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services, in bringing Austria to side with. the Allied Powers against Napoleon, would induce the English Ministry to depart from the established rule. Our regulations on this point have not injured our influence, and we feel sure that, if the expenditure of our representatives was restricted to moderate limits, they would not be less respected, nor the just influence of this country be weakened. We regret to observe, that both Lord Stratford de Redcliffe and Lord John Russell said, before the Committee of the House of Commons on the Diplomatic service, that our representatives ought to live in the same manner, and at the same rate, as the highest class of society in the country in which they reside. It appears to us that this statement may lead to very erroneous impressions. The persons referred to possess country houses and estates which necessitate a large expenditure; and it appears to us that our ministers, instead of being provided with an income to enable them to vie with this class of society, should have an income sufficient to enable them to maintain a position in town equal to that of the ministers of state at the place of their residence. A house should also be provided at Government expense; it should be taken on lease for a term of years, and not be the actual property of Government; for, at Paris, where the embassy-house has been purchased, the cost of keeping it in repair would have sufficed to build it several times over. Constantinople, and other eastern capitals, are the only exceptions to this rule.

The difference in position between an ambassador and a minister is, that the former is always enabled to obtain an audience of the sovereign, and to bring matters to his personal knowledge, whereas a minister has not this privilege. It is therefore of consequence to be represented by an ambassador at the court of an absolute monarch, but the same necessity does not exist at places where the administration is in the hands of a cabinet responsible to a chamber elected by the people.

Though we consider that our representatives abroad are sufficiently paid, we must say that the secretaries of embassy and legation, whose salaries, as before stated, range from 1,000l. to 4007. are underpaid. A man must serve for many years before he attains to this rank, and when he obtains this step in promotion, he has to look forward to another long period of service before he can expect further promotion. Of course there are instances of persons who are pushed rapidly forward; but this is the ordinary case, and we are therefore inclined to think that the pay of secretaries ought to be sufficient for the maintenance of themselves and their families. Nor would this involve any great additional expense; for, by the universally recognised rules of the diplomatic service, secretaries are not expected to give entertainments, or to attempt to vie with their chiefs. At the present time, attachés, when they receive a salary, receive sufficient remuneration. The Committee of the House of Commons recommend that a salary shall always be given after four years' service. This proposal would certainly remove the injustice, or rather positive dishonesty, of the present system, by which a young man may have to work for ten years without receiving any remuneration. In no profession does a young man support himself at first starting, and there is no reason why an exception should be made in favour of the diplomatic service; but we think it would be better if a salary of 100l. a year was given for the first four years of service. Paid servants are better than unpaid; and even this moderate salary, by opening out the diplomatic career, would tend to obviate the injurious effect which the existing system has, by excluding many men on account of the high property qualifications, by no means necessary, which is now so strictly enforced; while it would have the further good effect of checking the extravagance now so prevalent.

The rule as to diplomatic pensions is, that no person can obtain one until fifteen years have elapsed since the date

of his first commission, ten of which must have been passed in active service. But, as commissions are not given to attachés, the time previous to an appointment as secretary is not counted in computing pensions, and it was of course felt to be a great injustice that so long a period as ten years or more should be quite thrown away in this respect. The committee have, therefore, very fairly proposed that a commission should be given after four years' service; and, further, that the title of "Paid Attaché" should be abolished, and different classes of secretaries formed, in order to place our diplomatic service on the same footing as that of other countries.

The committee also represent, that the regulation by which half the salary of ministers is deducted during the whole term they may be absent from their posts, presses with undue severity on them. It would certainly seem that they should be encouraged to visit England as often as is compatible with the proper discharge of their duties, for it is of essential service to a diplomatist to keep up an accurate acquaintance with the state of public feeling in his own country. Secretaries and attachés have no deduction made for the first two months that they are absent from their post in each year; and it seems proper that the same rule should apply to ministers, especially as the expenses incidental to carrying on the work at missions abroad are included in the accounts of "extraordinaries," and do not fall on the minister himself. These accounts, it must also be stated, have increased largely of late years, and call for serious attention and revision.

As the clerks of the Foreign Office are supposed to hold a position equivalent to the members of the diplomatic corps, many persons have advocated a complete amalgamation between the two services, and the committee favour the idea so far as to recommend that individuals in each should be permitted to exchange posts. But the authorities who would have most weight in deciding such questions are opposed to the

scheme, although they acknowledge the advantages which would result if the members of the two branches of the service had respectively more experience of the working of the other branch. There appears to be a rule by which two clerks of the Foreign Office are to be employed abroad. It is said to be "negligently observed;" but, if it were so applied as to enable all the clerks to go abroad in rotation, instead of the same person being sent repeatedly, and if members of diplomatic corps were required to attend for a longer period at the office instead of only for three months on their first appointment, according to the present practice, the advantages of both systems would be secured, while the disadvantages of each would be obviated.

