The Express.
London, England, 1846-12-17 00:00:00

gbe gourt._

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Yesterday her Majesty and her Royal Consort took
their usual early walk.
WINDSOR, WEDNESDAY EVENlNG.—lnstructiona
were received at the Castle this morning from Osborne-
house, for the private apartments to be prepared for the
reception of her Majesty and the royal family on Friday next.

A Cabinet Council was held yesterday afternoon at
the Foreign-office; at half-past two o'clock the following
miniaten assembled: Lord John Russell, the Lord Chancel-
lor, the Marquis of Lansdowne, the Earl of Tinto, Sir G.
Grey, Viscount Palmerston, Earl Grey, the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, the Earl of Auckland, Sir J. Hobhouse,
Lord Campbell, Viscount Morpeth, the Earl of Claren-
don, and the Right Hon. T. B. Macaulay. The Marquis
of Lansdowne arrived in town yesterday to attend the cowl-
cil, from his seat, Bowood-park, Wilts. Lord J. Russell
arrived in town yesterday from his residence, Chorleywood.
The Earl of Clarendon arrived In town from his seat, Grove-
park, Herts. The Earl of Minter also arrived in town yes-
terday to be present at the meeting. The Council sat two
hours and-a-half. The Cabinet Ministers again assembled in
the evening at the residence of Earl Grey, in Belgrave-
square, the noble Ear) giving a Cabinet dinner.
Despatches were sent off yesterday evening from
the Coloaial-office, for the Governors of the West India
Colonies.
The Count de Montemolin visited the gaol of New-
gate yesterday, escorted by the Sheriffs, and sat for a short
time upon the bench in this sons+.

DEATH OF LIEUT.-WU/NEL FOUNTAIN ELW/N,
K.C.—This distinguished officer expired on the Bth inst., at
his residence at Peckham, owed 67. Colonel Elwin... com-
missions were thus dated: Ensign, April 27, 1798 ; Lieute-
nant, May 10, 1799 ; Captain, Jan. It, 1802 ; I. jor, June
4, 1813; and Lieut.-Colonel, July 22, 1830. He was on
the half-pay list since March, 1816.
R. J. Eaton, Esq., M.P. for Cambridgeshire,
whose death was erroneously stated, by an evening paper, to
have taken place at Malta Mst month, has returned to Lon-
don somewhat improved. though by no means convalescent.

EAST LYDIA 'LOUSE.
Yesterday there was a court of East India proprie-
tors. Sir J. W. Hogg was in the chair. It wwt-aisnounced
that the dividend warrants would be ready for delivery on
the 6th of next month, and the titles were read of various
papers laid before parliament, and of which copies are ready
ter the proprietors.
°KANTO Ti) THE GOVERNOEXIBNERAL AND THE COX-
IgANDEII-IN•CHIEP IN INDIA.— The following letters, re-
ceived by the Court of Directors, were read :
" Simla, July 10, 1946.
° Memorable Sire. --I hare had the honour to roeeive the itr•Dilt-
ticas of the Court of Directoni and of the Court of Proprietors, confer-
ring upon me an annuity of five thousand pound., which nieolution
hail been confirmed by the right boa. the Board of Commissioners for
the Afaire of India. I am most anxious to convey to the
honourable Court of Directors, and the hon. Court of Pro-
prietors, my warmest thanks for the very flattering terms in
which they have expressed their favourable, opinion of my conduct in
greedily terminating the slab war, by. dictating arranaements tor the
restoration of peace, which have rimmed their auprotiotion. I beg to
enure the Court of Directors and the Court of Proprietors that their
good solnion, and the confidence which they have always reposed in
me, will greatly. animate me in the performance of my responsible
duties. I receive with much pride and grateful riatufaction the Pro-
vision so liberally made for mc, and which they are pfeased to declare
has been conferred upon me unanimontly, a. ..special mark of the ap-
prubstion of the Lot India Company. It has given me the greatest plea.
sheet° communicate to the Conamander-in-Chicf, Lord Gough, these
nonunion' of your honourable courts' despatch which relate to his
Bust:temp.—l have the honour to euirseribe myself, honourable airs,
your very faithful and obliged servant, (Signed) Ilasourox.
To the honourable the Court of Directors.
Simla, July 21, 1946.
61r,—1 have the honour to request you to lay before the C aunt of
Directors the enclosed letter of Lord Gough, in answer to the Cou-Ve
despatch of the 20th of May, which I had the pleasure of communi-
cating to his lordiship.-1 have the honour to in sir, your very obe-
dient 'invent, (Signed) I Luna:eon
J. Melville. Simla, July 17, 11141.
My Lard,—l have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your
lordship's letter of the fith instant, giving cover to the extract of a
letter from the lion. the Court of Director., dated the 211th Mar,
No. Si: I pray your lordship will do me the favour to convey to the
Hon the Court of Directors my wannest acknowledgments foe their
moat liberal mark of approval, and that of the Court of Proprietors, of
the service' of their commander-in-chief, throughout the opera-
tion* on the b inks of the Seidel of the gallant army it was my
good fortune to command. The grant being unprecedented, greatly
increases my obligation and my gratitude. The value of this ap-
proval of my exertions at the head of the Indian Army is greatly
enhanced in my estimation by their having been made under the
government of, and in conjunction with, your lordship. —I have the
honour to be, my Lord, your Lordship.* faithful and obedient servant,
lSigned ) Gomm,
General Commander-in-Chief in India.

