The Express.
London, England, 1866-07-28 00:00:00

THE WEEKLY PRESS.

The Saturday Beeiew deems it very probable that
peace will be concluded within a few days, for France is
pressing hard for it, and Austria will scarcely resist,
but the Emperor of Austria can hardly fail
to be aware that when the peace is signed
his empire is virtually at an end. The
Austrian provinces are very unlike each other, and
have no affection for each other. They would like to be
governed each atter its own pattern, with a nominal
central authority which each might bully and worry as it
pleased. If peace is made now, they will in all probability
get their way, and then the head of this central authority
may for a time be called the Emperor of Austria ; but
Austria, as Austria has hitherto been known in Europe,
will have disappeared utterly, and will be known only in

history.
Upon the Hyde-park disturbances the Saturday Review
writes in terms almost identical with those of the Standard.
Those who attended in theparkware &mischievous rabble ;
Mr. Bright, who is called a Birmingham metal demagogue,
stopped away through personal cowardice, and whether
Mr. Bodes told • falsehood or not the Saturday Review
does not care to say. Mr. Gladstone's silence is more than
unbecoming—it is ignoble. If the recurrence of this state
at things is not prevented, parliament must cease to sit
and the sovereign to reside in London.
The Examiner does not think the parks proper places
for political meetings, but whether the crown has the right
to close them, not as a matter of general regulation, but
for special occasion of exclusion, is not so clear a question.
We admit that a large meeting like that proposed for
Monday, held late in the evening, might not disperse with-
out some disorders ; but the question for sensible men
was, whether greater disturbance was not to be appre-
hended from preventing the meeting than from permitting
it. Can any one suppose that a tenth part of the violence
and mischief done on Monday would have bad place if the
gates had not been shut against the people ? The measures
of prevention adopted brought about the greatest amount
of the disorder and turbulence they were intended to
preclude. The right of the Crown, whatever it may be,
required no high-handed proceeding for its vindication,
and it might have been distinctly explained that the
meeting was permitted on grounds which could not draw
it into precedent. And with peculiar grace might this
government have treated the case as exceptional, and
refrained from interfering with the assemblage lest
their motive should be misconstrued as hostility
to the object. The sentences of the magistrates
at Marlborough-sheet and Marylebone are remark-
able for their severity. That is within the discre.
tion of the magistrates who have to administer justice,
but what they have not to adminster is abuse, and we are
sorry to see ironical remarks which are always out of place
on the bench, and a strain of invective which, whether
deserved or not, should not proceed from magistrates.
The Examiner then gives several !specimens of Mr. Knox's
I.higuage, which, if it once comes into use, may be em-
ployed on more questionable occasions, as it was a couple
of hundred years ago, when judges seasoned their sen-
tenors with vituperation and high law officers dressed up
their charges like Billingsg•tea
The Spectator also says that the polio° magistrates,
especially Mr. Knox, seem not so much to have inves-
tigated many of the cases as taken the part of the police
in the controversy. The evidence given by some of the
prisoners as to the conduct of the police themselves,
especially after they had secured their prisoners in the
Marble Arch, was very strong to show that the police had
taken the whole affair es a personal quarrel, and revenged
supposed private injuries as they could. Timothy Cal-
ved, a solicitor, gave evidence that after he was in the
Marble Arch a constable said, " serve you out !"
when he received a tremendous blow on the head, which
covered him with blood. On this evidence Mr.
Knox commented thus :—" I am afraid that kicks
and blows and stones are the natural conse-
quences to those who venture into mobs of
the kind that assembled last night," which was sad
sophistry as a defence for an asserted attack by
policemen on prisoners in their own police-office.
As to the original cause of quszrel,itis difficult to say which
party is most in the wrong—the orators who seem to fancy
that because the nation owns Somerset House therefore
everybody is at liberty to write his letters there ; or the tory
organs and speakers, who will keep asserting that the parks
are private property ; or the fanatics for order who, like
Mr. Cochrane, taunt Mr. Bright, absent attending his
daughter's wedding, with skulking from the riot he had
himself provoked; or, like Mr. Adderley, lump mechanics
and " roughs" together under the epithet of " rowdies." To
say the parks are private property is a legal quibble. It is
convenient to treat them as such sometimes, particularly
when a member of the royal family wants a sinecure
rangership, but they are substantially, like everything
else paid for by the nation, national property. That
phrase, however, does not mean in England, as the Star
seems to think, that everybody has right of entry, but
simply that the ultimate right of management
must rest with some officer responsible for his
acts to the representatives of the people. Lord John
Manners is so responsible, and the right of property for
practical purposes must, as we understand oouatitutional
principles, rest with him. Without his permission,which
he can be compelled by parliament either to give or with.
hold, nobody has any right in the narks, either for public
meetings or anything else, any more than they have in
the British Museum or the National Gallery. It is the
country which excludes itself, through its own officers,
from its own buildings or parks, for its own convenience,
and neither the crown nor Sir Richard Mayne. As to the
propriety of meetings being held in the park that is •
question of expediency simply.

