The Express.
London, England, 1848-09-07 00:00:00

=trae the alesims. b all thin bale INNS
re
en qnseffines of Ilemoosi_of thee.,
devoted to allempes of the West Las
to gala as i* couldettadingeose
ef thearantry be lo • doesgis to sae
mandliabree hem beim amounting to "ow
fee ammo oreenraiir realeSed by a sestina of the
minim latemele tas.l tea Ile aliompied pepity
Orly ti of flee diarmebni Maned to cos =
Amid Menne of gamma intermit I sad in all of
them Ike interests of the nation were saeribod, either
to dr bilenons of the landholders or the convenience
al dm, essepenta and expectabta of place.
The liberal end tolerant spirit of the House of Com-
mas may be tested by the progress of the Diplomatic
Relations with Rome Bill, of the Roman Catholic Re-
lief Bill, and of the Jewish Disabilities Bill. The first
was carried after ten divisions; the wooed allowed to
fall through after twelve ; the third encountered fair
dismission, and has not become law.
Ths intelli,:enos of the bouts may be tested by the
difficulty with which the Public Health Bill wen I
carried through. It pawed after nine divisions, but
so mutilated that its own authors scarcely know it
• In the matter of law reform, a law which please'.
the entails of Seabed on the same footing as those of
England was carried slur three divisions; a lesagled
measure for facilitating the sale of encumbered estates
in Ireland, after four.
It only remains to glance at the progress of those
measures which were encroachments on public liberty
more or Ws nearer, in the circumstances of the the..
The bill for Suspending the Habeas Corpus in Ireland
passed after one division. The Crime and Outrage
(Ireland) Bill bad to grunts through six divisions.
The Crown and Government Security Bill was carried
after seventeen divisions. And the rrnlval of Aliens
Bill had only to struggle through four divisions. The
nanierous divisions on the Crown and Government
Security Bill arose, not oat of opposition to the mea-
sure itself, bat out of attempts on the part of the
liberal minority to strip it of dangerous, unneoseeery.
and unjust provisions. The opposition to the Re-
moval of Aliens Bill was inconsiderable when it is
considered what a frivolous emanation of an
alarmist spirit it was. The House of Commons, so
listless and dilatory in other matters, was prompt
enough whrrs the liberties of the subject were to be
curtailed.
These, then, are the results of the ten months'
session, and these the efforts by which the results
have been obtained. The folly of the wretched ad-
vocates of physical force has been turned to account
for the curtailment of the subject's liberties. Ot
these MOSNITIMP, as temporary (with the exception of
some details), we do not complain; but it is well to
remember that temporary abridgments of liberty are
generally made to last longer than is absolutely
necessary. A most imnoetant measure for the pee-
serration of the public health has been carried in a
mangled and inefficient form, after a most strenuous
opposition. Of three measures intended to remove
grievances entailed on sincere religions conviction,
and to emancipate our national diplomacy from fana-
tical restraint, only one has become law. Nothing
has boss dens to improve our representative system ;
and less than nothing to improve our finances. Two
local messes for improving our system of land
tonnes have pee ed—oes of them in a wretchedly in-
ablest form. This remind of the results of the ten
months' series places in a deplorable light the boast
of Lord lons Resew/ that ono hundred and five
government bills have been carried in the course of
the session. What will all thees bills effect for the
benefit of the nation
This utter waste of ten dreamy months by the
Houle of Commons sufficiently shows its utter want
of aptitude for the business of k 'elation. Into the
cause of that want we will inquire hereafter.

Narioxd. endowments for the encouragement of
art, wince, archeology, and all great civilising pur-
suits, are much to be commended as among the most
rational objects to which public money can be applied.
