The Express.
London, England, 1851-10-02 00:00:00

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TO CORRESPONDENTS.
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LONDON, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2.

THE most important point to be considered
in any new distribution of the representation is that
the districts be not so allocated as to place a consider-
able portion of any constituency under the control of
one or more of the landed magnaten, who now virtually
nominvte so large a portion of the House of Com-
mons. This point was not sufficiently considered in
1e32, and probably the authors of the Reform Act of
that year were not indisposed to overlook it, and to
permit that territorial power to preponderate under
the mom decent form of local influence, which had
previously been exerted by direct nomination. Prac-
tically. most of the smaller boroughs have remained
mince the Reform Act as completely nomination
boroughs, which, by the division of counties, their
very chance of independence has, in most instances,
been annihilated.
A closer analysis of particular districts than
general electoral statistics furnish the means of
making, will probably be useful, not only as giving
precise and practical information relative to such
districts, but as having a much wider application.
We referred, the other day, to the manner en which
the county elections fur Wiltshire were formerly
managed by the territorial aristocracy, and
showed that their yoke had been broken
doubtless at a vast cost of toil and money,
when the Reform Act, by dividing the
county, giving votes to the dependant tenantry, and
leaving an immense proportion of the most indepen-
dent and intelligent enhabitante excluded from the
franchise, succeeded in riretting the fetters of the
landieracy more firmly than ever about the now
divided constituencies. We arc in the possession of
details relating to the boroughs in that county which
will enable us to give a tolerably complete view of
the parliamentary representation of the county at
An
large.
d here we may notice that Wiltshire is one of
the few counties in which, according to the recent
census. the population has declined, and there can be
=doubt that en relative importance it has gone back
considerably during the lwesent century. At one
time Wiltshire was a principal, if not the principal
seat of our woollen manufactures; a wool-growing
dist ict, and abundantly supplied with streams and
water-power, flowing out of the chalk hills which
form so large a part of its central area, it naturally
became, in ancient times, the place in which wool
was worked up into cloth. Gradually the competi-
tion of the coal districts and steam engines have
taken away from Wiltshire the larger part of its
woollen manufactures, leaving only. Rome of the
finer and more expensive fabrics, not made for
the million, and uffeweling comparatively a small
amount of employment for the working and manu-
facturing population. Still even now there is a con-
siderable manufacturing industry in the valley of the
Avon, at Melksham, Bradford, and Trowbrage, and
a few minor places not included in any borough, the
population of which, if fairly enfrunehised in propor-
Bon to its wealth and industry, would have anim-
portant influence on the county elections.
lie the elections which is.eurred in Wiltshire from
ISlre to 15211, when the contest was corn-law or no
corn-law, " cheap bread or burley bannock" for the
working man, the weavers of Bradford and Trow-
bridge more than once turned the scale in favour of
the popular candidate against the territorial lando-
mats and high-price loving farmer. All that district
is now comprehended in the northern division, and
the liberal and rational manufacturing influence is
now entirely swamped by the fifty-pound tenant-at-
will voters. A certain degree of political independ-
ence !AVMs invariably to accompany every sort of
manufacturing industry, and to wane as such
industry fulls off ; in Wiltshire the falling off of all
kneels of manufactures has been constant and uni-
form. Within the period we have named, there also
existed at Salisbury LW extensive manufacture of a
species of light wonllen cloth, then used for the out-
door dresses of women and children, called Salisbury
flannel. This is now hat, and the fabric is unknown
at the present day. At Wilton, besides cloth
factories, there were also several extensive carpet
factories., fur making the carpets used for ordinary
purviews; now the cloth making has gone, and the
only carpet facture is that of Mysore. Ileacestoar.,
Whine splendid fabrics—for instance, the CII:ESN's
dean ing-neem carpet—are so well known to the
frequenter. of the Great Exhibition. Their concern,
however, though extensive, is nearly confined to the
finer and more expensive descriptions of goods, the
Axminster, Turkey carpets, and the like, which are
pure-hewed by the wealthy Amen alone: and its in-
fluence, so far as it could
.promote the political inde-
pendence of the district, is more than neutralised by
the dependent tenant farmers of that single pariah.
!Salisbury once alas possessed a considerable manu-
facture of cutlery, now no longer in existence; while
in common with Devizes, t'hippenham, and Marl-
borough, its extensive trade in the manufacture of
malt has been reduced to a mom nothing. The
burthen of the malt-tax. and, if local gossip he
ends d, the superior vigilance of modern excise offi-
cers, have reduced the malting business to that re-
quired to supply local consumption.
Besides the plat.es we leave mentioned as the pre-
vent seats of cloth manufactures, Caine, ehippen-
Sam, Devizes, Westbury., Warminster, and Ileytes-
bury, once esseeessed 'large and flourishing esta-
blishments of the like description, which are
now either lost or reduced to the lowest ebb.
Wiltshire must now therefore be regarded, almost
exclusively, as an agricultural county, and its repre-
sentation, county and borough, framed and moulded
with reference to that state of things. And in that
character it does not take high rank. Though there
is unquestionably some good farming in the county
and its farmers as a body have not been altogether
uninfluenced by the advances made in modern
has-
bandrv, its standard of cultivation is not
Sheri breeding on the chalk districts, and
farming in the vales, are the two main branch*d
husbandry pursued. In the former districts tinny
farmers arc men of considerable capital, yet they
usually hold farms too large to he managed with
the means they employ, in the same spirited way that
the farmers of the eastern and some of the northern
counties cultivate their land. Hence they feel the
pressure of low prices, and are probably more earnest
protectionists than their landlords and political
leaders. This will, for the present, render their
allegiance to the territorial magnates secure, and
place them in opposition to most of the changes,
financial and political, which the more liberal and
intelligent part of the population desire to effect.
In South M ilts, the division at present represented
by Mr. SIDNEY HERBERT and ME. Jens BENETT,
we should not be surprised, or displeased, to
ace some such manifestation of yeoman spirit as
lately occurred in North Hampshire, by the bringing
fors'ard a tenant farmer to replace Mr. BENET''',
whose age and infirmities will prevent his being again
propuved. In the present state of the constituency,
or indeed in the actual temper of the public mind,
such an attempt must be unsuccessful, for
the farmem would bring out a furious protec-
tionist, who would meet with no support from the
liberals, while the landlords would afford no tolera-
tion to such an insurrection of their political serfs.
As an exercise of political self-will and independence,
as a step to better things on the part of the farmers,
such an effort could not fail to be useful. We may I
'ate that with a population of 133,442 (in 1541) the
registered electors for the southern division are no
more than 4,954: a very manageable number for
the existing territorial influences to controL

