The Express.
London, England, 1851-11-27 00:00:00

AND M. KOSSUTH.

THE. FUTURE GOVERNMENT OF HUNGARY

Tho Daily News, referring to the documents en-
titled "Kossuth l'apetH," now in course of publica-
tion in its columns, says:

Few documents will he read with more interest
and attention than that which we have published
from the pen of liossem, containing his views re.
'pectins the future government of Hungary. With
I this publication must at once and for ever drop all
I the accusations of hypocrisy against the Hungarian
chief, and of his being all things to all men. It is
impossible for political views and principles to bo
stated more clearly than they are stated here.
KOSSUTU declares • his opinion and desire that
the form and the principles of government
which have been founded and developed in
the United States, should be applied to Hungary,
He avows himself republican, but not of any school
of French republicanism. He is not for concen-
trating all power in the hands of an assembly, sitting
amidst the overwhehning and excited population of
an overgrown metropolis, and either obeying every
intonation of the popular voice, or else relying upon
military force and tyrannical laws to keep the people)
in submission. kossurll avoids this by federalism;
by resisting and proscribing centralisation ; by rea.
during every parish and every district a little local
republic in itself, governed by local influence, and
developing local energies.
Kossuvt here sides with America against French
democracy, which he loudly and justly accuses of
Laving missed the great aim of every revolutionary
struggle,—individual and local freedom. In justice,
, however, to the French, let us observe that their
never-varying choice, from MO to 1850, of a cen-
tralised and metropolitan government to a more
federalised one, was more owing to peculiar circum-
stances than to a general theory. and that this pre-
ference proceeded more from a knowledge of the
obstacles they had to overcome than from any
indigenous dislike to divide and disseminate ad-
ministrative powers.
At first federalist ideas were proscribed in France,
because aristocratic influence must necessarily pro-
dominate more or less in the provinces, and that the
focus of democratic opinion was the capital. Since
then centralisation has been preserved, and is che-
rished from the great power which it gives to the go-
vernment in war, in negotiation, in defence, iu all
and every dealing with foreign statea. The
politicians of the United States have never had
to, weigh the relative advantages of eentralisa-
tion and local government. Their country
stood alone in its hemisphere, invulnerable, uncon-
querable, defiant of foreign powers or foreign
intrigue. But the fortunes of European states, for
centuries struggling in every way against each
other, have depended much upon their political or-
ganisation. If France has eaten away whole
provinces of Germany, defeated the armies, con-
fiscated the liberties, and made a very fsitstool of
that country, it was chiefly owing to the fact that
the French Ioti Se seed a centralised government, with
every power of the state compact, whilst Germany
was a loose federation without a head, a common
interest, or a common spirit. The French, there-
fore, have preserved their centralisation as a basis
of power.
KOSSUTII, as the legislator of Hungary, feels no
such necessity. Ho does not look to conquest, but
to defence. He does not want to subdue other
people, even to spread his political doctrines. Ho
does not want a standing army to weigh in any nego-
tiations for annexing Cracow or subduing Belgrade.
Ile is not immersed, like M. Tinsats, and every other
French statesman, in the troublous polities of kurope.
He thinks of Hungary alone, isolated, independent=
strong enough to defy aggression, and magnanimous
enough not to think of aggression.

Kossurn's scheme, however, will excite many
objections and much enmity. A large party} amongst
ourselves will ask, where is the place in KossuriCa
constitution for the Hungarian aristocracy? There
is no noblesse in the United States, and therefore
such a class has no place in its constitution. In
France the noblesse was proscribed from the land be-
fore it was excluded from the constitution. But
to leave the Hungarian noblesse their social influence
and existence, whilst denying their politic it influence
and existence, will by many be considered hazardous
and unwise—hazardous, whether they connwin to the
republic, or whether they arc tempted by the threat
!if democracy to fling themselves and their remain-
ing influence and wealth on the side of that dynasty
and that system which have been the hen;ditary
oppression of Hungary.
This will form one great class of objections. An-
other will be the inextinguishable animosity
that must exist between an Hungarian reptili:ic and
the great monarchies with which it will he sur-
rounded. Let a republic be the most orderly, tho
most wise, and most conservative imaginable, never-
theless there mast prevail throughout it a certain agi-
tation, which is like the blood in the veins of that
kind of body politic. This agitation, this movement,
this freedom, this great generator of ideas, even when
in the corner of Europe most remote from absolutism,
disturbs its security, and excites its precaution. Tho
Court of St. Petersburg trembles at each movement
of the Parisian population, at each bold theory of the
Parisian tribune or press. Transfer these from Paris to
Pcsth, and imagine what would be the policy of the
Court of Warsaw. If that policy were not actual war. it
would be the same kind of intrigue and cor-
ruption, and subornation of parties, which sapped
the independence and absorbed the republic of
Poland.

