The Express.
London, England, 1866-03-12 00:00:00

THE ifjPRESS, MONDAY EVE:"43I, MARCH 12,4'186ti:
.1"1"1

tends to correct, and there can be, nopmsible
reason todoubt that a strict adherenpson 1,,U partel
the leading financial and credit componitmathe plait
principles which lie at the root .of the of thif
joint stock banks—establishments which were at
one period still more vehemently decried—will be
attended with encouraging results in their case
also. In a word, it will be lamentable if the
public should be turned away from wholesome and
legitimate enterprise merely because one or two
mismanaged companies have deservedly gone to the
wall.

It any reader has fondly imagined the disgrace-
ful evils of Clerkenwell and Lambeth to be glaring
exceptions, not to be found elsewhere in the metro-
politan district, he would do wisely to make a pil-
grimage to Rotherhithe. Naked men and boys are
packed away there four in a bed, the bed
being the raised door of the casual wards, and the
wards small closets without windows, light, or fire,

Clondemned by the Poor-law Board and by every
one who has seen them as shockingly unfit for their
purpose, these wretched dens are maintained by the
guardians of Rotherhithe as appropriate places in
which to thrust unwashed casuals out of sight. Nor
have these gentlemen the excuse so speciously put
forward by those Clerkeuwell guardians who oppose
reform. The Rotherhithe workhouse stands on five
acres of ground, and has ample vacant space on which
might be erected casual wards, labour sheds, bath
rooms and every appliance suited to the reception
and discipline of vagrants ; but the guardians prefer
the cultivation of vegetables and garden stuff, and
in spite of advice, entreaty, and warning, continue
to stow vagrants away in the vile places we describe.
A,t first sight it is very difficult to imagine for what
these closed-in cupboards were originally designed.
They are too large, and dark, and noisome for rab-
bit hutches, too cramped and small for one-stall
stables, and are not fitted either in shape or size for
coal cellars or potato sheds. They are situate under
a projecting portion of the old house, now used as a
receiving-ward and for workshops; and from the
uniformity of their stout wooden door., and the
substantial character of their outside fastenings, re-
semble nothing so much as a menagerie in which
to place beasts too obscene to be allowed the
light of day. Nor does their appearance belie
their original use. Built in the bad old times, as
appropriate places in which to confine pauper
lunatics, the idiot and the imbecile, the• harmless
maniac and the dangerous madman, have all been
immured here to shout and yell and frantically
gnaw their hearts out in darkness and In solitude.
it occasionally happens even now that a mad
pauper ib fastened up here for a day or so until
arrangements can be made to transfer him to an
asylum. In this case the mode of restraint is ex-
ceedingly primitive. Bedding material is so
fastened over the patient's body that he has not
full use of arms or legs : this done, he is per-
mitted to toss and roll and gibber within the
limits of his tether, those within bail being
comfortably certain that he can neither harm them
nor escape from his dungeon.
These are the exceptional uses to which the

Rotherhithe dungeons are put in the present day,
and though we commend the exception to the strin-
gent attention of the proper authorities, it is their
sightly oeoupation by vagrants we are considering
now. Let it be clearly understood that we are not
speaking of small rooms in which the bed occupies
nearly all the available space ; but of beds in
which there is not an inch on any side between the
framework and the four walls. If the upper shelf
of a dining-room sideboard were fitted with a bag
of straw, and four undressed dolls stretched on it
side by side, with their feet towards the door,
which door was made a third of the usual size
so as to keep a considerable corner in darkness, the
reader would have a fair model of the casuals inthe
Rotherhithe wards. In the first of these two per-
fectly naked men were lying close together on Sa-
turday night. There was no pretence at division,
and no shelf for clothes. Each man's suit lay on

its owner's body, so es to supplement the two rugs

providshi by the workhouse, and both sleepers
seemed bewildered when asked why they slept
naked instead of keeping on their shirts. The
usual pestilential stench came forth directly the
door was opened, and those present endeavoured to
peer into the dark hole where these poor wretches
lay. They would have a task of work in the morn-
big, but had not been bathed. The dens for women
and young children are in another yard, but are in
every particular the same as the men's, save that a
better supply of rugs is provided.
There has been some grandiloquent talk lately as
to the manufastory of vagrants and the contamina-
tion and deterioration of the honest labourer whose
necessities compel him to spend a night in a casual
ward. Condemning a man to sleep for long hours in
a horribly poisonous atmosphere is perhaps as
cient a way of weakening and rendering him unfit
for manual labour as the most malicious could
I desire ; and apart from the depravity it invites and
`the indecency it insists upon, the Rotherhithe
system assuredly does this. The Guardians here
have not a shadow of excuse. They hove space on
which to build, and the expense of new casual
wards would be repaid them out of the common
fund. They have in the same enclosure a new in-
firmary, which is airy and well appointed ; and an
old workhouse, which has to be propped and sup-
ported to prevent its crumbling and falling to
*owl from internal weakness and decay. They
know and have partially tried the right, and deli-
berately approve and uphold the wrong, as if
to confound the theorists who would have us be-
lieve that were parochial bodies left to themselves,
their action would be politic, sensible, or humane.

