The Express.
London, England, 1848-12-11 00:00:00

rG. DECEMBER 11. 1848.

.0100sailaket from 411111Codwastsilo raw
redly Imo chow. Bohm the pimisomaitany weeks
Who Pan sabinet were idarto prVitiat• some
tif \ oppisosts by variety of Coodidontines
ma it Is well known that lest Cf.anblinon
Me beet ready to Goner& still to
!ft the=
of catholic .didiest which the e
.in the whims bad wantonly
-What these eoposmkeee were, and why tCrwlirle.
ellen mesh deliberation rejected at Rome, we shall
Owe Oka appatasithea of inquiring. Oar heme 4
Maio bedew- ire whit the mune whiell our
dozett
mood Morn% and met with the
thoprepepolds.
Vio anasmod. ow days duet as indeed did one
advedisindeek that the various professorships.
in the }Nebula ~s were about to be filled up.
°Mein inibisimisate to students in the nature at
SOWINIMPS reed exhibitions were likewise hell eat.
flume odor netters of detail were enumerated; iedr
lastly, it wee declared that on the completion of the
seams of study preearibed in them institutions, the
degree of A.B. would be conferred bye new body to be
seeded for the purpose, and to be entitled the Qmsees'e
Unlearnt), of Ireland.
Willingly s• we have praised the constancy et
persevering with the colleges, we cannot extend the
:nliation to this idea of a new university. We en
hardly conceive a more infelicitese sr a
INN unfortunate mission for making it. Iflet
wanted a mooed university, or if her people, or bee
pressatativee, imagined thatshe did, we should be slow
in stinting a word is depreciation of the project. But
nedbing of the kind can be averred. The may voice that
hes been heard to name snob an idea is that of the
Papal rescript, which declares the Queen's colleges as
new constituted to be highly dangerous to faith and
mends, and which so far from favouring any plan for
ctrig them around a Queen's university—to be
of mime on similar principles—expressly
neonanseado the voluntary formation and endowment
of a operate sad exclusive catholic university. The
itteramtsint plea In dm put forward as a rival and
eataqsairt ems. As such it will naturally and neon-
sarilytlieVd by the great majority of the pre-
late*, and people of Ireland. Until Pope
Plus t flew urge the expediency of a catholic
university, not a syllable did we hear of a second in-
stitution having the power to wafer degrees; but no
sooner is the rescript promulgated than the ill-starred
scheme appears of a new university, to be of course
endowed by parliament, and dignified with the royal
name.
But we do not rest our objection upon grounds of
transient circumstances, or popular distrust. We
question its justice and policy upon far different
grounds. Ireland already possesses one of the noblest
endowments ever devoted to the uses of a university.
For more than two centuries these have been mono-
penned by a small fraction of the community, while
the majority have been debarred and excluded. Why
is not this scandalous monopoly broken down ? Why
are catholic. and presbyterians cheated of their birth-
right in their own land—the sacred birthright of
knowledge and its rewards ? And what do
the whips mean by neglecting so plain a
duty, year after year, as this of throwing
open Ireland's only existing university to all creeds
and opinions? This—and not the miserable substi-
tute of a soi-diesost university. which at best would
not end could not rise to equal rank in general esti-
mation for a greration or two—is the justice which
Ireland has a right to expect, and which we twit is
will demand and babe spa. Anything short of this
is simply, and in terms, t) tell the catholice and dis-
senters who, together, constitute nine-tenths of the
community, that although in future their eons may
aspire to be scholars, fellows. and professors, it is only
of the new, raw, poor, and sveryway inferior system, I
whilst the ancient, carved, and gilded chairs of
seism* and literature, are to be still strictly kept for
the genteel Greed and aristocratic elms of society.

