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London, England, 1851-02-06 00:00:00

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LONDON, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6.

IN the QUEEN'S speech there were two very re-
markable and significant omissions. It neither men-
tioned our own, as c•ontradistinguished from Romanist
ecclesiastical troubles, nor did it refer to the exist-
ence of the colonies. Now, both are subjects quite
as important and far more interesting to Englishmen
than the additional articles to the Sardinian Treaty
of Commerce, or the new Brazilian slave trade law,
usod to prolong the royal discourse to its ordinary
Imeh.
We have n conflict going on in the established
church of the country, which the Prime Minister in his
' Letter to the Bishop of DURHAM announced he
' hared more than the aggressions of the Court of
Rome; and we have a transmarine empire un-
paralleled in extent of soil, in variety of circumstances,
in importance to the future welfare of the
mother country, and for questions political and eco-
nomical, of difficult and even hazardous solution. Yet
not one word has the QUEEN been advised to utter to
her parliament on either. And by, this abstinence
the burthen of bringing the church question,
or any general survey of our colonial pos-
sessions, or. the condition of any particular
dependency before parliament, is thrown either on
the opposition or on some independent member who
has courage to run counter to ministerial quiescence
and his party's tactics. In either result of the omis-
sion there is convenience to the ministers, at the ex-
pense of the subject to be treated. For, taken up by
the opposition, the question becomes one of party,
and to save the government from its opposition
attacks an unmeaning and senseless support is
given to the cabinet ; or, left to the care
of an independent member on the liberal
side, he has to struggle against the difficulty
of obtaining a day for a subject unconnected with
the arrangements of parties; and against what is
even worse to bear, the imputation of being an im-
practicable man and a disorderly person.
It is not, it may be said, usual to introduce topics
into the QUEEN'S speech on which some action by
the executive has not taken place during the recess,
or on which measures are not in preparation. But,
though this may he taken as a general, it is cer-
tainly not the universal rule of royal speeches. It is
the invariable practice of those documents to
refer to the general condition of the country
at the time of their delivery; and though, of
CORM, the material state of the population must
always form the foremost object in that condition, to
omit all notice of matters actively affecting their in-
tellectual, moral, and religious welfare, is to convey
a very imperfect picture to the legislature of the
nation whose affairs they are assembled to preside
over and to legislate on ; and for the QUEEN thus
to address her parliament on its assembling, at a time
when nearly every colony belonging to her Crown
has some question or other at issue with the
Colonial-office on which it looks to the im-
perial legislature as its court of last ap-
ral, is not to give the colonies a very
flattering notion of the value at which they
are held by the ministers of the crown. A word in
the QUEEN'S speech on any of them would have
shown all that they are not wholly forgotten in " our
Palace of Westminster."

Both the ministers is es r and the ministers in pnwe
arc, there cannot be a doubt, very desirous to escape
from any parliamentary discussion of the Church of
England question. Accordingly, the rat of the
Conner has to be exclusively that of papal aggression
—that of the latter, agricultural distress. To-morrow
Lord JOHN opens the measure which has to repel
the court of Rome ; and on Tuesday Mr. DISRAELI
intends to display the wares collected during the
reccsa7for agricultural delusion in the session. The
power of the bishops and the fear of the clergy re.
strain the government; the apprehension of a split
in their ranks alarms the opposition leaders. And
thus a question which out of parliament more or less
1 occupies every man's mind, which is dividing society,
and which may change the fortunes of the country,
will be left by those who deem themselves alone tit
to govern England to the hap-hazard of some indi-
vidual member having pluck enough to take it up.
The Church of England question, it is sometimes
argued, is not one on which legislation can accom-
plish any good. But the policy of a country is not,
we reply, settled merely by legislation. The per-
fect equality, irrespective of religious opinions, on
which Ireland is now governed was established much
more by parliamentary discussion than by legisla-
tion. And what in wanted on the great question
i that now disturbs England ecclesiastically s the ex-
pression of parliamentary opinion much more than
say positive legislation. During the last fifteen
years an immense change has been made in
the position of the Church of England; its
bishops have revived for it pretensions that
in the pride of our liberalism we had previ-
ously deemed extinct; its clergy have attempted to
make that church occupy in England the ground
from which the Roman church was driven here et
the Reformation ; and both have asserted for it an
independence of a parliament not composed—excla-
rively composed of its members. Now, when
it is recollected that this church, by an exclusive
university system, has the complete direction of
the education and the formation of the character of
the higher classes of society ; and that by our paro-
tibial system, it possesses an organisation for unity
otacticat on the lower classes which the state can-
not pretend to; it follows that any change in the
supposed mission of such a church, that any devia-
tion in its sacerdotal pretensions, that any efforts to
gain greater power, involve considerations of such
national importance as to render their oversight by
parliament an abnegation of its highest functions ;
calculated not merely to degrade parliament in the
estimation of the country, but to place in jeopardy
the prospects of the country.
The first minister of the Crown has con-
sidered it his duty to tell the QUEEN'S sub-
jects that he apprehends more danger from
these changes in the church than from papal
aggression; he proposes to legislate against that
aggression through the minor danger; with what con-
sistency then can he dissuade parliament from enter.
ing on the consideration of what alarms more than
external assault, viz., intenial teaching? In the
presence of such an announcement as Lord JOHN
Itusssit. made to the Bishop of DURHAM, it is not
possible for parliament to overlook the actual plight
and future prospects of the church of England.
And so with the colonies. However much minis-
ters may wish to avoid colonial discussions by omit-
' ting the colonies from the QUEEN'S Speech, Mr.
HAULM has shown them that they can not. The
want of any notice of the colonies in the speech
rouses all old prejudices against the Colonial-office;
it begets the belief that it has forgotten nothing and
learnt nothing by the past ; that it is resolved to
pursue its own headlong and opinionative system;
and the consequence is. that the Colonial-office is

