ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 553, 2 August 1851, Page 3

ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

Length op Lokd John Russell's Administration. It will be five years next July since the maddened Protectionists surrended the Treasury Bench to Lord John and his friends. Yet, so vast was the event of 1846, so far does it overtop the ordinary achievements of legislation, and so mighty is its tide of consequences, that we are hardly aware how far it is receding from us. The years succeed one another, and it still occupies the foreground of memory. The wounds of the struggle are still raw, and the ashes still glow under our feet. Nay, there are those who still speak and act as if the question were pending, and the verdict unpronounced. It is very natural, then, that we should forget the real length of Lord John Russell's Administration. He has not been cut off so prematurely as some appear to imagine. In fact, he has had & more than usual tenure of power — very nearly as long as that enjoyed by Sir Robert Peel, and longer than any other Administration in this century, with the single exeption of that which subsisted so long on the glories of Waterloo. Stace Lord Liverpool no Premier has retained office for as much as five years. Judging, therefore, by the analogy of the past, it is reasonable to enquire whether Lord John Russell has not run out his spell, and whether those congenial ills that exist in the constitution of every Government have not in this instance, as in all others, done their fated work. Lord John Russell has done very little more than finish his predecessor's designs He has been the executor, or rather the trustee, of Sir Robert's political estate, during the accidental disability of the owner. He has inherited Sir Robert's Free Trade and rested on the staff of Sir Robert's Income Tax. In the remaining months of the session of 1846, he did little more, and could do little more, than add to the new tariff a modification of the sugar duties, that had long been foreseen. In 1847 he claimed and received a double indulgence ; first, for doing little else than Irish relief; secondly, for administering it according to the necessities of the hour. The language in everybody's mouth was, that a gigantic task had to be performed, and nothing should be omitted to strengthen the hands charged with its execution. Not only originality, but even the commonest principle an/1 peculiar maxims of the party, were laid aside in the vast and highly exceptional operation of feeding five million, as it were, from the door of the Treasury. Since that, there has hardly been a considerable measure which Peel would not have volunteered. The Irish Encumbered Estates Act was actually suggested by him. "When the necessities of famine expired, the necessities of pestilence came in their stead ; and while much of the session of 1849 was devoted to preparing against the cholera, an equal part of fast session was spent in yielding a tardy obedience to its lessons. For five years we have all moved in a groove. One task has taken up another, and the exigency has been so manifest as fccareely to allow any diversity of opinion. The cry has ever been — "Strengthen Government at any risk." We have joined in this cry. Lord John Russell came in with it, for the Irish famine was at hand, the Protectionists were furious, and Lord George Bentinck was laying violent"siege to the Exchequer That cry was redoubled in the year of Revolution, when every good subject rallied round the powers that be, when the Cabinet became a type of order, and a Ministerial crisis was dreaded as a first step of a i evolution. Thus, from July, 1846, to this present month, there has been n succession of accidents calculated t> flatter the self-confidence and allay the zeal of the Administration.

[Fiom Ihe " Times," Feb. 28.] We are disposed to leave to other pens the more appropriate task of celebrating the daring enterprise and unrewarded toil which made yesterday eventful in the Protectionist annals, and threatened ut one moment to make it still more eventful in ityj annals of the country. For we do not aspire

