirty.ign n,lilliose of teectati to deal with. ids= •
nbirri€...l whole j will be boned, new a emobery SUM
the pemeatry la 1111411.11.14._ "
weds wee pings; is, sad PM ne me jalal s.
• merely ssimetaral onto, ; 'mid had
(Violin before the earth cries ' Hold, elnewdit.' It &Odd
be ',vetoed ; sad the only way Ix: Meta M shay, is sees.
The only daagerlear ohm °limbos. is the Parishes; mil
Soy don't went protsedon,r working se thede battish* ef
. usury and taste.' —Cur.esposdest of Ws
Till WORKING CuitoT.--Bir,—ln ye or die "Slide
on the abases of the church, you ohms that Dr.
Maltby has, in tem it.,. H. Petits, " found a
ch mum rash enough to undertake the am of 20,000
soole Is Iheadalsad, with a =Useably Inadequate pro
vision of 2641. a year." Wietrable t Why, sir, I knew
" troops " of inmates, with 1 ,me familial, who would
u any jump out of their eking with joy to =olive each so
appointment, with a provision et 2004. a veer; ban now
obliged to work like mill his..., appear like gentle-'s std
rear their familier, with an Moose of halt 2004 The 4 you
talk of Dr. Maltby's mimes " regard trr kis kith and lus.
Why, our Dr. Hasp len hr jolt ordained his wife's
norther, new 60 ymrs old, and presented him with the
living of Coddington. The friend, of the cha-eh are van-
dalised st the tendency of certain clergymen for the Itomish
" rites sad 0011111110ait e i" if the bishops would give their pro
tormest, and expend their princely mosses for the benefit of
the church, a* the catholic i Shops did in " the olden time,"
the
Protestant church would benefit, though the " kith sad
lea of the bishops solid net " fare so sumptuously every
la)." The while "pates must be revised and coneeded.—
Q =Hereford,

THIS FIRS IN LINCOLN'S-111N.—ADDITIONAL PAZ-
Ticottaina.—Net fewer then r inn fin-prout boxes have been
t ken on of the b ten sot of the destroyed building, where
they had fates from the gut-floor, and, upon opening them
yesterday morning, the deeds and other documents were found
uninjured. This is exceedingly fortunate, as the papers had
reference to property of c onuder►ble value. The account
books helot ging to began. Jones, Bateman, end Bennet.,
with severs( drawers filled with important writinis, have
hero taken out of the pr Anion but trill .ogly injured, but a
great heather of tin boxes, ennui, ing legal perchenents,
have been entirely destrey.d. The present unfortunate en,
tum.tance wilt cause the question to be again agitated to
obtain a general regis ry of all deed- and mortgaged pro
primly, as is the cave in fizotland, in Ireland, and most parts of
the Continent. The oldest fir men Can scarcely remember
fine of similar msgeitude turning for so long a period.
Although the eogines were kept at work during the writ le
ot Sunday night and yerger lay, there remained at seven
o'clock last evening a consi itrable body of fire on the
lunament, and also in the walls of the building.
Mr. Kettle, a hamster, had a narrow .'cape from being
burred to death. He slept on the ground Boor, at the beta
of the premises, and b tore any alarm was given in the front,
•te was awoke by hearing a slight 'lota, line the dripping of
wet r, in the neat rt.om. He immedi ally jumped out of
bed, and on opening toe door found t►e pavane full of
smoke, and of such a suffocating nature that he could not pas
through. He there:ore ran to south r door, and found
that the fire wee breaking into tne paaine, so that
his ercipe in that der. ction was likewise cut off.
He therefore made fur one of the windows, but even his
tape wa• in that direction cut off, for had he jumped down
a dirance of only a few feat, he would have had to c.imb up
wall twelve or (-lateen feet high. Not knowing chat to
do for the best, Mr. K. tile sat upon the window sill, where
he remained calling •' Fire" and " He.p" fur upwards of a
quarter of an hour, during uhien tame the dames broke
through the door of hi. ►o.am, and noshing but destruction
I ,eked him in the face. At I. oath, however, a himp.i.hter's
ladder w a brought, and by its aid he manag d to effect a
retreat. Hie opinion i.. that the fire must have occurred in
the area Cur At hal Tat nine o'clock last evening the
firemen were still engaged pouring water upon the ruins ;
and a. da•igernu' were the walls that Os ey were expected
momentarily to fell. The houses on either aide
have sustained less damage than wig at first expected.
Durirg ye►terday forenoon, whilst the fin men war.• em
played upon thi• fire. an alarm was given that ►nother had
broken out in Chancery lane. 0.. e of the engines was im-
mediately taken there, when it was ascertained that some of
the burning flakes had b en wafted by the wind u••on the
roof of the law chamt•en, No. 77, in the Lute, and having
melted the gutnr plate l ad cease in centect with the tiuthe r
underneath and fired the roof. When the brigade arrived,
the flames were raging with stab fury that the two riots at
the least nee* in gee at danger of being consumed. With the
aid, honey. r, of plenty in w.iter, the fir. was extinguished,
hut not before ceusiderable damage was done by fire and
water.

