The Express.
London, England, 1853-08-13 00:00:00

This bill, as amended, was considered, and axed for third
rending.

PASSENGERS ACT AMENDMENT BILL.
Read a third time and passed.
COAL—CITY OF LONDON.

On the motion of Mr. HLDPIILD (for Mr Duncombe) a
return was ordered of the amount collected by way of toll
by the corporation of the City of London, or by their les-
sees on account of the said toll, on the cuts and waggons of
non-freemen, from the lit day of January, 1852, to the
present time, together with the sum paid bT such lessees to
the oorporation, and the purposes to which the same is
applied.
The house then adjourned to this day.
Ettn..—Sir H. Ferguson Davie, Bart., has paired for the
remainder of the *tenon with Sir John Duckworth, Bart.

TILE NAVAL REVIEW AT P

-PORTS-

MOUTH, Auo. 12.—The sailing ships Queen (116), Prince
Regent (90), and London (90), came up to 8-pithead lut
night after the review, and joined the fleet. To-day the
vessels plaited in commission pro tens. for the review have
been put out of commission, and those that came round
front other porta are ordered to return. The only accident
that occurred during the review consisted in three seamen
belonging to the Prince Regent falling overboard. They
were, however, picked up.

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LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGI'•~T 13.

ANOTHER desperate effort was made la.t night in I
the House of Peers to get from Illoi-tors some
papers on the Eastern Question. But in vain. In
this instance two Tory Lords were the leaders
of this Parliamentary forlorn hope. They did
their best to scale that solid structure
of mysterious silence in which the ABLunEES
Cabinet have ensconced their acts. Lord MALMES..
BURY went over all the reasons he could fluster to
show why the FOREIGN SECRETARY should ho com-
muuicatire, quoting with great effect n,e example
of CANNING amongst by-gone Statesmen and
Lord JOHN RUSSELL amongst living ones
to sh3W that State papers about foreign
affair, have not always been concealed from
the knowledge of l'arliament whilst important nego-
tiations were pending. Lord JOHN RUSSELL pub-
lished the State paper about the MADIAI—why does
not the Earl of ABERDEEN print the note sent to
NESSELROGR ? To this very plain question, since no
reply is vouchsafed—it can only be surmised that a
response would be little complimentary to our Cabinet.
The note to Tuscany was honourable to its author
and needed no concealment, whilst the missive to
Russia may probably not come under the same de-
scription. This is one way of accountio.; for the
pertinacity of Ministerial silence in this case. Lord
IlAnnwteices few words were very much to the point,
and the remarks of other noble speakers went to show
how generally the view of the Eastern question, long
urged in these columns, has been adopted. There
seems now no doubt whatever that the settle.
ment wo are now promised might have been long
since secured had a tone of firmness been adopted
when Russia's burglarious designs were first disco-
vered. Had the combined fleets gone to Ilesika Bay
when the insolence of MENCIIIKOFP was first mani-
fested in Constantinople we should have had no pas-
sage of tho Pruth. The belief that the Court
and Cabinet of England were not prepared
to take a firm stand, in conjunction with
France, for the maintenance of treaties, led
the CZAR (they say) to venture on his long eontem
plated advance towards Constantinople. But why
was not this error cleared up at once ? Why were
the first symptoms of Russian aggression &Bowel
to pass unchecked ? Enough, that they did so pass,
and the Autocrat pushed on ; and now those who
refuse to give information of their action in the
matter seem to think that getting the Cossacks out of
the Principalities is as easy a task as it would have
been to keep them first of all out of Turkey. They
seemingly cejoy the comfortable belief that tocompel
the Autoc.at to retreat is as simple an affair as it
would have been to check his aggression had a firm
attitude been taken when the first steps towards that
aggression were made. We shall see. Meanwhile
the report of what was said last night, and the latest
news received from abroad, will both be read with
interest as illustrating the progress towards solution
of this great European squabble of Russian versus
Turk.

