The Express. — London, England, 1856-09-06 00:00:00

ebe expreoo. TO CORRESPONDENTS , . ddeer:ieenent. Wend, .1 for TAe Express.. tondo' Eeetaq Cam'. enur: Er „: t . to, Bouverio-street. by Two OT3ock on the day o: pabbeatoon. NIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDOZ. 1). v—Mornleg. sb. Um Animas, Mt. Um. Toogossow —Ltxming, By 18a. Animas, Mu ISia. LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 6. Tex wile-spread distress caused by the failure at the Royal British Bank will, we earnestly hope, awaken the shareholders and depositors of other Joint Stock Banks to the necessity of at once taking measures to obtain what we have more than otos urged with reference to these important establish ments—a real and efficient audit, and • means of fixing on the directors a personal liability in the event of wilful misappropriation of the funds. The new Joint Steck Companies Aot—which, however, does not apply to banka—renters the directors liable for any dividends which may have bean feuds. lently declared ; but this does not sufficiently meet the case. What repayment of dividends could compensate the eherehfilders 'and depositors of the Tipperary and Royal British Banks for the wholesale dissipation of their funds? In the former use asum out of all proportion to the dividends was applied to the personal eve of the directors, and from what has already transpired respecting the affairs of the Royal British Bank, the deposits of tradesmen possessed of but slender means, widows, and small capitalists, attracted by the promise of interest on their current balances, have been largely applied by the late Ma nager and Direztors for similar purposes. A more flagrant cue of culpable negligence, amounting almost to complicity in a fraud, than that which attaches to the late Board, we can searc.ly conceive. The Manager, Mr. CALCRON (the grounds of whole appointment to so important a port we base reser been able to under stand), was in receipt of a salary of 2,2001. per an-, num; his whole time and energies were assumed to be devoted to the affairs of the,Bank, and yet we find this well-paid cfficial oh:aiming advances from the funds of the institution, and accumulating a debt against himvelf which he is utterly unable to dis charge. Now, it follows, either that the Directors were not aware of the state of ' his account, and therefore grossly neglected their important treat ; or that they know of what we can only look upon in the light of defalcation', and eocnisid at them, thereby as grossly abasing the confidence placed in them. It will, however, probably turn out that some of them fol lowed his example, and were consequently precluded from acting as they were in conscience bound to do, and compelling Mr. Cemutom to refund the moneys he had borrowed from the Bank, or resign his eitsatioa. It is impossible to place soy legal prohibition too strong on Managers and Directors, as regards &alive with the funds committed to their charge for their own private purposes. Their facili ties for obtaining advances shoots be even less than those of any ordinary customers, sad severs penalties should attach to any set either of the individuals or of the postal body forming the Board, which should place the funds of the beak in the power of any of the officials for objects which, in almost every case, are purely specs. lade'. We have as stroegly insisted on the necessity for confining backing operations within their proper sphere. The examples are so mimesis' sod notori oss of the ruinous coos quecces of making advances on inconvertible securities, that there is no excuse for Directors or Managers who neglect the warning; and when we found the lt-iyal British Bank lending on mineral property, we felt morally sure that only a miracle could save it from ruin, bearing in salad more especially the character of its drawing and deposit account,. It is no• sufficient that a Bank Director should own • large business, or live in Bel gravia; a certain ,mount of banking knowledge, on far as its history and practice in the present day at lust is concerned, is equally essential; otherwise!, is likely to become • mere tool in the hands of ate or two members of the Board, whose views jump with those of the Manager. Bat sash diserizeiaa don in the election of Directors is hardly to be ex pected from bodies of shareholders, and they have, tossequently, no security against a misappropriation or injudicious employment of fonds which may entail ruin upon them, unless some legislative southwest, which, by attaching a personal liability to the direetoss, compels them to do their duty strictly and coned 'otiosely. Is it not a monstrous thing that the whole available fends of the Newcastle Bank should have been spirited away by the SADLIII clique, and that one of the directors should have known nothing of it until long after? And is it not (goody strange that such frauds by Managers as the meetings of August disclosed should have remained so long woo tioed sad unknown by Mentors ? Unfortunately, in these latter cases it wculd appear that the! culprit escapes with a legal inapaoity, escopt DO far all the sum misappropriated beemmes a debt. The Directors shou'd therefore be compelled to exercise a strict supervision for their own sakes, and, above all, should be responsible for the truth of the statements in the baLance.shasta submitted to their shareholders. Bat t h ese very Wanes sheets in their present form ars convenient vehicles for covering such • state of tiller as existed in the Royal British Bank. Who, on reading that there were "convertible securities, short loans, cash credits, &a.," for 600,0001.. would imagine that among the items were such "convertible" securities as 00 s1 mines, icon