The Press. — London, England, 1856-09-13 00:00:00

874 Intelligence from Sydney, up to 21st June, an nounces the opening of the first Paliamentary session at Sydney on the 23rd of May. Mr. Daniel Cooper had been elected Speaker of the house, by the narrow majority of one. A new gold-field near Wellington, Bathurst, was attracting the few diggers in New South Wales. From Melbourne we have dates to the 27th June. The first general election would take place in August. The gold-fields were still remarkably pro ductive. AMERICA. Despatches to the 30th ult. state that the Army Appropriation Bill was still pending. Both Senate and representatives adhere to the position they have taken upon the question. A Conference Committee of the House, charged with considering the disagreement with the Senate, had dissolved, having been unable to come to any conclusion ; consequently " the house adhered to its own amendment, proposing to restrict the opera tions of the army, providing that no portion of the money to be expended in Kansas shall be to enforce t ie laws of the body calling itself the Territorial legislature." This resolution was carried by a majority of 101 to 97, and a motion to reconsider the vote was tabled by a similar majority. Four hundred workmen had been discharged from the Government armoury by the Ordnance autho rities in consequence of the failure of Congress to pass the Army Bill. Governor lteeder had addressed an immense meeting at New York upon the wrongs of Kansas. Recapitulating the horrors and outrage of the last two years, he declared that the miserable subjuga tion under which the free-soil people of Kansas suffered was unequalled in the world. There was nn security for the lives, liberty, or property, much less for civil or political rights ; and unless some effort were speedily made the whole territory would be given to slave labour. This was a momentous question; for if the Missourians succeeded in making Kansas a slave State, what likelihood was there that the whole of the territory between Kansas and Mexico would be preserved for free labour ? The vast stream of northern emigration would be topped : ci s ui shut the gates of the whole vast west, Kansas, Deseret, and New Mexico to the north, and turn back this human tide to throw itself upon the States of the north and the north-west. If you deny this great territory to the free labouring man, you see that to him the gates shall be closed fur ever, and all of it dedicated to the negro, and not to the white man. Have the labouring men of the north considered the import of this question to them—the drayman, the hodman, the mechanic, the day labourer? Every man who earns his bread by the sweat of his brow, or who, by the changes of fortune, may be compelled to do so—every man who expects to leave a posterity to find homes in this country, has a deep inte rest in it. He appealed to the New Yorkers to help their free soil brethren in the struggle, and to preserve the soil for free labour. This was to be done only by " men and money ": I say here that, unless men are raised and put upon the soil of Kansas, supported, sustained, and fed there, she will be lost. Men must be sent there—men who are willing to defend themselves, able to defend themselves, prepared to defend themselves, and determined to defend themselves. We want no preponderance of men, for ex perience has shown that, when our people have met Missourians in equal numbers, the contest is not doubtful. The free•state men ask no odds of the invaders, but a free field, if it must be settled in that way, and a fair and even fight. Long, patiently, meekly, and forbearingly have they suffered these wrongs, in the hope of avoiding this violence ; but this contest of violence has been long on one side ; and if it must be mutual it should be met as men should meet it. The remedy is to put men on that soil. The question is now presented to the people of the north. When every wind from the west brings news of battles, of slaughter, and of murder—when preparations most extensive are going on in the border counties of Missouri—when inflammatory appeals are distributed over the border to secure accessions to their numbers— when the army of the invaders is again marching against your brethren in Kansas, who are standing up for your cause as well as their own—fighting the battles of the north and the west—of the free white labourers who are perilling their all upon this issue—l say the question is now presented to you, whether you will allow them to go down in blood, or whether you will go and save them and the cause you represent. Walker's position in Nicaragua was eminently in secure. THE GRAND DUKE CONSTANTINE at a recent recep tion at the palace of the Governor at Moscow, re ceived all those strangers who had been presented to the Emperor. Among others, were the American Minister and suite, with Colonel Colt, who was pre sented to the Grand Duke in full uniform, cocked hat, plume of yellow cock's feathers, blue coat, large gold epaulette, gold lace-striped trousers, sword, &c. "Well," said the colonel, " you are the most demo cratic Grand Duke I ever met !" " How is that, colonel ?" asked the Grand Duke. " Why, you shook hands with me, and you are the first Grand Duke that has done that yet," was the reply. THE PRESS. THE CORONATION OF THE EMPEROR OF RUSSIA. FURTHER details of the Emperor Alexander's entry into Moscow have reached us this week. AU writers agree that the procession was the most magnificent in number, variety, and gorgeous effect that can be conceived. The excitement in Moscow was immense. About half a million of people were assembled on the route, the line of procession was kept by picked infantry regiments three deep, expectation was great, the weather was fine, and at length, about 3.30 