The Express.
London, England, 1847-01-30 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, SATURDAY EVENING, JANUARY C,D, 1847.

HER •MAJESTY'S THEATRE.
The following outline of the arrangements of the Sewn ist
is romeetfully submitted to the Nubility, Pat eons of the Opera, and to
the Public. It is presented in the confident hope that theism-
rewind exertions made to secure, under circumstances of peculiar
difficulty, •Cornpany still more worthy of the tint Theatre in Europe,
and of its distinguished Patrons, will ensure the continuation of their
supporL
ENGAGEMENTS FOR THE. OPERA.
Jenny Lind, Mdme. Del Carmen Montraro, Mink. San-
Mdlle. Fainani, and Md.. Solari, the contrMto Millie. Vieth,
cal Mdlle. Dario Nude and Mdme. Fraachinf, the
grrot tenor of Italy, Ind the favourite tenor, Signor Garrionl ;
Sig Superchi Sig. E. !AM..; Sig. Eirella ; Sig. ; the cele-
bridal basso Zantunte Herr Staudigl, and Sig. LaMothe. in addition
to the Move, arrangements are pending with Sig. Coletti, of tlir
Italian Operant Pads.
That great comport the Chevalier Meyorbeer, has arranged to visit
this country to bring out the "Camp de SRO. ;" the principal pints
in the "Camp de Silesia" by Wile. Jenny Llnd and Sig. Froachini.
The rekbrated Dr. Felix M. ndthisohn liartholdy will list ode visit
England, and produce an opera capressiy computed for her Mojasty's
Theatre; the libcgtto, impaled on "The Tempest" of Shstuipeare,
written by M. Scribe. Mininda. Mdile. Jenny 1.1,4 ; Ferdinan Big.
Gardcga ; Cllin,n, here Standigi ; end Pro Pero, Sig. liodincbe.
'lt la likewise amounted with great achfaction that Nig. Verdi,
haviag recovered from his severe illness, has expressly oomposed for
this theatre a new Opera, of which tho plot is founded on the
" Robbers" of Schiller.
Itorsies Opera of "Robert broth," lately produced at the Acarhimie
Royale, has alto been secured.
Mesdames thistellan, .1 Montenegro; Signori Gordon!,
Superehi, and Fraschini will appear la fore limiter.
Millie. Jenny Lind, whose nevi-mod commences to March, and
extends until the end of the Season, will appear immediately after
Eocter. . .

cam, of their being replaced ° It is impotsible to
be at once frank and courteous in such mattcrg. The
Jesuit rule of implicit obedience could alone manau,'
such a hierarchy of administration, and that can only
be enforced when the chiefs are permanent and
supreme.
It is no doubt revolting to the public when allowed
to inspect their arcane, the very entrails of official life.
When they see an offteer, like Mr. PARK EH —first
endeavouring to stifle inquiry in the intere,ts of his
office, and of the system by which he lived, and when
they see the same Mr. PARKER, instead of being sup-
ported and abetted byltis superiors,sacrifieed by them
to public indignation—all this is the dark and dis-
gusting side of administrative life. But was there
ever an administration in which these things did not

occur? Was there ever a public office that could bear
the full light of the open day, and the microscopic
scrutiny of the envious ?
The commissioners certainly transgressed against
the law which con titated them. They did not form
a board. They di t not make the fit use of their able
secretary, but treated him in a way which was as gall-
ing as unjust. The commission continued its labours
in this maimed, illegal, and inefficient fashion. But
how remedy it without breaking up the commission
altogether ; exposing to a very hostile portion of the
public the weaknesses, the divisions, the inefficiency
of the great central board, which was the bugbear of
so many ? To have done so, was to throw discredit
on the new Poor Law altogether. The commis-
sioners shrunk naturally from doing, what the Andl-
ver bone-picking did for them.
This Andover business has, indeed, led to very
complete disclosures. And yet, has it revealed or es-
tablished anything more clear than the utter injus-
tice of the ideas fo: med of, and the obloquy cast upon,
the commissioners ?

