NEW TRANSPORTATION MOVEMENT.
le transportation is to be renewed there is at least one party in the country that will highly approve of the measure—will, indeed, most probably pass a vote of thanks to Ministers. We may infer as much from the meeting at Farringdon Hall, on Tuesday last, under the presidency of Lord Carnarvon. It was a representative assembly; the gentlemen being, as it were, members for the ticket-of-leave constituency. The class were determined, Lord emery= said, "for the future to lead honest and industrious lives : many of them sincerely desired to carry out that laudable purpose, but many others fell from their good intentions, and yielded to temptation." The reasons are explained by several of the speakers in the hall; and the object of the meeting was to ascertain how those " difficulties " could be overcome. One honourable member was "certain that the best part on his elms would be glad to get employment, if the police and the publie would only let them " : but there is the difficulty of the ticketof-leave. "It was no more good to a man," said another honourable member, "than a previous conviction at the Old Bailey ; it only throws him back. The best plan is to throw it into the fire, and then try to get on by your own exertion." Both these speakers, as well as others, had certificates from their employers, that they were truly respectable ticket-of-leave men ; their conduct at the meeting showed that they are capable of transacting business ; but they are held down by the ticket. If they are suspected to possess that which should be their certificate of safety, they are cast out of work. The case is a hard one, and they all agree in asking a rescue from their position. Necessity is a comparative word. The nobleman thinks that necessary which the tradesman looks upon as a superfluity. The ticket-of-leave man considers that to be necessary which many a working man in the country will consider to be luxury. One of the gentlemen at the meeting, whose reputation is his misfortune, avows candidly that he will not starve ; but evidently, in comparison with many, an industrious man, he marks "starvation " at rather a high point on the scale of maintenance. He finds that he cannot live on less than three shillings a day ; which being added together makes eighteen shillings a week. Now we happen to know of working men who do manage, by some miracle which we cannot understand, to support large families on less than that amount. So that if an income of two-and-ninepence a day constitutes actual starvation, a large portion of the working classes might immediately take to garotting and other compulsory modes of levying an income. What the ticket-of-leave man desires as essential to his existence and comfort is—absence of the police, non-surveillance of the public, and three shillings a day as the minimum of income. The conditions are difficult in this country ; so he petitions to be transported. The ticket-of-leave in the Colonies is his desire. This is easily understood. In the Colonies, with their broad waste lands, and scanty population on the borders of settled districts, the public can exercise a very little control over the ticketof-leave man. Near the bush he is independent of the police ; or if the police interfere too much, what more easy than to silence the troublesome follower with a life-preserver. Easy circumstances, a choice of avocation, or of no avocation, and independence of the police, are the conditions which the ticket-of-leave man desires ; he thinks that he can obtain them in the Colonies, and he is right ; send him thither, and those restrictions which at present control him will be absent. None of the speakers made any reference to the Falkland Islands as a penal settlement, or a prison. Of course they would not prefer residence in a prison of limited extent; but they scarcely anticipate that Government will send them to an immense distance simply for the purpose of being confined within walls ; because the seine confmement can be effected in this country without the cost of a passage. If they are to be confined simply on an island, no doubt gentlemen so enterprising would calculate on the chances of boating expeditions, with freedom in prospect. Free emigration is what they desire.
New South Wales, Victoria, and Iran Diemen's Land,' give us exactly the same account of the freedom which the convict at large enjoys. The' proposal for a new transportation has received valuable sanction from the important meeting at Farringdon Hall; it is only on the point of expediency that convicts and colonists have entertained views totally opposed to each other.
A. COUNTY FOR A GUEST.—A local paper, the 24"otting1em Review, describes two days' "festivities at Clumber," which might carry one back to old times, from the magnitude, breadth, and heartiness of the welcome. "Reinstated in an important family dignity" as Lord-Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire, the Duke of Newcastle celebrated that event, and the majority of his son, the Earl of Lincoln, by entertaining the noble and gentle families of the county at a feast and ball ; and next day the Duke entertained his tenantry and tradespeople. The hospitalities of both days were on the grandest scale. Not content with the easy imitation of the ancient usage, a boar's head in the centre of the table," the style of old profusion was adapted to modern refinement. For the first day, seven hundred invitations were issued, and nearly six hundred persons were present. "Stabling was provided for three hundred horses." "Champagne flowed like spring water." When the guests began to depart, at three in the morning, and while they were waiting for their carriages mulled claret from an immense Crimean vase was dispensed to the ladles, and the gentlemen were armed against the cold with hot punch. The hospitality was crowned by the most genial spirit. The Duke was everywhere among his guests ; he danced much ; and opened the ball with the beautiful and accomplished Lady Elizabeth Yorke," daughter of the Earl of Hardwicke,—whose loveliness manifestly exercised as much power in Nottingham as it did in Hampshire, when it took possession of the gallant Merrimac officer. The last carriage did not roll away till five o'clock, all in admirably ordered-regularity; save that one heedless coachman, deviating from the track, drove his wearied passengers about the park for an hour, lost in the mazes of the noble domain.
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