To the Right Hon. Vi.eount ibinTmge, K.C.8.,
Governor-General of Intim
A notice of motion given by Mr. Salomon for this day's
discussion, was, upon the request of the hon. proprietor (by
letter), postponed.
Mr. I'. Goanov spin pressed upon the court the necessity
of the minutes of the proceedings of the general courts being
printed for the use of the proprietors, and he moved a reso-
lution to that effect.—The motion was not seconded, and it
consequently fell to the ground. He then gave notice of a
motion for the neat general court, that a committee be ap-
pointed to inquire into the legality of his arrest, and having
been dragged through the streets as a felon (for having ex-
hibited placards condemnatory of the policy of the Court of
Directors), end to report thereon.—The notice of motion was
received, and of course will stand for discussion at the neat
general meeting.
THIS Ex-RUMI OF SATTARA.—Mr. P. GoRDoN then
essayed to read the contents of a pamphlet in favour of the
assumed claims of the deposed ex-Rajah.
The CHAIRMAN : Do you intend to make a motion upon
the subject? It is quite inconsistent with the rules which
govern the proceedings of the House of Commons (the rou-
tine of which is followed by all public bodies) to read ex-
tracts on giving notice of motion. If the hon. proprietor
makes a motion that the pamphlet be read, he (the chairman)
would put the question to the proprietors. No person, how-
evi r, seconded Mr. Gordon when he moved has res
and the court then adjourned.

SOCIETY FOR THE AMENDMENT OF THE
LAW.—SECONDARY PUNISHMENTS.
The society met yesterday evening, Mr. Commis-
sioner Fonblanque in the chair. The secretary having read
the minutes of the previous meeting—
Mr. M. D. HILL, Q.C., proceeded to bring under the
notice of the society his views with reference to secondary
punishments, and the reformation of juvenile offenders. He
said that his intention was in the first instance to call the
attention of the society to the various plans which had
been suggested for the above objects, with the effects of such
as had been brought into operation, and in doing so he could
not help congratulating himself on haying seen in that day's
newspapers that the plans of Capt. M'Cunochie were about
to be submitted, with some modifications, to the test of
actual experiment. ( Hear, hear) He would first call the
emotion of the society to the proceedings of the Warwick-
shire association for the reformation of young offenders.
That society had been in operation since 1818 ; and it ap-
peared had effected reformation to the amount of 60 per
cent. on the whole number plaid under their control. The
expense of the whole hundred, when charged to the sixty
reformed offenders, would amount to 251. per heaci, and
surely any one who knew the expense of criminal prosecu-
tions would consider the system an economical one. The
next paper to which he should allude was one with
which he had been favoured by Mr. Rushton, police magis-
trate in Liverpool, by which it appeared that, in the cases of
14 young persons, frequently charged and tried, the refor-
mations were few, and the average expense wet 561. per
head, being more than twice the expen,e at the Warwick-
shire Asylum on Dunsford Heath. Since 1841 the Birming-
ham magistrates, at quarter sessions, had tried an experi-
ment which had been attended wit` considerable success. In
the case of apprentices convicted of minor offences, they had
sent them back to their musters, wherever the latter were
willing to take them ; and the result had been, for the
Michaelmas sessions of the present year, that out of 113 so
treated, 40 turned out decidedly bad, 20 were put down as
doubtful, but 44 had reformed so es to stand the tests both of
time and examination. And this, too, had been effected
without any expense to the community. (Hear.) He had
before him reports from the prison inspectors for England
and Scotland, as also f:om the chaplains and governors of
gaols, and he was happy to find that the attention of all was
turned to the reformation of criminals. All were hopeful on
the subject, and all attributed the greatest evils to the pre-
sent sworn of commitments for short periods. The City
Solicitor, Mr. Charles Pearson, had also published a volu-
minous document relating to the treatment of juvenile
offenders, with a view t a their reformation, and resolution'.
founded on his suggestions had been adopted by tho
Blase: magistrates. laving alluded to sumo other plans