Dangers and evils such as these could not havo
escaped the sagacious eye of Kosserit. And he evi-
dently deemed them less perilous, less pernicious, than
a sovereign approved by European powers, and con-
verting Hungary into a kind of Hospodarate. What-
ever respect he may have for constitutional mo-
narchy, he must have shrunk from seeing an
experiment of the kind made in Hungary
similar to that which has been made iu Greece,
where all the evils and vindictiveness of absolutism
' arc united to all the insecurity of popular government.
Objections, however, will not be wanting in print
and in converse to the solemn proposal of Kosseru.
Ho will have ample opportunity to weigh, to ex-
amine, and, if need be, to refute, or to admit the
weight of, these objections. Nor is there any ur-
gent necessity for precipitating judgment upon such
matters till ample explanations come forth. One
class of objectors there indeed will be, to which KOS-
SUTH will pay little heed. We mean those who
assail his every word with ribaldry, and who can find
no more fair or courteous mode of treating a
man, great in eloquence, great in administration,
great in force and fecundity of ideas, than by
raising a cry and running him down, es mis-
chievous boys might run down a mad
dog. Fortunately for his cause, Kosserit's
is too high an intellect to be overwhelmed by ribaldry
and abuse. To them his very name rises superior.
And those who would assume the position of
antagonists must at least elevate themselves
to his height, and employ intellectual and manly
weapons in a strife, of which all men and all nations
are at present more or less spectators.

PEACE SOClETY.—Yesterday evening a lecture in
connexion with the objects of this society was delivered at
the Roll of Commerce, by the Rev, John Burnet. The
subject of the lecture was a refutation of the objections
made to the principles of the Peace Society. The rev.
gentlemen contended that the objects of the society were
not enthusiastic abstractions, but practical and practicable;
nor did the members expect to attain those objects by a
sudden stroke, which, like that of an earthquake, was at
once to change the whole face of things. Ile urged that
the principle of arbitration was one which was admitted to
be good in itself by all statesmen, and which was capable
of being carried into effect if nations could but be persuaded
that the counsels and opinions of men, easily to be found,
who were learned in the knowledge of the world and the
conduct of human affairs, would more readily tend to ad-
just differences, which examination might prove to be
easily reconcileable, than the spending of millions of trea-
sure and the shedding of seas of blood, in the unsatisfactory
and uncertain practice of war. From a series of historical
illustrations be deduced the argument that so far from the
liberty of nations being promoted or attained by an appeal
to arms, from the Babylonians, the Jews, the Greeks, and
the Romans, down to the period of our own history, in
which was ended the dynasty of the Stuarts, every rebel-
lion or rising in arms had tended to interrupt the progress
of public opinion, by which peaceful means alone the
liberty and the constitutional reforms which the people of
this country in modern times had attained, and would still
farther extend, had been effected ; and concluded by ex-
pressing his belief that if no warlike demonstrations, even in
the cause of liberty itself, ever were made, tho result would
be that the general intercourse of nations would become as
harmonious throughout Europe as it was lately is the
Crystal Palace.

1/)111) DUDLEY STUART AND KOSSUTH.

Lord Dudley Stuart has sent ns a copy of a lengthy
letter, in which, after disposing of Mr. Chisholm A nstey's
(Alper ions to the honours paid to M. Kossuth at the Pobeh
H ill. he proceeds to state his reasons for considering that
H. Kossuth'. conduct in reference to the vote of Hungarian
tree?* fee Italian service in 1818 was not only justifiable,
but prais..weetby. lie says: " Consider for a moment the
w‘tare of affairs in Hungary at the time when M. Keiteuth
delivered his celebrated speech of the 20th July, 1818. At
that period Austria had made all the concession. which had
been so twig and so earnestly sought by Kuesutli and his
partisans. The great measum fur the commutation of the
curries and for the eetablishment of an Hungarian ministry
responsible only to the Diet, had not merely received the
royal assent and been confirmed by the Emperor King in
person at Freeburg; but in the very speech from the throne ij
on the 4th July, 1448, to which the vote in question was an
siValfef —:1 speech delivered by the Archduke Stephen in the
swot of the K inr —those persona had been branded as ealum-
Dieters who dared to hint that the consent of his M ejesty
to these laws had not been voluntarily given, or that their
vueatien was nuelLated by his Austrian advisers. Wu it'
not, then, incumbent on the men whom the King of Hun-
gary had appointed hi. ministers in that country to take
care that, whilst the king appeared on the one hand thus
ready to meet the wishes of the nation, the nation should
an tee other perform with loyalty and exactitude the duties
which it owed to the king? Now, the Pragmatic Sanction
why h became a law of Huugary m 1723, and by which the
ancient constitution and liberties of that country were
wile:wily and specifically confirmed, has always been
interpreted as imposing on the Hungarian nation the
duty of delending from foreign aggression the here-
ditary states of the House of Austria. This was the
view taken in 1741 by the Hungarian Diet when the
queen of Hungary, Maria Theresa, by virtue of the
Pragmatic Sanction, claimed their aid against the com-
bined, toms of Prussia, France, Saxony, and Bo-
eerie, who had entered into an alliance for the
purpose of depriving her of her hereditary dominions. Could
hi. Kossuth, at a moment when the sovereign had not only
eontirmed rII the existing rights of the Hungarian nation,
but had restored others which his preelecessers had taken
away, have refused with any propriety to aeknewleslge the
obligations generally admitted to have been imposed upon
llemaary by the Pragmatic Sanction ? Would it have been
either justifiable or prudent in him to do so? It is true
that doubts were rife as to the good faith of the government
at Vienna, hut no overt act of aggression &gated Ilungary
bad at that tonal been committed. Although Jellachich
was turn in arms for the purpose of extorting from the
jleegari in government a repeal of the union which had sub-
sisted for many ceuturies between Croatia and Hungary,
still all partieipation in his designs was strenuously
denied by the court. It was not till the 4th September,
1818. that he was reinstated in his dignities by a
des tee of the Emperor, a few days before he crossed
ti.. Drive awl marched. upon Podia. Sorely wisdom as
w.-el as loyalty required Kossuth to afford no pretext W the
A us•rian ministry for declaring that Ilungary had violated
tle.eempact which bound her to the Ileum of Hapsburg.
he. II though such a step might have been morally justified
Ay the iiitrieues carried on by the court of Vienna with
J. ilachielt uud the Serbian. it would at that period have
nbo ditlieult to famish evideuce of those secret transactions.

