The Express.
London, England, 1863-08-06 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST 6, 1863.

clear that Mane has anything to gain by making
an attack on LEE until be can make absolutely
certain of the victory. On the contrary, so long /
as LEE remains in the valley of the Shenandoah,
he keeps a large army unemployed, and gives the
Federal officers in the West time to concen-
trate their armies and to mature their plans,
whilst at the same time it enables General
l‘f RADE to obtain new recruits, and to
di.cipline them. It is almost certain that the
army of Lan must be defeated before the Con-
federates will sue for peace ; but to secure this
result it may probably be better to dispose first
of the other armies of the Confederates, in order
to launch the concentrated forces of the North
against the Confederate army in Virginia.

IT seems difficult in these days to form a just
conception of the boldness of the man who first
put to sea. Yet some poet of the future may
pronounce that the first railway traveller was
hardly less audacious. Familiarity has long since
blunted the sense of danger in the mind of the
traveller by land or sea, or that vast and moody
mystery of the rolling waters would seem only
one degree more dreadful to encounter than the
incessant and incalculable risk of rushing along a
line of rails at the rate of forty or fifty miles an
hour ; only more dreadful, perhaps, inasmuch as
the forces of nature are not to be weighed in the
same balance with the works of man. Fortu-
nately, even with insurance tickets in our pockets,
we are as little disposed to forecast all the pos-
sible perils of the journey when we take our seats
in a railway carriage, as, when we leave our
London homes of a morning, to brood on
the dangers of the crowded streets ; or, when
we ride to cover, to calculate the chances of break-
ing our necks over a bullfincher ; or, when we are
working off a rocky coast in a yacht, to dwell on
the contingency of going to pieces among the
breakers. Danger in a hundred invisible shapes
follows us all, men and women alike, the boldest
and the most timid ; brushes past us, hustles us,
or slips away before our footstep. every day
and hour of our lives ; in our homes or in
the streets, in the field or on the sea, in all our
goings out and comings in, but as we see it not
and feel it not, and give it no place in our thoughts,
it has no more existence for us until it actually
betels than the sorrows of ye►rs to come, which
a merciful Providence obscures from the moat
anxious gaze. .

These reflections have occurred to us in reading
an article which we reproduced yesterday from the
columns of a scientific cont,mporary, under the
provocative heading of " Our Unoffending Prison-
" ers ;" or, in other words, " those who voluu-
" tarily subject themselves to imprisonment in
" the close cells of railway carriages." The pecu-
liarity of railway travelling in England is, that all
the ingenuity and activity of its organizers and
directors appear to have been exhausted in adding
to risks which are inevitable the aggravation of
every danger and discomfort that the commonest
caution or consideration for the lives and limbs of
their fellow-creatures might prevent, and does,
in fact, in other civilized countries, continu-
ally and systematically prevent. It is not
enough that whenever • train approaches a
station the lives of hundreds of human beings
are at the mercy of an overworked or
sleepy pointaman ; that, as it happened • day
or two since on the Lynn and Hunatanton line,
a bullock may stray across the rails and avenge its
stupid fate by turning half-a-dozen carriages com-
pletely over, and crumpling up their innocent
occupants ; but, by that coarse and careless indif-
ference to anything but fares and dividends which

is characteristic of railway administration in this
country, some single Passenger may be shut up
like • felon and carted along like a sheep to the
I slaughter, or left to be burnt alive, or murdered
in a tunnel, or assassinated in the midst of a
smiling landscape, without hope of aid, or escape,
or appeal. And these are the minor miseries of,
our railway travelling system which the Depart-
ment supposed to acknowledge • certain re.
sponsibility in such matters considers " well
" worthy of consideration," and does ab-
solutely nothing to alter or amend, beyond
a fitful " Circular " once and again when something
more horrible than usual has occurred. Surely,
while we are criticising with all the severity of a
people who own an inexhaustible storehouse of genius
at the Horse Guards, the military shortcomings of
our kinsmen across the Atlantic, it might be well
for us to pause for • moment to compare the
humane provisions for the safety of life on an
English line of railway with those which are
adopted, es the Engineer reminds us, " upon no
" less than 35,000 miles of railway in North
" America." There we find an uninterrupted
communication along the line of cars, not only
between the guards and the passengers, and between
the guards and the engine-driver, but between
every carriage and the engine, by the simple
means of a signal rod within reach of every
passenger. Nor is it practically found that this
elementary precaution is abused by the
vulgar folly of idle hoaxers. Yet no railway
company in this country has thought it worth the
trouble or the expense, or perhaps worthy of its
dignity, to imitate so sound and sensible an
example ; our Legislature, with all its ceaseless
Pharisaic babble, and its religious respect for
vested abuses, has done nothing to correct the
barbarism of irresponsible Companies ; our smirk-
ing Board of Trade goes to sleep on its Circulars ;
and railway travelling io England is still to railway
travelling in the United States what an English
mail-coach thirty years ago was to a French dili-
gence of the same period. Our railway carriages
are crammed like cattle-pens ; the trains are sent
madly rushing on each other's heels ; and here and
there, in provincial districts, kept waiting for the
arrival of some local and unpunctual lord
or baronet. Smoking is forbidden, and every
carriage reeks with stale tobacco ; gratuities
to the Company's servants are forbidden, and you
cannot get your luggage looked at unless the
porter sees a shilling in your eye. If you chance
to be put into a carriage 'etc-a-tele with one other
meek and silent passenger whose brain is miedled,
or whose nerves are trembling with suppressed
mania, you are liable to have your throat alit or
your breath stopped by some candidate for • mad-
house who chooses to regard you, as you sit un-
consciously dozing or reading, as • deadly foe
meditating a murderous saasult, or at least as the
author of all his imagined miseries. Such things
are not fancies, but facts of repeated, of recent
occurrence. Yet our railway companies go on
ruining their shareholders, massacring their passen-
gers, treating the public as so much " rolling
" stock," and not even the simplest and
most obvious means of preserving life
and preventing the most hideous catastrophes
are deemed worth a moment's discussion by any
board of directors. A hundred years hence our
descendants will speak of British railway tra-
velling in the nineteenth century as we speak of '
British soft:: travelling a hundred years ago. This
Is the "dead seas 'm "; in other words, the season
of railway accidents ; and the voice of the press
cannot perform a better public duty, in default of

