The Express.
London, England, 1852-02-10 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, TUESDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 10. 18311.

SPAIN.
THE ATTEMPT ON THE QUEEN.

Our Paris correspondent writes last evening as
follows :

" The last telegraphic despateh from Madrid is dated
at one o'clock on the afternoon of the Bth, and was
received at the Spanish emban7 to-day. It says :
" ' The Queen has entered into convalescence.'
"The Cbestiturionnel contains the following from
Madrid, dated Feb. 3:
." I have just met one who comes from the Queen's
chamber. This afternoon the news is bad. The
peritoneum has been pierced by three inches of the
puignard. Notwithstanding the bulletins, she has
been much agitated the whole night, and only slept
a little through opium. People go so far as to
dread a sad issue within five or six days.'
"Now it is evident that tke bulletins issued by the
royal physicians deserve no reliance whatever. The
remarkable postscript given above of the letter, ad-
dreamed from Madnd on the afternoon of the 3rd to
the Conatitutiansel, especially tho ominous words at
the conclusion, which allude to the possibility of
a fatal termination within five or six lays, have pro-
duced a painful sensation in Paris. The precipita-
tion with which the execution of the assassin has
been carried into effect is generally disapproved, as
evincing a desire to hush up all inquiry. I find some
particulars in the letter of the Constitutionnel, be-
sides those which I have already sent to you. It seems
that at the moment when the Queen extended her
hand towards Merino, meaning to receive the peti-
tion that she supposed ho wished to present, he
seised her hand with his left, and stabbed her with
his right. The Queen instantly uttered a shriek so
piercing that it was heard from one extremity of the
palace to the other. The poniard had been so
rowdy and surely directed that it went through the
thick velvet dress, the under garments, and
the stays, and entered the body of the
Queen' just above the groin. Count Pino-Hermoso,
who, as you are aware, rushed op in time to parry a
second blow, has, it is said, his fingers almost cut
off. The Princess Royal was between her Majesty
and the King, carried on a cushion by the Mar-
chioness de Povar. On hearing the Queen's cry, this
lady's nerves failed her, the royal infant slipped
off the cushion and fell to the ground ! 'The
nurse who followed was pressed upon by the crowd
and sank down in a corner in a fainting fit. When
the Queen, after being carried to her room, asked for
her child, it is said that nobody about her knew
where the infant was, and that it was afterwards
found in the gallery in the arms of a halberdicr,
wbo had picked the poor thing up. The
public mind in Madrid is in the greatest
alarm. The extraordinary shriek of the Queen,
which was heard by so many, leads to the
belief that there must be some organic injury.
People rake up various sinister predictions. It is
remembered that sister Monja Pratrocinio, a nun,
who is believed to have all the wounds of Christ
constantly open on her body, and who is venerated
by multitudes of the superstitious, said of the
queen, She will bring forth a child, but she
will not live.' The political consequences of the
demise of the crown at this moment, are appalling to
think of. In the present state of Spain nobody be-
lieves that a regency of 18 years, with the crown on
the head of a child of six weeks old, is a rf,ginie that
could last many hours. In Paris it is considered al-
most certain that civil war would break out at once. I
am anxious not to exaggerate the grounds for alarm ;
but I fear there is too much reason to believe the pri-
vate intelligence of the Constitutionnel. The official
bulletins are most suspicious in their tone. One of
them said that there had been no suppuration in the
wound, which was a good symptom. Accord-
ing to another, suppuration was going on re-
gularly. In one of the bulletins it was said
that Ler Majesty was going on well ' in the
opinion of her ordinary physicians.' Bulletins
seldom disclose the whole truth with regard to a
royal patient, and Spanish bulletins are even leas to
be relied upon than such documents in other
countries. The person of the sovereign is so sacred
that in theory it is not admitted to be acces-
sible to the common ills of humanity. When
a King of Spain dies it is customary for
a grand officer of state to go up to the bedside
and ask the corpse when it will be his Majesty's
pleasure to rise. It is well known that the death of
Ferdinand VII. was concealed for a long time. I have,
now before me a drawing (a copy of which I send you)
showing the exact form and length of the fearful in-
strument with which the wound was inflicted. The
blade isabout ten inches long. Now it app, ars from one
of the earliest bulletins that tho wound is from seven
to eight " ligncs," or about three-quarters of an inch
in length at the orifice. Measuring upwards from
the tapering point of the poniard I find that it must
have penetrated to the depth of at least four inches to
have made a wound of that size. It is, therefore,
evident that what the bulletins at first spoke of as a
slight wound must have been a very serious one,
and the subsequent bulletins must be received with
proportionate distrust. You already know that
the poniard is described as of Albacete
manufacture. Albacete is the Sheffield of Spain.
The knife made there is the national weapon, which
Spaniards know how to oso with fatal precision.
The manufacturers there have worked for many cen-
turies upon the same pattern, originally taken from
the Moors. They often scratch rudely in Arabic
characters on the blade without in the least
understatding its meaning, the following motto,
With the help of Allah! I hope to kill my enemy.'"
The following appeared in the Madrid Gazette of
Feb. 2:

OF Till COUNCIL Or.

An event without example in our annals has taken place
to-day. At the moment when their Majesties were
leaving the Chapel It'lel to proceed to the Atoche, a
wretch made an attempt on the precious life of her
Majesty the Queen. The following is the bulle-
tin of the physicians of her Majesty to the Pre-
sident of the Council of Ministers Excellency—The
weapon, after having grated the right arm, struck the
region of the upper part of the spleen on the manse side.
The wound is about three quarters of an inch in length.
We communicate this account to you with the most pro-
found grief, in execution of our duty. God preserve your
excellency.
(Signed) JUAN FRANCISCO Baseman.
' Jura DRUNIN S.
DIONISIO Soto.
"Madrid, February 2.

GERMANY.
PRUSSIA.

The Second Chamber continued on the 6th the
discussion of the bullet. The sitting was occupied
with several lively Eileen ipso the credits for the
government police osastios, min In the adoption of
the ministenal p no Free Evangelical
congregation at Elblag WU akeeleed on the Ist by
the police.
Dr. Klee 's proposition for restoring the exemption
from taxation enjoyed by the catholic and evan-
gelical clergy and schoolmasters before the constitu-
tional era, has been favourably reported on by the
parliamentary committee appointed for its examina-
tion. The government oppose the exemption, on
account of the loss it would entail on the state tree
sury : minister., however, have given notice that
they will shortly propose a measure relieving the
landed property of ecclesiastical corporations from
the burden of taxation.

Count Mensdorff-I'onilly left Berlin Feb. 7 for
Kiel. The ministerial Prussian Gazette states that
his mission is to deliver up, in conjunction with the
Prussian Commissioner, Gen. Thurman, tho federal
authority hitherto exercised in the duchy to tho
Danish Commissioner Count Iteventlow-Criminil,

and forthwith to withdraw the Austrian and Prus-
sian troops.

BAI)EN.

Letters from Frankfurt state that the Orand Duke
of Baden, Leopold 1., is dangerously ill, while the
heir presumptive, his eldest son, is suffering an en-
feeblement of his mental faculties. The question of
the succession to the throne is thus raised at a
troubled time, as the plenipotentiary of Baden has
just had occasion to memorialise the Frankfort Diet
upon the dangers apprehended from the greet num-
ber of refugees who have gathered upon the frontier
since December 2nd.

The Noniteur of Feb. 3 coateinea royal ordinance
diseolving all popular easociatione throughout the
kingdom.

ITALY.
PIEDMONT.
The Cbrrisrs Mercantile of Chaos of the sth dates
that Messrs. MiLla and Brassily have offered Austria
to And the necessary funds for the Tadao and Milan
railway, on condition that the other lines of Lombardy
and Piedmont be allowed to meet it. Negotiations
on the subject have been set on foot with the Turin
and Novara 'Railway Company and the Piedmontees
government.

SWEDEN.
The powder magasine et Londden, near Liding-
tihro, exploded on the 24th. The shock shattered
several thousand panes of glass in the city of Stock-
holm, particularly in the Palace. The magazine
contained 2,800 cwt. of gunpowder, and the loss is
estimated at 116,000 thelers. Two bodies only have
been found among the ruins.