works. OLIVER'. bills, and West minster bonds? It is useless to mince the mat. ter—each a statement differs only in degree from the "Tipperary" balance sheet. inasmuch as it was unaccompanied by any esplanades or *beer vatioo, save that astounding one in the Report, that a soon than ordinary provision had been made for bad debts. By issuing such mounts es these the Directors of Joint-Stock Commies commit a posi tive fraud on the poblie, by giving a fictitious value to their shares ; and these who pet forth the last Report of the Royal British are morally liable kw every shilling of loss that may be sustained by the shareholders who may have purchased shares of 110 1 Bask since that period. Reprehensible ass injudicious se the payment of dividends out of capital undoubtedly is, still, if allanabolarso receive them knowingly, it is their owes affair; but when they ere — paid out of the pc: party of depositors and under sever of a balsam. sheet giving as untrue Jamaica as to tie position of a company, it is a freed, sod the ameba who issue, sod the auditors who sip each statozessts shoed be held rersooally responsible, end sompelled to make good thole statements to the letter. We await with some curiosity the detail of the item comprising the 810,2041. of seenritier, dm. The public were led to behalf; that the market valve of these securities was represented by that MM. and by the oncost set spat for bed and doubtful debts ; and until that be the real numb. of sod items is bask amounts them is so seenrity either for shareholders or depositors. Those who are eognisant of the deceit can quietly withdraw from the peril at the expense of the public they are de ceiving, and if the swindle, for it is nothing else, floats long enough they now escape with impunity. Surely this last disgrace to the moutary world, following so closely on the heels of the STRARAN, Samna, and other colossal frauds, will awaken the public and the Legislature to the necessity of establishing bank audits, which shall pre clude the possibility of such statements of imaginary meets as those which are °coa -1 sionally laid before shareholders, and of fixing on the Directors the penalty for so atrocious a breach of trust. The present case is a most distressing one, the depositors being for the most part persons to whom the temporary privation of their funds will be almost ruin, and the shareholders belonging to a elms who can ill respond to any further all in addi tion to the capital already lost. Another and very anions evil inflicted on all other banks is the want of confidence which such an event inevitably urn dere ; but we trust the lesson will not be thrown away upon them, and that they will aid, instead of obstructing, the ;seeing of some Act which will give the public such guarantees as to the reality of their smote, and soundness of their position, es we have more than woe demanded. THE EXPRESS, SATURDAY EVENING, portrait of her Majesty. AL de Billing, ober du 1 cabinet, has &leo received • very handsome writing desk, and IL Benedetti in equally handsome token of reawakens*. M. Christian Bartle:domes', to whom, only on Thursday lot, the French Academy awarded a first prize of 3,000 fr. for his " Hilaire des Doctrines Religieuses de la Philosophic Modern.," has just died suddenly at Nuremberg on his return hom the Carlsbad waters. _ _ The Lyons Gazette announces that the camp of Elathonay is to be greatly increased, lad that the oonstruction of the huts will be modified. Mehemet Paths, the Turkish ambemador in Franey, left Paris yesterday for Turin. The Message. de Bayonne am . . . . The Emperor sad Empress were to have taken a curiae excassiou on Moaday ca board the Emu", but Is souse quote of the eters whisk blew duriag the previous sight, it was deferred. la the afternoon their Majesties took a walk towards the lighthouse of Blarrits. Os passim before a small 'snap oa the dowse, than Mikados saw a poor wanes, who was sitting at the dear with a child la her arum sad (eying piteously. Os being qaestioned as to the same of hie rid, should that her child was my ill, sad woad die foe the mat of medial amid saes. The Espressos a wear, entered lobo the hasp of the poor peewit, and told her to follow her with her child, at the mate time telling her act to give way to despair. Their Majesties walked homily towards the villa, followed by the peasant women, sad the physialaa of the Prince Im perial being seat for, soca prescribed for the sick child. The Empress dismiesed the poor womaa with a handsome present, telling her that the physisisa would visit her child every day. Oa Tueeday 'Enema ►er Mejesty took her bath is the sea, after which, aceempaaied by the Emperor, she took a long walk is the seighbourhood of Biarritz. The health el their Majesties sad of the Prince Imperial is excellent. An imperial awe has been published at St. Petersburg raising the mate of siege which had been established in the gammas of the Tsui& sad Bessarabia. General Bariatinsky, the governor of the scarce, arrived at Moscow on the 24th. As soon as the fates of the coronation are over, he will go and relieve General Moursvieff in his command, sad the latter will tome to St. Petersburg and take his sect in the council of the empire. A letter from St. Petersburg, in the Icenigaberg Gessath, sty.:--" Binge M. de Kieseleff, the Bosnian ambassador at Parte, has left the oMoe of Minister of Domains, other haunches of the public service have been added to that department. Some idea of the extent of the business confided to the Ministry of the Domaine may be formed from the fact that it has upwards of 20 millions of emfa under its control." A letter from St. Petersburg says :—" A proposi tion of the Council of the Empire, giving new faci