companion in Mr. Pease, whom the electors of South Durham have sent into Parliament, because we are told he has a great amount of influence in the county. Mr. Pease was one of the friends who waited upon Friend Nicholas during his life, upon a very useless mission.

more religious, a result, we hope, stated truly and likely to be permanent, although an unusual concomitant of a contested election. He also apologised on account of his youth, unnecessarily, indeed, for, as he remarked, he was always becom ing older. Also, he endeavoured to excuse his Returning to the metropolis, neither Marylebone wealth, by declaring that he would find abundant nor Westminster made any change, or any effort employment for it among the two hundred and to change-although in the neighbouring borough fifty thousand inhabitants of Lambeth; which he of Finsbury three candidates sought one seat, for might have done without being elected to repreMr. Thomas Duncombe's place was deemed unas- sent them in Parliament. Mr. Wilkinson threatsailable. Major Reed, the late member for Abing- ened that Nemesis would come upon Mr. Roupell, don, and a sturdy opponent of the Income-tax as it in the shape of a still richer man, when he also stood and as it stands, was one of the three-the would be jilted by mammon loving Lambeth. It last in the field, and defeated, we believe, before will not be easy, however, to find the richer man; one half of the electors knew who he was, or what yet this wealth has been chiefly collected in Lam were his services. Major Reed is therefore out of beth itself within two generations, from twopence, Parliament, and we regret it, because he is a pro- which the first Mr. Roupell-the present being mising and a rational Radical, whose services may the third-at one time accounted his entire capibe wanted, to whom we should have looked for a tal. Mr. Roupell tertius is not only deeply inthorough opposition to the wickedness in the Indebted to primus for his wealth, bu even more so come-tax, and we trust that some constituency to Mr. Roupell secundus, his father, for the may be soon found better acquainted with his manner of its employment, and the character merits, or more interested in this obnoxious tax-earned by that gentleman in the borough, which, less able to pay it, perhaps, than the men of Finsbury. Of the other two candidates for their representation, Mr. Cox beat Serjeant Parry by a hundred votes or so. In this case the richer man

won.

Serjeant Parry is known without the borough boundaries, but Mr. Cox is a solicitor, rich, and was flanked by a host of canvassers.

we have no doubt, has helped his son's return. Wealth is nevertheless not a recommendation to a representative of the public; although we regiel to observe that it is more esteemed as a qualifica tion by constituencies now than before the Reform Bill.

Southwark rejected Mr. Apsley Pellatt, who
voted against the Ministry on the Chinese busi-
ness. Notwithstanding the Royal British Bank, of
which he once was unfortunately a director, and a
very well-meaning one, Mr. Pellatt was a useful
member, although one French paper, irritated by
the graphic description of his defeat by Dumas
the younger
-a rival contributor or editor-de-
clares that Pellatt is a myth, and will not believe
in him on any terms. Nevertheless, he is probably
the best glass manufacturer in England. Mr.
Locke, who has taken his seat, is simply a lawyer
—a city pleader—who will be able to help the
city corporation as a member for the borough.
No opposition was offered to Sir Charles Napier.
The father of the metropolitan members lost
the Tower Hamlets by carelessness. The licensed
victuallers secured the election of Mr. Butler, and
Sir William Clay, who has represented the borough
for twenty-years, was turned out by Mr. Acton
Ayrton, an East Indian solicitor, better known in
Bombay than anywhere else.

Greenwich performed a similar feat to Lambeth in turning off one of its former members, Mr. M Chambers, in favour of Mr. Townsend, a trades man of that borough, in the timber trade and un dertaking line. We hardly believe that Mr. Towns end was very serious in his proposal to Greenwic in the first instance; but "faint heart never wo fair lady," and this gentleman, who has made hi position in Greenwich trade, is now the compania in its representation of the late Commander-in chief of the army in the Crimea. The charact of this and other elections depends upon its resul If Mr. Townsend has the metal for the place, is the right man to represent his friends a neighbours.

