The Express.
London, England, 1864-10-22 00:00:00

THE -EXPRESS, SATURDAY EVENING, OCTOBER k 2, 1864.

TROITSERB.—The NEW 000D8 NOW' READY, sad goatkosea who do ask wind paying a bib
price for a prod pair of trousers am &pia la patterns mad
materials that =not be mailed, at
HAMILTON sad ram Prows,
104 !STRAND, appall* Eardar-lui/L

MR. MILES'S (the ORIGINATOR'S)
111. Wotid-honed iea UMW oaa only be had a&
73, BROON-STRZIT, IliblfoVEß4QUAit;
when eceapetttles to ft? to:awed by Iffilea "
ALUM) WEBB rir IitTLBHIM

PATENT
MEDAL AWARDS .1
ALLEN'S PATENT PORTMANTEAUS sad
=MIMEO RAGS wElt
LADI7E WARDROBIL MIN NA TirRAMMI3II, with
Ever MEM
DESPATCH DORM WI/TING sad DRESSING CASES, sad
100 other attar for boom or madrigal travelling. Illastrated
astalogass pad toss.
also Alines Barra* Iltroftwa Catalogs* of Parlohis
Made, Drawers, Bay Clutha. Washhaad-ataada, Canteens, Ea.,
Arat

JOHN BROGDEN begs to make the following
announcement regarding the VALUK of GOLD, feeling per
that the intonate of the fair trader and the public will
be alike protected by dewe
dwde circulation of knowledge on the
subject Gold beinge into 24 parts or carats, It follows
that gold of
24 carets line, Is
worth —Ed 4 111
per ounce.
23 carats.. 4 1 6
22 carets (British
standards 3 17 He
21 carats.. 8 14 4
20 carats.. 2 10 SI
19 carats.. 3 7 I
Ilanufactory, 10. H4l
N.B. Assays made
Establishment Is "
at one o'clock.

18 carats.. L 3 3 81
17 amts.. 2 0 2
16 earst4.. 2 16 7
16 carats.. 2 13 1
14 carats.. 2 9 61
13 carats.. 2 6 0
12 drain.. 2 2 51
11 carats.. 1 18 11
10 carats.. 1 16 41
nriettoestreet, Coventi
of chains 4nd_Jewell4

at 6 in tie

9 carats.. El 11 10
8 carats.. 1 8 St
7 carats.. 1 4 9
6 carats.. 1 1 n
5 carats . 0 17 8
• carats.. 0 14 2
IS cants.. 0 10 7t
2 ants.. 0 7 1
1 Farad 0 8 6

for Is. each. TEL
4 and on Saturdays

the erstelifS.

TO CORRISPONDILITS.
kdreridaements intended for .• Th. &prom" London Evening
Paw, mnd he it the Mee, 10, Boavericetreet. bg Two
o'clock on the day of publication.

RATMLNICIST,

Tem Emmen. &VaIiWARD JiIILi:CCM —MADEMOISELLE
DE BELLE ISLE. Messrs Howe and Barren : Madames Beatrice
and Angel—BOX AND COIL Messrs. Bulimia:le and Ccenptm.
—And OUR MARY ANNL —Commence at 7.

PRINCESS'S.
TRW Imo & BORN TO GOOD LUCK. Mr. D. Mnres,y.
And THE STREETS OF LONDON. Meson. Thing, J. W. Bay,
D. Mbar, I). Murri ty, J. Nelson. H. Forrester, and H. Mellon;
Mn.H. Manton, Mom Barnett and Gs one.

This principle was affirmed no later than last year,
when the tolls on the toads north of the Thames
1,111,6 removed. The duty of maintaining them in
future was then laid on the respective parishes
in which they were found, and was not thrown
upon a general rate raised by the Metropolitan
Board. The City has itself benefited by this
opening of the roads by which it is approached,
an& it is no more than fair that it should contri-
bute its portion by bestowing, on terms so favour-
able, the free use of Southwark-bridge to such of
the other inhabitants of the metropolis as might or-
regionally have need for it. It might with a good
grace do this wholly out of its own funds, but if it
chooses to haggle for a contribution, the Metropoli-
tan Board might, perhaps, feel itself justified
in giving a proportion of the price. It must,
however, be kept steadily in view that this is
above all a City improvement, although it happens
to affect what is strictly speaking only an access to
the City. And the public will watch with some
curiosity, if not with much interest, how far the
Corporation, which is so jealous of preserv-
ing its autonomy, will deal with the oppor-
tunity of securing so valuable a local im-
provement. The outside public sees the
streets ruled by the Corporation rendered
nearly impassable by the excess of traffic; it hears
of the Corporation applying for large, not to say
tyrannical powers to regulate it, bus it does not sz e
any benefit follow, and, above all, it does not see,
since Cannon-street was opened, any effort to pro-
vide the additional routes which can alone effec-
tually remedy the evil. Here is an opportunity
which may almost be said to be thrown at the City's
head. If it rejects it, in the sordid hope that
the rest of the metropolis—far less interested in
the matter—will contribute funds for a local City
improvement, another strong reason will be Bur
plied why the City should cease to have a separate
government, and should merge, as to management,
in that capital of which, financially, it desires to
form only a district.

