The Express.
London, England, 1847-03-27 00:00:00

ghe eriortoo.

MAILS.
The ow. toe \rw South Wales Van Diemen's isnd, end No.
Zealand will be made up on the evening of the 31.1 Muth.
The Wrr't Indio Mai* ineluding these for Menlo, °Mare& sad
the ilarannah, mill be made up on the morning of the 2. April.
TM mails for British North America, Bern.* mad the truit'ad
861 m, will he mule up on the evening of the 3rd April.
The .”"1.41 null. D. Gibraltar, Malts, GIVOCir, the lonian Islands,
pt., Aden, Ceylon, India, Moog-Kong, and China, vie BoothamPtem,
Vibe made up on the morning of the 3rd April.
The mails for the Brasil., the River Plate, Monts Video, Pero.,
Wm, Bahia, Makin, and &AMOS Ayres, will be made ap on the
eteeisw of the 3th April.
The malls ,or Vigo, Oporto, Listos, Madeira, Cad's, and Gibraltar,
VII he made uo en the morning of the 7th AprtL
The overland closed mails, rim Marseilles, to the Mediterranean,
Egypt. Ades Peytn, India, Hong Kam, e., will be made up on the
mewing of the 7th April.

LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH 27.
Mosr of as have enjoyed a hearty laugh at the
tricks of the mock inquisitors described in Oil Blas.
" Tell me, friend," asked LAMELA, " if you have never
seen your master caress little children r A thou-
sand times," replied GAsPARD ; " when he sees little
boys pass by hie shop, if they are at all handsome, he
tops and fondles them." " Write, master secretary,"
sale the inquisitor, " that SAMUEL SIMON is vehe-
mently neglected of decoying Christian children into
his house in order to cut their throats."...." Does he
Tmk also of Jerusalem ?" asked LAMELA. " Very
Men," replied the young man, "he relates to us the
history of the Jews, and in what manner the temple
of Jerusalem was destroyed." " Right," said LAMELA
"master secretary, let not this piece of intelligence
escape you ; write in large characters that SAMUEL
81110 N breathes nothing but the restoration of the
temple, and that he meditates night and day the re-
establishment of his nation. What the trustyasseAßD
has deposed is enough to bring a whole synagogue to
**stake." This lively fiction is but a faint por-
traiture of the arts to which the opponents of the
ministerial plan of education resort. One of their
nate has said that the measure is brought forward
In avowed imitation of despotic governments." The
writer has surpassed LAMELA, for he has contrived to
tell two falsehoods is a breath, for no such avowal
was ever made, aad no such imitation exists. The
Proposed measure is wholly unlike in principle to the
rottinental systems, and is identical in principle with
established in the state of New York, which all

modern travellers assure us is anything rather than a
despotic government. What course ought to be pur-
sued with a journalist who can have recourse to such
monstrous inventions?

Destroy his fib or wvphistry :—in vain—
The creature's at his dirty work again.
In the Daily News it was stated that the law
would give redress for any injury which the
reports of inspectors might inflict on charac-
ter, and the modern I.Anzi.A turns round to say
that, on our confession, the only remedy for injustice
is expensive law. Even in this, he is guilty of that
suppression of truth which is equivalent to the sufc-
gestion of falsehood ; for inspection is no novelty in
England ; we have inspectors of factories, of hospi-
tals, of prisons, and of asylums ; and we have inspectors
of all great educational establishments under the name
of visitors; but this journalist has placed himself
beyond the pale of controversy ; he hazarded an asser-
tion respecting the articles in the Daily News, which
we showed to be untrue ; he has neither retracted nor
attempted to prove his assertion ; he must, therefore,
be understood to persevere in convicted falsehood,
and for such conduct there is but one name among
honest men.

