its outskirts, or intertwined among its more imposing streets, whole clusters of tenements which are rented under £10 and over £6 a-year. What chance will the middle classes have the shopkeepers, the brewers, the millers, the lawyers-in carrying an election against the wishes of the poorer and more ignorant classes, to whom, however unwilling they may be to admit the fact, our respectable middle classes are, as a body, a thousandfold more distasteful than the landed aristocracy? We are not particularly delighted with the choice which Oxford, Reading, and Rochester have made of members to represent them in Parliament. But much as we differ from Mr Cardwell, Mr Goldsmid, and Mr Sergeant Kinglake, we should certainly prefer them as legislators to any whom the inhabitants of the slums of the three towns just named would be likely to choose in the room of them.

Turning now to the larger boroughs such as Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Glasgow and to the counties, a prospect dawns upon us in connection with the proposed change which might well appal the boldest. What amount of human strength will suffice to canvass the least considerable of these, when the constituencies, already counted by thousands, shall have been raised by the admission of the six-pounders and the ten, to tens of thousands and where will the property, intelligence, and respectability of the constituencies find themselves when the rush of six and ten pounders has been made upon them? But this is not all. Nobody professes to believe that a bill similar to that which was put to sleep in 1860 will be accepted as final. Everybody is aware that it is regarded by anticipation, among the classes whom it is designed to propitiate, as nothing more than a means to an end. We may pass over Mr Bright's tirade at Bradford, and

as a

the speeches of Mr Beale and his friends in St Martin's Hall, not because they lack significance, but because they are obsolete, having been uttered two months ago. But let us consider what was said at Sheffield, so recently as the 3d of last month, by Mr Potter, who presided, and by Mr Bright, at the great Reform meeting held there. Mr Potter spoke shortly, but much to the purpose. He will accept the Ministerial measure substantial instalment of what they would ultimately claim." Mr Bright, who never spoke better in his life, who was straightforward, able, argumentative in all his utterances, went far more deeply into the subject, and with far greater skill. His object is to make sure not that each individual man shall be represented, but that no class shall be excluded from representation. Questions of rental are therefore with him matters of very secondary moment. The great body of the people live in houses which they rent at £5, £6, and £7 a-year, a very large proportion of them in lodgings, for which they pay from 3s. to 5s. a-week. He will not consent that any one of these classes shall be permanently excluded from the franchise. He is satisfied, moreover, that, when admitted to the franchise, they will require the protection of the ballot, and that we must come at last to household, if not to manhood suffrage. And he is further convinced that all the smaller boroughs must be suppressed, and the kingdom laid out into electoral districts, to be arranged according to population. Being aware, however, that the public mind is not yet ripe for all this, and presuming that any single measure which comprised so much would certainly be rejected in the present House of Commons, he advises Ministers to content themselves with reproducing the bill of 1860. They will thus escape awakening the jealousy of the places which are doomed, and secure the

support of many members who would otherwise fall off from them. He is very ingenious, too, in seeking to allay the fears of some, and awaken those of other, gentlemen who have no desire to go back at once to their constituents. We are not now circumstanced as we were in 1832. The legislation of 1832 was a revolution. We are glad that he admits this, which we have always asserted, though heretofore it has been the cue of Liberals of all shades to deride the assertion. But the legislation of 1866 will be a mere extension of an existing system, and cannot be brought into working condition under a year. It will be August before the new rolls are made out, and January 1867 before they are proved. Till January 1867, there will, therefore, be no call for a dissolution. On the other hand, Lord Russell is warned that, in the event of his bill being rejected, he is expected to dissolve at once, as if it were quite certain either that Lord Russell would desire so to cut his own throat, or that his colleagues would assent to the act, or the Queen sanction it. And then, whether carrying the bill or losing it, all that Mr Bright desires must follow in due course. For without the bill, the country will rouse itself as it did in 1830; and with the bill the new constituencies will soon show both the aristocracy and the middle classes who are henceforth to be masters.

Mr Bright's able and eloquent speech at Sheffield has done more to show what is intended by the agitators of the Reform question than anything which we, and those who think as we do, could have said about it. No human being can pretend after this to be ignorant of what he is doing when he votes for the Ministerial bill. He is trying to put the lever into hands which will certainly use it to such purposes as Mr Bright has sketched out. We can hardly imagine that, in a House of Commons elected to mark the nation's

VOL. XCIX.-NO. DCIV.

approval of Lord Palmerston's policy, a majority will be found capable of so entirely reversing it. We anticipate, on the contrary, a rejection of the bill, be the threat of a dissolution ever so explicitthat is to say, time be afforded to the present wretched Government of proposing a measure of Parliamentary Reform at all; but of that we entertain great doubts.

