The Express.
London, England, 1868-07-23 00:00:00

,SHE
*EXPRESS, THURSDAY

empty chair and before the unliftod tithe. Thel
politie*l glinete of Lord SALLSBURY,..OAIt-
NARVOtt. and General PEEL, whom Mr. DISSAIItt
made away with, in order to O&M way to the
beat on which he now uncomfortably sits, may
have succeeded each other in the empty ohair, and
and glared at him with reproachful eyes.
On the whole, the entertainment cannot have
been a very happy. ono. The whitebait dinner
yesterday must have borne a certain resemblance
to a condemned criminal's. last meal. Pleasant in
itself, it doubtless was ; but then what was to
come after it P There was doubtless a certain
elaborate avoidance of a topic common to the
thoughts of all the guests, a tacit reference
to a doom dreaded yet dwelt upon, a foreboding
of that execution of the aentenoo of the oountry
which is to out short the politioal existence of
ministers. Mr. Duiaasu and his colleagues pro-
bably see in imagination the hustings being erected
with feelings resembling that with which a
convict in Nowgate hears the sound of the hammer,
which tells of the building of the scaffold on
which ho is to make his last appearance. If this
comparison offends anyone, we may compare the
meeting of the forty-five Ministers to the final
gathering of a bogy of exiles, who know that they
will never meet again in the same place and under
similar circumstances, and who are parting from
all that is most dear to them. " Tears to human
" suffering ero duo ; and mortal hopes departed
" and o'erthrown are mourned by man." The
vicissitudes of party touch all politicians. Doubt-
less it was with the view of counteracting the
melancholy influences under which Mr. DISRAELI
and his colleagues mot that Lord HoYsros was
placed in the chair. The innocent gambols and
lively chatter of the Controller of the House-
hold may have done something to cheer the
hearts of Ministers, weighed down not so much
by the cares of office as by the fear
of losing it. The Abbot of Unreason
is a more suitable host on certain occasions than
more dignified or decorous personages would be.

After all, Mr. DISRAELI and his friends, though
their festivities must have somewhat resembled
the recklessness of Irish convicts in former times,
who gambled and caroused, sitting on the coffins
which they were to fill in the morn-
ing, anticipate only the common fate of
Ministries. Every Cabinet, during the last century
or century and a half, has eaten its last whitebait
dinner. The gossips of history dispute whether
this annual meal dates from the time of the
elder or from that of the younger PITT. It is cer-
tain that Dagenham, in Essex, was the first place
of meeting, and that Greenwich has suooeeded
to honours, and the landlord of the Trafalgar
to profits which did not originally belong
to either. One narrative says that in 1721, when
Captain PERRY was engaged in repairing Dagen-
ham Beach, the Parliamentary Commissioners who
superintended his labours sought refreshment from
their own by winding up the proceedings of each
year by a fish dinner at the Reach House, to which
on one occasion the elder Prrr was in-
vited. Another acoount, which, if we recollect
rightly, is favoured by Lord STAIMOPE, dates
the origin of the dinner td the private hospitalities
offered by Sir ROBERT PRESTON, the member for
Dover, to Sir GEORGE ROSE, at his Cottage on the
banks of Dagenham Reach, hospitalities which
the younger PITT condescended to share, and
which were gradually extended till they included
all the Ministers of the Crown, and limited till they
excluded all but Ministers of the Crown. Which-
ever of these accounts be correct, the whitebait
banquet illustrates two things,—first, the gradual
and imperceptible way in which English institutions
grow up, and the obscurity which overshadows
their origin ; and secondly, the absolute impossi-
bility of conducting any public business in
England without the solemn rite of dinner.

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" tore were *ill e Hear "
" They must kelt in • ihat t seldom
c. dilLe At. . ..,
NC'
A more remarkable code of commercial mbralitY
was never promulgated by a public man. There
has always been a deoent veil kept up oonoerning
the proceedings and motives of boards of directors,
and even where theory and practice have sadly
clashed, credit hes been given for good intentions .
on the shareholders' behalf. It now scorns that a
cynical disbelief in human honour is the creed.
The directors have been blamable, but the share-
bolder' would have been quite as bad if they had
had the ohanoe. A self-seeking greed before which
all other considerations meet bow is the motive-

power attributed to the Oredit Fonder board by,
its apologist. Surely this is candour carried too
far.

