Monthly Supplement to “HOUSEHOLD WORDS,” Conducted by CHARLES DICKENS. EVE ERY other matter of public interest is, for the time, absorbed in the death of the Duke of Wellington. All the world is uttering its thoughts of the great man who has so lately passed away. Since the event was known, there has been but one feeling or desire animating every public writer possessing the least claim to represent public spirit or public opinion amongst us, namely, how best to express what he was, and what all parties honoured him for having been. Wonderfully has this been done. No solemn state or gorgeous ceremonial that may yet await what remains of the great warrior, can add to the glory which has been gathered round his name and services from day to day since his mortal career ended. The country has reason to be proud, which can show such a healthy and noble appreciation of a noble life. Rarely, upon any theme, has such high intellectual power been displayed, under guidance of so true a moral sense. There has been no vulgar worship of the successful soldier. The "splendida facinora" which every sinner may perpetrate, have been counted as nothing to those life-long services of duty which only the good as well as great achieve. The full harvest of praise gathered in, little remains to the gleaner. But it has occurred to us to turn to the language of the Duke himself for some leading illustrations of his character. Thus may we best confirm the most exalted anticipations of what the final verdict of history will be. For if the Duke of Wellington had any one merit more signal than others which distinguished him, it was that of being always able to measure himself with exactness, his own wants, his capacities, and his powers. He equalled the ablest of his adversaries in knowing, upon all emergencies, what should be done; but he surpassed them in also knowing the precise means by which to do it, and in the ability himself to put those means in operation. In proof of this we have but to turn to his Despatches, the most durable of all the monuments which the Duke lived to see erected to his own glory. And first let us show how he wrote these despatches. "I am obliged to you," he tells a correspondent at the outset of his Peninsular career, "for your offer to procure me assistance to copy my despatches; but I have plenty of that description. The fact is, that, excepting upon very important occasions, I write my despatches without making a draft; and those which I sent you were so written before I set out in the morning, and I had not time to get them copied before they were sent, which is the reason why I asked you to return me copies of them." The clearness of view, and decision of purpose, with which the Duke addressed himself to whatever business he took in hand, is here very strikingly apparent. Self-possession in particular circumstances is the most remarkable of human qualities. There is no more decisive test of greatness. Marlborough was without education, unacquainted with grammar, in literature a mere lowest-form boy all his life; yet his perfect mastery over himself gave him a singular mastery over others, and no man could persuade or convince more successfully. Wellington's power in this respect was supreme. The most elaborate of his despatches appear to have been written in circumstances which probably no other living man would have found compatible with such an occupation. Of one of these extraordinary performances (a most lengthy as well as able treatise on Portuguese finance, addressed to the British Minister at Lisbon), Colonel Gurwood tells us that it must have been written whilst the enemy were manoeuvring in view. The early manifestation of the Duke's genius and character breaks upon the reader of his despatches with startling effect. He is the same man when as junior-officer he commands a single brigade on homeservice, when major-general in the Deccan, or colonel in Mysore, as he is when in command of the allied army of occupation in the full effulgence of his fame. Sir Arthur and the Duke are identical. In India fifty years ago, as in the Peninsula a few years later, he administers the entire civil affairs of extensive territories, manages the minutest details of commissariat finance, brings difficult negotiations to successful issue, and leads numerous armies to brilliant victories, with the same resolute determination, the same calm decision, the same immovable discipline, an impartiality as of fate itself, and the same steady and unfaltering results. There is a fellow by the name of Mousa, at Tillicherry," he says during the war with the Mahrattas, "who supplies the Rajah with rice, to my certain knowledge. A hint might be given to him that I am in the habit of hanging those whom I find living under the protection of the Company and dealing treacherously towards their interests; that I spare neither rank nor riches, but that, on the contrary, I punish severely those who, by their example, create the evils for which the unfortunate people suffer." It would be difficult