The Marquis of Lansdowne and Earl Russell have
enbecribed to the Rooney memorial to Lard Palisade°.

At the meeting of the members of the Royal In-
stitution an Friday evening, Sir Jobe Lubbock delivered a
lecture as "The Transformation of lnaecta"

The Lord Mayor takes the chair at the dinner of
the General Theatrical Fund on the 28th inst.

The Winter Exhibition of the Society of Painters
in Water Colours will dose on Saturday next, the 17th
instant.

The "sending-in days" for the Royal Academy
are the 9th and 10th of April.
Eugene Pellet= is at work on a sequel to his
" Babylon Modem." It is to be entitled "La Luxe,"
and his Moods say will hit very hard and aim vary high.
itadderecktatsch, the Berlin Punch, line a sketch
in which Prawns and Austria as Roman gladiators are ad-
vancing towards a throne, on which Louis Napoleon is
seated, clad in the toga, and his Mow encircled with the
laurel wreath of the victorious Impostor. The two gin,-
diatom hold their "words on high in the fashion of their
ancient prototypes what about to light far t►e amuse-
ment of their tynuinio lords, while pronouncing the
ominous formula used in the Roman circus on inch =a-
non; Morituri to seutosit. The Imperator looks down
upon them with ineffable delight.
In June next year the centenary of the Martyr-
dom of St. Peter will be celebrated at Rome. At the
mom time, a oirrespondent of the Timm nye, it is de-
cided to hold an (Ecumenical Council, to which the Roman
catholic prelates from all parte of the world will be in-
vited.

- A dead meat market is about to be established at
Solribarapka.

