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TUESDAY MORNING, DEC. 16, 185 1 .

THE COUNCIL AND THEIR DETRACTORS.
RECTOR CAMPBELL, whose very sensible letter to
111 r. Vs ray on the Scripture Readers' Society is not
yet forgotten, has lately addressed another to Mr.

Picton, Chairman of the Library and Museum
Committee of the Town Council. His direct
object in the latter is to explain the course which
he adopted in reference to the proposed transfer of
the Royal Institution ; but he also notices inci-
dentally the ungracious and absurd practice of
speaking slightingly of the members of our Town
Council. It has become fashionable of late, with
a certain small section of the community, to bewail
the retrograde movement in our municipal respec-
tability; and not merely to assume, but openly to
assert, that either on intellectual or moral grounds,
or both, our local rulers are undeserving of public
confidence. To our thinking, this practice is much
more honoured in the breach than in the obser-
vance;" for there is always, among Englishmen at
least, a certain respect supposed to be due to
office, whoever may for the time fill it.

Mr. Campbell's argument is just in the main,
that the representatives are always a picture of the
electors, and that when a grievance exists the
remedy is in their own hands. It can only be

otherwise when a conspiracy exists among a cer-
tain portion of the community, when a small
body of men, understanding each other's senti-
ments and acting in unison, override the votes of
the disunited individuals, and practically control
them. But this is the tactics of party, and it is
known to be a game at which more than one can
play. Now, the accusation is not that we have too
many of any political section—for the subject of
politics is ignored by the accusers ; it is, that the
representatives are chosen from a wrong section, or
stratum, of the community. We call ourselves a
town of merchants, and of " merchant princes"

ton; and there is a strong prestige in favour of an
intelligent merchant, or a man of successful
enterprise. The gradual forsaking of this class is
a proof (valeat quantum) that the public are losing
confidence in them; and there is something to be
allowed, too, for the non-residence of a large
number of merchants within the borough limits.

In weighing evidence, even the humblest at-
torney's clerk knows that an important element
is the character and condition of the witness.
Now, it is a coincidence somewhat awkward, that
the prominent witnesses in this matter are not dis-
interested. The opinion of an independent towns-
man, who has never been mixed up with local dis-
putes, is worthy of all respect ; but when a dis-
carded candidate for public favour is perpetually
repeating his "rejected addresses," and harping
on the great loss of his services to the community,
we are reminded of an old quotation about `• Sir
Oracle," and dogs barking. The madman said
that his lunacy or that of the public was simply a
question of voting, and that the latter had a ma-
jority against him; and if the qualifications of
these gentlemen depended on their own votes, we
have no doubt that they would be declared fit for
any situation from " a Lord Lieutenancy to a tide-
3vaiter-ship." Speaking of one awkward coinci-
dence- reminds us of another. The gentlemen
who were mainly instrumental in rejecting the
arrangement between the Committee of the Royal
Institution and the Town Council, were those who
would have had a joint management, according to
the terms of the first proposal. Can any one in-
form us how many of the nineteen who voted in
favour of the amendment were members of the
Committee of the Institution, and how many were
proprietors (trustees)? At all events, the public
will know how to estimate the goodness of a cause
which required a combination of mortified vanity
to give it even a position.

Let us hear no more sneering at the Aldermen
and Town Councillors. We are not their apologists
more than any other.; but let us all exhibit deco-
rum, and give them fair play. The town can right
itself, if that be necessary. But those who compare
the angry and coarse disputes of the " intelligent
gentlemen" ten years ago, with the moderation
of our present Council Chamber, will perhaps be
inclined to thank their stars for the change. And
those who know the little scenes that are occasion-
ally enacted in London, Manchester, Glasgow, and
Dublin, will be astonished that a town of rapid
growth like Liverpool, has succeeded in securing
such a large portion of respectability and intelligence
throughout its various wards.

