The Express.
London, England, 1864-09-06 00:00:00

EXPRESS FROM PARIS.

(mom ous owx

)11:3T. i

PARIS, MONDAY Emma.

Perhaps the paragraph is not scions, but we are
told here this evening by the Pays that M. Bis-
marck, having in a despatch to our foreign minister
thanked Lord Russell for the great moderation he
showed during the Dano-German conflict, has re-
ceived from the English diplomatist a sharp and
biting reply. The same paper thinks the visit of
the Prince of Wales to Copenhagen inopportune,
and has doubte as to the reception. The liberal
press writes bitterly this evening on the contem-
plated meeting between the Emperor and Frederic
William, as there is no apparent motive for the in-
terview, England and Prance having decided on re-
maining neutral in respect to the duchies. That
the two sovereigns are to meet at all is denied in
some quarters, but the rumour of the last few days
could not be allowed to pass without another exhi-
bition of angry feeling being evinced towards
Prussia. The Temps asks what mysterious question
cauld lead the conquerors of &Marino to shake
hands with the conquerors of DuppeL

Each time that a notable criminal is about to be
executed the question of maintaining the punish-
ment of death is re-argued. In general it is the
philanthropic party which makes an appeal to pro-
gress, civilisation, and humanity, and which shows
that as crime does not decrease, so the moral effect
of the guillotine must be loot on minds predisposed
to assaasiustion. In the present instance it is M.
Alphonse Karr, whose opinion on the matter ever
since he wrote the memorable phrase, " Que
messieurs is. assassins commencent," has been
well known, who conies before the public. The
philanthropist says that society should not commit
a crime for which it condemns a criminal. M. Karr
says society must defend itself, but he applauds the
great modification which the criminal code has
undergone. Torture has been abolished, the stake,
the wheel, &c. The pain of death has been done
away with in cases of sacrilege, blasphemy, poach-
ing, highway robbery, and housebreaking ; it has
also been suppressed for political misdemeanours,
and wisely so, for in politics the vanquished were
always judged by their enemies. The combat has
continued, but with this difference, that one side was
armed, the other disarmed. The pain of death has been
abolished even for assassination where premeditation
cannot be proved, and what with the pusillanimity
of juries, and the many motives which they find
for bringing in a verdict of extenuating circum-
stances, capital punishment has been so abolished
that it can hardly be said to exist. No matter bow
diabolical the crime, one can never be sure that
the last sentence of the law will be applied. About
a month ago Jean Baptiste Perrin and his sister
appeared before the criminal court at Ardennes.
Perrin had two sisters, and the charge against him
was that of incest and murder. One sister took
refuge in a convent ; the other was tried with her
brother. A child had been born, and was shown
to have been cut in pieces by Perrin, who forced
Leonie Perrin to make • path of it for the pigs.
Lennie Perrin was declared innocent—Perrin
guilty with extenuating circumstances, because the
pieces were so small. An account of this trial may
be found in the Prase of the Ist August. You will
not have forgotten the crime of Colmar, in which
three prisoners were placed at the bar, charged
with premeditated parricide, accomplished with
revolting barbarity ; not a single circumstance
was adduced tending to alter the revolting cha-
racter of the crime, and yet the jury found extenu-
ating circumstances. M Kan would see capital
punishment more often inflicted. It is not pro-
bable that the government will abolish it altogether,
as one of the latest acts of the Senate was to decide
in favour of its maintenance after a discussion on
several petitions for and against abolition.

In the Nouvelle Revue de Paris M. Edmond
About has made the following remarks with regard
to the Labaatide affair :
This Latour that they judged at Fein has all the air of a
scamp, but what energy, what a head ! Supposing he had
beam put w collep and then mat to study law, then . . . .
No matter what. My idea is, in two words, that if 2J,0000.
(800/.) had beers laid out upon him he would not only bare
made an honest man but a superb attorney-general. Society,
they will tell me, had not 20,000(r. to spare. Bat add up
the cost of the trial, the money stolen from Bellbird, and
the life of two men and two women, and you will see that
it would be exmomical to take are of the education of such
customers.

Of course another 20,000 fr. would have been
required for Hercules, and the authorities are still
of opinion that three or four more persons were
implicated in the crime of which M. About speaks.
About 200 of the streets of Paris are undergoing
a change of name. For a long time this will
cause great inconvenience, especially to postmen.
The new names are all historical. Four
streets in the 3rd arrondissement are re-bap-
tised, and assume the names of historians, Trois-
sard Commines, Dames Galante°, Brant Alms, and
the lyrical poet Beranger. The Rue Voltaire be-
comes Rue Casimir Delavigne ; the Avenue de
Chapelle takes the name of the encyclopedist
D'Alembert ; for Rue Bayard is substituted Rue
Roche ; and for Rue St. Fiacre, dear to cabmen,
the name of Mullis, the general who brought the
Pope to France for the first Emperor. Amongst
the new names are those of soldiers, churchmen,

painters, players, astronomers, sailors, architects,
&c., &a., such as Cambronne, Affre, David, Talma,
Copernicus, Lalatie, Vitrnviva.

There is no lack of versifiers in Paris. The
sown offered a short while ago a prize for 40 lines
fit to be set to music. Two thousand five hundred
rivals entered the lists.
The market has not shown much animation to-
day. The Mobiliers have slightly declined. Rail-
way market quiet.

M. 136hic, the French Minister of the Interior,
has Wined a circular addameed to railway authorities, call.
ins upon them to West oa seeming the regulations against
smoking in railway carriages, a practice so dangerous in these
fearful days of crinoline, if ladies are nem, and often an
snaoyanes.
The ironworks in Paris are unusually busy. One
' pest honas has more orders at its books than it can eke-
' out* within two yean. Several machines are being coo-
, struoted for the canals in the north of Frasea The Bra.
allies government has seal large orders to Frame for metal
work. The necessity for executing some iron bridges obliges
Use =a in one factory to work extra loan.