The Express.
London, England, 1868-01-23 00:00:00

tributed to the

LONDON has for a long time had the reputation
of being one of the most orderly and best kept
cities in the world. By night and by day its
citizens have flattered themselves that they might
walk its streets in peace and safety. But this
confidence is fast departing, if it be not alto-
gether gone. In the matter of personal security
London is sinking into the condition of Constan-
tinople or New Orleans. If a second GAY should
arise to sing once more the perils of the streets, he
would not want matter for a new Trivia. One of I
our earliest English writers records the practice of
prudent people in his time to take boat from
Westminster to London in order to avoid the
dangers of a journey through the village of
Charing, and of the road along the Strand to
Temple Bar. If head be not presently made against
the brigands of London, the proprietors of the penny
steamers may expect, for the same reason, to drive a
roaring trade, and the fares will rise. Mon will be
afraid to travel from suburb to City except in
metropolitan railways ; and along routes on which
the iron road has not been laid down omnibus
parties will be formed for mutual security, as
caravans are formed in the East for protection
against the plunderers of the desert. " Flying high-
" waymen" may stop the Adelaide or the Breck-
nock in the Seven-dials, and renew the glories of
TURPIN and Duvet. We have not reached this
point yet ; but the perils of a century ago, when
travellers were shot dead in Holborn, and noble-
men's carriages were stopped in Piccadilly, do nut
seem by any means so distant and strange
as they did a few weeks since. People
who laughed over M. ABOUT'S " King of the
" Mountains" are now inclined to doubt whether
such matters are fit subjects for jesting. If we
cannot keep the streets of London in order, we
must moderate our strictures on the inefficiency
of the governments which are unable to clear
the highways of Greece and Southern Italy of
brigands. The difficulty ought to be less, since
Short's gardens, Endell-street, which appears to
be the haunt of our most desperate banditti, is
more accessible than a mountain-top in Calabria
or Acarriania. Our perils are drawing nearer.
From the circumference they are gathering in
upon the centre. A cry from Camberwell or a
howl from Holloway might occasionally disturb'
the minds of City dwellers who read in the papers
of a clerk being half-strangled at nightfall in the
former suburb, or of a respectable citizen being
forced to take to his heels in the latter, and
escaping breathless, after an animated chase, into
the bosom of his family. These dangers have a
certain dmmatic appropriateness to nightly darkness,
and the outer margin, the ravelled edge, of London
civilization. We expect to hear of them, as of
outrages in the far West of North America. But
to bring them into the broad daylight and into
the very centre of London is to be forgetful of the
lies and of the proper keeping. Within
the last few days, burglaries and aseaulta have
been committed within a distance of two minutes'
walk from Bow-street. Ladies have been ga-
rotted, and knocked down, and robbed of their
purses and jewels ; gentlemen have bad their
watches snatched from them in the day-time,
as they were passing through Endelbstreet, a
part e f the main thoroughfare which connects
Bloomsbury and North London with the Strand,
and the villains have escaped into Short's-gardens,
as into a sort of sanctuary or Alsatia, in which pur-
suit was impossible. We may presently hear of
some opulent citizen being abducted and held to
ransom in this retreat, and of the lagging liberality
or the slow diplomacy of his friends being stimu-
lated by the sight of a slice from the captive's ear, I,
or by threats of more terrible vengeance.
There is only one remedy for this state of
things. We cannot afford to wait for com-
pulsory education ; and even when we have got it,
it is to be feared that a population of three mil-
lions and more will always contain a percentage of
scoundrels ready for any villany that they can
perpetrate with a fair chance of safety. The pro-
clamation of martial law in Short's-gardens, or the
transportation of its inhabitants to Ireland to form
there the nucleus of a new and better society, are
heroic remedies for which the public mind is not
yet prepared. The only course that remains is to
increase the numbers and improve the quality of
the Metropolitan Police. At present they are too
few for the work they have to da ; and they are
not always intellectually, morally, or physically up
to it. They have to keep the peace in a
district comprised within a circumference of
ninety miles, and containing seven hundred
square miles of densely-crowded population. The
addition which is proposed of a thousand men to
the force will give ten policemen to every square
mile. But as even policemen must sleep, as the
same man cannot be nu duty for twenty-four hours
every day of the week and all the year round, the
force available at any given moment is just half
this number. Not being birds, and, therefore,
being unable to be in two places at once, it is not
strange that policemen should not always be found
when they are wanted. The local authorities, at
the instigation of the Government, have
within the past month very properly
sworn in myriads of special constables to guard
against an exceptional and passing danger. But
the need of strengthening the ordinary police force
against the ordinary dangers which beset a wealthy
and dense population is as important and almost
as urgent. The destruction by City improvements
of a part of the old haunts of crime in London, by
opening thoroughfares to their midst, has had,
among many good effects, this inconvenient one of
bringing their prey to the very doors of the
plunderers whose retreats have not been de-
stroyed. The design which haa been at-

