The Express.
London, England, 1857-04-10 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, FRIDAY

shrunk from their avowal on the hustings during
the late elections. Nothing can be mare contempti-
ble than the time-serving duplicity evinced by vul-
gar and brawling bawler', wbehnued popularity
by the safe courage of declaiming against the blan-
dishments of the Court and takmatrtly, in their
eagerness to disclaim all sympathy-with the prop°.
eel to throw open our public gardens and treasures
of art to the general public on the afternoons of
Sundays. It is melancholy to see a nation so en-
lightened as the English—in which every ninety-
nine men out of a hundred believe such a measure
innoxious at the least if not beneficial---consciously

playing the hypocrite to itself and servilely repeating
the senseless ascetic phrases of a pretentious minority.
May we not attribute to the loss of self-respect,
which is the necessary consequence of such cowardice,
the prevalence of a hard, vulgar abuse of conven-
tional religious phraseology which has so often
shocked every rightly constituted mind during the
late, electioneering ebullitions? When we read in a
journal which lays claim to an exclusively religious
char►cter, such designations as "the man of Coo"
applied to a statesman whose most prominent charac-
teristic is a frank and fearless levity; and when
we find another, when a leader of its own

narrow-minded sect is announced as the successor to
a vacant see, canting about the reward that awaits
in a future life the Minister who was understood to

have thus exercised his patronage for the sole
purpose of increasing his political influence, we'
cannot bet fear that we are relapsing into an age
of Tartu fee, or Mmetrorniv, or Mother Coles. And
all history is full of evidence that generations ad-
dicted to cant arc uniformly succeeded by genera-
tions in which profligacy braves the light of day
with the most audacious effrontery and cynicism.

On agricultural readers must have derived great
satisfaction from that column of our paper of the
Bth inst which shows that all the measures mom-
mended against the murrain have been taken de-
cidedly and in time. Supposing that those mea-
sures will be carefully and effectually carried out,
three parties out of four will have done their duty.
By an Order in Council, the QIIT.Z.V has prohibited
the importation of cattle, and of everything belong-
ing to them, from the countries where the dreaded
disease is raging. The Royal Agricultural Societies
of England, Scotland,. and Ireland are sending out
a well-qualified Veterinary Professor, to study the
disease on the spot ; and the Commissioner is to be ac-
companied by a German gentleman of the same pro-
fession, to obviate any difficulty on the score of
difference of language. Again, the managers of
Cattle Insurance Societies are making known the
names, claims, and localities of their respective asso-
ciations, exhibiting an amount of resource of this I
kind greater than the agricultural public was per-
haps aware of. There has been dimes.. enough
among cattle in some parts of England for the last
few years to test the strength and soundness of some
local insurance societies ; and it is to be hoped that
every visitation of epidemic disease among cattle will
find our stock-breeders and farmers better guarded
against panic and loss, by means of a safe and sound
insurance of the life of their stock.