We have been struck by the marked difference
between the factious course pursued by the Bsisas'
section of Dissenters, and that which the Wesleyans
have adopted. In 1839, the Wesleyan educational
committee stated their fears that a ministerial mea-
sure of education did not make sufficient provision
for Protestant and scriptural instruction. Forth-
with, the organs of ultra-Calvinistic dissent assailed
that respectable body with the same virulence
which is now directed against the Established
Church. The Wesleyans were described as
cavillers and bigots; invidious nicknames were given
to their most eminent preachers, and a petition in
favour of state-interference was hastily concocted and
presented, asking for the very measure which these
same petitioners now so factiously reprobate. The
Wesleyan body then exhibited no indecent haste in
accepting the measure, though exhorted thereto by
the Leeds Mercury, and they have equally avoided
indecent haste now in rejecting it. They have ap-
pointed a committee to compare the principles which
they asserted in 1839 with the minutes of council
issued in 1847, and we believe that a compariaoa of
the two documents will show that they are far from
being irreconcilable.
The resolutions passed by the opponents of the
government system of education in Leeds, to which, as
promised, we have given insertion, are of a different
character, and require some comment. They set forth
that " the interference of government in the educa-
tion of the people, is a departure from the proper
province of government." If this can be established,
there is an end of the whole controversy. When the
inhabitants of some town in France told Henry IV.
that they had a hundred good reasons for not saluting
him with cannon, the first being that they had not
a single piece of artillery in their possession, the king
replied that he would spare them all the rest. So, if
the right of the state to interfere at all be overthrown,
it is useless to discuss the extent or means of interfe-
rence. But the denial of this right rests on the mere
assertion of the Leeds requisitors, and against this
weighty authority we have to set the example of
every civilised state on earth, including Protestant
Switzerland and the United States of America, in.
eluding England itself, which has given public aid to
national education in Ireland for more than half a
century. Against Mr. BAINEs and his requisitors
we have to set the authority of the great lawgivers of
all ages and nations, from LTemmus to NAPOLEON,
all of whom, in their codes, have made national edu-
cation a department and a duty of the state ; and we
have to add the authority of Mr. BAINES himself in
1839, and the Congregationalist petition of that year.
The Jesuit cry " freedom of education," borrowed,
perhaps unconsciously, from the disciples of LOYOLA
in France, is so palpably absurd that we wonder at
its adoption. A free sale of food is not inconsistent
with a prohibition to vend tainted meat or absolute
poison ; and, in like manner, free education is not da-
maged by the prevention of mis-education, that pro-
lific source of ignorance, degradation, and depravity.
Mr. DurroN's pamphlet has shown ignorance to be
the result of mis-education, and not of non-education.
Now, mis-education is what the government seek to
prevent, and the Leeds requisitors surely cannot mean
to contend for a liberty to train children to profligacy,
to educate them for mendicancy, and to bring them
up in those schools of vice established by the Ingine
and Mother Coles of all our large towns. This is,
indeed, a new view of freedom, which, carried to its
full extent, would require the abolition of all police.
The constitutional objection wasdecisivsly answered
by Lord LANSDOWNE ; we, however, agree with the
requisitors that national 'education ought to be esta-
blished by ant of parliament, and we are ready to join
them in a petition for the purpose, so soon as the press-
ing questions arising out of the state of Ireland have
ceased to engross the attention of the legislature.
The distribution of patronage, as a reward for edu-
cational merit, ascertained by public and impartial
examination, is so obvious an improvement on the ex-
isting system, that we are utterly astonished at its
meeting opposition even from the most illiberal. But
the Leeds requisitors soberly contend, that if regard
be paid to merit and qualifications in making appoint-
ments to public offices, corruption will overspread the
land, and that purity can only be preserved by leav-
ing merit out of the question, and attending only to
election interests and private recommendations. The
mere statement of such absurdity is its best refutation.
The power of examination given to the in-
spector is, according to Leeds logic, equiva-
lent to the power of appointment. The re-
quisitors might as well contend that the examiners
at Hutt...bury and Addiscombe have usurped all the
patronage of the East India Company. If they
assert that it is unnecessary to make any inquiry
into the qualifications of schoolmasters and teachers,
why not carry out the principle and denounce ex-
animations for degrees at universities, and diplomas
at medical institutions ?
How the schools of dissenters are to be destroyed
by receiving government aid on the same terms as
Church schools, is a mystery which we cannot solve ;
and instead of helping us the requisitors have con-
trived
To puzzle e'en by explanation,
And darken by elucidation.
. .

But they have been plain enough on one point ; they
"peremptorily object to a system under which any
preference could be possible." This is a sweeping
objection to every conceivable system of government,
educational or otherwise, and could only be obviated
by reviving the theocracy of the Hebrew, or accept-
lag the wildest jacobinism of the last century.
We have read these resolutions with great, but not
unmingled pain ; they are more moderate in their
tone, and more fair in their statements, than any
which have yet emanated from the same quarter, and
some of the most flagrant absurdities in the memo-
rable list of objections, which we recently exposed,
have been quietly abandoned. There is a hopei
consistency between denouncing all interference of
government, and the demand that a system of national
education should be established by act of parliament ;
an inconsistency which we view with pleasure, not
from any paltry pride of triumph in controversy,
but from the reasonable expectation that the reason-
able demand will prevail over the irrational denun-
ciation ' • that the requisitors will discern with the
wise and good of all ages, that the children of citizens
ought to be trained in the way that they should go,
so that when they are old they should not depart
from it. The calmer tone assumed by the requisitors
shows that passion has cooled, and that prejudice is
abated; we congratulate them on the change; and
we pray that neither a fancied pride of consistency,
nor a factious desire to make trial of their political
strength, may make them aliens to the state—that is,
to the community at large—in the noble effort so to
train the youth of England, that peace and happiness,
truth and justice, religion and liberty, may be esta-
blished amongst us throughout future generations.

