Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-06-10 00:00:00

more importance. The Journal des Debate, the
organ of the more respectable and intelligent part
of the French netion, has declared against the
policy of abstaining from taking part in the
elections ; but it writes without much spirit or
apparent hopefulness. Government is at present
examining the progress made by the provincial
press in France during the last three years, and
with that view the hooks of the various journals
are being examined in order to ascertain the
number of subscribers possessed by each
paper. This official interference is far from
being appreciated by the parties interested. The
Assemblee Nationale stops abusing England and
the English for twenty-four hours, in order to
prove in four columns, and in a most satisfactory
manner, that the world is to come to an end in
the year 2,000. In the meanwhile, four English
pickpockets have been captured at the station of
Rambouillet, and the Bourse is recovering from the
slight panic of last week. The Revue Contemparaine
contains an article, by St. Beuve, on that arch
boaster and " fanfaron" Marshal St. Arnaud. Some
unpublished letters of the Marshal's, complaining
of the slowness of the English, and extolling his
own metits, are given, but they are without
interest or historical value.
The Government measure for making a levy of
50,000 men in Spain has met with some ineffectual
opposition in the Cortes. The various Credit Mo-
biliers and "caisses" established by French Bourse
men in Madrid, have just held their meetingss
The " Credit Mobilier," Pereire, after a campaign
of eight months, has distributed to its share-
holders 14 per cent. interest. The reserve fund
amounts to nearly .£120.a00. One of the directors,
Count de Morny, having resigned, has been re-
placed by M. Goufrie. The " caisse" directed by
M. Prost has been in operation only seven months,
and the dividend voted was 30 francs- per
share, The " Caisse" Weisweiller has given a di-
vidend of one per cent.
The death at Vienna of the Princess Bagration;
the wife of Lord Howden, our ambassador at
Madrid, has been already made known to the
English public. The Princess, we are informed,
was a loser, by the flight of M. Thurseymarx, to
the extant of 550,000 f., represented' by diamonds,
which she had entrusted to his care. These
jewels formed the entire property of the Princess,
who had disposed of all her estates against are
annuity of £12,000.
Reams of official paper and cloud? of misty
German have been expended in the shape of
notes for a long time past between the German
Governments and the Cabinet of Copenhagen on
the subject of the Danish• German Duchies. Lat-
terly we thought the dispute was settled ; but n 3
The latest news respecting it.is such as it lase been
at any time during the last twelve months. The
fact is, the question is one of treaty obligations,
and the interminable character of the dispute
strikingly illustrates the want of an European tri-
bunal to decide such questions:
The plan suggested some time since by Lord
Clarendon as a compromise on the vexed question
of the Principalities, and which consisted of as
close an administrative union as possible, but rso
creation of a united hereditary sovereignty, has, it
is stated, found favour with the Government of
Russia. France and Russia even hope to britrg,
England over altogether to their views, and to
agree to a complete union, in which case the oppo-
sition of Austria might be disregarded.
The Belgian official paper denies that the Bel-
gian ambassador at Constantinople has been
intermeddling in favour of the Union. It also
denies that the Count of Flanders has ever thought
of aspiring to the possible throne of the Principa-
lities, although it adds, the Roumans themselves
have looked towards him

WE may speak of the Church of Rome as a
system of ecclesiastical polity without entering
into any controversy respecting doctrines. How-
-1 ever we may differ from Roman Catholic
opinions, we would speak respectfully of all who
hold any earnest convictions on the great
subject of religion. We have always acknow-
ledged Roman Catholics as our Christian
brethren, and have defended and- shall continue
to defend their right to entire civil equality. We ,
desire the ascendancy of no priesthood, sect or
church, but the equality of all in-:the eye of law,
and the unfettered enjoyment of civil and reli-
gious liberty. It is, then, in no little sectarian.,
spirit, that we express our satisfaction at the
demonstration that has been made in Belgium
against the insiduous jesuitical grasping spirit of
the Romish clergy. It seems that, in Belgium,
all legacies left for charitable purposes musk be
administered by the civil power; and the
Church, as a distinct corporation, cannot inherit
property, except through the permission, and
instrumentality of the civil government.
This is a wise restriction, considering the
immense power which the clergy must have
the means of exercising over the minds of the
dying. For long generations has an untold
amount of wealth flowed into the coffers of the
Church through the fears, superstition, or piety
of men in the last act of life, with the, priest at
their elbow.

