The Express.
London, England, 1851-02-06 00:00:00

GERMANY.

The new Holstein government entered on its func-
tions at Kid, on the 2nd inst. The proclamation
published by Count Iteventlow and the com-
missioners, announcing the fact, announces also the
abrogation of the fundamental state law, of the
German fundamental law, and the dissolution of
the Assembly. All laws made and put in force since
the 24th of March, 1848, are also pronounced invalid,
as wanting the sanction of the sovereign ; they are
to be retained, however, provisionally at the pleasure
of the government, which can abrogate or alter them
as it secs good.

AUSTRIA.
The imperial ordinance, fixing the basis of the
future administrative government of the Lombardo-
Venetian kingdom, contains the following provi-
sions: The territory of the said kingdom will be di-
vided into the respective provinces of Lombardy and
Venice. Lieutenants, or Statthalters, will be placed
at the head of the local administration, the members
of which will reside, in proportional numbers, in the
cities of Milan and 'Venice. The Statthalters
will be immediately responsible to the ministry
at Vienna, to whom all appeals against their
decisions must be made. An official staff for
the service of this body is organised and ap-
pointed by the central government. Prefects of
police will be appointed for the security of the two
chief cities and their neighbourhoods, which officers
will be immediately subordinate to the Statthalters.
The Lombardian province is subdivided into the dis-
tricts of Milan, Bergamo, Brescia, Como, Cremona,
Lodi, Mantua, Pavia, and Sandrio ; that of Venice into
the districts of Venice, Belluno, Padua, Rovie Tre-
viso, Udine, Verona, and Vicenza. The administra-
tion of the districts will be conducted in the first in-
stance by delegates sitting at the capital of the dis-
trict, and subordinated in administrative function to
the Statthalters, to whom appeals from them must
be made. The duties of the former police commis-
sary are transferred to the delegates.
The districts are still further partitioned into com-
munes, the administrative affairs of which will be
conducted by commissaries standing immediately
r below the delegates, whose orders they will execute.
The presidents of the various official departments
are held responsible for all that is done by the
officers under them. Each functionary has to take
for his guides the written law and the directions of
his superior. Persons desirous of becoming candi-

date/ for the posts created in this decree, are invited
to inscribe their names for examination. An organi-
sation committee will be established in the first in-
stance to carry these provisions into execution.

Btat.tx, FEB. 4.—TZoltui Lout, 1061 ; New Luau.
Four-and-e-Ilalt per CenO tary., 1001 ; Nationsl Debt, 841; Corn-
Menial Marine Society's Prentina,l2B ; Bank Shares, 96.
VIRNN•, Fun. 3.—Five per Cent. Metalliques, 961;
Four-and-a-half per Cents., ditto, 841 ; Bank Shares
1148 Eichange on London, 12.42.

PORTVGAL.—The Oriental Company's steam-
packet Jupiter, Capt. F. Meehan, arrived at South-
ampton yesterday, and landed her mails under the
charge of Lieut. k P. Fair, R.N., Admiralty Agent.
She sailed 27 hours after the Madrid, which arrived at
Southampton on Tuesday. Her dates are Lisbon,
January 30.