magistrates, seek member of which bemek rendes in the
loseilty of their prosecuting brother.
The latter of having permission to shoot
on lead at both from the landlord and tenant,
about the of the day we bent mrstep thither, and not
for the tenant, who wee not in the trai.4Bli Believing we had
a comet Mot/lean Said
ot the ida and r them wee no
evidease preasniag, no land Ming eke knowing
there me so mount of gem words leek* AM to the
best of oar belief we old mat move off the had we had the
liheet7 et efeening over; ben,
_it afterwards appears, in fol.
a amp of birds we did go dews fatermer rubble
add to Edwarci Bridgman, of Cleney Westr.a,
%Mk: tenant of his enoto vs nee 11b111411 Owe-
wen% awl charged as with wilfully nemesia, on Me.
Bridgmea's land. We told him that,' If he said we know-
inglytrespered on Bridgman's land, he lied." He then
mi .
d, •He believed we knew It wee Befdinaeree land." We
the, said, " That is very diff rest: we Were unaware of
having been on Mr. Bridgmaa's land, bat if we had
wore ready to epolegies to Mr. Britten ter so =off
Summonens were inaid against us on information of this
tenant (Green, of lonnam). We wrote to Mr. Bridgetan,
appointing to cell upon him on a rerun day, giving him time
to write to m derlidag the interview if he thought
pont : we wrote en explanatory letter, and one of apology,
f Morrvim on by mistake the four sere ince or Lod, if it was
going by
received no answer, and cooeluded we should
ham an &Miami with Mr. Bridgman, es in revue .ted ;
however, an seeing tie servant, who at last answered the
hankies at the door (for there was no bell or ko• Mite heed
or to be seen), we mind the servant's instructions were to
deity his meeterb being at home, though we know he was in
the home, and heard ea tell the man " We knew he was in
the house, and probably within bearing." We left. The
tint sommeases were informal. The mooed set of nen-

stones we attended to, some these menthe attoriisOffeilc;,
before a bench of megistrates, at Larline-ford. in Norfolk,
and were tined the full amount they could indict—lo•. each,
and 11. 13s. each, expense*, or one month's imprisonment in
Norwich Coale. To. m.gistrates who indicted this doe
were the Rev. T. P. Blapp, of Old Beckenham, Norfolk;
and Mr. H. C. Partridge, of Hockbans, N rfolk, a game pre-
server, and who, I Wises, sincerely regretted he could not
theist a much heavier penalty.
This is spiel's statement of facts which will be more fully
enlarged on in a narrative ot the affair we are about to pub.
; but the above is sufficient tor the camas of your ps-
per, and sufficient, we trust, to prove the impropriety of
etch men's sitting on the bench end being entrusted with
the power of ordering fines or imprisonment. In the very
worst and most tyrannic days of game prosecution, we yew
vire to nett no case on record comes to a parallel with Ott•.
We have both taken out game certificates for nearly twenty
years,—were never told to leave lead we were on—were
never asked to show the gains certificate—never received a

notice—never wiltuily triispaseed in our lies. ; and, under
these circumstances, with the verbal apology to the lan ihrd
through the tenant, and the written apology to the landlord,
we can but hold in diegtoo the conduct of Mr. litidgmen
and the partisanship of this bench of magistrates for the
rights and immunities of their game preserving brother ma-
gistrate. The county is heartily sick of the present bench
of magistrates is they generally are selected, and would hall
it as a boon indeed to have a paid intellectual, unprejn
d magistracy. We are indebted to the Glo9e as well as
to von for the advocacy of so desi-able a change, and trust the
obligations of the country will be increasingly due to you
both for increased advocacy in the same dais caueo—intel-
lect rather than acres, juigment rather than prejudice.-
0. B. ano W. H. D., Jan 12, 1849.