A Cabinet Council was held yesterday at the
official residence of the First Lord of the Treasury,
in Downing-street. The ministers present were
Earl Derby, the Lord Chancellor, the Duke of
Buckingham, the Earl of Mabneabury, the Right
Hon. Spencer H. Walpole, Lord Stanley, the Earl
of Carnarvon, General Peel, Viscount Cranborne,
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir John Peking-
ton, Sir S. Northcote, Lord J. Manners, the Right
Hon. Gathorne Hardy, and Lord Naas.
ARE PROROGATION OF PAILLIAXIIM—It is said
that the ministerial whitebait dinner will take place th's
day week, and that parliament will be prorogued by royal
commission on the following Thursday.
BOARD OF TRADE, WHITEHALL, JULY 26.—The
Right Hon. the Lords of the Committee of Privy Council
for Trade have received notice from her Majesty's consul
at Ancona, that • quarantine of 15 days is imposed upon
all arrivals at that port from Liverpool and tineis.—
&nee.
BOARD OF TRADE, WHITEHALL, JULY 25.—The ,
Committee of Privy Council for Trade have received front
the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs a copy of a no-
tice as to the ingress and egress of ships at the ports of
Gravosa, Trade, Blaine, and the =toe! war of °attar°,
which is published in last night's
BOARD or TRADE, WHITEHALL, JULY 26.—The
Right Honourable the Lords of the Committee of Privy
Council for Trade have received, from the Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs a oopy of a despatch from her
Majesty's Consul at Tunis, reporting that the Tunisian
Sanitary Board has subjected the steamer Corsairs, from
London, to 48 hours' quarantine.—Gazdte.
MIDNIGHT MEETING Iktol7EHßlCT.—Dwint the
present month seven midnight meetings have been eld—
live in London and two at Bristol. Those in London were
bald respectively at Westminster,Somer's-road,Hingdand,
and two at Cavendish-hall, Mortimer-street. 180 girls
were present at these meetings, and were addressed
Meson. Robt. Bader, Captain Gardiner, Rev. 0. Bid•m°r,
te. Thirty-six have been sent from the office to Homes
during the month, end four temporarily relieved. There
were 130 unfortunates present at the two Bristol meetings,
who were addressed by Captain Beecher, Captain Meyer,
I Kr. Home, Mr. Thomas, and the bon. secretary from Lon-
don. The malt is sot yet known, but not less them 15
poor girls have been rescued, four of whom have beet sent
to Homes in London.
A meeting of the Schools Inquiry Commission
was held at 2, Victoria-street, on Thursday. Present:
Lord Taunton (in the chair), Lord Lytbdton, Rev. Dr.
Temple, Mr. Arland, M.P., Mr. Erie, Q.C., and Dr.
Stoner. The secretary Mr. H. J. Roby, LA., M•seled
the meeting.