The owners of cattle are the fourth party, who
have a very stringent and serious duty to perform
at the present moment. They can do more
towards the exclusion or mitigation of the mur-
rain than, to judge by appearances, they at present
believe. It is this incredulity or apathy on the part
of a multitude of farmers which makes it the duty
of other people to rouse them to protect their own
property. They may ask, and they do ask, whether
a man may not be let alone to take care of his own
property; and they inquire further who can be so
meth interested in the health of their cattle as them-
NM& But they should remember that, in the first
gime, meat is 80 per cent. dearer in England than it
was eighty years ago, and that an increasing pro-
preion of English society is obliged to do without
it; and, in the next place, that famine and fever
follow in the train of a cattle epidemic so serious as
that which is raging on the Baltic now. Thus,
society has a close and unquestionable interest in
seeing that no means are left untried to induce
farmers to take timely care of their cattle; and thus
it is the duty of journalists to remind the agricul-
tural class of what they may do, and are bound to do,
in counteraction of the dreaded calamity.
Our agricultural improvers, and the new school
who farm high, need no exhortation or instruction.
Their stock are well housed, well fed, well aired,
and kept in prime condition, under ordinary circus-
standee, and are therefore prepared to meet extraor-
limy dangers. Those who need rousing are the'
homes who suppose that cattle can take care of ;
inmeesives, and who believe a state of neglect to be
a olds of nature, and therefore the right thing far
Webs Now is the time for them to consider
whether there are not some respects in which Nature,
(rippled as she is by our interference, may be helped
by a little rational care. If they duly consider, they
will probably find that there are three ways in
which their care may be well applied. The disease is
n fever—malignant typhus fever ; and the means of
prevention are of the same kind that wise people em-
ploy in their homes when they hear their neighbours
dethe next street or alley are down in typhus lever.
Though the disease is highly contagious in the
cattle came, it is by no means certain that it
an come only by contagion; end its prerelease
anywhere may indicate a condition of the Maar
phere or other circumstances favourable to the
disease far beyond its range at the moment. dr.
eumstancea may be favourable to cattle typhus here
at this moment, though the disease has not yet ap-
peared; and the state of things in the Baltic pro-
ViDCOS looks like a warning that it is so. There are
three kinds of precautions which every owner at
cattle ought to take under such circumstances : pre-
cautions against amp, against dirt, and against un-
whinier* enwmpeneent of the food.
At this time of poor, as well as in autumn, our
mime, and other selection than that of smell, in-
firm as, in monis states of the wind, in what direc-
tion the Ems marshes lie. For cattle, spring is,
the Meet =healthy season there—the Amp
smill=benge heel winter food to the rank gran
of the marshes, causing a tendency to fever.
It is well known that cattle brought frees
Maw nide= have a seasoning to go throe* on
am he Who both in Essex and in Lincoimike.
New is the time for seeing that thediteimeare dose,
and he going to some expense, if asessimiy, l• beep
the cattle off the damp grounds, or to MA them cm
gradually. On the highest grounds, care is mew
airy. Yorkshire stork-fammrs, high ip om the
moors, are apt to lase cattle in bogs ; and hen is ND
part of the country where the murrain would meet
with more encouragement than among the old-
fashioned yeomen who never think of hued% their
stock at night, or keeping them oat of bees ad
ditches, or even of giving them dry standing-reom
when they are at home. Everywhere in England,
it may as well be remembered, that a cow is the
worse, and gives less milk,for every drop of rain that
falls on her cost ; and that if we let our cattle stand
on wet ground, we have no more right to complain
of losing them by cough or fever, than to woodsy at
dying ourselves if we sit in wet shoes. At present
it will be worth a little time and pants to keep the

stock off wet grass morning and night, and even to
dry their feet, and nib the back of the legs before they
mottle for the night. Good cavalry soldiers do
*is with *air hones regularly on board transports;
and elsewhere, nude? certain circumstances. The
',trouble would be at least as well bestowed on cattle
in wet districts, and in sickly sesame. No damp
straw ought to be allowed to lie ; and beasts that have
a perforated floor under them have a better chance
lben any others.
The kindred curse to damp is dirt. There is
inn dirt in farmyards and cattle-stalls than thus
mg to be; but there is still enough to poison
whale neighbourhoods, wherever a slovenly farmer
seethe down. Where the cattle are crowded, they
will be the Let to be lost. Each beast must have a
spaced sir rowed it, and some opening above its
bled for the air to be changed. A door at the end
is oat enough, nor a window or two. There should
be evenings in the roof, with a tile for a penthouse
to keep out the rain. No filth should remain so as
to spoil at all the freshness of the air ; and, above
all, none should be allowed to taint the water used
by the bents. It may be added, that cattle which
are allowed to plaster themselves with ang
and mud, and are never cleaned, may be
expected to drop early, if the murrain
comes. In the best seasons they are the most
plagued with flies, the most subject to cough,
and to all congestion of the internal organs. On the
other hand, those which have the finest health are
such as know well the touch of the currycomb. It
is no uncommon sight now to see the currycomb
hanging up in the stall, and the stock-keeper
proudly stroking the silky coats of his healthy
COWS. Beasts with silky coats, and the pare skins,
bright eyes, and firm teeth which belong to them,
, are as secure against the epidemic as prudence can
make them ; and the few minutes a day spent in
making them clean are better employed than the
wretched hours bestowed in phyeicking, and fu-
migating, and digging deep graves, and burying
and burning, when the murrain is upon us.
The immediate risk in regard to food is, just now,
of making too sudden a transition to a rich and full
grass diet after the low trondition in which the ani-
mals usually are in early spring. A word of cau-
tion about this is as good as a chapter, for
every farmer knows the mischief of any derangement
of the digestive functions from overfeeding or sud-
den change of food in spring.

