30 MAY 1868, Page 2

Mr. Charles Buxton, M.P. for East Surrey, has written an

admirable letter, — a letter admirable alike in courage, tone, and temper,—to a constituent who had remonstrated with him for giving 300/. to the Jamaica Committee to assist them in putting Mr. Eyre on his trial for the alleged breaches of the law by which he injured various innocent persons in Jamaica. Mr. Buxton points out that he objected to the charge of murder, and declined to subscribe while Mr. Eyre was prosecuted on that charge. Now, however, he cannot resist the force of the representation that acts of violence so wholesale as Mr. Eyre's ought at least to be investigated by a judicial tribunal, and not in a mere newspaper controversy ; and therefore, and without prejudging the case, and at the risk of an obloquy which he entirely anticipates, though he says that he shrinks from it, he subscribes to the fund for procur- ing this judicial investigation. Nothing could be better than the letter. It is so good that it has excited Mr. Hamilton Hume and some others to fury, though they can find nothing to impugn except Mr. Buxton's assertion that "it is notorious that stuns vastly beyond all possible costs," are at Mr. Eyre's disposal. This innocent statement, which we interpret only as a tribute to the known generosity of the many bearers of great and splendid names paraded as Mr. Eyre's supporters, is distorted into an attempt to stop the flow of subscriptions into Mr. Hamilton Hume's treasury. No charge could be more silly and artificial. As if a British public were ever so willing to give to a poor cause as a rich ! Mr. Buxton, who knows much of the working of all sorts of charities, well knows that the richer your repute, the richer will be the offerings you receive.