The Express.
London, England, 1857-04-06 00:00:00

turned the tide in favour of

stifle its own voice by returning& Liberal and a Con-
servative to neutralise each other's Totes, instead of
returning two Liberals as heretofore.

If Lord CULLOM is returned, it will be the
triumph, not of the man, but of his party. Since he
has had a seat in the House of Commons, Lord
CULLOM has not allowed one indication to nape
him of any aptitude for legislation inherent in him.
He was too poor a legislator even for Dover : will the
Metropolitan County put up with what even Dover
scornfully flung aside? Lord CHELSEA is the
pis alter of his own party. It is well known that
the Address attributed to him was prepared by
others, kept ready cut and dry at the Carlton for
several days, waiting only far some ono bold enough
to append his name to it. No better man being to
be had, Lord CHELSEA was at the eleventh hour
allowed to subscribe the document and have it issued
in his name. Lord CHELSEA is a mere speaking
automaton, performing gesticulations, and uttering
sounds, according as he is pressed by the finger of
the Carlton. The electioneering agency which
canvasses for him, the drilled band of voters
who will plump for him, would have exerted
thenvelvee with equal good-will, at. a 171 -
Inent's notice, for any OtLer legislative puppet
brought upon the scene by the central management
of the Carlton. If the independent electors of Mid-
dim' allow such a phantom M.P. to be sent into the
Moose of Commons in their name, they will allow
their voices to be silenced by a mercenary organi-
sation.

And what objections can be urged against the
Liberal candidates sufficient to induce the electors
to allow a mere man of straw to get the start of
them? Against the eligibility of Mr. HARBERT
not a murmur is heard. The only tangible
objections that wo hear alleged against Lord
ROBERT GROSVENOR are his Sunday Trading
Bill of last session, and certain medical
heresies he is understood to have a leaning
for. With regard to the Sunday Trading Bill, we
frankly admit that we think Lord ROBERT made a
blander in introducing it. But let it be remembered
that he deferred to public opinion, withdrew the bill,
and does not intend to bring it forward again. For
the painful scenes provoked in Hyde Park by the
Intemperance of the police authorities Lord ROBERT
was in no way responsible—the sole blame rested
with Scotland-yard and the Home-office. And his
error in bringing forward the Sunday Trading Rill
originated in a mistake as to the best mode
of benefiting the labouring classes. This
error reflects no discredit on Lord ROBERT'S
philanthropy ; and when we consider how
judiciously be has laboured to benefit the poor
in other respects, it cannot be considered as a very
serious reflection on his judgment. Against this one
mistake, too, we have to set off a life-long devotion
to the Liberal cause. The other objection alleged

against Lord ROBERT GROSVENOR we will not con-

descend to di cuss. It is not a medical officer for
the Union, but a legislator, that the constituency of
Middlesex are called upon to elect. If we were
sick we might not send for Lord ROBERT to cure
us ; but neither, if we had a member of Parliament
to elect, would we give our vote for our family sur-
geon, though we have implicit confidence in his pro-
fessional skill. The only two objections made to
Lord ROBERT OROBVENOB, are mere jokes, and
not very brilliant or very original jokes either.
If he is rejected it will be merely because he has
been suspected of not being a very good customer at
the ale-house or the apothecary's shop. Had not
those who are influenced by such considerations
better call upon Lord CHZ.LSNA to produce his ale-
house score and his apotheaszy's bill ?

TEE trite maxim, that human nature cannot be
trusted with unlimited power, receives in these days

its most fearful illustenticos on board the merchant
ships of England and Anodes. The master of a
vessel on the high seas is stOl the absolute lord
of the mariners who navigate her. If he be,
u is too often the MIN a Assn of coarse and
brutal nature, of drunken habits and ungovernable
passions, he can, and be does, make a floating hell of
the isolated community he misrules. He is mow
ssrily entrusted with great power ; he hes le deal
with men generally improvident and thoughtless,
often lawless and turbulent. Where the misty of
all frequently depends on implicit obedience to
one, it is indispensable that habits of implicit
obedience should be enforced by firmness and at times
maintained by severity. There is no help for We;
the jurists and legislators accordingly, of all ere,
have acquiesced in the harsh necessity of the me,
and have not been minutely scrupulous in limiting the
degree of authority which the matter of a merchant
ship may exert over his crew. They have left the
limits of his power to be ascertained by the broad
precepts of common sense and humanity ; on the one
hand overlooking a degree of harshne.s and coercion
which in any other relation of master and employer
would be plainly indefensible ; but on the other.
sternly and promptly repressing any acts of high-
handed power which plainly transcend the rea-
sonable exigencies of discipline and the paramount
necessity of subordination. The English legislature

has recently made a laudable endeavour, by raising
the status of the muter, to improve the position of
the mariner. The Merchant Shipping Act of 18.54
has instituted examinations for masters and mates
of foreign-going merchant vessels, or home-trade
passenger ships, and " certificates of com-
petency " can only be given by the Board
of Trade to those masters and mates
' who are reported by the local examiners to have
given "satisfactory evidence of sobriety, experience,
and general good conduct on board ship." (17 fx 18
Vic., c. 104, s. 134.) Complaints have been made by
shipowners of the difficulties created in working this
clause ; but that some restraint of this kind is im-
peratively necessary has been recently proved by
many frightful instances of abused power in our own
mercantile marine.