° LORD JOHN RUSSELL'S NEW REFORM

BILL.

Russell
the D•ay New.)
Lord John Russell last night explained to par.
liametit and to the country his plans for repre-
sentative reform. At the very outset of his speech
he put one point beyond doubt. All he had to
propose was to be in the spirit of plans enunciated
in the legislature at various bygone times. He
was no innovator; he sought to make no novel or
eccentric changes ; he was content to discuss parlia-
mentary reform as parliamentary reform had often
been discussed befure, and was now ready—not
to concede a single measure that should enfranchise
the great mass of the people upon any one of the
broadly popular plans proposed by the representatives
of large democratic constituencies,—but rather to step
with &cautious and precedent-loving prudence in the
foot-prints of those who had gone before on " similar
ends intent." Ho would, indeed, follow on the trail
ho had himself made in 1832. Hie great anchor was
the Reform Bill of that year—a measure on which
he and his colleagues at that time must stake
all hope of being remembered as statesmen use-
ful in their generation. Beyond the limits placed
by that measure, he was willing to some extent to
advance ; but his faith must be in the strict line of
the constitutional changes then inaugurated. He
would relax, and even improve, but not change.
The Act of 1832 fixed the relative conditions of
city and rural representation—a state of things not
be now to materially disturbed. The increased intel-
ligence that has given rapid advance to commercial
towns could be counted for nothing; the slow-coach
pace of the country was to be considered equally
worthy of being in at the goal. No re-adjustment of
relative representation could be thought of. The old
plan was still to be Me plan, from which there was
to be from time to time a mere promise of change.
How far this bold adhesion to ancient theories may
be acceptable to the country remains to be seen.
Apart from this leaning upon a threadbare political
antiquity—this reliance upon peat beliefs and
upon exploded parliamentary formulie—the pro-
position of Lord JOAN RUSSELL has certainly its
merits. He offers to extend the franchise in towns :
so far so good. He reduces the voting rectum.' ements in
counties:—whether for the benefit of progress, or of
toryism is doubtful. Still in counties the step is in
the direction of extension, and—let us hope—im-
provement He proposes to put the English and
Irish members upon the same favourable position
with the representatives of Scotland, by the abo-
lition of property qualification,—taking the common-
sense view of that question, by supposing that
no man can spend his time in parliament
who has not wherewithal to make out an
income. He takes, moreover, a still further step
in the way of liberalising the representation by creat-
ing a new class of forty-shilling voters from amongst
those who are known to have ample intelligence,
and who certainly enjoy that favourite qualification,
"a stake in the country." With this view he offers a
vote to all who pay two pounds a year in messed
taxes. This is to a large extent very like
linking more closely together the taxpayer and the
voter, and thus identifying the man who pays feir
the government with the man who,—by his vote,—
supports or opposes the government. Such arrange-
ment of a more intimate communion between the
governing power and the paying individuals, must,
so far as it goes, be regarded as satisfactory.
The disfranchising power of the proposed bill of the
Minister, is, perhaps, one of the weakest points of his
measure. He tells us that he has two seats on hand
—to be allotted—two units of the six hundred and
fifty-eight M-P-ships which may be given as an in-
stalment of the representative debt claimed by the
nation. These he proposes to allot to Birkenhead and
Burnley—thus throwing a sop to Cheshire and to
Lanasshire. But he hints that St. Albans may
be cut off from the roll of places to be
entrusted with the duty of returning representa-
tives; and, hereafter, if they prove impure, other
places may share disfranchisement.. Two favoured
spots are to gain members, but till other municipal
sinners forfeit existing rights in the chapel of
St. Stephen, no more towns may hope for the
honour of being distinctly • represented in the
great council of the nation. No new Schedule A
is to appear, and so far the vaunted precedent
of 1832 is let at nought. No list of sacri-
fices maybe hoped for. No offerings are to be made on
the shrine of offended decency—no atonements for no-
torious bribery or corruption. And London and
Lancashire and Yorkshire may sigh in vain fur
additional members to represent their growing
wealth and intelligence. The little boroughs of
great lords are to bo enlarged somewhat in their
dimensions, and are to be rendered more extensive if
not more pure. Their limited capacity is here-
after to be stretched until each is to include, as it
would seem, its patch of county. And thus the places
now under the influence of the territorial aristocracy
are to be under such influence still. In fine, the Prime
Minister's proposed change in our representative sys-
tem might be published to the world as—" The Re-
form Bill of 1832; Revised and Corrected by one of
the Original Authors- Schedule A omitted." No
pester breadth of sentiment—no broader scope of
vision, but merely the old story brought forth fresh
furbished and adapted, as Lord Jotot himself
explained,—in accordance with his present views
of the increased intelligence and enlightenment of
England in lttS2.
The radical members who spoke in the House of
Commons last night saw the difficulties of the posi-
tion they had to take. The bill offered them by the
minister is clearly a step in advance. They do not
find in it all they wish for, and on ono point it is
manifestly deficient. It ignores The Ballot,—a defi-
ciency on which they will, of course, have much here-
after to say. But going as it does in the clear direction
of improvement, they were unable to launch at it
that weight of condemnation which must have
greeted any less satisfactory proposition. They
stood by their colours, and asked all it was their
duty to ask. But the tone of the house was tolera-
bly manifest, and it was that, judging by its first ap-
pearance, Lord J. RUSSELL'S bill promises to be-
come law. To the advocates of religious free-
dom ho offers a modification of the oaths;
to the ultras he, in effect, concedes one "point
of the Charter "—the property qualification ; fur the
suffragists be lowers the qualification of voters
in towns; to the landed interest he tenders votes to a
lower range of tenants than the old Chandos clause
men; to the boroughmengeru he suggests an exten-
sion without much chance of a real change
in the quality of the small constituencies ;
whilst to the politico-economic advocate for
direct taxation the bait is held out of a vote for each
artisan who contributes 40e. a year directly to the
state. It is a measure of details, not one of principle ;
—of morse's not !ease.,- au instalment and not an
entirety. Yet, although this new Reform Bill may
blink broad and influential subjects it ought to have
included, it presents many popular features, and
many clever adaptations to sectional demands, and
little surprise will probably be excited or
indig-
nation roused if it ultiniately beoomes,—in a modified
and improved shape,—the law of the land.

