The Express.
London, England, 1864-04-21 00:00:00

RUSSIA AND THE PRINCIPALITIES.

VIENNA, Arun. 20.
The Mew/errs publishes Dewy from Jassy, an-
nouncing that General Kotzebue, the commandant
of Odessa, had received orders from St. Petersburg
to enter Moldavia under certain circumstances.
A Russian officer communicated these orders to
the Roumain commandant.

Great excitement was caused by the intelligence.

SANTO DOMINGO.
MADRID, Ann. 20.
The Spanish government is making preparations
for the speedy pacification of Sauto Domingo.
General Gaudara is confident of this being
accomplished, and is on the point of setting out
fur Manilla with all the available troops.

THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA.

LIVERPOOL, Amt. 21.

The mail steamer Armenian, with the West
African mails, arrived at Liverpool this morning.
Her .latea are Benin, February 24 ; Fernando
Po, 29; Cameroona, March 1 ; Old Calabar, 2 ;
Brass River 4 ; Bonny, 7 ; Lagos, ; Accra, 12 ;
Cape Coast Castle, 14 ; Cape Palmas, 16 ; Sierra
Leone, 24 ; Bathurst, 28 ; Tenerife, April 8 ;
Madeira, 10.

She brings 583 ozs. of gold dust, 10,914 dollars,
1,241 sovereigus, 6,655 francs, and 25 passengers.
The Confederate steamer Florida and the Federal
cruiser St. Louis were at Madeira on the Bth, but
the St. Louis sailed 24 hours before the Florida.
There is little news of importance from the
rivers.

THE STEAMER TAGUS.
SOUTHAMPTON, Aram 21.
. . .

The steamer Tagus, lately belonging to the Pe-
ninsular and Oriental Company, which sailed hence
yesterday for Glasgow, has returned, having broken
down.

THE PERSIAN GULF TELEGRAPH.—Adrioes have
been received from Sir Charles Bright announcing the entire
completion of the Penile Gulf cable on the 27th of March.
The line was workinc excellently through its whole length.
The land-line between the head of the Gulf and Bagdad is
not yet completed.

_A

b'

nom P

SHAKESPEARIAN CELEBRATIONS
PROHIBITED IN FRANCE.
(nod am ow= oomaragnmarr.)
PARIS, WIIOIIIBDAT EVIMIUM.

The tuutomuntable prohibition of a Shakesperian
performance at the Porte St. Martin is thus com-
mented upon by the Sieele :

If Ames. to Denmark were feared Hendee might bare
bees replaced ►y Othello, although, indeed, that play ime-
Mine allusions to Venice. But what can possibly be said
against Falstaff and the Midsummer Night's Dream, la
Falstaff a demagogue, and hes swirly saytbiag to fear from
the subversive priseiples at the Wry Thuds ? How es-
te:eked the English will be when they reed the Paris news
is their jamas, and Sad that the authorities have inter-
dicted a represeohitioe in honour of Shakespeare, judgieg
it incompatible with the maintenance of public tranquillity !

Since the Slide wrote the above, the announce-
ment has been made that the French Shakespeare
banquet has also been prohibited. I don't like
under present circumstances to trust myself to speak
of these things, and therefore again prefer quoting
a French journal. The Temps says :
The reams for them messums are so doubt profaned,
for they escape our apprtheasion altogether. We blow,
moreover, that the English residents in Paris will be
allowed to do without say difficulty what French citizens
me prohibited from doing. We are therefore in the face
of so act of authority, which like a miracle we are reduced
to admire without comprehending. Om Mil*, however, is
clear, that in Paris in 1884—Paris, the capital of • people
which marshes at the head of civilisation, and under the
strongest government is the world, that thing is
prohibited which is permissible not only is London
and throughout Ragland, but also in all Germany,
and more particularly at Vienna, Dresdeo, Berlin, Munich.
lituttgard, Carlsruhe. Darmstadt, Cassel, Frankfort, Hano-
ver, Oembnack, Weimar, Coburg-Gotha, Meininpn, Hild-
bungshausen. &a. We will my nothing of other countries
and other porta of the world. If eiegularity be greatness,
we are assuredly at this moment greater than we have
ever before bees.

