The Express.
London, England, 1864-07-19 00:00:00

PORTUGAL

According to a despatch received from Lisbon, a
numerously-signed petition of merchants has re-
quested from the government the free importation
of cereals, the warehouses being empty and the
crop insufficient.
The Constitution, el of this morning says :--

" Some journals have sought to make it believed
that the title of the Duke de Montmorency has
been accorded to M. de Adalbert Talleyrand Peri-
gord, in view of his projected marriage with the
Princess Anna Murat.

" These journals are misinformed, there never
having been any question of such a marriage."

CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.
ALARM OF A CAFFRE WAR.

PLYMOUTH, Juir 19.

The London and East India Company's steamer
Hydaspes, from Calcutta, Madras, and the Cape,
has passed up Channel, landing at Plymouth by
fishing-boat this morning nine passengers and a
mail from the Cape.

CAPE TOWN. Jon 1.
(Per the Hydaspes.)

Great alarm had been spread at the Cape by a
telegram from the frontier stating that there was
danger of a Caffre war. On the frontier it was
even asserted that the paramount chief, Kreli, bad
crossed the Bashee in force and had come in colli-
sion with the mounted police. Official telegrams
from the governor to the commander of the forces
required the latter to proceed to the frontier imme-
diately with every available man in the garrison.
Accordingly the commander of the forces
had started in the Valorous with the 2nd battalion
of the 11th Regiment, and a detachment of artillery
with a battery of Armstrong guns, for East London•
The Cape Town volunteers had tendered their
services for garrison duty.
Later advises from the frontier reported this
alarm to have been in a great measure groundless,
nothing like actual collision having taken place. Krell
had been irritated by the reported intention of the
Governor to remove the Tambookies from their
Queenstown locations into Tranakei, and on that
account the chief ha.l been assuming a threatening
tone. In return the governor was desirous of
making a warlike demonstration. The British
authorities considered there was no fear of any
actual disturbances, and it was likely that the
governor would reconsider the Tambookie question.
The boundary line between the Orange Free
State and the Basuto will in all probability be
amicably settled.
The agitation against the arbitrary er post facto
legislation of the government and parliament in
connexion with the Customs Protection Bill was
continued iu the colony.
The home government has consented to the
annexation of No Man's Land.
The Narcissus left May 25.

EXPRESS FROM PARIS.

(mom ova owc CORIMPONDENT.)
PARIS. MONDAY EVENING.

I have just learned a very notable project, origin-
ated by Duke Persigny, for the improvement of
universal suffrage, which worked so badly, as he
thinks, at the last general elections. His proposal
professes to increase the universality of universal
suffrage, though how it is possible thus to "gild
refined gold and paint the lily," unless by admitting
minors, fraudulent bankrupts, and other categories
of persons deprived of civil rights, I do not pre-
tend to have understood. With this uuiversalised
universal suffrage he proposes to go to work as fol-
lows :—The re-organised universal constituency
will elect conseils d'arrandissetnent. These will
choose from their own body members of the
conseils chparimentaur, which will take the
place of the present eoasei►s gen4raur, and
this second body will choose withiu itself the
deputies. There is a great resemblance in this
scheme to that recently developed by M. Emile
Augier, the dramatist, academician, and courtier,
who recently astonished the literary world of Paris
by coming out with a political pamphlet. But the
system of filtering elections through graduated
categories of constituencies is almost universally
condemned in France, and although they do say
the Emperor regards Duke Persigny's scheme with
favour, I am inclined to regard it as only the dream
of a restless statesman out of place.

Decidedly, exclaims the Moniteur du &it, " 11
n'y a plus de Pyrinees." On July 15 a locomotive