The Express.
London, England, 1864-09-01 00:00:00

,SEPTEMBER

Ad vices from Farragnt's fleet state that several
vessels bad crossed Dog River bar, and at-
tacked the defences of the city. Operations had
been commenced against Fort Morgan, and a
general attack upon it by the fleet was ordered to
take place on the 17th. The garrison had de-
stroyed all the out-buildings and manifested a
determination to hold out to the last. The fort
is known to be wall garrisoned and provisioned.
Confederate accounts continue to regard the
surrender of Fort Gaines as an act of treachery.
The Mobile Register of the 10th states that Gene-
ral Maury has ordered non-combatants to leave
this city. The Register says—" There is no thought
of surrendering the city, nor any belief that it can
be taken."

The Richmond Sentinel states that Chalmers
achieved a victory over the Federals at Abberville,
Mississippi, on the 14th, inflicting on them severe
Ices.

North Carolina advice@ mention the shooting of
seven Federal soldiers at Newborn, for attempting
to desert to the enemy.
The Indians in Kansas and Colorado are becom-
ing very troublesome. Several powerful tribes are
said to have banded together to wage a war of
extermination against the whites, and it is re-
ported that they have defeated the fortes under
General Sully, at Knife River. The Indians were
murdering settlers in the neighbourhood of Fort
Kearney and Denver city. A large force was being
I organised to operate against them.
After destroying some twenty-five vessels off the
coast of Maine, and six off Cape Sable, the privateer
I Tallahassen put into Halifax., where she took on
board 300 tons of coal, and started out to sea. It
is reported that the gunboat Dakstah was lying off
the harbour to intercept her.
General Sherman has addressed a letter to the
Maasachusett's recruiting agents, deprecating the
recruiting of negroes in his department to fill the
quota of that state. The general declares that the
negro is not equal to the white man in the field,
and that he prefers to employ him only as a
teamster, or in some such capacity.
A mass peace meeting was held at Syracuse,
New York, on the 17th inst. Hon. C. L. Yellen-
digham, of Ohio, and Fernando Wood, of New
York, were among the speakers. Mr. Yellen-
dighain advocated pesos, and declared that he
believed a reunion of the States possible after the
defeat of Abraham Lincoln, and that be expected
that the nominee of the Chicago convention
would be committed to a suspension of hostilities,
and a convention of the States. Mr. Vallan-
digham asserted that most of the North Western
delegates would insist upon these conditions. A
series of resolutions were adopted denouncing the
" caurpations of the present administration," de-
precatiog any further prosecution of the war, and
favouring a vigorous agitation of peace measures at
the approaching convention at Chicago.
On the 18th the President addressed the 164th
Regiment, whose term of service bad expired, as
follows :—" You are about to return to your
homes and friends after having, as I learn, per-
formed a comparatively abort term of duty in this
great contest. lam greatly obliged to you and to
all who have come forward at the call of their
country. I wish it might be more generally and
universally understood what the country is now
engaged in. We have, as all will agree, a free
government where every man has a right
to be equal with every other man. In
this great struggle, this form of govern-
ment, and every form of human right, is en-
dangered if our enemies succeed. There is more
involved in the contest than is realized by every-
one ; there is involved in this struggle the question
whether your children and my children shall enjoy
the privileges we have enjoyed. 1 say this in order
to impress upon you, if you are not already so im-
pressed, that no small matter should divert us from
our great purpose. There may be some irregulari-
ties in the practical application of our system. It
is fair that each man shall pay taxes in exact pro-
portion to the value of his p ray ; but
if we should wait before collecting a tax
to adjust the taxes upon each man
in exact proportion with every other man,
we should never collect any tax at all. But
I beg of you, as citizens of this great republic, not to
let your minds be carried off from the great work
which we have before us. This struggle is too
large for you to be diverted from it by any smaller
matter. When you return to your homes rise up to
the height for a generation of men worthy of a free
government. We will carry out the great work we
have commenced. I return you my sincere thanks,
soldiers, for the honour you have done me this
afternoon."

SIR GEORGE GREY'S BILL ON EARLY
CLOSING PCBLIC•HOVSES - EVERYONE FOR
HIMSELF.

f L.