Year after year, and week after week, the anti-
poor-law journals thundered against the triumvirate
of Somerset-house, and especially against Mr. Lewis,
as the incarnation of the rigid and charity-denying
principle of the n?w poor law. Yet what is dis-
covered on the committee ? Why, that the troubles,
and quarrels. and enmities excited within the walls
of Somerset-house, against Mr. LEWIS, proceeded
from a cause dira,tly the contrary of the enmities
excited against hint without its walls. Within, he I
was the ehampimi of lenience to the poor, shrunk
from the total abro ,ation of the allowance system, and
was considered to he betraying the new poor law by
not enforcing it. 15 :dist thus stigmatised as the lenient
friend of the poor in the office, Mr. LEWIS was stig-
matised as the utter foe of all lenience without.

Now, in the controversy which took place within
the walls of Somerset-house, we rather side with
Mr. CHADWICK, and regret that the prin-
ciple of the new poor-law was not in its first years
more fully and universally followed out. The remedy
ordained by the legislature was the cauterisation of a
dangerous sore, and the surgeon should not have
shrunk from the task, however painful. This opinion
does not comprise or decide that such rigour
ought to be the permanent or future character of the
poor-law. But we tf..l4eset that Mr. Cl/ADWICK had
not, these years past, his full swing in carrying out
his ideas, and thus funy performing the great
experiment.
But at the same time it is hard for Mr. LEWIS to be
marked out for public obloquy by two sides and
parties at once ; denounced as the hard-hearted op-
=
hearted
ft of the poor, and at the same time the so
betrayer of the law. To be thus struck at
by both the new poor-law champions and the '
new poor-law foes, and to be handed over by ruthless
political economists to the as ruthless though blind
vindictiveness of the Times and Mr. FERR IND, con-
stitutes a more flagrant case of injustice and ill-
treatment than ever the member for Knaresborough
uselertook to roar about.

Mr. RICARDO his deferred till the 9th of February
his motion for a select committee on the navigation
laws. It is to be hoped that nothing will occur to induce
him to put it off again. In dealing with a temporary
exigency—the present scarcity—ministers wisely de_
terrnmed not to embarrass themselves with so com-
plicated a question of general policy as the naviga-
tion laws, and merely suspended, for a time,
their operation in so far as they impede the
importation of' food. This tacit admission, however,
that an event which can recur at any time may
render these laws an insupportable burden, would of
itself have been enough to set a-foot the inquiry
whether under ordinary circumstances any real coun-
tervailing advantage ja derived from them. It so
happens, too, that at the very time when scarsity
compels government to suspend the operation of these
laws, our principal colonies are demanding their
abrogation, or at all events their modification, as
in equity an indispensable accompaniment to the
abolition of the protective system. The Manchester
Chamber of Commerce, too, which, since the triumph
of the League, feels itself called upon to issue pro-
nanciamentos on every topic, has denounced them. The
utility of the navigation laws has long been questioned
by speculative economists, and might have been
doubted by them much longer without its working
any change on our national policy ; but as their ten-
dency is now impugned by "practical men," the sub-
ject will be thoroughly scrutinised.
The operation of the navigation laws is one of
those questions which can with advantage be sub-
mitted to the investigation of a committee of the
legislature. The navigation laws are coeval with oar
colonial empire; their influence is felt through all the
ramifications of our commercial system. It is enough
that public opinion would be dissatisfied were these
relics of the " wisdom of our ancestors" to be got
rid of in a summary way, or by a side-wind under
false pretences. But, is addition to this, their abro-
gation may not impossibly requite to be accompanied
by other measures to re-adjust the disturbance in the
equipoise of our commercial system occasioned by
their removal. Mr. RICARDO'S committee may collect
in the course of the present session evidence to the effect
of these laws upon national prosperity ; may allow both
their supporters and adversaries among our ship-
owners, merchant., and politicians, to state their
views respecting them; and may digest a report upon
them for the future guidance of the legislature. Any
legislation on a subject yet so imperfectly studied, in
the hurry of a session which has the difficult task
of remedying the ills of Ireland imposed upon it, is
to be deprecated ; but the postponement of legislative
action upon the subject is not likely in the present
temper of the public to be tolerated beyond another
session. Mr. IticAuDo's committee has work enough
before it : he must not again postpone its appoint,.
meat.