Sir,—From my former letter we have these facts—
that the adainistrstion of the laws throughout the kingdom is
intro. ted to persons woos* sole qualification is 1001. • year,
to land; men of one claw., and that class remarkable for ex-
clusivenese—who hold their weekly sessions without a bar
an.: without a public—and yet are not even expected to apply
themselves to understand the laws they admmion r, bat are
entirely is the heeds of a clerk of their own appointment,
often their too n men of business. Nut only so, they sit to
decide causes in the very focus of their own influence
and interests u landlords, customers, aid palitical
partisans ; and where many who app. at bef ire them
beligye themeelves r. pined with favour or disfavour ;
and to encourage them to use weir vast t owen
ignorantly, electron, and intemperately, parliament I.as
eurrounded them with protecting statutes that effectually
sate', them &Octet all consequer cis. Verily, the country
'squire who, upon bring nominated as the csmicisaion, wro:e
to his bookseller, t• Please send the ax relating to a gustus
pease,' was but the type of such a system. More ignorant tit
grammar he might be than 'tie worshipful successor*, but he
could not have u.ed his ass in hewing the laws with greater
ignorance of the it mature.
lett na proceed to instances: We have witnessed a con
tested etre ion in which the principal magistrates have been
keenly engaged, tenants and tradesmen stric.ly canvassed;
' and feelings of diee offence widely engeadered. Is it cachou',
thee, that in the maltitune of civil, to say nothing of crinti-
eel cases, in wroth the magistrates are empowered to inter-
fere, parties should find themselvi a is the hands of a quorum
of squires to one or other of whom they are ebnoxious ? At
such a time we have seen • whole community pervaded by
the feeling that, al bough all men may be equal in the eye of
the law, they are far from being equal to the eye of its
ministen.

Again, in thee* ever recurring eases in which partiality ,
can be cheaply indulged, and wherein the powers of illation
at petty sessions are so various and extensive—in appointing
to onerous offices—in ratings and rates---In the multifarious
matters relating to highway acts. turnpike sets, and pollee—
in the anomalous casts occurring under local att., and in
usuititudes of others, is it pleasant or right for parties or the
public to see these powers wielded br • clew of persons
placed in the very circumstances in which they are moat open
o bias, and ia which they can indulge such bias without the
possibility of being detected ?
Let us take anat. r class of instances. We often see
country justices acting in cases in which they would not be
all Had to sit on a jury, although, as magistrates, they dis-
charge the comhiued dut n bath of judge and jary. Woen
they are «dumbly parties, they do indeed retire usually te a
seat immediately behind the bench ; fur they have not always
escaped with impunity. But many • party appears Were
them who, under such circumstances, would have preferred a
bench of stsetgers. Few persons are aware of the cieeenees
of corporations of rural justices. They never differ on the
bench. The judges do, hut justices know better. They
settle their differences in their private room.
Let us proceed to soother case. Suppose an act of parlia-
ment empowering a company to construct a great public
work, a pier, for instance, in a much frequented w tiering-
place. Suppose that, under this act, power is given to en-
act bye-laws with penal•ies annexed—that those and other
powers were obtained Irani parliament under the allegation
containea in the preamble, that the pier would be a great
public benefit, and that, on this ',count, the public are pre-
vented from landing themselves or their goodf except upon
this pier. Suppose, further, (we know bow these arra are
carried through) no provision is made to prevent shares and
votes accumulating in the hands of one or two directors.
Lastly, suppose these one or two directors to be the ma-
gistrates (one of them, perhaps, the chairman) of that very
district. Here, then, we have the case of a die.cior first,
determining what shill be offences against a pier of which he
is chief proprietor, and which the public are compelled to use
on his own terms; and then, si Ling as • magistrate, sur-
rounded by the county constabulary, and all the pride and
pimp of office (eo prised by country justices), to decide cases
en which his worship is h‘e own client; eases brought before
nim by his own paid servants, with power to adjudge discre-
tioway penalties foe discretionary od'eacte, or to stud the
*fender to a prison Why, under such circumstances, the
' supreme judges of the land would not sit to try • cause !
And yet such ewes are of frequent occurrence And we,
the p..blic, bear it, although the remedy of • salaried magis-
' trate with a circuit, is to easy and so desired.—Ovria.

