The Express.
London, England, 1866-02-03 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, SATURDAY EVENING,

taken to the occasion which he selected, and his
remarks may be held to give exaggerated impor-
tance to a matter in itself of little moment ; but
the question having been raised, judgment most
be given in his favour. The symbols of authority
and of office are not, we admit, to be altogether dis-
pensed with. They impress, and impress beneficially,
the minds both of those who wear them, and of the
public which beholds them. We should be sorry
to see the SPEAKER presiding over the delibera-
tions of the House unwigged and disrobed. There
ought to be something to distinguish the functionary
of the State, or the representative of an order in
the State, from the private gentleman. But
neither this principle, nor the fancied analogy of
judicial and forensic costume in the courts of law,
applies to the case of members of Parliament, who
discharge their public duties in any sort of dress
they like, and go to the SPEAKER'S evening parties
in uniform. They legislate in shooting-jackets
and tweed trousers, and put on swords and bag-
wigs in order to dine. If barristers and judges
pleaded causes and gave decisions in morning
dress, and clad themselves in their gowns and
full-bottomed wigs for society, the parallel might
be urged which now fails. It is absurd that gen-
tlemen meeting for the enjoyment of social in-
tercourse should array themselves for that purpose
in the grotesque and inconvenient costume of a
century back. Some persons in as well as out of
Parliament, no doubt, value anything that distin-
guishes them from their fellows. They like mas-
querading ; but others among them feel an ugly
disguise to be a folly, and are half ashamed of
it and of themselves in putting it on, though
they prefer, sensibly enough, complianoe with
a foolish, but harmless, custom, to eccentric
departure from it. There is some propriety, per-
haps, in setting apart a special dress in which
English subjects may do homage to their SOVE-
REIGN. But this case is unique ; and why in the
world should not gentlemen of the nineteenth
century, when they meet each other, or pay their
respects to one who among them is simply primus
inter pares, dress as gentlemen of the nineteenth
century 1 The good taste of the age is in favour
of simplicity, and against extravagance of cos-
tume; and if the SPEAKER were, as Mr.
BRIGHT suggests, to substitute for the Act
of Uniformity an Act of Toleration, we
should soon see the last, in his saloons, of the
fantastic and costly garb which now flaunts it
there. But if we did not, there is no fear that the
inconvenience which a poet of HENRY IVA time
denounces as limiting attendance at the levee of
his day would thin the SPEAKER'S receptions.
If any wight, virtuous but narrow-clothed,

To lords' courts nowadays go,
His company is, to most folk, loth's&
Men scorn him, for he is arrayed so.
In their conoeit there is no wight virtuous
_ _

Bat he whose array is outrageous.
The array is outrageous enough now ; but it is
not regarded u the criterion of either public or
private virtue.

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.
(THIS DAY.)

CHIUAJ PRIVATZE/Ui.

Spain, the only European power which refused

co•cnrreoos with the resolution of the Congress of Paris to
abolish privakoring, now seems doomed, observes the
Times, to suffer from the maintenance of the practice it
held so dear. Chill, in a perfectly legal way, as the abolition
was restricted to wars between powers which aooepted the
declaration of Paris, is inning letters of marque, and the
probability seems to be that Spanish merchantmen will at
no distant period be absolutely swept from the seas.
The Times • only hopes that the mucous of the
Chilians hitherto, and the bright prospects before
them, will not indire the nation to turn • deaf ear to
overtures of peace. There con k 3 no doubt which of the
two combatants bag the hotter prospects. When hostilities
are carried on by ships commissioned with letters of marque,
Providence is on the side of the longest purses, end we
have on the one hind Ch"i wealthy and in good
credit, and on the other Spain bankrupt at home
and dishonoured abroad. The instructions of the
Chilian government are scrupulously careful, too, of
general interests, and it is evident their publication fore-
bodes • new and more active phase of the war. Oa the
other hand, everything in Spain just now points to the
possibility of an acceptance of arbitration and the re-
establishment of peace ; and it is the duty of all neutral
nations, when such a favourable opportunity is offered for
their action, to intervene and assist • conclusion probably
desired in secret by each belligerent.