lities for the importation of foreign goods, has been sanctioned by the Emperor. In virtue of it, go:is can remain in entrepot for fifty days alter their seri val, as payment of moderate duties." LATEST INTELLIGENCE. The ilforsitesir of yesterday oontaios the following telegraphic despatch, received by the Minister of Foreign Affairs from the French Minister at Berne: .. BERNE. Barr. 3, 1856. "To-day. at 2 o'clock in the morning, an ineurree tioa broke out at Neufchatel The mountaineers of the Val de Verrieres surprised the city and the made. Messrs. Plaget and Humbert, with several other officials of the canton, are their prisoner.. It is said that the Royalist party is at the heed of the move ment. The republicans of the Chaux-de-Fonds are marching in a column to deliver their chiefs and retake the city. The federal council has charged Vice- President Fornerod and Colonel Frei-Heroic to proceed to the spot, where as federal commissioners they will re-establish the authority of the govern ment. Four battalions end a few pieces of artillery from the camp at Yuerdu are placed at their dis posal. Their vanguard is expected to reach the Neufchatel territory by 4 o'clock this afternoon. It is hoped that they will arrive in time to prevent any 'collision in the streets of Neufchatel, between the re publicans of the Chaux-de-Fonde and the moun taineers of Verridres,who have entrenched themselves behind birdcage' AND 11111.1111 X TZLIORAPE.) PARIS, BATVIILDAY. The iloosaeur of this morning mamba the follow ing csarmusieatioo, dated yesterday, tress the Fiesta minister at Beres : "The republicans of La Chaim de Fonds, after having been joined by a squadron of the federal cavalry, thin morning, attacked the royalists, who occupied the town and castle of Neufchatel. After a combat of one hoar, they carried every position. Fifteen of the royalists were killed, about thirty were wounded, and two or three hundred were made prisoners. " The republican government bun been re-estab lished at Neufchatel, and the federal troops re entered the town the instant after its capture." EXPRESS FROM PARIS. (710 K 001 PARIS. FRIDAY STUDIO. You will have seen that the Nomfmor adds some details to these which I transmitted yesterday, soo owning the outbreak at Neufchatel. Bat although the Glacial journal doss not state that the ineurrea• tion is pat down, the fact is coadrined in away quar ters. The Virile ( • new Parisian journal, launched under pavement patronage) says : "A despatch which we have received from Barns informs us that the royalist movement, which was headed by Count de Pouted; has been put down. Beam battalions, accompanied by volunteers, commanded by Colonel Beerier, have retaken the Castle of Neufchatel. Order has been restored." The Coisaitutioassel states that Count de Pourtales has been taken prisoner, and all the Paris evening papers are patio. fled of the truth of this statement. A de spatch from Berne. dated yesterday main (4th), says that the castle and town of Neufchatel were re taken early is the morning by the republicans of Chand-d•Moads, after a rapid eugagement, in which twelve partisans of the Bing of Pres.ia were made prisoners. According to asother,bet probably ea incor rect. Tenths of this despatch, twelve of the p rem i en party were killed. The Brehm of Berne, of the 3rd, in announcing the royalist movement, says : We loan that great events have tette place tidal at Neufchatel. • bead of from 200 to MO royalism took po mmies of mc meta, the .net of severomeat, sad arrested several immben of the Cassell of etste. A woad alums lof Warm* laughed waken Cbeas-do-Fonda. The Federal Omeril, beteg imatediataly lafersisd of these has, emembled this mersiag at ea astraoritearr sada& sad delegated Nome. Femme& sad FM-Berme to Nasteastat, with a minks to revere order. The aroma fartMe ordered the socapettoa of Nrodeltatel by fear battalloes, oseumaded by Coked Boargeols. la coa sequels's, two Vaudois and two Bermes battalions will Mamodiately swab tomer& the Neufchatel (seeder. Brno, I **dock. TN, Moral sommisslosas bays loft for Nostalast•l. Bees.. 3 a'aha►. ♦ tologropido d.spatc► from Chest-da-Pootto eamosem that the Motatets Is ready to match to 'meow It. mask trate,. ---. Berney 4 Weleeks The Pruden Is hem bees Misted at Nesfoltaasl, sad a preelesatios missed. Pavia& has biota Iliflaillied. - The Bra of Borae gives the saw sews, sad ,adds: To. lemateate have published tire preelaaattese—eas *Red by Coast Preferlek Patnalie, ad the ether by aa tedivideal aimed Mama. They etagrataate the antak7 I sod *oak beeves that the Pamela Sig ones WU Beate ea the psblie 'Clem They &elate the 'sates fa a state of siege, sad eon ea the steaaniate to aositaate ootesattate et pablie safety. the Prose; saye—m It is to be hoped that this rising will have the offset of reaseitieg the two freedoms of the democratic party whose (Ima m . I have lambdas *seaward the royalists." _ - , There has been very little movement at the Bourse, b a r, as the whole, there wee a slightly improved tone. The Rest ahead at 70fr. 60*. with a rise of be. for cash, and at yesterday's prier, 70fr. 80e. for tomcat. The Instaations were insoneiderabie. Oredlt Mebilisr rose Mr. The Mediterranean Railway roes 6fr.; Lyme, Str. Me ; sad Grand Casual, 7fr. 60a, 'I'M ether lines shred rather lower. TV Buiredis dm Leis eastsia; a demo dated Assad 26 last, epeeist a supplestestal credit of up wards of 311,000,000 to pay the divides/ of the Reales assess/ by dowse of May 14,1862. The re gularisation of this credit will be proposed to the Corps Legidatif whoa it swots. Cent Walewski bee just readved free Qum Victoria, se a seam& of the treaty of the 30th Mara. a splendid geld sserito: seriebed with dia. accede, aid