2 MAY 1857, Page 15

THE FINAL SEARCH FOR FRANKLIN'S REMAINS. LADY FRANK= has been

left by the Government to finish by herself the search for the remains of her husband and his comrades. The Government, which last year "considered" her request, temporized, and procrastinated, has this year refused. It has refused absolutely ; not granting even a ship, though the Resolute lay ready, nor the stores, though they are packed and are the surplus of past expeditions. The official plea, repeated with parrotlike hardness, is that there would be no useful result, and that there would be " inhumanity " in sending out more people where there has already been so much suffering and death. In vain the reply of the highest scientific authorities—Arctic travellers like M'Clintoek or Collinson, accomplished geographers like Murchison or Beaufort—that some of Franklin's companions may survive, that tho records may be founds and that to finish the survey would be useful to science: in vain the reply, that the whole area of the space to be searched is limited, and as easy of access as Iceland or Christiania—vessels having gone out to it, and returned, without the loss of a single life ; that there has been a low rate of mortality in such expeditions—under l per cent since 1818; and that all the men serving, from the commander downwards, would be volunteers. The obstinate resolve is sustained by a "reason" which is as deaf to refutation as it is false in fact. Probably the show of obstinacy is the harder from the very circumstance that some members of the Government arc not unfavourable to Lady Franklin's appeal.

Be that as it may, she suffers. She is left to do the work herself; and she does not shrink, She devotes to it the remains of her fortune. And the object is worth the sacrifice. The sole question is, whether Lady Franklin is to be left to beggar herself, unaided. On all practical points, the gentlemen by whom she is supported really represent the country more worthily than the officials represent it ; and it is to be hoped that they understand the feeling of the community better. They have explicitly put that question, by the medium of an appeal to the public, which appears in our advertising columns. The answer ought to be national. Sir Roderick Murchison has began it, with a hundred pounds ; at the first holding out of his hand—" open-handed" in both senses—he collected some seven hundred more, and other hundreds followed speedily. There are men in the country who can beat Sir Roderick in length of purse, though not in handsomeness of spirit ; and there are very many thousands who could give their shilling each.