The Express.
London, England, 1851-05-16 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY, MAY 16.

THERE is no principle of law requiring more so-
lemn sanction than that no man has a right to tako
advantage of the act or vow of another bartering
away or ceding his natural liberty, and to seek to
enforce any such act of self-sacrifice by penalty or
coercion. Ifone person were to play the Roman
debtor, and make his person over as that of slave to
his creditor, the law would not sanct• t. Neither
can it sanction a woman's abdicating that portion of
her nature and her rights which is most precious.
An institution for the voluntary performance of acts
of piety and the observation of a life of chastity has
nothing reprehensible. But how insure that it is
voluntary ?
Row prevent or exercise vigilance over institutions
which commence their edifice with a set of under-
ground cells for confinement and coercion ? Then,
how prevent the debasement of the mind, as well as
maltreatment of the body, in such institutions ; the
object of which is to grasp wealth, acquire power,
and extend the empire of asceticism and of the reli-
gion founded on it, till it comes to dominate the
weaker portion of society, principally the female
sex, who arc the chief victims of the conventual
system ; for the illiterate monk, recruited from the
lowest class of society, intellect and information, is
not so unhappy in succeeding to render the lowest
grades of human intellect dominant over all that is
higher.
Continental countries. catholic as well as protestant,
have seen the necessity of legislating for such ob-
jects. The monastic system in its natural develop-
ment, is such as no government and no people have
found it possible to tolerate. All have interfered to
regulate and restrict, to protect female helplessness,
to prevent bigotry from following up in the impunity
of the dark its monstrous principles. And in truth,
governments in thus acting have merely saved mo-
nastic institutions, such as nunneries, from their own
ruin. For the reason, that as to a series of habits,
and a state of discipline and conduct. utterly incom-
patible with the age and even its tolerance, all con-
ventual establishments infallibly proceed.
The natural remedy fur all great and wide-spread
abuses, which no power, either of law, or of public
opinion, can cheek, is a revolution—the great Lynch-
law of society. And thus it is, that in all countries
it has been put in practice against abuses of religion.
It was this Lynch-law which dealt with conventual
abuses in Spain, in France, and which will deal with
them in Italy. There are some very intelligent poli-
ticians who maintain that this is the only real and effec-
tual remedy against ecclesiastical *domination or
abuses ; that the best mode of treating such is complete
tolerance, the giving full scope and facility of develop-
ment ; their own excesses working more speedily and
effectively the great and radical cure. We cannot
agree in this mode of regulating social institutions,
nod amending their errors. Lynch law on the part
of the people is. howe:er, the inevitable conse-
quence of an alxlication of all authority and con-
trol on the part of goveniment. And of this we
may feel convinced, that if parliament and govern-
ment declare themselves incapable of interfering in
such matters, the public or the people will, on tho
explosion and evidence of some graft conventual
crime, determine on doing justice itself.
We must confess, that in the entire of our views
for legislating on papal aggression, and for raga
luting the use of Roman catholic authority in this
country, we have been greatly actuated by the con-
viction, that if parliament and government
proved unwilling or impuissant to defend
religion and personal liberty against that ul-
tra-Romanism which is the enemy of both,
the people themselves, the people of England,
would undertake their own defence in some of their
own
,well-known and vigorous, but highly incon-
venient ways. From the preponderance of Roman
catholics in parliament, from their deten ll ill ation to
regard every question in a puny light, and to view
every wish to ref mm or guard against abuses
in their religious domain as u personal insult to
themselves and a sacrilege; if to this bo
joined an utter disregard for any other politi-
cal principle in the parliamentary conduct of their
co-religionists, there may result an utter impos-
sibility fur any parliament or government in this
country legislating or interfering in the smallest way
on religious matters.
Let this be once known, once allowed, once esta-
blished, and the efibrt will be made to discover some
means of doing that for which representative govern-
ment is unfit. Of course associations will he the
means tried. These have been catholic ussociutions in
Ireland and Orange associations in Ireland, now
patronisnl by a bigot government, now tolerated by
a weak one. But, after all, association did the busi-
ness in Ireland, and rendered catholicism triumphant
in Dublin first, to triumph in one day in West-
minster.

