The Express.
London, England, 1857-07-18 00:00:00

88 sick subalterns had aid. Though.

of the coat was borne by the subscribers, the Di-
rectors became alarmed at the magnitude of the grants

of that year, and they gave intimation to the Trutt-es
of the Funds of the following alterations in the

- _
management at home. They declared that they
would do nothing which should have the effect of
reducing the rate of pensions, or of throwing on the
Trustees the charge and risk of effecting remittances;
but they announced that the sums requiredin England
for the use of the several Funds should thenceforth
be advanced, " repayable in India at 12 months'
date, and at 11.11 d. per Sicca Rupee, that being full all
high as could be realised by a consignment of bullion."
They added, " And we desire that the difference
between the number of Rupees reimbursed to
you under this arrangement, and that which would
have been reimbursed if the present rate of exchange
had been continued to be observed, be annually
credited to the Funds as a (lunation from the Com-
..

The Managers understood this to mean
simply that the amount of money paid woald be the
same under the new method u before, a certain

portion of it being presented to the public eye as a
gift. There are two remarks, however, to be made
on the transaction.

First, the Company continued to charge 5 per cent.
on its advances, as before, notwithstanding that such
interest was already charged on the value of the
Rupee. The loss from this double charge—amounting
to considerably more than 100,0001. in the Bengal
case--is,however, shared by the Madras and Bombay
Funds, and is not, therefore, one of the special
grievances of the Bengal managers. The other in-
cident connected with this announcement of 1832

...
constitutes the specielease of the Bengal subscribers.
The margin of the despatch just quoted from con-
tains a small note, apparently inserted by the finan-
cial officials at the India-house for the information
of the Government in India. How such a piece of
information could have left Lead( nhall-strcet with-
_

out being appreciated by the gentlemen of the
Board, or received at Calcutta without inducing
even a remonstrance, remains to be explained. The

note wee this:

The advances on account of the Madras and Bombay Fonds
are made at 2e. 3d. per Rupee, or, deducting interest,
2a. 2.323 d. , but as the intrinsic value of these is leas than
the Sic,. Rupee by 1.426 d., it followe that the advances to
than Funds at 2.. 3d. per Rupee are more favourable than the
edvances to the Bengal Fund.

For many years the existence of this note was
unknown to the Managers of the Bengal Fund, and
the losses occasioned by this bre►ch of pledges about
uniform treatment of the three Funds, went on seen-

mutating in the dark—known at the India-house, of
oourse, as this note testifies, but concealed from the
Trustees in India, who had no means of tracking the
mischief. Further, in 1838, the Company's new
Rupee, of 165 grains, equal to the former Madras
Rupee, became current throughout India, the Sicca
Rupee remaining only in the Company's accounts
with the Bengal Fund. But the Company failed to
credit the Bengal Fund, as it alway, did the Madras,
with 2s. 3d. the Rupee of 165 grains, and continued
the old disproportion when the Madras Rupee bad
superseded the Sicca in Bengal. This was so patent
a fact, that the Company has rectified this item of
its accounts since 1853 ; but for the loss in the in-
ternal, from 1830 to 1853, no reparation has been
made.

