The Express.
London, England, 1853-06-04 00:00:00

Vbe Court.

The Queen gave a concert last evening at Buckitig-
ham Palace. The invitations amounted to near tour hun-
dred, and included the royal tho •whole of :ha
foreign ministers, and a large party of the ability.
The Duchess of Kent arrived at twenty mioutcs before 10
o'clock, accompanied by the Princess Adthilde of Hobe*.
lobe, and attended by Lady Anna Maria Dawson and Sit
George Couper.
The Duke of Genoa was attended by the Marquis dr Axes-
lio, Sardinian Minister ; Colonel Wylde, Groom-in• Waiting
to Prince Albert ; Marquis St. Manua and Coact Delis
' Valle, Aides-de-Camp of the Duke, and the Marquis --
pallet and Count Avogadro, Offician d'Ordonnance of his
Repel Highness.
The Duke of Cambridge and the Priacess Mary, the
Hereditary Grand Duke and Grand Duehe.s, and the
Duchess Caroline of Mecklenburah Strelita, arrived, at.
tended by Lady Suffield, Lady Caroline Cast. Biroreas
Wenchstien, LordlWillianaroulet, Major Baron linewbeck,
and Baron Liihe.
Tie ladies of the royal family were received on theft
arrival by the Maids of Honour, and the Grooms am' loquer-
ries in Waiting, and were conducted to the Yellow Draw-
ing-room, where her Majesty received her illustrious
guests.
The general company were u,herd into the Picture
Gallery. Shortly before ten o'clock Icr Majesty anti.
Prince Albert, with their royal and a istinguished visitors,
entered the Grand Saloon, which was fitted up for the con-
cert. The performance immediately commenced.
The following was the programme •
PARTE PRIMA.
Trio. " Vied al mar," Miss Fyne, Signor Gardoni e
Herr Pormea
Romano', "Oh Lisboaa," Signor 'tomcod. i Don
Sebastim)
Duo, Mariner° in guard's eta," Signors Garden' e
Ronooni. (I Marinari.)
Air. " Son, Je no Teal pas chanter," Mdme. Cos
tchan Nicolo.
Duo, "Ah pardons," Mdme. Viardot e Ilion Prue
(Clemens& di Tito.)
Air, " Ant einen Todtenaeken," Licrr Forme+. (Dos
Wirthrhans.)
Quintal°, "Pour la introits," Mdme. Cotellan,
Miss Pyne, e Mdm^. Via, dot; Sigs. Oa dank a Herr
Forma. (Merle Stuart.)
PARTE SECON DM.
Trio. "Se mi prestaree I radii,' Mime. Viarda,
Slim Pro!' e Castellon Garc:a.
Serenade, 'Tesdis qua tout socameile," signor Oar-
duel. (1775.)
Duo, " Alton. centres,"Mmes. CaottUan a Xiardot
(X6re grand.)
Air, " Penne to pauplare," Miss Prue. (La part do
thatee.)
T6l, Mandina arnob.le," Mdme. Castellon, Signori
Cardnet e Renew,. (La Villanelle 'capita.)
Aire Ruses, Mdme. Viarda.
Coro, "Plasido Si mar." Tulti. (Iducueveo.) Mozart.
Signor Corte presided at the Pionotorte.
A deputation from Glasgow, consisting of Mr. Alexander
Morrison, Dean of the Faculty, Mr. George Anderson,
Mr. Charles Grey, and Mr. Neale Thompson, accom-
panied by Mr. Alexander Haiti', M.P., had au interview
with Viscount Palmerston yesterday at the Home offize.
A deputation, consisting of Dr. Lankester, Dr. Mack en:::e,
and Dr. J. Dslston Jones (London), Mr. Lard (Hamp-
stead), Mr. Walb (Bayswater), Dr. J. G. Traquair (i'arl-
ike), Mr. Woolaston (London), Mr. W. M. Powell
(Wandsworth), Doctors Murphy, Ashley, O'Connor, anal
Ogler Ward, Mr. Reginald Read, and Mr. Charles Clark
(London), had also an interview with Viscount Palmerston
yesterday at the Home-office, on the subject of medical re-
form.
A deputation, including life. Knox and Mr. Robert•on,
had an interview with the Earl of Aberdeen yesterday, at
his official residence in Dawning-street.
A deputation relative to the improvement of Glasgow
Cathedral had an interview with Sir Wm..Molesworth
yesterday, at the Office of Works and Public Buildittga.
The deputation consisted of the Lord Prevost of Glasgow,
Bailie Gourley, Mr. Charles Gray, and Jahn Strang, LL.D.
A deputation from Shorediteh, consisting of the Rev.
the Vicar, Messrs. Southgate and Mudie (churchwardi.ns),
Messrs. Pears, and Hows (trustees of the poor), at.l Mr.
John Ware (vestry-clerk, pro tem.) had an interview writ
Viscount Polmerston yesterday.—The Vicar and Church-
wardens of St. Martin'.-in-the-Fields, the Rev. henry
Mackenzie, and Messrs. Barron and Gillett, had also ata
interview with the noble viscount at the Home-office.
Despatches were sent from the Colonial-office y. Acidly
to the Governor-General of Canada and the Govt rnots rt
Malta, Australia, Van Diemen's Land, Hong Kong, and!
Ceylon.