And what edict would an apparently unprovoi;d eleparture..
ou the part of Hungary, from the terms of the l'regniatic
Sanction, have produced on the more moderate politicians in
Hungary i What impression on the rest of Europe ? Ad-
mit ecru that stied a departure was not merely justi-
fiable, but that the justification could have been
mad.. minift•st, still 1 ask whether it would nut
hair 1)0'11 1110.4 culpable in Kossuth, by refusing
the demend bir assistance, to have risked a rupture
with Austria? It is true that on the I Ilk July the Diet had
olio ro id unanimously a levy o. 200,090 men. But cad the
2011 i, note itlistanding the unparalleled activity of Komuth's
administration, this army must still have existed upon paper
only. Besides, the Cleats and the Serbs were in arms on
the southern 'randier, whilst on the northern the fidelity of
the shivacks was stilt doubtful. Will Mr. Anstey venture
to assert that it would have been an act of ' patriotism'
on the part of Kossuth, surrounded as Hungary then
was by enemies, to have peremptorily refused the
do toand of Austria, and thus have precipitated hos-
tilities with another and still more powerful op-
ponent? If I have succeeded in showing that the in-
terest of Ilui.gary required Kossuth to adopt some such
Tune cat policy as that which he pursued, it only remains to
he maisidered whether the Italian patriots had just
ground to complain of it. And here I would
hlea ries that it is not correct to sp.nk of the inhabitants
ni Lombardy as lacing in arms for the independence of their
country in July, Paid. Un the 'land of March the in-
habitants of Milieu had gallantly expelled from Milan
Leh:L.4 unil the Austrian garrison who occupied that
city. The example of Milan RYA speedily followed by
other cities. But subsequently to that period the brunt of
the war in Lombardy was sustained by Chares Albert. The
uaupu of Lomusardy with Piedmont had indeed been pub-
liely proclaimed; but a strung party in Lombard y openly
disapproved of that measure. Un the 7th of July, Lord
Poiasamby wrote to Lord Palmerston that the Austrians
acre persuaded King Charles Albert ' had great difficulties
to appreLeud trout other causes besides the Austrian army.'
The war was already stigmatised as • a king's war a very
few wee-ks later, on the .1511 of August, Charles Albert was
saw, al with difficulty from the fury of the mob in Milan.
And therefore there is reason to believe, that if the
peaaet of Kossuth, so much reviled by Mr. Anstey,
(iii,tiaol of reinsuring OA it did a dead letter), bad been
sawed into enact, If utter the establishment of tranquillity
and pews in Hungary, it atter its moral and physical
ikneleuee had been secured, a Hungarian army had en-
ter 1 Italy tar the purpose cat promoting a tri.ndly com-
promise which ehould maintain uu the one hand the honour
cal the throne, and on the other equally accord with the
colostitutsmial ireemona and reasonable wishes of the Italian
leva—there.; to ground, I nay, for believing that such
no ArTAIMVInt Ilt, nut me rely obtained through the media-
tion, but guaranteed by the power of the constitutional
am anarchy of Hungary, would have been not leas in accord-
ance with the wishes and the interests of the people of
Lombardy, than the unnezation of their country to the domi-
unto cat the limp of :Sardinia. What then becomes of the
chase urges anti such an air of triumph against M. Kossuth
—that he prupon-d u vote of 40,0U0 men to cut the throats of
the Italian patriot. Aud what becomes of the charge which
luou brought forward much more frequently, and
Slate Ito commanded probably touch more general belief,
that In . mated himself, induced by motives of personal am-
!min, as heist minister of the King of Hungary, to effectuate
• paration beteeen Hungary and Austria, and to wrest
ti, crown cal Hungary from the house of Hapsburg A
careful exantinetiou of his conduct during that brief atlmi-
ulurrhou shows that he was more 'crapulous than even so
sauna a btrt..quau as Count Ludiales Teleki to preserve
tuauipainal the provision. of the treaty which regulated
tae relations between Austria and Hungary ; that
tle.ugh strongly urged by Perczel and the democratic
party to come at ohm: to an open rupture with Vienna, and
though exasperated by the underhand correspondence kept
up between the Austrian cabinet and Jellachich, ho deter-
mined to retain Hungary in a position strictly defensive.
lu short, that his policy, under circumstances as ember-
familia as can well be imagined, not only exhibited loyalty
to his sovereign, coupled with a duo regard for the interests
of a foreign people, respecting whose destiny he was called
upon in some measure to decide, but gave proof of firmness,
nualeration, and prudence, such as would have added repu-
tation to a minister grown grey in the service of a constitu-
bead sovereign.—

