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- EXTRACTS. ! ?????ERARY…

QUIEJ SUNDAY IN A WELSH VALLEY.…

- - I SPIRIT OF THE PRESS.…

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I SPIRIT OF THE PRESS. THE PRESENT PARLIAMENT AND THE ) TORY PARTY. (From the Daily Telegraph.) I THE hero of Frankenstin" called a monster into being, and then did his utmost to destroy the craation of his own unbridled audacity. The Tories, by a gigantic effort, summoned the present Parliament into life, and now are exerting all their powers to put an end to its existence. Viewed as political prophets, they have hit upon a safe line of vaticination. The weatherwise sage who announced that there mast be rain to-morrow did prove correct at the end of a month, and then declared, with justifiable pride, that he had been able to predict the event thirty days beforehand. So, when a dissolu- tion of Parliament takes place, our Conservative friends will be able to say, like the aggravating woman in Captain Marryat's Poor Jack, that they had to d us so." It is a prophecy which must come true at last. And, as it is probable that the present Legislature can- not last the full nominal term of its existence, we shall be certain to be told-when the inevitable event does occur—that the righteous indignation of an outraged country has consigned an unworthy Legislature to pre- mature extinction. If you could go on paying double or quits perpetually, you would assuredly win at rouge- et-noir; and, happily, on the political gambling-table there is no inconvenient maximum to disturb calcula- tions based on an infallible martingale. Some day or other the existing Parliament and Ministry will be num- bered among the things that were and we will give the organs of the Tory party full credit for having proclaim- ed their conviction of this truth with laudable and un- tiring pertinacity. But, having given honour where honour is due, we are unable to discover what peculiar justification there is for raising this cry at the present moment. We are by no means enamoured of the Parliament which owes its existence to the insane desire of Lord Derby and Mr Disraeli to maintain themselves in power for a few additional weeks. It orig inated in an imposture, and its tenor of life has not proved nn- worthy of its origin. If the Tories desire a new Legis- lature, so do we; and, for our own part, we have most assuredly no hesitation in testing by stern experience the strength of that grand Conservative reaction the triumph of which has been dinned into our ears for many a weary month. But, as a matter of speculative curiosity, we are anxious to know what conceivable ad- vantage any dissolution of Parliament can be expected to bring to the Conservatives. At this moment the Tory party enjoys all the advantages which, in the works of modern French novelists, are assigned to the femmes incomprises of romance. Nobody understands them nobody appreciates what they might do under more favourable circumstances nobody recognises the depth of passionate devotion and self-sacrificing affection which lie buried within their bosoms. Now. any reader of this class of fiction is aware that the one thing the model heroine dreads is an opportunity for testing the reality of her heroism. As long as circumstances forbid her displaying her full capacity, she is certain of admirntton, of sympathy and love. But if the unfortu- nate obstacle in the shape of an unsympathetic husband get removed by chance, Ariadne is by no oceans over- anxious to take refuge in the arms of Thesus. Now, unless we are greatly mistaken, the leaders of the Tory fiction have no desire to exchange the characters of blighted beings for more practical and commonplace parts. Testamentary dispositions cannot, happily, be altered after the decease of the testator and there Mr Disraeli has no cause to apprehend any change of opinion in the eccentric individual who, like the Indian uncle of comedy, has enriched him with unex- pected wealth. Unless tite remaining members of the defunct Derby Ministry consider that a return to office is likely to stimulate millionaires in search of an heir gonovcllly to follow tho example of Mr Disraeli's bene- factress, it is difficult to see why they should desire another brief spell of Tory Administration. Out of office they can grumble to their heart's content, criticise the conduct of the Ministry, and explain to their own satisfaction—if to nobody else's-how very much better they could have managed matters if they had only had the opportunity. In office they would be expected to do something; and yet there is nothing that they can do. After all, whenever Parliament is dissolved, the Opposi- tion must find some cry with which to go to the country. As candidates on the hustings they cannot content them- selves with approving the very policy their opponents have inaugurated. We have had occasion before now to criticise the dilatoriness of the Ministry in introduc- ing measures of home reform but of this we are certain, that, however little in that way we have recently got from Lord Palmerston, we should get decidedly from Lord Derby In domestic politics the Tories are con- demned beforehand to a system of inaction. The country will not allow them to move backwards, and their party will not permit them to move forwards. Everything as it is. and no change of any kind—this is the only principle of home politics on which the Consfrvatives can take their stand. A weaker platform was never de- vised to support a more, ponderous organization. The domain of foreign affairs presents greater scope for safe declamation. Any fool, according to the dictum of the great lexicographer, may ask a question which takes a wise man te answer. In something of the same spirit we may remark that there is no acumen needed to point out defects in any conceivable line of action. We have no wish to endorse in every respect the policy which Ministers have adopted with regard to our foreign relations but we can truly aver that there is no single instance in which we should have been better off had we followed the counsels of her Majesty's Op- position. It is all very well to declaim about the British lion; but we want to know in plain English, what alteration in our national policy are the firm of Derby, Disraeli, Malmesbury, and Co., prepared to re- commend to the country as the reward of their instal- ment in power ? Are they going to propose an aban- donment of that neutrality we have maintained with so much resolution and dignity, and an armed espousal of the Southern Confederacy ? Are the Greeks to be taught the prtctical truth of the lesson that an effer should be accepted at once, and is the protectorate of the Septinsnlar Republic to be restored Again as one of the brightest jewels in the British diadem ? No grace for Greece, howaver excellent as a spacimen of allitera- tion, would scarcely serve as a rallying cry for the country constituencies. Or is the Tory Minister to be the Joshua who is to lead us in the land of promise, on which the Napoleonic Moses has gazed from the heights of Mount Pisgah ? Mr Disraeli would undoubtedly shine at a Congress without a programme and there, if anywhere, on mortal earth, the Asian mystery might be revealed to the nations. But even the temptation of seeing the statemanship of Tancred displayed upon a world-wide stage would scarcely reconcile thfl British public to having their national interests committed to -the decision of an European conclave presided over by that illustrieus prince" whom the ex-Chancellor of the Excheiuer delights to honour. The cause of the de- posed Dukes of Tuscany and Modena, and of the perse- cuted Pope, is not one which even Lord Malmesbury I can take up with any chance of popular support. Den- mark is the best card perhaps in the Tory hand, but for a solitary trump it is a very weak one. We are not II going to war for the common constitution, nor are we about to embroil ourselves with Germany in order to secure Schleswig peasants being confirmed in the I Danish language. Death to the Augustenburgs, and long life to the Glucksburgs," however valuable as a de- vice for a medieval romance, is not available as a rally- ing cry for an English election. Altogether, we should recommend the Tories to calm their impatience for a speedy dissolution of Parliament. Something, as Mr Micawber hoped, may turn up, if they will only wait.

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- -FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE. I

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE. I

HUNTING APPOINTMENTS.

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OBITUARY FOR 1863.

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