Middlesex is eminently the metropolitan cou of London, although several other counties influenced by the great metropolis. Mr. Osbor sought a quieter field, or a harbour of refuge, Dover, and will be very useful to the chalk borou if he be not transplanted from the Secretarys of the Admiralty to that of all Ireland. Hanbury, Jun., of the firm of Trueman, Haub Lambeth presented, according to Mr. Wilkinson, Buxton, and Co., the largest brewers in the wo an appalling example of the power of money. was requested to stand for the county; and Mr. Williams, who confesses naively to the tempt-election was never a matter of uncertaintyations thrown around him in the lobby of the the influence of the Licensed Victuallers. House by that arch-tormentor of honest members circumstance is remarkable, because Lord Ro Mr. Hayter, or others-was second on the Grosvenor, who has represented the county fo poll; and Mr. Roupell, a young man—or a young considerable time, has the Westminster interes lawyer-polled more votes than any person during commend him in addition to many good co the election, approaching closely to ten thousand. stripes in a political sense. Mr. Hanbury is the Mr. Roupell declared that this event made him member of his firm in the present Parliam

T

POLITICAL NARRATIVE.

and thus they have one half per cent. of our legislation within their house-a bad prospect for the Maine Liquor Law; but on all matters of social and political reform, unconnected with the temperance movement, they are unexceptionable men. It is even said that this firm declined to sell their are to an old customer after he had taken the Eagle-a notorious house-being determined not to supply their beer for what they considered immoral purposes.

The entire representation of London is now Liberal or Radical-Lord John Russell is the most Conservative member for the metropolis. The representation of the Irish metropolitan city and county is entirely Conservative, and of the Scotch mixed-three Liberals to one Conservative.

Manchester was the most important election in England, out of London. Mr. Bright was absent and sick. Mr. Gibson has represented the town in several Parliaments, but he is not a Manchester man. Sir J. Potter and Mr. J. A. Turner are local men of great influence. The contest clearly tarned on foreign policy. Messrs. Bright and Gibson were beaten by a majority of fifty per cent., in a constituency that polled out more closely than any other of similar dimensions in the three kingdoms. The feeling on that subject is opposed to the policy of the late members.

A similar victory was gained in Salford by Mr. Massey, an Irish gentleman, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, but a compative stranger in the place.

Mr. Cobden's defeat at Huddersfield has been ascribed by his friends to the votes of the licensed victuallers; but the majority against him was larger than the total victualling votes in the borough. His opponent is a gentleman of considerable local influence, and that tells in a small borough; yet there can be no doubt that the reasons prevalent in Manchester were also prevalent in Hudders

field.

difference existed on the foreign policy of the country, although on other subjects there was suf ficient vitality and there also it is said that the licensed victuallers, as they would be styled in an English town, by some strange incongruity, carried their man. One of their new members, Mr. Walter Buchanan, is an old merchant and politician--the other, Mr. Dalgliesh, is also old as a manufacturer, but has to make a political character.

Liverpool is metropolitan in its department, and there, after a lively effort to take a seat from a Conservative, the old members were returned— opposed politically on general politics, but agreed upon foreign politics.

Birmingham is the centre of the hardware trade, but no opposition occurred there to the old Radical members, who supported the Government on the Chinese question, and have always stood clear of any alliances on foreign politics with their friends to the north.

Leeds in the woollen trade, like Liverpool, divides its representation, so as to represent nothing, but we believe that on the foreign policy of the Government, both members are to be on good behaviour. Sheffield is the capital of cutlery and, in spite of its trade in edge tools, it voted against the Government at this point; although it is certain to be in the fire, if not the furnace, on some similar question immediately. twenty metropolitan members who are elected by large constitutencies support the foreign policy of the Government, in proportion of nine to one.

