The Express.
London, England, 1857-07-18 00:00:00

EVENING, JULY 18, 1857.

writhes on whittover oaths and terms it pi'''es, end the
hones seems inclined to ray Pam,' give us tills, or s resolu-
tion, or out you go. Others look to the sow Reform Bill
for a wham of the 1910418. We shall me."

and Chins which is likely to affect this queetion ? In India
the demand for British goods is said to have received a serious
cheek in consequence of the disturbances in Bengal and
the demand for the moment is suspended. But the demand
for the products of India, the stocks of which are very small,
will continue as large so ever in this country, while the feel-
ing of insecurity which prevails in India will incr.se
the ansiety of the holders of produce to make shipments,
and to hoard the coin received for them. If, therefore, our
exports to India are checked while our imports receive a new
impulse, it is certain that the state of the exchanges must be
still more adverse to England, and that lerger shipments of
silver will take place. Again, it may be necessary for the
East India Company to send out remittance., or to suspend
their drafts upon their Indian treasuries, which will be the
same thing, in order to furnish ample means to conduct the
extensive operation, which have become necessary at the
present crisis. In this way, therefore, the shipment of silver
will be further promoted.
In China matters are in much the acme condition. The
unsettled state of our relations must tend to diminish the de-
mand for our goods. But the high price of tea and silk,
and the largo supplies coming down to some of the Chintee
ports, must tend to increase our imports, and le add to the
quantity of silver required to adjust the tabuice of the trade.
There does not, thmefore, appear to be any ground fur be-
lieibig that the demand for silver for the East will be less in
the autumn of 1A57 than it was in the autumn of lfts6.
The main considerations which may tend to modify the
position of the money market in the latter part of the present
year, as compared with liti6, are, first, that we may fairly
look fur some inductive from the returns fur the extensive
exports of last year, and next, awl chiefly, the diode of •
most promising harvest throughout Europe as well as in the
United States. From all tho accounts that reach us, we be-
lieve that a better prospect has not existed for many years,
so far se this important element of general proeperity is
-turned.

THE "SATURDAY REVIEW" AND MR. CHAS.

.DIC'A ENS.

(From the Lad. )

The Saturday Iteciewers attack Mr. Dickens, not
because he is a popular writer, but because, being so, he
makes him elf, as they lay, a kgislator " and philosopher,"

and thinks himself at liberty to speak on the most important
eubjeets. This, they consider, "little less than a crime."
It may wall be asked, Why': Wby is Mr. Dickens, or any
other diutinguiahcd writer, to be prohibited from speaking
seriously on tbo public question of the day I That bemuse
a man writes interesting books, he should Sofia the
common rights of a citizen is a dogma of the Saturday
Reviewers, which very aptly illustrates the way in which they
Train at • gnat and swallow a camel. "We do not think,
they say, in grave censure, on our Laving written a distin-
guished name without the usual prefix, "that • man forfeits
the rights of society by writing books ;" but it appears that
he duos forfeit the ordinary privileges of • citizen and •
patriot, if he is unhappily guilty of writing interesting ones.
But, in reality, the charge is altogether unfounded. Mr.
has not come forward as a public man, or offered
himself in the character of a legislator and political philoso-
pher at all. With the exception of ono or two speeches, the
list of which was delivered some years ego, he has taken no
. .

active part in public affairs, and atoadily declined rem:led
invitations to do so. If ad he offcred himself, like Mr.
Thaukeray, as • candidate for a seat in parliament,
there would have been at boat memo colourablo

ground for tho charge of dr, Saturday reviewers. We
are far from saying that he is not at perfect liberty to do
this without violating any law except the capricious one
framed by the Reviewers; Lot as tho earn monde, their
charge in utterly totseicas. Mr. Dickens has strictly confined
himself within the limits of hi. art, in pleasantly aatirixing
some of the admitted ehorteomtngs of government oilicirds.
The Saturday Reviewers, however, seeing much deeper into
• niillstone than their neighbours, discover crime and treason,
a deepdaid con piracy to undermine the constitution, and
destroy the country, in those humourons sketches. They
altogether deny the right of • popular author to touch upon
such subjects., which arc, it would appear, sacred to Saturday

Reviewers. This is mother of the critical term= elaborated
by the painful industry of our contemporary. Fortunately,
it is as nossl as it is irrational and unjust. From tho days
of Aristophunes till now, the linos and vices of men in
authority have born recognised so thu legitimate objects of
satire fur the poet, wit, or ,htunorist of the day. With