Liberality to the Church was believed to be a
passport to Heaven, or, at the very least, to hide
a multitude of sins. It is important to the
State, that individuals should be protected
against this insinuating and insidious influence
of the priesthood, put forth at a time when the
individual is least able to act for hinaself, when
sinking into feebleness of mind and body,
he is most apt to be swayed by the persuasion
of his ghostly confessor. Governments have
seen the danger of this, and have passed
many enactments to limit the power
and the wealth of the clergy. Society
was threatened with, a sort of imperium
in imperio—a power within the state growing
up to outrival the state. In the middle ages
this was actually consummated ; the ecclesiastical
towered above the civil power, and to this day
men speak of Church and state, instead of
State and Church. It is generally known that
in France and Belgium of late years the Church
of Rome has aimed, not unsuccessfully, to control
the education of the people—to monopolise it,
if possible. The struggle has not yet ended.
The Church has hitherto had the advantage.
As the Church seeks to rule society by directing
the minds of the young, through education, so
it seeks to add to its wealth by acting upon the
pious fears of the dying. A Charitable Bequests
Bill was recently introduced into the Belgian
Chambers, to enable parties bequeathing pro-
perty- to the Church to name their own Trustees
and Managers, who, by the existing law, must
he civil parties, but, by the.proposed bill,. might
clerical persons The eccltsiastical party
and they
was in the ascendant in Parliament,

were carrying everything before them, not•
withstanding the determined opposition of the
more liberal portion. A small spark has often
lighted up a mighty conflagration. The people
admitted to the galleries of the House could
not abstain from testifying their approval of the
conduct of the opposition. The President orders
the galleries to be cleared, and the police clear
them accordingly. In the streets the citizens
repeat more vociferously their approval of the
opposition and their resistance to the Jesuit
Clergy Bill. When the Assembly breaks up the
Liberal members are cheerer], the ministers are
hissed, and even the Pope's nuncio hooted.
Soldiers and artillery are assembled in Brussels ;
cannon are conveniently placed in readiness, for
which,lhappily, there has been no need, Similar
demonstrations are made in other towns—
, Namur, Liege, Mons, &c. The people seem
determined ; the clerical party is cowed,
and yields before the gathering storm ; the
King exercises his prerogative of proroguing
the House for a month ; the obnoxious bill is
dropped ,•- the danger of serious disturbance is
averted, and again, but for very different
reasons, order reigns at Brussels, as well as
at Warsaw.

Belgium has narrowly escaped a great danger,
induced by die Clergy, and averted by the
sovereign. It is reported that some blood has
been shed, but the consequences might have
been far more serious, if the King had not
known how to do the right thing at the right
moment. Men's minds will cool; and in three
weeks more, the smooth career of legislation will
be resumed. Time is a great healer and soother.
When a man is in a towering passion, if he can
keep his mouth shut till he has counted a
hundred, the chief danger will be past. This
demonstration is dignified cant against the
undue influence of priestly power. It is-
important European warning to the clerical
party, which may Heaven grant them wisdom
to profit by. The most holy Roman Bishop;
as he is at this moment making a pre-arrranged
progress through his dominions, where, of courser.
everything will be made to seem pleasant, boasts.
the unbroken loyalty of the great Catholic
countries to the Chair of St. Peter. There was-
one " microscopic" exception—Sardinia ; another
may now be added—Belgium. Enlightened
_Roman Catholics will rejoice with us in the
failure of this clerical attempt in Belgium to
aggrandise• the order. This manifestation in
Belgium may not be interpreted into a Protestant
manipulation. At all events, it is evidence that
even in Roman Catholic countries, the popular
mind is capable of being aroused to withstand
the inordinate claims-of the Clergy. It would
be their wisdom to sea this, and-,set their house
:in order accordingly. There is a legitimate way
,of aggrandising their. order, hat- it is not by
-wealth and. titles, and association with the
:powers of this world—but it is by boldness, by
attention to their spiritual duties, by becoming
the educators of the people in sound knowledge
of the divine laws of the. universe, by practical.
goodness-.and godliness, by pointing to brighter
worlds, while they lead the way.

HE MAJESTY'S Attorney-Genera has at
length filed ex officio informations against the
Directors of the Royal British Bank. Bench
warrants have been issued ; some of the delin-
quents, the ex-Governor, Mr. ESDAILE, and Mt.
OWEN, have been arrested; others of them-. are
under the close surveillance of the police ; and' a
reward of 2001: has been offered for the notorious
Mr. HumPunEY BROWN. He and the exceedingly
pious and devout manager, Mr. CAMERON, (who
is reported to have had: such a fear of God. before
.his eyes, that he proposed to open the Bank
with prayer,) are said- to> be on the Continent,
but just now their. whereabouts is unknown.
Let us hope that the eagle-eyed detectives who
are in pursuit of the fugitives will not be long
until they pounce upon this particular brace of
bank delinquents, and that they, with all their
confederates who have been engaged in the huge
plunder, fraud, and deception of the Royal
British Bank will be, and that, too, in a few,
days, within the iron grasp. of the law, pre-
paratory to being visited with legal retribution
for their numerous transgressions against• all
principles of rectitude and honesty, and their
unparalleled and barefaced impositions upon the
public.