too naturally made the target of attack. Mr. BATLIAE
is about to repeat to the House of Commons Mr.
J'',Jetb Oniylimmi-s article on Ceylon in the Q.starterly
Review and Mr. ADDERLEY is whetting his appetite
to eat up Mr. HAwas with the grievance of the Cape
of Good Hope.
The Colonial-office has something to tell parliament
about the affairs of the forty colonies confided to its
charge, or it has not. If it has, surely some general
intimation of their state might have been thrust into
the Royal Speech; a word ofcommiseration for Jamaica,
of encouragement for British North America, of
attention to Australasia, of notice for the Cape. of
hope for Ceylon might have been graciously added
without fatiguing her Majesty. Instead *there is
silence ; ominous, hopeless, obstinate silence ; a
silence repressive of loyalty in the colonists; signifi-
cant of jealousy and hesitation in the imperial govern-
ment.

WE have kept silence on the case of the SLOASES
till their trial was over. In any circumstances we
would have done so as a simple art * justice to the
accused. But we had a stronger motive on the pre-
sent occasion. The details of the alleged crime were
so nauseous and revolting, that to the last we clung
to the hope. that they might have been exaggerated.
That the girl had been ill-used her appearance placed
beyond a doubt, but it was possible that upon a sub-
stantial substratum of wrong a mendacious and re-
vengeful disposition might have built up a romance
of inhuman atrocity. Now, however, the line of de-
fence adopted by the prisoners, doubtless by the ad-
vice of their able counsel, leaves no doubt as to the

Lth of JANE WILIIRELia story in all its startling
details.

We hear it whispered that the male prisoner is en-
titled to a more lenient construction ; that he has
shrunk from a line of defence that might have ob-
truded the full guilt of his wife upon the know
ledge of the public. We confess we attach little im-
portance to such rumours, which cannot be substan-
tiated. If Mr. SLOANE did not actively participate
in the cruelties practised on the ill-fated girl,
he connived at, for he could scarcely be ignorant of,
them. Public security, public morals, public deco-
rum, require that the perpetrator of such a crime
shall not escape with impunity; and when two par-
ties are found so situated that one or other must have
been the active offender, and one or other at least
passively cognisant of the atrocity, if the less guilty
party cannot, or does not, choose to establish his case,
he must take the consequences: lie cannot expect
to be exonerated on the simple pie Jui of anony-