of the mall tax would come ; and the Times itself doubts
whether that tax would long survive • uniform' represen-
tatis• of numbers. If this thqj, it says, be Mr.
Bentinek's object, and If Vale be his teat of a fait
representation and &mad legislation, we think he
can do nothing better than strike up au 'Mabee
with Mr. Bright. He may depend on it that the
consumers of malt liquor are far more numerous, far more
interested, far more energetic, and far more able to have
their way, than the preduoers—that is, the producers of
barley. The country gentlemen have only to give the me-
tropolis seventy members, Lancashire fifty, and Yorkshire
nearly as many more, and they will see the malt duty
knocked off as easily as the " head" off a pot of porter.
They will see a few other things knocked off, too ; but
mind. It will be an inestimable comfort to feel that
everyone has an equal share in the representation, even
if he has ne sham in anything else.
The Duly News thinks the American people will note
the recurrence in M. Dronyn de Lhuys' despatches with
regard to Mexico of the phrase "we return to the prin-
ciple of non-intervention"—.,phrase which has served its
turn so long with respect to Rome. According to • despatch
dated the 2nd of but mouth, the Emperor interprets this
returning to non-intervention as an Intention t 3 create a
double intervention, securing the papal government in its
sovereignty—a moral intervention which no independent
nation with a spark of pride would tolerate. Meanwhile to
Italy the Daily News would say, " Trust to the force of
circumstances, and to what the Foreign Miniter of France
so well describes as the iofinence of moral and materiel
intimate, and to the effect of time." For time is the
sure and viaterious ally of every good and just cause.
The Post understands that, as without the authority of
a local legislature the Queen's commissioners in Jamaica
have no power to compel the attendance of witnesses,
certain parties in the colony contemplate calling the
extinct assembly into life again to confer the requisite
powers ; but it trusts the Colonial Minister will listen to
no such suggestion, and that if any additional powers are
required they will be conferred at once by an act of the
imperial parliament.
The Herald can add to the statement that the Reform
Bill will not be produced before the Easter recess, the
information that the details, and even the outlines of the
scheme have not been settled, and that the members of
the cabinet have as little notion as anybody else what they
mean to do or how far they intend to go. The only point
on which they have really made up their minds is that
they will carefully abstain from anything conclusive or
comprehensive.

The Telegraph think, it a legitimate subject of con-
troversy whether the time absorbed by the process of taking
the initiatory oath in parliament is profitably spent. Prac-
tically the oath affords no safeguard, and that • special
form should be imposed upon Roman catholics is invidious
and absurd. With respect to the majority of members, the
sweariog-in is an inoffensive, if somewhat superfluous care-
mony ; with regard to the Roman catholic', the correl stive
proceeding is highly offensive, and utterly valueless s" •
protection to the interests of the community.
The Star attaches considerable importaeoe to the Pberal
demonstration in Surrey. All the speakers concurred in
the necessity for reform ; all, including Mr. Layard, made
the presumed faithfulness of the ministry to reform, the
basis of confideace in the reconstituted government.
The last gift of Mr. Peabody's appears to the Adrertizer
to make the future of London decidedly hopeful. By the
constant accruing of fresh funds, from the rental of 12,001.
• year, there will arise the constant building of fresh houses,
until, before 1885, there may be a sum of 25,0001. annually
available, and a large new model lodging-beans built every
year. Nor can the example fail to be contagious. The
corporation of London, encouraged by the success of their
recent effort, will go further. Wealthy landowners, when
they find the undertaking no longer hopeless, will begin
to lend their aid. The tette, the feeling, will spread, and
we may find, before • dozen years have passed over, •
widespread and hearty agreement, that the working men
of London, in whatever part of the metropolis they may be
placed, shall be able to find, and to enter without difff•
catty, • well contrived, well provided, and wholesome
habitation.

the Court.

OSBORNE, FEB., 2.

Her Majesty drove out yesterday afternoon, ac-
companied by Pramers Helene, Prineeas Lott4e, and Prince
Christian of Schleswig-Holstein.