LIVERPOOL CHAMBER or COMMERCE.—The coun-
cil of tleir aweociation held n meeting yesterday, the tint
time since the annual general meeting, at which the fol-
lowing officers were elected: Hugh llornby, Esq., Pr• si-
dent ; FAincis Strand, Esq., Viet-President; Samuel Stitt,
Esq., Treasurer. An eaten...tint letter was rend from Wm.
Brown, , M.P., on the subject of decimal currency,
showing the facilely with which the present currency of the
kingdom could be ec:tleol on this cone enient principle, such
chnige requiring only the introduction of a single now
coiu. Tho object was referred to a epeeist committer.
Thu meeting then broke up.

Of court.

WINDSOR, Pin. 9.
The Qom, attended by the Martinmas, of Douro,
drove out in a pony carriage this ramming. Colonel the
Hon. Charlie (hey, Equerry is Waiting, attended on
horseback.

The Prince's Royal earl Prince.' Alms took exercise in
the Riding-house.

The Earl of Malinke' and Lieat..Colonel Franeis Sey-
mour have received invitations, and are expected at the
Castle this afternoon.

Her Motesty will hold a Privy Council on Friday neat,
the 13th last., at Buckingham Palace. SUIRJUOINSO were
issued yesteray from the Privy Council office to the Minis-
ters and Waren of State.

Mr. E. Wellerstein, Consul-General for the Republics of
Guatemala and Costa Rica, had an interview with Earl
Granville yesterday at the Yore' -office. M. van de Weyer,
the Belgian Minister, business yesterday at the
office of the Secretary of State fur Foreign Affairs.
Lord Harris had an interview with Earl Grey yesterday
at the Colonial-office.

The Earl of Letbind had an interview with Sir G. Grey
at the Home-effice yesterday.
Despatches were ramived_iesterdsy at the Colonial-office
from the Governors of the West India colonies.