. .
us such sketches have berm specistly pornior, nori nor
literature contains an amusing gallery of official M-
ap:Mies, from Justice Shallow and honest Dog-
berry downwards. But our contemporary decides that such
sketches are no longer tolerable, and having laid down the
law, proceeds to make an example of Mr. Dickens as a
notorious offender. Notwithstanding, however, the lard

words, the weak, prolix reasoning, and "damnable itera-
tion," with which the new doctrine is enforced, we continue
to believe that a hurnourint in at perfect liberty to satirist*,
in a pleasant spirit, the weak points of existing institutions.
Ito allay do it well ur ill, and that is a proper question for
criticism; but he 6 not to be condemned as ► criminal for
doing it at all. And our indignant contemporary may rest
assured that justice will be done by the critics and the
public, without the andstanco of the policeman, which it
scouts disposed to mem:amend.
But the most mousing part of our contemporary's aasault
on Mr. Dickens is the point at which it is chiefly made. His
pleasant fiction of the Circumlocution Office Is, in the eyes of
the Saturday Reviewers, the head and front of his offending.
It is here that the true Dogberry spirit comes out—the amus-
ing official gravity, the stolid official real, the utter inability to
perceive a joke. They look upon the Cin undoeution Office not
only as a complete failure in point of art, but as a moral and
political offence of the gravest magnitude. They smell treason
in that " How not to do it," and think it flat perjury to call a
prince's brother a barnacle. Can it be that they have a latent
sympathy with honest Doglmery Y The evidence for such
supposition is purely internal ; but the zeal with which they
insist, by implication, that they are not only wise men, but
"what is more, officers," who know the law, and wish to be
correctly written down in the record, memo almost to justify
such a surmise. Supposing this to be the ease, it may, per-
haps, explain the total absence of humour they evince.
During the French Revolution the Girondists were accused
of federalism, the signification of which the judges themselves
did not well understand, and one of them, on being asked
what it meant, replied, "He was no grammarian, but it
mounded like a very heinous crime." So the Saturday Reaiewers
being no Inanaristaand not exactly understanding tho Circu-
mlocution Office, decide, in the same way, that it sounds very
liko a crime. On the strength of that amusing chapter, en-
titled " The whole Art of Government," they solemnly de-
nounce the author as hostile to the institutions of the coun-
try, and as the great corrupter of youth within the realm.
The only parallel we know to such ► solemn farce is Lord
Donoughmere's motion in the peers to bring the publisher of
the Erentito•r before their lordships' bar for broach of
Wo don't know whether his lordship belongs to the
staff of our contemporary, but from the speech ho delivered on
that occasion we strongly suspect ho moot. Surely none but
a F.tuiday Reviewer would have thought a pleasant ironical
.ketch on a living peer a St subject for parliamentary inter-
fermate.

lIOOCITtL FOR IMSARLED MERCHANT SEAMEN.-
At the meeting yeaterday in the Egyptian-hall, the Lord
Mayor having adverted to the implrtance of the object
M view, Lord Henry Choluintuleley read a statement
from the Board of Management of the Shipwrecked
Mariners' Society, going at come length into the sub-
ject, and recommending that there should be a hoepital
founded for five hundred men, and that a plan should
be adopted for giving out-pensions se part of
the institution. Captain the Hon. F. Maude, It:N., then
moved a netolution in favour of the formation of such a
hospital as was contemplated. The resolution won carried,
and it was also agreed—'• That • building be raised on the
banks of the Thames, within the poet of London, to be
called (with her Majeety's permission) 'The Royal Hoe-
pital for Worn-out and Dtsabled Merchant Seamen.' That
the said building be prepared for the reception of 600 persons
seloeted from the ditferent grades of the 'percentile marine,
and that it be commenced as soon as there is
• fair prospect of 60,00 W. being subscribed, and
that u pl in of out-pensions bo grafted on the institution."
Mr. W. Phillips moved the nest resolution, to the effect
that the meeting viewed with much satisfaction the donation
o_f 600 W. from the corporation of the Shipwrecked Mariners'
Society in aid of the movement for the foundation of tho pro-
pearl boapital, and pledged itself to use its utmost endive-
vows to carry out MO noble and important an object. The
motion woo seconded by Mr. Montagu Gore, and carried.
Other revolutions of a businese character were vreetl to, and
thanks to the Lord Mayor concluded the pro.egs.

lIOT.II, AGRICULTURAL SOCIFTY.—Tho annual
exhibition of thia society commences at Salisbury on Tues-
day n. ; and the South-Westem directors have made
littoral arrangements for the accommodation of the public on
their line, en slant trains running between London and Sa-
lisbury throughout the day at reduced fares; whilst return
tickets will be issued, available from the 20th to the With July.
Armagoinents kayo also been made for giving constant com-
munication between Ilasingetoke and Salisbury, Winchester
and Salisbury, l'urtemouth, Gosport, and Southampton. &c.,
In etch CM* the return tickets pain available from the Mon-
day to rrlday.