NAPOLEON THE SECOND, BY THE
GRACE OF THE SWORD,

THE success which has attended the daring usur-
pation of Louis Napoleon has been almost com-
plete, and his conduct, since he became assured of
the mastery over his opponents, has gone far to
persuade the true friends of order that he deserved
success. He has used his victory with remarkable
moderation. It may be said that had he done
otherwise, France would have risen as one man,
and hurled him, despite the Pretorian guards with
which he is hedged, from the military dictatorship
which lie has assumed ; but that only amounts to
saying that he is directed by wisdom, and not by
passion, and that, having two courses from which
to choose, lie has selected the right one. The
historian tells us that it would have been well for
Rome had Sylla never been born, or that, having
been born and made dictator, he had never died.
Without comparing Louis Napoleon to the Grand
Dictator Sylla, we may say that, having struck the
blow, and rid Paris of that nest of patricides, the
Assembly, it is better that he should be installed
dictator, temporary or permanent, and the country
kept subject to some authority, than that anarchy
should reign supreme, and all the passions of the
wildest, the fiercest, and the most active race in
Christendom should be let :loose upon European
society. The mercantile classes, and, indeed, all
who have any property to lose, are, beyond all
question, favourable to Louis Napoleon ;—not that
a dictatorship is the form of government they wish
to be established in France, but that they look up
to it as, under present circumstances, the only
government possibly strong enough to suppress
the Red Socialists, and deal effectually with the
intriguing Assembly. The rise in the French funds
in the face of such a state of things as exist at this
moment, is very unaccountable; but it, at all
events, shows that the monied interests are not
disposed:to discountenance the President, and that
they have faith in his ability to hold that which he
has grasped. '!'hat there is much agitation in the
provinces cannot be denied; but it may be taken
for granted that several of the rumoured disturb-
ances are exaggerated by the friends of Louis

Napoleon, for the purpose of intimidating the
moderate party, and of holding up, in terrorem,
what they may expect should the Reds get the
uppermost. These reports of plunder and murder
in the departments have already gained for the
government many supporters, who were previously
wavering in their determination which side to take.
On the whole, the prospect of general tranquillity
has improved since last week, and should Louis
Napoleon obtain the voices of the people in the

approaching election, there is a fair chance that
France will enjoy tranquillity for a short time at

least.

THE KAFFIR DRAIN OF MEN, MONEY,

AND CREDIT.

ENGLAND cannot afford to wage a little war.
Such was the memorable dictum of our great living
commander and astute politician, the Duke of
Wellington. The full meaning of that declaration
is easily comprehended. It implies that, with an
army so small as ours—small in comparison with
the services, many and great, required to be per-
formed by it in all quarters of the globe—we can-
not permit it to be cut up piecemeal ; we cannot
suffer it to be decimated in detail, to be harrassed,
weakened, and dispirited. Whenever we may be
found to strike a blow will it, the blow should be
struck with promptness and vigour ; our military
action should be short, sharp, and decisive. It
means also that we cannot allow that prestige of
invincibility so gloriously won at Agincourt, Blen-
heim, and Waterloo, to be perilled by any series of
discomfitures or disasters—no matter how trivial

in their nature. But, notwithstanding this
solemnly recorded declaration of the great Duke,
and albeit he is himself the acting Commander-in-
Chief of the army, we are, at this very moment,

not only carrying on a very little war, but our
brave soldiers are so circumstanced that, despite

their undoubted courage and indefatigable activit
they are, if not defeated, kept in check, baff

and worried to death by ever-increasing bands of

marauding savages, without a chance of gaining a
single laurel in the wretched contest, and with
many chances of suffering grievous losses, and even
occasional overthrow. The situation of our troops

at the Cape becomes from day to day more critical;
and the mode by which we may he extricated, with
the preservation of our national honour, from the

false position we have assumed in South Africa, if
any such mode exists, grows hourly more perplex-
ing. The intelligence which has just arrived, and
which brings down the history of events at the
Cape frontier to the beginning of November, affords
little ground for congratulation, and gives but a very
distant prospect of a termination of the warfare ;
so distant, indeed, as to be invisible to the naked
eye. Several additional skirmishes have taken
place, in all of which the savages were repulsed,
but no important success has been obtained, ex-

cept in one instance, and that one is hardly worth
particularising.. A number of Kaffirs have been
killed, but myriads of them still remained to/be
killed ; they only died to rise again in larger
swarms. When the last accounts left they were
reported to be in great force in the Fish River Bush
and in the Amatola. The prevailing opinion at