There is one more item. The Court, we have seen,
promised 8 per cent. interest in India on the invested
capital of the Fund. This has been so managed as
that two or three months' interest has been lost in
this manner to the Fund on every periodical payment:
Officers' subscriptions were deducted from their pay
by Government, but the pay has invariably been
ware weeks in effete; and then there was the further
iday of the deductions being acknowledged and
mounted for at the Calcutta Treasury, during the
,bole of which time the Government was holding
dis money which should have been obtaining interest
behalf of the Fund. 'The loss from this cause is
computed at 25,000 rupees a year. So long ago as
1854 the loss by exchanges was 128,0001., and there
have been large additions since. It is being very
moderate—supposing the ease to be proved—to im-
pute the present deficiency of the Fund to the Com-
pany. The deficiency was nearly half-a-million
when first fully exposed, and before the pensions
were reduced and the subscriptions increased. It
appears to be now set down practically as about
200,0001. Every Actuary, tatting all privations of
interest into the account, would make it a good deal
more ; and it may be easily conceived that the re-
presentatives of the 3,000 officers who are now over-
charged to the amount of 25 per cent. in their com-
pulsory subscriptions, and the 600 widows who are
mulcted in ten per cent. of their allowances on
account of the half-million which the Company have
put into their own treasury instead of that of the
Fund, are not likely to be overwhelmed with grati-
tude at the promise, so patronisingly announced by
Mr. Vearros Eistrn, that if the Fund is still in ad-
versity at the end of two years, the Directors will
see what they can do in an eleemosynary way, if
mire beforehand of being properly thanked.
These facts being before the public, in a series of
statements dating from 1834 onwards, it seems
strange that any members of the other Funds should
conclude, without inquiry, that the adversity
of the Bengal institution mast be owing to mis-
management, and that the subscribers and pen-
sioners ought to be thankful to the Court for
the tender mercies it promises. There were
some mistakes, as is usual in such concerns.
The first batch of widows prior to 1824 was paid
(under the express sanction of the India House,
however,) too high a rate of pension ; and there
were losses through the dishonesty of a secretary,
many years ago ; but these mischiefs were
almost too small for notice in comparison
with the deficiencies caused by the financial
devices in use in Leadenhall-street, and the reces-
sion of the Court from its own terms—from its ex-
press condition of equality among the three Funds.
Ms greatest folly chargeable upon the Bengal
nougers seems to be their faith in the Court, and
the unsuspecting way in which they accepted the
Directors' management of the exchanges ; and,
' without proof, no one has a right to charge them
with more. They have openly and perseveringly
told their tale, and have made every imaginable
effort to obtain an inquiry into it. If they are
wrong, they might have been exposed or set right
long ago ; and if the Company do not accept the
challenge to inquiry by a Committee of Parliament,
after having refused every method which involved
leas publicity, they mast expect that public opinion
will pronounce judgment by default.
Meantime, what the Bengal officers wish to make
understood is that they desire no alms, but only jus-
tice. That they should be visited with unconsidered
censure, while their plea is uncontradicted in its par
ticulars, is unreasonable and ungenerous.

On an early day next wagon Sir Erskine Perry
will more net the lects diecke'ed by matt emits in
Ise* the omberrecred Wets otitis thwaces, the reel-edrohda-
treats efjeelice Inns provincrelscente, sad the lannmereble
de which mks our Indian powswicee en integral portion
of the What umpire, trader it expedient that the govern-
mot of that many rhombi be troisiond, ti maim as well
to is ad, hos the Est India Company to the repariblo
abides of the monk"

steadily declined on the ground that any such close
connexion with influential people might interfere
thereafter with his perfect freedom of political
thought and action.
In 1828 Beranger again came into collision with
the government, then under the premiership of
M. de Martignac. This time his punishment was
more severe. On the 10th December, 1828, he was
condemned to nine months' imprisonment in La
Force and 10,000 f. fine. The imprisonment, as on
the former occasion, was alleviated by every mani-
festation of public sympathy ; the fine was paid by
general subscription.
The revolution of July brought Beranger's friends
into power ; but he steadily refused all offers of poli-
tical place. Ile would not resign liberty for power.
Slanderers," he says, with reference to this part of
his career," have said that I made a parade of virtue.
Pshaw! it was not virtue : it was indolence.
.1 have

