The Express.
London, England, 1853-12-09 00:00:00

etot evintAs.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.
A grand itto cubtaaann tbe Abair ne•
.4,4,ettp," I. pettlrbed every Taev:ay aad Vnday nib; in 'LW^
far

leirertmairlob Moak ter " [apnea," loM== E...e s..2er.
tout L. al Mt b ey N. Ilsavarlertregi, by Two aft tle
day of pebsatka.

HIOR WATS", AT LONDON DRUMS.
fit. u..-rarer Oa— moms" oh. ea.
-rarer Mk. W00...--Alsomooo...b. Ca.

L(),VD011; FRIDAY. DECEMBER !..

Tut "Scottish Lion" cannot be at rest—as a
recent correspondence sufficiently testifies. Nor
can the "Justice to Scotland" clique. They wit/
be uneasy; will fret and vex themselves in hope
that •"sora.tLing may come of it"—through the
goodnatured willingness of the rest of the com-
munity to saerifiiw something to be rid of a bore.
But do these sditators—who, under the plea of Jus-
tice to Scotland really want jobs for themselves—do

credit to their rountry? Are they not bringing
&bete eq. on an otherwise noble people? Let us see.
Tbe a'►lieut characteristic of a Scotchman is self-
dependoucc. It is popularly believed that his very
outset in life is prompted by that principle, which is
inculcated in him, not only by his early education,
hut by the religion and the social institutions of his
country. Regardless of the seductive attractions of
home, he takes the earliest opportunity of leaving
his father and his mother and cleaving to whatever
is likely to advance. him in life, wherever that is to be
found. The story-book boy who arrives in town with
no more than sixpence in his pocket, and afterwards
becomes Lord Mayor of London is nearly always

from Scotland. According to SIDNEY SMITH, the
early Scottish Covenanters went out to preach the
gospel with nothing but a Bible in one hand, and a
little brin•stone in the other; but, boldly animated
by the spirit of self-dependence, they achieved successes
which belong to some of the most ennobling pages of
history. Turn where we will, the triumphs of this
great national spirit are manifest. We cannot enter a
►hop, or a ship, or a factory, or a railway•station, or
a garden, or a merchant's counting-house, or a public
office in any part of Europe, Asia, Africa, America,
or Australis, without meeting with some incarnation
of self-reliance sturdily asserting itself in a strong
Notth;rn accent.
As with individuals so with the nation. Scotland,
although no: quite self-supporting, is self-made,
and indomitably self-reliant. She never begs;
because, if crer in want, she has had the pride to
conersi ker poverty, and the energy to remove it.
She has never stretched forth gaunt hands across
the Tweed for national relief. Training her sons for
migration, she has never raised the cry of " Scotland
for the Scotch." because she wisely prefers wanner
climes and more genial soils for her offspring to
labour in, knowing well that they will strike roof
and prosper anywhere; and that she, at home, is
always able to take especial god care of herseif,
although the great body of them be absent.
They aro bold men, then, who would risk the odium
of depriving Scotland of her noblest attribute; but, in
these times of political destitution, such men appear
above the po:itical horizon at its extremest opposites,
to raise, for fault of a better, the feeble watchword of
"Justice to Scotland!" It is no less astonishing
than pitiable to observe the puerile expedients
which the minor members of exterminsted or effete
political parties will adopt to keep themselves before
the public. Yet the ball for the gathering of political'
capital must be kept rolling under some pretence, be
it ever so flimsy or untenable. Thus the constellation
from diametrically opposite political spheres which
shone for one brief night at Edinburgh was made up
of heterogeneous elements that utterly confounded the
antecedents of its various political stars. Free trader
provost' were obliged to assent to the protectionist
arguments of Tory lords. Doves, fluttering
straight from the platforms of the Peace move-
nit nt had to coo their acquiescence in the belligerent
thunder of a lion-like champion demanding for his
native country more soldiers, more militia, more
arsenals, more gunpowder. But they united most
heartily in the cause dearest to their hearts—the nuni
sacra fones,—aod in the shaking up of what" Cale-
donia stern and wile has hitherto heroically scorned
—the begging-box. This they hold out to England
for contributions very much in the style of the lame
soldier in " Oil Blas." They demand grants of
money for the Scottish Universities ; more money for
certain museums and other public institutions; more
money for more soldiers and more militia; more
money for keeping the royal Scottish Palaces in
thorough repair; and more mouey to provide for a
Secretary of State for Scotland. Then, when all
three contributions have been dropped into the box,
they must have, they say, more members of Parlia-
ment, and—(sublime bathos !;—a new quartering for
their national Hos in their national standard.
These demands am worth examination, more for
the sake of amusement than for serious refutation.
First, Lord &LIMON spoke of the miserably in-
adequate endowments of the several Scottish Univer-
sities. But, if Scotland, drawing from the public
treasury 7,5001. a year for her Universities, be
grudgingly dealt with by the Treasury, how much
harder is the case of certain English Universities, to

which is doled out no more than 6,0001.
per annum ? Secondly, his lordship com-
plained that, while hundreds of thousands of pounds i
are expended in England upon Museums, National I
Galleries, Arsenal, and Harbours, comparatively
nothing is given to Scotland for those objects. Did
he wilfully shut his eyes to the grants for the '
encouragement of arts and manufactures in Scot- I
land ; to the 5,0001. a-year of the British taxpayers'
money for maintaining Highland roads and bridges;
to the annual expenditure for repairing the Ca:e-
donian Canal? t to harbours of refuge, a dozen
more at least are now required along the
coasts of England, which England cannot, it seems,
at present afford fur herself. Thirdly. it is asked
(with a violent shake of the money-box), why are
not the royal palaces of Scotland kept in full repair
and adornment? The answer is, because Royalty
does not inhabit them ; yet, in spite of that conclu-
sive reason, between forty and fifty thousand pounds
have been spent in the present reign upon Holy.
rood ; and foe what ? To render it fit for the QULLN
to sleep a couple of nights a year in, on her
way to and from Balmoral, and to accommodate
the few Crown pensioners who reside in it. Despite
this enormous expenditure, the QuEes would fare as
well at Barry's or Douglas's Hotel ; for she has not
a rood of garden to walk in ; and it was recently disco-
vered that former grants of money had been used to
deface instead of to adorn the old palace; for some of
its finest carved ceilings had been laboriously filled up
with plaster! The Palace of Linlithgow is also, .t is
complained. very much out of repair; by reason 1,
let us suppose, of its being a fine old ruin. The
ffort.ekeepor in the " School of Reform" boasts
that she had darned up all the ragged old flags in her
master's baronial hall. " The National Associrion
for the Vindication of Scottish Rights" evidently wish
the finest relic of antiquity in their country to be
patched aad restored and spoiled in like manner.
Shu- ting their eyes to the contni aide of •i:e
account, the ‘inclicAtors of Scottish rights u_r-
posely abstain from allusion to the imperial coat
(15,0001) of laying out Holyrood Park, and mitk.ng