The Express.
London, England, 1851-04-04 00:00:00

true, pity, and pity 'tis true.

We don't wonder that in the first paroxysm of
chagrin a morning contemporary should not have
had presence of mind to invent any excuse for the
sad display of indecision on the part of its chief.
Sentimentalisms about Sir Ronmt. and Lord
GEoinit: BENTINCK, and much chiaro scare about
the maintenance of protestantism, with the usual
commonplaces about rank and property displayed on
the occasion—all these would be very well at any
other time, or apropos of any other topic. But
these cannot compensate for the lack of spirit
and resolve so glaringly betrayed in the
long-winded evasion by Lord STANLEY of
the sole question his entertainers of Wednesday
last expected hint to answer, namely, whether
he was ready to take office? Atter five sad years of
patriotic endurance of the country's prosperity • after
witnessing the remission of successive taxes, and the
gradual increase, notwithstanding, of the public re-
venue ; after witnessing the kingom's escape from
even the thought of revolution, and resuscitation
from the calamities of famine and
.panic, in a space
incredibly brief; after calmly submitting to all these
aggravations of their spleen, without attempting to
seize the helm, or turn the ship's head against wind and
tide—country gentlemen naturally feel it rather hard
to be merely told, in very verbose rhetoric, that their
principles are undoubtedly sound, and that, sooner or
later, they are sure to prevail. Really, Lord STAN-
LEY'S love of trifling sometimes carries him rather
fur.
In the same spirit of merciless waggery we note
his way of giving the health of his distinguished
lieutenant in the Commons. Could he think of no

graver or more generous terms in which to acknow-
ledge the priceless services of the only man of genius
in the camp of dulness, than those in which he spoke
of Mr. Insit.tett's "wit and general talent," which
had made him "the terror of his enemies?" As
might have been expected, the announcement in
this style of the hated and envied plebeian's
name was received with " laughter and cheers." No
wonder that the buoyancy of the man forsook
him, and that the few sentences uttered by the
slighted leader of the faction in the lower house fell
fiat and pointless on the assemblage. And this,
then, is the end of long, arduous, and inestimable
services rendered by a child of the people to their
discomfited and despairing masters in their hour of
need. This is the recognition a man of self-reliant
and self-dependent spirit finds from the supercilious
and insolent class for whom be invented a cause,
wove a banner, and forged a whole armoury of
weapons of defence and of attack. " Wit and
general talent," and that is all. Had Mr.
DisusEtt been born the son of a peer, and
made any one of his numberless speeches in
the cause of protection, what laudations and
eulogies should we not have had from his haughty
leader ? With what bursts of well-bred enthusiasm
would such praises have been responded to ? But he
is, and must on the moat conspicuous occasions, and
in the moat invidious phrases, be reminded by the
ungrateful and ungenerous masters whom he unhap-
pily saved, that though for them in the field, he is
not them at the board. They are the old and incor-
rigible oligarchy who lived upon the industry of the
wople, and who would, if they dared, set about their
hereditary work of prey. And he and every other
man who, forgetting the wrongs and the nghts of
his own order, lends them the aid of his ability, elo-
quence, and versatile power, has this inevitable fate
before him, to be spurned as an intruder

TIIR conviction of LEVI HARWOOD and Jams
JoNEs of the murder of Mr. HOLLaaT by the evi-
dence through which it was mainly reached, has
deepened tenfold the tragic interest of the Frimley
catastrophe, and given a novel incident to the dreary
and repulsive annals of crime. What the foul deed
itself wanted in romance, the manner in which it has
been proved to a jury has now surrounded it with ;
and, though justice will not be baulked of some of
the criminals, the actual murderer, there is too much
reason to fear, will escape the penalty of his guilt by
the success of a treachery which was prompted, not by
any moral remorse or mental compunction for his act,
but simply by the animal instinct of self-preservation.
HIRAM SMITII seems at once to have realised the
danger in which he stood, and made a desperate
attempt to escape from the consequence of a burglary
to which he himself added murder by disclosing all
he knew, except those parts which by
his own
the most prominent guilt of the occurrence. In this
dash for life the wretched man has so far been me.
medal, and the law consigns to the 'gallows his less
daring and really less guilty companions. Whether