The Manchester Examiner. — 1848-07-04 (Manchester, Greater Manchester, England)

ARISTOCRATICAL AMENITIES. (From the Standard of Freedom.)  Horace Walpole tells us, that when the footman of some noble lord was sent .to Newgate for murdering the butler, George Selwyn anxiously exclaimed, "Good Heavens! what stories he will tell the felons about us." If we may judge of a past generation of our " Corinthian capitals" from the unconscious confessions of the.present, George had good reason to be alarmed.  In the course of the debate on the ministerial West India measure, Lord George Bentinck compared Mr. Hawes to Majocchi, and expressed his belief that the under secretary of state, whom he had charged with fraudulent suppression of public documents, had only imitated the example set him by his principal, Earl Grey. A few evenings afterwards, Mr. Disraeli expressed surprise that Mr. Hawes and his friends should have taken the comparison so much to heart; and both he and Lord George stoutly declared that there was nothino• offenSive in the imputation against Earl Grey. Lord Stanley has since declared that he thinks the imputation one at which the noble earl had no reason to be angry. On the other hand, Lord John Russell, on the evening on which Lord George was delivered of his pleasant jests, was understood to say that the protectionist leader had kept company so long with horse-jockeys, that he had lost all delicacy and regard for fair play. Lord Lansdowne appears to think that he has quite taken the sting out of his sarcasm, by explaining that Lord John only meant to say Lord George had, in his persevering attempts to expose the villanies of horse racing, learned to view with suspicion every nobleman and, gentleman with whom he is in the habit of associating. In short, if there be any meaning in words, Lord Stanley and Lord Bentinck think suppressing public documents, in order to ensure ~an erroneous verdict, a mere venial tour de .finesse; and Lord Lansdowne thinks it nothing more than natural that Lord George should suspect a sharper in every nobleman and gentleman he meets. . If the members of the exclusive circles of high fashion allow such intimations of their own lax morality and suspicions of all their associates to escape them in parliament, where. they, know the whole country is listening to them through the ears of the reporters, what revelations might we look for if admitted to their confidential symposia! Chacun a son gout. We have no right to quarrel with aristocratic tastes; we only wish that they would be a little more careful of the rights of others in selecting time and place for their indulgence. Let Lord George Bentinck give free scope to his peculiar vein at Tattersall's, or a Newmarket dinner. Let Lord Stanley emancipate himself from conversational restraints when the wine and game-cocks are placed on the table after dinner. But it is rather carrying this license beyond due bounds when, within less than a week, the full halves of two nights in the house of commons, and a whole night in the house of lords, are consumed in the inter-Change of the amenities we have been adverting to. We do not object 90. much to the killing of time by our nobility and gentry, though they might find more elegant and innocent ways of doing it; but we protest against their wasting ours. The time of both houses of parliament is the time Of the nation, and ought not to be thus disreputably thrown away.