p.m., after two or three false alarms, the boom of the first gun was heard announcing the Imperial departure from Petrovsky ; the troops seized their arms and dressed up in line, tilt four hundred church bells of Moscow rang out a burst of chimes, and the crowd settled down " in an attitude of profound expectation and repose." In a few minutes the trumpet band of the Rifles of the Guard commenced a wild alerte. Some moments of suspense passed heavily, and at length the vanguard of the procession appeared—a small party of Gendarmes-it-Clieval, mounted on prancing war horses, and closely followed by the Circassians Who shall describe these warlike figures which come on to their own music of clinking steel and jingling of armour? They fill up the whole roadway with a flood of colour. Such might have been the Crusaders, or rather such might have been the Knights of Saladin, when the Cross and the Crescent met in battle. Mounted on highbred, spirited horses, which are covered with rich trappings of an antique character, the escort of the Emperor comes by, and calls us at once back to the days of Ivan the Terrible. Their heads are covered with a fine chain armour—so fine, indeed, that some of them wear it as a veil before their faces. This mail falls over the neck and covers the back and chest, and beneath it glisten rich doublets of yellow silk. Some of the escort carry lances with bright pennons. All are armed with antique carabines, pistols, and curved swords. Their saddles are crusted with silver, and rich scarfs and sashes decorate their waists. Their handsome faces and slight sinewy frames indicate their origin. Close behind the Circassian escort came the wild Bashkirs and a squadron of the division of the Black Sea Cossacks of the Guard, in large fiat black sheep skin caps, with red skull-pieces, long lances, the shafts painted red, and the pennons coloured blue, white, and red ; their jackets of scarlet; their horses small, handsome, and full of spirit. A squadron of the regiment of Cossacks of the Guard, in blue, followed Each squadron consists of about two hundred men, and the men are by no means of that hairy, high-cheeked, retrousse•nosed, and small•eyed kind identified in the popular mind with their name ; and far different are they from the long•coated, round•headed lancers on scraggy ponies who so long kept watch and ward over us from Canrobert's•hill. These Cossacks are well mounted and well clad, and would afford to the stranger a very imperfect notion of what the Cossacks are who plunder and burn in the front of an advancing enemy, sweep away its supplies, and hover round it to do anything but fight, unless at some enormous vantage. Suggesting some strange likenesses and comparisons, there follows after these four hundred Cossacks a large body of the haute noblesse on horseback and in uniform, two and two, headed by the Marshal of the Nobility for the district of Moscow. Nearly all of these nobles are in military uniforms; those who are not, wear the old Russian boyard's dress, a tunic glistening with pre clout; stones, golden belts studded with diamonds, and high caps with aigrettes of brilliants. On their breasts are orders, stars, crosses, ribands, innumerable. Menschi koffs, Rostopchins, Galitzins, Woronzoffs, Gortachakoffa, Strogonoffa, Cheremetioffs, Plata's, Tolstoys, and the bearers of many another name unknown in Western Europe before the last century, are there carrying whole fortunes on their backs, the rulers and masters of millions of their fellow-men. Brilliant as those squadrons were, they were eclipsed by the magnificent cavalcade of the conquered Asiatics races:— Bashkirs and Circassiana, Tcherkerea, Abaasians, in coats of mail and aurcoata of fine chain armour, Calmucks, Tartars of Kazan and the Crimea, Mingrelians, Kampa: paks, Daghistanhis, Armenians, the people of Gouriel and Georgia, the inhabitants of the borders of the Caspian, Kurds, people of Astrakhan, Samoiedea, wild mountaineers from distant ranges to which the speculations of even the " Hertfordshire Incumbent" have never wandered, Chinese from the. Siberian frontiers, Mongols, and strange beings like Caliban in Court dress. Some of them had their uncovered hair plaited curiously with gold coins; others wore on the head only a small plate of precious metal just over the forehead ; others sheepshin head•dresaes studded with jewels ; old matchlocks that might have rung on the battle-fields of Ivan Veliki, battle-aces, lances, and scimitars and daggers of every form were borne by this gaudy throng, whose mode of riding offered every possible variety of the way in which a man can sit on a horse. Some rode without stirrups, loose and graceful as the Greek war riors who live on the friezes of the Parthenon ; others sat in a sort of legless armchair, with their knees drawn up after the manner of sartorial equestrians. Every sort of bit, bridle, saddle, and horse trapping which has been used since horses were subjugated to man could be seen here. Some of the saddle-cloths and holsters were of surpassing richness and splendour. In the midst of all these cavaliers two attracted particular notice. One was a majestic looking old Turk with an enormous beard and a towering turban, whose garments were of such a rich material and strange cut that one was reminded immediately of the ATIIRDAY, figure of the High Priest in Rtraihrandt's picture, or of the old engravings of the Stilt,. at i n o ld b oo k s of travel. The other was a young depo t from Gouriel, with clust er . lug hair flowing down in cu r, 'lts from beneath a small patch of gold and jewels fixed. ur,4ly cr., t h e top of the head, whose face and figure w strikt handsonm, and who was dre sse d ere in a magnificent su it of blue velvet cramoi.i, flashing with precious stones. l ie was