We are all a little apt to grumble at the
slow progress of our own opinions, but sometimes one is suddenly struck by the marvellous rapidity with which the best of them make their way. Yesterday week the House of Lords read a second time without a division, and almost without a remark, a new Prison Ministers' Bill which is to supersede the ineffectual Permissive Bill now in force. Lord Morley stated that the present Bill was ineffectual, that as regards the Catholic prisoners, though priests were allowed to visit them, they were seldom salaried, and seldomer allowed to perform a mass in the gaol, whereas by the present Bill the Home Secretary was to be authorized to enforce the appointment and payment of ministers of any religious persuasion in gaols in any gaol where there may be more than 10 prisoners of such persuasion, and such ministers were to be placed on the same footing as the Church-of-England chaplains. Lord Shaftesbury asked a question about the mass ; the Duke of Richmond, as well as several other Peers, expressed warm approval, and the Bill, which is to overrule the bigotry of theMiddlesex magistrates, passed without the slightest opposition. There was a time when it would have been called a Bill for licensing idolatry and blasphemy,—as very likely it will be called by Mr. Whalley,—and fought through the House of Lords with the utmost bitterness. But whether society moves forward or not, it certainly slips along on easier wheels,—with less grinding and clashing of the different elements against each other.
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