to express in fewer or more simple words the rule of severe, yet healthy justice, which had afterwards such wonderful effect in the great Peninsular campaigns. we have to test the facts beyond a doubt, it would humblest of his countrymen. Let us fix our thoughts be hardly credible. He states the amount and com- on such qualities as we may ourselves emulate, and position of the force required. He warns the minister the example of which should be present with us on of the incessant exertions and sacrifices that will be all occasions. In recollecting him as a man of whom demanded of England ("you must send everything England was so justly proud, let us never fail also to from England; arms, ammunition, clothing, accoutre-recollect that what in his sphere made him that ments, ordnance, flour, oats, &c. &c."). He determines at once the object and the direction of the military operations; he points out the proper lines of communication; and he confidently declares the possibility of saving Portugal from the grasp of France, even in the event of an unfavourable result in Spain. No subsequent adverse influence availed to move him from these designs. He had satisfied himself that what ought to be done was to be done best in that manner, and therefore no fears, no doubts, no obstruc-made his position most embarrassing, that the common tions on the part of others, availed to damp, to discourage, or to turn him aside. What Sir Arthur Wellesley thus planned out, while yet uncertain whether he might not even be superseded in the command, he afterwards, on the same memorable day, received his patents as a baron, a viscount, an earl, a marquis, and a duke, for having carried to triumphant issue. which he became, was precisely that which it is not less within the reach of all to imitate in their degree, and to such extent succeed equally in attaining. But what we have quoted hitherto was written in successful days, or at times when occasional disaster had not materially clouded the prospect of success. Let him be viewed in other circumstances. It was at the gloomiest period of the war, when the stupidity of our home ministers and the treachery of our foreign allies had council of London resolved to address the Throne against him. "I cannot expect mercy at their hands," he writes on the occasion to Lord Liverpool, "whether I succeed or fail; and if I should fail, they will not inquire whether the failure is owing to my own incapacity, to the blameless errors to which we are all liable, to the faults or mistakes of others, to the deficiency of our means, to the serious difficulties of Such was the Duke of Wellington's principle of our situation, or to the great power and abilities conduct. He never complained of the withholding of our enemy. In any of these cases I shall become of a favour, or asked for the concession of one, but was their victim; but I am not to be alarmed at this content quietly to make it clear to all whom it might additional risk, and, whatever may be the conseconcern, that he at least was the man who had the quences, I shall continue to do my best in this best title to receive it. When the measure of his country." From whatever quarter threatenings of honours was afterwards filled up to overflowing, he had danger assailed him, they found his mind invariably occasion to declare what his rule of conduct had thus fixed on what was necessary to be done, and on that been respecting them, to one whose services he highly only. "The French threaten us on all points," he valued, but for whom he nevertheless refused to wrote, a day or two after the foregoing, “and are ask a favour. "The only mode," he remarks, "in most desirous to get rid of us. But they threaten my opinion, in which favours can be acceptable, or upon too many points at a time, to give me much honours and distinction can be received with satisfac- uneasiness respecting any one in particular; and tion, is when they are conferred spontaneously. they shall not induce me to disconnect my army. What I would recommend to you is, to express I am in a situation in which no mischief can neither disappointment nor wishes upon the subject, be done to my forces, or to any part of them; even to an intimate friend, much less to the govern- I am prepared for all events; and if I am in a ment. Continue, as you have done hitherto, to de- scrape, as appears to be the general belief in England, serve the honourable distinction to which you aspire, although certainly not my own, I'll get out of it." "When we do go, I and you may be certain that, if the government is Again, not many weeks later: wise, you will obtain it. If you do not obtain it, you feel a little anxiety to go, like gentlemen, out of the may depend upon it that there is no person of whose hall-door, particularly after the preparations which I good opinion you would be solicitous who will think have made to enable us to do so; and not out of the the worse of you on that account. The comparison back door, or by the area.' between myself, who have been the most favoured