GARDRY PARTIES.

LADY HOLLAND'S garden party yesterday was
the last flicker of gaiety of the departing season.
All that is left in town of rank, beauty, or fashion
was present, and, notwithstanding the terrible
heat, contrived to infuse a degree of life into the
proceedings highly creditable to their vitality.
For a garden-party has, with many advantages,
the signal drawback of interfering with
one's meals. The middle-aged people who
are too fat for flirting, and to whom
croquet presents no charms, but who attend
these pleasept afternoon gatherings with the rest,
are to be laded when their regular dinner-hour
arrives. Fruit and cream' pales. sillabahs,
sweet cakes, and trifles, make up but a poor sub-
stitute for the wholesome nourishing roast or
boiled which pilgrims who hays diacorwed 'hair
digestions, are advised to affect. A garden party
either means no dinner at all, or a dinner spoilt
and cloyed by " cups " and condiments only
fit for ladies and children. But even with these
grave gastronomic drawbacks, it is a de-
lightful form of entertainment. The groups
upon the soft silken grass—brown now, but of a
fresh bright green at the earlier parties of the
year—the gay dresses, tho light chat, and the
trifling element of sport ensured by the innocent
amusements sanctioned by society, combine to
make the time pass pleasantly. Such weather
as we are groaning under acts too as
a powerful deterrent to the use of
cosmetiques for dayligi,f, gatherings. What
face-colour can be guaranteed from running
with the thermometer as it stands now ? Yester-
day if no one at Lady HOLLAND'S quoted the
lines—

All-conquering heat, oh, intermit thy wrath!
And on my throbbing temples potent thus
Beam not so tierce!
it was not because the sentiment was not uni-
versally felt, but because the poet, their author,
is too little read. But it is some compensation for
much suffering if fictitiously red and white faces
are rendered less common, and caloric in this
instance may be a more effective moral agent than
either sermons or sarcasm.

While on the subject of garden parties, it is
worth remarking their share in establishing
croquet as a national game. When Lawn's
sketch of, " And croqueted he certainly was,"
was originally published, thousands of the readers
of Punch heard of the sport 'for the first time.
But the balls and hoops and mallets, and, above
all, the players as depicted by our great
pictorial humourist, looked promising ; and
it is admitted that this one picture did
more to popularise croquet than all the adver-
tisements of all the dealers in its tools. But
garden parties do not necessarily depend upon
Amusements for their success, as most of the
faahionables seen yesterday could testify. To see
and be seen, to talk and be talked to, and to play
as Pendennis and Manche kaniry did,
with town feeling, town tastes, and town asigra:-
tions asserting themselves at every turn, are the
motives governing the best of these gather-
ings. The sanction given by her hiAir.srr and the
present tenor of fashionable taste point to their
increasing popularity ; but in the interest of the
people who like to eat comfortably once a day,
we ask,—Cannot the hours be modified, or the
character of their refreshments be improved ?

WE gather from a statement in the New York
Nation that the late decision of the House of
Lords in regard to copyright is beginning to
affect the dealings of English publishers with
American houses and American authors. Two
London firms have recently made offers which
would not have been thought of if the Lords had
not decided that books published in Groat Britain
before publication elsewhere are exclusively the
property of the author or his representatives,
whether written and owned by British subjects or
by foreigners. One offer to a New York firm,
which does a large publishing business, covers the
whole list of their publications. The other is
made to a lady of New York, who has written a
successful book for children, and who is asked to
write another. The Nation thinks that probably
the lady in question will not write the worse be-
cause she knows that her book will be sold on
both sides of the Atlantic, and will not be stolen
on either side.

