The Express.
London, England, 1857-08-08 00:00:00

costs& minimum, say of 2001." True," say the oppo-
nents of the measure, " you have reduced the coat
of obtaining a divorce some four-fifths, but you have
not yet so fur reduced it as to place it, in popular
phrase,within the reach of all." The answer is
obvious, and it is complete : ere would have reduced
it still further had it not been for the certainty of
your strenuous opposition : as it is we are quite con-
tent to let the matter rest where it stands—experi-
mentaily. Let us prove to those who profess to
doubt it that oar domestic morality can survive
the shock of divorce at 2001. instead of at
1,2001. Scotland we know keeps up a pass-
able reputation for virtue with divorce at
401. ; but then Scotland is a peculiar country,
where the action of aim. eon. has never taken root,
where gallantry is not the mode, and the temperate-
ness of passion counterbalances the cheapness of
indulgence. Let us wait and see. If the admission
of illouinsbury to the privileges of Belgravia is
found, after a few years experience, to make no
inroads on the connubial felicity of the metropolitan
middle-classes, even the most vehement alarmists
may Do not indisposed to take a step in advance, and
cheapen the divorce process down to the level of
Whitechapel. If this, too, be found, as we are con-
fident it would be found, not only absolutely safe,
but eminently beneficial to the real interests of
morality, then the argument would be irresistible
forextending to the domesticinfelicity of Cumberland
or Cornwall, by means of local tribunals, the same
remedy of efiertual divorce from the bonds of matri-
mony as was already enjoyed by the less opulent
classes of the metropolis. There is no finality in all
this ; but there is what is better, there is progress.
The time is gone by for any Whig Statute of
Limitations against the adaptation of legal procedure
ki the ascertained wants of the time.
It is impossible to commend the mode in which
this bill is being carried through the House by Sir
R. BETHELL. The timidity with which some clauses
are abandoned, and the flippancy with which
others are defended, are alike calculated to
twits attack and provoke opposition. The
result of this style of proceeding has already
made itself manifest. Why should the ArroaNuv-
GENERAL have thought himself concerned to oppose
Mr. Burr's motion, afterwards adopted and pressed
tea division by Lord JOHN MANNERS, for the trial
el eases of judicial separation before local tribunals?
As to the competency of the County Courts fur the
trial of this class of cases there can be no
manner of doubt. It is equally clear that
unless the County Courts, or some other local tribu-
nals, are empowered to deal with cases of this kind,
provincial suitors for judicial separation will be in a
worse position than at present, when there are in
almost every pa.-t of the country district ecclesiasti-
cal courts where in suits of this description some
kind of redress may be obtained. Whatever may be
thought of the wider proposidon—to try all divorce
causes, whether the parties seek Dissolution or only
Separation, in the first instance before local tribunals
—there can surely be no reasonable doubt of 'I
the expediency of giving a local jurisdiction in
Separation causes. The defeat sustained by Govern-
ment in the division which took place on the pro-
posal to vest local tribunals with jurisdiction in cases
of divorce d mens.i et thoro, ought to indicate with
sufficient clearness to her l't.lsf unit's Arrows's-
GENERAL that to this extent he must be prepared im-
mediately to concede the principle of local adjudi-
cation.

