The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1858-02-09 00:00:00

lareign anb ctr ol on ial Enttlligmce.

FRANCE.
Few even among the best informed readers of the
literature of the day will be prepared for the fact that,
side by side with the known productions of the press of
Paris, there has existed from time immemorial in
France, another, and, in its own sphere, hardly less in-
fluential literature, addressing a totally different public,
enicYing a separate and peculiar circulation, and
ing an organization, both for production and distn%lll7:::
almost entirely independent of the ordinary machinery
of literary commerce. Still less will they be prepared to
learn that the number of volume thus annually put into
circulation throughout the length and breadth of France
amounts to nearly 10,000,000, at prices ranging from a
franc down to a eons; or for the still more extraordi-
nary fact, that among this enormous number, with the
exoeption of a few of the modern novels, hardly a
single volume—at least in the form in which it is circu-
lated by the hawkers—is the production of any writer
whose works have ever attracted the attention of our
readers. So that we are led to the singular conclusion
that a substratum of publications of enormous extent
supplies the demand and feeds the curiosity of the
lower orders, utterly unconnected with the higher crea-
tions of French genius, coarser in form and in substance,
and very slightly affected by the vicissitudes of taste
and opinion.
THE LATE Arraurricn ABBABBINATION.—The inves-
tigations of the London and Birmingham police show
that the engineer who made the shells used in the late
attempted assassination of the Emperor of the French
had not the least notion that those from whom he
received instructions were refugees, or connected with
any political party, but thought they were for some
seientific experiments connected with ligitimete war-
fare. The order and correspondence relating to them
were carried on in the name of a foreigner known to
the police, but not in custody. The engineer, who is a
highly respectable man, has afforded, without any hesi-
ration, all the information he was in possession of. The
Soot part of the correspondence, it is said, took place no
great length of time after the return of Orsini to this
country, and some of our leading detectives are in pos-
session of information which if correct, will prove where
the conspirators matured a portion of their plot. The
spot selected is near Leicester-square, and the parties
who were the •oompanions of those now in cusody are
under the strict surveillance of the members of our
police to whome they are known, and also some French
officers who have come over here since the attempt was
made. _

ENGLISH PASEMORTS.—OfticiaI notice, issued frointhe
Foreign Office, has been given to the effect that pass-
ports are granted to persons who are either known to
the Secretary of State, or recommended to him by some
person who is known to him ; or upon the application of
any banking firm established in London or in any other
part of the United Kingdom, or upon the recommenda-
tion of the Mayor or chief magistrate of any corporate
town in the United Itingdom, or of any magistrate or
justice of the peace. Passports cannot be sent by the
Foreign-office to a person already abroad; such person
should apply to the nearest British Mission or Consul-
ate. Foreign-office passports must be countersigned at
the Mission in London, or at some Consulate hi the
United Kingdom of the Government of the country
which the bearer of the passport intends to visit.
Henceforward the British Government will be re-
sponsible for its own subjects, and for no other. Every
Continential Prince by his own agents is to look after his
own people; and so, if mistakes occur, he and they only
will be held answerable for the event. Austrians are to
take care of Austrians, French of Frenchmen, Prussians
of Prussians. Our countrymen who care to travel
abroad will now find it as easy to procure a passport
from the Foreign-office under the new rules as from the
French or Belgian Consul. Foreign office passports will
henceforth be granted to all applicants upon the recom-
mendation of any magistrate or justice of the peace, or
any mayor of any corporate town. The formalities
required are of the most trifling kind, and the fee is
fixed at 65., of which ss. are paid for the stamp. The
measure is, of course, dictated by the sudden apprehen-
sions excited in France by the recent enterprise of
Orsini and his infamous companions.
Tug MONTS CRISTO NOVELN.—Judgment was given
on Wednesday in this ease, which has excited unusual
interest in the literary world, and in which M. Magnet
claimed not only to be declared co-author and co-pro-
prietor with M. Alexandre Dumas in the production of
the works produced in the name of this latter gentle-
man, but also to be adjudged a very considerable sum of
money which he affirmed due to him for his literary aid.
The judgment of the court, after recapitulating the cir-
cumstances of the case, declares that Magnet cannot be
considered as anything but the paid assistant of DUMAS,
and that as such he has no claim whatever to the
authorship or proprietorship of the works published by
this latter, and likewise cannot call on him to pay any-
thing beyond what had been originally agreed on. In
consequence, it declares Magnet to be non suited and
condemns him to pay the costs.
A pilgrimage to Jerusalem is at present being organ-
ised at Marseilles, the intention being to start on March
7, and to pan Easter week at the Holy City, and after-
wards visit Bethlehem, the Dead Sea, the river Jordan,
&e. The route home is to be by Nazareth, the Lake of
Tiberius, St. Jean d'Acre, Tyr Saida (Sydon), Beyrouth,
back to Marseilles. The whole journey will occupy
about two months.