The Express.
London, England, 1851-06-28 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OP THE ESPRE49.

SIC.,—It is becoming hourly of more importance
that the British public should perceive that the agitation
which is now taking place in " the Australia'," on the sub-
ject of transportation, is beyond all mistake of a very serious
character. Ile great meeting held at Melbourne on the
Ist February last, to inaugurate the Anti-Transportation
, League, was followed by another meeting, held on the 11th
of that month, at Geelong, the second town in the I'ort
Philip colony, at which upwards of a thousand persons as-
sembled, when it was unanimously declared that the total
cessation of transportation to the Australian colonies was
essential to their honour, happiness, and prosperity. On
the Bth of the same month a meeting was held at Adelaide,
at which many of the principal colonists took an active part,
load resolutions were carried denouncing the continuance of

transportation to Van Diemen's Land, which was but an
indirect means of pouring criminals into the province of
South Australia itself. The Governor of Van Diemen's
Land, enamoured as he is of transportation, has endeavoured
to show that that island will bear a favourable comparison
with the other Australian colonies in the statistics of
crime, and the idea was adopted with alacrity by
Earl Grey. It should now seem that the Governor was not
far wrong, os there is uo doubt an equalising process going
on in this respect throughout the colonies. At the Adelaide
meeting, Mr. Elder, one of the speakirs, observed, that
" ship after ship was bringing the dregs of Van Diemen's
Land to our shores. Turn to the criminal assises, and
notice there that the crimes of the deepest order were perpe-
trated by enfranchised or conditionally pardoned convicts.
So master or mistress could be certain whether their see
rant was not a convicted felon." And whereas the noble
secretary for the colonies always produces "sensation" in
the House of Lords when lie refers to the 70,080 convicts
who would be in this country 1k ere they not in New South
Wales, the colonists very naturally propose for counter con-
sideration, whether they should be content with a system
which, in the next twenty years, will transmit to their
shores 80,000 additional criminals, convicted of murderous
assaults, burglaries, and all the other heinous offences to
which the punislunent of transportation is now restricted.
At all the anti-transportation meetings in the tour colo-
nies, the great hit of the leading speakers is the breach of
faith committed by the government in sending convicts to
Van InelnCfl'S Land after the pledges to the contrary given
in 1817.

Great hopes have been lately entertained that after our
unavailing effort+ to carry on a cheap and self-supporting
system of transportation, the people of Van Diemen .s Lead
would be brought to submission by offers of a liberal appli-
cation of convict labour in effecting various public improve-
ments. Some proposals accordingly appear to have been
made to the inhabitants of Hobart Town for the construc-
tion of additional wharf accommodation at that port ; but
we find that at a meeting of merchants held there on tho
3rd February the project was highly relished, nith the ex-
ception that the builders and contractors "should pledge
themselves not to employ convict labour on the work."
We might have hoped that times had changed—that the
past had not warned us in vain—and that by the year 1351,
a disregard of colonial grievances had ceased to be the here-
ditary vice of the British government. But more blind and
iufatuated than ever must be the administration which can
survey all that is now taking place in Australia, and hesi-
tate fur an instant On the course which a just expediency
Points out for adoption. Is it not clearer than ever that
the alternative now before the government is the retention
of our criminal+ at home, or their transportation to new
penal settlements? ti
June 23, MI.

THE COUNCIL OF TOE INSTITUTION OF MECIIA-
NICAL EN4I SNEERS have determined to celebrate the period
of the Great Exhibition by inviting the principal engineers
and machinists of all countries to a banquet at the Free-
masons'f deem, and it appears that upwards of two hun-
dred invitations have been sent to distinguished engineers
in various parts of the continent, and also to the principal
scientific men now in England. Robert Stephenson,
M.l'., president of the institution, is to take the chair, and
it is expected that this will be a very interesting melting,
being the first occasion when the engineers of this country
have had an opportunity of meeting in a body the gentle-
men engaged iu kindred pursuits throughout the world.
EXPENSES OF CRIMINAL PROSECUTIONS IN SCOT-
LAN u.—The expenses of criminal prosecutions have, fur tho
the last three or four years, formed a frequent subject of
distutedon at the annual meetings of the commissioners of
supply of the different counties in Scotland. It was in-
sisted, and with justice, that Scotland should be placed on
the saute Muting as England, where all the expenses con-
nected with the criminal prosecutions have been paid for
some time past out of the Consolidated Fund. We are glad
now to have it in our power to aanounee that the boon
which was granted to Englund by Sir Ilethert Peel, us some
compensation to the landowners for the repeal of the corn
laws, has been extended to Scotland—the Lords of the
Treasury having COltAllitell to defray the expenses of prose-
cution in summary cases, as they have hitherto dune in
cases that were reported to crown counsel and tried before
jury. The expenses of such summary prosecutions used
to be paid in the different counties by an assessment called
the rogue money, which sometimes formed a pretty heavy
local tax. No positive instructions have, as yet, reached
the Queen's Remembrancer's-offlce on the subject; but
what we have stated above may be relied on as having been
agreed to by the Lords of the freasury.—Seutsman.
PARLIAMENTARY CON V E NTIONA L ITIES.—Whv must
an honourable gentleman always "cone down" to this
house? Why can't he sometimes "come up"—like it
7 horse—or come—or " come in " like a man ? What does
he mean by invariably coming down ? Is it indispensable
that he should "come dawn" to get into the !louse of
„ .

