The Express.
London, England, 1860-07-20 00:00:00

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RICH WAWA AT lANIDON =IDOL
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LIPNDON, FRIDAY, JULY 2u.

4 )N• r. OT twice a year, but almost always in the
dog-days, a fit of mischief seizes the Chief Com-

nuesioner of Works for the time being, and months
of harmless idleness are suddenly interrupted
by • paroxysm of disastrous activity. Our readers
cannot have failed to notice that towards the end
of the Session that usually dil.mnaire department
wakes up se with an angry start from a painless
sleep, and seta all London by the ears. If the
department were only content to do nothing with •
good grace, and to pocket the affront of public indif-
ference! For happy is the nation that has no history ;
thrice happy is the Commissioner of Works who
commits no " improvements." But no ; even
the innocently facetious and mildly philosophical
Mr. Cowes& must qualify himself for the White-
bait Dinner by making • mess of something before
the Parliamentary summer is out. He must
assert his ministerial right to • share of public
dissatisfaction.

Just as the Cabinet is collapsing under the
weight of unfulfilled reforms, Mr. Cowers—for
the fun of the thing—fastens the final straw to
the poor creature's back. And yet one would sup-
pose that to a man of elegant mind, liberal
taase,acannmodating humour, and kindly disposi-
tion, the Commiasionership of Works in a country
like ours would suggest nothing but oppor-
tutarties of doing good by stealth. Removed
out of the heat and dust of political discussion he
has only to pass a few hours a day in doing for
the public what an active and intelligent country
gentleman does for his own gratification ; a little
oneauiental gardening, model farming, fancy archi-
tectnse, road making, and planting, anal making
his "people " comfortable and contented. Nor
need he make a single enemy if he will but con-
sider iiiniself a public servant ; while nothing is
easier than to make a multitude of unknown
friends. The old Romans, we know, so famous
in the department of public works, were obliged
at one period to insist on the appointment of a
patricissa ; we disniounted Britons, resident
in London, shall be obliged to call in a plebeian
to keep watch and ward over our footpaths if the
amiable but ductile Mr. Cowers persists in sacri-
ficing us and our little oues to the horseback
interest. By what fatality is it that every Com-
iniasioner of Works leaves his mark on this unfor-
tunate metropolis, as if the device of the depart-
ment were "offences must come." How is it
that every Commissioner inaugurates his term of
office by simply undoing, amidst general applause,
what his preelemseor had dune, and next proceeds to
do something quite as bad, fur the sake of his suc-
cessor ! How is it that the department is like the
house of the seven spirits, awl that its last state
is always worse than the tine I There was one
notable exception, it is true, in the memorable
reign of Sir BaNJeam.r HstL, whose Chief Com-
inumumership was an epoch of real beneficence to
the• public, and who sucteeded in justifying the
teeth of Lis can etituents by his works, though he
rode down Marylebone-lane to the House of Lords.
since Lon! I.Lisii%lll9l4 apotheosis was have bad
seething but useless meddling, and petty devastation,
anal ltind extravagance ; flower borders torn up,
shrubberies rooted out, seats removed, hens rides
cite-tele-el, and the Serpinitine ostentatiously
d. ilicated to the patron Saint of the Sewers, in
whose honour four splendidly decorated open
filters are now being erected On spite of the Select
Committee), with no end of allegorical sculpture,
a fountain, and a cascade. For after all the tier-
pentane is not to be cleaned out, but flooded ; so
duie'rliiilWid is Mr. CovirLa tee get himself, as the
philological Herman professor idiomatically phrased
it, "into a bad smell." Whether from a feverish
anxiety to make a noise, or from a fussy desire to
pick a quarrel with the public—whether he has I
simply Leen earwigged by good society, or " bitten"
by this beauties Of the Heim de Itoulogne--certain
it is that Mr. t.!owear is all of a sudden
stricken with a morbid and (in a medical sense) a
malignant restlessness. His latest exploit is the
horse ride into and through Kensington-gardens,
which Mr. EowiN Jeers is r.O call the attention
of the House this evening. Some people are
painfully solicitous about the Member for Mary-
lehosie's osioti.es for coming forward as the chain-
plot' of the pedestrian interest and fighting the
battle of the housemaids, and they are charitable
enough to assume that the leaned member is only
firing blank etrtridge. To lit at least the Member
for filarylebout's motives are of infinitely
little consequence: ; but sir SENJ•IIIN 11•LL'S suc-
cessor in that borough has certainly a traditional
claim to be heard on such a onestien. We could
wish, however, that Mr. JAlitil had not taken the
precaution to rest his case on the weakest possible
grounds. The width of the horse ode—sir many
feet more or less—is an objection worthy only of
Mr. Collates's advocates and approvers ; it is de-
cidedly not ours. Nur is the danger of crossing
the most serious objection, or Mr. Cowers
might take it easy this evening. But the real
citric, admits of no palliative. The pleas of the
apologists, however, are sufficiently ridiculous to
refute themselves. We are gravely told that be-

