The Express.
London, England, 1858-10-29 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, FRIDAY EVNNING, OCTOBER

strength by premature discumions IA to what we
shall consider a final victory. •It will be times
enough to debate that matter when the breaches
I seem to be practicable, or who our standard is
planted upon a portion of the walls. It will be our
own fault if unoonditional surrender does not follow
after that.

We mast say, however, that we think it was high
time that a clear and unmistakeable rallying cry
should be beard throughout the country, in order to
arouse the dormant energies of all classes
out of doors, and to stimulate the good
intentions, if any such there be, of those within. If
some notes of the trumpet sound harsh in fastidious
ears, it cannot be helped. There wee a plain and
maaihst seed, an obvious and incontestable duty;
and Mr. Bea= deserves well of the country for
having performed it. Without combatting theories
or plunk( as with abstraction, he adopts and reite-
rates the principle for which we have so long and so
often pleaded—that of liability to rating as the fair
basis of the franchise. He says with unanswerable
truth that this old and established test of fitness,
which we have long used in the parish, the munici-
pality, and the union, cannot be objected to
ea any fair ground for the city or the borough.
It would, moreover, have thief advantage,
that it would inevitably, if not instantly, lead'
to a simplification of registers and registrations,
and to the establishment henceforward of one simple
and comprehensive list, on which if a man's name
were inscribed he would be entitled to vote as a
ratepayer in hie parish, hie ward, his anion, and his
borough. This in itself would be a great good
gained ; and if in the redistribution of parliamentary
districts the corruptly small circumscriptions be put
an sad to, there will no longer exist the unnatural
and immoral asperity of contention about who should
be kept on and who should be left off, the real root of
which lies is the Ignitions importance with which
individual votes are at present invested by a partial
Gad unequal law. We need hardly say how cor-
dially we concur with Mr. Brunar in the earnest-
nen of his plea for the Ballot. What a
carious confession of the truth of all that its
advocates have urged these five and twenty
years in its behalf was that whioh we
heard the other day from the late Tory candi-
date for East Norfolk, who in a Conservative ga-
thering reminded his friends that he had been beaten
last time by the exercise of landlord influence, and
who pledged himself in future never again to vote
against that protection which he had learnt by ex-
perience the would be independent farmer needs as
much as the would be independent tradesman !
There is nothing new in the Reform programme put
forth by Mr. Bumf; nor is it desirable there should
have been. The thing wanted was a bold and authori-
tative declaration by a leading Liberal, of the broad
outlines of each a Reform in Parliament as will alone
satisfy the rational friends of Progress. Such a
declaration Mr. BRIGHT Rail supplied. There it is :
Rating Pranchise ; more equal distribution of
Elsetcral Districts ; Vote by Ballot. Nothing
ease be broader and more simple. To the critics
who complain that there is nothing original
in all this, the short answer is that we
want, not ingenious theories, but practical
malts. Let ns achieve first, and refine afterwards.
The people of England are not fastidious or finical.
They like plain things set before them in a plain
style. In transatlantic phrase, they want a broad
platform and • clear ticket. Mr. BRIGHT has
furnished them with both. Their part in the business
is not to cry out for something more new-fangled or
far-fetched, but to stick to these plain, clear, home-
spun demands till they carry them. It won't be too
easy • work in any ons, but the way to
make it harder—the way to make it impossible
—is to divide and distract effort by directing
it to a diversity et objects. Let Reformers,
then, of all shades, abandoning whims and fancies,
stick to this plain, pregnant text :—Ballot ; Rating
Franchise; Redistribution of Electoral Districts.
There will be a time foe niceties and refinements after-
wards. Let us be downright and straightforward now.
So far, then, from its being a reproach to Mr. BRIGHT
that he has given uv nothing that is new, we beg
leave to tender him our thanks for having confined
himself to enforcing what was old. The people
want not to be puzzled with crotchets bat to be
furnished with watchwords; and we are quite sure
that all earnest Reformers will cordially concur with
as in the expression of our satisfaction, that on the
part of the inadequately represented millions of this
reentry there should have been put forth so bold,
and, at the eame time, so practical a statement of
their wants and their will, as that which has just
emanated from the Member for Birmingham.

bt court.

