highly; but we are still constrained to consider him as one beating the air in matters connected with public retrenchment. He would pinch off this improper sprout; lop off that unworthy branch; and strip some bark from a profitless trunk; but he is unwilling or unable to detect the root of rottenness, which must be unearthed before the causes of extravagant State expenditure can be truly discovered. So long as the people of England second their government in an erring system of policy, which assumes it to be axiomatic that the British empire must maintain her dignity by means of costly armies; this immense military machinery will always keep the country in a fearfully false position. What we want as a nation is, the diffusion of Christian principles, which shall bring the people under the government of the King of kings—a species of rule which, so far as we can perceive, Mr Drummond no more contends for, than the cotton millionaire, Mr Cobden. Unbelieving knowledge, and unsanctified wisdom, have no tendency to reform the abuses of an empire reeling under a weight of accumulated corruption. All that we behold at present is little more than struggles made by one suffering section of society, to shift their calamities upon some other class of the community; for selfishness bears supreme sway, and must continue to do so until the glorious power of Christian sovereignty shall shine forth. The dominating oppression in this land is the monarchy of mammon: how unlike that righteous rule of which the word of inspiration speaks! The king that faithfully judgeth the poor, his throne shall be established

for ever.

PRINCE ALBERT'S HOBBY-THE INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION.

When this project was originally propounded, we treated it as a commendable scheme emanating from royalty, which in general is hardly so well employed as in getting up industrial exhibitions. But now that the matter ripens, it assumes the unmistakeable features which characterise all jobs; importunate solicitation for subscriptions, and the most unscrupulous puffery that ever disgraced an auction mart. Our opinion is, that Prince Albert is a mere nose of wax in this blatant business; and that a sort of fashionable joint stock company, very like some of the railway concoctions, is at the bottom of the whole affair. We judge of the tree by its pleasant blossoms. There is first of all an aristo

cratic array of supporters at West End meetings, where Bishops babble loyal divinity, and Lord Brougham sputters scientific and political nonsense; but all with the view of toadying the Prince Consort. Then comes the Duchess of Sutherland with her Ladies' Committee, lounging gracefully on ottomans at Stafford House, and lisping out resolutions to invite the co-operative sympathies and shillings of the "women of England" to aid the Mistress of the Robes to help on the Buckingham Palace crotchet! As no great object can ever be attained in England without a dinner, we are all aware of the gastronomic grandeur which signalized the Lord Mayor's banquet to Prince Albert and his Commissioners, with a congress of municipal magnates borrowed from the three kingdoms. The prince evidently looks forward to the Exhibition just as the pietists of the Papacy foreviewed the Council of Trent. His royal Highness comes out in great force with regard to "man's sacred mission ;" which it should seem consists in sharp buying and selling! But notwithstanding the Prince's postprandial eloquence, we cannot concur in the new doctrine that a sort of millennium is to be brought about by means of commercial chaffering. To our thinking, the cause of sordidness is much more likely to be helped than the cause of Christianity; which latter will, we apprehend, find small favour with the foreign frequenters who shall resort to the modern Babylon, on this grand occasion. Dismissing therefore, as mere phantasms, the moral and religious benefits bespoken for the Prince's project, let us calmly enquire what are the strictly secular advantages which may be reasonably expected from so great a gathering in the metropolis. We must here keep out of view all the eulogies so lavishly bestowed upon the royal husband of our good Queen; for if the plan should turn out to be essentially a bad one, the Prince's patronage will only have the effect of enlarging the sphere of injuriousness; and more strenuous efforts will be made to bolster up a failing concern. There is, no doubt, something dazzling in the scheme of assembling in the British metropolis a huge collection of the products of industry contributed from all near nations, and even from the very ends of the earth; but we think it will be admitted that London is the last place that stands in need of such an assemblage. The metropolis of this great empire is not only the seat of supreme government and le

