The Express.
London, England, 1847-10-14 00:00:00

ported thereon to the society, but that is all. This
has long been in use on the continent of Europe and
in America,and there is nothing. to prevent its adoption
here but the lingering feudalism of our landowners.
With that sentiment we doubt whether the society
has energy enough to conflict. However, the next, the
third annual report, indicates somewhat more breadth
of purpose. Then it had been " joined by many
members of both houses of parliament, and by many
other gentlemen belonging to the mercantile and other
classes of the community. This was undoubtedly an
infusion of useful blood, for though the technical
knowledge required to amend the law may be brought
by lawyers, the extent and completeness of the amend-
ments will mainly depend upon " the mercantile
and other classes." We may mention as a
I good omen of its usefulness, that the great
middle-class leader, Mr. Cosines, has joined
the society. This report says " the profes-
sion should exert themselves in every possible
way to cheapen and simplify the necessary dealings
between man and man connected with real pro-
, perty." Let the society really carry out the prin.
ciples involved in that proposition, and itwill do good
service. Their first step should be to investigate the
operation of the law of settlement and entails. Dare
they touch it ? The answer Yes or No is the test of
their utility. In this report we hear no more of
"adapting the machinery of the funds" to the transfer
of real property; but we find a report in favour of a
" general registry of deeds." On these subjects there
is rather more of beating about the bush of a griev-
ance, than that direct effort to dislodge it which befits
earnest reformers. The society seems to claim the
Lords' report on the burthens on land " as some proof
of the benefit which already attended the diffusion of
our reports and proceedings." On the validity
of that claim we can offer no opinion. Nor is it of
much consequence ; for though the Lords commiV
tees, and the reports of the society, will undoubtedly
smooth the way for more earnest law reformers, we
do not look for much vigorous action from either
quarter, except until external pressure. The last,
the fourth report, shows that the society is growing
in numbers, and contains some declamatory phrases
which indicate no great desire for rapid progress. It
recapitulates some of the topics of the former report.
The chief new matter is, that the committee on the
law of property had " presented a report on the pro-
priety of establishing a general map of the lands of
England and Wales, and on the materials now in ex-
istence for making such a map." This is a ne-
cessary portion of the means of simplifying
aneapening the title to, and transfer of, land.
We are glad to have the authority of the
society for the fact, " that lawyers are now taking
larger views of professional protection ; they find that
in most instances the public interest is their own ; and
in the few cases of exception, or supposed exception,
they feel that a class interest cannot be permitted to
stand in the way of social progress." That is well;
but it is not the class interest of the lawyers which,
in the present temper of the public mind, is likely to
stand in the way of social progress, but the class
interest of the owners of land. Will the society ven-
ture to beard that class interest?

Our Paris letters of Tuesday say that the cabinet
crisis at Madrid formed the almost exclusive topic of
conversation in all political circles in the French
capital. The ministerial party talks of the thing as
the result of the profound and well calculated policy
of the cabinet of the Tuileries. The public is, however,
too well instructed as to the real nature of the move-
ment to be thus imposed upon, and the opposition
1 journals do not fail to expose the intrigue in its true
colours.
The statement given by some of the Paris journals
that Queen Christina had left for Madrid is not true.
The Queen-Dowager was still at her hotel in Paris on
Tuesday.

The Madrid mails, with the journals and correspon-
dence of the 7th, have arrived, but bring little intelli-
gence of interest, in addition to what we hate already
given. Parties were still breathless with the aston-
ishment produced by the catastrophe of the 4th. It is
not strictly true that the administrative and other
measures of reform enacted by royal ordonnauce,
under the late cabinet, are annulled. The royal de-
r cree only suspends their execution until they shall
have been sanctioned by the Cortes. The partisans of
the fallen cabinet, and the progresistas generally, de-
clare that the recent coop d'(tat has been brought
about by French money; that by such means gross
calumnies have outraged the ears of the Queen, con-
veyed by the bribed officials of the court. Nothing
can exceed the indignation produced by the base ter-
giversation of General Serrano, who, according to the
Clamor Public°, is to be rewarded by being nomi-
nated a prince, and raised to the rank of a grandee of
Spain. General Narvaez had a reception on the 7th
for the corps diplmnatique, but we have no reports as
to the personages who attended.
Our correspondent's letter is given below.

