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TaF WEATHER—SUN Orriass MAY 20.
TE2R3:O3IETER, IN THE SHADE.
72 —highest since noon yesterday.
55 lowest this morning and during the night.
70 --this day at noon.
BARON ZTER, 29.87.
WIND, S.W.—Rather fresh, with fine summer weather.

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 1857.

The Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Bill was
last night read a second time in the House of
Lords, there being 47 contents in its favour, and
but 18 non-contents. We earnestly hope that
the matter may be disposed of during the present
session, and that the disgrace to which it is now
liable, may be effectually removed from the An-
glican law. The Lord Chancellor has, in many
respect, improved the measure, but, after all,
the bill which he has brought forward, can only
be regarded as an instalment of what is re-
quired alike .by justice and expediency.
There is no doubt, however, that it will be a
vast amelioration of the existing code, and that if
nothing better can be obtained, it will be gladly
accepted, as " a step in the right direction," but
certainly not as a final and satisfactory arrange-
ment of the question.
The veteran Lord LYNDHURST made one of his
most brilliant and conclusive orations, which must
convince any unprejudiced mind. The noble and
learned lord not only proved the propriety of all
that was proposed, but showed the necessity
for further relief to that sex, which we
all profess to respect and reverence, but
treat with so much practical injustice. Lord
CRANWORTH is by far too timid to make a
Ireformer. He too closely adheres to precedent,
and is unwilling to travel in the slightest degree
from the beaten track, or to overstep the conven-
tional limits assigned by the previous practice of
the House of Lords. He should receive a salu-
tary lesson from his distinguished predecessor,
and discard the undue caution which is calculated
to impair the efficiency and value of the measure.
,The first great point is the creation of a new
tribunal, and the substitution of a single stringent
and searching investigation, instead of the three
required under the existing system. The Eccle-
siastical Court could pronounce a divorce a
rnensd et thoro, and legally separate man and
wife, not merely for adultery, but also for cruelty,
for anything in fact that rendered it impossible for
the parties to live together again in concord and
happiness. But it could not altogether dissolve
the matrimonial chain. It required a special Act
of Parliament to sanction a second marriage on•
either side. But that sanction was not denied to
any person who came forward with clean bands,
and had money sufficient to put the Legis-
lative machinery in motion. Thus practi-
cally there was one law for the rich and
another for the poor, or rather the
meshes by which the parties were entangled
were so fragile that they could be broken by any
aggrieved person, who had 2,000/. to spare for the
occasion. No matter how great the hardship and
irreparable the injury, the man who had not 2,000/.
to expend in the operation, was debarred from ob-
taining redress. For him there might be sym-
pathy, but no means of procuring the only ade-
quate relief. His poverty placed him beyond tht
pale of the law, and he should submit patiently to
his hard fate.
Now Lord CRANWORTH proposes to extend the
area from men with 2,0001. to those possessing
3001. or 4001. But surely there are thousands
and tens of thousands of sufferers to whom the
latter sum is as difficult of attainment as the
former, and who should still possess a claim for
justice ! He does not, however, legislate for the
million. Sorrow must be arrayed, if not in vel-
vet, at least in good broadcloth, before it can 1e
obtruded on the new tribunal ! A Lord Chan-
cellor, a Lord Chief Justice, and a Judge of the
Court of Probate cannot easily be brought to-
gether. The tribunal will, of course, be very
dignified, but we fear the expenses and delays
will he fully proportioned to the dignity.
Still it is better that the forms and
expenses of Parliamentary proceedings and the
triple exposure should be avoided. Even the
Lord Chancellor would be better than the
House of Lords, and a single inquiry, than three,
before different Courts under different regulations !
The disgraceful action for Crim. Con., in which
the wife has no locus standl in Court, although