hearing a medallion reprossatiag the AUSTRIA. A letter from Vienna, in the Colopes dosage, re. pests the insertion that the Austrian troops will not evacuate the principalities until Russia shall have formally consented to give up Boigrad. The Emperor of Austria returned to Vienna on the Ist from Grin, and immediately est out for Lazen burg. He wss to leave ea the following day for Ctrinthia with the Empress. A letter from Berlin of the 2nd instant says : " Cireat activity is displayed in the different ministries in preparing bills to be presented to the Chambers in the next session. Amongst them is one on patents, and another for largely increasing I the Prussian fleet. The trousseau of the Princess Louisa of Prussia is to be publicly exposed next week. The marriage of the princess with the Prince Regent of Baden is to take place on the 20th Sep tember. People persist in saying that the Q2E311 of Ragland will oome to Berlin on the occasion, in com pliance with an intimation from the Prince of Prussia in his last journey to London." The oonsietory of the province of Prussia has sent to the clergy of the province a circular, according to the terms of which the prohibition of the marriage of a noble with a female of the class of peasants, or petite bourgeoisie, still exists, notwithstanding Art. 4 of the constitution. This law has been several times applied, and has been recognised by'the Minister of Justice. A letter from Smoipberg states that one of the testamentary executors of the late M. Schoen, ex- Minister of State, has been surammoned by the pre sident of the province, in the name of the King, to give up the autograph correspondence of the Kings of Prussia with the deceased. These papers of M. Schoen, however, which have been so much spoken of, have not been fond, and it is summed that they hate been amt abroad. SWEDEN. The Hamburg A'stos contains the following : a The elections for the Central Swedish Diet are nearly terminated. Although there are many un known names among the representatives of the pea sants, it appears that these elections have a particular character, and have been in a greet measure influ enced by opposition to the duties imposed on spirits during the previous session." It may be remembered that the use of ardent spirits had acquired snob pre • gram la Sweden that the government felt itself own pike to impose a duty which almost doubled the prise, in order to put a stop to It. BRAZIL AND WEST INDIES. (IT NLICTIDO AND INTIZNATIONAL TILIORAPIL) SOUTHAMPTON, BATUDAY. The Tamar has arrived with the Brazilian mails. She left Rio ou the 14th August. She has brought home 109 passengers. Cholera Ma broken out in the Island of Bt. Vincent, with great intensity. The Tamar hes brought home • requisition for medical assistance and medicines. Cholera is declining at Madeira. Six thousand ' persona have died from cholera in Madeira. The Brazils were healthy. At Rio, exchange opened at 27 oa London, and was ruling at 271 to 27i. The coffee market was active. GREAT LOSS OF LIFE AT SEA. PLYMOUTH, Fame,: Eviugixo. The pilot sloop PoneenannOs brought is here this afternoon the rasstir, math and ten of On new, with tin passiegen, being a who are supposed to be saved from the ship Ocean Ilene, which left Rotteedes en the Ist last. with 106 sun The Ocean Home Waged to Brunserieb, State of Maine, 60 toss, Oeptala A. H. Merryman, and was lades with a general cargo of madder, gin, wine, Meek tin, Ike., and bound to New York; crew, including edam, 17 pancepn (men, wows, sad children), 88. This morning she was goirg down the eitassal seder all possible sail, Totals, topgallant, studding salle, wind B.E. by 8., en the port quarter; and at twenty Wastes past two °Wolk, when the Lizard bore north, distant about twenty-fra mike, was ran into on the north bow by the ship Cherubim, of 2,000 toes, from New York for London. The foremast of the Omni Hone sae carried over the off side, and she went down is about twenty minutes. Bess of the scenes limped instantly late the rigging of tht Cherubim. Meet of t►e pasteagers were Weep in their bathe, bat tea *strived, with three of the crew, to get into a quarter-boat, and in a slaking state to join the China/ Ma, which tea then at same Masa. By ski concussing fits wiedlue was driest an the fore•batch, which manna.* seamen below from mons on deck. Moan Merryman tan to the after•hatch to gall the pampa, and was tAns down with the ship, from bong entangled with the rigging; M as.. to the surface, caught hold of a plea of wood, sad then of a cabs-door, which supported bin four house, when he, with the sate, who was saved in a similar minter, was resened by the Chun• bin's beat. The second mate mad two bands left the Oran Home is one of the boats, bat it is supposed that they perished. The Cherubim, Captain Bnith, of Ithaniond, United States, has a (easel cargo and a number of pan apse, useeg who are the widow and is children of the Ist. Britieb Consul at New York, who died eery suddenly four- Wm dsp. after soling. Tbe estwater of this ship is latched away, mad some of the taunts and butts stinted, bet she has promeaded up channel. LIST 07 ElAvia. Crow.—Captehe A. H. Merryman. aid °Meer, Shields; shles toll', Dialed Sad; parsnpn• cook, Jobs Sent; sessees—Jobe Ambrose. Wind Aspisers, Charles Mas sie, Jetta Deltas, Edward Drown, °Wales Seek, Sines Le% end James Cenangleame. Peasesgen.