The Express.
London, England, 1848-02-02 00:00:00

h* erpretsg•

MAILS
• The owland malls for Gibraltar, Malta, Greece, the lonian Islands,
Zinn, Aden, Ceylon, India, Song-Nona. and Chins, *in Woutltsrapton,
ea he made up oa the morning of the 3rd February.
The mails for the Brazils, the River Plate, Monte Video, Fenian.
=.lll=hl4atditc, SA and Buenos Ayres, will be made op on Mee
The mall. for Vge, Oporto, Lisboa, Mieleirs, Cadiz, and Ofteshar
Will be made up on the morning of the ith February.
The overland skied mails, via Miustellice, to the Mediterranean,
Tgypt, Ades, Ceylon, India, Rang Bo Sm , will be wade up on the
eveniag of the 711 iebrawr•
The mails for British North Arteries, Bermuda, and the United
Matra. will be made up on the evening of the 11th February.
The.
West India Malls whirling Bermuda, Meru, Havanna,
Honduras New Orleans Vera Cro; Tampico, and Form Mee, end
including thou for Medeith, Jame, Carthaerts, Santa Martha,
Charm, Ruston, West Cssut of south America, and St J uart.dis
Nicaragua, will be made up on the morning of the 17th February.
The omits for New South Wales, Fan Diemen's Land, and New
Zeeland will be made up on the evening of the Path February.
The mails for the Wed Coast of Atom and Madeira will Ire made
up on the evening of the Mb February.
TO CORSESPONDZNTS. COl
Tsa number of STAMPS issued to the DAILY Mtn s
by the authorities of the Stamp-office, during the year 1847
was
3,447,009
Frow JAN. 1,13 Dec. 31,
This, we believe, is within eight sent. of the number
issued to the Morning Herold, M
Chronicle, and
Morning Post, ALL rur TOOETHER.

In addition to the above, issued to the DAILY NEWS,
Mornino Paper, there were tutted for the Evening Edition,
TUE EXPRESS,
From JAN. 1, to Dec. 31 778,714
Which was more, we believe, than were issued either to the
Globe or Standard, Evening Papers.
aepr meat
• • AbeeetteMenee 1 abraded few The !sprees Lamb= melte
.be eagle eSft. IA breserie4beeet. be T. detest ea ,\e bet a PeWsti.m.

II lOU WATEL At LONDON RAM S.
TAN DAA—lldasias: aslA.not Mien." is =la.
1.11 00000 —1000.1.0.630 OWL w 0 Alimoos, I W. ip OM I.

