NOTES OF THE MONTH.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 296, 25 May 1875, Page 3

NOTES OF THE MONTH.

It is stated that the Royalist army in Spain will be unable to move for two months, that the King is disheartened by his illsuccess in the field, and by the divisions between his Ultramontane and Liberal supporters, and that he has even spoken of abdication. His elder sister, the Princess Girgenti, a widow of twenty-four, with some ability and strong religious opinions, has been sent to join him, and will, should he abdicate, be declared Isabella 111. of Spain. It is most probable, however, that the rumor of abdication has arisen only from words uttered in a fit of temper, and that if Cnnovas del Castillo fails, the experiment of Absolutist government will at least be tried. The Government is in fact Absolutist already, no one speaking of the Cortes, and the Ministry decreeing new fundamental laws—such, for instance, as a new Marriage Law, distinguishing between the privileges of Catholics and non-Catholics, and dissolving all marriages contracted by priests or nuns, on the Royal authority alone. The Government lacks nothing except the energy and success which can make absolutism tolerable. The Duke of Richmond has given notice that he will introduce a Bill on agricultural holdings—the "Tenant-right" Bill. The Premier assured a deputation of farmers that this Bill would give satisfaction to farmers throughout the United Kingdom, but its provisions have hitherto been somewhat carefully concealed. Mr Disraeli evidently is not going to press his proposal of two years' notice of eviction, and the general impression is that the Government intend to propose that compensation for unexhausted improvements made with the consent of the landlord shali be the presumption of law, but that such presumption may be barred by mutual agreement in writing. Such a Bill, it is affirmed, both by Mr Clare Read and Mr Howard, the chief spokesman of the deputation to Mr Disraeli, will be nugatory, as every lease or letting will contain a clause barring compensation, but the landlords will plead for the liberty of " free contract " in land, which they say dealers in all other articles possess. The Central Chamber of Agriculture has decided to support Mr Howard's view, but to allow contracts to fix a definite compensation for any improvement provided it be not less than the Act without the contract clause would ensure. That provision, in fact, nullifies free contract, but checks litigation, if the parties are tolerably friendly. Mr Russell Gurney has stated his intentiou not to introduce this year any measure for the extension of the Public Worship Regulation Act to questions of doctrine. He put his change of purpose, which he announced on March Ist, on the ground that he had anticipated last session that the judge under the Public Worship Regulation Act would be the Dean of Arches, and would therefore necessarily be charged with deciding on all the cases of ecclesiastical offence. The postponement of the Public Worship Regulation Act, however, had altered the arrangements, and at present the judge under that Act would be charged with the trial of no other ecclesiastical offences. Under these circumstances, Mr R. Gurney deemed it "exceedingly desirable that there should be some experience of the working of the present system before any change was made." That is a dignified excuse, but we suspect it only means that Mr Russell Gurney, like a good many other persons, recoils before the dangers which seem likely to to arise out of the false policy of last Session, and has no mind at all to increase them at the present moment. It is not, we believe, a retreat preparatory to a new advance, but retreat simple and final. The debate was languid. It was so obvious that the conclusion of the Tory Government was a foregone one, that the House hardly listened to the reasons of the various speakers. Mr Cross's speech was merely a dilatory plea, and Mr Stanhope was in great alarm lest sending agricultural boys to school should result in forcing women once moie into the fields. Mr Fawcett's resolution was beaten by a majority of 80 (229 to 149), Mr Pell's (Tory) amendment, for moreinspectois to enforce the Agricultural Children's Act, was defeated, though Liberals in general voted for it, by a majority of 76 (226 to 150); and Mr Locke's motion for the adjournment of the debate was beaten by 83 (227 to 144), after which Mr Macgregor moved an adjournment of the House, and Mr Disraeli, remarking that an adjournment was just what, in its present temper, it was in need of, assented, and the adjournment was carried by 224 to 41, some Home-rule members who said that the adjournment of the House would extinguish the motion for producing papers relative to the case of Mr John Mitchell, resisting the adjournment. That, however, was just what the House wished, and it decided to do it by the great majority of 183. Irish Members should not forget that the pole of the political magnet which attracts Irish, repels English votes. On March Ist, Mr John Mitchell was to deliver a lecture on Tipperary in the theatre at Cork. He was not well enough to read his own lecture, but he managed to show himself for ten minutes while a son of the late Mr Dillon, M.P., read his lecture for him. Mr Mitchell's lecture will not improve the estimate formed of him by any true friend of liberty, either in England or Ireland. He boasted of his love for the cause of American slavery, and that two of his sons fell in battle on the side of the South. Mr Mitchell stated his belief that the Government would be very happy if all the men of Tipperary had but one neck, that they might all be hanged at the end of one rope. More violent nonsense it would be hard to talk. Further, he denied the alleged breach of faith by which he is said to have escaped from his imprisonment in Van Dieman's Land, and used in relation to it the sin gularly silly argument that if he had done that shameful deed, it would be impospossible he could now st;iud up and look his countrymen in the face. That would depend surely, first, on the state of Mr Mitchell's own moral sensitiveness ; next, on that of his countrymen in relation to any deed, however unscrupulous, by which he baulked the British Government; and lastly, even if the Irish people are scrupulous on points of honor, on their care or carelessness in investigating the facts of the case. We do not doubt but that every one of these conditions would be favorable to Mr Mitchell's standing up and looking his countrymen in the face,' in spite of his having dealt without any inconvenient rigour with the point of honor. Certain it is that the Irish Nation, at the time, examined the whole case minutely, and decided that Mr Mitchell as never had restored the status quo of arrest, he was bouud.to do, before effecting his escape.

The Home Secretary gave a well-deserved rebuke to Mr Hardwicke, the new coroner for Middlesex, for his fussy arbitrariness in ordering an inquest on the late Sir Charles Lyell. The eminent geologist had for some time been attended by Dr Andrew Clarke for an affection of the brain, when on Decembf r 9fch he slipped down stairs. He recovered, however, and died twelve weeks after of the original brain disease. Dr Clarke gavw his certificate, and the body was enclosed in the lead coffin required for burial in Westminster Abbey, when the coroner, for some incomprehensible reason, ordered an inquest, rejected all remonstrance, and had the lead above the face opened with all manner of instruments, including a kitchen chopper. There was no kind of doubt about the manner of death, and no reason for an inquiry which, had its subject been less eminent, would never have been ordered ; and Mr Cross, in answer to three questions, declared that if he were chairman of the Middlesex sessions he would strike out the coroner's fees for a proceeding which " was an outrage on decency and common sense." This, however, cannot now be done. The matter has been referred to the Lord Chancellor, who has jurisdiction over coroners, and Mr Hardwicke will probably be warned not to bring his office into contempt. Limited as the functions of coroners are, election does not seem to yield us the right men, and might perhaps be abolished.