of his majesty's subjects, and you, will not be deemed quite correct; and I advert to my own situation only to tell you that I recommend to you conduct which I have always followed. Notwithstanding the nume-officer who attended being under arms at his post rous favours that I have received from the Crown, I have never solicited one; and I have never hinted, nor would any one of my friends or relations venture to hint for me, a desire to receive even one; and much as I have been favoured, the consciousness that it has been spontaneously, gives me more satisfaction than anything else. I recommend to you the same conduct, and patience; and, above all, resignation, after all, you should not succeed in acquiring what you u wish." The most precious maxims that can ern ordinary life are here simply and unpretendingly expressed. They are applicable in every sphere, and the secret of unspeakable content is contained in them for all. It is ater reading such words as these we feel the happy apropriateness of what Lord John Russell has remarked the priceless value of the Duke of Wellington's exmple. Let us not be so dazzled by the magnificence f his exploits, says in effect the late Premier, as not toperceive that what lay at the heart of them, and formd the substance of his successes, was a its degree unattainable by the something no Nothing can disturb this cool and quiet temper. When the French army was within cannon-shot of his head-quarters, he held a ball to celebrate Lord Beresford's investiture as a knight of the Bath, every before daylight on the following morning. In the midst of occupations that would have overwhelmed any ordinary person with the mere amount of work necessitated by them, if such a person could have survived the anxiety of mind which they involved, the Duke of Wellington could find ample time for even the pastimes and amusements of the country life of England. "You should embark your infantry under Salvaterra," he writes to Beresford, "near where we used to kill our hares." "I see Tweeddal hounds are just arrived," he writes to Cotton; "Ipe you will come over and take a hunt some day or other, or we will draw your way when you like it." Yet there was not a shade of bravado in all this. No man that ever headed an army in the field had a stronger or keener appreciation of the power and capacity of the men opposed to him, than the Duke of Wellington; none so disinclined as he, to making showy or brilliant display by inviting needless conflict Depend upon it," he writes to Lord Liverpool, "whatever people may tell you, I am not so desirous as they imagine of fighting desperate battles; if I was, I might fight one any day I please." Upon this point we can also happily quote more at large, from one of the most striking of the letters in which the Duke has left invaluable counsel to such leaders and captains as may hereafter have the charge of the national honour and defence. “The desire to be forward in engaging the enemy is not uncommon in the British army; but that quality which I wish to see the officers possess who are at the head of the troops, is a cool, discriminating judgment in action, which will enable them to decide with promptitude how far they can and ought to go with propriety; and to convey their orders and act with such vigour and decision, that the soldiers will look up to them with confidence in the moment of action, and obey them with alacrity. The officers of the army may depend upon it, that the enemy to whom they are opposed are not less prudent than they are powerful. Notwithstanding what has been printed in gazettes and newspapers, we have never seen small bodies, unsupported, successfully opposed to large; nor has the experience of any officer realised the stories which all have read, of whole armies being driven by a handful of light infantry or dragoons." It is not to be inferred from such passages as this that the Duke would have discredited the grand heroisms of the world; that the three hundred Spartans at Thermopylæ, or the ten thousand Greeks at Marathon, were, in his judgment, to be put away among the fairy tales and legends; but simply that such precedents as those are not to guide the conduct in any of the plans or enterprises of life to which judgment and prudence can be brought. The last extremity finds ever its last resource, and it is not one that any amount of forethought could provide. Then, in that last extremity, what is ordinarily our enemy takes the attitude of a friend, and the passions become our servants. Then, but then only, when prudence is mute, reason baffled, and all ordinary resources of discretion and wisdom exhausted, there needs to arise in the uttermost resort the highest achievement of which humanity is capable, but the very last on which a hero should rest or speculate beforehand. beyond them, and guarantee the enjoyment of that for which their sufferings and sacrifices have been undergone. War for its own sake-war for glory's sake— war unretrieved from its miseries by its highest advantages-is the greatest