Whilst sympathising with Lord MALmEsnunr's
attempt to gain information from the Ministers, there
is, however, one other part of his speech that calla
for anything but commendation. The ex-Foreign
Secretary strives to put upon the press a portion of
she onus of the present state of affairs. He would
have us believe that, because the English news•
papers were honestly out-spoken, the Emperor
of ALL TIIE RUSSIAS became burglarious—be.
cause the press of Loadon spoke truth the Mus-
covite was urged to aggression. He takes credit
to himself moreover for his prompt sympathy with
the hero of the coup-d'etat and he would fain
persuade us that to himself and to the efforts of the
DERBY-DISRAELITF.S is due the cordial agreement
I now apparently subsisting between the Courts of St.
James's and of the Tuileries. In this he is doubly
wrong. The press did not create any dis-union,
and the Tories did not do any good. Let us first ask
Lord MALMESBURY whether any very intense
cordiality does exist between the Courts of
England and France? It has long been supposed
that COBURG and ORLEANS are morn popular
names in most court circles than BONAPARTE.
And next, let us repeat that all the press ever
said after the coup-d'etat was in condemnation of the
cruelty and injustice of that act. Not one word was
ever uttered against the people of France—against
the great and intelligent French nation. The at-
tacks of the press were against a ruler who had
increased his power by a bold, bad act; and the sym-
pathy was universal for the sufferers by that act.

Yet this condemnation of Louis NAPOLEON never
led a single journal to urge an interference with
the rule which said that the de facto ruler of
a friendly nation shall be so recognised by this
country. And more than this, it must be remembered
that from the moment when the French nation
seemed to condone the crime of the Second of De-
cember the English journal' ceased their hostile
criticism of its author. It was at once admitted that
the people of the sister-country were the best judges
in their own case, and the vote having been given
for NAPOLEON 111., his authority was no longer chal-
lenged. The cordiality of feeling that ought to exist,
and that does truly exist, between the peoples of this
country and of France has never been questioned by
the most pertinacious of the denouncers of Louis
NAPOLEON. The true interests of England and
France are one, and should so ever be admitted and
acted upon. Indeed, whenever it has happened that
differences have existed between them, those dif-
ferences have always arisen from the interested ma-
chinations of courts, families, or coteries, and never
from any genuine want of sympathy or community
of interests between the men of the two coun-
tries. For any partisan Peer, therefore, to say
that the press had led foreign powers to believe
England and France to be estranged the one from
the other is simply absurd, unless we understand
Lord MALMESBURY to mean that courts and people
are ever one and the same ; that foreign powers
know nothing whatever about the matter; and that,
when in doubt on such a point, an English Tory Mi-
nistry does nothing to remove any false impression
that may exist. The Courts of the two countries
may have feelings adverse the one to the other, but
the true interests of England and of France are one
—and the great bulk of the people of both nations
are wise enough to know it. Nor Lord MALMESEVRY
—nor Lord CLARENDOX—nor any other peer, can claim
credit for Napoleonic alliances. The present union be-
tween England and France on the Eastern question
is due to the good sense of the two most civilised
nations of Europe, and to their instinctive aver-
sion to the inroads of Barbarism—that union being
strengthened by the mutual interests of the two
Courts.

Os Wednesday morning, when the universal
mind of Great Britain, with sonic exceptions, was
busied in anticipation of the coming review at Spit-

