The Express.
London, England, 1851-03-28 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, FRIDAY EVENING, MARCH 28,. 1851..

posed, to Mr. Bernal, the chairman of committees. The
line is to cost 12,0001., with power to borrow 4.00 W.
ANGER•rfEIN'S BRANCH lttlLwAT.—Yetterday the
committee on this bill for n branch railway from the ,
Thames to the North Kent Railway, declared the preamble
proved.
COMMERCIAL DOCKS IMPROTEMENT.—The corn-
mittec passed the preamble of this bill, to enable the Dock
Company to purchase and enlarge the East Country Dock,
and to construct a branch to connect their docks with the
railway at Deptford.
•

TrfLES ASSUMPTION
BILL.

The Standard gives the following analysis of the
division on the second reading :
Ayes.
Stanleyites 220
Peelites
Whigs l9l
____

433

Nem

Fap to

Peelites
l'uceyitc Protectionists
Whigs and Radicals

93

Mr. Cobden paired off, against the second reading of the
Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, with Sir J. W. Hogg. Both the
hon. members were prevented being present by attacks of

eh, 'IJ 'ortligi•

TO CORItEiiPONDENTS.
deettisementstotentled tor 'lke LA WEIN" Loudon Evening roper,
must two. the Ohne, to, Bottecrte•stroct, by Two o'clock on the
dry of ptelssicetion.

RUM WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE
TtrP thi—Morning. I Ih. Stn. ..... Artersean, I2u.
TOMIKSOW—MOII.yr, Ifl. Um Ath room. 14k. ;:at.

LONDO.A; FRIDAY, MARC!! 28.

SELDOM has there been more doubt and more di-
versity of opinion than as to the fact, whether the
lower classes of this country entertained strong and
indignant feelings on the score of the late papal and
priestly aggression, or whether they were not really
in a great measure indifferent, and keeping aloof
from participation in the resistance and excitement,
certainly expressed by the middle and the better
classes. It is undoubted that the population,
even of our gnat cities, are no longer what
they were in 1780, liable to be roused by u mere
no-popery cry into a destructive and rebellious riot.
But the fact is that a mob and a riot are no longer
the modes in which our working ur even idle class
choose to express their convictions or to vent their
passions. Whenever, fifty years ago, they would
wield u stave or brandish a torch, they would now
meet, a chosen few of them in a room, discuss pro-
posals, and pass resolutions. The dissuasive habits
of the middle class have passed to the inferior, and
we have got a much more ratiocinatury than turbu-
lent population now to deal with.
There have been, however, other causes at work to
abate the popular horror of popery. That horror
was created two or three centuries ago, and sprung
from the persecution, the burning, and the cruelties
exercised amongst the many victims from amongst
the English people. The sentiment was handed
down front father to son, recorded in a popular lite-
rature of its own. and refreshed or graven deeper into
the public mind by events not so dreadful us the
original persecution, but still alarming and ex-
citing. The gunpowder plot, the tire of London,
OATES' plot, the Irish rebellions, the struggle of the
rival dynasties were revivals, feelings instilled
by tradition, and kept aroused the popular aversion
to Popery. But all these have died away. How
faint is the memory or the tradition of MARIAN per-
secution ! Who is alarmed by the clatter of wooden
shoes? How many volumes have replaced Fox's
"Martyrs" on the cottager's shelf?
But whilst these influences have been so much obli-
terated with the lower classes, readers of more leisure
have had such sentiments resuscitated and repeated.
The events of Route, the policy of Austria, the crisis
even in France, together with the ecclesiastical
usurpations in Ireland and in England have, during
the lust few years, aroused the attention and excited
the alarm of all those who have time and opportu-
nity to glean information front daily papers. They
see plainly that popery, not merely ecclesiastical,
hut political popery, is again raising its head, and
with more arrogance, as will as with mum powerful
bucking than ever. But these circumstances, which
have inflamed and excited the middle classes,
have not reached the lower classes at all
in the same proportion. Excluded from the
daily press by its price, and confined to
penny and the Sunday publications, which give
but a mete compendium of events, and which prefer
moth the instilling of theories to the communication
of facts, the lower classes have not the same means
of information and the same opportunities of judg-
ment as those above them. The CoaNcia.Lon of
the Exennountt, in dealing with the taxes on
knowledge, or in not dealing with them, should look
to this. lle and his party think themselves working
a conservative good by confining the daily press to
the better endowed classes; whereas they ate really
working a subversive evil; fur they are excluding
the working classes from daily information of facts,
and confining them to a Sunday's lecture ou theory,
which generally carries toleration to the point of
infidelity, and philanthropy to socialism.
Bad a sign as it would be to tied our operative
One in a state of inflammatory susceptibility like the
Irish, and ready to break forth into violence at the
lint clamour of fanaticism, it would be equally den-
serous to discover that the musses of the
empire had grown indifferent to the creeds,
I and a stranger to the ideas, of every class above
them. One thing we may be sure of. which is,
that the people are never really indifferent
in matters so serious as religion, and that if they
have not a lively faith, they have, or will soon have,
a lively unfaith. And we mar feel confident that if
*OM want of influence or conduct, or a proper organ-
isation of religious sects dominant or not dominant,
the people fall off from all. we may be certain that
they-win not fall into the mere void. In fact, if they
fersake spiritual religion they will embrace .0
material one; and in despairing of or slighting those
hopes and habits, which look to futurity in another
life, they will build themselves up something
in lieu of a raigion, based on the prosperity
and perfectibility of this life. In ceasing to become
Christians, they will become communists. We have
seen it everywhere upon the continent. And there
are all the elements, though none of the develop-
ments of it, already here.
We should be sorry, therefore, to think that the
certain progress of tolerant and humane ideas, as well
se of ratiocinating habits amongst the English people,
had gone to the extreme of producing complete
indifference to a struggle between creeds and
churches. the one professing and allowing liberty
of opinion, of judgment and of practice,
the other, making it a first principle to deny the right
of either reason or liberty in matters of religion.
We have taken some pains to ascertain the fact of
how the populations of great towns have been affected
by the question now in agitation; and we must say.
Ant our conviction is, that in all the numerous ma-
jority entertain the same aversion which their fore-
fathers did, though expressed in milder words and
better tempered tones, towards the dogmatic, the
arrogant. and sacerdotal pretensions of the Italian
sect of ultra-Christianity.