WEST INDIES.
PROGRESS OF THE CHOLERA.
Yesterday, the mail steamer Thames arrived at
Southampton, with dates—Vera Cruz. Jan. 7th;
Tampico, 4th; Chasms. 9th; Honduras. 1 Ith ; Car-
thagcna, 11th; Jamaica, 14th; Berbice, 11th;
Demerara, 11th; Tobago, 10th; Trinidad, 11th;
St. Vincent. 12th; Barbadoca, 13th ; St. Lucia, 14th;
Antigua, 15th; I )(aunties, 14th; Martinique, 14th;
Giiloupe, I Ith ; Grenada, 12th ; Montserrat, 15th;
Porta Rico, 14th ; St. Thomas, 18th; La Guayra,
18th; Nevis, 13th; St. Kitt's, 15th. She brings 87
pamengers; five hundred thousand dollars from
Mexico, of which eighty-four thousand dollars are on
account of 3lexican dividends; and gold-diet from
Chagres to the value of nine hundred thousand
dollars.
The Thames brought 214 Californian passengers
. from Greytown to Chagres, where she landed them on
the 3rd and 4th ult., all paying saloon fare, 15 dots.,
though four-fifths of them were half-naked, and
without sufficient to pay their way, while others
had large sums in gold. One individual had 4,000
dollars' worth; a party of four had 40,000 didlars'
worth, and another party of three, 30.001) dollars;
many persons had 3,000 dollars' worth, and lesser
tams. Upwards of 2.000 persons from California
poised through Grey town, returning to the United
States, in November and December last. By the
latest arrivals it is said the cholera is raging fearfully
hi California, 4,000 deaths being reported from the
Ist to the 111th November. This route (of Grey-
town and Chagres) is not likely to be so much
frequented for some time to come as it has
latterly been, there being a quarantine of thirty
days imposed on all vessels arriving ut Realejo from
esSfornia. Realejo is the nearest and best Pacific
port to Greytown ; it is about 2,600 miles south-cast
of San F 1111164.0 by sea; about 150 miles from the
town of Granada. which is on the north-west borders
of Lake Nicaragua, thence through the lake to San
Caries, at the head of the San Juan River, about 95
miles; thence by the river to Oreytown, about 90
miles more. From Iteulejo to Grenada is travelled
on mutts. A small steamer, the Director, has, after
much perseverance, succeeded in passing over the
rapids, and getting wifely into Lake Nicaragua,
while her consort, the Oral, is likely to be a wreck
on the rocks of the same rapids. Much facility will
be afforded to travellers by this route (of Nicaragua).
The United States steamer Cherokee arrived at
Cliagr+ on the 7th ult., with 45 cabin passengers
and 11111 hands to work on the railroad now being
constructed from Navy Bay to Panama. The Phila-
delphia steamer, with 230 passengers for California,
arrived at Chagres on the Bth ult., and also the
Prometheus.

Greytown and (Ingres were healthy, although at
the former port the crew of her Majesty's steamer
Inflexible was suffering from intermittent fever,
having had seven deaths, and her captain and fifty
men on the sick list.

