THE LATE EARL OF DERBY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume V, Issue 16, 19 January 1870, Page 2

THE LATE EARL OF DERBY.

[CoMtfrnmec?]. Those who study the drama of politics in the theatre and not in the closet, who judge of au actor, nofc by the dialogue but by his look and voice, have ever come to tbe same conclusion about Lord Derby; that in public life he is merely the sportsman and the gladiator. He used to call O'Conuell a " heavyweight," and his great attacks on that eminent giant "rounds." Lord Derby was the ideal of a sparrer. When he spoke iu Parliament, his little sinewy frame, " breed " in every fibre, and his handsome face lit up with a daring smile suggested fight, and his style was always a fighting style. He never argued — be repliedaud attacked. Even wben Premier and steadied into a good deal of discretion, he could not keep his hands off tempting faces, and the moment he left the Premiership he relapsed aud breathed freely again. Although exploded as a political chief, he has still a career before him as a veteran bruiser to train young Tory peers who have very small brains and a religious belief tbat a hatred of primogeniture is at the bottom of Radicalism. Peel flourished when Lord Stanley joined him in opposition, aud Peel, Graham, and Stanley gave tone to the Opposition, and re-collected a Tory party. Then Lord Stanley went back to the Colonial office, to the great delight of the clerks, and the horror of Canadians, Australians, West Indians, louians, and in fact all the outlying subjects of her Majesty, and there for two or three years Lord Stanley, in the intervals of racing, amused himself enormously, and according to those who have studied his proceedings, developed an amazing genius for confusion — the Topsy of the Colonial office, colonies were to him games and counters. Dealing with them there came out the inveterate combative spirit of his family, and it was a matter of course that he should sefc one against another, and all of them against England. In his consulship in fact appeared the school of colonial reformers who spoke and wrote a great deal under the apprehension that they were making the Colonial Secretary very angry. But then came Peel's proposal in the Cabinet to repeal the Corn Laws; that carried in the Cabinet without a dissentient would have made Peel premier to the end of his days ; would have made the Ministry eternal ; would have consolidated the Tory party and taken the ground from uuder the Whigs. Now, then, was Lord Stanley's time, but — go on winning for ever ? Not he. He resigned. ...... Peel was so slow, so solemn, and discreet, and good, that Lord Stanley must have pined, when sitting by him in the Cabinet, to show him up, or to double him up, aud he must have read Disraeli's superbly malignant Peelites with tears in his eyes. It is only a Lord Stanley who would have encouraged such a man as Mr. Disraeli to bope for great office, bufc of all the jokes Lord Stauley had enacted in politics, that of presenting Mr. Disraeli as the leader of the bigoted Tory and Protestaut party must have struck him as the most uniquely sublime. Notoriously, all tbe dull aud decorous small heads were for giving Mr. Disraeli a small office out of the Cabinet, wheu, in consequence of the royal row between Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston, the Protectionists _;ot in because there wai nobody else, but Lord Derby had a screw to lift his friend — he threatened to go down to the Lords and tell them that in the whole Tory aristocracy of Eu gland, there was nofc a man fit to preside in a Government bureau ! He said that once as a capital joke, and he was just the man to say it again if they would not let him have his way. So be landed Mr. Disraeli into the lead of the Common's, and we can fancy Lord Derby saying to himself, " I have completed my fame as a joking peer of the realm; Ihave made a fashionable novelist Chancellor of the Exchequer, and now I can die happy." Yet he was not content even with that; he made Mr. Walpole'a Secretary of State, and put him up to proposing a militia franchise; more,, he took all his squad down to Oxford and made them Doctors. As a collective joke, perhaps that was the finest; '" his ministry was altogether a practical joke. In a minority in Parliament detested and despised in the coantry, he appreciated the furious joke of persisting in remaining in power in the face of the ' opposition, not out of Parliament, but of

.> the people ; he looked upon the whole business as a fight, as a race, aud he did • his best to win. But until we realise what a thoroughly ; ludicrous people we are, we can never . understand such a man as Lord Derby. . English politics are a joke ; and the only ' evidences his superior honesty who openly laughs at all the shams, and grinningly takes advantage of them.

A Lunatic "Gentleman Highwayman." — On October 23, at the petty sessious for the Cambridge division of the county, before the Rev. George Thornhill (chairman), a man about 23 years of age, who first gave the name of Charies Trevor, but whose real namo proves to be Horace Wright, was brought up charged with highway robbery. It appears that a short time since he stopped a carriage in which a lady named Parkins was riding on one of the roads near Cambridge, and by threats induced her to give him a sovereign. After this he stopped some other people, and was apprehended next morning. Mr. Deputy Chief Constable Stretton said that the prisoner, having first made a verbal statement, expressed a wish to make it in writing Witness properly cautioned him, and then supplied him with writing materials. The prisoner, thetf wrote as follows: — "I Horace Wright, hereby declare that the following statement is correct and true: — That I, on Friday evening last (October 22), at four o'clock, did hire a horse from the Riding School in South Street, Grosvenor Square. I did leave London on that said horse impressed with the idea that I was riding to deathless fame. My intention was to ride to York, and after I had reached my destination to return home, and trust in God to be received in the arms of my family again, they knowing the affliction under which I labour. I further declare that I had no control whatsoever over my mind, nor was it in my power to deter myself from committing this rash act. I was dragged on by an irresistible fate to achieve the purpose settled iu my mind, and I declare on my oath that I would rather have sacrificed my earthly existence than given up the idea so firmly stamped upon my brain ; and now I would rather die the death of a mad clog than that ifc should have occurred. — Horace Wright." When the prisoner gave him the written statement he observed , " There, I dare say the people will laugh when ifc is read, but it's quite correct for all that," and added that he thought his friends ought to put him under some restraint, for if he was liberated he should go and do the same again. The prisoner added that it was only last November that he stopped a carriage at Henley, in Oxfordshire, under precisely similar circumstances. He made no concealment, and repeated that he wished to be put under restraint. This was ascertained to be a fact, and it appears that the prisoner was sentenced to a month's imprisonment. The accused — who is respectably connected, and who actnally borrowed the horse as stated — was committed for trial. "My dear Polly, I am surprised at your taste in wearing another woman's hair on your head," said Smith to his wife. "My dear Joe, I arn equally astonished that you persist in wearing another sheep's wool on your back. There now I"