On the commercial bearing of the navigation laws
the committee is not likely to elicit much difference
of opinion or many new facts. The view taken of
them by ADAM SMITH seems now to be pretty gem-
rally adopted : they are regarded as enacted with a
view to provide for national defence at the cost of
retarding the growth of national wealth. " The act
et navigation," says the author of the Wealth of
Notions, "is not favourable to foreign commerce, or to
the growth of that opulence whieh can arise from it.
The interest of a nation in its commercial relations to
foreign nations is, like that of a merchant with regard
to the different people with whom he deals, to buy as
cheap and sell as dear as possible. But the act of
navigation, by diminishing the number of sellers,
must necessarily diminish that of buyers ; and we are
thus likely not only to buy foreign goods dearer, but to
sell our own cheaper, than if there was a more perfect
freedom of trade. As defence, however, is of more
importance than opulence, the act of navigation is,
perhaps, the wisest of all the commercial regulations
of England."
SMITHS opinion of the detrimental influence ex-
ercised by our navigation laws upon trade is amply
borne out by facts. In 1671, ROGER COKE stated
that the Navigation Act, by lessening the resort of
strangers to ourports, had a most injurious effect on our
commerce ; and that we lost the greater part of the
Baltic and Greenland trades within two years of the
passing of the Act of 1650. Sir JOSIAH CHILD, in 1691,
stated that since the passing of the Act of CHARLES IL,
the English shipping employed in the Eastland and
trades had decreased at least two thirds, while
"%shipping in those trades had proportionally
The rapid development of the resources
American colonies previous to the War of
Independence, contrasted with the slow progress of
remaining colonies on that continent since, forcibly
the baneful influence of the navigation
commerce. In the original English
the American continent, they were
dead letter ; in the Canadas they have been
enforced. The changes introduced in the
ion laws by Mr. WALLACE) in 1821, and
'SKISSOR, in 1825, were a virtual confession

that the end ;r authors professed to have in view
was an unattainio'e chimn,ra.
Even the value of these laws as &means of national
defence is extremely problematical. The English
seamen defeated the Amula long before their enact-
ment, and the English fleet was burned in the Mersey
by the Dutch after it. As distinguished victories
were won by BLAKE before the passing of the
Commonwealth's Navigation A.,ct (the model of that
enacted undo. CHARLES II.) as afterwards. The
t
decay of the Dutch maritime rm. r in comparison
with the English, since the era in our navigation
laws, has been traced with much pk usibility to en-
tirely different aid independent mums.
The subject is obviously not one for dogmatising
on. A committee of parliament to eonert
and digest
materials either for the vindication or fko improve-
ment of our navigation laws, or for ekes..
ng the
expediency of' their entire abolition, is this moat
likely instrument to establish just views Asps "6"i
their operation. In the present unsettled got
public opinion with regard to them, and aiNd 'T9
extensive innovations recently made in our sthes e
•

system of commercial policy, these laws cannot re.
main untouched. It is comparatively an easy Weft
to resist innovation, but difficult to arrest its progres/
when begun. The measures introduced by IVALLsct;
and HUSKISSON have rendered greater alterations
inevitable.

WantlacvoN Itivtxn, in his pleasant idle way,
tells us that he was one of a party of Americans who,
for a while secluded from the world of disputes and
dollars in a stream-cooled region of tho Alleghanies
in Western Pennsylvania, took to reading old his
Wavrox instead of the newest prices current and the
latest Liverpool circulars. So charmed were KNICK-
ERBOCKER and his friends with the pictures of gentle
rapacity sketched by the venerable Englishman, that
bamboo rods, silkworm gut, and kirby hooks, were
forthwith ordered from Philadelphia, and the pleasant
streams that splash down the shady wooded hills of
that lovely region were assiduously flogged for a
whole summer's day.
In vain : the return was their own hooks : and not
always those. Disappointed, wearied, resolved hence-
forward to taste only in WALTON'S pampa the plea-
sures he describes, the future minister aisthe court of
her Most Catholic Majesty, and his party, were sitting
by one of the streams they had tortured, when up
rambled an urchin from a newly projected Eden just
below, furnished with a sapling as a rod, with five
yards of packthread as a line, and with a crooked
pin as a hook. To complete the difference between
this intolerable dissenter from the rules of regular
sport and their orthodox selves, the young scamp had
speedily pendant, their gills on a twig, more fish than
the creels of his rivals would have held after a day's
pursuit.
What IRVING'S vagabond-ling was to the literary
anglers, the 700 small, ricketty, dirty, home-made,
foreign-worked, Yankee whalers are to Mr. Cii %ALES
ENDERBY'S stately, goodly, orderly, British South-
sea shils. It can't be the superiority of their
craft, for ours are better; nor of their equipment,
for ours are more perfect; nor of their crews, for they
are mostly foreign, being in great part British seamen ;
nor that they are more cheaply worked, for stores and
provisions are now as cheap here; nor that their
porta of outfit are nearer the whaling ground than
ours. How, then, in the name of NEPTUNE, is it
that these irregularly constituted prowlers contrive
to increase and multiply, so that a duty of from 50 to
100 per cent. on what they caught was not enough to
keep the supply of this market in the hands of our
own " merchant princes" of the southern seas?
Is there any other trade in which (with equal
chances for the whole world) the superior capital of
this country does not command supremacy ? Must
not the drawback be most powerful which, in this
particular pursuit, neutralises the many advantages
we have over the northern states of America? Does
not the parallel we have drawn from WASHINGTON
IRVING, with the smaller fishing of fresh water, hold
good ? And can we assign to any other cause than
the superior maritime skill of the Americans, our sub-
jugation in the employment which of all most severely
and simply tests the comparative seamanship of the
two nations?

