The Express.
London, England, 1853-05-06 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY, MAY 6.

Tim sun at last is shining. Miles of meadow land,
if country correspondents tell truth, are now turning
from hay colour to a vivid green in the course
of a single night ; and the field, which
at sundown looked a mere dusty level, is
bristling with the blades of the young oats by noon
of the next day. Trout begin to swarm at country
breakfast and dinner tables, and gnats about the
faces of those who are taking possession of frarden
chairs for the first time this season. Fires are be-
ginning to be let out; and furs, worn so late as last
Saturday, are secured from the moth till November
comes again. All this sounds very pleasant, and
country friends say it looks very pleasant if they
could but fully enjoy it; but there are many sad
drawbacks. We have had hosts of weddings, as the
REGISTRAR-GENERAL truly tells, but for all that
there is mourning in every village and ham-
let where the floods were in the winter. The
funerals of old people and infants are still moving
along the way. Bronchitis and croup, typhus, scar-
latina, and consumption, have sent more to their
graves this last half-year than were ever known to
die, except in the great cholera and influenza seasons.
There are multitudes of parents who cannot enjoy
spring now it has come, for its delay has cost
the infants who should have revelled in it like

the
them

the young lambs. There are many weddings put off
till the days of family mourning are past. Then,
again, the lexmers in the same districts are rather
gloomy. It has been oue of the worst lambing sea-
sons ever known, and anything but favourable to
the young calves. The ewes have died by hundreds,
and this follows upon the loss of sheep by the foot
rot in the winter, in consequence of the uni-
versal wetness of the soil. The feeding of stock
has been immensely expensive for some weeks. The
grass is improving hourly now; but the early pota-
toes have failed—reined by snow water in April;
and either there are few autumn sown crops, or those
that were sown are very generally failures ; and the
spring sowing has been later than was almost ever
known. This is a heavy list of drawbacks. People
would like to know a little more—would like to
know what the cause really is of each weather as we
have had for eight months past; whether
but conjectures are useless about a matter which
nobody yet thoroughly understands. It is very plea-
sant to send one's imagination wandering about the
scenery of the universe—sea, earth, atmosphere—
conitt, iceberg, central fires, and what not—that our
philosophers ransack for the causes of an atrocious
season ; but we must leave it to them to lay down
the law of the case, and bring away only the homely
lesson that till we know all about the matter, it is
our business to be prepared for such seasons at all
times, for every year of every century, till man be-
comes lord of rain and sunshine. And this reminds
us of another thing that we should like to know—how
much of such preparation is possible; and again, bow
much of what is possible we have bestirred ourselves
to make.

About short crops, we may have a tolerably easy
conscience. The trade of the world is thrown open,
nearly as far as we can throw it open ; and we thus
gain, not only the power of supplying ourselves
from abroad with the products in which we run
short at home, bet the increased means of pur-
sliming, and power of paying. rising prices, from
the extension of our commerce in articles which do
not run short at home. If our grain crops, stock,
and dairy produce fail, we have done what we can
to open a way to foreign markets; and our beef and
bread eaters were never better able to pay for their
food. This is a strong point ; and, we suspect, our
strongest. If we had not stopped short at draining
some of our fields, but had drained the whole culti-
vable surface, and carried off the water by a proper
arterial drainage, there would have been no floods of
any consequence. If there bad been no floods, and
tbe rain had been carried off almost as it fell, there
might and would have been much more autumn
sowing, and to good purpose ; and there would
have been no foot-rot among the sheep. The
root crops would also have fared better is
the autumn, and fodder would not have been so dear
in the spring. If there had been no floods, thousands
of houses where damp had been steaming out all
winter, and where we may fear that fever will creep
about all summer, would have been dry in the cold
weather and wholesome in the hot. By the REGIS-
TEAR'S Quarterly Return, it is seen that the deaths in
Ithe first quarter of this year exceed by 11,569 the num-
ber in the same quarter of any other year whatever,
except the choler* and influenza years. It would
be good, but perhaps not very pleasant, for us to
know whether or not these eleven thousand dead per-
sons, and perhaps a good many more thousands,
might not have been alive now, enjoying
this May weather with us, if we had dealt
with the rain and its consequences, and with
some other matters, as well as we know how, if we
would only act up to our knowledge. The REGISTRAR
says that the increase of deaths this last winter has
been greater in proportion in the country than in
the towns : and this looks as if there could be no
adetake in attributing the excess of mortality to the
singularly bad weather ; and few could doubt it who
even now cast a glance into the ditches, the quarries,
and the low lying marshes throughout the country
districts where the waters were out. It is again
confirmed by the statement that the mortality, ex-
cessive everywhere, was eminently so in the rural
districts on the Severn, in Wales, and in Lancashire;
in which places, as we all remember, the floods were
particularly formidable.
Bat, the record goes on to tell us, the mortality
is still triumphant in the towns, notwithstanding
the increase in the country. " The towns," says the
Bnolanton, "still maintained their fatal pre-eminence,
destroying by their dirt and imperfect sanitary
arrangements, out of the same population, five lives
to every four who die in the open country." Is this
to go on ? With eight months of rain and unwhole-
some winds just behind us—with the calculations of
this mortality before our eyes—with so many new-
made graves in every churchyard—with a new
opulence of knowledge and of means springing. up
in the midst of us, are we to go on letting our neigh-
bours and ourselves be slaughtered by foes whom
we would not tolerate for a moment, if
they came stepping. on to the time of
martial music, waving their banner*, and
with weapons that glitter in the sun ? Such
enemies as these, invading us to cut off, by scores of
thousands, our old parents, our infant children, our
wives and sisters, as well as the strong men of the
nation, would be driven out with a rapid and holy
rage. And these more stealthy enemies, whom yet
we know perfectly well, come again and again—
indeed never fairly leave us; and we give them the
victory for want of such enterprise, activity, sense,
and skill as any man of business would be ashamed
not to apply in the conduct of his private fortunes.
If it were but private business, with a few citizens'
position, ambition, and fortunes dependent on the
management of it, we should presently see our rivers
purified, our drains rendered harmless, our burials
rationally arranged, our low lands dried, and our
dwellings as sweet as garden air. The Eleven
Thousand Martyrs of the list quarter testify against
us, how far we are as a community from being as
wise and as zealous as the average of our inanufPx.
turers and tradesmen. 'We make the humbling con-
fession now, at the close of one of tho bad te:sims,
which we can never hope will be the last. we
have anything better to say when tbt., next of these
occasional unhealthy viiiiters is o'er and gone?

