The Express.
London, England, 1848-07-11 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, TUESDAY EVENING, JULY 11, 1848.

enact laws to which every man must conform his
actions. Buckinghamshire, with 170,000 inhabitants,
returns eleven members to parliament, while Man-
cheater, with 240,000 inhabitants, returns only two.
Middlesex and Doraetshire each return fourteen
members, while the money annually collected
for the poor in Middlesex is within 101. of
the entire annual rental of Dorsetehire. The
shares of a jointsdock company in which the votes
in the election of directors were apportioned in ,
this anomalous manner would be uresaleable ; for the '
revenue of the company would be misappropriated
for the advantage of the minority (in numbers and
property) just as the national revenue is misappro-
priated. This is the " anomalousness" of our existing
electoral system, which the Mlles truly characterises
as " wrong, foolish, and suicidal." And this " ano •
malousnesa" the re-distribution of the electoral dis-
tricts would remedy.
It must not be imagined because we lay so much
stress upon what we consider the characteristic and
essential provision of Mr. HUME'S plan ot reform, that
we undervalue the accessaries. The extension of the
suffrage at least to every householder is required
to prevent the wealthy classes shifting the
burden of taxation off their own shoulders, and on to
those of the poorer. Secret voting—the ballot being
a mere mechanical means of ensuring seeresy—is '
necessary, to enable every voter to be guided by his
unbiassed judgment and real likings. And more
frequently. recurring elections are required, to keep
members In mind of their responsibilities to their con-
stituents. We believe these necessaries to be indis-
pensable to the equitable and just working of our elec-1
torsi system. Bu we believe more equal electoral
districts than at present exist to be necessary to make
any electoral system real—to prevent its becoming
a mere sham. We believe that, in the existing small
constituencies, the ballot could not ensure 'secretly of
voting—that no mechanical device could. We believe
that the enormous numbers of the existing large
constituencies necessarily render their elections mere
mob elections—the results of passion and contagious
caprice instead of deliberate judgment—even with the
present restricted franchise, and would keep them so
under any mode of voting. In short, we retard every
part of Mr. Heath's plan of reform as required to give
complete efficacy to all the others. No one of its tour
points co-ild be omitted without impairing its practi-
cal usefulness.

We trust, therefore, that its supporters will not
allow themselves to be diverted from urging its adop-
tion upon parliament and the public by vague pro-
mises that parts of it may be granted if the rest of it
be not insisted upon. The Whig Ex«niiner promises
vote by ballot it triennial parliaments, household suf-
frage, and equal electoral districts are thrown overboard.
What would be the use of the ballot to the halt-dozen
honest voters who in a small borough have the power
of turning the balance between the two organised fac-
tions who dispute the representation? 'their votes
would be as well known as it they were given viva
race. The Peet Spectator sneers at the smallness of
Mr. HUME'S reform ; but small though it may be it
is better than a great plan in nubibuo. Mr. Humes
plan is tangible and real: stick to it till a beter,
equally real, supported with equal sincerity, and by
at least equal numbers, is brought forward. 1 here is
every encouragement to adhere to it in the division of
Thursday last. When Mr. VILLIERS first divided the
House of Commons in 1842, on his motion for total
repeal of the corn-laws (after the league had
been agitating the measure three years), he
had only 92 votes for, and 385 against,
him. After less than three months of agitation
Mr. Heat: has for his reform motion 81 votes, and
against 351. The first majority against Mr. Huts
is less by 26 than the first majority against Mr. VIL-
LIERS was. Nor will it be necessary for Mr. Hume;
and his coadjutors to gain a majority for their nea
measure of reform, in order to ensure its being car-
ried. In 1811 the parliamentary advocates of corn
law repeal divided 120 to 383 ; in 1845 they divided
124 to 256; and soon after the latter division Sir
Itolieur PEEL took the matter in hand, and did their
work for them. And this was the progress of corn
law repeal against an inveterate opposition, continued
to the last moment, whereas no party, either in or
out of parliament, denies absolutely the necessity of
electoral reform.