cause the young trees in Rotten-row riatying,the
Equestrian Order must take the of the
old trees in the Gardens instead ;—that pedes-
trians are excluded from a narrow strip only at
the extreme north-west margin of the Gardens;— l
that the horse ride is cut acmes the two least ,
frequented sides of the square which the Gardens
occupy. Now these are precisely our grounds of
resistance to the wanton innovation. The Eques-
trian Order is not supposed to frequent the Park
for the sake of the cool shade of trees ; and " the
"narrow strip " cuts across the one quiet and
secluded spot which is left to the poor and the
sick, to women and children—to all but the
four or five hundred select people who use
the Park during four or five months of the year.
The new horse ride is not confined to
any extreme margin, it cuts right across the
Gardens from Kensington to Bayswater.
It must not be forgotten that the Equestrian Order
peculiar to Rotten-row consists, in a great mea-
sure, of visitors for the season, who have their
own estates to ride over all the rest of the year,
while the pedestrian order consists in a great mea-
sure of London residents, who never get a glimpse
of frees or grass for ten months out of twelve ex-
cept in the Parks. It will hardly be pretended
that Rotten-row, with the green sward on the
Kensington side, is not a liberal allowance for the
mounted four hundred ; and if they want more
room, have they not all the world before them
where to choose, whether Hampstead, or Harrow,
or Highgate, or Richmond 1
We have no desire or need to be guilty of snag-
, geration ; we cherish Rotten-row as a splendid
English institution : but there's room for all. This
may not be a " gigantic innovation," but it is just
one of those innovations which in quiet political
times are most acutely felt, and most bitterly
resented, by the large public who take little or no
thought of politics. Who would have imagined
that the Volunteer review was to supply materials
for such an experiment 1 Let us hope that it is
an experiment only, and that Mr. COWPER will
be good enough to own that it has failed.

DEATH OP LOAD ELPHINSTONE, 0.C.8.

It in with feelings of deep regret that we an-
seance the death of Lord /Dphinstone, the late Governor of
Bombay. The niehnicholy occurrence took place yesterday
no at half-put five ant, at his lordship's temporary
residence, Moon a private hotel, King street, St. James's.
We are informed that when Land Elphinstooe left Bombay
in the middle of May last for home it was thought he had
quite recovered from the fever and relapse he had in the
early part of the year, for by resorting to the hills he
seemed to have thoroughly re-eighth/Übel his health.
Before leaving Bombay he was able to take riding exercise,
and folly competent to attend to matters of business. His
lordship had nit reached his !Nth year, as be was born
on the Vol of June, Idfo7. He was the only son
of John, 12th Hama Elphinstone, by Janet, youngest
daughter of Mr. Cornelius Elliott, of ',Woolley, Roxburgh.
shire, and widow of Sir John Gibson tnrmichael,
Bert. When he had barely entered his seventh year he
suoceedel his father in the ancient Scottish barony. When
he had attained the customary age he entered the army as
a corset and sub-lieutenant in the Royal Regiment of
Horse Guards, and in December, 1102, was gasetted as cap-
tain. A few years titer that step in the service he relin-
quished the protonic* of erne to take upon himself the
onerous duties of Governor of the Madras Presidency.
In October, 15.3, be was selected as successor to Viscount
Falkland as (leverage of Bombay. On the 14th of
April fart year Lord Kiphinstorie, as Governor of Bombay,
had the honour of being iaelnded with the Governor.Geoeral
(Lord fanning), Sir J. L M. Lawrence, Sir R. N. C. Hamil-
toe, Mr. Frere, and Mr. R. Montgomery, in the unanimous
thanks of the parliament " fur the ability with which they
have severally employed the resources at their diapnal for
the remstablishineut of peace in her Majesty's Indian demi-

&ions. In the early pait of Lod year he Was nominated a
Grand Casa of the civil division of the Order of the Bath,
and as a mark of her Majesty's especial favour was mated
(12th May) a peer of the United Kingtken by the num
47k, awl title of Baron Ephinetorie of Elphinatone, in the
county of Stirling. Hi, lordship was ouutarried, and by
his death the rteottish barony &rounds to his cousin, Mr.
John Flphiw.tone Fleming, eldest sou of the late Admiral
the Hon. Charles Elpbinatone Fleming, son of the eleventh
Woe, born 1819, and formerly captain m the lith Lancers.

DEATH OF Li MD SAN DAL —We regret to announce
the death of Lieut.-General Lord thuidm, Colonel of the
&Me Greys, which took place on the ldth inst., at his mat,
Osakersley Court, Worcestershire. This distinguished
Whom accompanied the 10th Husain; to the Peninsula in
1812, sod was present in the action of Morales, and lasttles
of Vittoria and Pampeluna. He served elm in the cam-
paign of lells, ran aide-de-camp to the Duke of Welling-
ton, and was presseut at the battle of Waterloo. He has
received the silver war medal wit► one clasp for Vittoria.
Lord liandym was in his .i2rel year. He entered the army
in 11.10, and rose gradually, hemming heut.-zenend is
MC and full cokeel is Uldel.