There was that most horrible cue of HUGH
ORR, tried the other day on the Western Cir-
cuit, in which, though the jury, misled by a
false sentiment of humanity, only brought in a
verdict of manslaughter, the evidence clearly proved
a case of deliberate and atrocious murder. The
miserable tyrant had simply flogged to death, out of
pure wantonness, a black cook, who was not proved
on any one occasion to have given any reasonable
ground of offence. The death of the victim, indeed,
resulted not as an immediate consequence from any
one act of brutal violence, but was the sequel of a pro-
tracted agony of weeks, during which the number
of stripes inflicted in each successive chastisement
increased in exact proportion to the decreasing
power of the sufferer to endure them. It is idle to
urge that such cases as that of limn ORR only
prove the inefficacy of any system of examination
and certificates. The argument is the other way.
Extrame cases of atrocity like this are exceptions
against which no preventive law is competent to
provide ; but such a law, if wisely framed and pro-
perly enforced, does tend to make drunkenness,
cruelty, and misconduct, rather the exception than
the rule in the merchant service.

The case ju,t tried before Mr. Baron WArsog, at
Chester, though not so revolting in its barbarity as
that of Oita, yet reveals a state of brutal lawlessness
which is in the last degree discreditable
to the American marine. Indeed, if we are to accept
the comments of certain American journals as fair
expositions of the real state of the case, the brutality
of the commanders and subordinate officers in the
merchant ships of the United States appears far to
exceed, u a general rule, even that which prevails in
'British Teasels. Be this as it may, the case to which
we refer took place on the deck of an American
vessel. The following arc the principal facts i—On
the night of the 18th of January last a party of
Liverpool seamen took boat for the Robin Hoed, a
vessel then lying in the Mersey, for which they had
shipped themselves. It was between 10 and 11 at
night, and quite dark. Another vessel, the James
L. Bogart, was then in the river, off Birken-
head, and in want of bands for the voyage.
The seamen, who were no doubt in that
state of obfuscation which generally beclouds Jack's
faculties on quitting for a time the shores of Old
England, were taken to the James L. Bogart. The
people on board purposely decoived the men, by
bailing as the Robin Hood. They did not find out
the trick that had been played them till the
next morning. When the discovery was made
they naturally protested against it. After breakfast,
when the boatswain came on deck to count them,
CHRYSTIE, the prosecutor in the case, and the boldest
of the remonstrant., told PETER CAMPBELL, the
second mate, that he did not ship for that vessel, and
that he would not work. "CAMPBELL," he con-
tinues, " then laid hold of me, and said, ' What did
you say ?' I repeated what I said before, when
Fnaßla, the chief mate, cried, ' Put the son-
of-a in irons. " FLRBER flung a billet
of wood at him. CAMPBELL caught him by the
neck. CanssrtE flung him off, and escaped into the
rigging. CAMPBELL followed, with a six-barrel
revolver. He shot three times at Ottani! withers,
effect. VANDF.RPOLE, another of the kidnapped
seamen, then joined his comrade. The two mates
again came towards them. CAMPBELL then said,
" Will you work ?" the reply was, " We will if you
will treat us like men." CamPBELL thereulvn fired
at Y. vor.s.toLE, but did not hit him. " I heard,"
says the witness," the ball whistle put." His fifth
shot told with deadlier aim. The prisoner then
fired at CRRYSTTF, who cried out, " Oh Con, I'm
shot!" Then begun a general and furious
. .

onslaught. The chief mate was struck down by the
infuriated seamen; the pilot and steward ran up a
Niguel of distress ; the police officers boarded the
vessel ; and CA,!) PELL was thrown into custody to
abide the trial which has just terminated in his con-
viction, not indeed on the capital charge of shooting
with intent to kill, but on that of shooting with
intent to do grievous bodily harm.
We observe with great satisfaction the firm and
manly tone taken by Mr. Baron Ws•rsos: in com-
menting on this atrocious transaction. No maudlin
sympathy was allowed to intervene between the clear
proof of the offender's guilt and the vigorous expres-
. . . . . . . .

don of that righteous indignation which its cold-
blooded enormity was ma well calculated to excite.
The sentence of transportation, or penal slavery, for
life wasnever more richly deserved. it is to be hoped
that it will be literally can Wont. Mistaken leniency
to offenders such as these is worse than weakness--
it is immorality. It is a pitiful'evasion of that re-
sponsibility imperatively east on the highest adminis.
traton of our penal law, who ought never to forget
that mercy shown to culprits of this class is the
most indefensible cruelty to those whose lives are
intrusted to their keeping. The lot of a mariner in
the merchant service, hard and precarious as under
the present race of masters and officers it too often
is, would become absolutely intolerable, unless the
extremist rigour of the law were inexorably meted
out to such culprits as HrGir ORa rand PETER
CAMPHILL.