It is impossible but that this striking instance of
the rising superiority of the sailors of the only nation
whose position, ports, ex'ent, intelligence, and com-
mercial activity can make her our rival, should not
excite alarm. It is our first duty to consider if, by
any act of our own, we have contributed to her
success.

Omitting mention of the laws affecting shipping
during the middle ages (avowedly intended as much
to favour classes as to protect the navy of the country),
the origin of the navigation laws is, as we all know,
a statute of the commonwealth, prohibiting the
import of the produce of Asia, Africa, and America,
except in English shipping. This was an act of war,
directed against the Dutch, who had as their national
treasure, instead of broad and productive lands, sunny
skies, a numerous people, or the mines of Mexico
and Peru, what in their hands proved better than
them all—what we have now—what is to civilised
Europe, that which speech is to man—the conveyance
of the products of the earth. The navigation act,
depriving them of that large share of this precious
privilege, which consisted in the transport to England
of the productions of our own colonies, was as much
an act of war, though unaccompanied by others, as
the bombardment of a town or the blockade of a port,
and it was accepted as such by the hutch; for
active hostilities broke out shortly after its enact-
ment. The Dutch were in a great measure only
carriers ; producing little, manufacturing little.
We brought little from Holland, we took lit-
tle to it : they could not, therefore, retaliate
by legislation upon our trade. But, even under
these, the most favourable circumstances, we
were net suffered to derive unmixed advantage
from our measure. In very few years after the
confirmation, under the restoration, of the naviga-
tion law, it was remarked that the Dutch were
excluding us from some trades in bulky articles,
whose chief value was the cost of conveyance ; as, for
example, the Baltic trade ; and especially was it found
that we could not compete with them in the fisheries.
Our exclusion from these, by the operation of our
own act of navigation in making our shipping unna-
turally dear, gave them over as a monopoly to
the Dutch. ROGER COKE, to whom we have re-
ferred, notices the fact:—" In two years after the
Navigation Act of the Ramp Parliament in 16,51," he
remarks, "the building of ships in England became
one-third dearer than before, and seamen's wages
became so excessive dear, that we have wholly lost
the Muscovy and Greenland trades, whereby we gave
the Dutch and other nations the power of driving the
trade of the world." Sir JOSIAII CHILD, an admirer
of the navigation law, in the same year admitted
that there were 22 large Dutch ships in the Russian
trade to one English, and in the Greenland fishery
400 or 500 sail to one English ; in the Baltic trade
generally we had but one-half of that we had had,
and the Dutch had ten times as much. Two years after,
heavy duties were imposed on both foreign and colo-
nial fish oils to support efforts made to revive the Green-
land trade, which yet miserably failed. In 1693 it was
discovered that a company, and Out only, could regain
the Greenland fishery, and it was incorporated with
the advantage of importing,duty free, all that its ships
might get. Capital 40,0001.; an excellent direction ;
but, by some sad mishap, the company was dissolved
in 1690, with aloes of 80,0001.

