The Express.
London, England, 1848-09-12 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, TUESDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 12, 1848.

average age of the viatorious commanders of the
Freseh revelation was from thirty to forty. At the
time of the battle of has the ages of the Pnweian
field Aces ranged from 59 to 60. As might have
bees anticipated, the musty soldiers kept in the store-
house of the Prussian army were soundly drubbed ;
the fresh seen of the French improvised armies beat
down all before them.

It is obvious, from the evidence of the Honourable
BIDNRT lIZISIRT before the committee on army,
navy, and ordnance estimates (quoted elsewhere
in this day's paper), that our navy has of late years
been getang into a condition exactly parallel to that
of the Prussian army at the time of the battle of
Jena. " Our halt pay list," said Mr. HERBERT, "is
so large, that if you were to commission every ship
in the navy, you would leave out some deserving
men." When asked whether the list was not made
large by promoting store officers than are wanted, he
replied, Yes, by admitting so many into the
service at the bottom that you are ob:iged to
promote a greater number afterwards than are neces-
sary for the public service." The evil effects of this
inevitable result of heaping op a large navy in time of
paws were illustrated In a striking manner by Mr.
HERMIT. He adverted to the plan of retiremeot
adopted in 1840 to get rid of the incumbrance of officers,
advanced beyond the age of effuwive service. Lord
Howls, he said, was made an admiral at 49 ; Lord
Mums younger still. When the retirement plan
was earned into effect, Captain MARTIN, the elds at of
the officers, about the age of these heroes when they
got their flags, bad 280 claimants of flags above him.
Hod war broken out at that time we must have sent
our fleets to sea under commanders fitter fur their
easy chairs.
This is what we have gained by keeping up an
enormous navy at an enormous expense in time of peace.
With a view to the efficiency of our defensive establish-
ments, as well as to economy, there ought to be a
prompt and sweeping reduction in the eighteen
millionswhich we pay annually for storing up soldiers
and sailors to spoil.

