The Express.
London, England, 1864-12-27 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, TUESDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 27, 1864;

tributing to these results by the increased facilities
they have offered, and the increased rapidity with
which transmission and delivery are effected. They

give ua now, chiefly through the medium of letter
pillars, a receiving-box for every 813 houses, and
in the country for every 426 houses, against one
for every 426 and 630 houses respectively ten
years ago. They give a larger number and a wider
extent of free deliveries, and they have
very materially accelerated the mails. We
are now by post within twelve hours of
Edinburgh, Dublin, or Paris, a diminution of time
by from four to twelve hours, which is often prac-
tically equivalent to a whole business day gained
in receiving the reply. We save 7 days to South
America, 29 to Calcutta, and 40 to Sydney.
In London the establishment of postal districts,
and the more general use of letter-boxee in pri-
vets houses, his enabled the deliveries to be made
more frequently and with greater rapidity. There
is, however, some drawback to this advantage in
the circumstance that the use of letter-boxes
makes it more difficult to identify the arrival of
any particular letter, and thus less easy to dis-
cover theft or loss. And the Post-office very
franl.ly acknowledges that its endeavour to pre-
vent the temptation to abstract letters containing
coin, by rendering their registration compulsory,
has been neutralised by the public substituting
postage stamps as a means of transmitting small
sums, and that the increasing loss of such letters
has exactly counterbalanced the diminished loss in
the case of letters enclosing coin.
But the Poet-office is now not merely a letter-
carrying institution—it distributes literature in
the shape of books and printed matter ; it aids
commerce by transmitting samples and patterns ;
it is a bank for transmission, and for deposit.
Within the ten years which the Report reviews
almost all these functions have been either entirely
inaugurated, or expanded from a state of experi-
ment. As a carrier of small and light parcels of
the character indicated, it has been of infinite ser-
vice to the publio—a fact which perhaps cannot be
better proved than by the circumstance that
though thus interfering with our jealously
guarded system of private competition, the Post-
office arrangements have never been subjected to
demur. The money-order business has almost
doubled in ten years, and the savings banks,
though yet but two years old, hold a sum of four
millions of deposits. These are results which un-
doubtedly show wisdom in design and prudent
managing in execution, and when, as a final oonae-
quence of its exertions, the department hands over
above a million a year to the CHANCELLOR of the
EXcIiZQULK as the profits of its various transac-
tions, being three times as much as its net income
ten years ago, it is undoubtedly entitled to the
credit of being a model Government establish-
ment. We can only hope that it will increase its
success by the means by which it has won it, and
will still be alert to adopt every possible improve-
ment, and to adapt itself to every modification of
our social life.

irbe Court.

OSBORNE, Dn. S.

The Queen, the Princess Helens, Prince Arthur,
Prince Leopold, and Prince Leiningen, attended divine ear.
vice at Whippingham Church, yesterday afternoon, attended
by the Dowager Conotees of Mount-Edgeumbe, the Has.
Lucy Kerr, and Major-General the Hon. A. Hood.
Prince Leiningen arrived at Osborne on Saturday, on •
visit to her Majesty.

The Marquis and Marchioness of Salisbury bare
• small and select party staying at Hatfield House, Herts.

. -
Baroness Biome gave birth to a son on Sunday
morning, at the Hanoverian Legation in Grosvenor•plaos.
The harmer aid infant are progressing favourably.
Lord Lyons arrived at the Dneliess of Norfolk's
mansion in St. James's-square last night from Liverpool,
where his excellency landed yesterday morning from New
York. The noble lord is is rather better health than whin
he left the Veiled States.

L►dy Napier lme left London to join his Excel-
lency Lord Napier at Berlin.

The Right Hon. Charles P. Villiers, 3LP., has
joioed the party Bow assembled at The Grove, Lear Wat-
ford. Ile rts, on a visit to the Earl sod Countess of Chuvr.cloa.

It is expected that the annual meeting of the
Romsey Labourers' Encouragement Association will be
held on the 4th of January, and that Lord Palmerton vtll
distribute the premiums on that occasion.

Yesterday morning the members of the Queen's
Westiniester Mel paraded at half-past 11 o'clock at the
Duke of York's Column, SL James'■-park, and after blank
ammunition had been served oat, proceeled. accompanied by
the bands of the regiment. to Hampstead, where the corps
was put through the movements of a field-day, in the pre-
sence of a large number of spectators. The aonual distri-
bution of prises will take place in Westminster Hall on
Saturday week.

This evening the Lord Mayor will preside at a
dinner of the Hampstesi Rides, as the Assembly Rooms,
when he will present the prizes woe during the year to the
successful shots.