miring gresis whatever they want over and
above the ration' supplied to them by Government."
Thl peasantry never dream of resisting these exac-
tions; the Government wick at them. That
the English authorities are not ignorant of
this abuse every one may convince himself who
takes the trouble to consult the evidence of the
military officers examined by the Committee of the
House of Lords in 1833. Ile may at the same time
learn, from the evidence of Lord NIELVILLE, how
utterly unable the officers of the Bengal army were,
during the war in the Panjanb, to enforce anything
like European discipline even when their soldiers
were in face of an enemy. In short, the native
soldiery in Bengal have retained all the charac-
teristics of the old native armies. 'Their outward
show of European organisation is only skin deep.
They are the same rapacious, unprincipled creatures,
of impulse as those who have at various times fol-1
lowed Narita Snow or any other Oriental conqueror.
But this our Anglo-Indian authorities—civil 'mil
military—have never suspected. They have felt that
they themselves had nothing iu common with the
military adventurer who rallied round the con-1
clamors of firmer days, and it never occurred to
them that their native soldiers could differ from
tlinmsele es. They saw the Sepoy in his idle hours— I
when well fed and good-humoured —fondling
children, and jumped at the coneluAion that
he was a pare extract of the milk of '
human kindness. They never for a moment re-1
fleeted that the tiger, too, has its momenta of play-
fulness and beauty. me awful storm of human
ferocity which has broken over the heads of these
thoughtless victims, might have been foreseen bad
they but bethought themselves what human nature
is when left to the guidance of impulse and trs-1
ditional habit. The lesson has been a terrible'
one : will it produce any lasting effects? Will
the Anglo-Indian Government, instead of re-
maining contented with a force which is a tole-
rable imitation of the externals of an European
army on parade, seek to imbue their reconstructed
army with something approaching to the principles
and sentiments of European soldiers? 'Will they,
while this slow task is in progress, place at the heads
of their armies men whose commanding characters
are fitted at once to intimidate and win soldiers to
obedience? English soldiers may be effectually led
by common-place men who understand the trade of
war ; but men of genius are required to wield a
wayward and impulsive Oriental soldiery.

THE grouse are strong on the wing ; we arc only
four days from the 12th of August; the temperature
has been alarmingly high ; our legislators have been
sitting day after day from twelve at noon till two
the next morning ; outside the house the old woman-
hood of the country is in a moral paroxysm; 9,000
parsons arc in full petition; within the House her
MAJESTY'S ATTORNEY-GENEHAL has been exhibit-
ing all that perfection of tact and that exquisite
polish of well-bred sarcasm which have so long
endeared him to his brother practitioners in
Chancery—is it wonderful that under this
promising combination of circumstances her
MAJESTY'S Opposition should have somewhat lost
head and temper in the recent debate on the
Divorce Bill? On Thursday night those who had
hitherto vehemently opposed the Bill because it ren-
. .

dered divorce and judicial separation too easy,
completely changed their point of attack, and dc-
claimed against the measure because it made the
remedy too dear. It failed to secure equal justice
for all chums ; it was not a poor man's Bill; instead
of throwing open the local tribunals and thus bring-
ing the means of obtaining divorce and separation
within the reach of the distant and the needy, it
established a central tribunal, the cost of applying
to which would still place it beyond the means of the
'less opulent.
Now,wehave maintained throughout, and WC main-
tain still, that this point, now urged by the G la& onion
opposition solely with a motive to embarrass and per-
plex, is in itself a point of very considerable im-
portance. We quite agree with her NIAJENTT'S Op-
position, though we are undoubtedly surprised at
finding ourselves on such a question supported by
such allies, that equality of right, realised as far as
possible by a cheap, simple, and local procedure,
subject to the watchful superintendence of an
exalted and central tribunal, is in theory the
great :objest to be aimed at by the reformers
of oar diverse system. Whatever be the object sought
by:the parties—whether mere judicial separation,
,era emplete dissolution of the nuptial tie—the first
step in the procedure, in all cases where distance or
poverty render it desirable, ought to be an investi-
gation Define local tribunals: the Courts of Maize,
when they are sitting ; the County Courts, or the
courts of the stipendiary police magistrates, when
they are not. On the evidence thus taken before the
itinerant or the local tribunals, the central court
alstseld set just ea the Courts in Bane now act on
application for new trials in civil eases, or as the
Criminal Court of Error acts in cases of criminal
Weal.
But, although this is our deliberate opinion—
*ugh we can see no possible danger in such a
course, and are convinced that relief to this extent
will ultimately have tobe conceded—yet, not being
under any Parliamentary exigency of harassing the
Government by a party opposition, we are perfectly
risk to bide our time, and quite contented to take,
in the first instance, that moderate amount of im-
provement which the Government Bill, even
in its present form, affords. Lord JOHN HUY,
SELL has been pleased to dissent from this
course, and to go in for finality ; as once in
Parliamentary Reform, so now in Divorce Reform.
Lord Joan RVs ELL'S objection proceeds from
taking an incomplete and somewhat confused view
of the question before the House. It can never be too
often repeated, or too clearly borne in mind, that in
this, as in all other measures of Law Reform, there
are two very distinct objects to be kept in view :
a change in the substantive law, and a change in the
law if procedure. In many Law Reforms the first
of these two objects is the principal one; in the re-
form of our Divorce Law it is the latter. The sub-
stantive law of Divorce relates solely to the grounds
of Divorce: these, with the single exception of
making adultery with desertion a ground of dissolu-
tion for the wife, arc left by the Bill completely as
they were. It is the procedure by which Divorce is
to be procurable, not the substantive law by which
its causes are defined, that is alone affected by
this Bill. But surely no enthusiast for finality
ever carried his fanaticism so far as to require
that the forms of legal procedure should be fixed
once far all with unerring precision and etorsid
inflexibility. This distinction was well pointed eat
by Lord STANLZT, with all that aptitude for veining
the trot bearings of a caw which is becoming MOM
end more a confirmed habit with this young and
rising statesman. Changes in the law regulating the
grounds of divorce are an evil ; changes in the law
regulating the mode in which divorces may be
obtained stand on a very different footing.
Apply these principles to the present case : the
present divorce procedure, by action of erne.
tow, Mk in the Ecclesiastical Courts, sad private
Act of Parliament, costa a minimum say of 1,0001.
The reeedsre iutroduosd by the Oceelasent Bill