her fame and happiness depend on the result, is
net abrogated. It will, however, no longer be
compulsory on the party, but is to be optional,
and according to Lord CRANWORTH'S proposition,
only brought after the divorce has been obtained.
It would be far better if the disgraceful scene of a
husband claiming compensation for the loss of
his wife's affections, could be altogether abrogated,
and that the guilty party could be punished more
effectually than through the pocket. If, how-
ever, it must be retained—and we can see no
adequate grounds why such should be the case—
it should be brought either before or after the
other proceedings—at the option of the aggrieved
party. Many men, for instance, our Roman
Catholic brethren, who consider the tie indis-
soluble, would thus be debarred from any remedy,
and with them all who had not the means of
bringing to a successful termination their suit
before the new tribunal, or more than nine out of
every ten, perhaps nine-nine out of every hundred
in the entire community ! This point then
should be remedied in committee t 3 make the
bill anything approaching to what it ought to be.
Again, there is no reciprocity. Women will
have no means of redress whatsoever, save in
some rare and almost impossible instances. Now,
in this instance, we hold with the vulgar, but ex-
pressive apopthegem, that " what is sauce for the
goose, should also be SatlC2 for the gander."
Surely if the conduct of a man is so thoroughly
depraved that reconciliation is utterly hopeless,
the sufferer should not by a refinement of Mezen-
tian cruelty be perpetually chained to him who is
nominally, but not really a husband. Women, GOD
bless them,arefar naore forgiving than the sterner sex,
and, according to the usages of the wife can
venture to condone an offence that could not be
forgiven by a husband. But she should herself be
the judge, and not be made the innocent victim
of crimes for which she was neither morally. nor
legally responsible ! We believe that the privilege,
if conceded, would not be abused. As Lord LYND-
HURST truly said, "Don't suppose that if you al-
lowed a woman to separate for adultery, your courts
would be filled with such applications. Remember

that this proceeding could only be instituted by the

woman ; and no one who knows anything of the fe-
male character knows that she would be easily
prompted to institute proceeding of this kind ! I am
satisfied that every man who has studied the
female character can suppose that nothing but a
long, deliberate, and hopeless case of adultery would
lead her to corne:bizfore the Court for a divorce."

There is true wisdom in the words of this
venerable Senator. " All that a woman holds
dear is at stake," and it will not be until reforma-
tion is hopeless, and reconciliation impracticable,
that the irrevocable step will be taken. We
venture to assert that, in the overwhelming ma-
jority of cases, the injured woman will be satisfied
with the minor remedy which permits her to live
separate and apart from the wrong-doer. But if
she should seek more perfect independence—if she
should desire to unite her fortunes with one
from whose affection and love she could anti-
cipate a return of that happiness of which she
had been deprived, it would be alike cruel and
unjust to deprive her of the chance.
We think also that wilful desertion, should fur-
nish a ground of divorce to either party. If a
man forgets his obligations—if a woman her nup-
tial vows—they should not be forced to continue
in the unhallowed union. The practise of Scot-
land, and of the United States, proves that there
is no serious danger to be apprehended from the
adoption of a more extended remedy !
We trust that the passing of the measures sug-
gested by Lord BROUGHAM and Sir ERSKINE
PERRY, may render it unnecessary to carry the
portion of Lord CRANWORTH'S bill •relating
to the wife's property and the wife's earn•
ing,s. These should—save in the event of a
solemn prenuptial settlement, be secured to herself
for her own separate use, although the husband
had not gone to the extent of abandoning, and
leaving her dependent on her own resources for a
protracted period. The amendments of which
Lord LYNDHURST has g'ven notice, will render the
bill really beneficial, and we trust that they may
be carried, and that the ameliorated measure may
receive the Legislative sanction even within the
present Session.

Tile first great trial of strength has taken
place between her MAJESTY'S Government and
her MAJESTY'S Opposition, on a question of com-
paratively trivial importance, so far as the pecu-
nialy amount is concerned, but ono of vast conse-
quence to the peace and tranquillity of the Sifter
Kingdom. The Honourable Gentleman, the
Nleinber for Cork, has obtained a great triumph
in carrying, by so decisive a majority, the measure
with which his name has long been identified !
A.nd Ministers, while allowing him to retain the
honour, gave that honest and energetic support
which ensured the glorious result. After the di-
vision that took place, the matter is virtually dis-
posed of, and henceforward " Ministers' Money,"
is it was termed in Ireland, will be numbered

with bygone grievances.
It was Sargeant, now Mr. Commissioner, MUR-
PHY who first directed public attention to the
om al y. It was that honourable and learned
gentleman who sowed the good seed which has
:low produced such excellent fruit, and he
found a worthy coadjutor and successor in
Mr. FA GAN, who carefully tended the promising
plant until the hour of fruition. The speech of
the Hon. Gentleman last night was all that could
be desired, and he paid a well-merited compliment
to Lord P A.LIIERSTON and his coadjutors in refe-
rence t 3 their conduct on the question.

It was not the least vexatious circumstance in
relation to the impost that it applied only to
eight cities and towns, viz., Dublin, Cork, Water-
ford, Limerick, Clonnael, Kilkenny, Drogheda, and
Kinsale ; while Belfast, Enniskillen, and other
fliurishing towns in all parts of Ireland were ex-
empted. The Roman Catholic inhabitants saw not
only their co-religionists, but even the Protestant in-
habitants of Protestant towns freed from the
burden to which they had been subjected by the
act of that pious and moral Sovereign CHARLES
11., and the " iron entered more deeply into their
souls." It was not merely a question of L. S. D.
The mode of collection was far more annoying
than the mere amount, and the peace and tran-
quility of the sister kingdom was imperilled fur
a paltry sum of 12,5001. when there was an am-
ple and legitimate fund from which it could be
defrayed without injustice or injury even to life
interests.