Mr Bright, in the speech to which we have just referred, touched also upon the Jamaica imbroglio; and, as was to be expected, censured Mr Cardwell for expressing himself at Oxford with such unbecoming tenderness of Governor Eyre. We are much mistaken if Mr Cardwell do not hear more of his treatment of Governor Eyre, and in a very different strain, after Parliament meets. Nobody will say that, under any circumstances, there were not ample grounds to justify inquiry into Governor Eyre's conduct. But if Mr Cardwell and Lord de Grey both wrote, as it now appears that they did, in terms of general approval of the measures adopted to suppress the negro rebellion-and if, as we believe to be the case, these letters were sent off after the most startling of the incidents connected with the suppression had come to their knowledge-then Mr Cardwell and the Cabinet which supported him will find it difficult to account for the extraordinary change which took place in their language and policy subsequently to the inroad upon them of the Anti-Slavery Association and the Dissenting philanthropists of Exeter Hall. Till Mr Cardwell was bearded in the Colonial Office, and Lord Russell truckled to the deputation which waited upon him at the Treasury, it may be doubted whether one or the other entertained any thought at all of distrusting the Jamaica Government. If they had been endued with the self-respect which is becoming men in their station, they would have received these deputations civilly indeed, and civilly dismissed

L

them, with the hint that her Majesty's Ministers are responsible to Parliament, not to knots of private citizens, for all that they may do or propose; and that when Parliament met they should be prepared to give all the information which the Houses might require of them. Being deficient in the self-respect by which men in high office ought to be sustained, they shrank from this manly course, and hastened to make promises, which they have since fulfilled, in defiance of justice and right, and to the manifest detriment of good government everywhere. Weak men! their policy was as clear as the sun at noonday. Of their own accord, they ought to have informed Governor Eyre, in answer to his first despatch, that they must be furnished with the fullest information in regard to the conspiracy; and that, in order to collect such evidence as they should be able to lay before Parliament, they would send out persons to collect it, through him, on the spot. When the evidence arrived, and had been sifted, it was for them to decide whether or not it commanded their confidence, and was likely to be accepted as satisfactory by the House of Commons. If they arrived at the conclusion that the evidence was satisfactory, then Governor Eyre, and all whom he recommended, should have received at once substantial marks of the Queen's approval. If the opposite conclusions were arrived at, then, and not till then, Governor Eyre ought to have been suspended, and some such line of action followed as that into which their political cowardice inopportunely hurried them. Whether it would have been best to send out a Commission, of which the powers are uncertain, or to bring home the Governor, and, confronting him with his enemies, try the case fairly in London, is a point which we are not called upon to decide; but there cannot, we think, be two opinions among un

prejudiced and competent persons, in respect to the gross injustice of first condemning General Eyre by suspending him, and then calling for evidence to justify his condemnation. For let the inquiry terminate as it may, Mr Eyre must now withdraw from Jamaica. Having stood like a criminal at the bar before his own subjects, he can never govern them more, nor, as it seems to us, prove an acceptable governor to any other colony, however free from the stain of disloyalty. Now, here is a positive wrong committed, for which no fitting expressions of regret and feigned respect can make amends. The persons who ought to have stood by a brave man, fall off from him when he most needs their support; and, with a view to obtain a little worthless popularity, cover him with disgrace, and positively hound on his enemies to demand his life. Governor Eyre may escape from the persecution, and probably will; but observe the inevitable effect of this act of political baseness upon all other men who now fill, or may hereafter fill, offices under the Crown analogous to that from which Mr Eyre has been removed. There is an end, from this time forth, to everything like confidence between the Home Government and its representatives abroad. No governor of a colony, no officer in command of troops, will any longer be prepared to act with vigour, however imminent the crisis, however great the danger, till he shall have been distinctly authorised to do so from home. Rebellions may be thus hatched with impunity, and life and property sacrificed, before gentlemen acting under the Colonial and War Offices will venture to stir hand or foot to avert the evil by anticipating it. How different the conduct of Lord Russell and his colleagues from that to which the representatives of the Crown in distant regions have heretofore been accustomed! "It is not enough," said Lord Palmerston, on

a memorable occasion, when Sir John Bowring had involved the country in a needless and unjust war with China-" it is not enough to support the representative of the Crown when we are satisfied that he is right. Even if we believe that he took an unwise course we will not desert him so long as we are satisfied that he acted honestly, and with a conscientious desire to do his duty to the country. The moment your policy takes a different direction you cease to deserve the confidence of honourable men. You may get people to serve you, and you doubtless will; but they will not be high-minded English gentlemen, such as it is necessary to have at the head of affairs in the great colonies and dependencies of this country."