OUR REPRESENTATIVE SYSTEM.

HARWICH.

Harwich is a town living on its reminiscences of 1,
the past and its hopes of the future. Onoe upon a
time—many years ago7it was a thriving place.
When Queen Elizabeth visited it in one of her stately
processions, and, being pleased with her reception,
offered to confer any advantage on the borough it
might desire to secure, the Mayor of Harwich
replied to her Majesty with the address of a
courtier and the dignity of a mayor, that
" under her sway Harwich had nsthing it could
wish for or could ask." A ve►y different tale
would they tell now if the royal lady who in our
time sways the sceptre of Elizabeth were to pay one
of her flying visits to the town. Half a century ago,
74-gun ships were built and launched at Harwich—
fleets floated on its silent waters—convoys awaited de-
parture in its bay —privateers went out at night stealth-
ily and came back again in the morning with prizes
captured from the French—fast-sailing packets were
sontinaally entering and leaving the harbour bearing
those despatches which have since become the text-book
of military commanders, and the very index of
military science—post chaises and fleet horses brought
down government messengers almost hourly, and
bore back officers arrived from the seat of war with
despatches of life and of death—of glorious victory
or of stern defeat. In fact, Harwich was the port of
communication with the northern parts of Europe,
and its importance was in correspondence with that
fact.
To be a member of the corporation of Harwich in
those days was no small dignity, and no small advan-
tage. Elections were vested in the corporation, and
the mambas composing it became, of consequence,
important to the government It is worth while seeing
how they profited by it. We have here a list
of the corporation of Harwich as it was at
the period of the Reform Act—a time when great
part of their glory had departed, but when the cor-
poration still had pickings. Let us see who at that
time were the constituency of the borough :
1. The mayor; a shipbuilder occupying the sent
dockyard under a grant from the Navy I-2. The
predecessor-mayor ; a brewer, owning nearly all the public-
houses in the tows.-3. A banker; at one time agent for the
government packets, then reviving a peados for his ser-
vices!-4. The collector of customs at fierwich.-4. Ditto at
Wisbeach.-11. An ex.oomrawder of a government et.
—7. A
ntn; surgeon and agent to the ~~ de-
partme of the Aimiralty.-8. A suFgeon; surgeon to the
ordnance department —9. A physic= in London, non-
reddest is thirty years.-18. A government pen-