The

The

influence on particular trades, uphold that policy Those English constituencies that have a central in the proportion of nearly three to one. Scotch constituencies named take the same view members go against it in the per centage of all to The Irish metropolitan nothing.

in the ratio of five to one.

The opinion of the urban population is well Glasgow is our commercial metropolis in Scot-pressed on the large measures of domestic reform defined on that topic; and not less clearly exland, and there again we do not know that any that have become necessary.

POLITICAL NARRATIVE.

to a suspense account; as St. Alban's and Sud

--

bury-each returning two members were disfranchised for bribery and corruption; not on the part of the people, who did not bribe, but were bribed. The last election had, therefore, to return 654 members. It has returned one more, being

a double election; and one the O'Donoghoc for Tipperary, who has not declared his opinions.

to political reform before the dissolution. He was That notion must be abandoned now by the Preneither for bit by bit nor comprehensive reform. mier. No question ever exhibited greater strength

Viscount Palmerston expressed some indifference

the excavator of Nineveh, and the originator and chairman of the Ottoman Bank, is also out, and his experience will be lost in Oriental affairs. Mr. Kinglake, the author of "Eothen," is elected, and will probably compensate for the withdrawal of Mr. Layard, who might have retained his seat for Aylesbury but for his Chinese vote.

The expulsion of Messrs. Bright and Gibson from Manchester, the defeat of Sir Elkanah Armitage, at Salford, of Mr. Cobden at Huddersfield, the withdrawal of Mr. Laing from Wick, and similar events, expunge nenrly the old peace-atany priec party from the Commons.

Mr. Oliphant, the author of some able works on Oriental affairs, was a candidate for the Stirling burghs, too late for the present Parliament, but in time, perhaps, for one to come, on his return, if he return from China, where he has gone as private secretary to the Earl of Elgin.

The ceremony of laying the foundation stone of a building for a Free Library in Liverpool, was celebrated last month, with more than the usual pomp on similar occasions. They are not numerous certainly, as the building is to be erected at the sole cost of Mr. Brown, one of the members for South Lancashire, whose mercantile eminence is recognised on both sides of the Atlantic. The library will, we understand, cost twenty thousand pounds, and will be worthy of the donor, the town, and the Derby collection in natural history, given by the present Earl of Liverpool, and which will find in the new building appropriate and per manent apartments.

We have no political intelligence since the subsi dence of the elections, except what comes from the East. Considerable anxiety is expressed both respecting the Chinese and the Persian wars. The Earl of Elgin has started on his mission to China by the last mail.

POLITICAL NARRATIVE.

the Mauritanian empire. The treaty provides liberty to traders which they have not enjoyed in that region for many years, centuries, or some millenniums, never perhaps since the days of the Panic pomp and pride. The Moors have closed themselves up as effectually as the Chinese or the Japanese; not unlike the Arabs, and both are near neighbours of Europeans, although the Moors are geographically the nearer. Ever since their expulsion from Spain the Moors have "sulked," kept people from their shores, and themselves out of the world's ways; yet Mauritania, occupying the north-western shoulder of Africa, with abundant agricultural and mineral resources, should be a thriving land.

The Central American war-Walker and the Free Lances of the States against the natives-proceeds slowly and unfavourably for General Walker, whose hopes of an empire there at present must be as much below zero as anything can be in the tropics. This onslaught of the United States Filibusterers against the Republics of Central America is already debtor to mankind for more than ten thousand lives.

