THE MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE'S JOBS.
IT was announced last week, that on Sunday the 18th the Marquis of LANSDOWNE had taken his departure froin Dover for Ostend. The Lord President of the Council left much unfinished public business to the care of his colleagues. The Slave-Trade, Bank of Ireland, and the provincial Police Bills, remained. for discussion and enactment. Mm-. SPRING RACE was in the very crisis of his finan- cial throes. Many " odds and ends" were to be taken up; and intelligence of the utmost importance might have arrived from India, Syria, and Turkey. Common decency, respect to his Sore. reign and to Parliament, ought to have kept the President of the Council at his post at least till the Queen's prorogation-speech had been settled. But Lord LANSDOWNE cared for none of these things. He waited till the Shannon Bill was safe, and off he went. Very particular pains did his Lordship take to pilot this bill through Parliament—and pour cause. Lord MONTEAGLE has suffered the brunt of public censure ; but bad we been aware of Lord Las- Dowses paramount interest in the job, we should have taken care to direct a portion of it towards that noble and grasping personage. The Marquis of LANSDOWNE is, we understand, the real father of the project ; having in 1834 put forward his late son, the Earl of KERRY, to moot it to the House of Commons. A Committee was appointed, of which Lord KERRY was chairman ; and the
Report was drawn up at Lansdowne House. The result of this movement — cautiously conducted — is the Shannon grant of 600,0001.; no small portion of which will go to enrich the Lans- downe family. That this must happen, is evident from the fact that the land on the west side of the Shannon, at Wellesley Bridge, and thence stretching westward for a considerable distance, belongs
to the Marquis. The enhancement of his property by the building of Wellesley Bridge, which cost the public 100,000/., must. have
been enormous. It is the principal highway from the city of
Limerick, with its 60,000 inhabitants, into the very heart of an estate, previously not connected directly with the city. His Lord- ship understands the management of these affairs. The KCILM.STO
and Bantry road and bridge was one of his smaller recreations. This road cuts through another of his estates, and, at an expense to the public of about 30,0001, brings an immense tract of country to the very park-gates of Lansdowne Lodge. Should the Radwal scheme for this part of Ireland succeed—and we may be sure it
Inns only been postponed, not abandoned—another immense outlay of English money will be made on the property of this indefatigable jobber. The fashion is to praise the personal disinterestedness of modern
statesmen. Bribes and peculation are unknown in our day. Men in ffice eel a lofty
disdain of pelf; and it has been given out tha SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY o f the 1VIargeis of Lessor:ea declines the receipt of salary. But he an well afford to despise a paltry 2,0001. or 3,000/. a year, who uses the influence of high office to carry Shannon Bills. The Marquis belongs to a wiser generation that Ihitur Dingoes. Ile keeps on the right side of the law,. ,and moves not except as "the Act directs." Therein lies the difference between old peculators and modern jobbers. The former were coarse practitioners, as in- ferior to their successors, as tine burglar or tbot pad is inferior to the accomplished and plausible gentleman who ruins you at itcarte.
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