curse a country can know. Such was the Duke of Wellington's deliberate judgment; and his labours to reform the army with this view, that he might render it a nobler and more effective instrument of war, were gigantic. They embraced schemes of the largest and details of the minutest kind, into none of which may we enter here, further than to mark their progressive results as page follows page in the despatches. For example: "I have long been of opinion that a British army could bear neither success nor failure. The soldiers of this army have plundered the country most terribly; which has given me the greatest concern." Again: "We are an excellent army on parade, an excellent one to fight; but we are worse than an enemy in a country; and, take my word for it, that either defeat or success would dissolve us.' Again: "I certainly think the army is improved. They are a better army than they were some months ago. But still these continued outrages are terrible." Again: "It is an unrivalled army for fighting, if the soldiers can only be kept in their ranks during the battle; but it wants some of those qualities which are indispensable to enable a general to bring them into the field in the order in which an army ought to be to meet an enemy, or to take all the advantage to be derived from a victory.” Still that thought unceasingly recurs. We are not here for the glory of fighting battles, but for the gain we can achieve for our countrymen by fighting them. It was not for the interest of this or of that family, or dynasty, he was pouring out English blood and treasure over the fields of Portugal and Spain, but it was to destroy a system of tyranny so wide-spread and monstrous as to emperil the continuance of civilisation and happiness in every land on the face of the earth. Predominant throughout every letter of the Duke of Wellington, private or public, is a sense of the absolute necessity of crushing the Napoleonian system, if liberty or civilisation were to be saved. 66 There must be," he said, "a general resistance to the disgust. ing and fraudulent tyranny of Bonaparte." Every sacrifice was to be made for that, and every extremity dared. "Yes," he writes, when one of the Austrian Archdukes was proposed to be placed at the head of oue of the states resolved to throw off Napoleon, "but he must understand that he must never lay down his arms, even though reduced to be the head of a gang of robbers, till he shall have attained his object." In another letter he says, "Those who embark in projects of this description should be made to understand, or to act as if they understood, that having once drawn the sword they must not return it until they shall have completely accomplished their object. They must be prepared, and must be forced, to make all sacrifices to the cause. Submission to military discipline and order is a matter of course; but when a nation determines to resist the authority, and to shake off the government, of Bonaparte, they must be prepared, and forced, to sacrifice the luxuries and comforts of life, and to risk all in a contest, which, it should be clearly understood before it is undertaken, has for its object to save all or nothing." It should at the same time be remarked that the Duke of Wellington, in speaking thus, had already thoroughly convinced himself that the system was to be crushed, if he could but get the needful seconding for bis own efforts. What possessed others with despair, put hope into him. It was when he saw Napoleon at the culminating point of his power, that he saw more clearly than ever the rottenness of the foundation it was resting on. The feeling which broke forth on the first announcement of the putting away of Josephine was one of general consternation, but the Duke was not dismayed. "The Austrian marriage is a terrible event," he writes: "still, I do not despair of seeing a check to the Bonaparte system. It is all hollow within. It is so inconsistent with the wishes, the interests, and even the existence of civilised society, that he cannot trust even his brother to carry it into execution." The "mesures sages" have not, alas! been forthcoming; and the "danger du jour" has extended far beyond the day. The great Duke here detected the strength of the dangerous classes of France, at the very hour when all men were offering homage to himself for having fatally weakened, if not wholly destroyed them. And now, at the instant of his death, those dangerous classes find themselves uppermost again, eager to divide the public spoils of another empire, and whirling up their caps in the air for a Napoleon the Second. Forewarned is foreNever does the Duke rest his opposition to Bonaparte armed. Let us lay to our hearts in time what on less high grounds than these. The fact is worthy of Wellington wrote to Lord Liverpool in rebuke of greater notice than it appears to have received from our ignorant impatience forty years ago, which those who, in no spirit of detraction, have not hesitated would not see that the struggle against tyranny on to describe