The &deices which arrive from the kingdom of the
Two Sicilies are as puzzling to a conscientious jour-
nalist as the anticipation of the movements of the
ministries fabricated in the ante-chambers of the
Escurial. Tho dominions of King Ferdinand have
been for some time, so far as respects the regular and
legitimate transmission of intelligence, hermetically'
sealed. Political news is a prohibited article in the
tariff of Naples. Its importation and exportation are
equally forbidden. As a necessary consequence, an
article at this moment so mach in demand has become
the staple of the smuggler, from whom alone we have
hitherto derived our ordinary supplies, subject of
course to the usual amount of adulteration and fraud.
Now and then, when it suits the purpose of his
Majesty, a special order is given to the Dogana to
allow such articles of the kind to pass to certain
favoured individuals. The sympathy of the organs of
the cabinet of the Tuileries for governments such
as that of Naples gives them peculiar claims for
favours of this kind, and we find, accordingly, from
time to time, intelligence in the columns of the Jour-
nal des Debaes, which can neither be obtained else-
where or verified by, other testimony. That journal
announced, on Tuesday, with a tone of more than
usual exultation, the reception of a letter from Naples,
dated the 2Rth ult., in which it placed the most entire
confidence, containing the intelligence that the insur-
rection which had broken out in several places, had
never assumed an importance which could give serious
disquietude to the government, and that the chief of
the insurgents, the celebrated Romeo, had surrendered
himself to the royal troops. "At present," continues
the Dbots, " the insurrection is subdued, and the go-
vernment of the King is everywhere strong, every-
where master of the situation. All the points where
there could be ground for apprehension, are occupied
by imposing forces; and moveable columns, as is usual
every year at the same epoch, overrun the provinces.
But this is not the whole truth, nor the best of the
truth. We are certainly informed that King Ferdi-
nand is not insensible either to the deplorable catas-
trophes which for several years have on different oc-
casions disturbed the tranquillity of his dominions, or
to the glorious movement which Pius IX. has im-
pressed equally on the governments and the people of
the Peninsula. We have, in fine, reason to know that
if on the one hand he has vigorously repressed the in-
surrection, he has on the other perceived the necessity
of making for the future concessions to liberal
opinions, and that he has promised after the victory
to exercise towards the conquered the noblest prero-
gative of royalty—clemency."
Such is the substance of the confidential letter
which has been allowed to reach the Journal des
he-
bats, but which is at variance with all the reports
hitherto received, whether by Germany or Marseilles.
Letters from Rome of the 2nd bring the intelligence
of a man proprio of PiuslX.to organise the municipal
council and senate of Rome. The capital will thus
acquire the benefit of municipal institutions, aid the
control of the registers of the civil state will be trans-
ferred from ecclesiastical to civil authorities. The
following is the man proprio which has just been
published :
When divine providence called us to govern the church
and the state, our pa•ernal cares were directed to such of the
populations so submitted to the pontifical government, and
especially to this celebrated capital, their eldest sister, to
which it is sweet to us to devote our labours and watching,.
We feel obliged to have a special care for this illus-
trious city, beeline we unite to the power of sovereign that
of Bishop of Rome, at which our heart rejoices. And if it
be sweet to us to extend our affectionate solicitude over all
our dear subjecta, we are still more happy to manifest it to
the Romans, whom we have continually before our eyes,
and who do not cease to give, with extraordinary constancy,
new and excellent proofs of their filial respect to our mend
person. What was especially imported(, and what we think
most be a subject of public joy, was to restore to this deer
city its ancient splendour of communal representation, by
according to it a deliberative council, a body of magistrates
charged to cause its deliberations to he executed, and reve-
nuts proportioned to the charges which it has to sustain. It