vi .ner, reddest at Ilford, formerly halting waiter in
the Coettna-hones in L3ndon.-11. A termer ci
of a government packet receiving a peasion..-12.rntatio.
—l3. Ditto ; his son succeeded him in the packets.
—l4 A surgeon; one of the medical attendents in the
Ordnance department. —l5 The barrack-muter at Sheer-
ness.-14. A Alpo vser.-17. A clerk in the Btansp-officie
in London.-18, 19, and 20. Patens not holding 'Ace,
(they deserve to be recorded) —2l A limiline waiter in the
cetstovw.-22. An attorney; writ of the admiralty solicitor.
23. A retired commander of sgevemment packet.-24. The
crtmptroller of customs at Rerwielf.-23. A former com-
mander of • mica (pen.ioned).-26 A lan ling waiter at
Barbadnee.—',7 A former commander of another packet-
-28, N, 30, and 31.—Persons n4t holding vffi.a., two of them
insolvent debtors.
Such was the constituency of yore in the free ard
independent borough of Harwich. To those gentle-
men pensioners it was committed, under the charter
of Lng Junes 1., to " choose and nominate two dis-
creet aid honest men to be burgesses of the parlia-
ment for the same borough." The discretion and
honesty which the electorate sought fur they never
found elsewhere than at the Treasury. There was no
contest for the borough from 1802 to 1831. A mem-
ber of the cabinet aid one of the secretaries of the
Treasury invariably held the seats, and amply
did they reward their constituents and their
friends. 'f the electors sought wi-dum and
discretion exclusively at the treasury, it may fairly be
said of the repreientatives that they sought com-
petency and ability for c ce exclusively a song the
Harwich corporation. Nor was the number of
public appointments heaped upon the muLicipalite
more remarkable than the transformations which the
members of it occasionally underwent. A linendraper
became a landing waiter in the customer —a rope-
maker was found the best qualified 1 arson for a
barrack master or a stampuffice cleric--a surgeon
was found the fittest clerk of the check and store-
keeper of the navy. Office, moreover, with the
accompanying pension, was by no means the only link
by which the loyalty of the council wee strengteened
and rewarded. Not only themselves, bat their sons,
nephews, and cousins, were secured for the service of
the state. It appears from a public doeument that in
1832 the different members of the council had twelve
sons maintained at the cost and charge of the public,
at an annual outlay from the public purse exceeding
7,0001. a year.
And yet we verily believe, with regard to Harwich,
that this system, bad as it may have been, wan purity
itself in comparison with the system under which the
town has since been represented!
The Reform Bill extended to 150 what had previ-
ously been the exclusive privilege of 30. The boun-
daries of the boron,ch were not touched. The Whig
governments of those days were, for more ob-erva-
tiun of outward term than they happe n to be it.
oars. They were far from unx'ous to perpetuate, as
far as the public went, the close Treasury system of
jobbing previously predominant. They sent no Secre-
tary of the Treasury to stand for Harwich; those
members of the administration made their seats fur
larger constituencies. But Lord Wes.ern, who seems
in those days to have managed every' h.n.: in Essex
for the whigs, just as Sir John Tyrrell now is under-
taker-general for the protectionist., gave every assu-
rance to the reform party that the place should be
provided for. Tte candidates who appeared to contest
it were, Mr. Disney, the chairman of the Essex
Qlarier Session., end Mr. Christopher Power, of
Weald-hall, an active comity magistrate. A consider-
able party in the town took object on to this equity-
archy nomination. They secured as a candidate ,
an Irish gentleman, named Leader, of mare advanced
principles than either of the other two. In conse-
quence of this disunion au opportunity was afforded
to the tory party of bringing in a man. Mr. II :-rriee,
one of their old members, was select' dto quid. He
did so and obtained a majority over the other candi-
dates., the numbers being for Herries, 97 ; Tower, 93;
Leader, 90 ; Disney, 89. A year or two after, the
packets were removed from Warwick The whip in
consequence became exceedingly unp 'pular, and
when Sir Robert Peel amti in it. 18'35 Mt ssra !terries
and Bonham, the government nominee s, were re' urned
with a mere shad .w of opp *Chin. In 1837 the
whigs had returned to power, aid then there took
place an election which was attended by very unusual
circumstance..

Mears. Hurries and Bonham stood "gain, and Mr.
Tower also presented himself. In addition to these,
the Treasury sent down a Captain Ellice, brolier of
the late right hon. member for Coventry. Mr. Bonham
had little chance, but between the others the contest
promised to be very close. It proved so. Towards the
close of the poll single votes became of great import-
ance. A very Nw remained Lobe polled. Some of those
required considerable compensation for the trouble of
going up. to one case IDOL was given by the torus ;
in another instance, 200/. is supposed to have been
the figure. At half-past three or thereabo it. three of
the candidates, Messrs. Hurries, Ellice, nod Tower,
had polled 74 a piece. But one ava.lahie voter re-
mained to be polled. It is sill by some in
the town that he was a tory, and that it
was a matter of arrangement with the whigs
that he should split with Mr. Ellice in order
to settle the matter and avoid dispute'. Others say
the vote was a bad one, and that nobody cared which
way the suffrage was given. Amid much conflicting
evidence on the subj. et in Harwich, we resort to a uni-
versal source of information io London, to wit, Joseph
Parkes, Esq., of 'he Reform Club. Mr. Parkes is a
ma's who knows everything about elections, from the
timed Edward I. to the days of Victoria. Here is
his account of the casting vote at the Harwich elec-
tion in '37, and we prefer it, infinitely, to
any other account extant. " There was (says
he) an intention of petitioning:in 1837, by Mr. Tower ;
and I know that one man hail Sold. for the casting
rde at that election ! I know it had been offered to
Mr. Tower and refused by him, and that half the votes
had been bought on each side for the two sitting
members, and I have reason to believe that the man
had 5001."—neither more nor less.
Thus it was that Messrs. Herries and Ellice were
duly elected by a majority of one vote over Mr.
Tower. But this was a mere trifle. It was not until
1841 that bribery really began in Harwich. Then
they disdained hundreds and counted on nothing less
than thousands ! And they got the money, too, as
we @hal show hereaftrr.