'MERE is a run upon juries just at present. What,
if the assailants of the twelve were to turn their wits
and pens against quarter sessions and the magistrates'
bench' We published, the other day, a case tried at
Leicester, which, if a pretext were wanting for such an
onslaught, might afford a famous one.
The ILoughborough bench has attained an unenvi-
able notoriety for the absurdity of its verdicts and the
extravagance of its fees. We have already devoted
our columns more than once to the exposure of their
judicial misdoiags. But none that we have neticed is
I at all equal to that which formed the grounds for the
action tried at Leicester on Tuesday, and which we
commented on at the time it occurred: only a case so
grievous could justify our ret
Yurning to it now.
Two village gossips quarrel. Mrs. TLER asperses

Mrs. Caoofth' chastity in an expressive monosyllable.
Mrs. CROOKS dares Mrs. TYLER to slap her face.
Mrs. TYLER, like Sampson, in "Romeo and Juliet,"
aware that " the law is (r.ot) on her side if she say
'ay ' " to the proposal, refuses. Mrs. CROOKS,
baulked of her bout at fisticuffs, hereupon ap-
plies to the Rev. Jons DUDLEY, and Mr. 0. 1).
0. ll.thvexs, two of the Loughborough magistrates,
and these worthies issue, not a summons, but a warrant
against Mrs. TYLER! The case is heard. The magis-
trates decide that no offence has been committed, but
that Mrs. TYLER " stands admonished," and sentence
her to pay 11. 181. costs. They allow her • week to
raise the money. The wife of a labourer, with five
children—they might as well, as Mr. HUMPHREY said,
" have asked her to raise the national debt." Her
miserable furniture is seized, but the proceeds are in-
sufficient to pay the sum, and Mrs. TYLER, in default,
is committed to the Leicester House of Correction for
14 days, with hard labour. Fortunately, while in that
place, she was seen by a visiting justice. Inquiring
into her offence, he was told by her that none had
been committed. Referring, very naturally, to the
commitment, he found it to this effect :
That whereas Mary Ann Tyler, on the IGth day of April,
1846, did, at divers times, and particularly on the 10th day
of April, against the peace of our Sovereign Lady the Queen,
grievously annoy and abuse Enoch Crooks (representing his
' wife), the magistrates having duly deliberated upon the al-
legation of both parties touching the same complaints, pur-
suant to an act passed in the 18th year of his late Majesty
George 111., for the more effectual payment of costs to con-
stables, and for the more effectual payment of witnesses in
certain cases of felony and larceny, do adjudge the said Mary
Ann Tyler, having been duly assessed in costs on such com-
plaint, to pay the sum of IL 18e., and do furthermore ad-
judge
the same Mary Ann Tyler, having neglected to pay or
to give security, and her goods being insufficient to meet the
mots, to 14 days' imprisonment and hard labour with 9s.
costs for conveyance. . _

Well might Mr. HUMPHREY remark on this docu-
ment that " Never did such a commitment as this find
its way into any gaol of the kingdom." It alleges, as
will be seen, no legal offence, and no conviction
justifying imprisonment forcosts, unless Mrs. TYLER'S
application of the offensive epithet to Mrs. CROOKS
be either a felony or a larceny. The case was farther
inquired into, and a memorial presented to the Home
Secretary. It met with prompt attention. By return
of post, an order arrived from Sir issies GRAHAM,
discharging the prisoner after nine days of her eon-
I finement had expired.
A communication from the Home Secretary was
soon after made to the committing magistrates that,
lon a repetition of such conduct, he would lay the
names of magistrates so committing themselves before
the LORD CLIANCELLOR, for the purpose of having
them struck off the commission. On referring to our
file of last year, we find in our paper of
November 27, that these same gentlemen,
unawed by the threat of the Home Secretary,
indulged themselves in a prank, which if not quite as
atrocious as their treatment of Mrs-TYLER, comes closely
enough upon it to have fairly warranted the infliction
of the Home Secretary's threatened disgrace. Two
lads, sons of this very Mrs. TYLER, were, in that
month, convicted by the same worthies of throwing
a stone at the door of ENOCH CROOKS (no doubt the
husband of the complainant against Mrs. TYLER),
and thereby causing damage to the amount of one
farthing. I'or thin they inflicted a fine of Is. on
each of the children, with costs amounting to
11. 14s. Oid.
We venture to ask if Messrs. DUDLEY and DAN-
YERS are still in the commission, and if so, whether

it would not be well in Sir GEORGE GREY to remem-
ber the promise of his predecessor?
But the misconduct of these persons does not end
here.

