The Express.
London, England, 1853-05-16 00:00:00

gut ersirefso. 1

IN GENTS.

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EIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE
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LONDON, MONDAY, MAY 16.

Tax Dahlia Exhibition has opened with great
;dot All classes appear to have united to do ho-
nour to an event, which may serve—inch is the con-
dition of Ireland—to mark an epoch in the history of
that country. Thousands of friends of Ireland flock-
ing together to celebrate the opening of • grand
display of Irish labour. Trinity College, the heed-
quitters of the Irish Established Church, sends forth
its Provost and Fellows to mingle with the Catholic
Archbishop and other Catholic prelates. The
church de 'are and the church de facto sink for an
instant their irreligious quarrels, and are silent in
the presence of a power which may achieve what
they have never done—the pacification of Ireland.
Politicians of all politics, religious men of all deno-
mination, are united in the happy inauguration of
the Exhibition of Irish industry.
Its opening is marked also with a fact of much sig-
nificanoe. The originator has refused the honours
which the representative of royalty proposed to be-
stow upon him. Mr. WILLIAM DARGAN, for some
cause or other, objects to be knighted. Extraordi-
nary Mr. BAROAN, What can have induced him to
say No to a proposal that thousands of those around
him would have been willing to purchase at a very
heavy rate ? Is it possible that he thinks there must
be something anomalous in a reward which sat well
upon the shoulders of Ducuescias, BAYARD, and Sir
Pulite Stuttev,and is supposed to be equally well
adapted_ for Bir RICHARD PRlLirrs or Sir JOHN BET?
Did he—we are &bloat afraid to suggest the ques-
tion—did he look upon the Knights of St. Patrick
present before him in all the glory of collar and
Mar, and vote them mere shame? Did he, being a
practical man, hesitate about entering into a pro-
fission which history tells him involved devoting
himself to the service of " Ood and the ladies," pro-
tecting the distressed, fighting the infidels, despising
the allurements of ease, and seeking perilous adven-
tured) Perhaps, being " honest, bold, and loyal,"
he thought there was no necessity to take
an oath that he ;would remain so. As
we do not know Mr. Deaustib reasons, there
will be ao harm in conjecturing a few
which may very probably have had some influence
upon him and others who have lately refused the
honour in questios, and may poniibly have had some
weight with Sir Rouser Pau, in determining him
to reject a peerage for himself and his descendants.
Every one who has considered the question will
recognise the fact, that European titles of honour are
all either ecclesiastical or military. The few titles ac-
corded to legal or scientific eminence by the Universi-
ties are only apparent exceptions to the rule, the Uni-
versities being in their origin essentially ecclesiastical
corporations. Titles are derived from a period when
the priest and the soldier were the great agents of
ci%disation. There is a party which -derives its opi-
nions from middle-age traditions, which believes that
the mission of these two agents still continues.
" What," said the late Livros° Cor'm's, the most elo-
quent member of this party," What would become of
the world, of the civilisation of Europe even, if there
were neither priests nor soldiers? " Doubtless there
are many good and holy men, amongst whom we may
reckon the late Dr. ARNOLD, who think that the
Millennium is a period when we shall do without
either. They look for the ultimate purification of
religion in the abolition of pyiesteraft, and the
ultimate perfection of society in the abolition of
war. There, however, is a still larger class who,
without holding strong opinions on priesteraft or
soldiering, believe that the great mission of civilisa-
tion is entrusted to neither the one nor the other
any longer. They find that the education of the
world is no longer confined to the church, that
the subjugation and colonisation of the world is
no ;longer the exclusive ministry of the soldier.
They see that the great agent in modern civili-
sation is industry, understood in its widest sense
—industry which marshals its thousands of sturdy
labourers to take possession of the new worlds which
science is day by day opening to the view. In the
days when the priest and the soldier governed the
world, there was a veil over the eyes of man, and he
saw nothing in the earth but a contrivance to ripen
his corn—in the air, nothing but supply for the
breath or a motive power for his windmills and sails,
—in the water. nothing bat a means of sustenance or
transit—in fire, nothing but a means for producing
warmth or melting metals. Science has rent the veil
from his eyes. He sees in the earth hundreds of pro-
ducts which afford employment enough for all his
energies_ ; he beholds the air teeming with countless
tremendous forces, which are only to be subdued by
infinite labour; he sees water and fire developing
power in a thousand different shapes, all to be pressed
into the service of man. This is the world
that the moderns have to deal with. The
priest and the soldier must bo looked upon
in future only as subordinate agents. The
subjugation of this world—the world of the middle
ages multiplied by a million—is entrusted to a new
set of agents. Are these to have no honours of their
own? Are they to be put off with the chips of the
tined which glittered on the breasts of the rear
ranks of those who were called heroes in ages whoa
the world offered but a contracted field for man's
countless energies? The HINGISTS and the HORS ts of
former days are, in the persons of their descendants,
"keeping their game." Are the new subjugators of
territories to be content with the crumbs of honour
which will content the degenerate children of
this • heroic ancestry ? No. Industry must have
its :own honours. Ia former times the title
told you something about the man. Now it tells
nothing at all. Mr. Thracian has done more for the
regeneration of Ireland than the mob of knights and
barons who have graced its annals for the last
century. He has entered upon his task of elevating
the island with a fall faith in the capacities and the
energies of its inhabitants, and it is reported of him
that he boasts that he has never in one instance been
deceived. He has set free multitudes of forces that
are now working for the cultivation of the country.
He has introduced new arts. He has em-

plord an industrial may of 52,000 men. Plenty,
happiness, improvement, follow his footsteps.
What has this to do with knighthood ? He has
from his own ISOM raised the building of the Great
Exhibition from its foundation. Would the prefix
" Sir" tell the world one fraction of these achieve-
manta ? Would he be the better known, the more
valued, for theltendle to his name? . .

Oar great industrial heroes have vindicated to
themselvess paWen at lout as distinguished as that
formerly heN by the great ecclesiastical and
military heroes, end far above that held by
the modern representatives of the latter. It is
well that some of them have native dig-
totwenough to remember this. Let them
the east-off &mentions of feudalism'
Let them claim their own honours; sod until this is

granted, let thank stand apart from the vulgar
honours of the modem world, conscious of their own

dignity. By arias this they will read a lesson to
the Ounkeyium of society, and strengthen their own
position. The world will be taught to turn away its
wondering oyes from the glittering gewgaws which
have so looms charmed it, and, enrolling itself under
its new Isrs, go forth in its course of subjuga;ing
all the inigiq !Deese of nature, and bringing them
auto the servum d saakicd.

01? INDUSTRY IN PARIS.

The followiog notification has been issued by the
Department of Science and Art:
" Universal Exhibition of Agricultural and Indus-
trial Products at Paris in 1866.—The Lords of the
Committee of Privy Council for Trade have received
a communication from the Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs, transmitting a copy of a letter from
Couot Walewski. the French ambassador at :he CJurt
of London, in which it is announced that by a decree
of the dth of March lut, his Majesty the Emperor
has ordered that a universal exhibition of sgricul-