MORE commissioners! Verily our bureaucracy is
a cormorant that nothing will satisfy. The more it
has the more it craves. Nothing is too big for its
swallow or too small fur its notice. Whatever ,
comes is well come in the way of prey ; and when ,
the supply of good things grows scare;, its omnivo-
eons appetite is ready to put up with the coarsest ;
fare. To-day we behold it engaged in the dainty
delights of an " cr,ity " inquiry to morrow it
is ready to make a meal of a " market." Oxford
cloisters or Smithfield pens are all alike to our
rulers. Will they feed a set of commissioners-1
say three or five well born importunate hangers-on
of the party in power who are fit for nothing else ? ,
That is the practical point of view in which abuses "
in colleges or slaughter-houses present themselves to
the official eye.
The Smithfield question has for several years
engaged no incon.nlerable share of metropolitan
attention; not merely amongst that loquacious sec-
tion of the community who delight in the dilletant-
ism of what are called "public improvements," and
every one of whom cherishes the fond belief that

every questionable change in our chief thoroughfares I
and edifices "was an old idea 0, his," and, if truth
were told, the result of a confidential hint given i
long ago by him "in the proirr quarter,"—not .
only, we say, have all this class had their hearts set
upon a revolution in Smithfield for some time, but
the far greater, far worthier, but likewise fur more
credulous portion of the community, who are good-
naturedly ready to cry " of course 4 when any quid-
mine propm.s to abolish any conceivable nuisance, i
by any conceivable means: all these are in favour of
what is tonic' " getting rid of the cattle market."
How this is to be done, at whose peculiar cost, or for
whose particular benefit, these unrefleetiug folk
trouble themselves not to inquire.
Cattle driven across the bridges, slaughter-houses
in the heart of the town, bad smells, wanton discom-
fort caused to inoffensive sheep, vehicles of impatient
gentlemen stopped frequently two minutes and a half
in the street, unnecessary dirt, delay, and din—what
free and enlightened people can be expected to en-
dure it ? Or who but a slave to the corporation of
London would resist the general demand for the im-
mediate and total abolition of this intolerable evil?
We have put an end to intro-mural interments ; why
not also to intro-rearm markets? The ease is ob-
vious. It signifies nothing where the new market is
placed so as we get it, with all its appurtenances,
sufficiently far away from the tips of our fastidious
noses. . _