These facts should have taught the legislature
that what injures our neighbours does not al-
ways benefit ourselves, and that it was time to
lay aside the navigation act, when heavy taxation,
excessive exertion, and the advance of other nations,
had rendered the Dutch, against whom it was
directed, no longer formidable. Bat the country
was entering on an age in which class in-
terests ruled ; in which, with the greatest attention
to the supposed welfare of parts, the community was
neglected. We now say, that what is everybody's
business is nobody's business; and in those days
what was everybody's interest was nobody's care.
The shipowners found each dram of protection an
agreeable stimulant ; and in the youth of the present
generation the support required had brought the
patient to the natural termination of his career, at
which a gradual diminution of the dove became un-
avoidable. We can't say, with all our admira-
tion of Mr. HushissoN, that the reduction was well
managed.
For when we came to apply our navigation laws to
the case of nations in situations utterly different from
that of the Dutch, the new case forced upon us modi-
fications of our law ; but as the principles on which
it was based had been totally lost sight of, our
modification was the very worst that could be. Take
the example of the United States of America, a rising
nation of seamen and merchants, whose country pro-

griatidondir'Efliewteoh,
duced more of bulky produce employing shipping
than any other—an attribute it has retained and aug.
mented—was our navigatioa law to benefit ourselves
or to repress the extension of the navigation of
others? The latter was its original, and could be its
only possible aim, and had we kept that in view, we
could not have made, or could not long have persisted
in, any serious error. But, by the time we had to
legislate for the case of the United States we had lost
eight of this, its object.
In seeking to benefit our own shipping, we could
not absolutely exclude American ships from bringing
American produce, for they would at once retaliate
and close the contest. So we fell back upon what
was a very old idea, though not contemplated as
capable of such expansion as we now witness; and we
determined to (beak the trade with them. All
American produce should come in English or
American ships. We confessed, by the very fact of
the law excluding them from general commerce, that
American ships were more cheaply sailed than our own;
and yet to preserve to us some part of their trade, we
excluded from competition with them the shipping of
1 other nations which might perhaps again beat them!
,ofontl:t:uflb:yda:
The commerce of the States with this colliery is by
i , •ery much the most important of the world, the one
it, •m of a million and a half bales of cotton fur exceeds
' article from all the rest of the world- And it
, for employment of shipping our importation of any
oche.
was . 'his trade in which, after confessing that they
wert. o. ir superiors. in carrying, we agreed to preserve
llad th ra competition with any other people !
ere been no previous navigation law, no
them frt.
ood precedent of our conduct in the con•
could such on error have been
tmesitsuzdiethnnti !
made, com dwe have been betrayed into it but by
nal light of natural law from which
a succession of blunder',. each canying us further
from that °rip
fear: we have named her.
in commercial aci, -nee we must never depart.
ns sail their ships yet more
Now there is but one nation whose maritime
greatness we neat. 1
The Hanseatic Tow
' and economical. navigators.
cheaply, we believe, ' at least American ship-
owners have said so; the Danes, Swedes, \orn•e-
gians., Sardinianesre gooc.
Which of these can be our rival ? But in our marl.
time, as in other branches
inai.ntrun our position
have lost sight of the maxim, "divide and rule. 4 It is
itioa depending on
'~lablr. reflection,
by protecting the weak, and
power of the great, thin we can .
at the head of the world-1 e
our naval supremacy, and of the fe thiwchee
we shall be satisfied by the unavo
that a lost Trafalgar—a great bat c destroying an
English fleet—would be a greater co. wohnon to the
t A o worlds, would be productive of mon ' incalculably
disastrous consequences, than would hi. 're been the
fall of France before the sables of the .lloe loin on the
plains of Chalons.

THE Scotch distillers are busily engaged in "crew.
ruing" Lord GEORGE BENTINCI: with reasons for con-
tinuing a differential duty, in favour of Scotch n.ialt
whisky, on West Indian rum. Like all other pro-
tected interests when about to be subjected to fair
competition, these gentlemen (who for time imme-
morial have had a monopoly of the supply of that por-
tion of the realm whose population consumes spirits
most largely, and who for a long series of years were
enabled by revenue advantages to undersell their Irish
rivals in Ireland) are about to be "ruined." Here is
their statement to Lord GEORGE
"Leith Distillery, Leith, Jan. 2.5
My Lerd,—The ministerial measures with regard to
" ruin" will most undoubtedly ruin the manufacture of
malt whisky in this country. The malt distiller pays the
tidlowing duties, namely:
"Ault duty". on every Mali. of whisky XI Is. lkl. or ls. 41d. per gn.
Off which he receives a drawbsck of