It now remains to be seen how our diplomatic service practically works. An ambassador should be a man well acquainted with political life, and should possess the qualities necessary to ensure success in his profession rather than a great amount of book learning. Success in diplomacy depends, chiefly, on individual talent and experience. A diplomatist should have a great command of temper; he should not be too ready to suspect evil, and, if he does so, must not too clearly show it; he should pay particular attention to the interests of those with whom he is negotiating, and be able to distinguish between their language and their intentions. He must not only be able to reason well and soundly, but his manner must be conciliatory, and equally so whether discussing points of difference or questions on which a perfect understanding exists. The great art is, to make others adopt our own views, by putting them in such a manner that they may be seized and put forward as their own by those whom we wish to adopt them. It is undoubtedly true, that a man new to the service may succeed perfectly in a particular case; but, in order to obtain general success, a man must, as in every other profession, have devoted to it the best years of his life. When we consider how frequently the decision of very im

portant questions, sometimes even the determination of peace or war, may depend on the personal character and manner of an ambassador, we see the paramount necessity of the qualifications which can only be acquired by the experience of many years of service. Much has been said against secret diplomacy; but secrecy is, to some extent, indispensable, as will be apparent on calling to mind the nature of the duties an ambassador has to perform. If it were known that everything which was said to an English representative would be made public, we may be sure that he would learn very little which it would be of use for him to know. Even our present system of laying papers before Parliament has its disadvantages; but great care is taken in preparing papers to obviate any ill consequences to persons who give our ministers information. A comparison between our diplomatic service and that of foreign countries, as well as an examination into the political tendencies of the diplomacy of different nations, would be an interesting subject; but it is one which would take more space than we can now devote to the subject, and we will, therefore, proceed to make some remarks on the consular service.

A consul, except at a few such places as Warsaw and Venice, is essentially a commercial agent. At large ports consuls have much work to do, having to watch over all matters connected with British trade, and to settle the numerous disputes which arise between masters of vessels and their crews. An English consul has to furnish full information on all points relating to commerce; to make an annual trade report, accompanied by various returns of statistics, as well as to announce tariff changes, the prices of different articles of produce and merchandise, the rates of exchange, &c. He has also to send home copies of commercial laws and decrees, quarantine and navigation notices, and of all other public documents bearing on these questions. These reports are published from time to time by the Board of Trade. Consuls have also to perform notarial acts; to superintend British chapels and

hospitals; and to solemnise and register marriages. Consuls were originally paid by fees, which they were authorised by Act of Parliament to charge on performing duties required of them. The appointment was generally conferred on some respectable English merchant resident at the place where it was thought necessary to station a consul; and in this manner the consular establishment was a very slight burden on the country. But subsequently it was considered expedient to appoint non-trading consuls with a salary, and lately the House of Commons' Committee recommended that fees should be received on account of Government, and that consular salaries should be further increased. We fear that the desire to extend ministerial patronage had much to do with both these alterations. At certain places, which we will briefly specify, consuls should be paid, and they should receive adequate salaries; but in all other cases we do not consider that the services to be performed justify the additional burden thus laid on the tax-payers at home.

1. Places where consuls have political as well as commercial functions, such as Venice.

2. Places where consuls have to exercise magisterial and police duties, in consequence of peculiar powers vested in them by treaties with certain countries, such as China, Japan, Turkey, &c.

3. Large sea-ports, such as New York, and Marseilles, where the consul would have enough to do to attend to his official duties.

4. Places where, on account of the slave-trade, it would be inexpedient that the English consul should be mixed up with commercial affairs, such as ports in Africa, Cuba, &c.

At all other places we think it would be better if consuls were unpaid. Merchants of respectability are always to be found ready to hold the appointment, and the fees they receive (which are now very moderate) would be sufficient to defray their office expenses, postage, &c. Consuls are examined on their first appointment, and are required

1. To show a correct knowledge of English.

2. To be able to write and speak French correctly and fluently.

3. To possess a colloquial knowledge of the language of the places they are appointed to; Italian being taken for Mediterranean, and German for Baltic ports.

4 and 5. To show a knowledge of commercial law and of arithmetic. The limit of age is twenty-five to fifty, and they are required to attend for three months at the Foreign Office to learn the forms of official business.

Such are our diplomatic and consular services. The authorities at home give

a most favourable account of their efficiency, and declare that they were never in better working order. The examination system is stated to have had already a good effect, although persons who have entered under it have not yet been placed in trying or prominent positions. Our Government appears to be served abroad quite as well as other Governments, if not better; there are in its service men of great ability; and, if promotion was guided more by real merit, and less by other considerations, we need not fear the superior skill of the diplomatists of any other nation.