Not being quite so exquisitely fashioned ns some
of our neighbours, and being fret' to own that, with
persons of moderate income and frugal habits, we
have an intense curiosity as to the probable price of
butchers' meat, not only next week, but next year,
and the year after: cherishing, likewise, a sincere
preference for good, fresh, abundant, and Nimbler
supplies of this article of prime necessity—we cannot'
make up our minds to the prudence of destroying the
great source of our daily sustenance and solace, and
taking chance for what may he the consequences.
We do not care a farthing tim Smithfield interests,
immemorial usages regarding wether mutton, or the
constitutional right of the Aldermen and Council to
neglect and mismanage the City markets. We are
thinking selely of the great question—Where, how,
and fin- how much per pound, are two millions of us
to get our chine •? Phis is a touching question.
We must knew what the effect will be upon
price and supply of compelling all sales of
live stock and all conversion of live stock
into joints, cutlets, and steaks, to be done in
one remote suburb or in two. Cleanliness, ven-
tilation, and architectural adornment are ail very
well in their way; but a steady, plentiful, and cheap
supply of animal food is to a beef and mutton eating
community rather more important than such
considerations, even wero it true, ns assumed
by the extirationists, that these advantages
areincompatible with a central market. No-
thing, however, can be more gratuitous than
such an assumption.
Them are three considerations relative to the
Smithfield question; the economic we have just
dwelt upon ; the sanitary one, upon which all the
world expatiates; and the insecurity of the streets,
which is the most disgraceful, and fatal at least to
individuals. Now of all the plans proposed, not one
of them touches the last; and we repeat what we
said months ago, that if two or three markets were
feasible at different extremities of the city, which
would prevent the passage of cattle through the
streets and across the bridges, that would be the
plan to grasp at.
But all the world admits this to be impossible.
We are to have one market, and cattle arc to go to
and come from it in all directions. There will be
regulations of course, bat there may be regulations
in one case or in the other, so that for the street or
bridge droves of cattle there is oftired no remedy.
Let us, therefore, put that question aside, and come to
the sanitary. Take the vast proposal of improvement
made by the corpomtion, which in itself is the reform
of one of the closest quarters in London, and contem-
plate all its alternatives, this quarterremaining us it is,
and Smithfield probably built on—on which side is
the greatest sanitary improvement ?
If utter this we clime back to the question of eco-
nomy, that principle renders indispensable a large
dent meat market in the midst of London, with a
certain number of slaughter-houses. For most
indubitably, if the butchers at Brompton
and at Peckham are dependent fur a remedy to a
short supply on the alternative of sending a cart to
Islington, the inhabitants of this quarter must inevi-
tably be exposed to a glut at one time, extortion at
others, whilst now and then they may possibly go
• without their dinner. The mistake lies in our con-
sidering London a city of continental propor-
tions, where an afsgtoi:•, though beyond
the contact of streets, is still ever within reach.
London it a world, and Islington is as much a part
of it as Faribigdon-street. And unless the market,
its unsightliness and unhealthiness, be banished to
beyond I lighgate, or to the other side of the Surrey
hills, it will be found a nuisance in a populous
district. The fact is, that every One of our ne-
cessities are nuisances, that of slaughtering,
vending, and consuming animal food amongst
the most prominent. Proscribe it we cannot;
all we can do is to regulate it, and to consider that
the subject we arc legislating about is not the cholera
or the plague, but simply the dinners of two millions
of people, 10t).000 of whom may be very fastidious,
and willing to pay for meat brought from the Pole.,
whilst the remaining 1,900,0;e1 are very hungry,
isior, and nut over-nice.

TIIE Puseyite candle which has been so long
bunting in St. Barnabas has gone out after the man-
ner of all candles. The flame flickered fitfully for
some time, oscillated wildly about the socket, col-
lected itself at last in one great " flare up," and then
sunk into night, leaving behind much smoke, and a
very unpleasant odour. Now, as all sorts of lights
physical as well as moral, are being extinguished
every day, we should not have devoted much atten-
tion to the extinction of the one just mentioned, had
not the moths who have been fluttering around it,
and who have, we verily believe, helped to fan it
out, been to the last degree anxious that a natu-
ral event should bo taken for a supernatural
phenomenon. We arc requested to look upon the
flickering and oscillation as something fitted to ex-
cite wonder and admiration—the final flare up (the
,stare, the celebration of the Feast of the Annuncia-
tion, &c., &c.), as a great demonstration—and the'
unsavoury odour as a holy perfume. We are desired
to consider the earnestness and sorrow manifested
by the large number of persons who attended the
last ministrations of Mr. BENNETT as soma
thing uncommon; eve are told to regard their disap-
pointment as something awful; we are warned
that the " protest" in which Sir J. HARINGTON and
Mr. CAVENDisII have taken so prominent a part is an
important sign of the times. To all this we demur.
Without wishing to undervalue the estimation in
which Mr. BENNETT is held by that portion of his
parishioners who have been brought round to his way
of thinking, we must at the same time claim some
sympathy fur the still larger portion, whose feelings,
as members of the church of England, have been
cruelly set at nought and injured by the conduct of
the pastor who had been placed over them. Mr.
BEN NET 1. it la true, collected a large body of admirers
around him at his two churches ; but every one
knows that such an achievement is the very re-
verse of difficult to a man of piety, zeal,
and energy, in the mast of a population
of two millions. To whatever denomination a
preacher may belong, these qualities in the metro-
polis cannot fail of success. The truth is, and it
must be told, for it applies not only to Mr. BENNETT,
but to every high-church clergyman in London,
whose labours have met with any appreciation, that
his ministrations in the parish Lave been anything
but satisfactory. As a tolerably correct test of the
accuracy of this assertion, we may point to the
well-known fact that house agents have more
difficulty in letting houses in Mr. BENNETT'S
district than in any other in the neighbour-
hood. The congregation in Mr. BEN:sires churches
was a heterogeneous mixture of dwellers in
other parishes, drawn together by their admiration
of a histrionic service. That gentleman tried by the
parochial test—a test which his admirers ate always
proud of appealing to—is found wanting. The in-
habitants, with few exceptions, leave the parish
church, and the congregation is made up of recruits
from the multitudinous polishes of the greatest city
ur the world. Every dangler in the ante-
chambers of popery, who had not made up
his mind to lilt up the curtain and pre-
sent himself formally to tho lady in scarlet,
but who could find nothing to satisfy him
in his own parish church, cooled hie heels en attendant

