The Express.
London, England, 1868-07-29 00:00:00

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ONE PE Y NY.
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OUR CON TEMPO RIME& a..
(THIS DAY.)
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nsvontutian AlanitOsis Orrninee.
The Times thinks no one will be surprised ilk
the passing of a bill in the Amerman Congress for the pro-
tection of naturalised American citizen abroad. The eori-
elusion to which most thinking men nave come is that;
whatever may be the moral tie which binds a man to the
laud of his birth and the institution:, of his fathers, it is
expedient that he should be allowed to divest his.
self of his allegiance when he has become aes.
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tually and toad fide an inhabitant of another country.
The Irish and Germans in America, the Chinese in Ame-
rica and Australia, meat be held to have merged them-
selves into the new communities, and it would be a foolish
pedantry to maintain any other test of nationality than •
is involved in residence and citizenship. But the Times
denies that the English law has been put in force to the
practical injury of the American Irish, we the fact that a
man is a foreigner makes no ditto:en.* in the legal
guilt of levying war against tee Queen within
her, ewe dominions. The only form in which the doctrine
of immutable allegiance appeared was the refusal of a
mixed jury ; but this mode of trial is a matter of purely
national regulation, and Might be abolished to-morrow
without tieing any greeted of complaint to foreign foriviMC
While admitting, then, the American principle, it mast be
borne in mind that it will Rot protest erese nJrn foreigners,
if after conspiring against the British government in their
own country they come here to curry out their hostile 1
designs.
zuscriox riocumonkroe OP Pte.The Daily News quotes the late electioneering premed-
lags of Lord Hardwicke and the extraordinary proposi-
tions advanced by the Duke of Portlaud as instances that
some of the peers aro aspiring to be commoners. Another
illustration is found in the case of the ilarquis of Bute,
who is 'till a minor at Oxford. Cantuf at present is re-
presented by his cousin, who is a liberal, and the young
marquis, who is also Berea Cardiff, has written to his
cousin, Colonel Stuart, withdrawing from him his political
support ; and his lordship's trustee has since stated that
the patronage has been transferred to Mr. Gifted, the
tory candidate. It can scarcely Ile possible that the mer-
chants and manufacturers of this douriahing town will 3
submit to the puerile dictation of the Marquis of Bute,
or to the covert terrorism of his trustee and his guardian:
The question arises how far the laws which favour the
accumulation of vast properties in a few hands are corn- •
imtible with the free and honest working of the repre-
sentative system. The Duke of Perthuel and the Mar-
quis of Bute, or rather the keeper of his conscience, are,
raising very revolutionary issues at a tune when prudence
would dictate a guarded and watchful reserve.
The Telegraph, commenting on the same subject, says
every little fact that exhibits peers in insolent opposition
to the people " tells trumpet-tongued" for the views of
the thinkers in this country—as yet a minority—who
already talk about transforming our hereditary chamber
into a Senate, with foolish boys like Lord Bute and in-
competent old gentlemen like the Duke of Portland MIS.
gated to the obscure opulence of do-nothing millionaires.
INDLAN PENANCE.
The Star sees a serious financial danger to India in the
gradual increase of expenditure--an increase which, if not
watched and checked, will go far to consume unprofitably
the natural increase of the revenue, and to defraud the
people of India of those benefits, in the form of fiscal
relief, to which they have a paramount claim.
The estimates presented to the House of Com-
mons for the year 1866-1867 were, so far as re-
gards revenue, largely exceeded by the actual re-
turns. The opium dues, the customs, the licence tax,
had all yielded a larger return than had been contain- •
plated. But in place of any part of this surplus being avail-
able for the extension and expedition of those great public
works which it is our primary duty to spread over the face
of India, we find the entire of it, amounting to nearly one
million and a half, eaten up by an increase in the outlay
of the spending departments, the particulars of which we
could not gather from the Secretary's of State's speech.
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itaxeser PROSPECTS.
