The Express. — 1868-02-08 (London, England)

THE WEEKLY PRESS.  The Examiner thinks Mr. Bright must enjoy the precipitate rejoicings of some of his oontemporaries on his supposed conversion to conservatism. Their conclusion is too hurried. The liosnerges of Birmingham, lire all true actors, bee a marvellous power of modulating his voice, and, like all exi erienced politicians, he understands the expediency of tuning the instrument on which be plays to concert pitch, if be is to perform anything really worthy of notice. He is a sort of intellectual steam hammer, capable of dealing a crushing stroke, at the very moment when by the nice regulation of power the blo.v is but enough to crack half-a-dozen filberts. flowerer, the Framiner does not see its way to what looks like a tentative measure of compromise on the subject of the Irish church. These things are kindly meant, but they will not cure. " Lees than thorough will aot do it." The wise words of the wicked Strafford are still true. So long as we are not told how the bulk of church property in Ireland is to be applied to the impartial benefit of all creeds and classes of the community, we do not advance one step nearer to peace, or to a settlement of the Irish difficulty. To our contemporary the way has long seemed clear and open; it only marvels that statesmen do not take it. The Sarantay firriew says Lord Willoughby is by no II means the first person who, when he canes to balance accounts with his youthful levities, finds it to be his painful duty to punish the partner of his pleasant vices. This may be a duty, but it is one which requires a very austere ' temper, end an exalted estimate of that morality which zealous though tardy converts to propriety sometimes exaggerate ; as, for example, when a repentant prodigal acts upon its stern behests so rigorously as to meet in • suit of law the woman who has passed her best days as his wife, rather than give her the trumpery two or three hundred pounds worth of spoors and forks to which she thinks herself entitled. Mr. Willoughby, in the days of his youth and poverty, when he could permit the woman whom he had seduced, &ad who had the substantial attractions of money and goods, to pay his tailor's bill, was a very affectionate ' gentleman, and appears to have been actuated by gene- ' rosity, or at least by honour ; but Lord Willoughby d'Ensby, Hereditary Grand Chamberlain of England, with " Lucy Wood in apartssents," and an estate of between 70,0001. and 80,0001. • year, selling his faithful partner's chairs •nd tables, is, what we will not say, if we may not, with "Junius," quote him as an instance of shameless depravity of heart—but " what are we to think of his understanding'!" The Npertalor fears th►t the only hypothesis admissible in the ems of the Rev. Mr. Speke, the only theory, that is, which meets the facts, moral and physical, which have to be taken into the account, is murder, murder of • cool, deliberate kind, murder planned on system, carried out relentlewly, and dictated solely by the expectation of plunder. Supposed Mr. fipeke M have been decoyed into a cab, in Birdcage-walk, it may be, as suggested, by some story of a sick person awaiting him ; it may be, by an arrest by sham detectives ; it may be by appeal for aid to • dying person in the cab, and then put under chloroform, all would be explained. His hat fell off in the momentary useless struggle after he had discovered that he was deceived, and the body was driven away either to a house previously prepared, or to abridge whence it could be thrown into the water, or fairly beyond town to some solitary place, altogether beyond the range of police inquiry. The extraordinary story related on Wednesday by the in.:lambent of the Savoy Chapel, who was invited in Trafalgarsquare by a sham detective to enter • cab, end be driven to Bow-street, where his presence was not required, suggests that • form of 'rime has been invented in which some confederate drives • cab. It is • wild theory, doubtless, but not a bit wilder than the fact testified to by Mr. White ; and we will venture, at the risk of being thought silly, to adds supposition even wilder still, namely, that if any such form of crime is in operation, and it is difficult after reading Mr. White's letter, to doubt it, the purple tutors are foreig•ers.