Which make. the "malt duty" actaelly paid
Ile pays • "spirit duty" of

RM. -

The total paid by him is therefore Ss. 41d.
Now, by the proposed measures " rum" Aril be admitted
for do. 2d., so that the Scotch malt ilistil:er pays 21d. more
than ram is to pay.
- . .
•

To encourage the manufacture of Scotch whisky
and the growth of British barley, ram was until last
' year excluded from Scotland by a differential duty of
nearly 10s. a gallon ; so that were this statement
accurate, a retaliation of 2!(1. would not be a very
heavy retribution. But the statement is, we are
assured, quite inaccurate ; inasmuch as a quarter of
good malt will yield nearer eighteen than sixteen
gallons of whisky ; and if so, the Scotch malt dis-
tiller and the West Indian rum manufacturer will
contribute equally to the revenue.
They also state that the excise regulations (which,
however, they admit to be quite indispensable to the
collection of the revenue from them) involve a charge
of 4d. per gallon on their commodity, which may be
correct: but they overlook the protection which, even
under equal duties, the coat of importing rum must
give them, and on that charge they cannot, we sub-
mit, found any sufficient reason for so objectionable
an impost as a differential duty on a British colonial
production.

WE believe government to be perfectly in earnest
when they profess a desire to institute a comprehen-
sive reform in our prison discipline ; and we trust
that Sir GEORGE GREY'S refusal to let in light upon
the prison secrets at Woolwich, through the instru-
mentality of a parliamentary committee, proceeded
from a determination to see into the matter, and
remedy it himself. Sir GEORGE was not fortunate
in his taunt at Mr. DUNOOMSE for not liking
a commission. The report of the commission ap-
pointed to inquire into the management of
Milbank Prison, amply justifies Mr. In:11-
Com Be's dislike. Of the three commissioners

one has refused to sign the report because he does
not concur in its statements ; and its very langguuasggee
betrays an anxiety to whitewash the officials.
" Having thoroughly sifted," say the two lenient
commissioners, " the complaints against the governor,
and made some allowance for exaggeration on the
part of witnesses, whose accusations were seldom
warranted by the facts which they attempted
to prove, we have no hesitation in pronouncing our
opinion that he has endearoured to perform his duties
with zeal and intelligence, and has done nothing to
discredit the very hightestimonials which he possesses
from the officers in the army under whom he for-
merly served." Notwithstanding the discredit
here thrown upon evidence which has not been
published, the commissioners do not venture to say
that the governor has succeeded in his "endeavours,"
but call in the aid of his military services to enlist
sympathy in his favour. They admit, too, that he is
" justly chargeable with " some faults." These faults
are:—" A too hasty method of dealing with his
officers when reported to him by others, or de-
tected by himself in some neglect of duty ; not
al ways giving them a sufficient opportunity
for explanation or defence." " The occasional use of
improper or offensive expressions, of which we should
exprem our condemnation more strongly, were it not
that the instances adduced by all the witnesses
amounted only to three." " An insufficient attention
to the rules of the prison." In plain English, the go-
vernor is of such a hasty and violent temper, that he can-
net administerjustice with common impartiality, or even
observe the dictates of decency in his language, and in
addition to this, he systematically disregards the
rules prescribed for his guidance; and vet the com-
missioners abeolve him from all blame. Investigation
after this fashion is a mere farce : such a report
fully entitles Mr. Deecomne to demand that the
complaints made against the management in the
hulks at Woolwich shall not be inquired into
by a tribunal similarly constituted. The disposition
to extenuate the offences of men in authority, evinced
by the Millbank commission, naturally inspires a
fear that a Woolwich commission would be equally
lenient. And one admission that fell from Sir GEORGE
GREY, indicates that such leniency may be necessary.
" Mr. CAPPER was an officer of whom it
was impossible to speak too highly. Mr. CAPPER
had held that situation, he believed, for about
50 or 60 years : he was of course less able now to
discharge the duties which devolved upon him." On
this account a commission may be requisite to shield
Mr. Cement; but the public, precisely for the same
reason, wish for a committee to expose the system.
Our own enquiries lead us to believe that Mr. Dux.
COMBE'S statements are substantially true. Two cases
indicating gross mismanagement have already been
published in the papers —one of an aged convict,
compelled,on some suspicion of concealing a small piece
of tobacco, to strip himself naked in an open shed, on
an inclement day, and remain exposed to the gue of
the bystanders; the other, of a prisoner nearly poi-
soned by an over-dose of croton, administered by a
fellow-convict, to whom the medical functions had
been delegated. These facts prove negligent superin-
tendence and callatu4 vial-administration. We do

mit mint, io prejudge the question, by entering into
worse d •,.ils that have been reported to us. Enough
ban bee• .aid to show that Mr. Duscomne was fully
warrant ! in his desire for a parliamentary com-
mittee. 'raked the only alternative for its appoint-
ment w. be a speedy reform, which may render the
iteratioi .f the demand useless.