E:tra-t-litrium liiiiiUdienit.—Al the "meeting of
the vestry of St. Paeans, eateseley. lge. (Mattekwarden
Baker in the chair, it was Meted tilt the pemement had
abandoned the procosedmeesume ha eatmeatetel iattementi.
Mr. Brettinpham was glad to lad that the had
given up the idea of benembeg This
wee an admirable mOiWiwilCittis warp le take the
matter into their own hand• lealthisat the irewded state
of our churchyards, it woe MO time that something was
done. It was ultimately unealmeresly Weed that the vestry
should memorialise the pavammeat Me power to tau
ground for extra-mural inteemeut pupates.
1N FANT ORPHAN ASYLUM. WANISTEAD.—Yeater-
du the annual meeting and election of the institution was
held at the London Tavern, B. Bond Cabbell, Esq., M.P.,
in the chair. The report stated that the number of chil-
dren maintained in the asylum at the date of the last report,
in 1830, was 333, and 83 had been since admitted ; of these,
G 7 had left in rotation, and the diminution by death and
other causes had been 10. Therefore, there remained 341, I
which would be increased by the election of this day to 38'. '
The establishment was in a most healthy state, and the
annual subscriptions of the past year had far exceeded in
amount those of any year in the history of the charity.'
The total receipts of the charity during the year bad been I
11,276/. 10s. 10d.. while the expenditure had been so far 1
within that sum, notwithstanding a very heavy special out- I
lay on the enlargement and alteration of the building, as to
permit of the investment of 1,8001. in the Three-and-a-
Quarter per Cent. Consols, and the purchase of an Exche-
quer Bill fur 11,0271. 2s.
CU ELSEA BENEVOLENT SOClETT.—Yellt(Ttlily the
thirteenth anniversary of this institution was celebrated by
a dinner at the Commercial Hall, Kings-road, Chelsea,
Dr. W. V. Pettigrew in the chair, supported by several
clergymen of the district, and many other iaduential par-
sons interested in the progress of the charity. The usual
routine toasts wi re disposed of on the occasion, and a high
tribute was paid to the institution and to those persons more
immediately concerned in promoting its welfare. Amongst
other facts disclosed in the course of the evening it appeared
that the society derived its origin from the circumstance of
the death of a poor widow, who preferred starvation to •
separation of herself from her children, as than enacted by
the new poor law, had she sought shelter in a pariah anion ;
to obviate the recurrence of so dreadful a calamity, some
few benevolent men, who formed a part of the inquiet jam
sought the assistance of their neighbours, framed laws, and
upon the system of district visiting, founded the "Chelsea
Beuevolent Society." Since the commencement of the
institution no lees than 7,394 individuals had been
relieved. During the past year the committee had
found it expedient to assist to their utmost 130
families comprising no lees than 620 individuals. The do-
nations and subscriptions since the month of November last
had amounted to 63/. lls. 3td., and the expenditure (in
eluding the sum of W. 3e. 10d. paid for relief, to 561.116.1 d.
The general statement of accounts showed that the total
amount of receipts sines the 21st November, 1838, was
8091. 10s. bd. ; and that of the expenditure, 7951. 7s. 6d. ;
leaving a balance at present in the treasurer', hands of
141.25. 11d. In calling attention to these facts, the chair-
man observed that the parish damn had informed him
that there had been less pauperismniV the last year
than for a long period. past, and he t this circum-
stance might be eimin a fa omen for the
society.

Zbe Court.

OSBORNE, WEDNESDAY.
The Queen, Prince Albert, and the royal family,
remain at Chborne, and have not left the garden' and
grounds.

Mr. G. M. Gray had an interview with Earl Grey yester-
day at the Colonial-office.
'The Governor of the Bank of England and the Deputy
Governor had an interview with the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer yast,rilay. Sir John Ilt mild had also an inter-
view with the right huu. hart., at his official residence in
Downing-street.
The Judicial Committee of her Majesty's Most lion.
Privy Council eat yesterday in the Council Chamber. The
lords preicnt were—Lord Cranworth, Sir J. Knight Bruce,
the Judge of the Prerogative Court, and Sir Edward Ryan.
An appeal from the high Court of Admiralty. " Wilkinson
v. W dhoti" (Buonapartc) was commenced. The case was
adjourned.