WINDSOR. ocr. 28.

Tits Petsish Ambeasador sad the Duchess of
illankbelf sad the Earl and Cosiness of Maltoesbary arrived
yestertley as a silt. Shortly after their arrival the Duke of
Mslakholl and the Earl of Meleasehary (Principal &mazy
of Shim kr Amiga /Mies) hod sadism of her Majesty.
no Miss enisbAhoE was pessaind le the Quota by
Oessims of Masearary.
The bat of Twain sad Colossi the Hon. A. Liddell
Tema the Ltd sad Oroom is Walther.

la milldam le t. visitors staying in the Cootie, her
MOWS Mem party Wield the Belgian Manner and
Nobs* Vas de Warr, I Emily Seymour, sad Major-
Oared as Ma. C. Grey.

The bemi d dr GMOaf Chards paellassd during
defter die lieeeleg essepediese

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u.....___ sakiaks---.::::::::::::::::::::: ifiraim.
Nat 1/11/4waWa ONO and allawarda Arid la th•
mss/ *psi No lA/aft ripahas:

Ownies." MIMI= arm". • -r•-• ************ • ;carAtc *IA Pram ...... ..... . ..... M
'''°••••• .................. - - ..... •
The Clem wile la Os Ii fai Howe this akoraing,
lassald by lima Ike. laity Cat/tout.

Paws; A&s and Phnom. Helena took equastrisa
minim

SU
Wm ef Cambridge is oxpectad this ahsrnoon.
TM bilge-AdvoosteOmieral had an audience of her
akkiisr 1e41n7.

Mr. Chipors, stein a, Captain Mack % )LP., and
kr. LA* lbeibm. el the lad* Ansuralls, aril China
Taken* Osimpsy, assompoisal by Mr. Tantalised, soli-
dest, led ea Warrior id& Mr. Essallem, at th• Traisnry,
ralarday, es Me as** of lebraphia conimunicadaa
bum= loft red Mies.

His Royal Highness the Doke of Cambridge left
boa yeslwday, a• a visit to her Majesty and the Priam
Oassee. si Wham Carla.

Thai Cabs de Stackelberg, accompanied by her
&sedum the Ihwassis d. Caws, have left Claridge's Hotel,
for Illbrolieds, army Ipswich, oa a et& to Sir W. aed Lady
PAhNfaisa.

W. (Manchester Guardian) understand that our
Crary, the Nemec root, is in error in respect to the
unless of Lord Ashburton, announced in its impromice of
yeisnisy. His lordship is about to be married to blise
Stewart lieeteaste, and not to the Marchioness of Mir, as
snood by ear oestemporary.

The bias of St. Paul's and Mrs. Milmaa, Lord
Macaulay, the Hos. Mr. sad Lady Louisa Howard, the Rev.
Cease sad Mrs. Guthrie, sod Sly Henry Rased, have be..
eroding woe days with the Marquis 44 Lanadowse this
week, at Howood.

WI (Plymouth Journal) are informed that Lady
Hanlock bas darn Osborne Limn, Ikukt, as hut futon
residescs.

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

roes government, which has from the beginning neglected
no
effort to enlighten that of hie Most Faithful Meleety
about the true character of the affair, hoped . that
the cabinet of Lisbon, after having sass cordows
oilY. tdrettmetanose of the arrest, end the doommesetts
belouging to the case at Mozambique, would !mein to
acknowledge the Irngularity of the proceedings which the
Governor-General of that colony had adopted towards •
seesel @can't which net even • suspicion of the slave-trade
eould be alleged. At bet this hope wee intsteken ; but the
Portuguese government, led by • more attentive examlnation
to views mare cornet, has deferred to the jut representations
of the Ecoperole goveranmat. A resolution so conformable
te equity, by causing every trace of a misunderstanding
blames the two countries to dimppear, will, we doubt not,
have the effect of restoring to the relations between them the
same character of cordially as they bed before this regret-
able imideut occurred.