Cusees of people who are the very antipodes
of each other may be sometimes found wurking
with a marvellous harmony towards like end... In
the same department of the empire where spotting
dukes shut op wide districts of territory mildest
travellers, reverend clergymen and their serious
abettors are endeavouring to restrict railway commu-
nication. The main difference between their object.
is that the one class measure their restriction terri-
torially, while the other measure it by. time—the one
will have it limited to their own domains, hut applied
to all days in the year ; tho other will have it limited
to the seventh day, but applied to all the land. It is
remarkable, too, that while, with one notorious excep-
tion, the interrupters of the Highland glens have
generally been Englishmen, so in the only cue in which
the sabbatarian spuit triumphed in Scotland it was
backed by English shareholders. But the paralla
has an end here; the spirit under which our sports.
men acted was a contempt of the laws and habits of
the people they had gone among, and an idea that they
carried into the wilderness the trespass law of their
well-kept lawns and gardens—the men who closed
railway traffic acted, as we shall see, under the be-
nevolent intention of humouring a nation of fanatics.
It is quite natural that men so bold, ambitious, and
able as the Scottish clergy, should have fought the
battle of thole sabbath opinions on the railways.
Among the many other new fl.lds of enterprise
opened up by the great revolution in locomotion, this
one must have soon been apparent. During the
dynasty of the turnpike roads, when each man used
his own vehicle as he pleased, the brittle had to be
fought in detail, and the dear-bought victory would
scarce be worth the labour and peril of the fight.
But when so many bowie of directors teld in their
hands the guidance of the locomotion of the king-
dom—when it was for them to judge at what time it
was fitting that the passage between any two places
should be open, and when it should. be closed—the
clergy, by getting the command of these boards,
might hold Sunday travelling, as it were, by the
throat. The opportunity was a tempting one, and
we need not wonder that it was greedily seized.
The clergy of Scotland have a great stake in this
question. An absolute dominion over one-seventh
part of time is not a privilege to be lightly parted
with. They are rendered more vehement in the
struggle, to by the unpleasant circumstance that
they are unable to produce any authority for the ab-
solute dominion they arrogate, in the rule of faith
and practice as set forth in the Christian dispensation.
A worthy lady who was ono* carrying,on a dispute
on this point, which she should have left to her
minister, in one simple sentence expressed the
great difficulty which he would have carefully
avoided. Being desired to produce a text of
the New Testament. authorising that rigorous °been-
AMOS of the Sabbath which her party demanded, she
admitted that such as authority was not to be found.
sabjoiniug the remark, that she " always thought
that • gnat assission" Bat the omission only ren-
dered it the man neeneary that the clergy should
supply it by their seldom energy. In fact, their Sab-
bath principle is the week of their own creation, and
they but exemplify, in their superabundant zeal for
its promotion, that sad indication of the wicked
vanity of mankind denounced in a commandment
not abrogated, which prompts them to elevate the
work oftheir own hands above the commands of the
Deity. In a circular just issued in Edinburgh by
" the committee of the Sabbath alliance" to the di-
rectors of railways, it is said, that " the last great day
will reveal how many of the horrid and fatal sect-
dents which comae from time to time on railways,
both in England and Scotland, result from a sys-
tematically violated Sabbath." The alliance them-
selves, of course know all about it, and they only
choose to give forth enough of their knowledge to
terrify the poor mortal' who have no access to their
sacred mysteries. Alas ! how fearful an amount of
presumptlon and pride lurks in poor degenerate man-
kind.
Some time ago a section of the Edinburgh clergy,
chiefly those of the free church, said they required ten
thousand a year to support " a sabbath alliance," and
issued an order that the money should be forth-
coming. How mach of it they have obtained we do not
know, bit they have been able to constitute their
association and to put it in operation; with a staff of
well-paid officials, whose function it is to persecute
the public in two shapes, first, by extracting money
from them, and, secondly, by employing it in annoy
inaifiattiez This, along with many other leagues and
has, we &aspect, been founded on a miaap-
whimsies eft he secret of the success of the Anti-Corn-
law Lieges. Where a multitude of men are already of
cam =led. • combination, with pecuniary means at its
dieseal, unites their mattered forces into a foe= of
gmatiower, and thus appears to constitute the
sew it merely cements. An association which
hem to indoctrinate people with its opinions has
a em 7 dill rent task to perform, and we prophesy
that the Sabbath alliance, it it ad a thousand for
e hundred pounds it has collected, will du little
to Werge its dominion. But although the alliance
may make little progress in Scotland, which,
where ' matters are concerned, is not so
a country as the rest of the'
wait believes, yet they are • bold, clamorous, and
ohms body, and a melaucholy instance already
:11=to by us shows hat their voice may be taken
by our too credulous countrymen tor that of Scotland
at large.
We shall remind our readers of the manner in
which the one victory of the Sabbatarians was gains d
through the aid of Englishmen, and shall briefly
narrate some events which have followed it, begging
English holden of Scottish railway stock to keep
them in oiled as • warning for future guidance. Oil
the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway the Sabbitarians
were long iu a miserable minority. I- happened, ho e.
ever, that a dispute arose regarding some g eating it s, and
one of the parties hired the assistance ot the Sabha-
lariats, agreeing, if they could, united, comma, d a
majority in the directory to aid their views, to vote
fie. the closing of the line on Sundays. Our readers
may possibly have a faint remembrance of the hot
soutruversy which accompanied an appeal to the
airrekulders. Marshalled by the Scotsman, the pre.'
of the north, with the exception of the special t ash••-
sisstical organs, lifted its unanimous voice against this
act of spiritual despotism, which was emphatically
condemned by all the town councils and other public
bodies connected with the districts traversed by the
line. On the other hand, the church courts
of the various denominations with which Scot-
land swarms, gave forth a host of pompous
looking soolniastioo-official mani'estoes, issuing
'rum spots with which the must accomplished
go ogylapher was unacquainted. This clerical outcry
had in effect. The Enlist shareholders believed

that the Soot& were a wool of bigots, who must be
humoured. The closing of the line was carried by a
small majority, bat when the has were scrutinised it
was discovered that the majority of Scottish shares
was on the other side, so that the prooreding exhi-
bited the phmeemenon of Englishmen voting for the
elegiseda railway on Banda), and fiestolunen
voting against it.
The next battle wee at the North British Railway,
where the Scottish feeling on the subject was allowed
to take its natural direction, and the Sabbatariens
were beaten by large numbers. They resolved to
carry on • new and determined war on tho ground
of the Edinburgh and Northern line, and they
hoisted that whole presbyteries had become 'hare-
hoick re for the purpose of voting. But the holders
generally consisted of fleotchnien—individuals con-
nected with the country through which the line
paned ; and on a first attempt the AGNEW band were
defeated by seven to one ; on a second, it is believed
that they had not much more than a twentieth of the
votes.

While we are writing these remarks we hear that
at the hair-yearly meeting of the same company, on
the afternoon of Saturday last, another attack was
made ander circumstances very unfavourable to the
friends of toleration. It is a fixed principle with
the Sabbath shiance that no railway meeting
shall take place at which they omit to
bring forward their great project, however often
it may have b en defeated, and however alight may
be it- chance of adoption. This policy has at least
one chance in its favour—it tires out the indifferent.
On the occasion of the Saturday meeting to which
we refer, the directors thought the expense of pro.
ducing proxies might be , and there was there-
fore an opportunity foe Elrparty having the greater
quantity of zeal to give a faLe and exaggerated in-
dication of its strength in a personal vote. Though
the aft ct of this deceptive influence was aided by the
departure of many who had more distaste for Saliba-
tartan eloquence than zeal foe • tolerant majority, yet
we are happy, fur the credit of sound sense in Soot-
land, to hear that there was a majority of some tour
to one against the pharisees.