Tun law against lotteries has been, and may still
farther be made, to oatstep the limits of justice, as
well as of policy. Its legitimate aim no doubt was
to prevent any company or establishment from driving
• trade upon the gambling passions of the multitude,
making a regular profit out of an aleatory erd.
tion, and holding out permanent temptation or this
purpose to the imprudent and unwary.
But, surely, it ought to have struck the legislator
on the very threefold of his task, that it was not the
aleatory ollaracter of the enterprise which rendered
it worthy of proscription or punishment, but the
nature of the ends to which the enterpriee was des-
tined. What is en insurance office but an aleatory
speculation? What is the whole system of life
annuities, tontines, benefit societies, burial associa-
tions, what are they all bat lotteries, lotteries which
play on the chances of life and death? Nay, we
might go further, and argue that the essence of
trade itself—that operation which is to the English
sematunity, what the life-blood is to the human
body—is in a very great measure lottery.
In the question of art unions, however, we have
begun to distinguish between what is aleatory fee
good ends, and wrist is so for bad ends. An aleatory
speculation for the indulgence of a refined taste is
thus admitted, as it is for the purposes of charity and
sementy. For the purpose of mere amusement, how-
ever, aleatory speculations are more doubtfully looked
on; and as yet very unfair distinctions are drawn.
Thus gentlemen may openly bet upon a race-
course ; but those beneath the rank and means
of a gentleman, who have not sufficient capi-
tal to bet, but who are obliged to club and
have remoras to an aleatory combination in
order to bet—these poor men are treated as delin-
quents, and may be imprisoned as vagrants! We can
discern no principle of justice, reason, or common-
weal in all this; and it only shows how legislation
with us is the lowest, the most capricious, and most

neglected of seinen.
Although we cannot agree with one of our contem-
poraries in admitting that these things should be
tolerated in fashionable clubs, because they cannot be
prevented without isoonvenience,and that they should
be decidedly prevented in public houses because the
I police and magistrates can do so without inoonve-
siencing any, save those who cannot make their oom-,
plaints heard--still we admit that the imprudent open-
ing and advertising of public offices for the enticement
of even the curious wayfarer to come in and deposit
his stake in a Derby sweep—this certainly demands
and warrants putting down.
As some of our readers may not improbably be
called upon in their public or private capacities to
assist in repressing thee, abuses; and as others,
unaware of the serious nature of the offence,
miff selves be implleated in them, it may not be
awl= to state thaw relative to such proceedings,
I IMO especially part of it that relates to their
suppression. It must, to the first place, be borne ia
mind that all the transactions that are now being
carried on under the name of "racing sweeps;
are in a legal point of view lotteries, and as such ars
subject to all the common law, and all the wakes
statutes that have been pealed from time to time to
restrain trenmetions of that nature. This was first
decided in the case of u Allport e. Nutt (1 M. Or.
aad Sc. 974), which arose out of a betting sweep-
stakes on the mos in which " Running Rein" played se
seuspicuons a part. The facts disclosed i the it
plea, and which were held by the court to
amount to a lottery, were precisely those now genes►
ally followed in the venous racing sweeps esta-
blished throughout the country, and which'
I see too well known to require setting forth here.
get even if the caprice of the parties, or a desire ca
their part to evade the law, should induce them to
vary the mode of determining the chances from that
above referred to, it is scarcely necessary to these“,
that—so long as their object, and the genera wade of
carrying it out is the same, namely, that of advansing
several smaller sums to constitute one large one,
which by chance is to be allotted to one of the
poetise—tt will be a lottery, and as such it wilt entail
es the parties concerned all the serious consequences
by law attached to each practices. As lotteries then,
there are four different ways that may be adopted fur
suppressing them.
In the first place, all houses frequented for indulg-
ing in each are public nuisances, and all
rums them may be proceeded against in
tam MN way se those keeping gambling and other
bow et ill-htse. This is provided for by the statutes
et the 10 & 11 Will. 111., c. 17, and the 42 Geo. lIL,
c. 119, by which " all such lotteries and other
lotteries are common and public nuisances."
Independently of these statutes, however, all places
frequen'ed for such practices are no doubt nuisances
at common law, for the same reason that houses
used for cockfighting, cudgelling, gaming, de-
' bauchery, &c., are,—namely, because they have
s baneful effect upon the morals of society,