The Express.
London, England, 1849-06-30 00:00:00

at their hockey worship. It is true that they some-
times drive in their fine carriages through the neigh-
bouring villages of a Sunday, and that dainty meats
and fishes are seen carried into the Agapcmone. And
we shrewdly suspect th►t their possession of money,
and that herring
.portion of common sense wtich
teaches them to enjoy the comforts it can procure, is
their principal crime in the eyes of their charitable
neighbours. Even on the assumption that they are
vicious se well as foolish, they have sense and decency
enough left to draw a curtain before it: they do not
corrupt others by their example. Tueir filly harms
none bat theurselvts.

Taking our eland upon this ground, we beg to re-
cord as esaphatical protest against any enc.oachment
on the liberties of such harmless fools ; against the
irregular incarceration of any one of them on the un-
tenable plea of m-.dnesti.
There does not appear to have been the shadow of a
I symptom of lunacy about Mira NOTTIDGE. The
transcendental mystical notions which seem to form
the staple of the Princite creed have been held and
acted upon by minds of the highest order. They
consist in a belief that words and attitudes constitute
no memory part of prayer; that the essential of
prayer is a devotional state of mind which ought to
be uninterinittingly kept up; that where this state of
mind ex;ies every action is a prayer, and ought to be
regarded as seen. Combined with these notions is
a belief that all who are united by holding these
opinions ought to possess their worldly goods in
common. 'this latter article of faith has b.en held
by more than one sect, against whom no charge of
licentiousness or insanity has been substantiated.
As to the mystical views of devotion, PASCAL and
the Port Royal came pretty me-r them. SPINOSA on
One hand, and HARRINGTON, Fox, and others, went
quite as far ; yet who can qaestion the ability of the
men we have named to take care of themselves. sad
avoid infringing the civil and moral laws of tte @D-
eistic' in which they lived? True, Miss NOTTIDOZ
and her friends are said to believe that there is some-
thing divine in their bereeiarch Prince; but does this
imply madness any mote then a belt f in the miracu-
lous power of images and p'etures entertained by a
large proportion of the Christian community ?
The power of priests and inquisitors to incarcerate
sad seclude for heresy . would be indignantly de-
claimed against and resisted in this country. TLe
power of doctors to shut up all whose religious tenets
appear to them absurd, is equally monstrous, equally
susceptible of being perverted to the matt selfish and
dishonest oppression. Miss Norrinca was dint up
in a private mad home, without that previous public
inquiry, which is the only. safeguard of the private
citizen. The pretext for incarcerating was the grave
dictum of confidential medical men (one of them a
relative of the keeper of the asylum), that none but a
mad woman could entertain such religicris notions as
she entertained. Her pales beat regulatly, the
spoke and acted in worldly affairs like other
people, she was under no delusions as to
the nature of external objects, her conversa-
tion and her conduct were coherent. But her
religion was not a religio medici, and, therefore, the
doctors pronounced her mad. If every one whose
creed does not square exactly with the notions enter-
tainedby the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons and
at Apothecaries' Hall is to be shut up in a mad-house,
we shall have a rare time of it.
But the conduct of the Commissioners of Lunacy,
who had a public duty to perform, was still more un-
accountable and indefensible. The case of Miss Nov-
TIDGII was six times brought under their consideration.
They found the keeper of the asylum, wbo affects to
have entertained fears that she might commit suicide,
allowing her to pay visits in the neighbourhood,
uuaceompanied by any attendant. They saw and
conversed with her, and were convinced that, apart
from religious questions, she was perfectly sane
and capable of taking care of herself end of ber
money. But her religions notions appeared to them
so absurd, that to account for her entertaining them
they jumped at the conclusion that there was some
hidden monomania lurking in the recesses of her
mind. This was a gratuitous and unwarrantable
assumption. When men enter upon the dim and
shadowy realm of the infinite and its relations, who
can take upon him to say that conceptions are too
absurd to be entertained by any one bat a maniac merely
because they differ from hut own preconceived notion' ?
PESTUS called PAUL mad. The Commissioners of
Lunacy acted most unwarrantably in allowing a lady
to remain under coercion a single day, simply because
her religious notions appeared to them extravagant.
It was stated in the coarse of the trial that the
lady has, since her liberation, transferred her money
in the funds to the name of Mr.PRINCE; and this was
triumphantly. referred to by one of the commis-
sioners as Justifying his dinbts of her sanity.
Assuredly, we will not take upon us to say
that the act was either wise cr prudent; but
under the circumstances of the case, it can scarcely
be regarded as insane. It appears that during
her confinement the relations who Rot her shut up
took upon them to receive her dividends, and they
refused to give up 301. thus received until ordered
by the court to do so. Possibly Miss Normal may
think her money as safe in the keeping of the hus-
bands of three of her sisters and their spiritual head,
as in that of her brother and the husband of another
sister. Nay, the uncharitable may go so far
as to doubt whether, had Miss NOT-LIDOS not
been possessed of 6,4004 in the funds, her affec-
tionate relations would have been so anxious for her
spiritual welfare as to transfer her by an irregular
procedure from the Agapemone to a madhouse.

tit Court.