our English captain as the illustrious de- the Continent was a struggle for freedom at home. fender of an effete system. Nothing in his life supports Were the French Government relieved from the or justifies this charge. In no contemptible family pressure of military operations on the continent, they quarrel had he drawn the sword, but in the universal would incur all risks to land an army in his Majesty's cause of nations. Even when he went with the Bourbons dominions. Then, indeed, would commence an exto Paris in 1814, he was not blinded by the splendour pensive contest; then would his Majesty's subjects of the triumphal scene which surrounded him on all discover what are the miseries of war, of which, by sides, to the real and terrible dangers which awaited the blessing of God, they have hitherto had no the new administration. His letter to Dumouriez is knowledge; and the cultivation, the beauty, and perhaps, of all his despatches, that which might be prosperity of the country, and the virtue and happisingled out as containing the most memorable evi-ness of its inhabitants, would be destroyed. Whatdence of his political wisdom and prescience. It is in French, and in style is one of the happiest specimens of that straightforward English idiom which he had the habit of clothing in the plainest French words. It is particularly worth reading at present, for all the years that have passed since it was written have, as yet, failed to produce the remedy for the danger it describes! ever might be the result of the military operations, God forbid that I should be a witness, much less an actor, in the scene!" It is impossible not to connect these striking expressions with the fact, that on the day which closed the mortal life of the illustrious man who uttered them, one of the journals permitted to express the opinions of the existing French government published an argument on the perfect feasibility, not to say the probability, of a successful invasion of England. In the same week, too, the minister of French marine toasted the chief of the state as one who loved, and meant to restore, the French navy, because he knew that the future destiny of nations will have to be "decided in the great game of sea-fights." Mindful, then, of what has been said by him to whose genius, while he lived, we may attribute under God's blessing our ignorance of the worst "miseries of war," let us not too lightly despise or disregard the signs and portents around us. The Duke fights for us in his grave, as he fought in the field, if we profit by his experience and are guided by his example. "Ce qu'il y a de pis,' he writes to Dumouriez, "c'est le mécontentement général, et la pauvreté universelle. Cette malheureuse révolution et ses suites ont ruiné le pays de fond en comble. Tout le monde est pauvre, et ce qui est pis, leurs institutions empêchent qu'aucune famille devienne riche et puissante. Tous doivent donc nécessairement viser à remplir des emplois publics, non comme autrefois pour l'honneur de les remplir, mais pour avoir de quoi vivre. Tout le monde donc cherche de l'emploi public. Bonaparte laissa une armée d'un million d'hommes en France, outre les officiers prisonniers en Angleterre et en Russie. Le Roi ne peut pas en maintenir le quart. Tous ceux non employés son mécontens. Bonaparte gouvernait directement la moitié de l'Europe, et indirectement presque l'autre moitié. Pour des causes à présent bien developpées et connues, il employait une quantité infinie de personnes dans ses administra- THE Tenant-Right Movement goes on in Ireland. On tions; et tous ceux employés ou dans les administra- the 30th of August Mr. Sharman Crawford tions extérieures civiles, ou dans les administrations entertained at a banquet by his Tenant-right supporters militaires des armées, sont renvoyés, et beaucoup de at Newtownards. Besides the chief guest, there were ceux employés dans les administrations intérieures; present Mr. Frederick Lucas, Dr. Coulter, Dr. M'Knight, à cette classe nombreuse ajoutez la quantité d'émigrés and several other gentlemen of native notoriety. The et de personnes rentrés, tous mourant de faim, et tous speaking was nearly all of a local character, relating to convoitant de l'emploi public afin de pouvoir vivre, world, therefore, seeks the public service. Bonaparte left in et vous trouverez que plus de trois quarts de la France an army of a million of men, besides the officers who classe de la société, non employée à la maind'œuvre were prisoners in England and in Russia. The King cannot maintain a fourth part of them. All those who are not employed ou à labourer la terre sont en état d'indigence, et, par are discontented. Bonaparte governed half Europe directly, conséquence, mécontens. Si vous considerez bien ce and indirectly the other half. For reasons which are now well tableau, qui est la stricte vérité, vous y verrez la cause developed and known, he employed an infinite number of et la nature du danger du jour. L'armée, les officiers persons in his administrations; and all those