The Express.
London, England, 1850-12-24 00:00:00

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,ONDON, TUESDAY. DECEMBER 24.

It the crowds who gathered in St. George's, South-
wark, on Sunday last, expected to hear the Car-
dinal's tardy disclaimer of the very Healer views
which, on his own showing, prompted the Vatican
to the insane escrow :meets it has been making upon
the rights of the crown and the liberties of the pro-
testant and Roman catholic people of this country,
their expectation was again disappoiuted•
Not one
word of reply did his eminence, in this his third and.
concluding lecture "on the catholic hierarchy,
address to the reiterated charges brought against hiss
on this head, nor to the evidence adduced in support
althea. The only portion of the entire discourse,
indeed, which in the least applies to the matter, is the
concluding prayer-5 Sanctify Thy ministers) "a!
eapplication in which, so far as the Cardinal is cos.
earned, we are quite willing to unite with his coups-
✓ation. The rest of the iscourse appears to be
bakes up with a parallel between himself and
his Divine Master—partly his own, partly borrowed
from Dr. ULLATHORNE without aeknowlede mint.
With better taste, we trust, than these ecclesiastics
have in this instates displayed, we decline to follow
them into the coesideratioas which such a parallel
tempts or to examine.
The real question at tuns between ourselves and
the Cardinal is steadfastly kept out of view by him-
self, and also by his adherents It is this : " lies the
Pore, or any other power but the legislature of this
country, the capacity to affect civil rights belonging
to British subjects?" It is truo that at the
outset an endeavour was made to lay upon the sub-
jects of her MAJESTY, and not upon the POPE, the
reepuisibility of the innovations complained of.
"Many of the clergy and laity," say the letters
apoMolical, " highly esteemed for their virtue arid
rank." had petitioned Rome to abolish their rights
and subject them to the absolute will of Cardinal
Wintery( and his suffragans. But the pretence is now
stale. We have shown from the extracts of the peti-
tions in question, whi"h appeared lately in our
columns, that the petitioners asked just the contrary ;
and our refutations of the error, into which the Pore
hoe been lad by the min-statements of hie English
adv'sers in this regard, remain uncontradicted and
even unnoticed by them to this hour. We are
sot surprised at this apparent oversight on
their part.. Bat the POPE 's simplicity in the
matter really is surprising; unless indeed we are to
give ear to our Roman Catholic cornrspindents who
impugn the Curia Romano for wholesale and hopeless
corruption, and believe that of what panes there
Pope Pttis knows just so much as its familiars please,
and not a whit further. Out of the multitude of docu-
ments laid before us we take the fullowing petition to
Propaganda, numerously signed, and presented only
lest year, and we ask any reasonable and charitable
man if it be credible that the POPE, who believes that
his present measure is acceptable even to the Roman
Catholic priests et England, can have read that
document ?
Most Eminent Prison! one the andenigeed missiosary
priests in the Catholic Church is England, humbly aad **r-
ived, prav sat beemeh the Sacred Conaregatii,n, that the
rash of Ilullops Ordinary may tint be granted to the
▪ sposeohe of Erigtoad. nnrone TWAT ?NZ MOUT, OP
POW AY cetera d sans hens TO TM. 1118-
et
AAAAA ration, elleordslis to the Warta proponta pat
teeth by the mese mewed emgregation is the year 1838 ; and
that. in the first piste, there lag be a code of laws touch
Wef 11111100 —IOW part Oren to priests in the
chairs of their bishops, chapters duly constituted in each
distract, awl that stahility of piece and that parochial
status unwed which hitherto, that is, down to Tits rat
POST lIENENATION Or VICARS •PootoLlC, Was laassttiomed
by customary law, the which :bangs met twine pasted
TUE LAMM state of the oforeiaid clergy will be worm
there're! rain.
This important document shows that, far from m-
iniver in their original demands, as set forth in their
papers already published in our columns, the clergy
of the Englieh catholic. have contitmid to press them
with increasing vigour, fired as they mast be by the
spectacle of that happy independence of episcopal
tyranny, which their brethren of U c Roman catholic
church in Ireland have enjoyed since the days of ST.
PATEIcii. It will also be observed that the changes
contemplated by thew petitioners relate, not to
temporal, hut to "spiritual things" cooly; that they
claim the promulgation of the statutes of 18313 pro-
posed by Rome but enacted by themselves ; and that
they are of opinion that, bad as their then condition was,
sedge an ambiguous menu law and the arbitrary but
precarious authority of Pore's vicars. they preferred
ft vastly to any change which did not comply with
the terms specified ; in other words, to any change
like that now forced upon them by the " Letters
Apostelical" of Pope Pius.
" It was tae in SpirileMWS that we wasted, sad wet titles,"
writes a very distinguished ecclesiastic " I seed yea copies
of the petitions. They would have been better Mined but
foe the threats held oat. A meeting is to take place of the
clergy sloe Christmas, to try to enure their rights, but
their succ as will mach depend on the laity. Tie prism
have I illrase the ezperienee of as immense besot their
charitable I undo the security of their bishops beteg restrained
by law in respect of temporalities. The bishops have boss
encroaching tor above half a restary. Their first step was
to imp*, the eath at ordiaatious a thing equally
uo-
knows to canon law and opposed to English, and which,
whirs thus introduced, Dr. Limpid and several other
points reseed to take. Their seat step Ws* to assume
the power of reiseviag parish priests at their ewe plea-
ewe, but is whisk they surfer quite succeeded before Dr.
Airmen came. Muir last smarpation was that et the
Drover's' right of nomiastiag to lives", aad thatches
The stooks and Omits were the trot of their opponents
in this nistesor, aid their resistant. we soccessfal; but
nothing bat a strict law can prices( the ultimate sewn
of the bishops. By means of the deaih-oed, they will by
degrees set all these tracts into their own handle."
Under these eircumetanoee, the prayer, "Sanctify
thy minister.," appears a very relevant and needful
supplication. But confession is good for the soul. It
would have been more to the purpose if the Cardinal
had, as Scots lawyers say, condescended to parti-
culars.
This inveterate hankering after temporal. seems
strangely inconsistent with the spirit of the Roman
catholic oath. Have the bishop° taken that oath?
If they have not, they aro not entitled to any portion
of the relief conferred by the Acts of 1791 and 1829,
and are now liable to all the pains aad penalties con-
sequent upon the maintaining even a spiritual supre-
macy in the Pore, or obeying hie mandates, even
when only of • spiritual nature. If they have taken
that oath, how can they justify the alarming of men's
conscience. into the surrender of merely temporal
rights?
We are glad to see that good sense is returning,
and that, in their natural resentment of the vitupera-
tion to which they have been in some quarters sub-
jected, the Roman catholic" are not losing sight of
their own liberties so mach endangered by these
ecclesiastical doings. If seven Roman emboli., peers
of parliament have weak set their names to the silly
address presented to the Cardinal on Saturday lest,
seven more, and amongst these the premier peer of
England. stand aloof. The three Irish peers of the
Name faith who did not sign more than coootervail
the single one who did; but of the two Roman
catholic lords of Scotland the suircribing Earl of
Newnuaou is surely not more than a match fur the
non-subscribing Earl of MAQUAII. We observe
too that of the five English catholic members of the
lower house, " the comical member for Carlisle," as
Mr. ()CONNELL once called that gentleman, is the
only subscriber to the address. If we had space or
inclination for so trivial a performance, we could
show, by a similar analysis, that the remainder of
the signatures—even supposing Mem to be those of