ODT OF THE SEASON.
—,,,.
—. PLEASURE ROUSES.—No. 2.
"Palmer" wee, and why he OCROOlitted his
4.' 4 Ruestioos ire will not attempt to
„is is as sesdissa to speculate upon his I
''. figure him with staff,'
.piating early sins by
ask why a evert of die-
called a Folly, or bear
know • diet Through an
fed tunnel leading from
a place we have come to
Palmer's Folly by every
for to this eactiou of the
ibocking in the squalid
the air you breathe, The
eights you see ; doubly
on for deeds of lawless
I use to which its houses
unabashed wickedness of
%in its gates. A dark
you are peeped at by
, who stand at slightly
A from shrouded win-
looks as if nature's
never penetrated it,
light were admitted by
If ever you saw the
loving darkness
are evil literally
...s entirety, ii. _.. here. You turn from
the flaring lights of the busy thoroughfare you
have left to tramp up the black gloom-stricken
court, to see ill-omened figures flit about your
path, and to speculate upon the effect of the gate
to your rear being suddenly shut and locked, or
what your course of action would be if the expe-
riences' guide at your side were to suddenly remem-
ber an appointment and ask you to wait his return.
The solution to both hypotheses is that you would
probably be robbed and maltreated. The dwell-
ings before you are known as "Skinning-houses,"
and it is from those portals, or through those win-
dows, that many a poor deboahed sailor has been
thrust after being stripped to the skin. Hence
the name. Tipsy and impressionable, a full
purse, an open heart, and a weak bead,
have combined to make him easy prey ; and it has
been no uncommon episode in the history of the
place for the well-dressed prosperous tar
of one night to become the naked
outcast of the next. The police regulations have
been latterly enforced with salutary strictness, and
the condition of this wretched spot proportionately
improved. Brawls are lam frequent, robbery not
so barefaced, and open outrages on decency lees
common. But it is still a place to shun. If
any form of duty necessitate its being visited, let
the intending visitor secure the palpable guardiac-
ship of the law, or be will inevitably be robbed
and beaten. There are gradations in its bagniee,
from the so-called " respectable " one, wit,, its
fifteen or twenty tenants, and its rigid system of
locked doors, down to the low lodging-house for
women, two of whom are squabbling under the dim
street-lamp yonder as to their respective proprietary
rights in the poor sot leaning against the wall.
The laws of event and tuum are at their very
weakest ; there is here no honour even amongst the
people who make common war against society, and
the "Thou shalt want ere I want" of the old
border chief is elevated into a system of ethics, and
made the ruling principle of life. The door of each
room in the house just named is fastened on the
outside whenever occupied, and the key kept by
the proprietor of the establishment, who has
also a sliding panel in every door, through
which to objurgate his or her tenants, to look down
upon them when they are least prepared for ob-
servation, and to guard against furniture being
wantonly broken, or the sheets or other chattels
I feloniously abstracted. After these facts—which
speak with such sad significance of the tone and
1 custom of the place—are hastily gathered, we be-
come conscious of a peculiar smell of burning, the
aroma from which is not unpleasant. Following
1 this odd scent, and half recognising the drug from
1 which it comes, we push at • half-open front door,
1 and at once find ourselves in • small, half-lit,
shabby room on the ground floor, in which a large
French bedstead occupies the moat conspicuous
' place. The smell has grown in intensity as we
neared this house, and, once here, it becomes trying
both to eyes and head. First, as to the company we
met On the bed, which is devoid of sheets or
counterpane, and has its pillows and bolster placed
lengthwise along its side, are three Chinamen
I sprawled round a small japan tray, in the centre
of which is a tumbler half full of • thick brown
syrup, of the consistency of treacle, some brass
thimbles, one or two bits of wire about the size of
the pins known as " blankets ;" a burning taper
and some pipes, which look like bits of walking
stick, well-worn air guns, or rude musical intru-
ments. The old Chinaman on the end of the bed
nearest the window seems in a half trance, though
he smokes vigorously, and in his cadaverous face,
painfully-hollow cheeks, deeply-sunken eyes, open
vacuous mouth, and teeth discoloured, decayed,
and, as it seems, loose as castanets, you read the
' penalties of opium smoking. This is the proprietor
of the house, whose preparation of the drug is
1 so exceptionally skilful that Chinamen come from
1 all parts of London to patronise Lim. Before
you hastily form a judgment as to the wreck of
vitality you think you see, learn that the old man
is seventy-five years old, that be lives quite alone,
and is his own housemaid, scullion, and cook ; that
be is diligent in his business, such as it is, rises
daily at 5 a.m., and is celebrated throughout his
dingy neighbourhood fur the energetic particu-
larsty with which he scrubs and washes pots, pans,
and house, and for the scrupulous care wherewith.
'he purchases and prepares Lis food. Miss Dorothy
Tearsbeet bears testimony to this as she lean.
against the door-post and seeks to propitiate Mr.
Inspector by her ostentatious civilities and the soft
and flowery character of her tropes. Not seeing
Mr. Inspector's face as he sits with back to door,
This lady addresses him as Mr. Brown, and
assumes a confidential air as she indulges
in retrospective and playfully appeals to
memory and experience. This, you will learn, is
called " trying it on ;" and as the responses be-
come more and more curt, and the wish to repulse
more and more evident, you must not be surprised
at being conversationally fastened on in your turn,
nor if the verbal compliments culminate in allu-
sions towards the payment of "footing " and the
disbursement of coin. The woman has no business
there—knows, fortunately for her, nothing of Mr.
Inspector ; but she has a vague notion that it is
prudent tobe on speaking terms with the
hes authori-
iwt
and so makes poor old John Chinaman a
dal ' -horse whereon to air her information and
do the onours of the place. Besides the bed, there
are chairs, a table, cooking utensils, and a clothes-
line stretching from one corner of the room to the
other. On this bang the coats and waistcoats,
collars and cravats of three young fellows, who
welcome us with a pleased, smile, who are so tickled
with our questions about opium smoking, and who
exert themselves so efficiently to make us feel at
our ease. Their boots and shoes are put tidily in
corners or under the bed, and they remain iu trou-
sers, shirt and slippers, or in stockings only. They
are evidently of a respectable clam of Chinamen •,
they are clean in their persons, and both socks and
shirts are of commendable purity. The one nearest
the tray cannot smoke more than three or four
pipes of opium a day ; the one next him does not
know his own power ; while the one at the bed's
foot avows to mix or eight as the daily
r ea;itity he likes. The " ole genelman," as
ell call the keeper of the house,
either does not speak English, does not like
being bothered, or is too much under the
influence of opium to talk. He takes no part in
the dialogue, which is maintained with some little
difficulty, owing to the partial knowledge of English

