The Express.
London, England, 1867-10-01 00:00:00

ILLYIILIMILT.

Tia arming°, ROMEO AND JUWCC. Mamma
Howe, Rogers, Kendal, Clark, Compton, Re. :17biresiemllals.
übss
Scott Shldoss. Chippendale, He.-111 PARIS AND BACK
Pat LA. Mr. Backstuae. —And SHOCKING LS ENT'S.

isnrmm

Tens Evrerso, POOll P11.1.1147DDY. Messrs. Dominick
Mussy & Oreshara ; Miss Polly Marshall. —ARKAILI NA YOGI: E.
Mr. & Mrs. Boacicsult. Messrs. Vining, D. Murray, M'Lesn, &c..
Miss Hughes—Anti NO. ONE, ROUND THE CoILNEE.

LYCEUM.

Tars Entnuto, TUE OF Tlllt MILL—TILE
LADY OF LYONS. Mr. Feebler, Messrs. Jordan, Addison,
Calhaern, Mellon. Dalton. Stuart, and Frances; Misses Ms-
worthy and Carlotta Lc:hong, Mrs. Marston.

erww.

Tins Ensnia. OUR DOIIESTICS7 Hewn. Yawns, Thorne,
and James. Mesdames Johnstone & Weatheraby —T II LATFAT
EDITION UT KENILWORTH. Hairs. James is Thorne; Mes-
dames Ada Bwanborough, Holt, de..—And DEAY AS A YOoT.

D&PPANRIA.

TEM IMMO, THE MAID OP MEXICO.—THE TWO GRP-
GOItIn.—The American Minstrels and Japanese Tommy ; the
wondrous Gymnasts. MM. ConteHier and kilice.—And ALOJ.Z
IN THE PIRATES LAIN. Mr. Reynolds; Miss Cureney.

NIGH /FAT= AT LONDON =IDOL
fin DAT —Mornlac 3b Mak— _..A2barnoce. AIL 11s.
to•Nomow—lloraleg. 4h. 29a---Aftwoocio, 41‘ itioa.

LONDON, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1.

THE questions suggested by the Reform Act of
this year are certainly of immediate and perma-
nent importance, but the increasing proofs of our
ignorance of the probable operation of the Act take
away much of the practical value of what is
written respecting it. It is very difficult to pro-
phesy where "a leap in the dark " may land you,
even when the ground is tolerably well known,
but it becomes the merest guess work when no
data for an estimate of probabilities can be said to
exist. It is possible to make a rough calculation
of the number of persons likely to be added to
the constituencies, but the effect of the addition
on the political balance of power is altogether
another question, and one which can only be pos-
sibly answered by events. Yet it is in precisely
this direction that political prophecy has assumed
the must confident airs. The triumph of demo-
eracy has been said, and in a manner sung, and many
eloquent laments have been uttered over the days of
aristocratic political chivalry now said to be clean
gone for ever. Even the middle classes are de-
clared to have abdicated, and to have left a clear
field for the predominance of the uneducated and
the poor. The reign of economists which suc-
ceeded that ancient chivalry over which BUILKIS
lamented, will itself be succeeded by a yet lower
and more vulgar rule ; culture will give way to
instinct; VALENTINE will turn his back on poli-
tics, and OWION himself will henceforth occupy his
place. Of course if this were in the least degree
true, it would be exceedingly interesting and im-
portant. But it would be well that some more
distinct information should be given us as to the
basis on which such expectations rest. Nervous
people suddenly awakened out of a profound sleep
are not, at the moment, the best judges as to the
origin and meaning of the movements which have
aroused them, and we must see better causes for
their alarm than any they have given us as yet
before we share it with them. That the time for
some long-hindered changes is rapidly coming may
be readily admitted, without any necessity to fear
that those changes will be either violent
or premature. That an extension of the
franchise, if not coupled with unworkable con-
ditions, will introduce more of the popular ele-
ment into Parliament, and make it more respon-
sive to the movements of the popular will, is what
everybody naturally expects, and reformers hope ;
but to conclude that politics will be vulgarized or
" plebified," or that Parliament will be assimi-
lated to vestries and boards of guardians, is
altogether unwarranted and foolish. Yet, in some
quarters it seems to be taken for granted that this
will be the case. It is true that they are quarters
from which smartness is more to be expected than
wisdom, and to which we should never look for
popular sympathy or a just estimate of popular
movements. An unreasoning prejudice against
everything which has a popular or plebeian look ;
an affected over-estimate of the value of " col-
" ture ;" a dread of vulgarity which shrinks from
all earnestness for fear it should put on an un-
gentlemanly
look, is not the state of mind to
which much power of political prophecy is likely
to be granted. It looks at the present through
its prejudices, and at the future through its fears.
It knows nothing of the people, and shrinks from
making their acquaintance as a nervous studcn.
shrinks from strangers. It has no faith in com-
mon sense, no trust in the popular instinct of
justice, no meats of appreciating the popular
conscience, and when these elements come into a
political calculation it finds its arithmetic to be at
fault. They are unknown quantities, but, being
entirely omitted in the reckoning, the answer is
false.