P

gislation, and the residence of the powerful, fashionable, and wealthy; but it is also the most magnificent mart of commerce; the most astonishing meeting-place of merchants; and the vastest receptacle of varieties in the known world. Every article ministering to comfort or luxury; every result of man's art or device which can subserve the uttermost cravings of novelty, may be readily procured in London. Plant yourself in the English metropolis, and (always implying that you possess money or credit) your orders will obtain for you a sufficient supply of every foreign fine thing that can be imported into Prince Albert's bloated Exhibition. Take the list of invited items in your hand; cull out the most recherchees of that inventory of needless things, so far as utility is concerned-and a five shilling advertisement in the Times will soon fetch out the habitat of every useless article your heart may be set upon. Well, instead of viewing this proud preeminence of London as constituting an over-powering monopoly which bids defiance to competition, Prince Albert and his helpers are desirous of swelling the splendours of the crowning city into an enormous aggregate of supplemental pomp and opulent gorgeousness. Nor is this all; for by a shabby deviation from the primitive plan, the country is to be made to pay for the gainful ostentation of the town, and subscriptions are solicited in all quarters, and virtually in the Prince's name, to defray the expenses which are about to be incurred by the promoters of the exhibition. The brilliant banquet to the 168 Mayors was, in fact, a sort of catch-penny conviviality designed to enlist these functionaries into a kind of municipal mendicancy in behalf of the new Babylonish bazaar. A temporary building is to be erected at a monstrous cost in one of the parks, and when the fit of folly is over, the materials will be sold for a song. A million of trading exhibitors and idle sight-seers are to be congregated, it seems, for three months in the metropolis; and every annual meeting, in any part of the united kingdom, is recommended to be postponed for a year, in order to multiply the London mob of curiosity-seekers, made up of people, nations, and languages, not unlike the crowds convened by Chaldean sound of sackbut in the plain of Dura. We do not envy the largeness of London; but we think her natural and acquired superiorities are sufficiently secured to her, without rendering it necessary to strip the provinces of their proper share of prosperity. So far from promoting true trade, we maintain that

this tawdry exhibition will disturb all the regular channels of useful industry and enterprise, and reduce rational display to the trumpery standard of a show at a fair. What serves to make the whole matter still more preposterous is the appointment of a royal commission to work out a project which is to be paid for; not out of the privy purse or the national revenue, but by funds for which an Albert hat is to be sent round to the Queen's lieges! Sir Robert Peel, zealous as he is for this silly scheme, dropped some significant doubts as to the success of the proposed subscription, and intimates that the failure of funds would be disgraceful to the British people. But we beg leave to differ from the expremier. We believe that the discredit of a pecuniary deficiency will rest upon the indiscreet contrivers of so paltry a plan, who, if they could have made out a case worthy of State interposition, should have shaped it as a Government measure, so as to avert the chances of failure. At present the affair borders on the ridiculous. Prince Albert and a board of royal commissioners have a grand project confided to their management, which they cannot carry out upon public principles except they are succoured by private pence. Here is a practical incongruity which so many counselling sages ought to have foreseen, and which appears already to damage the certitude of the august concern. Nothing but an extraordinary ebullition of British bounty can extricate the Prince from the consequences of bad advice; and at this moment John Bull does not seem over-inclined to come to the rescue.

THE MARRIAGES BILL.

Under this cheatingly-comprehensive title, Mr S. Wortley has again annoyed the House of Commons and the public with his old crotchet, that every man in the British empire must necessarily fall in love with his wife's sister! To facilitate marriages with young ladies filling this relation, after first wives have been swept off, is the main intent of Mr Wortley's bill; which we boldly affirm to be the most impudent attempt at legislation ever made in this country. Into the theological discussions which have been raised concerning the restriction which now subsists, we decline entering; because the promoters of the bill are not parties legislating upon general principles, but are, in fact, transgressors of an

existing law, which they first wilfully violate, and then seek to get retrospectively repealed for their special indulgence and indemnity. It is perfectly notorious that the whole of this hubbub originates with a small clique of aristocratic and moneyed delinquents, who find themselves sunk in social position by contracting concubinage, which they would fain mature into marriage. The law, forsooth, stands in their way; and these modest folks ask to alter the whole land's legislation, for their special behoof and satisfaction! To which we say, Most certainly not. You knowingly and contumaciously pleased yourselves in contempt of the law, and you have no more claim to be freed from the penalties of misconduct than any other transgressors. Indeed so clear is the case of these shameless parties, that if an act repealing the present law were to be passed to-morrow, equity demands that they should be exempted from the abrogating provisions by making the statute exclusively prospective.

COMPULSORY EMIGRATION-STRATHAIRD, Skye. SCOTTISH
PROPRIETORS AND THEIR FACTORS.

(Communicated by Mr Mulock to the Northern Ensign.)

WE promised our readers some continuous details with reference to the proceedings at Strathaird, and we now hasten to fulfil our pledge. In entering more and more closely into a subject which involves the relation of landlord and tenant, we repeat, for the last time, our indignant disclaimer of the charge that we are endeavouring to weaken or impugn the rights of property. No,

no.

Ours is a Christian championship of universal equity, and we feel ourselves bound to vindicate the real rights of misled oppressors, even whilst we plead earnestly the cause of the oppressed. It is the abuse, the open, or, what is still more to be dreaded, the flagitiously-furtive abuse of the rights of property that we boldly expose and conscientiously condemn. All legal rights we unfeignedly respect; but the system now pursued by the bulk of Highland, and we might add, many Lowland proprietors, is utterly unsanctioned by any known law. The violence, the exaction, the subtle ravage perpetrated on many a noble and fair estate, are not the proper operation of the law of Scotland,—they are the wicked fruit of an organised injustice carried on under colour of law.