ployment.
So now, toe, with engine drivers ; they are pro-
bably the very best paid workpeople in the kingdom ;
aad they are, it is clear, getting into similar bad
habits. This is very much to be regretted: for
engine drivers are, from their skill, their industry,
their general good conduct, and the danger of their
trade, well worth to their companies every penny
they earn ; and that company does not really
study its own interest or that of its proprietary,
which seeks to reduce their wages ; for, besides ine-
galarity and accidents, there would assuredly be a
larger amount of wear and tear of engines consequent
oa any such redacting:. First-rate drivers are really
invaluable, and cheaper by a third, at least, than in-
ferior men ; so, if their general character wens he-
proved, the probability is that their wages womid
rime, and yet their employing comermies ewe mew
b, the increase of wages., which would he MOO GM
espad by segmental economy.
The public has, therefore, a great interest in well•
ha eres.giee drivers; and so also ve railway share-
Yet these men appear to labour under the
impression that there is a deeply laid scheme amongst
railway directorates to reduce their wages. From
all that we can learn this impression is the maul
delusion. It is not, in the first place, the interest of
directors to do so. But if it were, they have not the
rate of wages altogether at their command. Wages,
like bread and butter, are regulated by supply and
demand ; and the supply of engine drivers being
below the demand, the directorates are much more at
the mercy of the drivers than the drivers at theirs ;
particularly in reference to first clam drivers. And
this the men seem to know very well ; for no sooner
have they any grievance, however small, however
unreal or imaginary, than, knowing their places cannot
easily be supplied, they strike.
Well, such being the growing characteristic of this
trade, the North Western Company endeavours to
protect itself against the sudden recurrence of such
interruptions to its and the country's business, by
insisting that the drivers shall give it three months'
notice before quitting their employment, always, how-
ever, permitting them still to leave at the expiration
of a fortnight, should the inducement to go be better
employment erewhere, and not the suspension of
work. Any fairer stipulation than this it really
seems impossible to devise: it is at once protection of
I the men's, the company's, and the country's interests.
Under its operation a good driver can enter upon
I higher wages, if tie can find them, at the expiration
of fourteen days after they are found ; and by its
provision the company will have three mantis to
Wend itself from the consequences of a combina-
tion amongst tyrannical workmen. On wages
is has only one bearing: if wages from a
apply of additional hands tall, it protects the work-
sin in his high wages for three months; if they rise,
it enables him to receive in other employment the full
beeelk of the rise in a fortnight.
And yet there are, it seems, engine drivers on the
North Western so dull and dead to their own pecu-
niary concerns that they see, or affect to see, in this
beneficial arrangement a secret and subtle attack on the
rateof wages which they now have. And their reason
is, that, in another part of their rules, they are bound
to obey prospective as well as retrospective rules sod
regulations issued by the directors. But such pro-
spective rules are obviously regulations fur conduct
and management of the line, its work, and servants ;
not fie the alteration of wages already fixed and