We admit that tire. Attorney-General is now
acting with vigour and determination in the
matter, Nevertheless, we cannot help thinking
that his apparent reluctance to commence pro-
ceedings has been the means of enabling the
greatest scoundrel of the lot, Mr. BROWN, to
effect his escape. His complicity with the dis-
honest practices of all the directors was known on
the 29th of April last, for on that memorable day
he deposed before Mr. Commissioner HOLROYD,
in the Bankruptcy Court, that he became a
Director in February, 1853, and gave his note of
hand for the shares by which he qualified, and
paid for them in no other way ; that he opened
his credit by paying 18/. 45,, and the same day
drew 2,000/. ; that in a day or two afterwards he
borrowed 3,000/.; that he borrowed 4,0001. on
the 2nd of May ; afterwards, 5,0001. were placed
to his credit; and that in September, when he
was only seven months a Director, the balance
against him was 30,000/. ; the ultimate result
being that " his account, which commenced with
a credit of 181. 45., ended with a debit of
. 55., with sets off!" The secutities
• which'63, fil7l
this; then• holiou?able; gentleman gave,
were unregistered taortgAges of ships—a docu-

ment constituting the entire title to ships—
though the money was obtained on promises to
register. In the examination of BROWN, of
of which the foregoing is a brief precis, he had
the audacity to tell the Court of Bankruptcy,
that "it was an idle ceremony to ask him to
pay the demands of the Bank." These facts
came out, as we have said, on the 29th of April ;
the elaborate report of the Commissioner was
delivered on the 14th of May, and yet it took
the Attorney-General three weeks to make up
his mind to file ex-o.nicio informations. Mean-
time, some of the British Bank cormorants have
flown, so that we are now obliged to offer 2001.
for this Chief of Banking Sinners, the ex-
member for Tewkesbury. It is said that,
although no actual steps were taken by the
Attorney-General in the matter, that arrange-
ments were made, and a watchful eye kept upon
the movements of all the parties ; and that so well
has this portion of the business been performed,
on the- issue of the warrants, immediate captures
were made. Still, we ask—where is BROWN,
and sanctimonious CAMERON ?
The crime of which these men stand accused
is that of the grossest fraud, and studied
deception—putting into circulation the most
reprehensible statements, with the purpose
of bolstering up the reputation- of the
Bank—inducing the public to regard it
as a flourishing and stable concern when it was
nothing but a monetary wreck, in hopeless
insolvency and ruiii. To permit such characters
to escape, and allow them to be punished only
by loss of caste. To blink at the onduct
in carrying off and squandering among them the
hard earnings of depositors and the frugal
savings of many an humble but respectable
shareholder, would be a disgrace- to the country
in which we lire—a disregard of law, and an
utter perversion of justice. We hear the
Attorney-General extolled for his- vigour and
determination: in the matter, but cannot sympa-
thise in any such opinion. The- demands—

sacred demands—of duty to his country and his
GOD required it. The country, with one voice,
approves the course he has taken, but it would
be derogatory to any well regulated mind to
extol the proceeding, as some of our cotempora-
ries do, as a positive act of virtue.

The glaring acts of misconduct committed by
Banking establishments in this country of late
years, including'. the Sadlier frauds, and the
deceptive and roguish doings of PAUL, BATES,
and STRAHAN), not to mention the outrageous

and dishonest deeds of ROESON and RZDPATLF,
fall into the shade when compared with the

Royal British Bank ; and it is not too much to

expect that the law officers of the Crown will,
by a vigorous prosecution, and the Judges
before wham they may be tried, by the severe

sentence they will pronounce, teach not

only the- delinquents., but society at large,
that British justice cannot—will not—

tolerate such robbery, inflicting as it has

done evils, pemmiary and social, upon thousands
of our fellow.beings, and destroying all confi-
dence in man.. We shall look with anxiety to
hear of the capture of the entire lot of Directors

who managed the Royal British Bank. If any
one of them escapes, the public at large will not
be satisfied.

