6 FEBRUARY 1864, Page 2

Under the weight of honours which the Townley case has

showered upon the administrative capacity of Sir George Grey that great statesman's official self-possession will probably collapse. The Derby magistrates have this week commented upon his apology in a tone of able irony, while the medical authorities of Bethlehem •Hospital have reported that Townley is perfectly sane, and must be returned to imprisonment. " Townley," say the Derby magistrates, " is withdrawn from justice by your order, founded upon a certificate which was not intended by Townley's solicitor, when he asked permission to obtain it, nor by Mr. Mundy, who granted that permission, nor by two of the four gentlemen who signed it, to have that effect,"—to all of which the Home Secretary will, of course, reply that it was no business of his to see that the certifying parties understood their duties. If all the prisoners in England were remitted to lunatic asylums under like certificates, it would not concern Sir George Grey. As the authorities of Bethlehem Hospital now regard this man as perfectly sane, Sir George Grey remits him back to prison after his little visit, and commutes his punish- ment from death to penal servitude for life, for which we fear Townley will not be very grateful. It only remains that another quartet of magistrates and surgeons should certify his insanity to compel Sir George Grey,—so, at least, he professes to think,— to send back the unhappy shuttlecock to Bedlam, and this process must go on, at least on Sir George Grey's theory, on which he himself is absolutely without discretion in the matter, till the absurd Act, 3 and 4 Victoria, cap. 54, has been repealed, as Mr. Brand leads us to hope it soon will be.