head, three persons, with ropes placed round their
necks by approved functionaries, were swung into
i,ity. Great Britain was looking calmly for the
rea:ist•ion of the promised review of the mor-
row. hlle three human beings were being strangled.
'fbcse are the bare facts, and we hove no iatention
to tound any theory on them, or to enter into any
present discussion upon the propriety of capital pu-
n:elinie iits. Society has decided that certain crimes
hill; be punished by the extinction of life. If society
owes this duty to itself as a matter of self-preserva-
tion, the consequences of adopting such a conclusion
ineolve the corniative duty of not allowing the
punishment to act as an exciting cause to
the commission of such crimes as those for which
the punishment is decreed. Now if, in the infliction
of a penalty, the criminal becomes an object of sym-
pathy, the whole morale of the system of punish-
ment evaporates. Sympathy with the criminal
induces a toleration of tho crime. If you cannot
invest the punishment of death with any solemnity,
aholish it, or you elevate your criminals into martyrs.
Now do these remarks apply to the cast of one of the
executions to which we have alluded—that of JOHN
ItosEars at Caruarvon ? The whole of the arrange-
ments connected with carrying out the last sentence
of the law with respect to this man were of a nature
to excite indignation and a feeling of the ludicrous,
rather than tear or horror. The execution was to
have taken place on a scaffold outside the gaol,
which abuts over a slate yard. The tenant and the
landlord of the place in question, however, objected
to this, and the authorities had no resource but
to execute their man within the walls. As an
execution however is intended to be a great moral
loam], it is necessary that the public should be apse-
tater' of the same. But as stone walls are pee-
verbially impervious to right, there appeared to be
an insuperable difficulty in the way of carrying out
the whole intention of the law. The authorities,
however, were not daunted. It was, the report tells
us, finally decided that the execution should take
place within the walls, and be public only to
the extent which a large opening therein would
admit. In plain terms, the legal extinction of the
life of a man, necessary as a great public lesson, was
to be looked at through a "hole in the wall." The
arrangements were adapted to the exigencies of the
case. The scaffold was small, and only capable of
accommodating seven or eight persons. Oat of this
number, however, only three could be seen through
the aperture—the culprit, the executioner, and a
philanthropic gentleman of the name of Witmer,
who had been very assiduous in conveying
spiritual consolation and instruction to the prisoner.
The religious service was unheard. The appearance,
at the aperture, of the three individuals occasioned a
start of horror and a shrill cry amongst the specta-
tor. The grotesque horror of the sight was
enhanced, says the reporter, by the strange appear-
ance of the hangman, with his head covered by a
peculiar black head-dress. "There," he conti-
nues, " within a small aperture of a few feet
were the busts of the two figures seen, the one
in the foreground waving his hands and making
motions of agony and woe, the other darkly looming
from behind in a costume as hideous as any age
which fancy could suggest." These disgusting fesPl
tures of the care were heightened by other circus.
stances. The executioner was a young man—inexpe-
rienced as it would appear, for the knot was tied on
the mcrong smile and above the ear, so that, though the
full was above four feet, the spine was not broken,
and death did not ensue until after minutes of convul-
sive struggle.

What effect can the sight of a punishment of this
kind have upon the spectators? Ridicule, horror, and
disgust, may have been excited, but surely not solemn
thought, or aversion to crime. Nay, in so far as
sympathy with the criminal on account of the tor-
tures inflicted upon him was aroused, the natural
aversion to the crime might be supposed
to be diminished. There are only two
grounds upon which the rationale of capital
punishment can be argued—the vindication of
the majesty of the law, and the moral effect that the
sight may have upon the spectators. Both these
were lost sight of in the execution at Cimarron.
The vindication of the majesty of the law could not
be affected by putting the criminal to unnecessary
torture—the moral effect could not be produced spun
a populace oscillating between sympathy and
ridicule.

If we are to preserve the punishment of death
is our legal code, let ue invest it with all the
solemnity which the violent extinction of life
demands. Let it be surrounded with all the
circumstances which can impress the spectators with
a due feeling of the awful nature of the eight which
they are witnessing. If it is found that this cannot
be effected is sight of the universal public, do away
at once with publicity in the ordinary acceptation of
the term. Institute proper legal witnesses of the exe-
cution, they being sufficiently numerous to satisfy the
full needs of the came. Give due guarantees that the
sentence of the law will be put into execution, but
take care that your ordinary arrangements are not
such as to defeat the very end for which your penal-
ties are established. Until this is done it will be
found that the hanging of a Jonx Ronr.irrs is only
planting the seed for a crop of future ROBIATBEIL
The execution of one murderer may be the very sour*
of the occurrence of unnumbered murders to come.

INDIA MAIL.

'MAT.

The Indian mail arrived Dm at one o'clock
to-clay (Friday).

SOUTH AMERICAN MAILS.

WV'

r, SATURDAY MORNING.

The Severn has arrived. Her dates are--Buenos
Ayres, July 2 ; Rio Janeiro, 15 ; Lisbon, August 8.
Pias, with battalion, paved over to the town on the
lit of July ; a small contingent of troops have ar-
rived from Urquiza from the Upper Province.
The blockade was raised, the whole of Urquiza's
squadron having pained over in favour of the town.
Co. and his officers were paid one hundred thousand
pounds. Coe is coming to England.
Business, owing to the blockade at Buenos Ayres
being raised, was almost stopped at Monte Video.

Bi the Severn steamer, we find that the transac-
tions in Exchange at Rio de Janiero had been exten-
sive, two hundred and ninety thousand pounds hay-
ing been passed on to London, and large amounts
for Paris and Haratnirgh. Freights at Rio had de-
clined. The money market was easier.
The political news was unimportant.
The provinces were quiet, and the treasury well
filled.