quasi-military character
Metropolitan Police -
any benefit to be derh
their numbers. Short's-gardens has every reason
to favour such a policy. The better soldier, the
worse policeman. Implicit obedience and the
power of acting as one of a body, as a wheel in a
machine, is the soldier's chief merit. The neces-
sity of acting alone, upon his own individual res-
ponsibility, and at his discretion, is one of the
most ordinary obligations of the detective and the
thief-taker. If the project attributed to the
Home-office, we trust without sufficient ground,
were really entertained, it would be hard to eradi-
cate from the public mind the suspicion of a design
on the part of the Government to sacrifice
the individual security of the Quasit's subjects
in London to a sinister political purpose.

ONE of the last votes of the House of Assembly
in Jamaica, before its corrupt and mischievous
existence was terminated, was to grant two hun-
dred guineas for the purchase of a Testimonial to
Colonel ABERCROMBY NELSON, as a token of grati-
tude for hie conduct in suppressing the late
" rebellion " in the eastern provinces of that
island. Colonel NELSON is at this moment on
duty in Ireland, and this reminder of his past
feats will have pleasant significance in the eyes of
the " Briton " of the Times, and of those who are
whispering that worthy's " unspoken words."
The Testimonial has taken the form of a silver
ipergne and a candelabrum. It is thus described :
At each of the angles of the tripod boos of the epergne Is
stationed a figure in relief of • crocodile, and between these
figures the arms of Brigadier-General Nelson, the arms of
Jamaica, and en inscription of the extract from the
votes of the House of Assembly, are engraved on
three shields. From the base rise several sugar-canes in
blossom, and between these stand two figures representing
the aborigines of the island, each supporting a shield.
These figures, with the representations of the crocodile at
the base, are, it may be added, illustrative of the Jamaica
arms. Above the sugar-canes rise six branches for lights,
surmounted by a crocodile couched in the midst of palm
leaves, and supporting a bowl for flowers or fruit.
The design might have been more appropriate.
The crocodile is in place, but it should be de-
vouring its prey, and shedding tears after the
creature's habit. Instead of the aborigines of the
island, protected by a shield, the two figures amid
the blossoming sugar-canes should be a planter
rampant and a negro couchant ; for the protect-
ing shield might be substituted a whip of
pianoforte wire, brandished by the one
figure hid aimed at the other. These
suggestions come too late for the NELSON Testi-
monial ; but they are at the service of Mr.
CARLYLE or Mr. Itusio, should either of those
gentlemen be disposed torr erect on the right hand
of Cerricaro's statue a drinking fountain in honour
of Mr. EYRE, Colonel IsieLsorr, and Lieutenant
BRAND, to balance that which the filial piety and
public spirit of Mr. CHARLES BVITON have placed
on the loft of the statue in commemoration of
Ctsaxsox, WILBERFORCE, and Sir FOWELL Bux-
TON. The contrast would illustrate in a very in-
structive manner the growth of modern enlighten-
ment and of an elevating hero-worship.

OUR CONTEMPORARIEt3.

(THIS DAY.)

