Lord Palmerston, who was enthusiastically received, had little to say
at the Mansion House on Monday. He received, he said, not only the highest personal gratification from the Lord Mayor's splendid entertainments, but " acquaintances are formed on these occasions which ripen afterwards into friendship, and it is well known that the transactions of business are made much more easy when those who meet to carry them on know and like each other." Friendship may add interest to such transactions, but scarcely, we should think, materially facilitate them. But Lord Palmerston was not unnaturally a little at a loss for remarks. He lamented the "struggles of the most lamentable character, and scenes which make us shudder for humanity," "in the far West and distant East ;" but while Lord Palmerston's west longitude stretched across the Atlantic, his east longitude conveniently stopped at the mas- sacres of Warsaw, and took no account of the still more terrible " scene which makes us shudder for humanity " in Japan. He ex- pressed his wish that Russia might at length "cease to pursue" her present course in Poland, but did not even affect any intention of further interference. In short, the Premier's speech was pacific, and culminated in congratulating London, a little inopportunely, that bills are drawn upon it to pay debts all over the world—a fact of which the City is just now, with the diminishing bullion in the Bank and a threatening of 7 per cent., painfully conscious.