—Wellor Mary, Danish Ambrose. (Mann Wysfetl, Kids Ambles, Analogs Kelley. Mania Delmar, Amen Waimea, G. Vessisk, H. J. Tot Slay, sad G. J. Ter Horst. ii••••w of the Ouse Zoo*, la slum of Ile Aserfess Coml. sal dr prosegui, la damp a tb Badpwresked Madsen' Soddy, boys bees NMI bdied s* OM More No. 111. The problem required to be solved in the arrange ment of the Clerkenwell Improvements, may be stated succinctly enough. Given the quondam bed of a river, lying between high banks on either side, as the hoe for a new thoroughfare, so to construct the street that the old thoroughfares which it may become the medium of uniting, and the new ones hereafter to be made, may Gross it without serious hindrance to the traffic) of all or any. Now obviously them are but two satisfactory lola- 1 Gnus cf this problem. The new street should either be constructed at so low a level as to admit of its being creased by viaducts connecting the streets placed on the heights on either side, melee it should be raised to so high a level as to render those viaducts unnecessary. The former is, we oonfess, the plan to which we are most favourable in the case of Victoria-street; seeing that the fact of a river having formerly run in the same direction, and the unimportance of the bye-streets, obviate all the objections and inconve niecess which so militate against, though we don't ay they ought to negative, the project of a viaduct at Holborn. hill. Nor, indeed, is there anything in the level of Vic. toria-etreet, as now opened, to preclude the construc tion of viadoots, if hereafter deemed necessary. Their omission in the original plan is, of course, the fault of the legislature, or the government of the time being, and Dot of those who had to carry the act of P• parliament into effect. But, then, it really won't answer to rely on the good sense of posterity any more than on what used to be called the wisdom of our ancestors. We have no right to take for granted that those viaducts will ever be constructed. And if they be not—if sena lators take a fancy to the locality, and cover the ground with new buildings as now laid out—to what a state of primitive inequality the whole of those new married thoroughfares will be condemned ! From the top of Clerkenwsll-green, for instance, there will be a descent of some twenty or five-and-twenty feet to the level of the new street, and of several feet additional to a still lower level, which, as hereafter to be explained, it has been thought proper to pre serve. And then there will be a rise of some thirty feet or upwards to the top of Leather lane—the inconveniences, in short, of Holborn hill and Ludgate-hill combined in the principal eras thoroughfare thrown open by these soi &sant " improvements." Of course, nothing but a viaduct would perfectly . remedy the evil. But a somewhat more rapid rise In Victo ria -street, bringing it at this point to about ten feet above its present level, would have greatly mitigated the difficulty. Bringing the upper part of Victoria-street to this higher level would have hid the additional advan tage of causing it to meet Coppice-row at a consider ably higher point, and thus of correcting the needless steepness of that acclivity likewise, as the Commis. sioners found it, and left it. But the fact is, those gentlemen seem to have set out with the notion that a stiff bit of a bill was rather an agreeable feature than otherwise in a new thoroughfare. More recently they found out their mistake, and they are now busy reducing the slope of Charles-street all the way from Hatton-garden to Saffron-bill. And how are they doing it? Are they making it as it ought to be, one uniform and gradual ascent from Victoria-street to Hatton-garden? Not a bit of it. There is first a rise at one incline, from Victoria street to Saffron hill, and then a rise at a touch greater incline from Saffron-bill to Hatton-garden, instead of having one uniform rise throughout, at a medium incline between the two. And why was this? Aye, why? Well may you ask the question, good teader. Au there is no madness but has a certain method in it, and seems sound rea son in its own eyes, so there is no folly so great but it has its own justification in some cther foolish notion that preceded it. So saturated with syllogism are all human transactions! Without a certain logical sequence the folly of the most incorrigible fool would come to a dead Ic2k. Indeed, what is commonly asserted of great iuventiona—that they are remark able for their simplicity—may with still more justice, and in more senses than one, be predicated likewise of great blunders. Not only must the booby be what in common parlance is called a sim pleton, but his special achievements in the blunder ing line must have a singleness and sincerity about them, an air of perfect innocence, such as no loge itsiq could counterfeit. They must be hair-breadth mbdtige of obvious facts or well-known principles, each as it requires a sort of genius for stupidity to perpetrate. - What then is the origo primary error of the Clerkenwell improvers, which deterred them from raising the upper end of Victoria-street to a coavenient level, and is leading them at this mo ment to form an ascent into Charles-street at two different angles of inclination? What, "0 gentle shepherd, tell me what?" They laid it down as a principle from the beginning that it would be indispensable to preserve the original level of fief fren-hill !! Credste posteri! And not only of Saffron-hill, but of every other paltry street and lane, abutting on the Fleet river, of whist' any portion remains. Rascally little streets they are, that were intended to be so—the best of them not rising to the dignity of a decent stable lane—built and paved with that grotesque irregularity which charac terises the back streets in the vicinity of a river bank —one halt of them pulled down by the commis sioners. And yet the levels of the really important cross thoroughfares, and the general disposition of Victoriaetreet itself, are to be made to conform to them! If in one place they rise above the level of the latter the jucci