Tit E protestant church of England presents, it must
be confessed, a rather remarkable spectacle to those
who consult its phenomena with a view to observe
how far it is walking in the steps of the Reforma-
tion. A clerical Rip ran trinkte, who had fallen
asleep three centuries ago in the halls of the Sor-
bonne, might on awaking and reading the doings of
the English clergy chronicled in the chinch news-
papers, fancy that no material chan had taken
place in the meanwhile in ecclesiastical matters, but
that the worthy doctors of the church were splitting

straws with scholastic tools as madly as ever. He
would see the venerable disputants settling con-
troversies by appeals to the fathers, and the canons,
and the councils. He would be delighted to webs*
well the modern representatives of the ancient pole-
mical church were trained in the art of flinging
heavy volumes of the schoolmen at each otha's
heads. With the exception that these theological
combatants had last the power of burning their ad-
versaries at the stake, and celebrating their victory
by jubilant hymns bowled round the funeral pyre,
he would find nothing changed. To show how true
would be this deduction, let us see what is the aspect
of church affairs presented in the latest published

church newspaper:
First and foremost COMM! HENRY of EXETER, In
the guise of a combatant. His antagonist is the
Archdeacon of Miontesex. The Archdeacon has
come out with a new invented life-boat for the pur-
pose of carrying on shore those who are sinking in
the waters of the baptismal controversy. Like a
clever fellow as he is, he thinks he can set up a firm
standing-place on the fulcrum whilst the two arms
of the theological lever arc oscillating with danger-
ous rapidity. Alas for his self-conceit ! He is
knocked clean off his perch by the burly
bishop, and told to scramble up again on
the terrible see-saw, with his eyes seeing
double, and his brain ringing with the force of the
" apostolic blows and knocks. The curious part of
the business is, that the two disputants—each of them
spending large incoasea derived from estates formerly
belonging to the Bomish church—fight their battles
with those very weapons which the protestant
church has long since repudiated. Scripture is
treated as of scarcely any account by both the Bishop
and the Archdeacon. PETAVIUS, BASIL, CHRISTIAN CS,
LUPUS, ST. GREGORY, ST. AMPHILOCLS, and last
and greatest Saint, THOMAS AQUINAS, arc the pet
authorities. ST. THOMAS, Or, u the Bishop in a letter
calls him irreverently, ST. Thom., is the great Metal
de batnalle that these spiritual antagonists are fond
of bestriding. The Archdeacon quotes with de-
light a passage from ST. THOMAS, and the Bishop
with most unclerical glee shows the Archdeacon that
he had better left the quotation alone. So trans-
ported indeed is the prelate with his fancied victory
that be cannot afford the time to compare
the Archdeacon's quotation with the original, but
thinking that his opponent must be wrong in asser-
tion as well as in logic, coolly assuming that as he
cannot draw a right conclusion he will not hesitate
to make a false quotation, he charges the unfortunate
Archdeacon with falsifying a passage. In justice to
his lordship it must be observed that he has made
the anaemic honorable in a letter. The apology is
curious.