(From the Deily News.)
The illustrious Beranger—one of the greatest lyric
poets, and the greatest song writer whom the world
has ever known—has just passed from among us.
Iles chansons, e'est moi, maid Beranger on the only
occasion on which he has addressed tho public
at any length about himself and his works—the
Preface of 1833. It is the simple truth. Never was
there a case of more complete identity. The life of
the man who has stirred the hearts and influenced
the destinies of a groat people to a degree which no
poet of modern time—scarcely any poet of any
time—hag ever equalled, has been singularly modest,
unpretending, and obscure. This poet of the people,
who has sung for the people, suffered for the
people, and whose highest boast it was that
he never ceased to be one of the people,
was born in the very humblest grades of
the class to which it was his glory to belong. Je
vas clans, et tres ratan—that burden of one of his
most popular songs—is no affected bout of the
social cynic trampling, with greeter pride, on the
pride of worldlings—it is a plain matter of fact.
On the 10th of August, in the year 1780, Beranger
first saw the light in the city of Paris. Of his
parents little, nay, next to nothing, is known ; of
his mother no mention is ever made by the poet, nor
is his silence supplied by any information that has
fallen within oar reach. His father appears to have
been somewhat of a maurais aniel, whose best gift
to his son was possibly that inexhaustible stock of
vivacity—that fond pollard, as Mirabeau calls it—
which has constituted a main element of world-
wide popularity for some of the greatest writers
in France—for Rabelais, for Molitlre, for
Voltaire, and for Beranger. His grandfather, and
an aunt by the father's side,have the sole credit of his
early nurture. His grandfather was a tailor, living
in the Rue Monforgueil, in a house which has long
since given way to that rage fur renovation which has
done so much to improve the beauty, and diminish
the historical interest, of Paris. Thus it was,
[ " chez on toilleur mon paurre et rieux grandpirel
that the first ten years of the poet's life were passed.
[From 1780 to 1790 the child Beranger grew up,
[ with the streets and alleys of Paris for his play-
' ground—a strange playground in those eventful
' years—the stage of a vast and exciting drama, where
scenes of popular enthusiasm and popular triumph
were not lost on the observant boy, and had their
influence in forming the future man. In those
years, as he has told us (Le 14 Juliet), he heard
the cry " rengeonsmous— ti la Bastille ass
armee saw the mixed multitudes rushing by to
the onslaught—he saw the faces of the mothers, sad
the wives, and the daughters grow pale, he heard
the drums roll and the cannons roar, and then the
shout go up to Ileaven—" Vietaire au people, le Am-
ble est pHs." In another and still nobler poem
(La Meese), Beranger has told us how his child's
heart yearned within him at one of the festivals of
the Revolution, as he mingled in the press and the
tumult that surged round the triumphal car of the
frail beauty who personated for the moment the
" Goddess of Liberty."
From 1790 to 1796, from the 10th to the 16th year
of his age, the boy dwelt at the little town of Pcronne,
under the care of his aunt. Here, as he tells us in the
lines entitled Soorenirs d'Enfunee, he led for some
time an indolent and unsettled life, trying several
occupations, including that of "garcon dautserye,"
Anglie4, pot-boy, and settling in none, till he was at
last apprenticed to M. Laisnex, a printer of the town.
This occupation suited him, as he says himself,
Jo me eras dee drafts an nom de sage
Lorequ'on m'apprit to =Zonal. de Franklin.
From this moment he gave himself up to stubborn
literary effort. The masterpieces of French style
became the subjects of his assiduous study. His great
grief was that the learned languages were a sealed
book to him. This deficiency he never made good,
but his subsequent career has furnished a convincing
proof that the finest and most consummate graces of
poetical expression are within the reach of self-
taught genius, though without any tincture of
classical training.
In 1796 Beranger returned to Paris, and for the
next seven years lived, with the usual result,
on no other revenue but his wits. These were
the days of which he says, in writing years
afterwards to a friend, "1 WAR so poor!—the
[ smallest party of pleasure forced me to live for a
week after on the lenten fare of my own composi-
I, Hens, with no other seasoning than the hope of
future glory." This is tho period of that ardent
ard joyous youth of which he has left so living a
picture in his immortal poem "Le ([realer." This
was the bright spring time of his existence, when in
the depths of poverty he wan lord of joys which all
the gold of millionaires cannot purchase for a mo-
ment—when rich in love, and friendship, and poetry,
he could brave alike the fools and sages of the
world, rock himself in elysian dreams of passion and
of glory, lavish life on eest my on the passing moment,
or look rapturously forth along the vista of the future,
all radiant with the morning dews of hope. These
were the days when living amongst the people he
imbued himself with the thoughts of the people—
learnt the secret of their deep passions, their high
instincts, and their stormy joys.
He was thus training himself for his future work,