ion with Victoria-street rises like wise. And it in another place, in the same line of original street, the up and d .wn course of this primi tive specimen of street laying falls below the level of Victoria-street, down goes the new joining street to meet it, at the very place where the steepness of the cross thoroughfares most imperatively called for an wont. Lot us consider for a moment what this botching amounts to and results In. To obviate a variation of two or three feet in the level of a tortuous tumble. down back slum, naturally from the unequal nature of the soil, and the carelessness of its construction, abounding in such fluctuations—of a lane that might without the slightest Ineouvenieoce to any human being be rendered impassable for any but foot pas sengers—the construction of a great thoroughfare like Victoria-street is vitiated, and the steepness of the descents to it from the higher ground aggravated by one-third or one-half! "The force of human 1415," the reader might say, "could no farther go." Bat he would be mistaken. "Beneath the lowest, deep" of corporate and high commissioned imbecility this country there is "a deeper still." Saffron bill, unfortunately for the commissioners, does not tun parallel toNictoriastreet during its entire course. Saffron-hill, which was always known for its modest sad retiring disposition, denied out of its poor wits by the daylight so liberally let in upon it, and not knowing what on earth to make of the deference paid to it by the Clerico-patean mandarins. dodges them at Bt. Peter's Church and runs breathless op the higher elope. This must have been rather a blow to the eenamissionera They were in great danger of being at length compelled to follow the dictates of common sense, from the bare want of an excuse to act otherwise. This much may be conceded to their primitive simplicity, that Saffron-hill bad at least this pretension to be dealt with as gingerly es Pall-mall or Piccadilly, that it was a line of commu nication from one district of the City to another. Suppose Lather-lane, and Hatton-garden, and Vico toria-street, all simultaneously blocked up, you could with some risk and difficulty make your way from Holborn-hill to Clerkenwell, through the purlieus of Field-lane and Saffron-hill. ...Ergo," reasoned the commissioners, "it would be nothing short of high treason and blasphemy to touch ors atone of its pave- meat, even though our sacrilegious hands have levelled with the deaf the venerable edifices that skirted it on the east.* Saffron-hill eseapieg them, they seemed to be absolutely left without an idol before which to sacrifice the time and comfort of Ware generations. Bet the resources of stupidity " pare and simple* are inexhaustible. At the very lowest point of the Valley of the Fleet wee a short alley, dignified with the name of Callow street, sad built, or at least baptised, we presume, *beet a eatery ago, in the heyday of the popularity et the speaker of the House of Commons of that um. This alley ran parallel to Saffron-hill on the east, and connected the parts of Castle-street and Vine-street, that have been demolished. It had no other use, and led no whither, either north or south. The houses on the east side have been destroyed, and we infer that those on the west side have only been spared on account of a small chapel or school-house that occu pies a good portion of the very limited space. Will it be believed that to the junction' of this con temptible little place with the undemolished portion of Vine-street all the inclines are made to converge? and that, for the sole purpose of sparing its two or three score of inhabitants the trouble of ascending a few steps into Vine-street, when the level of the latter should be raised, as it imperatively requires, being not only the lowest point, but the steepest and most abrupt descent in the whole district. Still worse, it lies direct in the line of what ought to be, and we trust will yet be made, the principal thoroughfare between the southern portions of—don't blink the fact by calling them the boroughs—the vast and mighty cities of Finsbury and Marylebone. The north end of this alley might have been blocked up altogether, and no harm done, since the inhabitants could still have all necessary access and egress southward into Castle street. But no, the vested right of the denizens of this fraction of a back slum to an exit into Vine• street was so sacred that the commissioners dared not meddle with it, and the gap between Clerkenwell and Hatton-wall is to remain in conwquence, in meta° sceculorum, twice as deep and precipitous as otherwise it need have been. Don't let it be said that this is a temporary arrangement. Visit the spot, use your own eyes, and von will see that the arches beneath the new junction that meets the remains of Vine-street, de. crease in height till they reach the bottom of Vine. street-hill. A similar, but not quite so glaring mistake has been committed on the opposite side, at the foot of Clerkenwell Court-hones ; so that the fol lowing will be what cab or waggon will have to go through in penetrating across this defile. First, there will be a steep descent from the top of Clerken well-men ; then a slight ascent to the level of Victoria-street; then a sharp descent to the nadir of Viae-street ; and last a toilful climbing up to the zenith of Hatton-wall. No doubt it may be intended to reduce the slope of u that of Charles-street is now in process of being. But considering that in the space of some three or four hundred feet, taking the ex treme to which the slope can extend, there is a descent of not much under forty feet, it is plain that no reduction that is practicable can do more than slighty alleviate the mischief. If