A deputation, consisting of Sir John Simeon, Bart., M.P.,
Admiral Denham, the Rev. W. H. Girdlestone (Vicar of
Newchurch-cum-Ryde), Mr. Thomas Dubwood (Chairman
of the Ryde Commissions*, Mr. Edmund Hands, Mr. W.
IL Pollen (Clerk to the Hyde Commissioners), and Mr.
John R. C.E., had an interview with the Right
Hon. T. Milner Gibson, at the office of the Board of Trade
yesterday, upon the subject of the Ryde Station Bill.
The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council sat yester-
day. Present : Lord Chelmsford, Sir E. V. Williams, Sir
J. Colvile. and Sir Lawrence Peel.

Deepatehes were mot yesterday from the Colonial•offioe
to the Governor of St. Helen►

CABINET COIINCIL. —Summonses bsve been issued
for a Cabinet Council on Mooday afternooo, at two o'clock,
at Earl Russell's official residence in Downing-street,

The Field-Marahal lev6e,
announced for to-day, is unavoidably postponed till Wed.
wedgy the 7th instant; but u there may possibly be
officers who have come some distance for the purpose of
seeing his Royal Highness, to whom it might be inconve-
nient to remain in Loudon till the last day named, the mili-
tary secretary will be happy to receive them to-day sod
communicate their requests to the Duke of Cambridge.
. . . _ _

. _
His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge is
confined to his house with an attack of gout.
The Archbishop of Dublin has arrived at
Maurity's Hotel, from the Palace, Dublin.,

Sir Hugh Cairns's health, it is said, is daily im-
prow*, and he porpoise returning to England at the end
of the present month, to fulfil his parliamentary and pro-
fissional dutle

The Very Rev. the Dean of Westminster sad
Lady Augusta Stanley eaterta'ned a select party at dinner
yesterday even:ng, at their residence in Dean's•yard.
. .

It is probable (says the Army and Navy Gazette)
that Major• General W. C. E. Napier, now ouoimanding •
brigade in Ireland, will succeed Major• General Hamilton as
Vice-President of the Council of Military Education. Be-
fore his appointment to his present command. Major-
General Napier was for ems time commandant of the staff
college.

A deputation from the General Assembly of the
Presbyterian church waited oe the Lord-Lieutenant yerter-
day, and presented a memorial against any change in the
saldoeal system of education. His excellency replied that
government had not the slightest intention to disturb the
principle of th►t system in Ireland.

To a deputation from Galway who waited upon
the Lord Lieutenant on Thursday, asking that troops
might be stationed there to resist any attempt to effect a
hostile landing, his excellency said that there were other
places on the western coast of Ireland an likely to be
selected as Galway for making a hostile landing, if such
were contemplated or would be attempted. There was not
a harbour or week on that onset of which the some this
could not be said ; but he did not believe that any attempt
at a hostile landing would be made. Applications from
various places had been forwarded to the government for
troops, but it would be impossible to comply with all of
them.

Opera In English will shortly be given at Drury
Lane 'Theatre. with Mr. Etonscliot as conductor.

Schumann's Paradise and the Peri is advertised
for the Philharmonic concert.

Signor Mongini is said to be among the artists
roomed by Mr. Marleooo for his Itali►n meson.

Mr. Sothern is studying a new part, in
comedy by Mr. Westland Marston. The comic vein of
the ►uthor of The Patrician's DauAter (observes the
Athencrum) has not been worked so much as men who
reeolleet hie drama of Rough Polities desire. The new
play ie in four acts ; report speaks highly of its literary
merits ; sad the Haymarket mummy are mid to be much
Is love with it. Mr. bothers, "specially, is said to ban
a character-part of singular simplicity and power.
The Fellows of the Astronomical Society will
sat their annual thence together at the Freemasons'
Tavern, on Friday neat, under the new president, the
Rev. O. Pritchard.

Tat Fox Cram —The first meeting of the Fox
Club thbryeer will tete place at Brooks's, on Saturdey, tke
10Ik of February.