in St. Paul's and St. Barnabas, as he will now do in I
St. Andrew's. Mr. NEwMAN, in his powerful lec-
tures last year, warned the Anglican clergymen that
their movement was anti-national, that in relation to
England it was un-historical ; the state of all the
Anglican churches proves the same fact, and now at
the eleventh hour Mr. BENNETT confirms this by his
own assertions. In his sermon on Sunday morning
he remarked:

There existed in this country anationql antipathy against
a particular branch of the catholic church, and it was not
wonderful, therefore, that such a feeling should descend to
the people, or that they should take part in the attacks
which had been made in Tarious quarters upon that branch
of that church.

Now, if this is the case, why is the peace of a
parish to be disturbed by the advocacy of views con-
fessedly anti-national? Wily do the bishops refuse to
come forward to liberate parishes from the oppres-
sion of priests who endeavour to introduce a
system opposed to the entire traditional be-
lief of the country ? What right have the
extra-parishional members of the congregation
of St. Barnabas to encourage the incumbent- of
the parish, by their presence and their contributions
to persist in a line of conduct which prevents the
parishioners from participating in a sem ice to which
they are entitled by the law of the land? And this
brings us to the protest issued by the lion. It. '
CAvvansit, and concocted with the help of Sir J.
limuNG-rox and others. There is no doubt that
these gentlemen have a perfect right to wor-
ship Gon in the way which appears best to them.
Few people will blame them for listening to the argu-
meats of Mr. BENNETT by which he supported an
innovation which ran counter to the feelings of the
enormous majority of churchmen. As far as this
persuasion is concerned we have only to deal with a
matter of private judgment. When, however, these
persons wish to elevate their own estimate of what is
right, into an immutable standard for a vast body
of which they are numerically but an insignificant
fraction ; when they pronounce the conduct
of the Bishop in calling upon Mr. BEN-
NETT to resign as "an arbitrary and il-
-1 legal stretch of power. altogether unprece-
dented,l which is most dangerous to the liberties of
the clergy and laity," when they fete and elevate to
the rank of a martyr a contumacious priest who has
abused the trust reposed in him, by making use
of a national house of worship for the disse-
mination of doctrines and the celebration of a
service in all essential features assimilating with
those of a church against which it is the
characteristic of the national church to protest
—then it is time that such men should be
marked, as " those who cause divisions amongst us."
They are schismatics in the worst sense of the
word. The utmost that their own wordy protest
asserts is, that two of Mr. BENNETT'S usages have
not been formally condemned; and us much as this
can be said in favour of standing on the head, or
performing a series of acrobatic exercises at the altar.
Whereas against them we have Mr. BENNETT's own
words in hit farewell on Monday evening : " The
kind of service that he had proposed to establish for
his congregation had been objected to by the world
in general." This surely is enough for his condem-
nation and their confutation.
We repeat, the laity have spoken out decidedly on
the question. Parish churches must no longer be
made the subject of high-church experiments. In
the meantime, as large numbers of the clergy are
infected with the tractarian heresy—as the bishops
are evidently disposed to coquet with the movement
—why not erect a few proprictory chapels, and de.'
vote them exclusively to the use of the I'useyite
clergy? The thing would then stand by its own
merits. The people would be able to return to their
own churches, and those who are in love with this
quasi-popery would have the satisfaction and the
merit of paying for it.