bat the pressure of want was severely felt. The
burden of this sore need drove him to the only ap-
plication he ever seems to have made to the dis-
pensers of patronage. It was in 1803 that he sent
some of his manuscript poems to Lucien Bonaparte,
with a manly and touching statement of his cireum- PRINCE Louis MAPOLEON.—LIVERPOOL, Juts
stances. The application was not made in vain. 17.—His Imperial Highness Prince Louis Napoleon re-
Lucien gave the young poet plenty of good advice, turned to Liverpool from Manchester last night, and pro-
and what was more to the purpose, assigned him a eroded on bused La Rene Molina.. This morning, in the
small annual allowance. In 1800, through the absence of the Mayor (Mr. F. Shand), the Deputy Mayor,
friendship of M. Arnault, a well-known and influ- Mr. J.
ChairmanH.
tie Dock Committee,urner .
AldeTiernles;erld, one,
eatial litterateur of the day, Belanger obtained an Mr. Frank Heywood, proceeded on board the Hortense,
inconsiderable but permanent employment as a where they were received by the French Consul and intro-
government clerk in the department of Public In- dated to bis Imperial Highness, who asked many questions
struction. The value of the post was only 1,800 f., respecting the commerce of the port, and appeared to be
or 701. a year, but it more than sufficed for the mo- mush interested by the forest
The
to les of
triomettdea.;ll74l37
dest wants of the young poet,who now devoted him- '"" Prince afterwards proceeded on board the unite;
self with renewed ardour to composition. States steam frigate Niagara, where he was received by
That he wrote much which he never suffered to Captain lludwin. Ho wail shown over the veiled, with the
see the light may safely be assumed ; his habits of noble proportions and capacity of which he seemed highly
composition were to the last degree laborious; he aftetnkianT'int directed to the pr-
never allowed anything to pass from his hands with-f vofne telegraph cable
on board. Captaine
Hudson explemednt'ho properties of the
cable and its mode of manufacture, and prevented his
out having given it the utmost degree of perfection
he was capable of imparting, and he never published highness with • piece of it, and with a chart showing the
frorinee'in thwish°rateditereeringY
a line till the year 1815, when ho was 36 years of placeelm.dwhereotidtiito.is to be laihedbtawderin. Tvedhe P
board alma an hour and a half. On taking
age, although many of the poems in his first collec-
tion, especially the "Roi d'Yeetot," had been pre-Wes the yards were manned and three hearty
viously handed about in manuscript The sensation sheers were given by the American crew. His Imperial
.
produced by this first publication arms immense. Highs.. at the stage, and was driven to the Town-
France found in Beranger a poet who was not only lull, and thence to Aintree, with the intention of witness-
able to sing of love and wine as none since Anacreon lag the sports at the Liverpool races. He returned in about
had ever sung of them before,. but who could give the a hoar
al,aistrdaaboa ttreatheGVorrt.a-hall' and
noblest and most heart-stirrins
g expression to thew evening the Deputy Haver and Mr. Charles Turner will
passionate and remorseful regrets, to that sense of dine with his Imperial Iconess on hosts the Hod.,
blighted glory and humbled pride which then which will sail to-night for the Isle of Man, from which
smouldered in the breast of the whole people, place it will probably proceed to Belfast.
Six years elapsed before Beranger's next Rnbli- " A considerable number of conversions from ea-
cation—six years of aristocratic and priestly tholiciem to pinteetantiem," may, the New Prussian anette,
reaction, of restored Jesuitism and a re-established "have„..l!tely Janes Omni ParneuhrlY in Moravia. Gene-
censorship, of corruption in the court, and discontent F;;;11....". 'airs ttiTvg t?onthes rurel
are ar tuOst:hmeno'sitlt; the
amongst the people. With a power of caustic pene- slued by the difficulties which the clergy throw in the way
tratioo, and a wealth of wit, irony, and eloquence of mixed marriages."
that has never been surpassed, Beranger observed A duel with pistols, attended with fatal comm-
and exposed all the political follies and vices of that games, took place • few days ago between two student& of
mean andmiserable epoch. The publication of &volume cis Usivoratty of Onsifswirld, in Prumbk One of them, shot
so boldly truthful was an unpardonable offence in the tenant, lin
ty netdistelyex,•pirad. advereerY gave
~._
France of 1821. On the prosecution of M. Msrchsgny, t :I,Thomur:), eureligt. •"' '7h;
the poet was sentenced to three months' imprison- dew bay* Mud to give a benediction to the deceased.
went in St. Pelagic. He was also deprived of his
a triumph. His imprisonment wasA Nolo= awe was • few days ago brought before
clerkship.
His the tethemel at Corinna& The Gazette of that town having
place of detention became a daily levee for all the paid* ea wade it which it was said that the beer
chiefs of the liberal party ; and ptuwahi of wine. and WWI WU all lb fine flavour the belA
pouredgame in boat all parts of Adam On his re- re tstvitmarirrumetwram`rrati•isZbrimulah'.ll
M. /Anti. Plemsi Ala to ant a lame in his =heel la au No
ed. as dohs was ilemwi
tonlang-homen, on saw As low dee %oft pngie the nembinams lag& ekif Ana !ajar.
clerkship bed Ars Os poet vela eei& to wior ►ea* rodors fls ualfitr.