We most say, we doubt the people of England
suffering this quietly. A great struggle is now making,
and by liberals, to prove to the English people, that
the present parliament and government can do
nothing in defence of religious liberty. and agptttut
the encroachments of catholicism. , vre
fear, will be a counter-etibrt on the part of the peo-
ple to return an ultra-pmtestant parliament, and to
enthrone an ultra-protestant administration. But
even this lamentable experiment would fail, for
Lord STA N LEV would prom more powerless,
as he certainly is more insincere, than Lord
Jolts. And then amidst fresh encroachments of
the triumphant 11,:munists, we should hear once
more the cry of," To your tents, 0 Israel r"fhe old
puritan and popularly protestant spirit of the British
people would awake, nay, would associate and arm,
And the true and final result of parliament and go-
vernment both abdicating their power of iiiterferenco
and legislation, would he merely to adjourn tho
question from the field of debate to that of battle,
and to re-enact on the soils of our two islands the old
quarrel with the old mode of termination' which
illustrate and deface the English and Irish records
of the seventeenth century.

THE Court of Queen's Bench having by its recent
decision referred Mr. Wiiisros back again to tho
Bishop of Itoemismit in his controvery with tho
Dean and Canons of that cathedral, it becomes im-
portant for the public to thoroughly comprehend the
present position of the question; and what it is
Mr. Wiiisrox will have to appeal to the Bishop, as
Visitor, about.

• - .
The original point at issue between that gentleman
and the Dean and Calloll3 was, our readers know,
simply whether the alimentary allowance of the
foundation boys at the Cathedral Grammar School
and at the Universities, under the statutes of
HENRY VIII. should be illusory or substantial :
Mr. WHIsroN contending that his youthful cliintels
were entitled to be fully maintained, as of the happy
reign of VicrontA ; the eapitular authorities, on the
other hand, arguing that they were only bound to
give the boys the scanty mill starcitory money allow-
ance temp. HENRY NHL the bishop, when appealed
to, referring Mr.WitticroN to the Court of Chancery ;
and the Court of Chancery resolving, when, in obe-
dience to episcopal suggestion, Mr. WI:Is-tom went
there, that it had no jurisdiction in the matter.
This, however, is not at present the matter in
hand: though it, of course, is the question behind the
immediate point of contention ; and will have to be
resolved when the preliminary campaign shall have
been decided, regardless of its issue. The appeal
now to be made to Bishop MURRAY is of a more per-
sonal kind, and regards the legality or illegality of
Mr. WHISTON'S dismissal from his office of Master
of the Cathedral Grammar School by the Dean and
Chapter.
Failing to procure any attention to his arguments
by private correspondence with the Chapter, or by
an appeal to its \ isitor, Mr. WIIISTON published his
now famous pamphlet, " Cathedral Trusts and their
Fulfilment," in which, amidst pages of rare learning
and valuable research, he certainly drew a singularly
disagreeable and repulsive, but very truthful, con-
trast between the estimate entertained by deans,

