The Express.
London, England, 1866-10-27 00:00:00

THE WEEKLY PRESS.

While the Morning Advertiser and Record are
bewailing the election of the Rev. F. D. Maurice to a pro.
fessorship at Cambridge, the Spectator congratulates the
University on its choice, than which it says a better could
not be made. Perhaps, indeed, it is open to the criticism
that Professor Maurice will be severely tempted to lecture
againstthe supposed soignee of casuistry, and for a professor
to disprove the existence of the subject which be professes
would be a scandal to the University. Even if Professor
Maurice successfully resists this temptation, and dilates at
length on the finer distinctions of the Jesuitical ethics, it
fears it will be by way of proving that casuistry, like apost
merino examination, only dissects tissues that are already
dead. It is happy to learn that this appointment will not
interfere with Mr. Maurice's tenure of the Vera-street
Chapel, which he still retains. In the highest sense of the
ward a preacher, it would have been better for the lecturer
to be merged in the preacher, than the preacher lost in the

lecturer.
It is stated, not without pardonable triumph, by the
conservative papers that the Poet Laureate has sent a
contribution to the Eyre Defence and Aid Fund. The
Spectator regrets to hear it, not because it feels the least
grudge to Mr. Eyre, or wishes to see him individually
suffer more than he has already suffered, but because it
holds both the legal and moral condemnation of Mr. Eyre's
conduct by the public, to be of the first political import-
ant), for the future, and Mr. Tennyson's support will un-
doubtedly weigh heavily with men in general in lightening
or averting the latter. Dad Mr. Eyre permitted and ap.
proved in Yorkshire, or even in Ireland, under the same
circumstances, precisely what he permitted and approved
in Jamaica, those who are now crying up his heroism
would have demanded his execution, and yet there would
not have been an iota of greater guilt in that case than in
this. Does Mr. Tennyson classify the military massacre in
Jamaica amongst the precedents on which he speaks in
that noble poem concerning the Freedom that
broadens slowly down
From precedent to precedent?
The defence of Sir Morton Peto is very insufficient in
the view of the Spectator. Quiet persons all over England
itaelf are at this moment poorer by millions sterling in con-
sequence of acts which Sir Morton Peto has helped to do,
and which he now explains as ordinary operations, ren-
dered necessary or excusable by solicitors' advice, or the
necessities of enormous and beneficial transactions. When
y. Plan like bins defends the manufacture of shares as •
common proceeding, and the over-issue of debentures by
saying they were valueless, and he therefore raised money
on them, and the stoppage of monies entrusted fora special
purpose in transitu, the country is evidently in need of
some moral tonic, to prevent degeneracy becoming active
disease.

The Examiner regard. the appointment of Mr. Bolt to
the office of Attorney-General as an appointment as ac-
ceptable to the profession as it is significant to the public.
A sound lawyer, a trained advocate, a man of honour, and,
in every sense of the term, a gentleman, the bar could
wish for no fitter men to be its chief batonnier. To the
public Mr. Rolt's appointment is a suggestive indication
of conservative no-policy ; for, politically, Mr. Molt is a
nonentity. He is reputable, erudite, and estimable, de-
corous and dignified if you will, but essentially an unde-
monstrative man, with nothing particular of his own to
say for or against any great question ; and therefore most
appropriately selected for a mouthpiece by an ailministn-
Lion that does not yet know its own mind, and that is still
looking about for a policy.
The Saturday Reriew, in the course of some comments
on Mr. Forster's Bradford address, allows that the demo-
cratic institutions of the Americans permitted or enabled
them to conduct the war with extraordinaly vigour and
pet Opacity. A large extension of the suffrage would render
England more warlike, and therefore more powerful ; and
perhaps it might tend to transfer some of the functions
now exercised by local authority to the central govern-
ment. The popular assumption that administrative
efficiency is incompatible with a constitutional or
parliamentary system is hasty, and at beet ex-
aggerated ; but there is reason to believe that an
assembly elected by a numerous constituency would be
more wiling than the existing parliament to net a wide
discretion in the executive. There is a satisfaction in
dwe"ing on any practical benefit which may possibly ensue
from impending changes ; and Is is a relief to meet, as in
Mr. Forster's case, with an argument for reform which is
not composed of calumny, of menace, and of intimidation.
To the intelligence of the Saturday Rerier,a portion of
the hon. baronet's explanation at BI:stol looks very like a
full admission and confession, on Sir Morton Pettis part,
that be was a party to the creation of spurious and illegal
documents pretending to be what they were not in law, and
on the primal facie look and guarantee of wbich, I eing all
the while mere waste paper, he raised funds from, or at
least deposited them as valuable security with,
the Financial Company. It has been Sir Mor-
ton Peto's lot on several previous occsaions to
have to make explanations of this sort, and to
account for the foundering of railway schemes which be
, has either promoted, leased, contracted for, or directed.
I No doubt the Colchester Railway, and the North of
Europe Steam Company, and the Grand Trunk of Canada
are old stories; ; and we all remember how their mis-
I chances have been explained. Few public men and finan-
cien have had so much experience in explanation as Sir
• Morton Pete ; but in his case practice has not yet made
1 perfect. However, as be says with great truth, " the
matter cannot rest where it is at present."

REFORM DEMONSTRATION AT LEICESTER. —Next I
Monday, the town of Leicester will witness a political de- I
monstration on a scale of magnitude which hu not been
paralleled at any previous period. In parliament sod out
of parliament, the working classes of this country have ;
been taunted with their indifference to their own
piPtical interests, and thus challenged to the proof of
their earnewiness and seal in their own cause of political
emancipation. As far as thin town is concerned, they
will supply their response to the taunt and the ;
challenge in Le:cester market-place, next Monday after-
noon. In the even;ng a general meeting of reformers will I
assemble in the Temperance Hall, at which Joseph Whet- I
stone, Eq., a friend of the popular cane during four de-
cedes at least, who is trusted and respected by liberals of I
all shades, has consented to preside. The resolutions have I
been so framed as not to pledge the meeting to any ab
strut or theoretic propositions, but to a practical and sub-
stantial reform bill, the purpose of which shall be to give
to the working-classes that full and fair share in the repre-
sentation of the country from which they are now ex-
cluded.—Lrirester Chronicle.
THE LATE MB. FISHER HOBBS. After the
burial, which noticeably enough was within a few yards of
the place of his birth, at White Colne, the will of Mr.
Fisher Hobbs was read in the presence of a number of re-
latives and friends who attended the funeral on Thursday
last. The great bulk of his property goes to his cousin,
Mr. William Hobbs, of Selinge, near Hythe, with rever-
sion of the landed estate to another cousin, Mr. Henry
Hobbs, a brother of Mr. William Hobbs, and also a native
of Kent. Annuities are left to the two misters and the
housekeeper of the deceased, and small legacies to distant
relatives and god-children. To his two trustees, Messrs.
J. T. Helium and H. Trethewy, he gives 501. each ; to the
Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution the sum of
500/. ; to the Colchester Hospital, 100/. ; and to the Essex
Idiot Asylum, 100 i. To Messrs. Hall Dare, Brandreth
Gibbs, and Henry Corbet, as the official representatives of
the three national Agricultural Institutions, he directs the
payment of legacies of 100/. each ; and to another friend,
M. de Trehonnais, he leaves the selection of any works
from his agricultural library. Mr. Hobbs, it may be
added, had neither brother nor nephew.—Surrey Stan-
dard.