So spoke to the House of Commons, a few years ago, one who knew what he was about, and never deserted a friend in the hour of need. So ought to have spoken recently both the First Lord of the Treasury and the Colonial Secretary to the impertinent deputations which, representing the fanaticism and ignorance of the pseudo-philanthropists of Exeter Hall, presumed to dictate to them the course which they were expected to pursue. And the reasons why they did not so speak will, they may depend upon it, be required of them, where they can neither evade the question nor refuse to answer it, not many days hence. But other questions than this will be put to them which they may find it no easy matter to answer. What is the Liberation Society, that it should send out counsel to conduct the case in Jamaica against the degraded Governor? And upon what plea of expediency or right

are the emissaries of this Society permitted to mix themselves up in any way with a strictly Government inquiry? Observe that we pronounce no opinion, one way or the other, in regard to the recent outbreak, or the manner of its suppression in Jamaica. There may have been no rebellion, nor any thought of a rebellion, after all; and Mr Gordon, instead of a traitor, and the fomenter of treason, may turn out to be a martyr to the great cause of civil and religious liberty all over the world. But even if this should prove to be the solution of the whole difficulty, not the less are Ministers chargeable with having grossly abused the trust which their Sovereign committed to them, and done cruel wrong to persons in high command, whom no motive except a conscientious desire to serve their country could have swayed on a recent occasion.

All this, however, is somewhat beside the immediate purpose of our present article. The incidents which have provoked us to deal with it, too, are rather supplementary to the general causes of the nation's lack of confidence in the present Government, than portions of those causes; but they are not, therefore, lightly to be thought of. They will doubtless be sifted to the bottom before any other business can be brought on in the new Parliament; and should the issue be as we anticipate, then it is more than probable that from Lord Russell's Administration at least the nation will hear no more either of Parliamentary Reform or of the establishment of Popery in Ireland. Her Majesty will change her constitutional advisers, very much to the satisfaction of her Majesty's loyal and intelligent subjects.

SEWELL was awoke from a sound and heavy sleep by the Chief Baron's valet asking if it was his pleasure to see his lordship before he went down to Court, in which case there was not much time to be lost. "How soon does he go?" asked Sewell, curtly.

"He likes to be on the Bench by eleven exactly, sir, and he has always some business in Chamber first.'

"All that tells me nothing," my good friend. "How much time have I now to catch him before he starts?"

"Half an hour, sir. Forty minutes at most."

"Well, I'll try and do it. Say I'm in my bath, and that I'll be with him immediately."

The man was not well out of the room when Sewell burst out into a torrent of abuse of the old Judge and his ways-“His inordinate vanity, his consummate conceit, to imagine that any activity of an old worn-out intellect like his could be of service to the public! If he knew but all, he is just as useful in his nightcap as in his wig, and it would be fully as dignified to sleep in his bed as in the Court of Exchequer." While he poured forth this invective, he dressed himself with all possible haste; indeed his illtemper stimulated his alacrity, and he very soon issued from his room, trying to compose his features into a semblance of pleasure on meeting with his host.

"I hope and trust I have not disturbed you unreasonably," said the Judge, rising from the breakfast-table as Sewell entered. "I know you arrived very late, and I'd have given you a longer sleep if it were in my power."

"No man ever kept me waiting, sir. It is a slight I have yet to experience."

"I mean, my lord, it would have grieved me much, had I occasioned you an inconvenience."

"If you had, sir, it might have reacted injuriously upon yourself."

Sewell bowed submissively, for what he knew not; but he surmised that as there was an opening for regret, there might also be a reason for gratitude; he waited to see if he were right.

"My telegram only told you that I wanted you; it could not say for what," continued the Judge, and his voice still retained the metallic ring the late irritation had lent it. "There has been a contested question between the Crown and myself as to the patronage to an office in my Court. I have carried my point. They have yielded. They would have me believe that they have submitted out of deference to myself personally, my age, and long services. I know better, sir. They have taken the opinion of the Solicitor-General in England, who, with no flattering sentiments to what is called 'Irish law,' has pronounced against them. The gift of the office rests with me, and it is my intention to confer it upon you."

to

Oh, my lord, I have no words express my gratitude!" "Very well, sir, it shall be assumed to have been expressed. The salary is one thousand a-year. The duties are almost nominal." "I was going to ask, my lord,