• .44 .
Olni
(TalliktAY.rr
Tali 'Landsat "smuts.
The Times finds in the electoral returns a con-
alTratiall of the statement which it has frequently made
that a gradual enfranchisement of the working climes has
been produced by the rise in prices consequent on the
development of trade and the gold discoveries. In 1832
the 101. householder was at the lowest a small tradesman ;
now every fourth 101. householder is • working MAO, living
on weekly wages, sad the proportion is yearly increasing.
No one had guessed before these returns how many work-
ing mew had been admitted to the register. If the qualifi-
cation were reduced from a 101. to a 61. rental about one-
half of the borough electors would then belong to the
working-clams. Many will flatter themselves from thee*
returns that a mild memorize will settle the question,
but • mere increase in the number of voters would ag-
gravate anomalies which are now a subject of complaint.
We should have side by side small and corrupt boroughs,
represented too frequently by mere obstructives, and
large boroughs and oonaty constituencies enormously
swollen in size but yet outvoted. It would be
impossible to maintain such a position, and
popular indignation would then force on • reform
which would carry away with it all the useful functions
which small boroughs do as a matter of fact discharge. It
is imperative that a redistribution of seats should be
brought forward at once. To dream of stopping short at
enfranchisement is a policy so short-sighted that, until we
are better informed this evening, we shall not believe that
any government has seriously conceived It to be possible.
The Daily News observes that Mr. Gladstone will show
this evening whether he is • great statesman or simply •
great financier —a mere politician with a speciality. The
statistics, in which Mr. Gladstone's hand may perhaps be
traced, are comprehensive and exact, and cannot be an
elaborate apparatus for inaction. The returns show the
elastic adaptability of the meth-abused Reform Act of
1832 to the growth of the nylon is wealth and numbers,
though the fact that the proportion of the people panels-
lag the franchise to the entire population has not increased
in 34 years proves the necessity of further reform. Taking
counties and boroughs, we learn that five-sixths of the
population have little more than a tenth part of direct
political power, and no one will contend that this arrange-
ment is prised facie • jut one. The returns, on the other
hand, get rid of the bugbear that it would be dangerous to
admit the British workman to the franchise, for it turns
out that this formidable creature has enjoyed it
for a long time in a degree quite sufficient to give him the
opportunity of working mischief if he possessed snob •
desire. As the working classes have practically no share
in the oountry repeesent►tios, and the counties have for
the mast part opposed the beneficent changes which Mr.
Lowe celebrated last session with almost lyric enthusiasm,
it is fair to infer that their votes were given for those
very asap', and the fact should modify his distrust.
There is no reason to look with suspicion on the clam of
working men, or to dread the comprehension of a yet
larger number of them within the electoral pale. The
widget extension of the borough franchise hoped for from
the government, a 61. rental trenches, would leave the
balance of power in the hands of the existing conatituen.
cies. In the boroughs the old voters would be to the new
as two to one, the new being 236,000, the old 489,100. The
county orastituancies would still be in the ,hands of the
nos-working deism ; and a lower rate of suffrage there
would bring in a higher clam of voters.
The Post places the highest value upon these returns,
and regrets that they were not published before, or that
the Reform Bill had not been poetponod. The champions
of the working classes will namely be prepared to find low
many of them there are on the minter, and they will have
to acknowledge the disproof of the mramption that
working men were virtually unrepresented. If the
standard were as low as • 61. rating qualification they
might be able to control the lest of the community,
and it remains to be seen, whether, in presence of these
figures, the government will proposs or parliament accept
any such proposal.
The oraclusira to which, in the opinion of the Herald,
the statistics point, is that the Reform Bill is the last thing
that is required. At all events "they Irresistibly suggest
that is any re-distribution of seats the 'Lams
of the counties ought first • of all to be con-
sidered, and that whatever is taken from the small
boroughs is due to the counties. All that is required
is some additional acid special admission, some fancy fran-
chise, for those superior workmen who accidentally happen
not to live in 104 haulm. Bus the Herald secs everywheite
s general apathy, even s general feeling of dimwit, towards
the whole subject, and declares as a matter within its own
knowledge that the government neither wish nor expect
the bill they are about to propose to become law.
The Telegraph is coovinoed that Mr. Gladstone will have
little difficulty in showing that whereas, under peculiar
and exceptional circamstasera some boroughs have smog
their electors large bodies of mechanics, the waking-classes
of Embed are very inadequately represented by that pro.
portion of the enfranchised which la drawn from their ranks.
Perhaps the silliest theory yet broached is, that any exten-
sion bill which includes redistribution must fail because
of the opposition it would provoke from the pro.
se bed seats. Their hostility can make little difference.
for such rotten boroughs as Caine, Arundel, and Tavistock,
know well that electoral change of any kind brings their
inevitable fate nearer ; they are not such lambs es to lick
the shepherd's band to-day without observing that the
knife is sharpened for to-morrow. The Tekpraph premeds
to mention various reasons which lead everybody, it says,
to conclude that the editorial remarks in the Times on the
subject of reform, have emanated from the back benches of
the Rouse of Oommons, and axe steeped is the verjnioe of
private resentment.
Considering that there are about five millions of working
men in England, and only 125,000 of them enjoy the
franchise, the Star says the fact that these 125,000 con-
stitute • quarter of the voters of the country has surely
very little that is startling in it, especially if we remember
that the operatives cannot influence the other three-fourths
of the electors, and indeed are Fable to influences exercised
by the other electors which in a large number of cram are
practically coercive. The descriptions in the returns,
too, seem to be capable of coraprrheodivg a wide
range of persons not usually thought of when we speak
of the working classes. A liberal reduction in the counties,
a 6/. rental franchise in boroughs, and the sweeping away
of the ratepaying clauses, are the measures to which the
statistics point, and we trust the moderate expectations of
the country will be to this extent fulfilled. The Star does
not anticipate that there will be scything like • genuine
party debate to-night. After Mr. Gladatoaes speech the
rest will probably not be more that an affair of Free
Lances on either side. The tory tactics are to endeavour to
vote the bill out of the house by the aid of the pseudo-
liberals.

)
pf the ninny projeds within the leek tea or
The vs yt earediffictahntyvin=ehtiheeved a permanent
o proper pyease:lcl:
,mita held ‘t sellaeinort notice. A new asupplify has
frequently no Atria but to discount mond elms securities,
and the conductors are coostaatly exposed to the temp-
tation of embarking in hazardous transactions, or where is
the dividend to ecru from ? Even if only este investment!
are accepted, there is at all times the tab of a look up of
capital fora& indefinite period. To employdeposits liable to be
called is on a few days' notice on loans at long dates Is
contrary to all sound principles of commeros. Bankers
who have employed their cash reserves in these deposits
withdraw them at any semblance of approaching danger ;
but if the funds are last out on long date, how am the
discount company meet the unexpected demand, for
the securities they bold, even of intrinsic value,
are of that description which few bankers, and leant
of all, the Bank of England, would care to look at ?
Finally, • joint-stork company, starting on the business of
a small private hoses, is especially exposed to risk, for the
original partnere, who are pretty certain to be on the board,
no beget feel the want of capital which obliged them in
their former position frequently to refuse apparently lures-
, five Unease:time, and hence, from a desire to do the bedt
i they can, they are led to embark in enterprises previously
beyond their reach. If the present evil should make
, director. more alive to the responsibility they accept, and
shareholders more vigilant in investigating the manage-
ment of their property, a valuable lateen will have been
learnt, although at the cast of much suffering and much
lose.