Talk and blander as they may, the distributers of
each funds cannot well make them rival in uselessness
thine spent on rangers of parks, or on dignified
grooms, and other little regal officials. Bat it might
be a question sometimes for the legislative friends of
progress, whether there are not services to be done in
the removal of laws obstructive to the means of se-
gueing knowledge which should precede direct pecu-
niary encouragement, as eerier aid simpler of accom-
plishment, and probably not less efficacious. The
removal of heavy dates on foreign literature and art,
—the abdition of other taxes, such as the excise duty
on glass, which interrupted experimental inquiry,
have long been recommended, and are partly accom-
plished. But every now and then, in soon small
corner of the huge labyrinth of our laws, may be
found a principle, a practice, which has been allowed
to remain doing mischief for ages, though it requires
only to be looked at to be condemned.
We shall bring forward one of these, that oar
readers ma look at it—the law of treasure-trove, by
which all things made of the precious metals found
hidden in the earth are forfeited to the crown. It ,
needs little learning to teach us that among the most
valuable in en antiquarian sense, because among the
most enduing ot the anteological types of a
people, are thole maned in the precious
metals. It has happened that in an indi-
vidual win enemies of investigation through
other and vaguer media into the history of a
greet people have been concentrated, as it were, in a
focus. There are ether inetaaoes where the one coin
that might have settled some great ethnical dispute
bee only ben known to have existed—has been seen
bat for a incumat byes* of the learned, and has dis-
appeared ere it could be applied to its great purpose.
Vessels, arms, regal decorations, and ecclesiastical in-
signia made of the precious metals and calculated to
throw all the light that can be thrown on remote pe-
riods of the history of deem islands, are from time to
time exhumed, bat, slow with the coins. they have
an exterminatimg nisei to pas through in this law
of treasure-trove. The railway excavations of late
years might, we doubt sot, have supplied a national
massaa, if the law had provided motives
far the finders of precious antiquities preserving in-
stead of destroying them. We lately heard of an in-
stance where a learned body was put in quest of an
historical relic of great antiquity, dug up an a remote
mion. But ere it could be seen by erudite eyes it
weerW the melting pot. It was a pine of gold
beat 4W. as bullion, and the fir had not a
=of the digitises between meson and teem
ihstidiens to Ware him to hand it over to
bar Sisisity's liserambrentser in Exchequer.
Law sells it a arias for ease to appropriate to him-
self that which be gads, though no living person
ever owned it; bat human natant will never rank
this ad is the catalogue of crimes, and the law will
never be obeyed where it can possibly be evaded.
BLecesronat (1 C 0.., 296) tells as that trea-
sure trove is " where any money ce eon, gold,
silver, plate, or bullion, is found hidden us the earth,
or other private place, the owner thereof being un-
known; to which ease the treasure belongs to the
King; bat if he that hid it be known, or afr rends
found out, the owner, and not the King, is entitled to
it. Also, if it be fond in the sea. or upon th r earth,
it doth not be.ong to the King, but the finder, if no
owner appears." So that it seems it is the hiding, and
not the abandoning, of it, that gives the King " a pro-
perty ;" for which distinction the commentator, of
course, Ands excellent reasons, suited to satisfy every
legally regulated mind that the law is the perfection
of reason, and would be unjust and monstrous were
it in the slightest degree different from what
it is. It appears, however, to have already under-
gone ace great change. " The punishment," says
BcActurronx, "of such as concealed from the King
the finding of hidden treasure was formetly no less
than death, but now it is only fine and imprison-
ment" Thom the law has already parted with so
mach of its terrors against the acquisitive treasure-
finder, that it need pot very strenuously guard the
remainder.
The Roman law took a rational view of this sub-
ject, which after all may have been the reason why
the common law took an irrational. In the 39th
paragraph of the second title of the first book at
the " Institute " the rule is set forth with an
"excellent brevity," that would have pleased
Bacon better than COILS. Whoever fond treasure
in his own ground was according to notreine tequilas
to be its owner. When it was found in soother man's
f=thalf went to the finder, half to the proprietor.
the law rested on en imperial constitution it
did not even award to CrIAI the things that were
Caws% if Una had never known of their exist-
ence. Si gni in Cowrie loco incised, distidiunt
iseestoris et dissident esm Ow», 44(144 So may
we orcoadonally Bad morsels of law some seventeen