There are no good reasons for believing that a
large extension of tLe franchise will diminish the
real influence of education and culture, and poli-
tical skill and knowledge. It has often been said
that the experience of America would suggest this
result ; but the able letter which we lately
published from our special correspondent was
a complete and exhaustive reply to this
statement. In America, as elsewhere, popu-
lar constituencies, other things being equal,
prefer the man of large culture and exten-
sive knowledge to candidates who do not
possess them. When cultivated men shrink from
contact with the people, they are necessarily left
in the obscurity they court ; but where culturJ
and popular sympathy are united, popular appre-
ciation is sure to follow. It was an edu-
cated constituency which rejected Mr. GLAD-
molts, and a popular constituency which
elected Mr. Mai. Of course in each of
these cases the election turned as much on agree-
ment or disagreement with the opinions of the
candidate as on his peasonal eminence and
attainments. In one of the two most edu-
cated constituencies in the kingdom, therefore, a
slight divergence of opinion and policy weighed
more with the electors than the most exalted
personal claims ; and in one of the most popular
constituencies intellectual repute, combined with
substantial but not complete agreement in opinion,
decided the people's choice. These examples are
not at all exceptional ; they are, on the contrary,
illustrative. The real foundation for the fear that
educated men will withdraw from politics is the
instinctive feeling that the opinions of certain
cultivated classes differ so widely from those of
the common people that the people will look

elsewhere for their representatives. The popular
element has been so entirely excluded from the
great seats of learning, that the educated classes
are unable to understand popular wants, or to
unction popular demands. But if this is the
case, it is ridiculous to blame the people be-
cause they will not prefer men to mea-
sures, and do not consider culture to be of more
importance than knowledge of their wants and
sympathy with their opinions. The theory and
practice of free government is that the people
shall choose representatives, not masters, and it is
of far more importance to the working of free
institutions that Parliament should really repre-
sent the nation than that it should be filled with
scholars. Matter is far more than manner, and
common sense in a rough dialect is better than
the most beautifully enunciated nonsense. Prac-
tical energy, however uncouth, is better than the
most cultured incapacity for affairs ; and if rough
energy is to push scholarship aside and exclude
culture from the political sphere, it will not be the
fault of the people, but of the educated class. The
leadership of the nation is for those who have the
force, the energy, the popular sympathy, and the
forgetfulness of self, to take the lead. These things
being equal, culture has the best chance. It has
the lead, and can keep it if it chooses. We be-
lieve it will keep it—not, perhaps, in the persons
of men whose education has taught them to despise
the people, but in the persons of mon who unite a
varied culture with great popular sympathy, who
know the Past but believe in the Present, and
who see the picturesqueness of our ancient institu-
tions, but are willing to adapt them to modern
needs.

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.
(THIS DAY.)