mous partisans.
The case of the SLOANES is unprecedented in the
annals of English jurisprudence, except by that of
Mrs. BROWNRIGGE. And here we must remark, that,
although we are nut going to complain that the pri-
soners have been too leniently dealt with, the pro-
ceedings in court revealed grave defects in our penal
law as bearing upon such offences. The reputation
of the counsel employed for the prosecution, and the
tenor of the remarks that fell from the bench, for-
bid us to suspect that there was any lack of tech-
nical knowledge or skill displayed in the framing
of the indictment. Yet the accused were able, by
pleading guilty to a minor charge, to escape the full
investigation of their case. Its most atrocious
features could not be examined, because the
girl was not what the law considers " of tender
years." An orphan, bred in the workhouse, without
natural friends in whom she could repose unhesita-
ting confidence, with no alternative between the Ber-
-1 vice in which the union had placed her and being
thrown upon a world of which she was utterly igno-
rant, JANE WILBRED was as helpless as any
child. Yet she was denied the legal protection
which the law extends to the child which she
equalled in ignorant* and timidity. The presiding
judge declared, on passing sentence, that the bench
was determined to examine rigorously every case of
alleged mal-treatment of servants, and visit offenders
in that way with the severest punishment. This
does not meet entirely the exigencies of the case:
protection is wanted for the lone orphan, apprenticed
by parish guardians in order to diminish the expen-
diture for the poor. The discussion which took
place in the Central Criminal Court yesterday goes
far to justify the sarcasm of BENTIIAM, that there
would be no living for honest people in this coon-
tosmt:ati.euntr,hltrarldnarrd
trv, did rogues but know how many loop-holes and
subterfuges the law affords them for escaping the
consequences of their misdeeds.
That the SLOANES have not escaped with com-
parative impunity we owe less to the provi-
sions of the law, than to the wise and equitable
sternness of the judges. Then• have been cases, and
that within a short period, in which judges have
shrunk from enforcing the rigour of the law to the
extent that justice demands. Such cases ought not
oa
arc,
audacity
happily
o:cuynirl
to pass without animadversion ; for, without under-
valuing the importance of a clear, comprehensive,
and systematic penal code, the sagacity and right
feeling of the judges to whom its enforcement is de-
legated, are of still greater consequence to society.
To illustrate our meaning, we need only advert to
the case of OAF., disposed of some few days ago in
the Insolvent Debtors' Court. It was clearly esta-
blished that Cott: had received from his wife before
they were married, and in expectation of the mar-
riage, a sum of 1,600/. It also appeared that he
had debts at the time to the amount of:100/. or4oo/.
Yet 1,480'. of the money he received from a virtuous
and confiding woman, as a proof of her devotion and
reliance upon his affection, he squandered away upon
la common prostitute. More thoroughly degraded
moral sentiments and utterly debased of sentiment
or honourable feeling could not be shown. Yet
though it was in the power of the court to have
imprisonment, he was let off with eight
visited the callous and unmanly voluptuary with
months, of which six had already elapsed. It
ignoranceocertainttvvoluptuaries.
t ispnaturaloubcrpurity,
s s ,e
appealing tobd)fru Our
ou
brought
the
debasement
ntst;intnpx:
must be kept in mind that the hells and brothels
of the metropolis have trained to a similar pitch
There is but one way of protecting women against
fears. Calm, unimpassioned, unbiassed regard for the
safety of womanhood would of itself have dictated
the infliction upon Cott: of the severest punishment
the law allowed; but the ex-advocate of COUETOI•
BIER took pity on him.
thrceithitachs.reetaouagytneasd'hi.

A POWERFUL illustration of the great argument of
Mr. Pgro's full and able speech will be found in the
returns from the Poor Law Board laid on the table of
the House of Commons on Tuesday. From these it
appears that nearly 200,000/. less was spent for the
relief of the poor in England and Wales during the
six summer months ending Michaelmas, 1830, than
the sum spent during the same period of 1849 ; and
whilst 931,328 paupers were relieved on the Ist of
January, 1850, 71,183 less were relieved on the same
day in 1851.
Account for this as we may, there is the fact, that
the destitute or unemployed poor weigh upon the
country by half a million sterling lehs throughout
the year than they did before the establishment of
free trade. Nor is such amelioration confined to
manufacturing counties. Between the first day of
1850 and the first of 1851 there was a decrease of
5 per cent in the poor of Bedford, 0 per cent, in
that of Bello, and little short of 4 per cent in that
of Bucks, nearly 8 per cent. in Devon, 41 in Dorset,
10 per cent. in Kent, and the same proportion in the
East Riding. The greatest decrease is in Warwick,
being 22 per cent.; in Leicester and the West Riding
18 per cent. ; 12 per cent. in Lancashire.
What is most remarkable, however, is the great
decrease in the number of the adult and able-
bodied persons relieved. Thus in Essex, whilst
the decrease on the whole number of paupers is
but 2 per cent., on the adult and able-bodied
it is 0 per cent. In Bucks, whilst the decrease on
the whole was not quite 4 per cent., that on the
able-bodied is 15 per cent. In Dorset, whilst the de-
crease on the whole is about 41 per cent., that on the
able-bodied is nearly 20 per cent. In Norfolk,
Northampton, Northumberland, whilst the decrease
on the whole is 41, 5, and 6 per cent., that on the
able-bodied is 101, 14, and 131. Warwick, 22 per
cent. on the whole, is 40 per cent. on tho able-
bodied. Seventy thousand persona able to work,
who had no work on the first day of 1830, were all
employed on the same day of 1851.

The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone is said to be de-
tained at Naples by the illness of Mrs. Gladstone. Jr.
Gladstone ia expected to return to England before the e.ne
of this month.