A curious case of poisoning, that interests everybody, and was very like Alum the baker's episode at Hongkong, has occurred at Washington. The new President, Mr. Buchanan, his suite, and a number of legislators and senators of the United States, were for a time residing at the National Hotel there. They all became sick, and very, very sick-sick, and going to die. The troubles of an evil conscience came upon them in that extremity, and they dreamed of a horrid conspiracy by the negro slaves of the hotel to poison the President and all his friends. N.B.-Gentlemen should never take their butlers or their cooks from their slave gangs. A short shrift and a tight rope might have been the only earthly inheritance of those chattels and goods by which the boots were cleaned, and the breakfasts laid, of the President of the great western Republic, when somebody discovered that something was wrong with the drains of the hotel. Upon a close examination they were found to be full of mephitic air-that is, poison in a gascous state; which, it is believed, poisoned the provisions in the larder, while they in their turn poisoned the President and his followers in the dining room. The house might have been blown and the world might have had another gunpowder plot; but the doings underground were discovered in time, and therefore the house has only been closed up preparatory to the drains being reformed-of all which the application is, when

up,

313

men think that they are poisoned, they should inspect their drainage.

Several great railway accidents have occurred in America, but the most terrible has originated in the breaking of an axle of a railway engine, at an unhappy point where the concussion broke a bridge over a canal, sixty feet beneath the level of the rails to the surface of the water, and eighteen feet deeper to the bottom-within two miles of Hamilton, in Upper Canada. The ice upon the canal was two feet thick at the time, but the engine with the engineer went through like a shot, while the carriages fell in a heap. Seventy persons were on the train-twenty were saved, fifty were lost -and among others, Mr. Zimmerman, the most extensive contractor of railway works in Canada. Two other and serious accidents have occurred in the States; and fears exist that their works are constructed cheaply but weakly; that severe frosts injure the iron, both in the engines and carriages on the ground.

Considerable reinforcements left Portsmouth for China early in the month. The Transit steamer, with a large number of soldiers, was obliged to return to Portsmouth in a sinking state, and happily arrived there without loss of life; but only in time, and too near the water's edge. This vessel was unable to convey the House of Peers in time to the celebrated naval review of last year, and the authorities who hazarded the lives of our gallant soldiers on a leaking streamer, for the long voyage round the Cape to China, are extremely culpable.

They persisted, however, and the 90th Regiment was shipped a second time on the Transit, and a second time that vessel has been obliged to into Corunna. take shelter, in a shattered condition, having put

The ratification of the treaty with Persia is expected from Teheran by the 13th of May, but not earlier. Instructions have reached the commanders, both of the British and Persian armies, to suspend operations. The battle fought on the 8th of February may have irritated the Persians, and thus not facilitate but retard the ratification of the treaty.

The new line of steamers by the Eastern route to Australia has established communication within the promised time of fifty-five days; and the Glasgow company, who have the enterprise in hand, if they be supported by the country, will bring down the time to a few over forty days. One of their steamers, the Oneida, is missing.

า

LITERARY REGISTER.

The Night Side of London. By J. EWING RIT | Sadleir, or in the philanthropic Redpath a convict for life, 1 vol. Pp. 240. London: William

CHIE.
Tweedie.

THE subject is good: the treatment different. The author has written in haste, and without checking his arithmetic. London contains a multitude of evil doing and suffering persons; and a multitude more who like to hear of them. Books of this class, therefore, sell well; and we admit the necessity for such exposures; but any man who is acquainted with London must know that exaggeration is unnecessary in describing its darkness. The truth is black enough for any average taste; yet we do not suppose that the moral condition of London is worse than that of many large towns; and it is better than the state of others. Mr.

or in the dashing Robson a maniac? If I tell you that respectable old gentleman now coming out of his club is going to inspect a fresh victim, whom some procuress has lured with devilish arts, you will tell me I am uncharitable; or if I point you to that well appointed equipage in the park, and tell you that that fair young girl that sits within has crushed many a young wife's heart, and has sent many a man to the devil before his time, you will tell me that I exaggerate; I do nothing of the kind. If I were to tell what most men know-what every one knows, except those whose business it is to know it, and to seek to reform it, indelicate, and my book suppressed by the Society for the I should be charged with indelicacy, as if truth could be Suppression of Vice-if that abortion exists still. We are choked up with cant; almost everything we believe in is a lie. The prayer of Ajax should be ours,-"Light, more light."