NOTHING in the English character more as-
tonishes foreigners than the facility with which we I
become the victims of fraud and deceit. If we
were a simple-minded, credulous people they
could understand it; but being eminently
practical, and having a reputation for a full share
of common sense, the readiness with which we fall
into the traps of the designing is to them most mar
vellous. Two cases which have occurred this
week in our police courts will afford them new
occasion of wonder. Perhaps it is not so strange
after all. We know, sr well as the precise, me-
thodical, hesitating German who marvels at us,
that if we would only do as he does, take nothing
upon trust, but prove all things, we might avoid
many mistakes into which we now fall. We, too,
can be as distrustful and suspicious as others ; but
as a rule we do not find it answer beyond a certain
limit. We have much to do. Against our will
we live at a very rapid rate. Our social and ea •
nomical arrangements grow more complex every
year, and, with all this, the necessity of mutual
confidence increases, We trust one another as no
people on earth do, and that not so much because
we have an extraordinary opinion of one another's
moral excellences as because we are obliged todo so,
and on the whole find it answer. A looker-on may
be able at any turn to point out that we should be
safer if this or that mechanical precaution were
taken. And where a system is to be administered,
as, for instance, where a joint-stock bank or an
insurance office have to be conducted by persons
who are not themselves the owners of the property
they handle, the completeness and perfection of
the mechanism of balances and checks is a matter
of the first importance. Half the practical busi-
ness of life, however, is made up of transactions
which cannot be reduced to system, and in which
we must trust to personal sagacity and discern-
ment to bring us safe home in the long run. For
our conduct in these no rules can be devised. One
consequence, however, of this practice of trusting
one another, where distrust would entail on the
whole more inconvenience than profit, is that
it attends us as a habit of mind where the reasons
which originally justified it no longer exist, where,
therefore, it is irrational and unjustifiable. We
have instances of this in the two police cases
already referred to. On Thursday last, a gentle-
man named FRYER attended at Westminster
Police.court to prefer a charge against a man
named HARRIS, who had got into his house as
" thorough out-door servant " by means of a
forged character. He had advertised in the Times
for a place, had been seen and conversed with by
Mr. Favea, whom he had satisfied as to his fitness,
and whom he had referred to his "former em-
" plover, Captain CHARLES Wei.t.ms, of Lipton
" •Brentwood, Essex." A letter to that
add-eas was posted, and a most satisfactory answer
to is duly received, whereupon the engagement
was completed. HARRIS went to his new situa-
tion, and in a day or two proved himself a drunken
vagabond. It was not till then that it struck
Mr. FRYER that it would be as well to ascertain
whether the polite note with the Brentwood
post-mark was genuine. He yin/ soon found
not only that it was a forgery, the
work of a clique of London sharpers, but that there
was no such person as Captain CHARLES WELLES,
and no such place as Llyston-hall, Brentwood. It
certainly seems as if it would have been worth
while to have obtained this information, easily pro-
curable, before engaging a person who would neces-
sarily be entrusted with property, and, what was of
far more account than property, a person who must
acquire a knowledge of his employer's wry& I•is
goings out and his comings in, and have facilities for
executing, if so disposed, the most violent designs.
Two days before this case was disposed of, one
more extraordinary came under the notice of the
magistrate at the Greenwich Police-court. A
young female adventurer, calling herself MIRY
HORSFAL.L, had succeeded by the aid of confede-
rates in obtaining entrance as a pupil to a school
of high class at Blackheat'i. She was introduced
by respectable-looking persona, a man and a wo-
! man, pretending to be Mr. and Mrs. WILKINS, of
254.. t, Oxford-street, who represented that she was
the niece of a well-known and estimable
member of parliament, and that she had
already an income of 400/. a year, and 800/.
in expectancy. Unfortunately this story was too
readily believed, and the young woman became a
parlour boarder, in wh'ch capacity she contrived
to rob the inmates of the house of two diamond
bracelets and &wend rings, and to obtain without
payment two gold watches and guards from a
tradesman of the locality. Inquiry, which was
made too late, elicited the fact that the adventurer
was well known to the London pawnbrokers, that
!.she had pre.:ously swindled tradesmen at Leeds,
and that the confederates who had introduced her
did not reside at the address they had given. It
certainly appears that; in this as in the former case
the annoyance experienced, and the positive mischief
inflicted, might have been easily avoided by the
exercise of a very moderate energy of thought.
Sometimes an established routine, which is found
to answer in ninety-nine cases and only fails in j
j the hundredth, excuses a certain appearance of
laxity in the forms of business. But we cannot

\ ,

believe that it hi the practice of respectable 1
schools to take in pupils without inquiry.
with
patience coma as theme two we must submit with
patience to the criticism of the intelligent foreigner.