Parliamentary elope:wet than to cry aloud the
scandal of our railway system to the civilised
world.

trbe coun.

_
uSBORNE, Amon 5.
The Primus Leiningen is convalescent, and the
infant prisons is in good health.
Counter Gleichen had the honour of an interview with
the Queen yesterday.
The Queen drove out in the afternoon accompanied by
Prince= Louise.
The Belgian Minister arrived yesterday.

Sir George Grey returned to London yesterday.

The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council sat yester-
day. Judgment wu given by Dr. Lusbioston, in the appea.
from the Consular Court at Constantinople, " the Laconia.'
The other lords present were Lord Kingsdown and Sir E.
Ryan.
Despatches were sent yesterday from the Colonial-office
to the Governors of the Cape of Good Hope, Natal, and
St. Helena.

LORD

i's OrrtcL—Notion 11 bereby given,

that the State apartmenta of Windsor Castle will be closed
coo Monday, the 10th inst. They will be re-opened, under
the usual regulation', on and after Thursday, the 13th inst.

EXPRESS FROM PARIS.

(raom WE owl oosasaroaDarr.)

PARIS, WIDIRISDLY Evian.

A great many sensational rumours have been cir-
culating to-day. The resignation of K Drouyn
de Lhuys is spoken of in some quarters as a thing
settled, and stoutly denied in others. There is •
talk of the Duke de Morny being sent as • special
ambassador to St. Petersburg. Then it is raid
that the Emperor has written, or is about to write,
• letter to M. Billault on the Polish question which
will have the character of a manifesto. Negotia-
tions bearing on Poland are alleged to be actively
going on between Paris and Turin. The Temps
speaks of M. Benedetti as likely to supersede M.
Drouyn de Limp; in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs;
but all these vague rumours and suppositions
are merged in the fact that the Emperor has ar-
rived in Paris from Vichy, and holds a council of
ministers at St. Cloud to-morrow. The ministers
will assemble early, breakfast with his Majesty,
and then proceed to business. In all probability
some indication of his Majesty's policy will be
disclosed to-morrow evening. In the meanwhile
the ministerial journals, which are left in the dark,
try to attenuate the importance of the undoubted
news that the three powers will not agree upon an
"identical" note, and argue that they will pursue
their object, although by separate notes, with as
much unanimity as before.
The Bourse was in high spirits, and, under the
impression that all fear of war is over, the Renal
rose 90c. for cash and 80e. for account, closing at
68fr. in each case. Mobilier rose 67fr. 50c.—an
im-
mense rise. The Southern Railway rose 42fr. 50c.,
and the other lines from 7fr. to 10fr.

The Paya makes a stammering apology for Mar-
shal Forey's decree of sequestration against Mexican
belligerents, which it admits has made a "certain
sensation" in France. In the first place it
uses the stereotyped Russian argument that
sequestration is a different thing from con-
fiscation. Then it urges further that the decree
was issued by Marshal Foray as a war measure
at a time when it was feared that rich Mexicans
might employ their wealth to pay guerillas to check
the French army on its march to the city of
Mexico. It concludes that now that the situation
has happily changed the "decree falls to the
ground of itself," will not be acted upon, and
"therefore there is no use in discussing it." The
latter argument is no doubt very convenient, but
quite inadmissible. That the Monitenr is ashamed
of the decree redounds to the credit of the home
government. But Marshal Foray's act is not to be
exempted from criticism in this off-hand way. On
the contrary, the principles which guided his con-
duct, and might even, according to the admissions
of the Paya, be acted upon again under the tyrant's
plea of "necessity," deserve to be fully sifted,
both in France and in foreign countries.