The act of 1854 scarcely improved the state of
affairs. It is true that it removed the difficulty
from individual ratepayers to the Corporations
of the towns that had obtained such unauspicious
notice.

But aldermen and town-councillors
were merely men, subject to all the passions of
humanity, and in many instances they refused to
make themselves the agents for collecting the
obnoxious inapoA, knowing that " the rose by any
other name would smell as sweet," and that it signi-
fied but lath., when the hard cash was extracted
from the pockets of the people, whether it was
designated as " municipal rates" or " ministers'

money."

Indeed, the recipients, the clergymen who were
entitled to rec ,ive it, were amongst the most earnest
applicants for redress. They had legal rights
which they could not enforce—the very demand
whereof placed them in an invidious posi-
tion, and materially deteriorated from their
utility. The friends and supporters of
the Established Church in Ireland, have still
greater cause to hail the abolition of the unjust
and impolitic impost than its most strenuous
opponents, inasmuch as it removes what must be
a fertile cause of discord—a source of weakness
to the Church, while it was a formidable instru-
ment in the hands of its adversaries.
The Report of the Select Committee of the House
of Commons placed this matter in its true light.
It contained the following remarkable passage :--
"It is not an exaggeration to say that popular
odium attaches to this tax ; nor is it to those by
whom it is paid that this antipathy is confined.
This source of livelihood is an object of dislike to
the clergy, by whom it is most painfully collected
from the reluctant and the poor. Several clergy-
men have been examined in the course of
this inquiry, all of whom concur in the expres-
sion of a strong desire on their own part
and on the part of the clergy that some
substitute for ministers' money may be provided."
It also stated that " many clergymen had
abandoned the attempt to collect their income in
this form, because they felt it would deprive
-them of all chance of influence as Christian
pastors over those to whom they wished to minis-
ter ; and that it would bring them into constant
hostility with those with whom
.they desired to
live in peace and amity."
There is no desire on the part of the advocates
of the measure to deprive the present incumbents
of their revenues, but there is a proper fund
on which it should fall. The revenues in the
bands of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners are
:ample for every purpose, and there is none to
which they can be more fittingly applied than in
removing the constant cause of vexatious litigation
and promoting peace and good will amongst nun'
We congratulate Mr. FAGAN. We congratulate
Lord PALMERSTON and the Government. We

congratulate the Roman Catholic ratepayers,
but above and beyond all, we congratulate
the conscientious members of the Established
Church in Ireland, on th;s, which by each and all
must be regarded as a truly auspicious and most
satisfactory result of the long-protracted contest.

Chelsea Bridge will in all probability be opened
in August. So thinks our Minister of Public
Works. Sir BENJAMIN HALL yesterday stated
this distinctly in reply to an inquiry put to him
in the House of Commons by the Hon. Baronet
the Member for Westminster. Good news so far,
but, alas ! no further. For lo and behold ! while
we are congratulating ourselves upon the advan-
tages accruing from the probably speedy comple-
tion of the Eighth Bridge up the river, we find our
satisfaction suddenly diminished by the intimation
that it is to be at the same time the Fifth Toll-
paying pathway across the Thames ! Quoth the
Right Hon. Baronet, in answer to Sir JOHN
SHELLEY, the Act of Parliament declaring it to be
a toll-paying bridge was to be strictly adhered to.
It was to be a toll-paying bridge ; it will be a
toll-paying bridge. But, "if ever the period
should arrive," said Sir BENJAMIN [it sounds ter-
ribly like the Greek Kalends this I], when the
funds obtained by the toll—having secured mean-
while the support and maintenance of the bridge,
and having paid off the expense of its construc-
tion actually might realise a surplus, then,
says the Minister for Public Works, " that
surplus will be applied to the fund for
Metropolitan Improvements." A-hem ! we
do sincerely hope that the Fund for the
Metropolitan Improvements has some more de-
finite prospect before it of future enhancement.
Otherwise—But what in the name of Fortune is
the utility of speculating upon prospective and
contingent disappointments? when there is one
immediately before us blatant for our lamenta•
tions !