His Majesty the King of the Belgians and the
Count of Flanders have returned to Brussels from the royal
chateau in the Forest of Ardennes. During the time the
King paued there he was most arduous in pursuit of sport,
end, besides four wild boars, brought down a peat number
of roebucks, foxes, hares, and other denizens of the forest.

A letter from Rome in the Peat says :—" It is
stated hare, I know not on what authority, that Mr. Pope
Iltrnentl, M.P., bee obtained from the Papal government the
oonoe•sion of the recently projected railway from Rome to
Tivoli. The realisation of such a scheme would afford de.
lightful facilities to excursionist. from Home to that moat
romantically beautiful spot, and in a commercial point of
view the line would develop in a very useful manner the
mournss of the upper valley of the Alai°, beside, abbr..
viatiog the distance to the Neapolitan frontier and the Ab-
brumi previnces. The mineral baths and waters, known to
and praised by the ancient homage ea /he aywr alGeekr, now
little frequented on account of their inconvenient situation,
12 miles from Roma and six from Tivoli, would alm be
brought within a practical distance for valetudinarians of
both places."

Slider states that about the middle of January
M. de Groot will be prep.re l to attempt his aerial flight,
with the aid neither of a Moutgolfier nor a balloon, but by
means of an apparatus heavier than the atmospheric air,
and impelled by human effort.

lu the Vienna papers it is said that an English
company has purchased from a If. Eckstein a large piece of
waste land near the Danube fur the ►um of 120,000/. The
ground in question—the so-called Brijittenau—was a few
weeks ago offered to the municipality of Vienna for
000,000 d., which at the present rate of exchange is about
78,0001. It is said that the company will construct docks
in the Brigittenau.

Goaeral Gordon, of Southampton, has received
the following letter from his distiosusbed son, Ceionel
Gunton, who feught against the Chinese rebels :—" I send
home Chung Wang's sword. It is wrapped is a rebel dug
behiegiug to Tien Chwrog, a rebel chief, next in command
to Wang, and who was killed on it at ChaisChu-Fu. You
will pee marks of his blood on the Hag. ChLog Wang's
sword war given by him to Tye Wang, a rebel chief, of
Lapin, at Waddle. in December, 1863, after the fall of
Souchow, aed at the time that Chung Wang, disguated, do.
terminal to return to Nankin, and take for • time no further
active operations. It is more tbsn an ordinary sword. The
Emperor of China gave one to Ssioquo•jan, and this gift
was accompanied with permission to Saa-quo-jan to execute
anyone, whatever Li. rank might be, without reference to
Pekin. In fact it was a symbol of the power of dictator.
Tien Wang. the rebel chief at Nankiu, gave this sword to
Chung Wang, with the same power as the Imperialists, sod
it was tbis symbol of chief and supreme command which
Chang Wang banded near to Tye Wang when he
milled to Nankin. It fell into my bands at Serum', oar the
9th of Merck, and has on it Chung Wang's name.
' Li tro-tqueo,' Chang Wang meaning ' faithful prince.'
Wang has since Leen taken prisoner Ly the Im-
perialists at Nankia."

consumers. Unaccountable illness having attacked
the frequenters of a particular wine shop, the com-
missary of police of the quarter conceived the idea
of analysing the wine that dribbled from the
counter, and the result was that it was found to
contain metallic poison. The landlord of the esta-
blishment in question is sentenced to 15 days' im-
prisonment. I shall never again drink draught
wine in Paris unless I see it drawn out of the cask.

The Bourse has been very steady, without much
variation from Saturday's quotations. Rente rose
5c., and Mobilier sfr. A loan continues to be talked
of, but nothing certain is known on the subject.
The government wants 350,000 fr. for public works,
but whether the money will be raised by a loan,
by a sale of forest lands, or by an issue of Treasury
bonds, is yet a question. It is rumoured that the
Spanish government has given up its project of a
foreign loan, and means to have a forced loan at
home of 250 millions.

HOLLAND.

(FLOM OUR OWN COMINNONDENT.)
THE HAGUE, Dac. 24.