FOUNDATION OF A MECHANICS' INSTITU-

VON AT BURNLEY.

On Tuesday the foundation stone of a new
building fru a mechanics institution was laid at the rapidly
increasing town of Burnley, Lancashire. The whole of
the mills of the town were closed, the shops remained un-
opened, and everything wore the appearance of a holiday.
The intended building, for which the estimated cost of
4,3001. has been subscribed, will have two principal fronts,
of the Italian style of architecture; the principal entrance
, from Yorke-street has a portico of four Corinthian columns,
with entablature and balustrade, in all 21 feet high. The
I first-floor windows will be enriched with Corinthian
attached columns and pilasters, 'upturning the entabla-
ture with triangular and segmental pediments. The in-
terior arrangements of the building will comprise, on the
ground storey, spacious entrance hull and staircase, news-
room, 32 ft. by 28 feet ; reading room, 28 ft. by 23 ft. ;
library, 28 ft. by 18 ft. ; also committee rooms, and two
' shops, fronting Market-street. The first Hour will be
wholly (I. voted to the purpose of a public hall for lectures
and assembiies, and will be 72 ft. by 51 ft., exclusive of la-
dies and gentlemen's ante and retiring rooms, over the
whole of which will be a gallery for orchestral purposes.
The hall will be decorated with Corinthian columns and
pilasters, 42 in number, supporting entablature, with en-
riched mmlillion cornie.:. Thu room will be 25 feet high,
and will have a coved and panelled ceiling, highly orna-
mented, with a lame circular dome light of stained glass
in the centre. Spacious class rooms will be provided in
the basement storey, under the whole of which will be
store vaults, made entirely fire proof. It would be difficult
to estimate the numbers in the crowd of people
who assembled to witness the foundation of the new
building, hut it was very Lome' probably 21,000 to 30,000.
The Right Hon. the Earl of Sefton, Lord Lieutenant of the
county; thu !tight Hon. the Kid of Carlisle, Sir James
Kay Shuttleworth, Bart., John Wilson Patten, Esq., M.l'.,
James Heywood, M.l'., L. Ileyworth, Esq.., M.P.,
and Colon(' the Hon. Yorke Scarlett joined a proces-
sion, which met them at the gates of 'roarieley Park,
and escorted them to the site of the building, when the
ceremony of the day was performed amid loud demonstra-
tions of joy, and Mr. Towneley afterwards delivered a brief
address, congratulating tho town not only upon its rapid
growth, but on the progress it was making in education.
There was a dinner at the Hall Inn, and after it a meeting
at Salem Chapel, over which Mr. Towneley presided, and
which was :addressed by Mr. Wilson Patten M.P., Mr. J.
Heywood, M.l'., the Earl of Sefton, Col. Scarlett, and

The Earl of CARLISLE, who was received with raptur-
ous applause, and who said, I feel that in coming before a Lin.
=shire audience we arc no longer living in the times, so elo-
Tuently adv:rted to by a late speaker, when the names of
urk and Lancaster 'muffled different factions and differ-
ent parties ; but now, on the contrary, we arc in a happier
err, when either our red rose has paled, or our white rose
blushed into one common colour. (Cheers.) And instead
of contending for rival causes or for opposing dynasties, we
may now only try to boast liming each other which has the
greatest number or the best supported and best conducted
mechanics' institute. (Hear, hear.) Now, in a place and
district like this, I consider a mechanics' institute to be a
must appropriate appendage. And when I say it is an ap-
propriate appendate, I feel that I understate the truth ; but
that it is a must desirable and almost indispensable one,
because, although the pursuits which are followed here are
peaceful, and useful, and honourable, we must not forget
that primarily and in themselves they are conversant only
with what is material and with the ways (to we a homely
phrase) of making money; and that they may have a
tendency, if unchecked and unbalanced by anything in an
opposite direction, to crush and enchain and beat down
some of the more delicate tastes, or the loftier aspirations of
the human mind. (Hear, bear.) Far he it from me to speak
slightiugly of cotton—(" Hear, hear," and laughter); but
you must acknowledge that cotton and calico, though they
Make admirable stockings and other equally indispensable
articles of clothing, yet do not in themselves furnish up the
whole man. Now, I have observed that a most acorn'.
*Med and able person, whom I may call a fellow lecturer,
Dr. Lyon Playtair, in a lecture he recently delivered, gave
It as his opinion with respect to the modes of education
pursued in this country, that in our schools and colleges
enough attention has not been given to scientific in-
struction and regular industrial training. He complains
that too much labour may have been bestowed on
classical students and dead authors and bygone poets,
and that the faculties have not been enough exercised
on the open page or nature and the living wonders
which are around and about and above and beneath us.
Now, I think that he is probably' 'm the right in this, but at
the same time I ant convinced that almost every prevailing
direction, both of the individual mind and of society at
large, ought to be ready to have administered to it some
thing in the way of reaction and of corrective. It may be
very well, in the quiet of academic bowers, as my friend Mr.
Heywood would probably remind me—it would be well
that the dim cloisters of Oxford and the still shades of
Cambridge, retaining, as I hope they ever will du, their
old appropriate sources of learning—not ignoring (to use
a modern expression, which I might be told in those clas-
sic regions was a barbarous one)—not ignoring the accus-
tomed voices of their muses ; yet it would be well that
Obey should reflect still more—as I believe they are beginning
le do—of the aspect of the century and the society in which
they are placed. (Hear, hear.) But on the other hand, it is
We that in a district like tins, where the pursuit of wealth
h tha habitual ride—where the recurring routine of labour
thaskily life—where the steam engine and the power-loom
sed meehahism and machinery stem to be the lords of time
awl space, of the body and of the mind,—it is well that there
such a tendency, I say, that without neglecting, on the
Oestrary while you are directly encouraging, those subjects
which are congenial to the place—while you are promoting
the study of the laws of nature and inquiriag into the pro-
perties of matter—at the same time the means of access
should be given, and opportunity of hearing, at least af-
forded, to claims of general literature as well as to those
albs sober muse of history, the fervid accents of oratory,
OWL the sublime inspirations of song. (Applause.) And'
elle these reasons I rejoice, therefore, that such an in-
ideation as has already existed, and which it is now pro-
=to extend, to diffuse, to embody in a more worthy
to spread further than genial influence' all around
pa which exist in your town. I rejoice that it is proposed
is suabine with it lecture-rooms, classes for drawing and
sash awl for languages, together with a well assorted
library ; and that it is proposed not to be wanting in the
=of external architecture ; and I true' that you will
yourselves alive to the occasion which opens itself thus
before you, and that when the offer is made, and the brick
and mortar—l beg your pardon, for I believe you have ex-
eallent stone of your own in Burnley—when all this is
brought together, ands goodly edifice is raised, you will show
that it has the support of the inhabitants, and that the
mind which has to be developed within it will make the
real glory and honour of that building. (Cheers.)
Mr. L. Heyworth, M.P.,and othergentlemen also addressed
the meeting. Sir J. K. Shuttlewortb, who was present at
the the ceremony of laying the foundation stone, was ex-
pected to speak at some length on the subject of education
at the evening nseetins, but the delicate state of his health
prevented him.