the slope be made gradual, and the cutting deep enough, the footway on both aides of Vine street will be so far above the level of the carriege way as to require being fenced with iron rails. The proper course at this point would have been to pull down the dozen houses of which the remnant of Vine-street consists; and then there would have been no obstacle to constructing a new street from Hatton-wall to Clerkenwell Court house at a level some ten or fifteen feet higher and with au incline proportionably leas than that which it has been resolved to perpetuate. At all events, what folly, by limiting the descent to the corner of Onslow-street, to curtail by a hundred feet or more the base of the new slope that must be constructed, and which in the most improved form of which it is capable will be as steep, though not quite so lengthy, as Holborn-hill is now. But it is hopeless by any expenditure of words to communicate an adequate idea of the blunder which we desire to expose. Let the reader who would com ' prebend it in all its enormity follow the course, to the eastward, of the traffic that calls for the bridging over of this gap, which the commissioners are taking such pains to deepen. Let him diverge from New Oxford-street into Hart-street, and pass through Theobald's-road till he reaches Gray's Inn-lane. Then let him cross into Liquorpond-street and turn into Leather-lane till he comes to Hatton wall. Passing along Hatton-wall, he will in a couple of minutes arrive at the top of Vine-street, and then he can judge for himself. Casting his eyes backward, he will perceive that the pavement of Leather-lane is higher than the tops of the houses at the corner of Onslow•street. The steep descent of IVine -street wilt speak for itself, and is interesting to contemplate for its own sake, the thoroughfare being stopped at present (as if it had ever been passable), and the roadway covered throughout its whole length with the stock in trade of a furniture broker, spread out upon the hill-aide with a complacency and a picturesqueness which those twin glories of Tybornia and Belgravia, the Panklibanon and the Pantechni. eon, in all their lordly amplitude, might yet conde scend to envy. This broker is doubtless a clever fellow. There is a stroke of the keenest satire in his appropriating for the purposes of a warehouse—a sub din showroom—what as a street must be worse I than useless. _ Do not let it be supposed that we are exaggerating for the sake of effect. So precipitous is the descent, that we have seen a stalwart baker's boy dragg ed remorselessly down the flagway by hie own hand cart, not a little to the peril of the children who were playing about, as well as of the toes and ankles of her Majesty's lieges who are wont to congregate in con. siderable numbers on the scene of what is decidedly at present one of the sights of London. No great harm in all this, when Vine-street was merely a byeway to the brink of the noisome Fleet, which many of us can remember, and whose characteristics, a century and a half ago, have been embalmed by Swift in lines that deserve to be immortal. But now that the lest remnants of the abomination have been hidden from human sight, why. in Heaven's name, perpetuate in the gangway of London inter course a steep which would be troublesome enough in the solitude of an Alpine village! Bat the worst is yet to come. The crowning joke of this preposterous piece of Angleemandarinism is, that even for the sake of the rights and privileges of high aid mighty Onslow-rreet, the preservation of this descent was perfectly unnecessary. So abrupt is the descent of Onto w-street from St. Peter', church, is well as of Vine-street from Hatton-wall, that the outer angle of the inviolate corner house is some two or three feet lower than the adjoining houses on either side. The street might have been raised some six or eight feet, and thus brought on a level with Victoria-street, and done no more than equalise the bases of the adjoining houses, which are now a couple of feet each deeper in the earth on one side than the other. We may be told that this is intended to be done. But if so, it is plainly an arsine pens& Else why have the arched for the continuation of Vine-street been built so low ? Are the inh.bitants of the houses that will be built here to have their coals shot into their vaults through tubes of some six or eight feet in length before they can reach the roof of the vault that is to contain them ? Are there to be stone steps from the basements of those houses to the vaults, for the poor people to slip in frosty weather, acd break their lege or their arms, a cause of such accidents which the records of the hospitals testify to be a very common one ? Possibly—as we do not profen to have surveyed the ground scientifically, but have trusted to our eyes and our walkingstick for the measurements which we have given—we may be in error in assuming the bottom of Vine-rreet to be the very lowest point in this part of the valley of the Fleet. At all events, a similes error to that which we have denounced has been cone. mitted,at far greater li.n gtb, a little to the northot Vine street, io condonation of what used to be called Ray street. Bat though the total descent may be much greater, the blunder is not so conspicuous, because of the more gradoll ri-e on the west side, towards Back-hill, as well as the perpetual zigzag of all the streets hereabouts. The break-neck descent of the lane called Crawford's-passage, which leads from Cop. piorrow to the bottom of Back-hill, will sufficiently show how little the commissioners have done to mitigate the steepness of the heights at this end of Victoria street. Yet this line might be made a very useful thoroughfare, leading, as