It would seem from the recent proceedings of the
parliament of this country that the Netherlands are
suffering from that species of national and political
plethora which may be beat characterised as an
embarrass des richesses. During four entire days
the members of the legislature have been engaged in
a very sharp and personal diacusaiou as to the best
way of managing the Indian island of Java, as if
they were so many members of a company that had
found, discovered, or appropriated • valuable trea-
sure, and were at sixes and sevens as to the best
way of disposing of it. One is for investing
its proceeds in shipping, another in land, a third in
commerce, a fourth in stock, giving small interest
and good security, and a fifth in certificates, making
up by high interest for the security they are un-
able to afford. Java is that treasure to the members
of the Dutch Legislature, and proves a source of so
much anxiety and dispute, as to confirm the wis-
dom of the old adage, that it does not require so
much prudence to make a fortune, as it does to
keep it when it is made. Minister after
minister is appointed to manage the affairs
of that troublesomely profitable possession ;
but when they meet their High Mightinesses
of the States General, and lay before them their
schemes and projects, the chances are that they
will find them twisted and turned into unnatural
forms and shapes by men who have never set foot
on the island, and are serenely ignorant of the
idiosyncracies of the people and the characteristics
of their institutions. One minister is declared to
be too much of a radical because he wishes to
respect the rights of the natives, and make the go-
vernment officials discharge their duties on a prin-
ciple of honesty and humanity ; another is too
much of a tory, because he would continue to treat
Java as aconquest won by the sword, make the natives
helots, and give free action to government officials
and nominees, while endeavouring to make the
largest possible fortune in the shortest possible
time ; while a third, who is carefully desirous of
steering a middle course, and of making necessary
evils the pioneers of absolute good, tough the
most approved of the three, is generally regarded
as a mere trimmer, whose highest policy is compro-
mise. Ever since the introduction of the "culture
system" into Java in 1830—a system which re-
ougnises the principle of helotry, and compels the
natives to work for the government during three
days in the week at a ridiculously insignificant
wage—Java has been to Holland the source of
immense treasures, which have been developed to
their full value by the care and attention bestowed
ou them by that most successful and prudent of
commercial corporations, the Netherlands Trading
Company. If the only object that the mother-
country had in view was to enrich herself and those
who represented her in Java, this system must be
considered a great success; but if the natives of Java
have • right to be regarded as something better
than cattle ; if an enlightened European nation have
no right to rule distant millions by means of
tyranny, superstition. and terror, it is high time
that the system, if not suddenly abolished, should
at least be condemned to gradual but certain aboli-
tion. That magnificent possession, where millions
of acres still lie uncultivated, is but wait-
ing the introduction of liberal institutions and
free labour to double its produce, and to be
the home of freemen having a share and au interest
in the soil and prosperity of their country. One of
the leading objects contemplated by the present
ministry is gradually to unrivet the chains which
this "culture-system" has fastened on the native
population of Java, and to diminish the jobbery
and cruelties practised on the government and
the people by Dutch officials and colonial-office
nominees. A new system, bared ou liberal mea-
sures and a liberal policy, has been accepted, after
four days' discussion, by two-thirds of the legisla- '
ture. With the acceptance of this budget has
vanished the last hope of the party of inaction
and retrogression of taking possession of the
ministerial green table in the legislature of the
Netherlands.

All the budgets of the respective ministers
have now been accepted by the second chamber
of the States-General ; and though they will
probably tome with wore serious opposition to the
first chamber, the government is not apprehensive
of au unfavourable majority in that branch of the
legislature. In the second chamber, indeed, the
War Minister bad a somewhat narrow escape front
extinction ; and had it not been for a dex-
terous move on the part of his political
friends, be would have gone the way
of his predecessors. The gallant minister worships
military glory and military parade, and is evidently
out of place iu a liberal ministry pledged to economy
and progress. It is certain that them is no country
iu the world that stands so little in need of an army
as Holland ; she is defended by jealously-clauscd
treaties front invasion by great powers, and the
smaller ones, if ever mad enough to play at invasiva
in Hullaud, would see their emissaries repelled
more by the waterworks than by the fire-
works of the Dutch. There seems something
rid'culuusly grandiose in a Dutch War Minister,
at a time when even the leadiug powers
us Europe are talking of reducing t:Aor forces,
coming forward with his plans and schemes
fo • organising an army at the met of up-
wards of a million sterling. The military de-
fences of the country consist almost solely of old-
fashioned fortifications, which in a strategic point
of view are utterly worthless in this age of im-
proved and improving artillery. The important
lesson contained in the last chapter of Danish
history bad evidently made a salutary
impression on many members of the le-
gislature, and a strong feeling was pro.
uounced that the fortifications shuuld be razed,
as forming the means of sheltering and concentrat-
ing an invading army rather than of repelling it.
The brick and mortar rubbish raised sparsely on
the frontiers cost the country anueally large sums
which might be much more advantageously ex-
pended in streitgtheuiug its natural defences—its
dykes and sluices—which have more than once in its
history proved the destruction of invading forces.
Indeed, were it not fur the necessity the country is
under of having soldiers duly trained to defend its
possessions ill India, one might almost AA what
on earth do the Dutch want with an army at all
Royalty, perhaps, could not dispense entirely with
military parade, but the common-sense people of
the Netherlands evidently think that thirteen
millions florins a-year is a little too much for the toy.
However, the minister was allowed to have his
own way ; and so the army is to be re-organised,
and the fortifications are to be increased, as a notice
to Austria and Prussia that they had better not
try to seek an exeunt, for itivadiug the Netherlands,
or attempt to tli.play their prowess, as they so va-
liantly did against Denmark, within reach of Dutch
cannon.