canons, and bishops of capitals: and episcopal oaths,
when parliament threatened to reduce the revenues
of those dignitaries, and when he, a simple school.
neuter, cap in hand, sought the bare fulfilment of
cathedral statutes for the encouragement of learning
and educational merits. There is no denying that Mr. :
Weasros smote and spared not." He wrote as
be felt, strongly: perhaps uncourteously ; it may be I,
even, offensively ; but not, his pamphlet teems with
evidence to show, malignantly or vuidictively ; and
for this breach of taste, the dean and canons of
Rochester dismissed him. The question is, had they
power to do so? We think not; and we are certain
that, even possessing the power, they ought not to
have exercised it ; for nothing can deprive its exer-
cise of, at least, the appearance of revenge.
No doubt the dean and canons have authority
under their statutes to dismiss without notice or warn-
ing, or admonition, the subordinate officers, for
offences comprised (we shall have occasion to
quote the particular portage further on) under
the words grarnts delirium. But is the publication
of what they themselves only deem to be a libel on
them a graraus drhetuta t If we open FACCIOLATI,
we there find the word delietuns defined to be " a
fault, crime, 'fence, sin." Add thereto the full
force of the adjective grarius, and what the words
mean grammatically is obviously a very serious
fault, crime, offence, or sin, and not a mere breach
of taste, courtesy, or manners. This definition is,
however, at best, uncertain, indefinite, and vague ;
construe it liberally, and it affords a wide margin ;
strictly, and it may be restricted by very narrow
limits. To arrive at its true signification, as used in
the Rochester statutes, we must therefore seek for
external aid from the analogies of other statutes.
Now a somewhat close examination of the statutes
of similar foundations leads to the conclusion that
expulsion from such societies, without notice, and
for the first offence, was never intended to be the
punishment for breeches of or defects in manners,
for even defamatory language, or, worse still, for
personal irregularities, unless persisted in after fre-
quent correction ; but that that extreme penalty was
reserved for offences against religion, morals, or law
—in short, for the commission of crimes or flagrant
sine And read by the light of other foundations,
that, and that only, is the real meaning of the
raring delirl of Rochester.
Perhaps the earliest permanently endowed foun-
dation fur the maintenntity and education of scholars
unconnected with the monastic orders, was Merton
College, Oxford. Its statutes are of so early a date
OA 1270, and are of a model character; for from
them a large number of other foundations took their
rules, orders, and regulations. Now, in them exclu-
sion from fellowships for a first offence is con-
fined to " perjury, sacrilege, theft, robbery, homi-
cide, adultery. or other grievous lapse of the flesh, or
heating a fellow." So, too, at All Souls, Oxford,
founded by Archbishop ell Yell ENTRE, 1113, the
uHiuces for which expulsion without warning ac-
crues are much the same, with, us the Reformation
approached, the addition of heresy. At All Souls,
however, there is a series of punishments assigned to
defamation : of which expulsion was awarded only
on the fourth offeror ; and. with regard to the former
or greater crimes, the statutes of Magdalene College,
Oxford, founded by WA VNPLE IT., are, in sulestance,
a copy of All Souls. Corpus Christi, the foundation
d 1571) of Bishop Fox, the great minister and
iplomatist of II I:Y VII., comes next; and its
statutes are even more integrative of the common

characteristics of the,e foundations on the point i
under investigation. 'there again defamation s the
subject of a eliapter; and there also expulsion is
only the puni•diment of a fourth conviction; and
after it come the provisions relative to "greater
offences," which run thus in English:

We assent not to the stoics, who ;take all offences equal ;
but can dorm some inure grievous or lighter than others
of the same kind. And we enact that if an ill report should
arise against any one of the fellows, scholars, or students of '
our college, regarding the crimes of heresy, sinionv, or evis
dent perjury, or notorious theft, wilful murder, adUltery, in-
cest, wrongful or outrageous buttery of a fellow, scholar, or
student that does him serious harm, or respecting any one
of the greater crimes, or because he is a notorious horni-
tutor. or of his haling perm trated any fart by means of
whualc damage, prejudice, or scandal very aggruvated may
accrue to the college, and he be found cltarly guilty, we
decree that lie shall be forthwith expelled without any pre-
vious warning.

So that it wiN only on being " found clearly
guilty " that expulbiun accrued fur even positive
crimes mid sins.

As at Oxford. so at Cambridge; expulsion for the
first offence, and without warning, is the penalty of
similar crimes only at Christ's, at Trinity, ut King's
and at Peterhouse; smaller offences having there I,
also a gradation of punishment assigned to them.
'this, wesubmit, is powerful assistance in searching
out the proper meaning at he Ita•hester statutes. But
there is even stronger light thrown on it by the statutes
of foundations %Inch may be said to have a personal
et 'xnm with those of that cathedral. For by the
statutes of Eton, for example, the head master is ,
liable to be removed if he commit any enormity. j
Now, one of the three permit who in 1515 framed
the Latin statutes ot• Rochester was Ittctiattu Cox,
Prot iist of Eton: gettable, then, as the lawyers have
it, that year'''. Silietnou means SI/Me 1./Ws,
Another of the three was Mem, Bishop of Ro-
chester, and anent ards Archbishop of York, and he,
two yews (I:.E3} be the date of the existing
Rishester statutes, prepared certain provisional orders
for tlw govennaent of that cathedral establishment;
amid one of t hem, aftyr a warding expulsion for disobedi-
ence after two monitions, says : And all inordinate
crimes, as heresy, adultery, fornication, and such
other crimes, to he punished with expulsion without
further monition." Now, it was on this draft, us it
were, that the existing statute, under which Mr.
IV it i• ri has been dismissed, was based. It is en-
titled De ('orriyentlis Erressilms, and runs:

If any of the minor canons, lay clerks, or other miniaters
in Vote .aid church ultenol in a light fault let him b: cos-
neted at the Ji.eretiun of the dean and chapter ; but, it the
offence be • grunt's ddicium, let hint be expelled (it it
shall he isiljtidgeol just) by thaw by wl he was admitted.
- -

Marking. then, the growth of this provisional order
into a permanent statute. the fair inference seems to
tie that, by _burins delirium in the latter, Ilf-trti
meant the isurdinate crimes he had enumerated in
the foriner. For, unless he did. he left no provision
fur their punishment in the Rochester statutes. And
what renders this inference almost irresistible is, that
when lIE VIII trained. as Archbishop of York, the
Durham statutes, he headed a section corresponding
to that quoted from those of Rochester, using therein
the very words ofyrarins delirium, not dr mrrigendis
ereessiinx, but de eurrigendis rriminilms, thereby
showing that it was ,rinse, and not bad manners, he
was providing a pmmpt and severe punishment for,
when he so repeated at Durham the exuression
pruritus delietmu. Moreover, HEM!, as one of
the commissioners of F.nw.eau VI. for visiting
Cambridge, mast hare been well acquainted with
the statutes of its colleges, and their restriction of
the extreme penalty of expulsion without notice to
crimes, is some ceideuce that had he desired to
extend that punishment to lighter offences., he would
hose done so in precise and unmistakable terms.
Here, then, we say that there is external evidence
to show that the !purists delirium of Rochester
means an oflimee of a criminal character, and not
defamation, which is the utmost the dean and canons
van charge against Mr. Witicrox.
And this is the question on which the Bishop of
IInCTIE.TER will lx appealed to; and on which the
episcopal latinity will shortly have to be brushed up.

Ir did not appear to us that any useful end could
he served by commenting on the case of Captain
l'.tuicrr SoutAisrr. The decision of Mr. HARD-
Wick was substantially right ; but it would have
born a libel on our police magistrates to have as-
smiled that any of them would have acted otherwise in
his place. and no very heroic effort of courage seemed
necessary to nerve a MIA to the discharge of so ob-
vious a auto. On the other hand, though Captain
Somiltscr 'had clearly brought himself into the
scrape by his Ow II misconduct, the sentence, to a man
.scupying his social position, watunquestionably a
severe ono—more severe than it would have been to
a man in a less conspicuous station. Publicity has
Nen given to the case in the way that it is ordinarily
given to similar cases, and to give additional prom-
°tare to it would have had the air of seeking to
aggravate unnecessarily the sufferings of the sen-
t( held. We lett the story to speak for itself, as
fairest to all parties.
Sonic of our btethren of the broad-sheet have
judged otherwise. The Tithes of next day displayed
It., eloquence in au enthusiastic encomium on .the
" PcT-hultum courage and virtue of Mr. HARDWICK
and a stern admonition to Captain SOMERSET, Villas
had very mit& the appearance of striking a man