REPRESENTATION OF WEST KENT.—" We have
authority to state," says the 31041110/14 Journal, " that in
consequence of severe illness in a member of his family,
Mr. Stoddart Douglas has found it necessary to relinquish
his intention to become • candidate at the neat general
election for the representation of West Kent."
_ _

StDDEN DEATII IN BEILMONDSET.—On Tuesday
evening Mr. Payne held an inquest at the St. George
Workhouse, Mint-street, borough of Southwark, relative to
the death of Owen Jones, a brewer, late in the employment
of Courage and Donaldson, Bermondsey. The evidence
showed that the deceased, who resided at No. 3, Little
John-street, Hovel down, left hit home to go to his em-
ployment on Monday morning, about a quarter put four
o'clock, and about six, as Mr. William Featherstone was
walking up the Bermondsey New-road, his attention wee
arrested by the howling of a dog, which he found standing
over the dead body of his master, whining most piteously
and caressing the body in the most affecting manner. Mr.
Featherstone immediately obtained assistance, and the
body w.O brought to the workhouse, where life was pro.
pounced to have been extinct for some time. Sipa the Wl-
' happy circumstance the faithful animal has refused to take
any food. No marks of violence were found on the diseased,
and the jury returned a verdict of Natural death."

BCDI/Eli DEATH AT RESTON STATION.-Yesterday
monsin; maw the passengers arriving at the Easton sta-
tion to take their departure b y the third class train, was a
woman, apparently in the last stage of consansption. She
was accompanied by a little child about three years of age,
and on alighting from a sort of cart in which she had been
brought from the neighbourhood of Wapping, the poor
creature was assisted Ito the booking caw, where she paid
her fare to Liverpool by a third clam carriage, and then
proceeded to the platform to take her seat in one of the car-
riages. Her weakly state was observed by Mr. Spencer,
the superintendent of the company's police at Euston-square,
and he at once went to her assistance. On speaking to her he
found she war in a very unlit state to travel, and while
misting her back into the refreshment hall with one of his
caters the poor woman fell dead. The body having been
conveyed to the workhouse of St. Pancras parish, and the
little child taken sharp of by a porter named Haines, in
the company's service, some inquiry was set on foot with •
view to ascertain the Identity of the deceased. It was sub-
sequently found that she was the wife of a mate in the
merchant service, of the name of /Ling, and that he had
only a few days since sent her Si. to pay her expenses to
LiverpooL It is said that the deceased was addicted to
drinking. She had three or four bores with her but only
I a few halfpence were found span her parson.

THE EARL OF MALMESBURY AT CHRIST-

CIII:RCII.