who were employed either in foreign civil administration, or in that of surtout, sont mécontens. Ils le sont pour plusieurs the armies, are turned adrift, as well as many of those who raisons inutiles à détailler ici, mais ce mécontentement were employed in the home and internal administration. Add pourra se vaincre en adoptant des mesures sages pour to this numerous class the number of emigrants and persons returning to France, all dying of hunger, and all (coveting améliorer l'esprit." public employment for mere subsistence, and you will find that more than three-fourths of those classes of society who are not employed in cultivation of the soil, or in artisan labour, are in a state of indigence, and are therefore discontented. If you consider well this picture, which is the strict truth, you will see the source and nature of the danger of the day. The army, parti cularly the officers, are discontented. They are so for many reasons unnecessary to detail here, but this discontent may be overcome by adopting wise measures to improve their spirit. * What is worst is the general discontent and universal poverty. This wretched revolution and its consequences have ruined the country from top to bottom. All the world is poor, and, what is worse, their institutions prevent any family from becoming rich or powerful. All must, therefore, necessarily aspire to public employments, not, as formerly, for the honour of filling them, but simply to have means to live by. All the the coercion used by the landlords at the late election. company: they loudly cheered the praises of reform Many letters were read from distant sympathisers; and its progress during the 50 years which Mr. Ord had among them one from Mr. Cobden, which is of interest, sat in the House of Commons, as those praises fell from as giving a view of that gentleman's future political the lips of Lord Grey, Lord Carlisle, and the local objects:"One word of a practical kind. The contest leaders. Next to warm eulogies on Mr. Ord, the topic in which you have lately been unsuccessful has been which found most favour was the growth of popular characterised by an unusual exercise of coercive influence power, from the disastrous times of the French revoluon the part of the landlords over the tenantry. I am tion, down to the present day, when, according to Lord told that individual cases can be easily proved in Grey, "no measure which is demanded by the majority which the hearts of electors were known to be on of intelligent and educated men can be long refused, and your side, while they were forced to poll for your no measure which they object to has a chance of being opponents. I wish you to appoint a committee for the carried;" an assertion ratified by "tremendous cheers. purpose of collecting facts of this kind, and putting them Lorld Carlisle energetically denied the alleged decay of on permanent record, so as to be available in fighting sound whig principles :-"I have heard it often said, the battle for the only remedy for such abuses of power and Mr. Ord must have heard it still oftener, and said -the ballot. Individual cases, when well authenticated, too with much positiveness and confidence, that the will do more than abstract arguments, however logical, whigs, as a political party were extinguished, to carry public opinion in favour of this, the sole mode annihilated, done for, smashed; and that whiggism of affording protection to the voter. I look upon a wider as a political creed, was repudiated, spat upon, dead extension of the franchise, or more frequent elections and buried. All I can say, if this is true, is, that without the ballot, to be only plans for diffusing over I have seen marvellous instances of political resurrection a still larger portion of the people the sufferings and and political rejuvenescence. Nay more: even now, oppressions which now characterise our electoral contests. when the whig leaders, the subjects of your late toast, For my own part, when Free-trade and Protection are have been removed from office-when we are enduring no longer political battle-cries, I shall look forward with the sway of a tory and protectionist, and perhaps more intense interest to the day when a really liberal and in will than in power, a reactionary administration-I popular party shall organise itself with the pledge never feel convinced in my own mind, that the old whig to abandon the field until vote by ballot shall become principle is still full of youthful sap and vigour, and the law of elections, as it is already the custom in almost that, like the oak on Mount Algidos, it will continue to every society, club, and association in the kingdom." gather resources and vigour from each descending stroke. The Tenant-Right Conference commenced in Dublin The party may be out of place; their chieftains may be on the Sth inst. Mr. Sharman Crawford presided; and out of power; they may no longer be on the sunny side among those assembled to confer were forty-one Members of the street-if men choose to think it so; but I do of