no love for sinecures, and all compulsory work is in-
supportable to me." From that time until his death
Beranger passed a happy and uneventful life in
modest but honourable retirement, principally
at the pleasant village of Pigmy, in the
immediate neighbourhood of Paris. The enthu-
siasm of his countr)•men after the Revolution of
1848 forced upon him a seat at the National
Assembly. But nothing could induce Beranger to
give up his charming privacy for the storm and tur-
bulence of political life. He has not, however, been
an inattentive spectator of the course of events; and
it is pretty generally known that some of the most
caustic epigrams against the Second Empire have
proceeded front the same pen that has most nobly
celebrated the glories of the First.
Reviewing this long and brilliant career, it is im-
possible not to be struck, in the first instance, with
its antique simplicity and self-consistency. The
saine simple tastes, the same warm affections. the
same serene and smiling philosophy, have abided
with this remarkable man from the beginning of his
course even to the end. He has never wai et ed in
his love of liberty, never concealed his hatred of
oppression. He has been firm throughout to ono
cause—that of truth, justice, and the people. Ile
has been constant throughout to one choice of life—
that of lettered ease, and genial sociality, warmed by
friendship and brightened by love. It is a noble
picture—a poetic youth ; a sublime manhood; a
beautiful old age.
Such was Beranger as a man ; as a poet he must
take rank among the highest masters of the art. His
own conception of his mission is thus expressed in his
own simple language : Il fallait un homme qui parVit
au peuple le lanyaye pea entend et yu'il aline. But is
it an easy function this of speaking to the people in
language they understand and love? &ranger did
not thank so. This is how he speaks of the
obligation imposed on the true people's poet : "To
captivate the attention of the people you
must conceive more strongly and more grandly.
You must adapt to the robust nature of
those you address your subjects and your
mode of handling them : they don't want ab-
stract ideas or generalised types : you must show
them the human heart in its naked reality. Shake-
speare, I think, was subjected to this happy neces-
sity. If you ask me what is to become of the
perfections of style, I answer that style cannot be
too perfect where the conceptions arc great, the
thoughts simple and strong. The rule is this.
Invent and imayilie for those who do not, many of
them, blow how to read; compose for those who
know how to compose themselres." Beranger's prac-
tice is in exact conformity with this theory. Nothing
can be more simple, strong, and great than his
thoughts, nothing more exquisitely perfect than his
style. Hence his unparalleled success, alike with
the cultivated and the uncultivated reader. Ile
speaks homo to the heart of the one, he capti-
vates the taste of the other. His political poems
afford perhaps the completed illustration of this
twofold success. The simplest may understand them ;
the wisest may profit by them. Another striking
feature in these poems is that, though microscopic in
finish and miniature in extent, they are grandiose in
their proportions and panoramic in their range.
They rise far above the region of occasional satire,
and present not only individual portraits, but peren-
nial types and universal truths. iiis famous Marquis
de C'arabas, for instance, is not only an admirably
exact portrait of the old French emigrant noble of
the Restoration, but it abounds in strokes applicable
to ill political parties that ever have been or v. ill be
similarly, situated. Tho Censorship of the
Press is as universal ix its applicability
as Milton's Areopayilic. The diatribe against
the Jesuits, beginning, " Hommes noire, ifoll
so•te= coos," is a resume in six stanzas of all that
the wit of man can suggest in aspersion of the order
of Loyola. That immortal song of the Cossack
contains within itself the concentrated expression of
all that feeling of Europe against Russia which has
recently eventuated in a great war, and is evidently
destined to mould so powerfully the future des-
tiny of the modern world. In La Sainte
Alliance des Peoples, again, is embodied even
more comprehensively the perpetual protest of the
peoples against the dynasties. But the political
poems after all are not those to which Beranger will
owe the brightest portion of his immortality. The
most imperishable of his thoughts arc those which
he has scattered over the common loves and joys and
sorrows of humanity. Here he has never been
surpassed. The wise philosophy of the thought,
the heartfelt spontaneous simplicity of the emotion,
the unrivalled and indeed inimitable grace of the
expression—form a combination which no other
lyrical poet has equalled. Horace conies nearest to
it, but there is in Beranger a certain Anacreontic
abandon, a charming naivetk as of Ronsard and the
Troubadours, which the courtly Roman with all
his curious felicity never quite succeeded in catching. I
Still if we wished to convey to a classical reader un-
acquainted with Beranger some notion Iltith of the
peculiar perfection of his style and the peculiar vein of
his philosophy, we should probably effect our pur-
pose, without wronging the ancient bard or doing
injustice to the modern one, by calling the latter the
Iforace of France.