The annual meeting of the Sout't Avon Agri cultu-
ral Society was held on Tuesday, and in the evening, after
the distribution of a numerous list of prizes to ploughmen
and others for skill in their various occupations, and to firm
servants and labourers for long and faithful services, the
members of the society dined together at Ilutuby's Hotel.
The Earl of MALMESBUItY, as patron, filled the chair,
and in giving the toast of the evening, " Success to the
South Avon Agricultural Society," said—l conceive that
upon this society we can graft further prizes for the encou-
ragement and the prosperity of that agriculture in the pur-
suit of which the labourer is the chief material instrument.
Within the last ten years I have seen a most striking change
essomplished in the face, not only of the country generally,
bat of this locality especially. Speaking of my own
rotate—and I appeal to any of my tenants who are pre-
Mit to say whether it was not so—ten years ago
M hedge-rows were charged with timber much
owe than they are now. (Heir, hear.) At that
time, too, the fields were much smaller, in some places as
three or four to one. The meadows were not divided, but
lay for common pasture, and thus produced very great
inconvenience, whilst tin kind of draining whatever was .
resorted to. But now, although lam not come to flatter,
hut rather to tell many of you that there is room fur still
gre attr—aye, much greater improvement—l may say this,
that even here, in this quiet, remote, rural spot, apricot-
tura! improvements are making most rapid strides. (Hear,
hear.) I want that pace still to hasten. (Cheers.) I want
it to he quickened with the spur and stimulus of competi-
tion—but of competition between ourselves. (Cheers.) I
want it to be stimulated by such prizes as we offer the
agricultural labourer; and it is my intention to offer, ou my
own part, nest year, a prize for a peculiar sort of produce I
with which you will by and bye be made acquainted.
think that until we have brought this, suc iety testa a position
as to offer prizes for praluce' as well us to the labourers,
we shall not have perfected the object we have in view. At
the moment at which I am addressing you the agricultural
interest is thus peculiarly situated. It has hail to pan
through an ordeal which, perhaps, no race or class of men
has had to experience during the last century. At the time I
am speaking to you. atter three or four years of immense
depression, a vast sacrifice of private property has undoubt-
edly been made (fir the general good of the country, as
many allege and believe) ; but, whether for good or for
evil, certainly a termitic sacrifice. (Loud cries of " Hear,
hear.") That sacrifice having been us-ids, a beam of !Un-
.liiue—though nut much more than a beam—seems to have
burst forth upou your interests and your hopes. The
prices of some of your articles of production are a little
better than they were. (Ilear, hear.) I say that
prices of some of the articles of agricultural produce, if
they could he maintained at present prices, are nearly as
good and as profitable as the prices which these articles
stood at fifteen years ago, because the cost of production
is lighter. Thus, if barley is ns. or tie., and can be main-
tained at that henry, it is as good a price to us now as was
325. twenty years since ; and for this resale—it costs less
to produce it, and the taxes you have to pay are far
lighter now than they were then. Again, if we luokast the
prices of wool, we find that these, too, arc not such as
to make us despair ; and if we look at the prices of stock,
they also have improved. Therefore, as I have already said,
this year, fir the first time, I do see a ray of the sunshine
of hope, after three years of despair. (Hear, hear.) On
the other hand, however, the staple produce of England
—the great and most important produce of all-1 mean
wheat—is lower than ever, so low, indeed, :kis., that I
believe it to be impossible, it that price continues, for the
English farmer to afford any longer to grow it. Cries of
" Hear.") Certainly not on a great portion of the land in
Great Br.taia and Ireland. We know well that we are so
constituted that we do nothing in the way of trade and
commerce for the love that we hear to one another. Profit
is the stimulating motive which makes men work, and
if profit be not realised, the occupation in which
you invest your capital must be changed fur another, and
thus your capital, if any remains, must be shifted from one
pursuit to another. But ask yourselves what would be the
inevitableresult of a great tailing-off in the quantity of wheat
grown in Great Britain and Ireland? Why, it has already
fallen off. if, then, the destruction of that particular
trade, the raising of wheat, should ensue in this country,
in that event we must trust entirely to foreign natiuiis
for the supply of our staple food. This will be well enough
in time of peace. Then we shall have plenty—they can
send us as much as we please. But in war, what shall
we do? What is the state of the Continent even now 1
Dues it look so very peaceful ? May we riot any year be
suddenly plunged into war, and then, tn three or lour years,
with a diminutmon in the growth of wheat in this country,
and being obliged to have recourse to foreign nations fur a
supply, consider fur a moment the immense expense of
maintaining, perhaps, double the number of armed ships
that we required in the last war for protecting those nubs-
pensible convoys of wheat which must still come to
WI for the purpose of supplying our population with
food. I say, therefore, that any policy which goes to
discourage the growth of wheat, though it dues not prove
ruinous to the firmer, who may perhaps find som•
other more profitable investment fur his skill and
capital, will nevertheless hereafter prove most expensive
and ruinous to us all as an empire. (Cheers.) Besides
these, there are one or two other considerable difficulties
under which you labour, and which meet your untiring in-
dustry at every step. These are in the government of your
country, and agricultural prosperity depends alone on just