IRELAND.
FATAL STEAM-BOAT ACCIDENT.

DUBLIN. J 3.
Another steam-boat accident of a lamentable
character took place close to Dublin last evening. The Ml-
lowing are the particulate, as tar cs they could he obtain, 4l
in the confusion which followed tho occurrence • —Thep
Timm one of the Teeth belonging to the Dublin mut
Liverpool Steam Packet Company, and commanded
Captain James Collis, left the North emit yesterday evert-
ing, for Liverpool, at six o'clock, having on board 303
deck passengers, chiefly emigrants, and seven cabin pas-
sengers. She also carried, as part of her cargo, a
number of cattle. When nearly opposite the Pigeon Ikuse„
at about seven o'clock, a partial explosion of one of her
boilers took place, causing a rent through. vadat there wee
en immediate and destructive escape of steam. A scene of
the greatest confusion and terror ensued. A number of
the unfortunate passengers who crowded the deck were in-
steady overwhelmed and frightfully scalded by the steam ;
and those who had the good fortune to escape its i'estruc-
ties effects weee in the greatest alarm for their live.. On
the vessel being stopped the boats were lowered, and the
unfortunate sufferers conveyed ashore. Nothing could be
more frightful than the appearance of some of the pool
I creatures presented as they were taken from the boats. Om
examination it was found that 33 persons were injured,
many of them severely, and that two, ado about four am,
a girl about three years old, were dead. Their bodies were
removed to the hospital at the Pigeon-house Fort, where en
inquest will be held on them this day.