AMONGRT other projects of law waiting, like the
Platonic ideas, to be embodied in act, but des-
tined, we fear, for this Session not to pass the
incomplete stages of early development, is the
very useful Bill introduced by Sir FREDERIC
Tur.stcea, with the concurrence of Government,
for the abolition of Grand Juries within the
limits of the Metropolitan Police District.
A very great deal of nonsense has been talked
in the House of Commons with reference to this Bill.
If we are to believe Mr. BOWYER and Mr. RESTON,
the proposed measure Naps the principles of the
constitution, and strikes at the liberties of the
subject. Is this the serious apprehension of
men ardent for the maintenance of English freedom,
or the mere eleutherotnanisc rant of popularity-

-.—
hunters seeking vulgar applause by cheap clap-trap .
Let us see. The hon, and learned members for Dun-
dalk and the Tower Hamlets tell us that the insti-
tution of the Grand Jury has often been found the
principal protection of the subject against the perse-
cutions of lawless power. They especially vaunt its
value in cases of high treason and other State
offences. We rather doubt the soundness of this
view as borne out by the facts of history. In the
worst times of the second CHARLES the Grand Jury
of London no doubt occasionally interposed in the
way suggested. They ignored the bill against Lord
SHARE/Mt= ; they ignored the bill against
COLLEDGE. But this was a very transient exer-
cise of independence. In the next reign
they not only afforded no protection against the
worst excesses of tyranny, but they even surpassed
the Petty Jury in their eager subservience to the
ferocity of the Court. Not a single cue at the
Bloody Amin," in which the bill was not found by
the Grand Jury. In the case of Ettuerrn GAUNT,
who was burnt at Tyburn for harbouring a traitor I
in the case of Column, the High Sheriff of
don, who was hung and quartered or. the IMO day
in Cheapside, without one iota of legal evidence to
substantiate anything that could be strained into a
crime—the billewere found with the utmost medium
by the Grand Jury. In the still more useesteme
ease of the Lady ALICIA LISLE, whose sentence was
mercifully (!) commuted from burning to beheading,
there was not only no difficulty in finding a bill,
but the unhappy lady, in that most affecting
paper which she delivered to the Sheriff at the place
ed execution, especially particularises her forgive-
ness of " him that desired to be taken from the
Orand Jury to the Petty Jury, that he might be the
wee nearly concerned in my death." To come down
a little nearer to our own times, did anyone ever
bear, during the Tory reigns of terror under Ptvr
and Strixourn, that the Grand Jury discovered any
alacrity in interposing, for the protection of the sub-
ject, against the persecuting real of the Crown
lawyers ? Whst wrought the deliverance of HARDY
sad HORNE Toms, and THELWALL and HONE, and
Wsysos ?—not surely the refusal of the Grand Jury
to find a true bill, but the determination of the Petty
Jury to pronounce for an aapdttal where they
honestly felt there had been a Ware to pewee guilt-
Even supposing, then, that all this 4imieleation
about the function of Grand Juries to mamba the in-
vaded liberty of the subject were appilealis to Sir
FREDERIC THISTGER'S Bill, it is uttmirmapported
by the ;facts of history. It is to no teamed judging
ex porte, and sworn to secrecy, that Inglisimen own
the protection of their liberties and the ideamof their
lives, but to that tribunal which judges openly, after
hearing all that can be urged on both dim sad do.
livers its verdict before Goo and the mesmtry.
Dat what makes all this Tower Hamlets =
especially absurd in the present same is the
ink that Sir F. Taaelosa's Bill distinctly naught
aim at High MUM from the operation of the po•
joid law. " Nothing hereinbefrce oontaiatat‘do
Imsoostisa4—" shall apply to any charge of Medi%
or orloprionnt of tomato% and all proosedings thaws