IS TOPICS.

The Times reviews the dimension originated by Sr Robert
Peel upon the suppression of the smoke nuisance, and anti-
cipates some good from it ; for, while manufacturers may
see their way to economy and profit, it will be every
Englishman's intend to prevent the gratuitous waste of en
exhaustible material, on which the industry, wealth, end
greatness of his country depend•
The superior efficacy of a linen duty upon dogs to
ea assessed tax appears to the Tines quite obvious.
The alleged owner of a dog knocked on the heed for poach-
ing would be rare to protest that be was about to return
him for taxation next year, whereas a Roane, to be valid at
all, must have been procured beforehand. Whether each
an arrangement would be satisfactory to " thane portions
of the community who ate much attached to the keeping
of dogs, and who do not suffer from them as others do," is
more than we can say, but it oaramends itself to commas
sense too manifestly to be rejected by the dog interest, if
there be one, in the Rouse of Oommoas.

It appears from the mower of the President of the Poor-
law Buried to Kr. Kinnaird that Clerkenwall is under a load
act which enable, the gusrams to defy the authority of
the board in the shameless wile which are connected with
their casual wards. The Daily Naos wonders to what en-
taut them guardians represent the opinion of the ratepayers,
and whether the local feeling is in favour of perpetuating
nubile scandal at the public wet. Twelve other parishes
in the metropolitan district have also the privilege of being
able to thwart the Poor-law Board whenever ith suggestions
or advice run counts to the wishes of the local authorities.
After Rester, however. Kr. Villisra will introduce his pro-
mimed bill foe amending the administration of the poor-law
in the metropolis, and it is earnestly to be hoped that a
compreherrive scheme for parochial reform will then be
submitted to the home. _ .

---
Observing that oat of 30 millions of inhabitants We eau
- -

scarcely persuade 30,000 young men • year to enter our army,
and that of every 100 entitled to leave after • 10 years' en.
garment 40 take advantage of it, the Daily News urges
that in the new commthion the ten-year men who have
left, and who can now speak without fear or favour, should
be asked why they left. Our previous commissions hays
been oonteat, it seems, with the evidence of °films and
recmdting sergeants. It is to be hoped that the present one
will thither depend solely on officiala to tell us where
official rules are hard al, nor on colonels and captains to
tell us why the privates take their discharge and recruits
won't come in.
The Post Oates that no overtures have been made to the
British government to bring shout an amicable settle seat
of the dispute between the two great German powers re-
specting the ultimate posteriors of the Elbe Duchies.
Matters are not yet ripe for an ultimatum. Councils of
ministers have been frequently held of late at Berlin, sad,
though annexation Is agreed npoo, unanimity as to the
MN= has not been arrived at. The Ring and the Crown
Prises are opposed to the views entertained by Coant veal
Bismarck and others of the royal advisers.
The Herald much regrets to hear that, although the
most distinguished members of the Roman catholic laity
had =premed their entire setisfaction with the uniform
oath for members of parliament, as suggested by Lord
Derby and Mr. Dirreeli, and it was therefore supposed that
a =Analog of this long-vexed question, acceptable to all
honourable men, bad been thus strived at, Dr. Manning
and others of the Roman prelates have declined to eans
don the proposal, and have denounced any parliamentary
oath which implies any recognition of the Act of Bottler
meat, or of the supremacy of the Qum.

..,..—....-
LDory. Vacancies from all other e►aed ere to be filled op as
they emir.
•• Id. Commanders to be 'Wired at 66, or when phydeslly
=Ai kr Berri" and to be allowed to retire at 50, with the
mei/at of the Adrobsity, on the temp d the order is

hineil of 9th July, 1864.
"15. Lientinaats to be retired at 56, or when physisally
unlit for marries, and to be allowed to retire at 45, with the
consent of the Admiralty, on the terms of the order in
maned of 9th July, 1864.
" 16. Time served by naval officers Jaclyn employments
oonneoted with the navy, which doss not entitle them to
[civil superasaue.tion, is to be allowed to rerdron towards
increase of half or retired pay in the proportion of one
year for every two served is such away.
" Admiralty, March 9, 1866." (Signed) "0. PAGIT.