Another Toll-paying bridge across the Thames

for the use of Londoners ! The Eighth Bridg e
up the river—counting the bridges as wo ascend

the Silent Highway—but out of merely Eight,
actually the Fifth that will be Toll-paying !
Shame to the metropolis that we should say so—
but shame also to the Imperial Government.
How often and with what reason does that wise ex-
clamation of th© Rev. LAWRENCE STERNE recur to
one's memory—" They manage these things better
in France, said I." Granted in Paris that among
all their twenty or thirty bridges across the Seine,
they have not one to be brought for a tingle instant
into comparison with two of our London Bridges.
Bridges that in reality are among the number of
the world's wonders—those same wonders having
long since, under the wand of Science, been so
far extended in variety that they might almost be
described as Nine multiplied by Nine ! Granted
this, and more than this—(a circumstance not to
be marvelled at, however, considering the different
scope afforded by the Seine and by the the
Thames)—still even then the balance is struck in
point of fact rather considerably in favour of the
Parisians. For with them the toll-paying
Bridges are the rare " exception" —you could
anent just one or two out of all their twenty or
thirty bridges. With us, on the contrary, it is
just the reverse—it is the " rule" instead of being
the " exception !" Out of our Eight or Ton

Bridges—ani it is disgraceful, considering our
wealth, our traffie, and our enterprise, that we
have not long since had more—out of our
Eight or Ten Bridges across the Thames either

"in " the metropolis or in its immediate

vicinity, the gross majority are Toll-paying.
Take the Eight first Bridges up the river,
as already mentioned. Why only Three out of
them all are Free Bridges ! There is Lon-
don Bridge, Free : Blackfriars Bridge, Free :
Westminster Bridge, Free and then you
have an end of them ! Waterloo Bridge, one
of the great engineering and architectural
glories of London, having a beggarly toll of
a halfpenny. The Suspension Bridge at hunger-
ford the same. The Iron Bridge at Southwark
having one of a penny. Vauxhall Bridge the
same : and now we have the agreeable prospect

of another paltry ha'porth of stricture to our
transpontino traffic, at the new Bridge now being
built up at Chelsea, the Bridge now rapidly ap-
proaching the time of its completion.
The grievance we complain of, we have so oftan
complained of, we shall persist in complaining of
at every available opportunity—until we may
reach the long-wished for period when it shall be
entirely dissipated—is a grievance very real, and
very galling. It is so real, and so galling, that
notwithstanding our wish to S3O the number of
our London Bridges increased considerably—we
do sincerely hope that instead of directing
our energies henceforth to the building of new
bridges, we may in the first place strive, and
that most strenuously, to " free' the old bridges
already existing, Above all, it appears to us to
be the height of folly to be complaining, as we do
(and no wonder), at our having already no less
bridges between the Custom
than four toll-paying

House and Vauxhall, and then perversely tolerat-
ing, quite as a matter of course, the sanction of a
fifth toll-paying bridge, just a little higher up the
Thames, within sight of a Sixth "Ha'penny
Hatch"—the old bridge at Battersea.

The annual meeting of the Literary Association
of the Friends of Poland, a report of which ap-
peared in The San of Monday, will not be with-
out its use. The Emperors of RUSSIA and AUSTRIA
would probably give with willingness the small
sum which forms its income, somewhat under
1,0001., if they could bind over its members to
silence. We see by the language of France to-
wards Belgium, and of Austria towards Sardinia,
how despots tremble before the free press of free
countries ; and nothing is more galling to men
accustomed in their own territories to shut up in
a Spielberg or to send to Siberia all who venture
to utter a popular or patriotic sentiment, than to
read in foreign journals the speeches of the very
patriots who have escaped their clutches, or those
of the friends w hom they have inspired with interest
iu their cause. In spite, therefore, of the sneers,
or the contemptuous silence of a portion of the
English press, we are thankful that European
tyrants must yet submit to be exposed as they
ougjit to be by the more independent journals of
the country.
We could wish the Poles also not to neglect
any means of keeping themselves properly before
the civilised woad, were it only to call attention
from time to time to the last instance in which
England lost in diplomacy what she had conquered
in the field ; and even worse than that-, to the
appalling sacrifices she made both of life and
money, merely and simply out of treachery to
Poland and subserviency to Austria. What, un-
less a connection we prefer not to mention, in-
duced us to pet, as we did, that most odious of
despotisms, we cannot conceive ; but our readers
have not, we trust, forgotten, that to keep Aus-
tria easy in her fragment of Poland, we avoided
all mention of Poland and the Poles from the
commencement of the war, and declined to rouse
the nation, and to paralyse our enemy by this most
obvious and profitable strategy ; not only did we
refuse the aid of Polish volunteers, but when at