to record the proceedings of the conclave in St. James's Square, and we arc satisfied, without nearer evidence, that Lord Stanley did for his party all that could be effected by the spirit and vigour of a leader unsupported by a single man of tried political character or recognised political ability. From an eaily hour till sun-down the struggle lasted— not, indeed, with any visible adversaries, but with the more incurable obstacles of a vacant and dissatisfied party, reduced to forsake its own principle of action at the very moment it affected to assume the direction of the State. At the Carlton the vain efforts of a deluded enthusiasm were unsupported by the evidence of a single positive accession to the projected Administration. On the contrary, all that could be learnt in the outer world of the prospects of the new Government were the names of the eminent persons who had refused to join it ; and the boldest flights of conjecture never reached beyond Mr. Herries, Mr. Disraeli, and Mr. Henley, as the chief organs of the Administration in the House of Commons. Towards evening, however, it was thought that enough had been done to retreat with honour, and the intelligence circulated that Lord Stanley had once more resolved to resign his commission for the formation of a Government into the hands of her Majesty. A noble Earl, well known in fashionable life, made the announcement at White's, and Lord Stanley himself proceeded to the Palace to report the termination of his efforts. It now, therefore, becomes imperativel}' necessary to terminate the present crisis by a return to the most practicable of the combinations already attempted, and to make whatever sacrifices or concessions are required to give the utmost possible strength and effect to that combination. This Is not a moment at which any sort of personal recrimination would be in place. The embarrassments of the past week have been too great, the stoppage of the whole business of Parliament at the outset of the session is too deplorable, the duties of the immediate future, especially in the present year, are too pressing for us to stoop for a moment to the gratification of any personal predilections. The only question worth asking, since we have now completed the round of all the known combinations of party, is, " llow is the Queen's Government to be most efficiently carried on ?" It is understood that the members of the Whig Administration will meet this morning in their private capacity at Lausdowne House, to consider the course that becomes them to pursue, since they are thus thrown back to office by the failure of all competitors.