it does, from Smith field and the City Proper, through Cow-Cross street, and Turnmillstreet. obliquely westward towards Gray's Ina-lane and Ooilford-street. Don't let it be said that we are laying too much strew oo this whole affair—making mountains of molehills, in short. Is Holborn-hill a molehill? If it be, we should like vastly to see the mole that made it. The mastodon or the inguanodon would be a dwarf to him. Every hour in the day the ascent d Holborn-hill yews a lose of horns* time and patienue, a wear and tam of equine muscle, the total of which in twelve mouths must amount to many thousand SPAIN. The Madrid Gazette of the let says that the Espana falsely asserted on the Friday before that its number of the 30th alt. had been seized for having published an article defending the Duke de Valencia, and that as this " was conduct calling for censure, the civil governor of the province had thought right to punish the journal by a fine of 500 reels." The other Madrid journals contain nothing of political interest. At San Lawn the fete of the Ditchers de Montpensier had been celebrated with great pomp, with bull fights, &c. Some bandits in the neighbour. hood of Malaga had carried off a notable personage named Espinosa, of Alma, and had, after obtaining 9,000 piutres for his ransom, barbarously pat him to death. (111016 • I catanienee today my analysie of the papers Wend I at Madrid by the secret democratic press. The first of theme is entitled the Bolefin Daaseratico, and its subject is, The Situation." It be written with vigour and a certain ability, but we do not recognise in it the style of any of the well-known writers. The lone of it would give as some grounds for sup posing that its authors belonged to the party by whom the 800 do Is Raohicion was founded some days after the events of 1854. The bulletin declares, in the first place, that it is not the people, the democratic party, which has been conquered by O'Donnell and Zepatero. It reminds as that at the fa mous sitting ot the Cates on the 14th of /sly, Mace, when speaking of the assembling of the militia, plainly avowed that the militia was called to arms in order to chastise the turbulent faction that wanted to create disorder (by which he clearly intended to designate the democrats sad the republicans). The writer congratulates the people upon their not having taken part lathe late conflict. He die ipproves of the system of birdman and fighting in the capital cities. When the muscat shall have arrived, this bulletin promises to furnish a general scheme of the move ment, which should begin in the small towns, and should enclose the garrison of the capital of each province between the insurgent rustics and the malcontent inhabitants of the lesser towns, eo as to force them either to capitulate or , to mango osrtain defeat. The writer is decidedly spinet allowing the ontinsaace of a standing army for the future t he says that Spain needs no foreign conquest, sad that the army serves only to oppress the people at home. Without the aid of the militia and volunteers, he needs that the army could never have subdned the formidable Culla issairectien ; and the fawn would again, if neon eery, repeat the prodigies of valour which they dis played from 1833 to 1840. The money which the army costs should be devoted to making roads, sad Spain should be delivered for ever from the satraps who keep her bowed beneath the sabre. _ _ This bulletin nezt refers to the letter of Orense and hie prognunme. It gives an amount of the strength of the party in the different provinces, directs its adherents not to show themselves too Im patient, and announces the day of their liberation as very near. It concludes by recommending the demo. Grate of the provinces to circulate theme bulletins throughout the country, and giving notice of the publication of the second number for the ensuing week. ' You will obser•e that, it the responsible public press is now gagged by a censorship, the ideas of the oppo sition party us still paragraphed nevertheless; nay, sore, for nobody would have dared to write such an article as this in a journal which wu allowed to circulate freely, but subject to the risk of a sestina against it if it were seized and prosecuted before the tribunals. Senor Martinez has anneasesd through the Gazette that an the 39th and 30th alt., no Madtid journal had its circulation prohibited. Do not believe that the censorship hes allowed the pries any grater latitude t it has not dose no in the slightest degree, aad if the journals were not seised on three days, it was because they contained no controversial articles. The prosecutions of jour nalists is the provinces Mill *indium I at Malaga, Don F. Ferrodea, anther of • democratic paper entitled, Lase► ea datocialias, he. been arrested. ITALY. A letter fro® Roue dated August 25, in the Voss Casette, says:—" There is a talk of a collective not*, which the IteXaa govern:seats frigidly to Austria, sanely, Naples, Seem, Tuscany, Modena, sad Persia, with Austria herseU at their head, are said to be &boat to address to the great powers, with a view to put as end, or at least a limit to, the grow ing Mamie of Piedmont in Italy. To this sots there is joined, it is reported, a rassiorandsm in tended to serve as an answer to that sent by Coast °avow to Paris. At the muse thee a fresh protest against the eandset of the &thinks goverment towards the clergy is in preparations at the Vaasa." THE BAST. TWIST& Barr. R Despatches have bees received free Olmstead mope. dated Amu* 30. Admire Sir He Stewed bed arrived there ea the Seth. DE. Do Beeeseielf, the Roder senbenodar, had asked Ike Prate for peredellen for ten Braden wends eosins hoe the Beide to we thseesh the Boolean& 6, 1856. I'