Remarkable social disclosures are made there, and social problems receive often strange solutions. Before
Vice-Chancellor Knight Bruce, for example, there has been the case of a most foolish and frantic member of
a ridiculous and not very decent sect, who has been refused the control and custody of his child, not for one
of the many reasons that might fairly have been admitted to operate in support of such refusal, but because
the Vice-Chancellor apprehends "that in England a man who holds the opinion that prayer, in the sense of
entreaty and supplication to the Almighty, is superfluous, who considers moreover that there is not any day
in the week which ought to be observed as a sabbath, or in any manner distinct from other days, must be
deemed to entertain opinions noxious to society, adverse to civilisation, opposed to the usages of Christendom,
contrary (in the case of prayer at least) to the express commands of the New Testament, and disqualifying
the man who avows and practises them for the education and guardianship of an English child." These
words are quoted literally; and they revive the worst and most dangerous doctrine of the days of Eldon;
though, in the general disgust and contempt inspired by the Agapemone doctrine, the judgment against one
of its professors will probably escape the condemnation due to it. Passing from Chancery to the Court of
Queen's Bench, we find a criminal information very properly refused by Lord Campbell in a case of
dispute between the Electric Telegraph Company and a very active news-agency house in Liverpool, which
had opposed with considerable spirit the company's pretension to exclusive "trading in news;" but the
peremptory refusal of even a rule nisi in a case affecting the character of a foreign exile, and the as peremptory
disposition to make one absolute in a simple case of error very amply atoned for (we allude to the
application against Mr. Murray, and to that in behalf of Miss Sellon), do not strike us in so impartial or just a
light. Turning away into the Court of Exchequer, we are warned by the result of an action involving the
responsibility of a railway company for the acts of its officers, that the duties of these officers are now held by
law to be determined at the pleasure of their employers; and that if any one of them transacts a duty to which
he has not been privately named by such employers, and in the course of it falsely accuses, maltreats, and
wrongly imprisons a traveller on the railway, the unfortunate traveller has no remedy against the company,
though the wrong could only have been done under cover of its authority, and by the express privileges
with which parliament has invested its servants. Descending a little lower, into the Insolvent Debtors'
Courts, we perceive, in such contrasted cases as Mr. Pritchard's and Mr. Delafield's, how, in the present
constitution of English Society, one man may build up out of nothing a ten-thousand-a-year business in six
years, and another spend every shilling of a hundred thousand pounds' gain of business in six months.
Descending somewhat lower still, and entering the Thames Police Court, we discover that no man of colour,
be he Englishman, Frenchman, or of what country he may, is permitted to approach the shores of the
slave-holding states of America, without at once surrendering his freedom, delivering himself up into custody,
and consenting to live in gaol until those who brought him are not only ready to take him away, but
prepared to pay for his imprisonment, or to be mulcted in their property for it! The reader can hardly
expect us to tell him anything more remarkable than this; or than Lord Palmerston's avowal in the House
of Commons, not only that there is no help or remedy for it, but that the unhappy human beings thus
outcast from all social protection have at least the benefit of fair notice that such really will be their
fate! Here, therefore, we conclude: leaving him to meditate on the nature and claims of freedom, political
and social, monarchical and republican.

       NARRATIVE OF PARLIAMENT AND
                           POLITICS.

There was no business of importance transacted in the
HOUSE OF LORDS till the 2nd of May, when an Address
of Congratulation to Her Majesty on the Birth of
another Prince, was moved by the Marquis of
LANSDOWNE and unanimously voted.

The Duke of RICHMOND presented above a hundred
petitions complaining of Agricultural Distress; as a
proof of its existence he called attention to the appearance
of sixty advertisements in a Northumberland
Newspaper of sales of farm-stock; and he complained
of the undue pressure of the Income Tax on the farmers.
Earl GREY observed that numerous sales of farm-stock
always take place at this season; and that he himself
had objected to the Income Tax as unjust to the farmers,
but had been overruled by the leaders of the agricultural
party.

On Monday the 6th, the Archbishop of CANTERBURY
explained a transaction respecting the Registrarship
of the Prerogative Court, which had been referred to
in the House of Commons on the 30th of April, (as will
be found below). It had been imputed to him that he
had nominated his son to the reversion of a valuable
sinecure. "My Lords," he said, "the case is so as
regards the reversionary office; the case is not so as
regards either the value or the sinecure. In the
session of 1847, an act was passed which placed the
Prerogative Court of Chancery under the control of
Parliament in respect to all future nominations; and
the office of Registrar, if ever held by my son, which is
very uncertain, not to say improbable, will be performed
in person, and its salary regulated according to the
duties and responsibilities of the station. The value,
according to the doctrine of chances, would be scarcely
equal to the stamp on which the nomination is recorded.
It was not until the close of the autumn of 1847, a few
months before the death of my venerable predecessor,
that the act passed which took away the sinecure. It
took away the sinecure, and it limited the value; but
the office must remain, and must be filled: wherever
there is a diocese there must be a registry, and where
there is a registry there must be a registrar. And I
trust that in nominating, prospectively, that registrar,
I shall, in the judgment of your Lordships, have
exercised a privilege to which I was both legally and
morally entitled, and have done nothing which, when
explained, can subject me to the charge of nepotism;
an imputation which I hope neither has been nor ever
will be the characteristic of my official career." This
explanation was received with general cheering: and the
Bishop of LONDON mentioned, as a proof of the Most
Rev. Prelate's disinterestedness, a case in which, when
Bishop of Chester, he had at his disposal a valuable office
which he might have given to his son, but did not.

On Friday the 10th, Ministers were worsted on a
Colonial question. The Duke of ARGYLL revived the
claim of Mr. Ryland, (formerly clerk of the Executive
Council in Canada) for compensation for the loss of his
appointment through the abolition of the office, which
he had not obtained, though it had been officially
promised. The DUKE moved resolutions declaratory of
Mr. Ryland's right to compensation.—Earl GREY moved
the previous question, on the ground that the claim
was a matter for the Colonial Government to settle;
but the original motion was carried by 22 to 19.

On Monday the 13th, the presentation by Lord
BROUGHAM of a petition in favour of University Reform,
gave occasion for some remarks on the subject by him,
and the DUKE of WELLINGTON. Lord BROUGHAM said,
he believed that both the Duke of WELLINGTON and
Lord LYNDHURST concurred in deprecating any rash
interference with the universities, in which great