Wx are not sorry to see that prompted pro-
bably by the animadversions which were freely
passed upon their last gathering at Carmar-
then, the promoters of the Welsh National Fes-
tival, the Eisteddfod, to be held next month at
Euthin, promise not merely a better programme,
but greater care in carrying it out. While the
Germans keep their kirme., and the Italians their
feria, our English country festivals have dwindled
down into the gathering together of half a dozen
drinking booths, a few swings, and a leg-of-mut-
ton-crowned greasy pole to be climbed by half-
drunken boors. In Ireland a fair means plenty of
potheen and a sufficiency of ahillelaghs. In Scot-
land and in Wales the old traditions still exist at
" gatherings ;" in the former cabers are tossed and
stones are " put," and strathspeys are danced by
competitors clad in the garb of old Gaul, while at
the Welsh Eisteddfods harpers tune their old-
fashioned instruments, and bards, scorning all
knowledge of English, chant, in their wild Zan-
/Page
tal CA that deal with knights,
Half legend, half historic, counts and kings,
Who lard about them at their wills and died.

Modem requirements, however, demand some-
thing more than this. So we are glad to see that
at the ooming Eisteddfod there will be social
science meetings under the presidency of Sir Bunn
OWEN, exhibitions of art-treasures and of the
natural products of Wales, and a performanoe of
the Messiah under the skilled direction of Mr.
Humeri.

IT 18 unsafe in Massachusetts lawyers to
bleed their clients too freely. just de-
cided in Boston is in proof. A oaf the
bar has been put on trial on a o I exacting
money from certain clients without Igiving any

.G, JULY 23,

;••iceeseesiliii rfinnilpnottoe. After a full ina-i
lition of the cue, the found that
aegioeumrici ed for the of th
after the ellempt of the su to'
have been peed. and that there was not the
cases at that particular time which rendered such
payments reasonable. Having found that all the
charges were true and sustained by the proofs, the
court gave order and judgment " that JOHN D.
" Howe be. and he hereby is. removed from his
" office of attorney-at-law." Ofeamehusetts is
determined to sustain her fame as the model state.

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.
tI'HIS DAY.)

Tall 1011101 OLTTLI ICAlltaT BILL

.The Times taxes the opponents of the above
measure with unsernpulous tactics, and with objecting to
a partial restriction, while at the same time they maintain
a total restriction. The bill la in fact, • purely adminis.
trative measure, prepared in neenrdance with the most
skilful advice, for the purposed encountering a sputa
danger, and to treat it u • party meuure and to raise
factious cries against it is a policy whioh will recoil on
those who adopt it. It probably rests with the govern-:
ment to carry the bill. It is evident that • steady. Ma-
jority in the House of Ocennions is prepared to support it,
and the government have only to be firm in order to in.
sure success.

In the opinion of the Post, the bill shows utter dis-
regard and contempt for the Privy Council, for it pro-
poses to enact as a pkraanent law for times of safety that
which the council has not thought necessary even as •
temporary regulation in times of danger. If a separate
market is required at all times, why has not the Privy
Council insisted upon establishing one before; if it is not
necemary, why is it proposed to establisis it now? There
is no escape from this dilemma, that either the council has
°IMO 41=trtiral ralitlamillortoo lax to be sate,
or else that le ispreposing regalstions more
onerous than are necessary.
If the liberal members generally, says the Star, are
going to allow the bill to pass, let them at once abjure
their cent about free trade; for the profession of free trade
can be only a cant in the months of men who tolerate the
principle of this measure. If we are to mark the close of
this unreformed parliament by a reactionary movement
which recala the memory of the time when every great
section fought openly in the house to secure some
pecuniary benefit for itself—if we are going to do this, let
us at least call by their right names the persons
who permit, as well as those who promote, the move-
ment. Let us hear no more talk about their benevolent
anxiety to give food to the people from members of par-
liament who tolerate this measure. The people do not
live by bread alone ; and the whig who, somewhat reluc-
tantly, perhaps, if the truth were known, helped the Anti-
Corn-Law League to bring bread to its natural price some
twenty years agoi is get o that account to think he can
escape tonaembetkle 0 he meant to allow the protection
party to put an unnatural price on rcrat tri-da7.