sad suggestions, the learned gentleman proceeded to say
that, while he fully admitted the right of the public to inflict
lain. finniebasent for ee:rae, with a view to its future
prescutioi,, he eontendiel that the present system
had a directly contrary effect. It was now admitted
on all hands that the only fair principle in In-
flicting pain on criminals was, first, that such pain
should act as a warning on the criminals themselves and an
example to others ; and, secondly, that it should form
part of a reformatory discipline, such as to enable the crimi-
nal at the term of his punishment to resume his place in iso-
eiety, and to prevent his again falling into crime. But it
had been affirmed that these two principles were likely to
tome into conflict, and that when they did, the system of
warning and example must be preferred to the reformation
of the individual He submitted to the society, first ofall, that
they did not come into conflict ; and, secondly, that if they
did, the former should of right give way to the latter. (Hear.)
Pain, even to the destruction of the individual, must, to act
as an example, be of prompt and certain result. In every
country, civilized and unciv,lised,there were wholselasses who
got their living by crime, a thing which could never take
place if there were a certainty that eels' one out of ten
would meet with punishment. On the other hand, where-
ever there was a chance of staving off the evil day, criminals
would readily be found. He would illustrate this by one or
two cases in which there was no crime. Until recently the
neeffiemakers worked with a certainty of death at a certain
age, and the soldier did not hesitate, although there were
the so
many chances against him. Granted that in one case
man was stimulated by industry, and in the other by a
laudable ambition ; but be it remembered that the criminal
believed in an inverted morality, and looked at every evasion
of the law, every dignified submission to pain as things
to be reckoned among his triumphs. The fact was that
the number of criminals committed was enormous, and
the number of times of committal was equally so. In
the northern part of this Wand, where justice was adminis-
tered with a somewhat lenient hand, the prison inspector
found one old woman, who had been committed to Edin-
burgh gaol eighty-five times, and another ninety-
nine times. (Laughter) If example had not acted
on persons of such advanced age, how was it to be
expected that it should operate beneficially upon others ?
Hear, hear.) His principle was, that on criminals gener-
ally,
uo more pain should be inflicted than was necessary
fur their reformation, but all that was necessary he would
have unhesitatingly inflicted. (Hear, hear.) They had all
read the inscription which Dante had inscribed over the
gates of hell : with a slight addition he would place that in-
scription over every prison-door in the kingdom. He would
say, " Abandon all hope, ye who enter here, of dipart-
ing unreformed." The present practice was founded on a
monstrous at surdity. Punishment was attempted to be
adjusted to the crime, while, between the two, there was
not the slightest positive relation. For the same offence dif.
ferent countries awarded different punishments ; what was
capital in one being let off with a whipping in the other. It
was this absurd principle which gave use to the commitment
of boys charged with slight offences for short periods, to be
again charged and again confined. They
.should prepare a
boy while in prison for his return to society: they should
teach him self control, because a slavish obedience while in
prison would not fit him for concourse with the world: Per-
haps the best commencement of such a system would be
separate, as distinguished from solitary, confinement. Let
the criminal first commune with himself, let him learn
that labour was a resource, and to abstain from
the sensual indulgences which had most probably brought
him into a prison, and then gradually bring him into com-
munication with other men, so as to fit him for his inter-
course with the weed after his leaving the prison. These
were his principles, the details of which he would reserve for
the committee, but he maintained that every. criminal
should be treat..ll with a view to his return to society. The
prison should be to the moral what the hospital was to the
physical man, with this only difference, that he would not turn
out the moral incurable. (Hear, hear ) If his views were
adopted he should lie glad to see them first put into opera-
tion with young offenders, although, at the same time, he
had no wish to delay the experiment about to be tried on
Captain Matonoehie's principles. Mr. Hill concluded by
moving, that the various plans which had been submitted for
secondary punishments be referred to the committee on
Criminal Law, with a view to devising the best plan fur the
reformation of juvenile offenders. [So we understood the
learned gentleman 1 The motion was agreed to unanimously,
and the meeting adjourned.