A genuine old-fashioned Dutch winter, with a
strong spice of the Russian, has suddenly set in.
The myriad canals and streams and rivers that
intersect the " watery glade" of this spongy
country are incrusted with ice many inches thick,

and, of oourse, all-navigation is arree.d. The froet
came on so suddenly that no arrangements could be
made for its reception, so that many vessels are
frozen up in the middle of the streams they were
navigating. Winter, in all countries, necessarily
brings distress to many ; but in Holland, a severe
winter is to thousands the synonym. of hunger,
wretchedness, starvation, and death.

Nairn .. llO.lOOl
4berdeisallo.l.3 30
teeth
Ardroesan
Greencastle
Galway
Yaleatia
Cape Clem
litleoll4oWll.
I.lverpool
Noll Land
rem Crok e
Penzance
seem 30.2337 N.N.X.
L'orlent.
vochelori
112nuuith
tymouth 30.4332 N.N.N.
rostsmosth 3030 St N. N.X.
London . 30 JO 29 N.
Iwyrr
Yarmouth
.earl•oronsch 30.17 31 W.P. W.
amide 30.34.0 &I W.
Hellooland 30.22 33 N. W.

&W.
W.B.W.

3).1342 N.

2(.7.r.

I.N.E.
NE
NE.
N.:Y,IL

W.s w.

R'. \. W,

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nunsaat.i.
witimositaY. on NORTIMIS TRTIMPAT.
8.91. W. to W. N. W., Tao- COASTS. S.W. to N W., mode-
derate.generally fine. rate to fresh.
S.W. to N.W. and Worming. N. to W., fresh to so-
N.E., modern* to derate.
fresh.
N. E. to N. W., light to SOCTIIISMI. N.W. to N.E. and hack
fresh, floe, moderate to fresh,
generally tine.
W. 4. W. to NN E. ZAMA& As mut above.
variable, moderate,
generally nue.
Northertmgeotland. Weetern.lreland. Wales, and a/ja-
m:lea nnethern= English Channel and Bay of &ICU. &Mira
=Outward England and North See.

ORDER Or THE DAT OF PRINCE HI'MBERT.--
?MIN, DEC. 23.—His Royal Highness Priam Humbert has
addressed the following order of the day to the Italian
troops upon taking military command of the province of
Naples :—" His Majesty the King be. deigned to entrust
me with the command of this military division. When I
was at Naples last year, with the command of the brigade of
Grenadiers of Lombardy. I bad the opportunity of supra.
ciatiog the discipline mid noble military spirit by which the
corps belonging to this military division sre iodinated, as
well as the zeal with which officers and soldiers fulfil the im-
portant and difficult services entrusted to them. Let by
skilful chiefs, and by au illustrious general, during four
years of uninterrupted hardships, you have restored peace
and treequillity to districts hitherto infested by brigands.
Officers and soldiers, I am proud to be your commander.
lieu such confidence in me as you have had io my illus-
trious predecessor, who has commanded you with so much
experience. Continue to make progress io the different
branches of instruction and in military discipline. and let
your hearts preserve An unalterable love for the King and
faith in the destinies of the country.-111:liseltr of &TOT,
I6eutecaot•General commanding the Division."
THE REV. J. KERLE.—Our reader!' will hear
with regret that the illness which interrupted Mr. Keble's
correspondence with " Anglicanue," is attributed to a
paralytic attack. —Record.
A lihnriant CLEARED UP.—During the whole of
last week considerable interest was felt at Halton owing
to the discovery of a complete snit of clothing in one of the
railway station water-elouta, for which no owner could be
found. It was at first thought that the clothes were those
of some thief who bad changed his habiliments is haste, but
afterwards, from the fact of ►he under-clothing being there,
it was suposed that some suicide had been committed is
the river. The dimppearacce of a 1113T1 named Charles
Trundle gave colour to this ; but it was subsequently stated
that be bad been drowned at York. Mn. Superintendent
Wslmsley, however, has taken up the matter, and he has
ascertained from the police authorities at Sheffield that a
man named Williamson left Sheffield for Melton early in
lest week, and before leaving be was presented with en
entire suit of new garmeote. It seems he bad worn his old
clothes till reaching Milton, and bad there taken the alio.
gular means of changing his dress which has caused so
much wonderment foe several days.

DOUBLE' EXECUTION AT STAFFuItb.-tilit ,
DAY.)