when be was down. The Messick and Poet of neat
day followed in the wake of the Times, but with
more discrimination. And some ill-judging friend
of Captain Sox EASES was silly enough to insist
upon having his vindication (Alum published in the
columns of the last-mentioned paper. The topic,
therefore, having become a part of the gossip of the
day, no harm can be done to any one by trying to
speak a mouthful of common sense about it.
We repeat, therefore, that Mr. Mutowice's deci-
sion was substantially just; he could not, consis-
tently with common decency, have acted otherwise
than he did. Of late we have repeatedly witnessed
ignorant, uneducated men, severely punished for as-
saults upon the police; had an offender whose op-
portunities ought to have taught him better, been
allowed to escape with a merely nominal
punishment, which any fine the magistrate could
have inflicted would have been, the gross and out-
raging anomaly would have been prevented of one
law for the rich and another for the poor.
Still the sentence is, from the nature of the case,
disproportionately severe. We will not be suspected
of any sympathy with or deference for that dispo-
sition which is the besetting sin of every aristocracy
to regard offences as venial when committed by them-
selves which would rouse their indignation when
perpetrated by persons of a meaner grade. On
the contrary, we have been accused of being rather
susceptible on the score of aristocratic insolence.
We are therefore free to remark that Captain
Smeaser's offence is of t very different kind from
those which are ordinarily punished by committal to
a house of correction. That offence implies a
somewhat overbearing and uncontrolled temper—a
readiness to scorn the restraints of law as not
meant to apply to one of his rank—which ought to be
curbed. It was right that a few days compulsory
seclusion should leave him leisure to meditate on the
omnipotence of law, and to recollect that the more
distinguished a man's social position, the more it was
his duty to set an example of willing obedience to
the law. But it might have been wished that his
punishment could have been inflicted without placing
him in a situation that may render him uncomfort-
able and unhappy after the term of his expiation
has ended. A " House of Correction" is inseparably
associated in most men's minds with larceny and other
in (maiming crimes. We have no apprehensions that Cap-
tain Sosteaser's commanding officers will aggravate
his sufferings by insisting upon his resigning his
commission as he seemed to fear; but if he is
a very susceptible person he will feel un-
comfortable in again mixing in society ;
and even though he be not, ill-natured indi-
viduals may, lung years hence, render him unhappy
by ill-natured allusions to his confinement, when its
circumstances have been forgotten, and when un-
warrantable infenmces may be based on the half. un-
derstood story thus wantonly raked up.
The fault, however, is not in the magistrate, but
in an imperfect penal law; and though we tun feel
for Captain Slimmest's', we shall scarcely be able to
regret the incident if it awakens the attention of the
claw to which he belongs—of the politically powerful
class—to the necessity for making some 'distinction
between the punishments awarded to iufmnising
crimes and those awarded to offences which arc mere
outbursts of an insufficiently disciplined temper, and
imply no rooted depravity or meanness in the
offilider. Captain Someitsers equals in rank can
appreciate the hardship to which he is subjected by
being consigned to the same place of confine-
meld. which is allotted to felons and the
very off-scourings of the crime class. Let them
learn hence the cruel injustice which is
done to poorer men, men of lower rank, when for of-
fences which merely imply inconsiderateness+, they,
too, are consigned to the receptacle of felons. The
professional poacher is generally a thief too; but the
young offender against the game lows fur the first
time is rarely chargeable with more than yielding to
a strong natural instinet,or of priding himself, in the
wantonly high spirits of youth, with doing what he
is forbid to do, and for that very reason. Yet the same
persons who will be horror-struck at what they will
call the indignity offered to one of their own rank,
would think nothing of themselves committing a
young poacher for his first offence to a common gaol,
there to consort with, and be corrupted by, expe-
rienced criminals.and to return thence with a tainted
character that may frustrate all his future efforts to
obtain a livelihood by honest industry.
There will be lio reason to regret the harsh mea-
sure unavoidably meted to Captain Sous:user, if it
stirs up some of our aristocratic leiislators to at-
tempt au improvement of our penal low by having
seine distinction made between the penalties
awarded to felonies and other infamising crimes,
and those pronounced against offenders whose tem-
per requires to be curbed by punishment, but who
are free from meaner dishonest vices.

FRANCE.

PARIS, THURSDAY EVENING.

Cvneral Durricu has been elected representative
for the Landes by 17,000 votes. Duelere, the mo-
derate rs:publicun candidate obtained 10,000 votes.
The red republicans abstaincil from voting.
The number that abstained from voting is reckoned
at '27,000. . _ _

Before publishing hie famous article in favour of
abolishing the electoral law of May, it is now known
that I)r.Veron had an interview with M. do Lamartinc.
%Vhatever mission brought the intimate adviser of
the lilvsiv to M. de Lamartine, it 'Kisses for certain
that the zeal of M. Faucher in favour of the law of
May is iu nowise partaken by the president. It is not,
however,true that any overtures have beta made to M
Odilon Minot. It is said that M. Ilaroche, who is
I equally ecaupromised in favour of maintaining the
law of May, will go out with M. Faucher, and that
these two ministers will be replaced by MM. lluio
and Lamartinc.