NOTWITHSTANDING the high eotryl;ment paid to
Mr. MACREADY last night, the British theatre and
the British drama are, it n.ust be confeseed, in a bad
way. The presence of royalty, and a house crowded
to the ceiling, even though applauding to the echoes;
that applaud again, won't compensate them for the
neglect into which they have fallen.
Covent Garden is in 'he hands of the I'hilistines •
Old Drury in nobody's hands; the H•iymarket closed
prematurely before Italian singing; the Lyceum
closing ; and the Princess's every now and then shut
for a night or two. The higher drama found as little
patronage in far Marylehone as it did in nearer
Wych-street; and the lower drama is almost as unat-
tractive over the bridges, where thousands live, but
across which no one goes from this Cis-pontint side.
Yet (notwithstanding " money never was so scarce")
two Italian Operas are filled thrice a week ; a French
play flaurishes in St. James's; concerts given by
foreigners are profitably attended ; and the last
opened place of counter-attraction, the new Roman
catholic cathedral of St. George, is filled to excess li
under the admirable management of Dr. WeotmaN
and nil troupe of continental bishops. Great is the
demand for foreign ark istes ; small the occupation for
our domestic actors. We can't do without JENNY
LIND, but we are driving Mr. MACREADY across the
Atlantic. The opera season at Covent Garden b.-
gins and ends with Madame Germ ; whilst Mr. CHAS.
KEAN can only obtain a temporary engagement at the
" little home in the Haymarket." Mille. AttioNt is
the delight of all ears, whilst Mrs. BUTLER sometimes
played to half-filled houses.
Whilst foreign music and acting flourish our own
languish. Our native players call for "protection?'
which is scouted even by the house of Lo de; and
Mr. WEBsTER, emboldened by want of success, ven-
tures to lecture a prince of the blood royal because the
S:OVEREIGN has exercised that which is not denied
the mintiest subject—the right of unrestricted liberty
of amusement. What is the cause of this rise on the
one side, of this decline on the other? Is it that our
taste for the drama, for the intellectual, has bees des-
, troyed by our new-bor love for music—for the sen-
stud ? Is it the extinction of an old or the develop-
, ment of a new taste? Is it the extension of light
reading, or the absorbing tendency of our serious pur-
suits? Is it that we eat our dinners later or go to
bed earlier? Is it the effect of fashion, or the growth
of piety ? Is it the excellence of the foreign amuse-
ments which we do support, and the inferiority of
the native amusements which we will not maintain ?

That the cause of the decline is to be found singly
in any one of these reasons, or that the whole, taken
together, will solve the whole difficulty, and satisfac-
torily account for the low condition of the British
theatre with the noblest drama in the world, we are
not going to assert. Everybody, it has been said,
thinks he can edit a
we
and manage a play-
house ; and though we may be able to accomplish
the former feat, we have no pretence to the achiev-
ment of the latter more dangerous experiment. So
we shall not speak dogmatically, but rather sug-
Restively on the subject of our theatres. 1
This great difference cannot, however, have I
failed to strike the most indifferent and
thoughtless person who has visited the houses
to which foreigners have attracted large audiences,
and the houses which British mimic talent has not
rendered profitable ; it is that he finds excellence in
the former, inferiority in the latter; and the conse-
qui nee is, that in spite of the enormous prices of ad-
mission, he repeats his visits to the one, and that, not-
withstanding the comparative cheapness of the other,
he keeps away from it. Far be it from us to deny
that in .nary of our playhouses are to be
e: considerable
but it ia in vain we seek for a play through-
out well performed—in vain we ask for an
evening's amusement in which general excellence shall
prevail ; we arc compelled to endure a host of bad
actors that we may witness the performance of one or
two players competent to enact the parts they
Sustain ; we arc forced to sit through a piece in which
dullness, ignorance, and awkwardness, are the cha-
racteristics of all save the principal people. Now, in
the foreign houses, our tastes and our tempers are put
to no such trial; there, at least, the excellence is
general, and the defects or short comings exceptional ;
there we have evidence that the performances are the
result of training, of tuition, of careful study, and of
the hi.rhest exertions; we feel that an enormous effort
has been made to give U 3 satisfaction, and that
though we pay highly for what we have, the com-
modity supplied us is first-rate.

"It was by aim degrees,° said Boars of Pox,
"that he became the first orator of bia age." And as
with the great whig so has it been with all great
actors, and to Is it with the great singers who now
nightly fill the largest houses in Europe. They have
beers at school; they have been taught; they have
profited by instruction; they have, at last, become
masters of their art. Is this the case with any like a
majority of our actors ? Rather, may not the very '
reverse be as a general rule predicated of them ? Does
any of our theatres exhibit evidence of study, prepa-
ration, knowledge, or of a school ? Does any of them
satiety the requisitions which an audience of educa-
tion, of cultivated taste, of intellectual training,
must make—cannot help making--on actors? And
if whilst they do not, their foreign rivals
do give this satisfaction to the fullest extent, ought
/hey to seek ter other reasons for the disrepute into
which they have fallen? Other reasons there doubt-
less are ; but so long as our actors aro incompetent
for the positim they have voluntarily assumed, tney
cannot be surprised that in their persons insufficiency
meets with its usual punShment.
It is rarely, indeed, that in this country merit does
not meet with its reward ; and in the theatrical line,
merit where it exists, is, even in the depreciation of
the profession generally, very highly rewarded. Our
greatest actors have all, it is well understood, made
fortunes ; and not one of our better performers,
but obtains salaries such as their prede-
cessors, of much higher reputation, never
dreamed ot. Let it not then be said there
is no temptation for an actor to study, to train
himself, to become "by slow degrees" distinguished
in his business; for there is the very highest tempta-
tion money and fame. And just as it is with the
higher so will it be with the lower class of perlorir.ers ;
their improvement will just as surely raise them, as
their present wretchedness is the foundation of what
is called the " star system."
The great want of the British stage is then a
school : possessing that, it would again have good
troops, crowihd houses, ample remuuerrion, full em-
ployment, and renewed reputation. Without a school
it will gradually sink beneath even the rescue of
" command " nights, or royal favour.