THE SEIZURE OF CRACOW.
A public meeting was held at the National-hall,
Holborn, last evening, on the subject of the " Seizure of
Cracow by the three despotic powers—Au-Via, Russia, and
Prussia," on which occasion the spacious hall was filled by
a respectable and enthusiastic audience. Dr. llownng,
M.P.' Wok the chair at eight o'clock. Letters were read
from Lord Dudley Stuart, T. S. Duncombe. Esq., M.P., Col.
Thompson, Mr. George Thompson. Mr. Douglas J rrold,
and Mr. H. Vincent, excusing their attendance, but i xpress •
ing deep sympat'iy in the objects of the meeting.
Mr. Moose moved, and Mr. Ssysoz seconded, the
following resolution, which was unanimously carried :
That thin meeting, though it views with disgust and abhorrence the
attempt of the three powers to complete the annihilation of Poland,
nod the destruction of the Polish canoe by the amine of Cracow, yet
cannot help expressing its sistiiifisction at the violation, by such seizure,
of that infalsous compact known by the name of the treaty of Vienna;
Inwood' as that violation exposes nakedly to the world the olesigns
and objects at the three powers, and deprives them dell potence for
again appealing to that treaty in support of the present tyrannies of

giiropet -
Mr. WILLIAM Howirr (who was received with unbounded
applause), in a powerful speech, alluded to some prominent
features in Polish history, and contended that, althou4h he
was a friend to peace, unless Englishmen, as a nation, spoke
out, and put an end to lurther breaches of treat e., war was
inevitable. The speaker concluded by moving the following
resolution, whicls was seconded by Mr. Holyoake, and car-
ried by acclamation :
That the Treaty of Vienna, which pretended to finally settle the
governments of Europe, Icing now overthrown, there ran no longer
be any question, even among those who respected the Treaty, as to
the necessity of reconsidering the ',relent cosstruetion of what are
elided the governments of Europe; that this meeting, therefore,
deems the present a lit opportunity fur reasserting the right of every
nation to choose its own government, to Protect its own nationality,
and that it re-echoes the appeal of the Liberals of France, in expres-
sing towards the Pules its warmest sympithy, conlidtmt of the resur-
rection of Poland and the ultimate triumph of Liberty and Justice.
The nest resolution, moved by Mr. J. W. Linton, and se-
conded by Mr. J. Watson, was as follows :
That an Association be now formed, whose object shall be to
spread over the widest field the principles of national liberty and
progress, and to alit in establishing a good understanding among the
people of all countries.
The resolution having been unanimously carried, thanks
I were voted to the chairman. and •he meeting dissolved.