The t h:ie and the press were exclusively occupied
in Pari• Thursday with the diplomatic documents
laid bet, the British parliament, and which were
publish. 1. in extensa in all the principal journals.
The imi scion produced by this mass of evict( nee on
public o ion will no doubt be profound and general.
How M. Guizot can ever clear himself before the
French ',Mille of the grave charges brought against
him um,. Pot by the British cabinet or by the British
Deets, b,t by the most widely circulating and moat
higaenti .1 journals of his own country, which must
in (aim, bo assumed to be the exponents of the
opinion the majority, is difficult to conceive.
On •uhject of the Spanish marriages, Le Om-
stitotion..l says:
They low he viewed in d;fferent ways, and their conse
ounces , .f,rently appreciated ; but those who de not believe
that the.ore intimate ur.iou of the two families which
reign in ir ince and Spain has been too dearly purchased at
the price .0 the fall of Cracow, of the danger attending li-
berty in Europe and of the isolation of France, as well as
those wtt think that the po,tpoi.ement of this union would
have be, etenacil with gre at uileitntages for France and
for liberty. are at bast Unatlialol.l4 on one point—the desire,
for the honour of our country, that the government may
not be ju,ty convicted of a breach of sincerity and goal
trim. France is great enough to allow her government to
attain its nils without recourse to duplicity. Now, let any
One read the d euments that we have this day put under the
eves More r,.adero, and let them tben judge if the good name
of our orwiitry ho. not reeek eil in the course of this negotia-
tion amt.( k ruel blow. M. 6 ilizot has never ceased to repeat
in writine as well as in the Chamber that the Whig minis-
try had in this question followed a policy different from that
of the T. ries.
-

CoNtitestionnel then 'proceeds to show from the
documents that this charge must have been wilfully

Until the 29th of August (continues the ('onstilationnel),
the Engli-h cabinet gave, at London, Madrid, and Paris,
terry proof of its desire to cooperate with France in favour
of Don Ent que. M. Guizot and M. Bresson were nut igno-
rant of this; and M. Guir.t promised Lord Normanby, on
the 2Sth ..f August, that he would write to that effect to
W. Brew n : vet three days after M. Guizot announced to
Lord Norinonfiy that the two marrows were decided on,
but that t tey roultinot take place at the sane that., without,
however, engaging to wait till the queen should have issue.
We now know that the two marriages were solemnised at
the mote moment. Wzett Lord Normanby was informed
of this he returned to 14. Guizot and renunded him of his
promise th it the marriages should not take place at the
same utne ; and do you know how M. Guizot &MU reed ?
" I meant to say," said hr. " that the queen would be mar-
ried first;" to which Lord Normanby replied that he took
M. Guizot's words in their natural signification, and that
he could not have imagined that N. Guizot merely meant
that the queen should walk before the Infanta in the cere-
mony. Soeh are some of the facts that this correspondence
brings to light.
Le .Sheds, after citing the most important of these
documents, and commenting upon them, concludes
thus : - -