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THE subterranean caverns of America, caverns many miles in extent, and uncheered by the feeblest ray of light, are found, nevertheless, to be tenanted by animals of various races. These hermits cannot in strictness be described as eyeless, for in some may be traced rudimentary organs of vision, but which have, according to Mr. Darwin, become more or less absorbed pending the lapse of successive generations-who have slowly migrated from the outer world, deeper and deeper into the sunless reeesses of the cavern. Some have been supposed to regain a feeble power of vision, after living for a few days in the light. But a sort of compensation for the loss of sight is found to be given, in a strange increase of supplementary instincts, and the augmented sensitiveness of other organs.1

There seems to be no good reason for restricting this kindly law to the brute creation. Had the dungeon of Bonni

1 See Mr. Gosse's interesting account of the blind Fauna of Caverns-Romance of Natural History, p. 81.

No. 27.

-VOL. V.

PRISONER OF CHILLON.

vard been his birthplace, the complaint put into his mouth by the poet, and which we have taken for our motto, would certainly have lost half its force; for where an abnormal state of existence has been the birth-lot of any creature, Nature, in pity, makes the best amends she can, or at least schools the sufferer into a patient endurance of evils, which she is powerless otherwise to control.

But for the influence of some such gentle discipline, how shall we account for the uncomplaining fortitude (greater than mere Stoic endurance) of the aborigines of the London streets, of whose lifelong condition Byron's verse is only too closely descriptive? What a study in natural history is the genuine London child, excluding, we need not say, from that term the children of those whose arrival in the West-end constitutes the vernal epoch popularly known as the "London Season." We would here be understood as confining our attention to the child of the streets, the offspring of the back alleys, courts, and slums; visible semper et ubique-at all times

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when a halfpenny can be lured from the passenger-in all places in which mud more particularly abounds, for nud is the element on which he thrives, like the Spartan on his black broth, a compound probably not very dissimilar in colour and consistency. In mud he eats, drinks, washes, plays, and sleeps; his favourite spot for a picnic appears to be the sewer. Not long ago, a band of infant brigands were discovered by the police quartered in a fastness-no other than the subterranean tunnel of the Fleet ditch, whose atmosphere would probably have killed any other living creature, the rat, perhaps, excepted.

The stranger may, within five minutes of his arrival in London, select an example for study. Say he arrives from the country by one of the southern railway termini, and would pass over Waterloo Bridge. His progress will be heralded by an apparition, which he might take for a well-grown specimen of the Volvox globator, or wheel insect; an acrobat, whose performances may be witnessed on the stage of the microscope in a theatre whose drop scene is supplied by the fluid of any Metropolitan Water Company. We exclude, of course, the produce of the Thames, for the Thames at Waterloo Bridge has long been incapable of supporting the minutest form of insect life. On closer inspection, the phenomenon will resolve itself into a ragged urchin, who forms an advance guard in an extraordinary series of somersaults, revolving on his centre much as would a capital X, if possessed by the revolutionary spirit lately prevalent among our tables. Head vice heels, hands vice feet, each member interchanges both place and duty promiscuously and on the shortest notice, with a flexibility outrivalling even the Manx arms (which, by the way, consist of three legs), and with at least an equal title to the Manx motto, "Stabit quocunque jeceris," which may be freely interpreted, "Pitch him where you will he'll fall on his legs." A copper halfpenny sterling must supply the place of the golden bough as our passport across the modern Styx-a passport clearly not

producible by the tiny acrobat; and, even should you present him with a coin of that amount, its investment will not be effected in a manner likely to swell the dividends of the shareholders of the bridge.

So we part company at the turnstile— an event of less importance, from the circumstance that fresh specimens may easily be found on the other side; nay, should it be low water, there will be visible, on looking over the balustrade of the bridge, a group which forms a ghastly parody of Mr. Frith's masterly picture, "By the Sea-side." No rosy. children playing on the sands are here! The little figures resemble rather those ghosts of infants, who first met the Trojan hero on the margin of the infernal river

"A group of spectres weary and wan "With only the ghosts of garments on."

These are the mudlarks of the metropolis, though what affinity exists between the little featherless biped who, for a halfpenny, will plunge downwards head foremost into the black ooze at his feet, and the feathered one who floats upwards to Heaven's gate in a flood of song, is a problem yet unsolved. Surely, if akin to any bird, it is to the London sparrow; dirt and impudence are alike the family characteristics of both; and the very fact that any bird, albeit a London sparrow, should of its own free will haunt the streets, when by aid of wings he can attain the range of open air and wild wood, is inexplicable, save on a hypothesis like that of the author of the "Vestiges of Creation," that the bird will develop into a child, and is training for the change, or else on a Pythagorean supposition, that the child has already actually taken the form of the bird, with, alas! some human reminiscence of the kennel surviving to clog its wings, and fetter its flight skywards.

Yet a little farther, and, as we cross the Strand, others of the same type present themselves. Here is one whose vocation is apparently that of lord high steward of the crossing, his wand of office a ragged broom, to which the shock

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