agreed on.
If, however, these men, 'pipet the advice of the
drivers on the Southern, who two years ago had some
experience of a strike, do leave or have dishonestly
kit their work, without giving the fortnight's notice
they are by their existing contracts bound to give,
two things are certain : first, that they ought to be
punished for such a flagrant violation of contract
with the utmost rigour of the law ; 'secondly, that
no other railway company ought to take any
one of them into its employment. For men who,
on the ground of such an imaginary, contingent,
and fictitious grievance, attempt to suspend U. in-
tercourse between two parts of the kingdom, ought
to be made a signal example of. In all the records
el strikes, there is nothing so unreasonable u the
position these men have wanted, and from it they
tart be routed.
S•eh oombinatioes and strikes must depress instead
at raising wages permanently. For awhile the short
supply of engine-drivers may give them a slight ad-
, vantage; but that advantage, thus used tyrannically,
; will induce the masters to rear up and educate •
larger supply of competent men than the demand foe
them requires. And where will high wages be then?
Gone--never to return.

Tux distressing nature of the accounts received
yesterday from the island of Jamaica make it impe-
ratively necessary that sot an boar should be lost in
esideavouriog to maks provision for the necessities of
** devoted colony. The fatal malady which has
mete than decimated the towns his now spread itself
into the mountais districts of the island, into the very
localities to which the less distressed of the popula-
tion have fled for refuge, but where we greatly
fear they may find deaths even more dreadful
then in the midst of the teeming populations
they have left. The mode in which the people live
upon the mountain properties sex* no security or
bops for their escape. The blacks attached to each
estate are congregated in their little villages, where
the booms are all huddled together as closely as poe-
sib* without the slightest provision of any sort for
drainage or for cleanliness. These villages are usually
is close proximity to the" great houses," orresidenoes
of the proprietors. There is no cutting off the con-
stant eosimunioation between them. The cholera will
eesaredly that appear among the negro houses on the
estate, and from these it will extend itself to the
bosses of the whites. We can hardly conceive any
thing more helpless than the position of the poor
people on these proportion when the cholera attacks
them. Destitute of medical attendance, cat off from
eemsasaication with enter properties, probably with-
ent ma the eummenselt 'means of administering to
the sae' either d **warier of others or of the m-
eshes, death met be their inevitable fats. We
bays greedy a hretaste of this result in
the esessat published is yesterday's Express of
the immehdiss of the polies oe of the pariah of St.
Davits. This for*, esseiedog entirely of coloured
men, appear to have been seised with cholera in their
barracks, at a time when they were devoid of even
their sisal means of obtaining succour. The moment
the plague broke out every one seems to have avoided
them. The ohloer entrusted with their pay was
afraid to go near them. They were left in their misery
sad wretchedness to starve and die. And they did
die. Sergeant, corporal, and privates—the whole
faros perished; and the fact seems only to have
become knows in Kingston several days after the

timbal occurrence.
This is only one of the many awful incidents which
unrecorded as resulting from the epidemic. We
an yirsparod to bear of more of them by the next
packet from the island. What else an be expected,
wing bow insufficiently Jamaica is supplied with