Mrs. TYLER'S action of false imprisonment, in the
natural order of things, would have come on last
assizes, and before a common jery, composed of per-
sons in a rank of life nearer to that ofJORN TYLER,
the labourer, than of Messrs. DEDLET and DARvERs,
the magistrates. It was put off; on the sworn affi-
davits of the magistrates' clerk, that a witness named
POTTER was absent, whose testimony was essential to
the defence, and that the trial could not safely pro-
ceed without him. At this assizes, the trial comes on
before a special jury, and Mr. POTTER, the necessary
witness, though present, is not put into the wit-
ness-box.

M'hat are we to think of this, or how explain it, ex-
cept on the supposition that the trial was deferred, not
because Mr. POTTER'S evidence was wanted, but that
the cause might be tried before a special instead of a
common jury • before twelve gentlemen, who might
be expected to sympathise more with neighbours
and brother magistrates than with a labourer and his
wife.

If this coarse was adopted with the connivance of
the defendants, it would aggravate the case against
them, and materially strengthen the inference to be
drawn from their lawless convictions, that they are
unfit for the functions they exercise, not so much from
ignorance, or prejudice, or stupidity, as from a want
of that love of fair play which is assumed to be a
national characteristic. However, if their trust were
in the sympathies of the special jury, it was idle in
this case. A verdict was given against them, with
damages, small, as it appears to us, for the hardship
inflicted—so small, as to serve moot imperfectly for a
lesson to the defendants, but still enough to
mark the conviction of the jury that the ac-
tion was rightly brought, and the defend-
ants properly punishable. But the matter, we
repeat it, should not end here. Connecting the
offence of April with its repetition in November, a
clear case seems made out for the interference of the
Home Secretary to remove from the commission
magistrates who have disgraced their class and abused
their powers, and a magistrate's clerk who has, on a
groundless pretext, attempted to secure unfair advan-
tages on a trial in which, indirectly, he was con-
cenied. We have no inclination to join in the cry
against the present exercise of judicial functions by
magistrate's in petty or quarter sessions. But it must
be confessed that such cases as these, of which there
are more than are ever likely to come to light, tend
to give great force to the clamour against "the great
unpaid. While they continue to occur, without
provoking the prompt and efficacious interference of
the Home Office, we should be afraid to stake the
continuance of the present jurisdiction of justices
of the peace upon the question propounded by Mr.
Pniumroxe, in his pamphlet on Law Reform
—" Would you, or any man fit to go about without a
keeper, knowing yourself to be innocent, choose to be
tried by a Court of Quarter Sessions, or by &Judge ?"
Certainly, the question of guilt or innocence appears
to be one little likely to suggest itself to such heads
as Messrs. DUDLEY and DANVERS, or to be suggested,
ab extra, by such advisers as Mr. BURNABY, their
clerk.

Our Paris despatches and the journals of Thursday
have reached us.
The debate on electoral reform was proceeding in
the Chamber, and the question had assumed a much
more serious aspect than the ministers and their
friends had expected. Instead of being scouted from
the house as unworthy of discussion, as the Debate
declared would be the case, it seems likely to be one
of the most serious debates of the present session.
The ministers have accordingly taken up the question
with more energy than they had intended; and M.
l)uchatel declared in the Chamber on Wednesday
that the rejection of the measure in this its first stage
was regarded by himself and his colleagues as a
cabinet question. The debate had not concluded
when our express left.
With a view to case the financial pressure, and
facilitate the progress of the public works, it has
been decided, under certain cenditions, to return, by
successive instalments, the deposits which the railway
companies have made with the state. They are to
be returned in the proportion of the sums which the
companies actually expend upon the works.
Mr. O'Connell arrived in Paris on Wednesday, eft
route for Italy. He was accompanied by one of his
sons.
Since the Boulogne railway was open to Abbeville,
the delivery of the London letters and despatches
has been retarded three hours. This appears to be
a very common effect of railways in France.
There was a eonsiderable fall in the price
,Of grain
in Paris ou Wednesday.
NO Spanish Mail was received on Thursday.

PRANCE. COPYRIGHT. A curione litelliT7
question was decided, on Tuesday, by the Correctional Tn-
bunal of Paris, after hearing very lengthened arguments. It
appeared that, in 1828, M. Fraysainous Bishop of Hermo-
polio, ceded the copyright of some of his works to Messrs.
Leclerc and Co. A translation of these works into Spanish
was made at Madrid, and at later periods this Spanish trans-
lation was twice reprinted at Paris. The question then
arose, whether it was a piracy to print in France a transla-
tion of a French work. The tribunal declared that it was,
and condemned the defendants, Messrs. Lecointe and Las-