and fair government. These' difficulties are the tares
and the thistles which you should weed out, as you
weed out thu tares and thistles in your fields; and
think that you will find the great body of your country-
men ready to assist you, as well as to listen to your com-
plaints on this score. I speak of those local burdens
which press with peculiar weight upon the farmers of
England—l speak of the poor rates. (Hear, hear.)
When I tell you that you are paying 10 per cent. upon the
average throughout England for the maintenance of the
poor of England, do not suppose that I ant running up the
charges and payments of the agricultural interest us against
the manufacturing classes. lam doing no such thing,
though Lord Grey once mistook me in the House of Lords,
and charged mo with doing it—fur the householder in the
town and the manufacturer are quite as unfairly used in
this respect as you yourselves are—what I want to do is to
charge with the payment of the poor rate not only real pro-
perty, but the capitalist, the man with a fixed income, and
the owner of that which is commonly called " personal pro-
perty." (Cheers.) I do not want to deduct from you one far-
thing of the cost of the poor; but I do want to see contributing
to the common purse the millions of money which are now
exempt from contributing one farthing towards that object.
That, then, is one of the weeds which it is your duty to root
I out of the political field. Youshould insist upon those burdens
being made common which ought to be common. Tho
prisons of this country, too, ought to be paid for by the
country in common, because personal property is stolen as
' well as real property, and much more easily, inasmuch as a
man can carry off the grass when he cannot take away the
field. You ought to insist, also, that the classes to which
I hare referred should pay towards the support of the lu-
natic asylums, because God may visit any man with the in-
fliction of insanity as well as a farmer. At present,
however, real property alone maintains these insti-
tutions; and it is most unfair that it should do
so. 1 am told that the repeal of the corn law has had
able esault, that I abour is plentiful, that wages have
ere muck fallen, and that the poor rates have very
ems& deceased. Now, I am perfectly aware that the
poor rates have very much decreased in money; and I be-
lieve that, is this locality, the state of the poor is peculiarly
sedshaeasg; but without going fully into an inquiry as to
de met mum of this, let me remind you that the great mar-
talky in Ireland, and the enormous maignitioa from Vat
'Gantry, have saved many an English ee Imo rat
Influx§ of Irish labourers for harvest and other yowls.
which in former years was so generally niedenced.
Much has been said as to what we ought to do al as agri-
cultural body, whose capital and whose interests are
em-
barked
either in letting or renting and cultivating the land..
There are two classes of persons who address the multitude
at this moment, and whose opinions with respect to the sys-
tem of policy upon which I have dilated accord with then
I entertain. The first of those, embittered by undesired
lasses, and undeserved and wanton abuse by the free-tab
press, will tell you that nothing can save you but an ab-
solute and entire return to the protection which you mum
enjoyed and which was secured to you by Sir Hobert
Peel s bill of 1842. Now, I deem it to be my duty to say
that they who either entertain or promulgate such opinions
are deceiving themselves, and deceiving those who listen to
them. (Hear.) In the first place, we never sec upon
the occurrence of a reaction that the legislature of this
country returns to a law exactly similar in detail to that
which it had altered or changed. The natural coarse of
events is changed, and if say approximation is made to
the old law, it is only by eatablishieg a new law upon the
di pheiple. And, therefore, I tell you that, if we
now or hereafter, for an exact return to such a law,
we should be both disappointed and deceived. (Hear, hear.)
Dot there is another class of men on our side, and profess
ing our principles and opinions, who, weary with discoed-
titre and impatient of resistance, wanting in fixed pumas
and a set spirit, tell us these principles must be sbaudeasd
—that no more can be heard of them—that they are entirely
forgotten by the British people. Now, if the first class of
persons I have alluded to are deceived, I am quite certain
that the opinions of the second aro equally fallacious—
(hear, hear)—when they us we have no chance of re-
covery from any of those anomalies which have been fixed
upon us—no chance of recovery from the injustice under
which we labour—no chance of recovery from the
burden of any portion of that unjust taxation to a part of
which I have directed your attention. They are insulting the
justice of the English nation at large sad tbejesties el parlia-
ment, and are also insulting the ineemeassemsaell immenged
Englishmen, who never will be, In issis parties to
play. (Cheers.) All we require is Mr Ow, sad we are reedy
to bear our burdens with the met dde asnimunity in
support of the country's erode sad government.
You have had five or six years of expellent", and you know
what it has led to. Upon that five et Me years of expe-
rience the English nation can now jaip of the value of the
new principle in comparison with the old, and upon that
experience they are about to have an opportunity of pro-
nouncing a constitutional and a positive verdict. (Loud
cheers.) At a general election that verdict will be given,
and the nation will judge for itself whether it will abide by
the new principles of action, or whether it will return to the
principles of our ancient policy.

LONDON AND NORTH WESTERN RAILWAY.—
Return of traffic for the week ending Nov. 23 :—Passengers,
parcels, carriages, horses, and mails, 20,7671. 17s. 7d. ; mer-
chandise, 17,792/. 10s. 7d.; cattle, 1,6161.31. 4d. Total,
40,1661. 1 ls. 6d. C nding week 1850, 39,6061. 18s.
Aggregate: 1860, 9967=105. id.; 1861,1,206,1981. 17.. 7d.