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, FEB. 2.
Ceslre•oo On general expectation. the Court of
Queen's Bench was equally divided on the question of
issuing a mandamus in Dr. HAMPDEN'S case. The
writ is therefore refused only on the technical
bendgroud
that, on an equal division, the judgment must
the negative. If the form of the proceedings had
been reversed, and the court had been moved to com-
pel a reluctant archbishop to proceed to confirmation,
a similar division of opinion would have established
the validity of the claim which is now overruled. It
cannot be said that there is any preponderance of
authority on either side. Lord DENMAN and Mr.
Justice ERLE would neither claim greater weight than
their dissentient colleagues, nor would it be reason-
able to attribute to them lees. When time shall have
changed the constitution of the court, the whole mat-
ter will be re-opened, and considered as a res integra,
unless the legislature interposes in the meantime by
some remedial or declaratory law.
The delivery of the successive judgments formed a
more exciting scene thin any that is usually wit-
nessed during the sittings of the superior courts. Mr.
Justice ERLE, as the junior judge, began with a con-
cise, distinct, and positive declaration of opinion that
the right claimed was non-existent, and the remedy
therefore uncalled for. Shortly expressing his per-
suasion that the judicial power in confirmation had
never at any period of English history belonged to
the archbishop, he relied principally on the positive
words of the statute of HENRY VIII. The election,
he said, is declared to be valid to all intents and par-
poses. If it is voidable at the judicial discretion of
the archbishop, it cannot be good to all intents and
purposes. Again, the archbishop is required
to confirm without condition or limitation, and is sub-
jected to a pratmunire if he fails to com-
ply with the act. The learned judge remarked that
no single instance of the exercise of the right
under discussion had been established ; and justly ob-
served that the forms of procedure could prove no-
thing against the distinct enactments of the law.
There are innumerable forms in the legal proceedings
of the courts themselves which they will not allow to
be questioned, although they are utterly at variance
with the facts which they purport to represent. On
these and other grounds, which will be found at
length in oar report, he was confidently of opinion
that the rule ought to be discharged.
Mr. Justice COLERIDGE followed in an eloquent
oration of an hour and a half. He maintained that
the judicial power of the archbishop up to the refer
motion had been filly established by the authorities
cited at the bar, and drew a distinction between the
general canon law of Christendom, which he consi-
dered to have been universally recognised in England,
and the decrees of domestic provincial councils,
which are referred to in the preamble of
the act under which canon law retains its
present uncertain authority. The strongest part
of his argument was that which was founded on
the particular form of the motion before the court.
Strong as his leaning appeared to be in favour of the
whole claim set up by the prosecutors of the man-
damus, the learned judge professed himself to be far
from satisfied as to the merits of the case. On this
ground he thought that the rule ought to be granted,
so that a record might be produced, on which the
opinion of a court of error might be taken after judg-
ment, or a demurrer to the writ or to the return. A
decision on the motion in the negative would be final,
in the affirmative it would be subject to revision.
The weakest part of Mr. Justice COLERIDGE'S judg-
ment was that which in point of oratory was the most
effective, his denunciation of the act of HENRY VIIL
if construed as urged by the crown lawyers, as tyran-
nical, oppressive, and injurious to all who, like the
learned judge himself, were members of the Catholic
church of England. With the exception of an easy
triumph over the Somerton-GENERAL, who had made
the wonderful blunder of asserting that the crown
enjoyed spiritual supremacy, including the papal
prerogative of dispensation, the eloquent declamation,
which sounded eo strangely from the bench, seemed
rather to strengthen the arguments that it was in-
tended to destroy. There is no doubt that the act is
in the highest degree tyrannical ; or rather it would
become so, if the penalties prescribed by it were en-
forced. If it was wished to give the crown absolute
power over episcopal appointments, it would
have been simpler to have abolished the
intervention of the spiritual authorities, than
to have compelled them to form acts, which might be
morally criminal on their part. But we cannot
see how this affects the question. In construing a
statute of HENRY VIII., if we were compelled to look
be-yond the letter of its enactments, we should cer-
tainly incline to that construction, as most probable,
which savoured most of arbitrary power. If the
KING had ordered, as very probably he may have
ordered, the celebration of a Te Deum in honour of
any of his own enormities, he would certainly have
thought a bishop or priest who 'refused to obey him
leniently treated, if he escaped with the penalties of a
prcemunire. Mr. Justice COLERIDGE'S assertion, that
the worthy Defender of the Faith understood and re-
spected conscientious, scruples requires no inconsider-
able limitation. He undoubtedly understood and
respected his own scruples; and he took care that his
subjects should respect them also, without bringing
forward any scruples of their own to clash with them.
If ever the claim to oppose a confirmation is set up
again, it will be on Mr. Justice PArrusoN's authority
that the opponents will rely. His judgment formed
a model of the careful, dispassionate attention to the
law, and to the law only, which has so long distin-
guished that most able and impartial judge. He con-
sidered that the mandate to confirm mast be inter-
preted according to the meaning of confirmation at
the passing of the act of HENRY VIII. If, he said,
the archbiahop had asked," How am Ito invest or to
consecrate?" he would have been told, " As you did
before." Why not, then, confirm as he did before P—
an act which, in the learned judge's opinion,
was historically proved to have been, up to
the Reformation, substantially judicial. On
the whole matter, however, Mr. Justice PAT-.
moots entertained grave doubts. His mind, he'
said, had fluctuated from one side to the other, both
dazing the argument and since its conclusion. But
these very doubts enabled him to form a practical
decision. The act which provided for the revision of
a record in mandamus by a court of error had, he
thought, materially modified the duty of the Queen's
Beach in considering the original application for a
writ. Whenever a prima fade case for a mandamus
appeared, and when a doubt existed as to the substan-
tial merits of the case, ho was of opinion that the court
ought to grant a writ, that the matter might be fully
discussed on the return, and, if necessary, taken up by
error to a superior court.
On this last point, which determined Mr. Justice
Parrssoies judgment that the writ should issue,
Lord DENMAN expressed almost entire concurrence
with his colleague. If, he said, it was a case of a