PRIVY COUNCIL

The Queen held a privy council and court at 3
o'clock yesterday afternoon at Buckingham Palace. The
privy council was attended by his_ Royal Highness the Prince
Albert, the Lord President, the Lord Privy Seal, the First
Lord of the Treasury. the Setretsries of (Pate for the: Home,
For. ign. and Colonial Departments, the First Lord of the
Admiralty, the Chancellor of the Duchy of lisneaster, the
Lord Steward, the Lord Chamberlain, and the Muter of the
Hone. Si, David Dundas (Judge Advocate General) was
by command of the Queen, sworn of her Majesty's Mon
Honourable Privy Council, and took his seat at the board.
The Hon. Billies Bathurst was the Clerk of the Council in
Waiting. At the court Mehmed Pacts, Ottoman Ashes's.
dor, had as audience of her Maj sty to deliver a letter
from the Sultan. His excellency was introduced by
Viscount Palmerton, G.C.8., her Majesty's prinepal Seat-
May of State for For. iga Affairs, and eonducted by Colonel the
Hen. Sir Edward Oast, H.C.H. her Majesty's master of
the ceremonies; Commander William Winniett (Royal
Navy), Lieutenant-Governor of the Gold Croat, was pre-
sided to So Queen at as audience by Earl Grey, Seem
eery of State for the Colonies ; the Right lion. Sir David
Dundee, Judge• Advocate General, had an audience of the
Queen, and submitted to her Majesty the proceedings of
some emerta.martial. The Queen gave audiences to the
Marquis of Lansdowne and Lord John Russell. The court
was stranded by the Marquise( Londonderry, gold sti k in
waiting ; the Treasurer of the Household; the Nlce•Chant•
b. dais; the Comptroller of the Househeld ; Lord Water•
park, lord in waiting; and Lieut. Colonel the Hon. Robed
Boyle, groom in waiting.

His Royal Highness Prism Albert took the chair at the
annual meeting of the trustees and manglers of the Bt.
Kartin's Provident Irritation, of which his Royal High-
new is president, upn Thursday afternoon at three o'clock.
His Royal Wegner returned to Buckingham Palace at
about Am o'clock.

---Merficlialfighness the Duchess of Kent has been pre-
vented by a were old from attending the evening party of
her Royal Highness the Duchess of Gloucester yesterday,
and likwiee from dining with the Marquis and Maretsionses
of Westminster on the 27th iost.

A deputation, consisting of the following : the Earl
et Glesigall, the Earl of Bensbormeb, the Earl at Kingston,
Lord Craniums, Sir H Winston Buron. Bart., M.P., Sir
Jab& Osest, Bert., M.P., Mr. William Mansell, M.P., Mr.
ft. Lane Shell, M.P., Mr. J. Sadleir, M.P., Mr. T. Meagher,
M P., Mr. 8. Dian's, M.P., Mr. P. L. Bailer, M.P., and
Ms,* Berm, Mason °storey, Birgent and fumy, directors
of the Waterford and Limerick Railway, with Mr. San.
den, the secretary, had an interview with Lord John Russell
yesterday. The noble lead was accompanied by the Chan
cella of the Exchequer.

MANSION-HOUSE.—The Lord Mayor has issued
suds stinvitation for a grand baaquct on tita,urday nut, to
be gime is the president and council of the Royal Society,
the preddent and members of the Royal Academy, and to
way of the literary and scientific men of the day.

(Fran the Dublin Gasetto of Jan 26.)

CROWI4 AND HANAPER OFFICE, DUBLIN.— 11l
tummies of an act, paned in the fortieth year
of the reign of Wa Majesty King Oeorp the
Third, intituled "An Act to regulate the mode by
which the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Cos-
mos to serve in the parliament of the United Kingdom,
on the part of Ireland, shall be summoned and re-
turned to the said parliament," L do hereby give notice,
that John Cavendith Baron Kihnalne has been chosen by a
majority of votes to be the peer to sit in the House of Lotds
of the United Kingdom, is the room of A.rehibald Earl of
dastard, deceased.—Dated the 22nd day of. Jose, 11349.
C. YrraStwow, Clerk of the Crows sad hamper.