At p. 20, 1 say, " The archdeacon cites it (the passage
from S. Thom) thus, whereas in S. Thom it is not so," &c.
It is only on this day that I have discovered that you have
cited the word correctly. I repeat that I am at •
loss to account for my mistake; and I cannot even
conceive any other cause, than that your argument seem.
lag to me, whet I read it, to require !'acres, I fan-
cied, on memory, that this was the word used
by you, and when several days afterwards, I found
the passage in St. Thomas, I most carelessly, in
the hurry of writing on this comparatively unimportant
particular, omitted to recur, as I ought, to your text.
As mere laymen we are bound to say we should
have been sorry to have made the mistake or the
apology. main point, however, is to draw at-
tention to the probable delight of our resuscitated
Sorbonnist at die spectacle of two dignitaries of the
reformed church s settling articles of faith by an ap-
peal to Saint Tflosiss-
The next subject that claims notice is a corres-
pondence between ti.e London Church Union and
the Bishop of LONDON. The committee of the union
are "desolated," as the French have it, at the decla-
ration of the Archbishop on the subject of orders.
They are in fear and tret.lbling lest the English
church should not have the "npostolical succession."
Will the Bishop of Losaioss I,'•avc them in the lurch
on this important point? Will his lordship not
allow them to print a passage Own one of his own
discourses, preached in 18-12, whit 'h is to the effect
that—

It was never thought of that there could be a church
without • bishop, nor that any persims should claim
authority to Tanager the word and sacraments who had
not been ordained by• bishop.
To this request his lordship's answer is cart and
precise. His sermons arc public furls, and he re-
tains unchanged the opinions expressed in them."
'fhis is nuts" for the Union," who doubtless will
immediately to print the opinion of the
tritisrediop in large letters, as an antidote to the per-
nicious opinion of th. Arohbi•Ahop. Prcluto and amok-
prelate pitted together! The church becoming "mi-
litant" within its hierarchical sanctuary! This is a
tolerably good imitation for a protestant church cf
the Pore at Avignon and the Pore at Rome. This
is the way that the London Church Union thinks of •
arriving at peace !
There are two only of the incidents which make
up es current history of our church. Are they
seek as CRAN M ER, and Rimer, and LATIMER, and
JEWELL, would look upon as tending to edification?
Have we seceded from the Itornish Communion for
three hundred years, and are now taking up the
worn out controversies of the church we repudiated
as worthy subjects for contest, while our own church
is standing still in the midst of the noblest field for
exertion ever presented to any spiritual institution.
While millions of children in England are unable to
read the book which the church declares contains all '
things necessary for salvation, are we to be told
that the hierarchy arc wearing out their souls in
Et(:xs
ttAre polemics ? there no crowded neighbour-
filled with poverty, misery, and crime,
into which these reverend disputants could enter
hand in hand, and still the odium theolsgb am
by a generous struggle to excel in administering
relief to the afflicted? Is not active Christianity the
one thing wanted? With Rome thundering at her
gates—with infidelity opposing her doctrines—with
public discontent expressed loudly against her mis-
appropriation of vast revenues—with a continually
increasing population, for which she is daily becom-
ing more unfit and unable to supply spiritual nourish-
ment—can our church afford to bury herself deep in
the worn-out subtleties of Peres the Lombard, and
TuostAs er (Sand) Tnouss AcirriAs ? Those who
think so are walking through the world blindfolded.
They know nothing of the signs of the times. The
church, like other institutions, must work in the
spirit of the age ; and it will no more be able to
stand, if its members are solicitous only of getting
knowledge second-hand from the sehoolmen, than
the members of the legal profession could hope to
stand if they were to content themselves with the
study of the Corpus Juris

THE promised reply to Mr. GLADSTONE'S letters
on the state prosecutions of the Neapolitan govern-
ment was published a few days since, at Naples. No
author's name appears on the title page ;we are
therefore to suppose the imprint, A'apolt, Slamperia
del no, to mean by authority of the government,
as the official journal announced, a few days back,
Mat an official refutation of the " calumnies and
Ifr011" narrated by the member for Oxford, would
shortly be printed. The title of the book is ; " Bat-
arra deolt Errori e delle Fallarie pubblieato del Sty-
nor Gladstone." But it happens that Mr.GbursrONE'S
letters are strictly prohibited in Naples, so that the
" Errors and Misstatements" referred to must be sup-
plied by the imagination of the Neapolitan public,
who arc to suppose one of the most distinguished
members of the British House of Commons (who
has printed, and put his name to what he has seen
and heard) has wilfully told a series of lies, which
are to be refuted by the anonymous statements of a
government, whose European reputation is by no
means enviable.
At p. 9 it is stated, " And the statuto"(the consti-
tution) obtained by them (the agitators) with fraud
and deceit, and bestowed in the utmost faith and
loyalty by the KlNG,'lres used as a means to destroy
the monarchy and social order. From whence pro-
ceeded the aversion of a large ma`ority of the people
of the kingdom to the statute before mentioned, and
the ardent, spontaneous, unanimous vote, in a
thousand ways expressed, for its abolition, and return
to pure monarchy." In the constitutional preface
the KING says " Listening to the unitTrsal desire of
our people," &e.; and again, in the royal proclama-
by " .

tion .d by the KING. after the evCnts. of May,
1848 ; It is our firm determination to maintain the
constitution of Feb. 10, which is alone compatible
with the various and present wants of this part of
Italy." Here we have two royal declaratins that
the constitution was desired by the universal voice,
and necessary for the country. The people them-
selves expressed their views when the constituency
polled 117,000 votes, and when they celebrated the