THE Eynon/ or TUNE, 1857.—The temple of Janus
is at length closed in Europe. The Grand Duke Constan-
tine, the personification of the Russian war-theory, visits
the Tuilleries-and Osborne in-the same week. The Emperor
of Austria, passing in ovation from Lombardy, proceeds
to the suppneesed nationalityof Hungary, where the voices
which, a few years since, hailed Kossuth governor, and
Gorgei dictator, greet his Itnperial Majesty as " Apostolic
King" and " Very great Lord." In Lord Palmer—
ston's honourable and satisfactory peace, argosies of
magic sails are thronging, our harbours, in numbers such as
Sinbad dared not have prophesied, and bearing treasures
such as. Aladdin never dreamed of. And yet in all this
international reconcilement and material prosperity, realis-
ing Arabian visions, are there no traces- of a conflict, still
continuing, bitterer, more irreconcileable far than ever
divided Cossack and Mussulmen ? While the war.sounds
which lately thundered in the Black Sea are passing away
in the desultory echoes faintly heard- from Chinese•waters,
who looks out on Europe, and cannot see how illusory is the
cry which boastfully calls out "Peace, peace," on. ovary aide
when there is no.peace. These, indeed, are startling days.
And who, even as a contemplator, can keep pace with
them. The morning news of a single day forms, in itself,
a mats of literature, which the most diligent cannot get
through, before it has already grown old and flat, by 811 A-,
set. The columns of the Tiines alone terrify the eye as it
glances along the rushing current of events, in which
" all comprehension wanders lost." Why, the very
paragraph which announces how, in a few months.
the passions and feelings which agitate London
will vibrate through New York thirty minutes
after their conception, is charged with thoughts enough,
as Tennyson has said, "to shake mankind." But, more
than all, the ever-increasing store of the material results
of modernism, do the present metaphysical and spiritual
movements of the world affect the thoughtful mind, and
cause her to stand at gaze. Scarce has the war of soldiers
ended, and the armies of Europe returned to their garrisons,
than all Europe is at once the battle-held of adverse passions
and opposing principles. To go no further than the history of
the past week, what a chaos of contrarieties does it exhibit !
Never was there a period, more than this month of June,
1857, when the old and uncotn sromising moral foes,
despotism, and liberty—lying sueerstition and unfettered
truth—intolerant and time-ups:owl priesteraft, and pare,
simple Christianity—open but rampant humbug, and his
sure detector, free tboueht—were to be seen all manifestly
flourishing—all straining forward in the competitive race,
and each apparently ev'th good Prospect of suocesa. From
Rome we read how his Holiness goes forth on his little
journey to Bologna more like a .captive than a sovereign
Pontiff. The Vicegerent of Heavers moves as if he were
in Pandemonium; his retinae is a guard of safety, rather
than a guard of honour; he requires protection, as a
Tipperary landlord needed it in 1846 ; and yet those )
guards are round him, and French and Austrian soldiers
remain behind, to keep Remanisra in Rome. The san2s,
day's despatch tells us of the neighbouring State, wheY
freedom is victorious under the conduct of Victor Emmanuel;
and where the noble Cevour, in his statesmanlike and
comprehensive mind, pierces the Alps with the
steam-engine, and unites the Indian Ocean to the Baltic
Meanwhile, in the South, Lord Palmerston's phantom
ships hare withdrawn from the Bay of Naples, and left
Poerio in his dungeon. News from Constantinople ex-
hibits the Crescent growing pale, not before the fires of A

WEDNESDAY, PINT 10, 1857'

bloody crusade, but as enlightenment comes in like the day
spring under the gentle rule of the successor of the Caliphs,
and yet we scarce begin to dream of Christianity resting
upon dome and minaret, ere we read of one of the famous
Principalities, rescued so lately from Russisn violence
and Austrian diplomacy, voluntarily submitting to a Papal
concordat—a spiritual occupation far worse than that of
Don Cossack, or Croatian trooper. From France, we read
in the Univers of the miracles of Saint Colette and her frail
nun ; and, while the magistrates of Grenoble denounce
the imposture of Madlle. de Lamertine, that young " virgin
of the yellow stocking" finds votaries by hundreds of
thousands, and the waters of her holy well are sold for
£12,000 a •year. Belgium, lately witneseed Ultramontane
priest-tyranny driven back from its old lucrative post by
the side of the death-beds, to which it had so nearly
crept back. Bat, while the cry of "a bas les convents"
rises in Brussels, the Primate of Hungary is worshipping
Francis Joseph. Yet there is great thope for Con-
tinental Europe in the telegraphic message from
Brussels of the first of this montl), which states "that the
summer and autumn promise to be unusually prolific i❑
religious meetings and Church assemblies in Protestant
Germany." We have not space to review the position of
those mental and spiritual contests ih our own islands,
where the discordant elements are also furiously at work,
in the free land which permits a partiul development of
each. Meanwhile, we rest our confidence in the Power
which can elicit harmony from them all ; net, can we allow
a doubt as to the ultimate result, knowing which of the
adverse parties and Contending principles are warring
under the auspices of Eternal Wisdom, Mercy,. and Trath .
—Belfast News Leteer