ITALY.

THE PAPAL STATES.

Mow ova owx

ROME, Ocr. 23.
The migratory movements of sovereigns are usu-
ally attributed to politico,' motives, and it will there-
fore mate no 'uprise if the prolonged visit of the
Duke and Duchess of Modena to the Pope's capital,
and their actual presence in the dominions of the
Xing of Naples, are here amounted for by a most
important project, viz., the formation of an anti-
Oallic alliance in Italy, to comprise the Lombardo-
Venetian kingdom, the Duchies of Puma, Modena,
and Tummy, the States of the Church, and the
kingdom of Naples, to the entire exclusion of consti-
tutional Piedmont. There certainly appears to be
• little coldness just now between the Papal govern-
ment and that of France, but that the Pope should
enter into any alliance against the Power which
holds his own capital and his own person in pledge
seems to be an improbable supposition. Whether
the Duke of Modena's mission really concealed state
secrets of importance, and whether it was merely in
accordance with " &truant disposition," it tams to an
end, as far as Rome is concerned, on the morning of
the 18th, when having exhausted the benevolent de-
monstrations of the Pope, the diplomatic civilities of
Cardinal Antonelli, and the antiquarian disquisitions
of the Commendatore Visconti, their Royal High-
names took their departure for Naples, making. their
first halt at Albano, to observe the magnificent
viaduct which connects that town with Arida, and
which 11.1 s duly exhibited to them by Monsignor
Amici, Minister of Commerce and Public Works.

. .
On Thursday morning the Pope visited the
church of St. Peter, to examine the works still
going on for the completion and interior embellish-
ment of that majestic structure, and especially
admired the mosaic representations; of Saints
Simon and Jude. His Holiness then visited
the vast hospital of Santo Spirits in its various de-
partments, and the neighbouring military hospital,
where he was received by the Commander-in• Chief,
General di Gregorio, and where he consoled the sick
with his usual benignity. He then proceeded to the
mad hospital, and conferred his blessing on the poor
wretches confined there ; and went on to visit the
female correctional prison of the Buon Pastore, with
its cells of retirement, and schools; returning to the
Vatican after a long morning's work of charity and
consolation. It is on such occasions that the amiable
benevolence of Pio Nono's character is so strongly
brought into evidence. What a contrast to the oc-
casional instances of sacerdotal depravity which we
hear of in this country as in every other !
It appears that there is to be no more fox-hunting
at Rome, unless some very influential person per-
suades the Pope, or Cardinal Antonelli, or whoever
has come to this determination, to revoke the damning
edict. British and Roman sportsmen are in despair,
the very large number of persons who directly or
indirectly find employment arising out of the hunt
will be thrown into distress, and a valuable class of
wealthy foreigners annually attracted to Rome for
the sake of hunting will now benefit other places
instead. With hunting, racing of course ceases also,
end the Roman Spring Meeting, one of the prettiest
sights possible, will cease to enliven the picturesque
valleys of the Campagna.
As the hunt was a subscription affair, and nominally
entirely Roman, the government has complete con-
trol over it. Far better if it bad continued as the
Chesterfield hunt, and been a British concern alto-
gether, for perhaps his Holiness would then have let
our northern sports alone, or at any rate, if shocked
by the death of poor Signor Bossi last winter, he
would have contented himself with prohibiting his
own subjects from attending the break-neck amuse-
ments of ultramontane visitors. As it is, we have
no minister to intercede, and can only hope in the
good offices of the Duke de Grammont, or the argu-
ments of the new American minister, Mr. Stockton;
for the Roman princes, few of whom ever attended
even the meets, have neither the wish nor the power
to change the determination of their ecclesiastical
governors.