NATIONAL PROVIDENT INartruTioN.—The I Ith
annual meeting of the directors, proprietor., and in-
surers in this association was held yesterday at the
London Tavern, Charles Lushington, Esq , in the chair,
for the purpose of receiving the yearly report, and other
business. The Chairman having briefly stated the pur-
pose for which they. had assembled, and shortly sketched
the condition of the institution' and the nature of the report,
the secretary read the latter, by which it appeared that the
institution is in a most prosperous position, that prosperity
having progressed on a large, but steady, scale annually
since its first commencement in 183.5. The pr, sent capital
of the ass iciation amounts to the large sum of, within a
fraction, 300,0001., 58,000/. of that amount being an in-
crease since the report of last year; and the present income
from all sources is 89,000/., within a fraction. Upwards of
4,000 members belong to the institution, and the number of
policies of insurance in the last year was 1,004, while
those of the Equitable Office, that has been eighty
years established, reached only 162 in the same time.
and the total number of insurances in this institution
amounted to above 6,000 in the eleven years of its existence,
while the Equitable in eighty years only reached the same
number. The claims upon life insurances in the year
arising from deaths amounted to 15,0001. only, and the
prosperous state of the institution generally appeared to be
most flattering, and indeed extraordinary, considering the
short period of its existence. The report having been ap-
proved of with acclamation, and ordered to be printed and
circulated amongst the members, two vacancies in the direc-
tion were filled up, the auditors andother officers for the year
were appointed, a sum of 1,5001. was voted to the directors
for the ensuing year. Thanks having been cordially given
to them for their zeal and ability in bringing the institution
to so prosperous a position, the meeting separated.
SOCIETY OF ARTS.—The first ordinary meeting for
the 93rd session of the Society of Arts was held yesterday
evening in the great room at the Society's house, John-
street, Adelphi, aud was most numerously attended. Dr.
Roget, the secretary to the Royal Society, and the vice-pre-
sident of this society, took the chair according to rotation,
and at 8 o'clock the business of the evening commenced by
the secretary (Mr. John Scott Russell) reading the opening
address of the council on the recent proceedings, the present
duties, and the future prospects of the society. The address
was received with warm applause, and the secretary
then oroceeeded to communicate to the meeting a paper by
Mr. D. R. Hay, the author of a " Treatise on the Harmony
of Colouring," on the " Principles employed in the recent
Decorations of the Great Hall of the Society." Mr. Hay,
the artist to whom these decorations had been entrusted by
the council, was unavoidably absent; but the paper at
length entered into a detail of the principles whi:h had
guided his mode of' action in effecting the highly effective
improvements, as described in the Express of the 11th
instant. A second paper (the first of a series from the pen
of the same gentleman) on the " First Principles of
Symmetrical Beauty, and their Application in certain
Branches of the Art of Design," was read by
Mr. Scott Russell, and was received with general ap-
probation, and after a ballot, at which the following gentle-
men were elected members of the society, viz.—Edward
Smirke, Esq., Robert Murdock, Esq., Joseph Tennant,Esq..
and J. Townsend, Esq., the meeting was dissolved. It
would be neglect on our part to omit to mention, that on
the table were submitted to the society and its visitors an
admirable specimen of American Photography, presented
by Mr. It. Lowrance of New York itwo exquisitely wrought
specimens of needlework, an imitation of the embroidery of
the middle ages. presented by Miss King ; and several spe-
cimens of enamelled pearled glass, presented by Mr. Lane.
THE ST. PANCItAS VESTRY AND DEPUTY CORONER.
—Yesterday, at a crowded meeting of St. Pancras Vestry,
held at the rooms in Gordon-equare, Mr. Wagstaff, junior
churchwarden, in the chair, after the disposal of some
routine and other business., the charges against Mr. Mi',ls,
the deputy-coroner, were brought under coreideration. Mr.
alcOahey, the vestry clerk, read a report of the committee
appointed to consider and report what steps, if any, should
he token by the vestry in reference to the 01111111 Ur ication of
the deputy-coroner, inserted in the Times of ".,oth ult., on
the subject of an inquest on the body of oseph Wood-
war:l, and the verdict of the coroner's jury. The report
slated that the committee, en consideratie.n of the circum-
stances, regretted to find that Mr. Mills. shoul.l have ven-
tured, whilst exercising the functions of a judge, to publish a
statement of thcprocccding4 of an inquiry that was adjourned