It has been stated that Mexican officers now
prisoners of war in France are loud in their con-
demnation of General Ortega for breaking his
parole and making his escape while the prisoners
were on the march from Puebla to Vera Cruz.
The France Centrak, a journal of Bourges, now
says that some of the officers quartered there
excuse Ortega on the ground that be was run away
with by his wife. She came to see him after the
fall of Puebla, and urged him to fly, and upon his
refusal to commit so dishonourable an action, gave
a signal to a body of servants in waiting, who laid
violent hands upon him and carried him off to a
place of safety. According to this story, the
Mexican ladies cannot " a warrior's feelings know
or weep a warrior's shame." Certainly no English
officer's wife would conspire to make her husband
break his parole even to save his life. It is clearly
General Ortega's duty, if he cares for his reputa-
tion as an officer and a gentleman, to repudiate his
wife's act the moment he becomes a free agent, and
to constitute himself a prisoner in France.
M. de Montalembert's many friends in England
will join with me in hoping that the following para-
graph, which I find in the France, may not be the
precursor of any worse news :

we learn with deep regret that a rather serious accident
has happened in the Frenche Comte to the Countess de
Montalembert and her daughter Madame de Meaux. It
seems that these ladies, making a countr► excursion, hays
bad a fall ; but it is hoped that the consequences will be
nothing worse than a few bruises,

Subjoined are some particulars of Prince Napo-
leon's visit to the works of Mount Canis :
His imperial highness left his estate of Prassgins, on the
Lake of Geneva, on the 30th ult. He was accompanied by
Colonel Ragon, of the Engineers, his aide-de-camp ; X
Charles Laffitte, president of the Victor Emmanuel Rail-
way Company ; and several scientific men. The train
left Geneva at 7 in the morning, and arrived at St.
Michel at noon. The prince was there received by
General Menabrea, Italian Minister of Public Works ; and
carriages were in waiting to convey the party to Fourneanx,
near Modena. Up to that time the prince bad preserved
the strictest incognito, but no sooner had the inhabitants
heard of his arrival than they came is crowds to welcome
him with acclamations, and followed him to the very en-
trance of the works. The appearance of the tunnel was
splendid, numerous lights producing a wonderful effect.
The prince and his party passed along the 1,100 metres
already bored, between two lines of the workmen, 1,0 C.) in
number, each of whom held a lamp. The boring machine
was set in motion and several boles were made io the rock
and filled with powder. The visitors were then requested
to draw back and shelter themselves behind a large screen
made for the purpose, and a eeries of explosions took
place. The first extinguished all the lamps not pro-
tected by glasses, even those which were five eighths
of a mile from the spot, sod the hate of the
visitors were knocked off. At 6 o'clock the visit terminated
And a dinner was offered to the prince and the other guests
by General Menabrea. During the repast the band of the
miners of the tunnel, entirely composed of Italian workmen,
executed in a masterly =seer several French, Italian, and
Polish national airs. The prince, after expressing the grati-
fication he felt, and congratulating the contractors on the
success of their operation', returned to St. Michel, and
thence proceeded by special train to Aix-lee-Bain', and on
the following day returned to Pranging.

The prince stopped for a few hours at Annecy to
visit the town, and embarked on the lake on board
the steamer which the Emperor gave as a present
to the authorities about three years ago.

Mustapha Pacha, Turkish Minister of Finance,
has arrived at Marseilles.

AERIAL Looomarioir.—This is the name (says
Galignani) we most henceforth substitute for the more com-
mon one of ballooning, if we may credit what eye-
witnesses relate of experiments performed a few days since
in M. Nadar's photographic eetablishment. Following
in the footsteps of those who first applied the screw
principle to aerial propulsion, M. Nidar propane the
absolute suppreasion of the balloon, and the applica-
tion of the inclined plane wider the form of the helix or
screw to the art of directing cars or vessels floating in the
air. At the meeting M. Nadas stated that as early as 1768,
that is, fifteen years before the ascension of the first Mont-
golfiere, the engineer Palmtop foretold the application of the
screw to serial locomotion. At the same meeting M. de La
Landelle exhibited several models of aerial machines con-
structed accordieg to M. de Pooton d'Ainfoourt's system, and
which rose up automatically into the air, each carrying a
certain weight, thereby proving the certainty of the theory.
Meanwhile, an Anglo-French society is said to bare been
formed for the purpose of building a gigantic balloon of an
altitude equal to two-thirds of that of Notre.llanie, and
which is to carry eighty persons, with abundance of pro.
visions of all kinds, and even a printing-prey. A Lyons
firm is said to have already delivered 12,000 metres of white
sarcenet, at 7fr. a metre, for this purpose. This monster
balloon is to be inaugurated at the great Baden horse races
in September nut.