THE EXPRESS, SATURDAY EVENING, AUGUST 8, 1857.

shall be hand taken as if this Act had not been
pawed."
But then, ejaculates the enraged Member for the
Tower Hamlets, " with the abolition of Grand Juries
the nation will lose the right of impeaching &minister
of the crown; and then what will beoome of the national
liberties ?" There are some questions so wonderfully
absurd that their mere utterance takes away all
power of reply. It is an old discovery that " pure
no meaning puzzles more than wit;" and there are
really few things more perplexing than to have to
answer with any gravity this portentous query of
Mr. AYRTON. Lest, however, any one, even in the
Tower llamlets,should think there may be something
in the inquiry, we must take the liberty of remind-
ing the Hon. Member that there is one tribunal,
and one only, to which is entrusted the right of im-
peachment for high offences against the State, and
that is the grand inquest of the nation in the Com-
mons House of Parliament assembled. We arc
ashamed at having thus to descend to the mere
alphabet of polities ; but the fault is not ours.
Let us just consider quietly what this institution
of the Grand Jury in its present state really is. It
is neither more nor less than asecret tribunal, which
at the last moment, just before a prisoner whose case
has previously been fully investigated by the com-
mitting magistrates, goes to trial, investigates ft
over again very hastily and very imperfectly, with
a view of deciding whether he ought to be sent to
actual trial or not. Before a tribunal thus consti-
tuted all sorts of abuses are possible and are proo-
tiged. There is no cross-examination—only one
side is head. Astute villany may tamper, and
. often does tamper, with witnesses whose truth
or falsehood there is no means of checking.
Hence many cases are not sent to trial which ought
to be. That is one evil. Another and a yet more

dangerous one is, that the unscrupulous and malig-
nant have every facility afforded them for getting up
evidence in the first instance against the innocent,
and thus procuring blameless men to be sent for trial
by the Grand Jury, when there would be no chance
of getting them committed by a magistrate. The same
tribunal which, from the notorious existence of the
former mischief, has been called the " hope of the
London thieves," equally deserves, from the no less
notorious existence of the latter, to be regarded as
the terror of all those who, though free from crime,
are not free from the curse of unscrupulous enemies.
Look again at the practical testimony of all those
who have had the closest opportunities of watching
the working of this tribunal. There is not a
functionary of any importance connected with the
administration of the criminal law who has not
repeatedly denounced this institution as it exists
within the limits of the Metropolitan Police District
as useless wherever it is not mischievous, and
mischievous wherever it is not useless. These senti-
ments have been echoed by none more zealously
than by those who are from time to time summoned
to serve on Grand Juries. Surely this weight of
practical testimony is more than sufficient to counter-
balance the vague ebullitions of gentlemen in quest of
a grievance, who do not every day find such an oppor-
tunity for airing their patriotic sentiments as this
sham defence of a supposed landmark of the
constitution. We shall much regret if the Session
closes before this Bill of Sir FREDERIC THEN'IGER'B
pass into kw.

FRANCE.

THE ALLEGED PLOT AGAINST THE
LIFE OF TIIE EMPEROR.