Commons—say, for instance, from St: Alban 's ? Or is that
house on a lower level thou most other houses ? Why is he
always "free to confess It is well known that Britons
never never never v ill be slaves; then why can't he soy
what he has to say without this superfluous assertion of his
freedom? Why must an Irish member always " taunt "
the noble lord with this, that, or the other ? Can't be tell
him of it civilly, or accuse him of it plainly ? Must he so
ruthlessly taunt him? Why dues the honourable member
for Groginhole call upon the Secretary of State for the
Home Department to " lay his hand upon his In art," and
proclaim to the country such and such a thing ? The llomo
Secretary is nut iii the habit oflaying his hand upon his heart.
When he has anything to proclaim to the country, lie gene-
rally puts his hands under his coat-tails. Why is lie thus
personally and solemnly abjured to lay one of them on the
left side of his waistcoat for any honourable member's gra-
tification ? What makes my honourable friend, the mem-
ber for Gammunrife, feel so acutely that he is required to
"pin his faith" upon the measures of her Majesty's go-
vernment ? Is he always required to attach it in that par-
ticular manner only; and are needle and thread, hooks
and eyes, buttons, wafers, sealing-wax, paste, bird-lime,
gum, and glue, utterly prohibited to him ? Who invested
the unfortunate Speaker with all the wealth and poverty
of the empire, that he should be told " Sir, when you
look around you, and behold your seas swarming with
ships of every variety of tonnage and construction—when
you behold your Hag waving over the forts of a territory
so vast, that the Sun never sets upon it—when
you consider that your storehouses are teeming with the
valuable products of the earth—and when you reflect that
millions of your poor are held in the bonds of pauperism
I and ignorance—con you, I ask, reconcile it to yourself—
can you, I demand, justify it to your conscience—can you,
I inquire, Sir, stifle the voice within you, by these selfish,
these time-serving, these ',hallow, hollow, mockeries of
legislation ?" It is really dreadful to have an innocent and
worthy gentleman bullied in this manner. Again, why do
"1 hold in my hand" all *one of things? Can I never lay
them down, or carry them under my arm ? There was a
fairy in the Arabian Nights who could hold in her hand a
pavilion large enough to shelter the Sultan's army, but she
could never have held half the petitions, blue-books, bills,
reports, returns, volumes of Mansard, and other miswella-
ncous papers, that a very ordinary member for a very ordi-
' nary place will hold in his hand now-a-days. Then, again,
how did it conie to be necessary to the constitution that
I should be such a very circuitous and prolix peer am to
" take leave to remind you, my lords, of what fell from
the noble and learned lord on the opposite side of your
lordship' house, who preceded my noble and learned friend
on the cross benches when he addressed himself with so
much ability to the observations of the right rev. prelate
near me, in reference to the measure now brought forward
by the noble baron "—when, all this time, I mean, mod
only want to say, Lord Brougham ? Is it impossible for my
honourable friend the member for Drowsyshire to wander
through his few dreary
.sentences immediately before the
divisiou, without premising that " at this late hour of the
night, and in this stage of the debate," &c. ? Because if it
be nut impossible why dues he never du it? And why,
why, above all, in either house of parliament must the
English language be set to music, bad and conventional
beyond any parallel on earth. Is parliament included in
' the Common Prayer-book under the denomination of
quires and places where they sing ?" And dais, wouldn't
it be worth a small grant to make some national arrange-
meet for instruction in the art by Mr. Mullah?—Dickens's
! Ilouiekold Worfis.
rilSalltAatidraeteN
nOzEoPtißdES,liefseE7Ndir..q7.77de, tfeohyrei d
omanfltpl eyecrtltaboeoblolnen
gOiffnugrFnritdhidye
lodgings at the door of a maiden lady in Govan-street, Glas-
gow. The applicant, who carried n her arms an infant
a requestedweighttoofeohmeer in and
ownw.which she readily accepted. After
cchhailrgd
ea_nclina bundle,invitati
said
be
some seated,
atthatcdconversation,ass
hhe weeineas tnahthetiewir°;:nctliltyhroaf wsbeaichcathptea'nournigowwoumpea woman
a long voyage, whom she had not seen for a consi-
derable period; that the child Tase.its;ntdhsleeust.enhpfteriumimitigohhtthetrefnrto.bhp:ser7bi:
tenon; and that she wished to hire smaller apart-
hiewirriallsgits'es.nrebedrurnfga,,:tanhefecnwheedmildilnef:elells,easlipha:enspt
that she should be permitted to lay the baby in the
disturbed. The lady of the •
the stranger recollected the,
she was to draw a quart,
and requested as as ad?
be allowed to lie in Iv
the shipping office -
may be imagined,
is now in charge
fishily, gives notic
unnatural mother
but, if not claimed
account will it

'ho lady of the house complied, upon which
recollected that it was the very day on which
aw a quarterly allowance from her hnsban d,
1 as tit additional favour that the might
lie in tied until oho.* t yore* to
office where her mon? it, Vll-10,
ined, the lady never „la •
rge of a tradesman erwi,:;
notice through the vol"
kother wishes her e
aimed within ten d • ,
it be parted with." •
le: '?'