This author repeatedly says that London is the Ritchie is good enough to be more lenient towards worst city on the face of the earth; or if not the London young men in the higher ranks of life than worst, that nothing can be worse. One test setMr. Patmore, and we counsel the young vagabonds tles the question. London by itself, without imto be thankful for this indulgence, so far as it migration, by the mere difference between its goes; yet we consider the following paragraph as births and deaths, increases at the rate of thirty outrageously coloured as anything that we recol- thousand per annum-three hundred thousand lect to have read about London, and we hope for in ten years. Therefore a vast proportion of the Mr. Patmore's sake that he did not go much far-people of London belong to the moral classes of ther. The references to current events are fair illustrations, but Mr. Ritchie must be acquainted badly with the history of banking not to know that blacker transactions have occurred than those which he enumerates. Did he ever hear of one

Nicholas Biddle, his associates, and the United
States Bank? They were localised in Philadel-
phia, and the story is old. Well, has he read re-
cent American newspapers, and observed the story
of that other Pennsylvanian banker, who, a few
weeks since, made off with fifty thousand dollars
in his trunk, leaving four dollars net in the Bank
treasury, to meet everything. The perpetual harp
ing upon a few gigantic swindles becomes stale.
The effort to paint Satan blacker than his natural
aspect will always fail-and the wholesale denun-
ciations of three millions of people because thirty-
three thousand, or three hundred thousand, are
miserable villains, is not the way to reform.
our extract is forgotten:-

But

in

I do not go so far as Mr. Patmore, and affirm that the higher ranks of life a young man is obliged to keep a mistress to avoid being laughed at; but I can conceive no city more sunk in licentiousness and rascality than ours. Paris, Hamburgh, and Vienna may be as bad, but they cannot be worse. The poor are looked after by the police-visited by the city missionary; their wants and woes are wrought up into newspaper articles, and they live, as it were, in houses of glass. It is true that one half the world does not know how the other half lives; but it is not true in the sense in which it is generally affirmed. Whoever has an idea that a pious baronet, taking the chair at a religious meeting in Exeter-hall, will prove a felon; that that house, eminent in the mercantile and philanthropic world, will sanction the circulation of forged dock warrants; that that ma

society-a much larger proportion than in any similar city of which we possess authentic infor

mation. Some persons may allege that sanitary arrangements and other circumstances explain this increase of population; but, under the natural disadvantages of a great city, combined with the care and toil for very long hours which form the lot of London artisans and shopkeepers, it would not occur in a community who should be described in the language employed loosely and incorrectly in this book. The frightful state of large districts misleads even a careful inquirer who forgets the magnitude of London, and the tendency of vice to obtrude itself on public notice. The following passage occurs in pages 8 and 9:

Here we have always in our midst

107 burglars; 110 mountebanks; 38 highway robbers; 773 pickpockets; 3,507 sneaksmen, or common thieves; 11 horse stealers: 141 dog stealers; 3 forgers; 28 coiners; 317 utterers of base coin; 141 swindlers; 182 cheats; 343 receivers of stolen goods; 2,768 habitual rioters; 1,905 va grants; 50 begging letter writers; 86 bearers of begging letters; 6,371 prostitutes-besides 470 not otherwise de scribed, making altogether a total of 16,900 criminals known to the police. These persons are known to make away with £42,000 per annum; the prison population at any particular time is 6,000, costing for the year, £170,000. Our juvenile

thieves cost us £300 a-piece.

It is impossible to make anything reasonable out of this table, for which the author, we presume, is not responsible. He should have seen, however, that no distinction exists between cheats and swindlers; that London, it may be feared, con

nager about to engage in prayer at a meeting of the direc-tains more than three forgers; that housebreakers

tors will turn out to be the greatest swindler of modern

times? Who sees a dishonoured suicide in the patriotic

will certainly become burglars if they have an opportunity; and that this army of criminals are