It remains that the closest watchfulness should
bo exercised. A careful eye should be on the
beasts all day long; and any one that stagger'
or droops in the least should be at once sepa-
rated from the rest and taken in hand under
the best advice that can be obtained. It is to
hoped that we shall hear no more of " wise men "
and their exorcisms, no more such nonsense about
bewitching and the evil eye, as has lately disgraced
us in the sight of nations who educate their working
classes. Instead of listening to tales about witch-
doctors, we should be informing ourselves about the
course to be taken when cattle are attacked by the
epidemic. It is understood that the Commissioner
sent out by the Agricultural Societies will probably
be home again within a month. No doubt, the in-
formation be brings will be made publicly known,
as speedily and extensively as possible ; and then
every man will know what to do, happen what
may. Meantime, it is clear what every owner
of cattle has to do—to feed his beasts
prudently; to keep them dry; to keep them
clean, in their bodies and their stalls ; to give them
fiesh air, and spare them bad smells ; and to watch
them, each and all, that no symptom of illness may
pass unnoticed for a single hour. In the last serious
marrain in this country, careful farmers examined
every beast, from tongue to hocks, four times a dad•.
If we shrink from the trouble of precautions, we had
better picture to ourselves the German peasants who
are now burying 90 per cent. of their sick cattle,
and breathing stench because they cannot put them
underground fast enough. It is absurd—it would
be wicked—to make a grievance of any trouble or
rational cost in money which can save us from such
a Cana.

WE arc told that the choice of Ministers bas fallen
on Mr. EVELYN DENISON as the person best quali-
fled to occupy the position of Speaker of the new
House of Commons. Other names have, indeed,
been mentioned as likely to divide the sufi'rages of
the Liberal party; and more than one member of
the Opposition has been spoken of as possessing
claims of more or less validity to the vacant chair.
We willingly abstain from the invidious task of
comparison : in the present case we believe it
to be unneceuary, and therefore worse than
useless. It is not likely that a trial of party
strength will take place on the first day of
the session. As between Liberals and Conservatives
the disparity of force is too great, the preponderance
too overwhelming, to admit of any reasonable
doubt u to the issue of such a contest ; and having
regard to the permanent strength and stability of the
popular party itself, we confess that we have no de-
sire to see a conflict of personal pretensions for the
Chairmanship of the Common, between men who sit
upon the same side of the Douse. Assuming, then,
that Mr. DtNtsott will in all probability be chosen
without opposition, it becomes our duty to ask, what
manner of man is he on whom a trust so notable and
so important is likely to devolve ?
The family of which Mr. DENISON is the bead
owes its origin, like that of so many of our leading
gentry, to successful mercantile enterprise. Its
founder made a fortnie in trade—we believe at Leeds
—more than a century ago; and more than one of its
members have honourably distinguished themselves
in the law and in other walks in life. The present
proprietor of Ossington was born in the first year
of the century, and succeeded at a very early age to
the position he has since occupied. If we are not
much mistaken his first experience u a man of
business was derived from the systematic pursuit
of agricultural improvement on an extensive scale,
and the application of means at the time regarded
generally u almost empirical to the reclamation
and development of the resources of the soil. But while
• thus engaged in works of local usefulness Mr. DENI-
SON was not insensible to the attractions of political
• life. After quitting Oxford he bad, in company with'
the present Lord Danny and Mr. LAnoucnEßE, made
a protracted tour through the United States of Ame-
, eke. Soon after their return each of the three
friends entered Parliament; and all of them took an
early interest in the struggle of parties then for the
most part concentrated on the great question of
' Catholic Emancipation. On the accession of Mr.
CANNING to the Premiership in 1827, Mr. STANLEY
and Mr. DENISON were both called upon to fill sub-
• ordinate office, the former as Under-Secretary for
' the Colonies, the latter as one of the Lords of the
Admiralty. By his marriage with the daughter of
the late Duke of PORTLAND, Mr. DENISON bad
become closely connected with the family of Mr.
CANNING, and it is probable that bad that gifted
statesman lived, hi, young friend would have
speedily filled a position of greater official proud-
I nenee. Whether owing to Mr. CANNtNO'S premature
t decease, or to some other cause of which we are
I unaware, it does not appear that tho member for
Nottinghamshire formed a part in any of the Liberal