The .Daily News takes an encouraging view of our har-
vest prospects, both in England and elsewhere. We have
just come through a period of deficient harvests, and the
harvest of this year promises at least to be a long step
onwards to a more fruitful period. Even in the United
States, where a spring unusually cold and wet made the
prospects of the harvest gloomy, a spell of glorious sun-
shine
has changed everything, and they are looking for
plentiful crops. Altogether appearances are in favour of
the consumer. We may not be entering on a period of
low prices such aa that of 1864 and 1865, but it is probable
that bread will bee good deal cheaper during the next
autumn and winter than it was during the last autumn
and winter.
ma. NONIZAZ AND TR' PRESS.
The Times, referring to Mr. Harman's address to his •
constituents, observes that the House of Commons and the
Irish church have served the turn of the rival leaders ;
Mr. Hemmen will try both in one—a reform of the House
of Lords. Cap that who can P No doubt, Mr. Honmaan
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has long wished to see a few such improvements, and
modesty alone has stopped his mouth. But the
age of modesty is past. It is, however, pos-
sible to conceive a House of Lords composed
on the plan suggested by Mr. /foreman, which
would be quite as serviceable as the present, which would
possess as much weight, and which would work even bet-
ter with the House of Commons. But the change is un-
deniably enormous, and it is no slight illustration of the
crisis we have come to when a parliamentary speaker of
long-standing, of eminence, and even influence, throws
the proposal into a sentence of his address to his consti-
tuency.
EXTRAORDINARY CASE OF CHILD PO/BONING BY
A Nosezonth—Yesterday a most extraordinary case of
child poisoning by a nursegirl, Mary Keinshaw, was heard
by the West Biding magistrates at the Guildhall, Don-
caster. The prisoner is a girl of 13 years of age, and
entered the service of Mr. Houlden, farmer, at Cantley,
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near Doncaster, on the 4th inst. A child 10 months old
was placed under her charge, but within ten days siter
she attempted to poison it by administering to it a
noxious and poisonous drug, known as " foot rot,"
which is used by farmers in dressing sheep. The drug, if
undiluteA, is a very powerful one, and caused the child's
lips to swell and turn white, and this being noticed by the
mother she at once charged the girl with having given
something to the child, but she denied it, and stated that
another grl had given it a cough pill. This, however,
was found to be untrue, and it was afterwards discovered
that a portion of the foot rot mixture, which was con- (.1
Mined in a bottle to which the girl had access, had been
given to it. So powerful is the mixture that the child's
clothes upon which it had fallen were completely de-
stroyed. Fortunately, however, the mixture does not appear
to have taken any effect the childbeyond burning its
lips and mouth. The ~.prisoner appears to be a girl of weak
• intellect, and bad been sent into the country on that
account. Her conduct since she has been with Mr.
Houlden would certainly seem to warrant this view, for F
from the first day she came she seemed dissatisfied, and
on the 16th; the day before she administered the poison to
the child, shoran away, but was brought back by her mother,
who lives at Doncaster. The chili also, who previous to
her wining was perfectly healthy, has, duringthe time she
has been thee, been unwell, end had • meat dislike to the
girl. The girl also, on the 16th, in aced of the servants •
whether laudanum was poison, and, after she hadgiven
the draft to the child, whether it was dead. The prisoner
was a:emitted to take her trial at the Leeds WINSYL
Tits CONDEMIqF.D CONVICT Wria.e.--Bince his
condemnation on Thursday the unhappy man Wells has b
maintained an extremely quiet demeanour, and to those
who come in contact with him he has been most respect-
ful. He has not been visited by any of his relatives or
friends. In the ordinary course of events, the execution
will take place on the 13th of August. As &wording to
recent legislation capital punishment is now required to
lake place within the walls of the prisons, the scaffold
will be erected on the ground on the south aide of the
building near the debtors' wards, and an excavation will
be made for the drop. The admission of the public is left
entirely to the discretion of the high sheriff and the visit-
ing justices.—.llsidstow Journal.
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