Yesterday the Ifessoyer was seized for an article on
the order of the Minister of IVar, directing fourteen
regiments of the Ist division to hold themselves in
readiness to march on Paris, of whose garrison they
form no part. The usratif and the signer of the
article are being prosecuted on the charge of spread-
ing false news of a nature to trouble the public
peace.
To-day the .Ifessoger guarantees the correctness of
the information which it gave respecting this order.
The Patric and ilunifeur du Soar will contain this
evening a semi-otlicial article in answer to this charge
of the Masi:yet., showing that in case order were dis-
turbed the troops of the Gaulle lie have no need of a
special order of the Minister of War to march on
Paris, which order must besides pane through the
channel of the commander-in-chief of the arms of
Paris. The itinerary and halting places are all- hid
down by an old standing instruction of General
Changarmer. The allegation of the Me/sayer is
treated us completely false iu gross as in detail.
The near approach of the moment when the revi-
sion of the constitution may be legally undertaken
induces me to omit no means of setting this great
question in the clearest point of view. You remem-
ber that the 111th article of the constitution makes
mention of two modes of revision, partial and total.
Now, as no two parties in the Assembly exactly agree
as to the features in the constitution which ought to
be remodelled, any more than as to those which it
would be desirable to maintain, it stands to reason
that the only sort of revision which has any
chance is total revision. This has accordingly been
at once accepted as an axiom by the most powerful
fraction of the majority, and that which desires most
ardently to get rid without delay of the present
sources of weakness to the government—namely,
the Club of the Rue des Pvmtnides. 'the
fresh constituent will, therefore, 'have to begin
upon a tabula rasa. The fundamental prin-
ciples of government will be once more set in
question, one extreme party maintaining that
the attributions of the new Assembly extend to de-
ciding the restoration of the monarchy, while the
opposite extreme party will submit to thc same tri-
bunal their theories for dispensing with both Presi-
dent and Assembly, and establishing direct govern-
ment of the people. However little chance there
may be of the adoption of either of these systems,
such is the broad competence deferred by opposing
parties to the constituent. The bare mention of
these removed poles of the sphere of arbitration to
be entrusted to a new body emerging from universal
suffrage suffices to show that this country stands on
, the eve of no common struggle. Whether the con-
stituent be chosen according to the law of May, or
as bens to be more probable, according to a law
less absolutely inadmissible by the democratic party
it will have once More to confront all those problems

THE EXPRESS,

!political and social, so many of which, se regards the
latter, were happily resolved by the last constituent
on the side of order. Those questions on the right to
work, progressive property-tax, and other socialist
schemes, whicn were swept out of the legis-
lative arena into pamphlets and a few newspaper.
will once more rise up • living subject I
of debate and antagonism before the electoral
colleges and before the Assembly. The mass of
people who are crying out for revision, as if an era
of peace and prosperity would date from the adoption
of that measure, scarcely weigh with sufficient fore-
cast the agitation, struggle, and stress of contention
which will shake tho frame of France during the
new elections and the three following months in
which the elected will have to complete their mis-
sion. The enlarged number of 900, necessary to form
a Constituent Assembly, will tend to increase the
difficulty of their task. As soon as the revision is
voted all that is now fixed will be set afloat; the
principles of having unremovable judges, and func-
tionaries appointed by the executive government
instead of by popular election, will be liable to re-
peal. And although a good constituent might re-
move some glaring defects in the present constitu-
tion, as regards political organization, a bad one
might plunge the country into worse disorder than
ever. With such eventualities before their eyes, dal
sections of the party of order are so much at
odds, that they can hardly come to a definitive
agreement upon the simplest question, such as elect-
ing a councillor of state or a vice-president of the
Assembly.
M. Curlier has again resorted to the measures of
restriction on the sale of gunpowder, which were
adopted when insurrection was threatened in the
May of last year, on account of the electoral law.
'lie government has received telegraphic des-
patches from Marseilles, announcing the commence-
ment of the expedition against the Kabyles.
Lnfourcaile was executed this morning. lie was
obliged to be carried to the scaffold.
A pretty steamer, the Ariel, has been constructed
in the docks of Creuzot for the Pacha of Egypt. She
is rigged as a brig, and intended for the Pasha's do-
mestic use on the Nile. The cabins of the harem are
forward; those of the pasha astern. The wood
linings, hangings, and decorations are costly and
elegant.