•
WISDOM ON THE HOUSE-MRS.—What a picture,
what a page in social history are they. No common house-
tops these, nor do the houses shelter men and women au&
children exactly like those met with in other crowded parts of
London. The inhabitants of these house-tops are silk-
weavers and pigeons, and pigeons and silk-weavers, accord-
ing as we reckon from below upwards or from above down-
wards. Spitalfields weavers, the men ate called, and
Spitalfields weavers their forefathers were; for Spital-
fields, in years gone by, was the home both of the men who
executed the work, and of the masters who gave out the
work to be executed. But the workers have emigrated
further east, to that wide prairie of small streets of
small houses which goes by the hams of Bethnal-
green. Bethnal has a green, still ; and there may be
Blind Beggar and a beautiful daughter on or near that
green, the aught we can tell ; but the Bethnal-green of the
house-tope and the chimney-pots, of the dove-cotes and the
weavers' rooms, has very little green about it. If you want
to see nature's Bethnal-green, trudge it on foot ; but if man's
Bethnal-green be the object of your search, take a run on
the Eastern Counties Railway, and look right and left at the
wondrous dingy medley that presents itself. Whc.shall num-
ber the little streets which the first mile points o qt. to us, end
who shall remember their names ? No 'genteel " houses;
no large schools; no' plate-glass windows (except to the
gin-palaces) ; no squares with grass and trees and " genteel"
little children with hoops and skipping ropes ; no picture-
galleries or museums; no omnibuses, and very few cabs;
few umbrellas in wet weather, and few parasols in fine ; few
carts for retail trade, and few waggons for wholesale; no
smart people, and no high-born whether smart or not—but
hard-working, very very hard-working, are the sights which
meet the eye during the first mile and a half of this railway
ride. That is, the street-sights weulti be such, ii we could/
see down to the pavements; but, bating that, we study the
house-tope. • • • The house-tops exhibit these win-
dows as near the roof-ridge as is practicable. The weaver
loves flowers (praise be to him for it), and often platys
them at his window ; he loves pigeonsvand builds a sate
for them on the roof; he loves linnets and other wog birds,
and builds cages for them ; and thus the men, their rooms,
their windows, their fliwcrs, their pigeons, and tht it birds,
form the elements of the house-top prospect in Bethnal-
green.—Diekerw's " Household Words." •
AN IDIOT AS HE IS SUPPOSED TO 88, AND AN Hz
is.—The popular notion of an idiot would probably be
found to vary very little, essentially, in cliff- rent places'
however modified by local circumstances. To the traveller
in France or Italy, the name recalls a vacant creature all in
rags, eibberieg and blinking in the sun with dist, i ted fa,r,
and led about as a possession and a stock-in-tratle by sem
phenomenon of filth and ugliness in the forma an Old woman.
In association with Switzerland, it suggests a horrible being.
stated at a chalet door (perhaps possessing sense enough&
to lead the way to a neighbouring waterfall), of stun:cd
and misshapen form, with a pendulous excrescence dangling
from his throat, like a great skin bag with a weight in it. Is
the highlands of Scttland, or on the roads of ITel..nd, he
becomes a red-haired Celt, rather more unreasorzble teas
usual, plunging ferocionoly out of a mud cabin, and casting
stones at the stranger's head. As &remembrance Cr our osier
childbool in an English country town, he is a shambling
knock-kneed man who was never a child, tvith an eager ut-
terance of discordant bounds which he seemed to keep is hie
protruding forehead, a tongue too large for his mouth, and
a dreadful pair of hands, that wanted to r. mblo ex, r every-
thing—one own face included. But in all these cases the mains
idea of an idiot would be of a hopeless, irreclaimable, nu-
improvable being. And if he be further recalled, tenth/
restraint in a workbou,e or lunatic asylum,will cab
come upon the imagination as wallowing in the lowest
depths of deeranation and neglect; a miserable mon-
ster, whom nehody may put to death, but wbem ever,
ono must wish dead, and le distressed to see alive.
Until wilin a few years, it was generally amnion d,
even by those who were not given to husty assumptione,
that because an idiot was, tither wholly or in part,
deficient in certain senses and instincts necessary, in
combination with others, to the due performance of
the ordinary functions of l•fe—and because noir. ense• and'
instincts could not he sum lied—therefore nothing could Oa
done for him, and he mast always remain an object of
pitiable isolation. Bt t a c'wer study of the silk.rat has now
dewiest a a that the Cultivation of such senses and
ins it 1- as the Idiot it seen to posst:s, will, et :ides frc-
goon g dela' fag er. :hat mat 14 cat with. t i.iaa tmt
.1. a ',so b.irbtr tt the ring lights, a, immensely
to toi; •s•e hi a eontliCoa bath VI .t rcfneace to b7u,,e'f snit
to .4,1 Ia I lies i tiv tht sne gnaw jos ie AltiOrt
for lb ° 'll!**‘^ hitn,.e hi- &a: than for al Indon'og any
obi • : home tart , • 'war'e "

k