We do fy any man with honourable sentiments, to what-
ever
party he may belong, to read the recital contained in
the despatch of Lord Normanby to Lord Palmerston, of the
25th of September last, without feeling his face reddened
with shame. Either Lord Normanhy is an impostor un-
worthy of representing the government of a great country
(and we know not that such a charge has ever been raised
against him), or the conduct of M. Guizot has been su-
premely despicable. We know not if there exist in France,
men, a system or a patty, who would be fiily repre.ented by
him, but we are convinced that the nation will never avow
ministers who, instead of supporting proudly her rights and
her interests, are capable only of cheating, tricking, and
lying (ne sarent gas ruses, !rcher, et maniac).
Le Nati.mal says :
Let all those who have under their eye the documents
deposited by M. Guizot examine and compare them u we
have don and for the honour of the name that they hear
they will blush that France should be convicted of bringing
into her foreign negotiations this wretched spirit of false-
hood, trickery, and base intrigue. We trust that no one in
Europe will confound our country, proud of its good faith and
generosity, with this government, whose acts, marked at
once by cupidity and pusillanimity, must surround it is the
face of Europe with universal discredit. It may, perhaas,
be thought strange that we should thus condemn it before
recounting the circumstance.; but we yield to a lively and
involuntary impulse of indignation ; we are not masters of
ourselves when we behold the government, calling itself the
government of France, incessantly shifting, lying, and, in
fine, resorting to the most despicable subterfuges to diaarow
their own words.
After commenting on the despatches, and espe-
cially that of Lord Normanby of the las Sept.,
Le National thus concludes :
There is only one excuse f,r M. Guizot, that which has
been urged in turn by M. Lafitte, M. Thiers, M. Moli, and
by M. Guizot himself, in ene of his notes to Lord Pal-
merston; it is, that he, M. Guizot, was really kept in igno-
rance of what was going on. But if M. (iuizot were thus
kept in ignorance, why is he minister? If through ignorance
he denied the circumstances, with what contempt must he
not be covered in his own eyes! The Chamber may be
edified now as to the way in which this negotiation has been
conducted. We have only disclosed two striking features of
it, but the remainder of the physiognomy will not belie them.
We will prove this by producing the whole.
Le C'ommerce, alter devoting several columns to an
analysis of the documents, concludes as follows:
While the ministry heaped upon France such embarrass-
ments, the three Northern courts were preparing to con-
fiscate Cracow. The rupture of the English alliance was
the signal for this odious project. Francs protested against
that violation of the treaty of Vienna, but what weight
could such a protestation have, proceeding from a cabinet'
which bad itself just violated the conditions of good faith.
You reproach Russia, Austria, and Prussia, with having
plotted in the dark against the liberty of a people, and we
share your indignation; but did not you also, while you'
still pretended to negotiate with the ambassador of your
ally, plan in the dark the rupture of your alliance with that
friendly power ? Your power and your moral force have
received a rude cheek. Those who act like you have but
one resource left, which is an appeal to brute force. But
for you, you are only rhetoricians, and yet have destroyed
the sole arm you are capable of wielding,—the arm of logic
and of reason.

The project of law for the encouragement of the
importation of grain was adopted in the Chamber of
Peers on B'ednesday, and presented to the King the
same evening.
We are assured that the answer of M. Guizot to
the last note of Lord Palmerston has been sent to
London without being previously communicated to
Lord Normanby. The ambassador has not dissembled
his resentment at this slight. It is stated that this
answer is of considerable length, but contains little
more than a repetition of the former arguments.
M. Guizot persists in throwing on Lord Palmerston
the blame of the present coolness, and pretends that
France has acted independently of England only
when it was discovered that England had already
adopted a separate proceeding. He affirms his con-
viction that Mr. Bnlwer had secret instructions not
yet produced before the public. The quarrel begins
to be very seriously regarded by the Chamber. It is
mid that the opposition will attack the ministry on
this question with a resolution of want of confidence.
The Mole party will maintain that the cabinet is not
in a situation to re-establish the foreign relations
of the country.
A slight fall took place in the Paris Bourse on
Thursday. The Three per Cents. fell 30c., and the
Five per Cents., lOc.
The same decline was manifest in railway shares.
The Nord fell 6f. 25e.; the Versailles, M. ; Lyons
and Basle, 3f. 75c. ; the Orleans fell 2f. 50c.

The Madrid mail of the 22nd arrived late at Paris
on Thursday.
El Clamor rubliro states that the Queen had
accepted the resignation of all the ministers, and
appointed M. Castro y Orozco to form a new Cabinet.
M. Seijas Lozano has been appointed Vice-President
of the Congress, having obtained 102 votes. The
ministerial candidate had only 76.
M. de Casa Irujo, appointed by the Queen to form
has offered the Ministry of Finances to M.

A Millitit
Mon, and that of Justice to Bravo-Murillo. M. Mon
declined it. The ministry was said to be composed as
follows : Minister of Foreign Affairs, M. Casa Irujo ;
Arteta ; of Grace and Justice, Bravo Mu-
rillo ; of Marine, M. Sotelo ; the Ministry of Finances
has been given per interim to M. Sierra y :►soya, in
the hopes that M. Mon will be ultimately prevailed
on to accept it.