A CHARGE AHMNST THE GOVERNMENT.

AN extraordinary scene occurred in the House
of Commons last night. An Irish member, Mr.
DUFFY, openly charged tho Government with cor-
ruption exercised towards the Irish members. He
said: "He did not believe that, even in the time of
WALPOLE or of the YELHars, more mauditions cor-

ruption existed than he had seen practised under his
own eyes in corrupting Irish members."
Such a charge of course led to " a scene." Lan-
Elatlother than " parliamentary " is not permitted
used in " the assembly of the best geutlemen
in Europe," and, in the first instance, the bold member
who made this strong assertion was offered the oppor-
tunity of retracting his allegation. The House wished
to get over this breach of usual courtesies by permit-
ting the withdrawal of the offensive expressions. But
Mr. DUFFY was not willing to lose the vantage ground
he had assumed. He declared his ability to substantiate
the charges he had made. Having seldom so greata
chance of becoming important, he preferred defiance
to any milder course, and concessions being repu-
diated, the SPEAKER seems to have felt ho had only
one course to pursue, which was to order Mr. DUFFY
to withdraw, whilst the house sat, as it were, a jury
to settle how this infraction of etiquette was to be
met. Hereupon Lord JOHN RUSSELL, as leader of
the Cabinet against whom this gross charge hod been
made, said it rested with the House to decide what
course should be pursued; and, after some discus-
sion, the decision of the point was adjourned.
At first blush this Irish escapade, though checking
the current of public business, may not be unpro-
ductive of good. The one great parliamentary fact
of the year is the large amount of light that has been
let in upon the mode in which the House of Com-
mons is filled ; how voters, seats, and members are
bought and sold by men who have ingeniously con-
verted the post of legislator into a marketable com-
modity. A corrupt mode of election of course pro-
motes the return of many corrupt men, and if it is
found that to deal w ith persons so finding their way into
St. Stephen's, a Government has acted corruptly,
some beuctit may after all arise from the fracas of last
night, by inducing a more thorough determination
on the part of the people to insist on so complete a
measure of Representative Reform as shall permit
only those men to sit in the House of Commons who
—chosen really by the people, without coat or cor-
ruption—shall have no excuse for repaying them-
selves by Ministerial bribes for outlays compelled
by a vicious system of impure elections.
Some men, unable to become important, determine
to be troublesome. If they can't be heroes, they can
at least be bores; yet in this latter ungracious cha-
racter it may happen that they dare do useful work
which men less scrupulous might shrink from at-
tempting. To-night may show whether any good
can come of Mr. DUFFY'S charge against the ABER-
DEEN Administration.

COMMUNICATION WITH THE BRITISH
FLEET IN THE MEDITERRANEAN.

MARSEILLES, APRIL 30.
The arrangements, or rather want of arrange-
ments, of the British government for communicating
with the Mediterranean fleet, has excited the sur-
prise of most British travellers who have recently
visited Malta and this place. If the government had
a steamer stationed here, they would have, by means
of the electric telegraph, the admiral commanding tho
fleet stationed at Malta within three days communi-
cation from the Admiralty at Charing-cross,
—an) arrangement surely of no- little im-
portance at the present time, when political
affairs in the Levant are wearing such a critical
appearance, and the expectation of sailing orders for
the fleet was the general subject of conversation at
Malta. Yet, strange to say, while four or five
steamers have been for months lying idle at Malta,
and might just as well have been doing nothing
here, or at least one of them. there is no means of
conveying a telegraphic or other despatch to Malta
except by waiting, perhaps a fortnight, for the
packet conveying the outward India mail, or of
hiring that packet at a heavy expense, and interrupt-
ing the course of that important mail. Surely such
a neglect of ordinary precaution requires some
public notice.