THE BRISTOL BANQUET.
The Times condoles with the conservatives of
Bristol that neither the chief of the ministry nor the 4
leader of the House of Commons graced their banquet ;
but Sir John Pakington, who is equal to every emergency,
was present ; Mr. Ilathorne Hardy happily blended the
patty man and the patriot; and Lord Stanley, whose
words perhaps inspire more confidence than those of any
other member of the ministry, made the speech of the
evening. He was in his happiest vein. He took his
hearer; into his confidence, and when he is frank and
confidential he is apt, as members of the House
of Commons are well aware, to be extremely winning.
His lordship, as the mouthpiece of the government, speaks
with a definiteness which deserves hearty appreciation and
support. His programme is not to be mistaken. The de-
mand of a separate legislature is summarily dismissed.
The consideration of the church question is postponed.
The proposal to transform tenants into proprietors 111
treated with the contempt it deserves. At the same time
the principle of compensation for improvements is ad.
, witted, and the terms under which it should be sanc-
tioned remain to be settled by parliament. Lord Stanley
asks for a full and thorough discussion of the subject.
Such a discussion is wanted for the information of parlia-
ment and the country.

COOETO OF CONCILIATION.
The Daily Nero is glad to observe that since Mr.
Mundella delivered his lecture on courts of conciliation a
strong feeling has been manifested throughout the coun-
try in favour of the solution of the labour question in •
way resembling that advocated and practised by him.
Steps have been tam to intrxlum the Nottingham
system into ShefliA, and an artisans' committee of the
file trade is now engaged in discussing with • committee
of manufacturers the steps requisite in order to form a
board of arbitration. The Doily Nears proceeds to notice
an act which was passed last erosion, called the Councils
Conciliation Act, which provides for the establishment
of councils composed of masters and workmen in equal
numbers, and empowered to deal summarily with all trade
disputes. The chairman is to be a person chosen by the
majority of the council, but unconnected with trade. Any
master of the age of twenty-one, who shall have duly
resided and traded for six months in the locality where •
council is constituted, and every workman who has
resided there for the same period, and pr►c-
tised his trade or calling during seven years, is
eligible for election, and is entitled to act as an elector.
Every award made by it is to "be final and conclusive
between the parties to such arbitration, without being sub-
ject to review or challenge by any court or authority what-
soever." As the award may be enforced by warrants of
distress or by commitment to the House of Correction, it
is evident that the settlement of trade disputes would be
wholly in the hands of those immediately concerned. In
an act paned in the 511 year of the reign of George IV.
there are very similar provisions to those contained in this
one. One of its clauses is to the effect that nothing con-
tained in it shall authorise the establishment of " • rate
of wages or price of labour or workmanship at which the
workman shall in future be paid, iattem with the mutual
convent of both master and workman." The words in italics
have not been repeated in the act of 18b7 ; neither have
they been repealed by it. Oa the contrary, all the powers
accorded by the earlier act are expressly continued in the
later one. The act of 1867 may be faulty, but it has not
yet had either the fair trial or the careful study which it
ought to receive. It became law last July ; hitherto it
has remained among the useless lumber of the statute-
book.

LONDON BZOGIIL4.

The Port thinks it a mockery to ask us not to give alms
in the street in presence of such terrible facts as have just
come to light in the Holloway Prison. Fifty-one persons
were last week condemned for begging to punishments of
14 to 21 days' imprisonment, with hard labour, and on •
maser. diet. The money found on these fifty-one persons,
after diligent search, was one penny discovered in posses-
sion of • blind man. They were • motley oompany—ems
of them • stockbroker, who had lost a hundred thousand
pounds in a promising investment. A child in arms, but
two years old, was sent to prison with its mother. They
were all sterving—thirty-four of thin already exhanded
by hunger. Young worms staggered from weakness and
want so that they would hardly walk to their plasm el eon-
finsesent and tail. Mae of Omen had Sep more frees waktag,
frost hard weather, and from Sinai& eating into neglected
taken. They were all infer, et in the profanes foreovesing
supplied by workhouses. A man, only 27 years of age,
by name Michael Lyons, died the day after his committal
to bard labour for begging, and • sad story came out at