WHERE TO DRAW THE LINE.
AN illustration is furnished to Lord St. Leonards as to the neces- sity for one of the most valuable of the new provisions in his bills, by the appearance of an unfortunate gentleman at the Bow Street Police-office yesterday, to answer a charge of sending a threaten- ing letter to Prince Albert. This was, a misdescription : for, ex- cept a very vague and imaginative suggestion that "power will be mine," a hint that he was "not to be trifled with," and a demand for cash, there is no intimation of a threat. Mr. Edwin Bates, it seems, although an artist by profession, is well known at Bow Street; yet overt as his qualifications for review under Lord St. Leonards's bill may be, it is said that he always manages to appear sane in the presence of a medical man. The ease is not sin- gular; diagnostic sanity and wild propositions are often conjoined.
The poor gentleman summarily asks, as "a man of genius," for 1000/. from the Privy purse, in order that he may "go to the Con- tinent to deposit specifications of the great patent new engine and motive power in hydrogen inventions, that will greatly change the art of war, and keep the peace of the world by the love of man- kind." Now, what is this but the very proposition of the Peace Association, which would treat peace as a manufacture, promote the love of mankind by steam, and put down war with capital?
" Rational acts," says the correspondent of the Prince, "are not always on the side of royalty "; a profound truth, not limited to royalty. This unfortunate gentleman is in a minority of one, with all the world against him—as other far-seeing men. have been be- fore him. Last night we saw a Liberal Ministry in Oppoutton- for the placing of all the Ministerial Members marked how far Ministers had drifted from themselves. Possibly they may have some unrevealed "hydrogen invention" to set to rights out-of- joint India ; yet when Lord John finds himself with his own sup- porters arrayed against him and Sir Robert Inglis by his side, he may well ask himself whether he could sustain his examination under a medical man. Mr. Jardine, however, detains Mr. Bates, and Ministers are at large.
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