the frontier was, that any opening prospect of suc-
cess would lead to a wider extension of the war,
which might, before long, spread eastward beyond
the Kei, and northward beyond the Orange River.
Here is a comfortable prospect. An extension of
the war ! When we recollect that an immense
tract, from the 28th to the 35th degree of south
latitude, and from the 18th to the 37th degree of
east longitude, is infested and overrun by these
hordes of fierce and crafty barbarians, to whom
marauding is a pleasant, exciting exercise, and
plunder an irresistible attraction, an extension of
our present line of military operations is indeed a
sorry contemplation. But, thanks to the constitu-

tion-mongering, convict-forcing Lord Grey, we are
in for this deplorable war, and we must put an end
to it, be the price what it may. Should it require
twice the ten thousand men, and should it cost
twice the million a-year which it now does, we
must grant them, rather than abandon the Cape
Colony to the Kaffirs, leave our fellow-countrymen
there unprotected, and allow our national honour
and arms to he tarnished. Should the reinforce-
ments already sent to Sir Harry Smith not prove
strong enough to crush the Kaffir tribes and the
Hottentot allies, and strike terror into their hearts,
we must let him have a yet greater military
force. A false economy has sufficiently aggra-
vated the mischiefs which originated in a false
policy ; a wise liberality must retrieve the effects
of both. Having chastised the savages, and
taught them to respect our power, then it will
be time to consider how we can best secure
our colonies from their future treacheries, and
preserve our fellow-subjects whom we have in-
duced to settle there from plundering inroads, at
a less cost of men and treasure than heretofore.
To contract the line of our frontier, and to concen-
trate our forces so as to be able to direct them
rapidly to any required point, seems to be the most
natural and safe system to adopt—though upon
that plan military authorities differ. But there is
one thing upon which all persons, save one, agree,
and which is indispensable to the settling of the
Cape affairs—and that is, that the Earl Grey should
no longer be permitted to foment political and
social discontent in the colony, and cripple the
action of the Governor.
" If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly."

LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.

The last meeting of this society, for the present year, was
held last evening, at the Royal Institution ; Jos. B. Yates,
Esq., President, in the chair. James Newlands, Esq., the
borough engineer, was unanimously elected a member.
The President exhibited the skull and horns of the Indian
antelope. Mr. John Leigh Clare exhibited the original of a
curious document, dated June 10th, 1794, consisting of instruc-
tions to Colonel James Munroe, then minister plenipotentiary
at Paris. One of the statements in it, after desiring the minister
to cultivate friendly relations, was, that in " whatever war
might arise with any nation of the world, they would consider
the French nation as their first and natural ally." Mr. Nisbet
exhibited some seeds from the west coast of Africa, used by
the nation as a cure for sore throats, and said to yield an aro-
matic essential oil. Mr. Hartnup stated that the anemometer
at the Observatory was in working order, and he exhibited a
chart showing the manner of its working and registering during
a period of two days. Mr. Higginson drew attention to the
fact that Mr. Miller and he had both suggested the revolving
disc, in the pendulum experiment; and stated that Mr. Miller
had precedence of himself from the 14th of July to the 19th of
August.

There were two papers announced ; the first by Mr. Huggins,
on the Fine Arts. He mentioned that the term was usually
made to include painting, sculpture, architecture, and engrav-
ing ; but the French, with better discernment than ourselves,
added poetry and eloquence. He divided the subject into three
parts ; first, showing what art is ; second, its relation to other
phases of life; and third, it tendencies, or what it does. An
interesting discussion followed.
The second paper announced was by Mr. Downing Hibbert,
on President Bradshaw; the same which was announced about
a month ago, but which was not read, from the absence of the
writer. At the time that our reporter left it was doubtful
whether it could be brought forward, in consequence of the
lateness of the hour.

BANKRUPTCY COURT, YESTERDAY.-172 re Joseph
Raphael.—The bankrupt in this long pending case came
up before Mr. Commissioner Perry, on the application for
his certificate. The application was made by Sir George
Stephen. Mr. Evans, who throughout the inquiries had
appeared for the assignees in the case, said he was not in-
structed to offer any opposition on the present occasion.
His honour said, considering the number of times the
bankrupt had been before the court, and the aspect of the
case as it then stood, lie had no difficulty in granting the
bankrupt his certificate; but there had been somethirg in
the course of the proceedings connected with the loss of
the bankrupt's books, from which it appeared to him (the
commissioner) that a proper degree of care had not been
exercised. The certificate, therefore, would be of the
third clan.