At home we have the standing subjects, but they appear
in a more animated aspect. The Reform Bill, Mr. Bright at Bir- mingham, Dr. Cullen, Mr. Pope Hennessy, two Parliamen- tary elections—these, or incidents very like them, have been the elements of our domestic news for some weeks past ; but there is a sense of the coming Parliament in the political breeze which lends lire and force to these 'anticipatory actions.
Mr. Bright's speech, which is sternly assailed by a local paper as being " quite unnecessary" and very uninteresting, was little more than a reecho of his speech in London, with some differ- ences in detail, but with a similarity of a very peculiar kind amounting to something more than a difference. It has been remarked that Mr. Bright is mild in town, morose in the coun- try, acquiring his strongest tone of all in:the excitable atmosphere of his constituency. But this time Mr. Bright is as moderate in Birmingham as he was in London. His renewed adhesion to a bill based upon a 10/. franchise in counties and a 5/. rating in towns, has been taken by a contemporary, who is understood to have semi-official authority, as evidence that Lord John Russell will propose such a Reform Bill in the opening session. At all events, the party led by Mr. Bright thinks it necessary to join in supporting any presentable bill, though it should be moderate enough for the leaders of the Whig party.
Cullenism is quite unchanged in its latest manifesto,—a grand speech by Dr. Cullen, attacking all kinds of English parties and the Emperor Napoleon, with the usual wholesale assertions that the Government of the Pope was entirely benevolent, virtuous, liberal, &c. ; that of his enemies illiberal, vicious, and criminal. Mr. Pope Hennessy writes a letter to Dublin, protesting against any address from the Catholic Laity to Lord Palmerston, on the ground that Mr.: Hennessy entirely deprecates the Premier's interference in Italy,—as, according to his view, all interference ought to be left to Austria. While the Ultramontane party of Ireland. is thus exemplifying the extravagant lengths to which it can go, a little incident at Leeds will strengthen the repugnances not only of Englishmen but of the respectable Irish Catholics ; the " respectable Irish Catholics" being a class against whom Mr. Hennessy lodges his most distinct protest. At Leeds a well-intentioned, pious old gentleman amongst the working classes, has been charged with the abduction of his grand- daughter, in order to her forcible conversion ; and he does not deny the charge, only asserting that he acts under the authority of her father's will, which is of course disputed. This humble burlesque of the Mortara case is made public precisely at the time when we have the narrative of the Father Inquisitor's arrest at Bologna and his kneeling on the pavement to return thanks to Heaven as " the first martyr in the holy Catholic cause."
The chief election is that of Sir Francis Goldsmid as successor to Sir Henry Keating in the seat for Reading. Sir Francis is of Hebrew descent and Liberal principles ; he was opposed by a thoroughgoing Tory, Mr. Benson, who tried to get in on the ground of opposition to that very race from whom the late Con- servative Government helped to remove the last remaining dis- abilities. Either the Bensons of the Conservative party are per- fectly insincere in their Liberal professions, wishing to undo them at every opportunity ; or, really agreeing with the Liberal opinions of the present day, they keep up a pretended Toryism for the mere sake of a party distinction. In either case, the " dodge" will not do ; as Mr. Benson found to his cost.
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