Aecording to the latest advices from Jamaica, the
cholera had left Montego Bay. Front Trelawney
the cholera reports were favourable. At Westmore-
land it had not made its appearance. At St.
Elisabeth's, Stewart Town, the cholera was still bad.
It had just commeneed its destructive influence in the
sawyers' district. It still prevailed, also, at Roby-
town and its vicinity. It was decreasing in the
Ihincan's districts. }rum Hanover the intelligence
is most disastrous. Sonnw anddespair reign there. All
are panic-stricken. If it were not for the Coolies,
the last restingdoers for the dead would not be
.At Metcalf, also, the epidemic was very
prepare
St. Lucia the legislative council was to
meet on the 15th Jainnurv. Fine crop weather pre-
vailed. Boards of health-had been established in the
chief towns in the colony. A dreadful epidemic pre-
vails in French Guiana. Accounts thence are to
the 31st of Ikeember. The government was mani-
festly alarmed, and the official organ of the colony
is filled with various orders and proclamations,
promulgating measures of various kinds to stay the
of the disease, not only in Cayenne, but in
speed
districts. 'Thirty thousand franca had been
voted for the relief of the indigent sick, and medical
officers had been appointed by the government to
attend the sick, especially in the Leeward districts.
BRITISH GUIANA.
The Revd aiziele of Jan. 11, in the review for
borne renders, says:
We consider it but fair to the Royal Wed India Mail
Company, whose arrangements we have so often had occa-
sion of late to censure, to open our present article by stating
that their steamer, the Dement, arrived on this occasion in
ear river with the European and intercolonial mails pune-
titelly to her time. We irust add, however, that we believe
this is only the second time that the Dement has been se
regular for the last twelvemonth.
The last fortnight has been a very quiet one in British
Guiana. The Court of Policy has been in non-session, to
suable members, we presume, like other mortals, to enjoy
a little recreation and repose during the Christmas holi-
days. The court, however, will re-assemble on Monday
neat, the 13th, for the transaction of business. The holi-
days have passed off very quietly. His Excellency the
Governor wiled himself of the adjournment of the legis-
lature to pay a visit, accompanied by Mr. Barkly and
some friends, to the Essequebo river. His Excellency
we understand, who, with Mrs. Barkly and their party,
returned some days ago to the seat of government,
visited, in the course of his tour, the penal settle-
ment in the tlassaroony river, which is a tributary of the
Bmcourho. and graciously remitted the sentences, some in
pert, and some wholly, d several of the convicts who had
conducted themselves at the settlement in such a manner
to justify the extension to them of that act of grace and
favour—so well suited to the season of general Christian
rejoicing when bis Excellency's visit to that abode of
punishment, misery, and remorse was paid. We hope that
this art of gentle merry may have the effect of softening
the hearts and reclaiming the habits of many other convicts,
the more encouraged to good conduct from seeing the
gleams of hope piercing the gloom of their prison walls,
and from knowing that, although the lonely prisoner is an
outcast from the world, there is yet, where penitence is sin-
cere, one generous heart left that feels for him, and a hand
both willing and able to assist him.
Our newly-constituted beards of health in the two chief
towns of the colony, Georgetown and New Anbterdion, are
busily engaged in organising measures for the improvement
of the sanitary condition of those two places. The board in
Georgetown have nominated district commissioners for each
ward of the city. Hitherto the colony has been healthy
enough ; and, seeing this, there are some persons who seem
to think that it was needless for the colony, in its pride of
strength, to constitute such boards at all, or at least, quite
so soon. We confess, however, we sec no grounds for such
confidence.
If the colony is spared the scourge of an epidemic disease,
it will be through the mercy of heaven. To the north of us
cholera is mowing down its victims in Jamaica, one of the
most generally salubrious as well as beautiful islands of the
Antilles, by thousands; and, while we are writing, papers
only a few days old from French Guiana are lying before us,
containing most smile evidence of the alarm of the
French authorities as Cayenne at the rapid spread in
that province, only two or three days sail to windward
of us, of some desolating epidemic, which we do not
find mi otioned by name in the journals before us, but
which is said to be yellow fever, though, for aught we
know, it may be cholera. The reserve on the part of the
Cayenne papers may be accounted for by remarking that,
though France is at present governed by republican insti-
tutions, the government of La Guyana Franeaise is on the
model which has usually prevailed at all time, and under all
changes, elsewhere in the French West Indies, and upon
which St. Domingo itself was ruled when it was a French
dependency. The governor is a little Cur. There as.
no popular institutions, no Houses of Assembly, no COIF
bined Courts, and no opposition journals to control his
power, or to thwart his designs and mar his obi:lulus:Ml
The decrees and ordinances run in his name. He is,
however, so far checked, that he can issue none, except on
the proposition of an officer, called an Ordounateur, and with
the advice of the Privy Council. The Privy Council is Fa-
mily obedient enough. But the Ordonnateur is a high
officer of state, appointed from home, and as great a man
almost as the Governor himself; and it sometimes happens
that there are things which ho won't recommend. Bryan
Edwards says that in St. Domingo the interests of the colo-
nists were always pretty sure to be consulted in the end from
the jealousy which unveiled between the Governor and the
Intendent—who played the same part there as the Ordon-
intent now does in Cayenne—and which made them pull
different ways. In justice, however, to the government of
French Guiana we mast say that they appear to consult the
well-being of all classes of the inhabitants, and to conduct
the affairs of the colony in an eidightensd and energetic