Parliament and several priests. The object of the con- feel in my own mind assured that their opinions and ference was to devise an organisation and parliamentary principles will still pervade the conduct of public affairs, policy for the League. Mr. G. H. Moore, and Mr. marshalling the march of imperial government. Shariman Crawford himself, thought decidedly that no These sentiments were received with vehement cheering. member ought to go to Parliament pledged to a certain The young Earl of Durham was present, and spoke course of conduct on any resolutions passed by any body brief He was there, he said, to show respect to an out of Parliament; and such seemed to be the general old friend of his father, and to the liberal principles he understanding. Resolutions were submitted, having advocated during his life. for their object the securing of Mr. Sharman Crawford's bill; and the conference adjourned.-On the following day these resolutions were adopted, and the conference broke up. Two recent Political Dinners, the one conservative, the other whig, are of interest as indicating the views of the respective parties. At Newcastle-upon-Tyne, on the 7th, a dinner was given to Mr. Henry George Liddell, one of the members for South Northumberland, by the conservatives of the division. In the course of his speech, Mr. Liddell revealed his expectations from the government. "Without entering " he said," into a lengthened discussion upon the great political questions of the day, he might be permitted to say, that he went to Parliament with the conviction that great reforms were needed in our financial system; and he thought he might also safely say, that it was by those reforms only that relief could be afforded to those interests which had suffered and still suffer from the recent changes in legis lation. But he had entire confidence in the ability of that great Ministerial seer who had already conjured up the vision of a financial system, which, though still looming in distant obscurity, would ultimately emerge from its source in the substantial and useful form of a well-framed budget; which, while it provides for the necessities of the nation-while it maintains our national credit-will also give relief, where relief is due, and, if he might be allowed to use a familiar expression, will, by relieving the foot where the shoe pinches, enable that foot to keep pace with the rapid strides which other rival interests are making. (Cheers.) Other governments had year by year acknowledged the existence of great distress in the leading branches of internal commerce, but it remained for the present government to frame measures for the relief of those interests; and he had little doubt both of their intentions and ability so to do." Similar opinions were uttered by the other speakers; and confidence in Lord Derby's ministry was the tone of the meeting. At the same place, on the following day a dinner was given to Mr. Ord, the late liberal member for the borough. A very enthusiastic spirit animated the NARRATIVE OF LAW AND CRIME. THE New Rules and Orders in the Court of Chancery have been published. The Daily News gives the following popular view of the changes in the practice and course of proceeding which they will effect:-"Let us endeavour to place before the lay reader the general effect of the alterations in a chancery-suit effected by the new general orders, and the act' to amend the practice and course of proceeding in the High Court of Chancery 'on which they are founded, and of which they are the complement. Hitherto the complainant has commenced his suit by filing his bill of complaint written on parchment, and summoning the persons against whom he proceeds by means of writs of subpoena to appear and defend themselves against his complaint. Beyond the fact that a bill had been filed, which he was required to answer, a defendant in a chancery-suit could know nothing of the nature of the proceeding against him until he had taken, at considerable cost, an office-copy of the bill; and practically each defendant had to take an office-copy. Then, after an interval of time-though shortened of late, still needlessly long-the defendant must put in his answer to the bill, though perhaps he admitted or denied all the allegations of the bill, or perchance had no knowledge, one way or the other, about any of them. But know he little or much about the questions asked, the defendant must answer; for the practice, under a modern general order, of serving a copy of the bill, had only a limited application. Then of every answer, useful or useless, the plaintiff had to take an office-copy; and the accumulation of paper in suits involving many details, or much documentary matter, or to which there are many defendants, often becomes perfectly frightful. Then the power a plaintiff had to compel a defendant to set forth in his answer in so many words, lengthy accounts and documents, was constantly made an engine of much oppression. In a case within our own cognizance, involving some disputed mercantile |