The Express.
London, England, 1860-04-13 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, APRIL 13.

WE believe it would be a libel on the intelli-
gence of our extra-metropolitan countrymen to
assume that they regard the great National Insti-
tution in Bloomsbury with the same sort of
interest and curiosity as the Museum iii Baker-
street. The first visit of our country cousins is
doubtless paid to the ingenious Frenchwoman's
establishment, where one can pass an hour in the
highest and the vilest company, from WILLIAM
R PTA to Dr. Senoras; inclusive, and be en-
tertained by prime ministers, field-marshals,
monarchs, burglars, and assassins, unawares.
Probably even the second visit of our provincial
friends is not to that majestic structure which
has sprung from the mustard-seed of Sir Halm
SIAIANE.A liberal gift ; probably they take it
third or fourth on the list of sights to be "done,"
and then only scamper over it in a confused, per-
functory, and bothered manner, with a stupefying
sense of being fearfully and wonderfully ignorant,
and a prevailing stuffiness of brains and stiffness
of necks. Nevertheless, there is a considerable
public above and beyond the vulgar mob of sight-
seers and holiday-makers, and above and beyond
the habitual score or two of readers and students
to whom the British Museum is worth all the rest
that London has to show, and who enter the
building in the grateful and religious spirit of
pilgrims. Not only is the library a precious poe.
session to many a bookless yet devoted learner,
not only are the sculptures a feast to many an

uninstructed yet sensitive and discerning eye, but
the natural history collections are an inexhaustible
treasure to thousands of humble and earnest
inquirers. Flippant partisans and empty courtiers,
ready official speakers and dull committee-men in
Parliament, are apt to regard the British Museum
question, which recurs with increasing force every
year, as one of many in which rival influences
dispute the tricks and honours. But to a large
and increasing number of solid and serious minds
out of the reach of party intrigues, the question
how the British Museum shall be rescued from
impending chaos, and its light made to shine before
men, is a question far outweighing in importance
the rise or fall of ministries, or of empires. The
official soul has no conception of the value of all
that concerns the growth and cultivation of science
to hundreds of quiet and contentedlyobecure people
to whom politics are the chaff of circumstance.
Cabinet Ministers who go down six at a time to
outvote the impartial judgment of trustees, take
little thought of the fact that to poor and busy
men miles and moments are of consequence, when
they come in haste, or from afar, to drink at the
national fountain of knowledge in the West Central
district, for to Cabinet Ministers and courtiers the
interests of science may be the second considera-
tion, but a nice little job is the first. Happily the
duty of the English press is to represent public and
permanent, not personal and passing, claims. We
are accustomed to pay more respect to the needs
of a friendless student than to the manoeuvres of all
the Cabinet Ministers present or to come. This
is why, perhaps, we feel a little prejudiced in
favour of that " Memorial of the promoters and
" cultivators of science on the proposed severance
" from the British Museum of its Natural History
" collections," which was addressed to her Ma-
EATS'S Government two years ago. This docu-
ment was si,fnedeery eminent name in science
in this country, and it condemned in no hesi-