manner; and that they have managed to make French
Guiana pass through the ordeal of emancipation, compara-
tively scatheless and unharmed.
Landed property in this colony does not appear as yet to
be regaining its former value. The plantations, which are 1
from time to time brought to the hammer or disposed of by
private contract, do not fetch one half as many dollars as '
they would pounds sterling a few years ago. As one proof
of this remark, we may mention two sales of estates that
have been effected privately in the course of the last few
days; Coming's Lodge, once a fine, but now a comparatively
abandoned stuaggaart estate on the east coast of Demerara, and
in the i 'ate vicinity of Georgetown, sold to John
Atkinson, Req., for 16,500 dollars, and Nooten's
&till, a property once of considerable value, but now out
of cultivation, and situated several mike higher up on the
sew coast, sold to John Alt, Esq., for 3,500 dots. It does
sot speak vevy flatteringly fur the estimation in which the
prospects of this colony arc held by shrewd capitalists and 1
men of business al home, that both these estates should
have Wormed to two well-known and influential firms in
England connected with the West Indies ; Coming's Lodge
having been sold by order of the attorney in this colony
e Messrs. Bosanquct, Naghten, and Co., of London,
and Nooten's Zuyll by order of that of Messrs.
Dudek and Co., of Bristol ; those houses having been
the owner. respectively of the properties is question.
Pacts such as these, coupled with others of the same
kind and of recent uocurneice, are rather disheart-
ening to the colonist* ; for they seem to show a desire
On the part of capitalists either to close their connection
altogether with the colony, or to restrict it within the nar-
rowest possible limits. And why should they do this, ex-
cept they perceive trouble and disaster in the distance ?
except they see, after twelve years' experience of the eman-
eipation system and the unerring evidence of their books
and ledgers, no grounds for believing that the future cul-
tivation of estates in this colony eau be carried on remune-
ratively ? Should such a conviction be prevalent in high ,
mercantile quarters at home, it cannot fail to be at-
tended with most disastrous consequences to this
colony; for it is not going too far to sumet that four-
litho of the agriculture of the colony is at this mo-
ment kept up by absentee capital, and, consequently,
since we have no exports hut those derived from our
agriculture to depend upon, that four-fifths of the
swans of the resident colonist., and of the funds that go
towards the maintenance of our local institutions, are derived
from the same absentee source. It may sound strange to
English ears, which are accustomed to emaciate Ireland and
all its evils with the term absenteeism ; but nothing is
more true, that, as regards British Guiana, our absentees have
hitherto been the very prop and foundation on which the
colony has rested, and from which the greater part of the
comforts of its inhabitants has been derived. We am accus-
tomed to speak of immigration and labour as the two grand
wants of the country; but the truth is, the country
stands just as much in need of money as of Coolies or
Kroomrn. Labour may he compared to some powerful
engine which, set in motion, produces valuable fabric!, ;
but capital to the steam, or other power, which makes it re-
volve and work. And in this colony, the more true is it, that
capital is the fuel of labour, because where the means are
wanting to remunerate men for their labour, they need not
starve 50 elsewhere, but have only to choose between unre-
quited toil and a relapse into the semi-barbarous state,
which the facility of acquiring the means of subsistence in
this enuntry, the boundless extent of our fertile waste lands,
and the mildness of our climate deprive of nearly all tbel
penal vaults with which it would be attended in any
country of Europe. Already have vast bodies of oar
people retreated up the rivers and into the wilderness, far
from the centres of civilisation and commerce; and we
cannot entertain the least doubt upon our mind, that
the poorer the colony becomes—the less of capital there is
in it the more abundant will he the reflux of our Impala-
tion into the wild and vest interior of our colony. Foe
purposes of agriculture and commerce, labour so diverted
and allowed to run to waste is as absolutely lost as if it had
never existed.
The weather during the fortnight has been Reasonable.
The planters had been complaining of want of sufficient
rain fur the young canes ; but the showers we have had for
the last few days have left them fur the present nothing to
desire in that respect.