a veritable Eastern Antinous, and was well 'matched with his beautiful horse. This cavalcade of the " peuplades soumisea it la Russie " was to strangers the most interesting part of the procession ; but it Pasf.ed too quickly by for the eye to decompose its ingredirats. What stories of the greatness and =qui& oeuoe of Russia will those people take back to their remote trib'es ! They went by bright, shifting, and indistinct as a &team of the " Arabian Nights." After these the grand officers of the Conrt in gilt carriages, attended by chamberlains in all the para- phernalia of their office, and followed by running footmen in gorgeous liveries, pass in their turn, and then— A noise like distant thunder rolling along the streets announces the approach of the Czar. But his presence is grandly heralded. Immediately after the members of the Council of the Empire the Grand Marshal of the Court rides in an open phaeton, gilt like the rest ; but, bright as Is he and all about him, there comes after that compared. with the lustre of which he is as a mote in the sun. In gilt casques of beautiful form and workmanship, sur mounted by crest eagles of silver or gold, in milk-white coats and gilded cuirasses and hackplates, approach tiler giants of the first squadron of the Chevaliers Gerdes of his Majesty the Emperor, each on a charger fit for w commander in battle. These are the picked men of 60,000,000 of the human race, and in stature they cer tainly exceed any troops I have ever seen. All their appointments are splendid, but it is said that they looked' better in the days of the late Emperor, when they wore white buckskins and jackboots, than they do now in their long trousers. The squadron was probably two hundred. strong, and the effect of the polished helmets, crests, and armour was dazzling. Their officers could scarcely be distinguished, except by their position and the extraordi nary beauty and training of some of their horses, which. slowly beat time, as it were, with their hoofs to the strains of the march. The first squadron of the Garde-it Cheval: follows,----so bright, so fine, that one is puzzled to de3ide• which, they or the chevaliers, are the bravest. But as we are debating the point the tremendous cheering of the people and the measured hurrahs of the soldiers, the doffed hats and the reverences of the crowd, the wiainw of handkerchiefs, and the clash of presenting arms, warm us that the " Czar of All the Russias, of the kingitum: of: Poland, and of the Grand Duchy of Vinland, which twit inseparable from them," is at hand, and Alexander Nina , - laievitch is before us. His Majesty is tall and well formed, although he does not in stature, or in grandeur of person, come near to his father. His face bears a resemblance to the portraits of the Emperor Nicholas, but the worshippersef his deceased Majesty declare that it is wanting in the wonderful power of eye and dignity and intelligence of expression which characterised the father. His Majesty is dressed in the uniform of a general officer, and seems quite simply attired, after all the splendour which has gone past. lle• wears a burnished casque with a long plume of white,. orange, and dark cock's feathers, a close fitting green. tunic, with aiguillettes and orders, and red trousers, an& he guides his charger—a perfect model of symmetry—with, ease and gracefulness. His features are full of emotion. as he returns with a military salute on all sides the mad congratulations of his people, who really act as thoug'.ll the Deity were incarnate before them. it is said that: several times his eyes ran over with tears. To all he given the same acknowledgment—raising his extended heed to the side of his casqae, so that the forefinger rises vertically by the rim in front of the ear. The effect of the Emperor's presence was warred by his suite closing around him instead of leaving hint isolated. Among the crowd of Grand Dukes• reds foreign princes who surrounded his Majesty,— All search out the Grand Duke Constantine, whose keem stern eyes are piercing each window as he rides along. AA countenance with more iron will, resolution, and energy stamped upon it, one rarely sees, and the Russians are not unjustifiably proud of the ability and activity he displayed when the allied squadron was expected at Cronstadt. His features and form are cast in the ltc►manoff mould which the portraits of Alexander soul Nickolas have made pretty well known among us. Next came the Empress Mother and the Empress Regnant : The Empress Alexandra Feodowna, whose appearance excited the liveliest acclamations of the people, now passed before us, her feeble frame sustained by the part she had to play, so that she surprises those who know how weak and suffering she is when they see her porte and tbe• graceful and animated bearing with which she acknow• ledges the oheers of the multitude. "Ah 1" say they who , think of the old Court, " who would ever imagine that she,• who was as a feather in the air suspended by a breath, should live to see this day, and that heron Dieu—should have died before her !" Her Majesty was right royally or imperially attired, but how I cannot say. A cloud of light drapery through which diamonds shone like stars floated around her, and on her head was a tiara of brilliants. The carriage in which she sat was a triumph of splendour—all. gold and crimson velvet; and on the roof, which was com posed of similar materials, was the likeness of an Imperial crown. The eight horses, which were attached to the carriage by trappings and, cords of gold, were the most. beautiful in the Imperial stables, and each was led with a • golden bridle by a Palefrenier in grand livery. To hide from her the coachmen's back, perforce turned towards her Majesty's face, there was an array of little pages, who,