After Crime and before Crime. — Of the many curious and painful contrasts to be encountered in tins great city of contrasts, few are more striking to the senses — more repugnant to correct feeling — and more pregnant with important consequences — than the treatment which the criminal population receives from Government and from society respectively before and after crime. It was recently my foitune to see this contrast in one of its boldest forms, — and with an interval of ; time between the witnessing of one extreme and the I other so brief that none of its features could be lost in the pause. How much society thinks it wise and needful to do for those who have sinned against it, I saw in the model prison at Pentonville, — how little it seems to care for those who, born to the heritage of crime, are yet anxious to escape from the fate winch lies in wait for them, I saw in tha dormitory attached to the Field L.me Ragged School. — It would be well if society would now and then look anxiously and intelligently in "on this picture and on this.'' After crime, the modern outcast is an outcast no longer. Magistrates and other high functionaries become interested about him. The public are called together to witness his trial. He becomes a topic for the press. Grave judges and busy juries inquire into the vicissitudes or his career. For a day at least he is the hero of a court of justice. His name and history are placed on the recoids of the nation. A palace is prepared for his reception. Pentonville prison — built for the accommodation of 500 prisoners, and occupied by an usual average of 'Js0 — cost more than ,£lOO,OOO ; and its general economy is regulated on a scale of almost regal magnificence. Including interest on the first outlay and ground rent, the yeaily expense of Us maintenance is not less than £22,000. Tins sum, divided among the average of 450 inmates, would give nearly £50 as the cost of each criminal per annum in the gaol. At this expence to the public, the man is lodged in a commodious room, about the size of a small parlour in the houses of the middle classes, ventilated on the most approved principles of science, and supplied with streams of warm and cool air by machinery so nicely adjusted that for months the temperature does not vary more than a degree or two. The room is furnished with other fittings— such as a bell to call the servants, stool«, and tables, very excellent beds, water-basin — which, by a judicious contrivanoo, is supplied at thp discretion of the inmate with hot or cold water, — and so forth. The diet is worthy of the lodging, plentiful in quantity, well cooked and served, and excellent in point of quality. Without exertion of his own, the Pentonville prisoner is sure of a good dinner every day to eat— a snug bed to sleep on every night. — lie has mental advantages equal to these material ones. A library is provided for his use, and a pile of books belongs of right to the furniture of his cell. A school and four schoolmasters are provided and paid to cultivate his mind, — a chapel is erected and two cleigympn engaged to look after his morals. Archbishops and Ministers of the Crown think it needful to visit him at times— and press and pathament manifest the liveliest interest in his condition — Now look on the other picture 1 I describe only w hat I know and what I 6aw. Visiting the Field Lane Ragged Schools, and talking with some of the homeless savages who wander about our streets, I was told that an attempt was in progress of being made to carry out an idea long and frequently urged in the pages of the Atheuaum — namely, to provide a lefuge for such abandoned youths or children as come to the school in the day but have nowhere to go at night. lat once wen t to see the place in whicu this dormitory is set up. It is in Fox's Court, in the beait of that mass of narrow passages and ciowded courts — none of which can be called a thoroughfare — bounded by Victoria Street and Skinner Street on two sides. lam familiar with many of the worst parts of Paris, Liverpool, and Edinburgh; but I have seldom seen a place into which a stranger would go with more justifiable fear. In the centre of a labyrinth of dark and crooked courts — courts into which the sunshine never comes — are a stack of most wretched cottages. One of these is the refuge. The court itself is full of miserable objects— for naked poverty rather than rampant crime hives there — ragged and dirty urchins, pale and haggard women, and brutal and stunted men in whose forms and faces scarcely a trace of human character is to be seen. — The poor man who is placed in the refuge to take care of the few coverlets and mattrasses showed me over the dilapidated bouse. There are three rooms above the giound floor, wretchedly small — not more, indeed, than ten feet by six or eight. In the attic the inmates sleep — in the next floor below they eat — in the next, they work. The ground floor is occupied by the man who is m charge and his wife. The stairs are narrow, worn, and broken — and not to be mounted without rit-k of a fall. All the rooms are bare except the attic ; in which four small mattrasses lie on the floor— -and some time in their past history have been lime-washed. I had seen all these rooms without seeing the boys : — on inquiring for them, I was told that they were below at work. On my expressing a wish to see them, a candle was procured; and a low door was opened, leading to a daik and yet more dilapidated stair, down which we went into a hole wheie we could do little more than cruwl on oui hands and feet — a hole for having made which it would not be easy to divine the builder's purpose, but ceitainly it was never intended to be occupied by living creatures. The walls are baie brick and have never yet been plastered or limed. There is no floor: — the ground is a loose gravel-like soil, which exhales a damp, foetid smell. Two small holes let in a i'ew faint rays of light into this kennel,— so that when my eyes had become a little used to the place I could see the dusky forms of four young fellows, squatted down, and employed in chopping wood. In tins wretched kennel they earn at this labour the food which is given, and the shelter which is ailorded to them. I spoke to them all ; they wore vciy giatcful for food and shelter even on such terms. Though fiequently oppics6ed with pains in the he.id (who blinll wonder ') they had entncly escaped choleia — even when people were falling victims to it on every side of them— a fact which they thought explained by their having something to eat regularly. To see them thus giatefulforso little was the most painful thing of all. How sad a tale is told of the sufferings from whicln hey have fled to the chanties of the dotmittoiy ! I wish to m.ike this statement simply, and without comment,— the contest speaks most powerfully for itself. I will fibli two question?, ami conclude,— When

it is known to the castaway that any act of iobbery wo ild cause him to be lemovi'd from the hardships of Fox's. Court to the comfortable cjuaiters of I'entonville, is lie unih si'i ving of sympathy who has enough of nutaught and nalne viitue to iesi->t such a tpmptation 7 Is it wisp or consistent in the State to l.n lsh her va^t reaouicos on (ho ofiender after h< has commuted a, ciunc, and yet to ne»lpct him m that oi his carper w hen .1 little help, a little guidance, might save him fiom a life of depredation'' — Many a thing 1 which passes by thoname of heroism in tin; woikl is mean beside thecoui;u;e that resists under such circumstances. Crime should not be formally recognized as thedoor which leads fiom the wietchedness of the cellai to the luxury of the saloon. — It is for such men as make your readers to ponder these things well. — Lor> et>poni(ent of the Athenteiun.