The Express.
London, England, 1853-10-29 00:00:00

THE TIMES A.ND THE QUEEN OF SPAIN.

TO THE IDITOR OF TII7 EXPEE.IB.
Slit,—The journal that assailed an English lady—
Miss Caningbame, when she lay seemingly helpless
in an Italian gaol—now finds congenial employment
in an attack upon another woman—more ckcated,
but much more unfortunate, than our countrywoman
in Tuscany-. The pen that toadies the Emperor of
Russia libels the Queen of Spain ; and, having vaunted
the glories of despotism at St. Petersburg one day, it
hastens on the next to breathe rancorous inuenaoca
and heap insidious slanders round about the throne
of Madrid. In the one case the interests of the house
of I tomanoff are assisted, in the other those of Orleans.
The infamous intrigues which ended in the Spanish
marriages were believed by their author to have
secured at once a husband fiir the Queen of Spain,
with a certainty of no heir to her throne ; and
now, when the last of these shameful hopes seems
fated to disappointment, the tongue of slander, arid a
libellous pen, are busy with the character both of
mother and expected child. People in London
have lately been discussing the best means of
checking thi: cruelties of women-beaters but
unhappily the brutality is not confined to the
residents of London rookeries. It is not brick-
layers and costermongers alone who enjoy attacks
on defenceless women. Like the worst of the women-
killers who figure in police-courts, the Times chooses
for its attack the moment when its victim is about to
become a mother. Its victim ps not only a woman,
but a pregnant woman. To hit at Miss Cuning-
hame when she was held fast in the limbo of the
I hike of Tuscany—helpless in a foreign country and
apparentiy friendless—was cruel enough in its way ;
but now we have a lady assailed by all the rancorous
arts of the most insidious and crafty slanders, in the
very hour when the mental torture that such an attack
most cause may be most disastrous to both mother
and offspring. The charges laid against the Queen
of Spain are just of the class in which the late Mr.
Barnard Gregory, of Sitarist notoriety, most
delighted in. To reply to them is to be defiled,
whilst to leave them unnoticed is almost to court
infamy.
Whilst objecting to the unmanly conduct of your
contemporary one woad should be said to guard
against the possibility of my being supposed to sym-
pathise with the general character of the Spanish go-
vernment. Spain is bigoted in religious matters,
disgraced in financial ones, whilst in politics the rule
of Isabella Secunda is very far indeed behind what
those liberals who aiecd her against Don Carlos
hoped it would be. But the Queen of Spain
has very little to do with government :
she reigns, but scarcely rules. It was not the
Queen who" worked" the Spanish debt and plundered
the English creditors of her country, any more than
she chose the husband she was induced to marry.
If her conduct has really afforded any grounds for
scandal, the authors of that very marriage are the
authors of the mischief. Tricked, disappointed, and
disgusted—if she has sought gratification and re-
venge, it is scarcely the privilege of those who
brought about the sin to be the executioners of the
backslider. That is the exclusive privilege of a
certain " gentleman in black."
AN ENGLISHMAN.

BELLOT TESTIMONIAL COMMITTEE.

The preliminary meeting of this committee took
place on Wednesday lit‘t, at the apartments of the Royal
Geographical Society; Sir Itooanick MVHCIIISON in the
chair ; when it was resolved that, in order to give all per-
sons who are interested in the fate of this gallant and
lamented officer an opportunity of recording their sense of
his noble conduct, a puNlic meeting should be called as
soon as possible. The chairman stated that the interest
excited in this case having now assumed so national a turn,
it was his opinion that the chair at the meeting would be
more appropriately filled by some public character than by
himself, and it was resolved that the First Lord of the
Admiralty should be requested to take the chair on the
occasion ; and that, in the event of his declining to do so,
Sir Rods rick Murchison be desired to continue in that
office. From what has since transpired it is understood
that Sir James Graham, fully appreciating the compli-
ment paid him by the committee, has expressed his opinion
that his official position prevented his taking the chair, but
that he entirely concurred with the resolution of the com-
mittee that Sir Roderick Murchison should continue to
occupy it. Sir James has further consented to move the
first resolution at the meeting. The Earl of Aberdeen,
entirely participating in these views, has expressed himself
to the effect that be willingly, and with the greatest
pleasure, associates himself with those who form the com-
mittee for this object, in which, from the first, he has felt
a very deep interest