While I am writing, an English gentleman calls
to tell me that the English Shakespeare banquet
has been prohibited also. He says he has been to
the Grand Hotel specially to inquire, and is in-
formed that the banquet will certainly not
take place, and that notice to that effect
has been sent to the British embassy.
I really cannot bring myself to believe this. There
must be some mistake. Why, the English banquet
was announced in the Monitenr only yesterday,
together with the fact that it hat been resolved
upon at a meeting at Lord Cowley's. It cannot be
that such an affront is to be put upon the English
ambassador and a party of English gentlemen, who
proposed to dine together on their national poet's
birthday, as that of treating them at the last mo-
ment as a seditious club. What possible harm
could there be in such • meeting under the cozy
presidency of Lord Gray of Gray 1 It is said, in-
deed, that the French committee proposed
to leave a sort of Bauquo's chair va-
cant for the spirit of Victor Hugo. The
objection to that one can in strictness
understand ; although it would have been better to
have sent a comely snotichard to fill the chair than
to have stopped the dinner. But Lord Gray of
Gray would most assuredly countenance nothing
sensational. I have beard of no projected stage
effect for his dinner beyond the exhibition of a
very beautiful bust of Shakespeare, which Mr.
Greenhough, the American sculptor, has been kind
enough to lend for the occasion. Surely he will
not be required to take it back to hi 4 studio. I
shall immediately make precise inquiries, and let
you know to-morrow whether the astounding news
brought to me is really true.
At all events, the French government is entitled
to a certain credit for impartiality. Molii,re, as
well MR Shakespeare, is under the ban of the police.
M. F. Morin, a writer in the Cmt rrier die Dimanche,
'and recently an independent candidate at Lyons,
who lately began a series of lectures iu the Rue de
la Paix on ..IfolW re philosuphe, has been ordered to
discontinue them.

The determination of the Corps Legislatif to
refer the budgetary modifications suggested in the
Emperor's letter to a special committee, and not to
the budget committee, is undoubtedly a parlia-
mentary defeat for the government. The sum to
be immediately received from the Mexican govern-
ment only furnishes about half of the 26.000,000
produced by the "double &tame " which it is pro-
posed to abolish. The remaining sum it was pro-
posed to make up by various additional registra-
tion duties. But the Corps Legislatif objects that
the projected tax has all the inconvenience which
led to complaints of the double decime, and with
this additional disadvantage that whereas the
working of the first is known and anticipated that
of the latter is unknown and will greatly perplex
and disarrange the calculations of notaries and
men of business in dealing with property.
Moreover, the double dcinie abolished with
such a great flourish of trumpets was essentially a
temporary war tax, and would have expired of itself
on January 1, 1865, whereas the suggested substi-
tution for a part of it would be a perpetual burthen.
The Chamber, therefore, thinks the whole question
too serious to be examined !properly at this ad-
vanced period of the session, and it will, I believe,
insist that, after all, only the half of the double
dt:cime shall be repealed for the present, the rest
of the scheme standing over.
There has been a considerable fall at the Bourse
to-day. The money article of the Prtsse attributes
it to absurd political rumours, which were eagerly
swallowed, though resting upon no foundation
whatever. One of these rumours was that Russia
is about to occupy the Danubian principalities—a
thing which she could not do without a flagrant
breach of the treaty of Paris. The bears also
worked what they call a monetary crisis in London,
but it is understood that the bullliou in the Bank
of France has increased, and that it is not likely
to raise its discount. Rents fell 30c. for cash and
20c. for account, closicg at 66fr. 20c. and 67fr. 15c.,
nearly the lowest prices of the day. Mobilier
fell 48fr. 75c.

A letter from Alexandria says :—" After the
recce, which are to take place here on the god of May,
Ismail Pecks will give a grand bell at the Palace of Ranet
Tin to the European colony. A very good racecourse is
being carefully prepared at his highness's expense, just
beyond the railway, near Gabini-gardens, between the sea
and Lake Mareotis. It is • circle of one mile, and has
been intrusted to the French engineer who is constructing
the gas works. Hones are expected from abroad, and the
Bedouin Sheikhs are entering their horses fire end six at •
time, so the oontest ought to be exciting."

On Tuesday Mr. David Davis, the Jewish high
sheriff of Southampton, after presiding orer a court lest,
gave a "onnotiet to about 100 persons, consisting of the ma-
gistrate., the mayor and corporatioe, and the chief trades.
men of the borough. In the speeches that were delivered
congratulatims were expressed at the proven of civil and
religious liberty, which bad esabled a member of the
Hebrew penuasiou to represent, as sheriff, the Queen of
England. The high sheriff, is returning thanks for his health
being drunk, alluded to the veoerableand beneficent Hebrew
—Sir Moses Montefioni—and ►is zealous labours to emanci-
pate Jews and Christians from pereseution and bondage in
Russia, Damascus, sod Morocco.
THE LORD LIErTENAWF OF IRELAND.—The Dub-
lin &preas states that the rumour which has been put in
circulation, to the effect that his Excellency the Earl r.f
Carlisle wrtl not return to Ireland ea viceroy, is without a
shadow of foondatioo.

TIIVR , ..