The Sun.
London, England, 1869-03-26 00:00:00

THE REPRESENTATION OF MARYLEBONE.

Marylebone is one of those anomalous borougns
which, while containing a large portion of the London
aristocracy, allows its politics to be managed
by very fourth-rate men. A little while
ago some of these decided that Mr. Harvey
Lewis, whom Vice-Chancellor Malins accused of
" false, fictitious, and fraudulent" conduct, should,
pending his appeal, not be asked to resign. In the •
meanwhile he does not venture to appear in the
House, and is likely to be absent for many months.
This fact, rather than the scandal brought upon the
borough, seems to have stirred up certain of the local
wire pullers, and they have just held a very stormy
meeting, at which,after an immense amount of confu-
sion, the following resolution was p-,esed :—"That this
meeting, regretting the present anomalous state of
the representation of the borough of Marylebone,
whereby the Liberal Government is deprived of its
due, hereby call upon Mr. Harvey Lewis to resign,
as the recent legal proceedings have deprived him of
all power and influence in Parliament." Then
came the question as to who should be
his successor. This excited even more uproar
than the other matter. Dr. Sandwith's name elicited
accusations of infidelity, to which Mr. Baxter
Langley retorted that they had had enough of
" Gospel -mongering " in the person of Mr. Thomas
Chambers, the other representative. He believed
that a general election would take place in July, in
consequence of the rejection of the Irish Chure.
Bill by the Lords—a most wild supposition—,
and he advised that Mr. Grant (who was
defeated in November) should be asked to
stand now, on condition that he gave his
support to Dr. Sandwith next summer. Eventually
it was resolved to present a requisition to Mr. Grant
without any conditions. Mr. Grant was fourth on
the poll at the general election, having roceived 1,533
votes less than Dr. Sandwith. But while the second
has determined that he will not stand again unless
his election expenses are paid, the first is prepared
to spend any amount of money, and in November
vied with Mr. Lewis in his patronage of the
-publicans.

Marylcbone is rather unhappy in its representa-
tives. Mr. llarvey Lewis is not the only person whom
the borough has honoured with its confidence, and who
hai afterwards forfeited it. The career of Mr.
Edwin James is known to all the world. Curiously
enough, within a few hours of the time that the
electors were calling upon Mr. Lewis to resign on
account of Vice-Chancellor Malins's severe strictures,
the Master of the Rolls was passing judgment upon
Mr. Lewis's old colleague, Lord Fermoy, and con-

demning him and the other directors a the Land
Credit Company of Ireland to pay calls upon 535
shares, which they applied for, in the names of their
nominees, for the purpose (as alleged in the bill) of
rigging the market.
LORD ST. LEOPARDS AND LORD ROMILLY.

The dispute between Lord St. Leonards and the
Master of the Rolls has again been brought before the,
public. Lord St. Leonards, in publishing the corres-
pondence between himself and Lord Romilly, pro-
mises that there shall be " no addition to it;" but,
judging from the animation with which the various
dignitaries concerned have already carried on the
dificussion, we are afraid it will not be so easily settled.
The subject of contention now is the authorship of
the Encumbered Estates Bill, to which both sides lay
claim. Lord St. Leonards asserts that he cannot
allow Lord Romilly's charge against him to remain
uncontradicted, and he renews his claim to the
scheme of the bill in a letter written to Sir Robert
Peel in 1849, though he admits that he had
nothing to do with the framing of the bill or its
provisions. Lord Romilly, in reply, objects to the
referee proposed by Lord St. Leonards, and maintains
that there is in fact nothing to refer to, as he does not
doubt the existence of the letter to Sir Robert Peel,
but only denies that no such paper was laid before Mr.
Coulson or himself. As to the authorship of the bill,
Lord Romilly states that he never knew that Lord
St. Leonards claimed it until he read his pamph-
let. Lord St. Leonards, upon the receipt
of this letter, becomes more angry than before,
and sharply reproves his correspondent. Ile
demands an explanation of some passages in Lord
Romilly's letter to the Times, to which appeal Lord
Romilly replies, in more conciliatory language than
might have been expected, that he never accused
Lord St. Leonards of intentionally claiming merit
due to another. lie thinks that " owing to circum-
stances he was led to believe himself entitled to claim
the authorship of a measure framed by other persons
who derived no assistance from him." Whether the
irate ex-Chancellor will be pacified with this new
mode of putting the case remains to be seen.
TIIE WICKLOW PEERAGE. _ .

The death of the Earl of Wicklow is likely to give
rise to an interesting and romantic law suit. All the
papers and the peerages have said that the heir to
the earldom is a Mr. Arnold. But " Ellen Howar d
(Howard was Lord Wicklow's family name) writes
to the Times that she is the widow of William George
Howard, having been married to him in February
1803. Ile died in October 1804, and left a son born
in February of that year. On his death the papers
and the peerages published statements which Mrs.
lloward declares to be untrue, but which they
refused to correct without the authority of
the late Earl. " Ile," says Mrs. Howard,
" was a total stranger to my late husband
and myself," but she does not explain how it was
the. Earl was so entirely unacquainted with his heir.
She adds: "With respect to the estates, and in justice
to his cr.editers,l beg to observe that my husband was
tenant-in-tail in remainder, and was at the time of
leis death preparing to set aside a most unjust re-
settlement of the estates forced upon him. His will,
made for the purpose, will, I hope, (liable me to
cstabllsli my absolute claim ou the pro' erty and
satisfy all just claims due by him."
THE RESPONSIBILITY OF BANKERS.

A goed of uneasiness e7:ists among capitalists
and (balers in consequence of a recent decision of
the Pi i
Council. The COns was an appeal from it
judgment in the colony of Victoria, where the
*plaintiff had deposited certain debentures with a
bank, which were subsequently stolen by one of
the clerks of the establishment. The plaintiff
was a customer of the bank, and the custody of the
debentures was undertaken by them in the
usual way, without any special charge for the
Eervice. Under these circumstances the court laid
43-1-irli_ that the uthorities Qf the bank were not

ticund to more than orcanary cam, au. -
sidered that reasonable care had been exercised, they
decided that the defendants were not liable for the
loss of the plaintiffs debentures. Thus the greater t
part of the fancied safety of securities deposited at
a bank is swept away. Hitherto it has always been
held that this responsibility was one of the ad-
vantages which bankers offered to their customers
as an acknowledgment for the advantage which
the first received in holding the money of the second.
But all our merchants, capitalists, and stockbrokers,
of whom there are thousands, who daily use the
banks as the depositories of their securities for heavy
amounts, now find the safety of their property
dependent on the exercise of what the courts may
construe to be reasonable care on the part of banks,
who employ scores of clerks with more or less opporr
tunities of access to it, and for the correctness of
whose conduct the " reasonable care " does not seem
to be expected to include any guarantee. Some
time ago one of the bankers employed as a cleric
a man known to be given to betting and gambling ;
he stole the money of one of the bank's customers,
and the bank had to make good the loss. Had he
stolen the customer's securities and converted them
into cash, the customer would, according to this
decision, have been the loser. The '!'hies, in its
money article, declares that this state of things can-
not be allowed to continue, and advises that the
banks should be required to accept proper respon-
sibility, making such a charge for it as they may
calculate to be necessary. Ey a mutual guarantee
system among themselves all danger of individual
ruinous loss might easily be averted.