I, :r

o=lWheerZwith 1171) or character; tau:
urrender of Dalton. =I
lames
as it is tee .
reel ffiebeirt, whose reou houses should be.eal
es, refueled 10 Fi.112 ' It is enough to' kJ
• stunt
realaaa2,lll Iron*,nand'
up a low-rofed.
when Federal rein- highway stands timid
tCuaf.tera.,2411,,,,..7: that it is !mortise Pal
itate
800,
aOOB-mliailid&aum—d6-a-lithat-e d.r...waihiPiadarreadiPeriacild plate She
visitor
8 miles from hat- PeaL Adresdlulplace Sbo,
.vial 'ng itself felt in the
Steadman. The re-
soon you hear, and the gig
ladofiliSatheliwialst Imndianverl, avihoTen iftrrtheitstbsater•Fulattaisimutt
daller'llialmea bad Pone are pa and for the open, maid
many pf the dwellers within
roompleting Mum-
Atlanta- HHoodbe,,,ottio Folly, too, where y
t of unlidywead dishevelled
and there were even vim noose, or peer firrirena'f
ne the offensive. He do,' ;1 a Polly which low
r
a that in the battle and if even artilintal li4
*pulsed six assaults, ' =de! protest 4
irionsa as to ape
ly Zarltillet sad rather than fight when their de
realised in its entirety, it is he
-
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