The Express.
London, England, 1856-05-30 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY, MAY SO.

LAST night Lord PALMERSTON and Captain Boxes
played the Magician admirably. They promised a
show of fireworks in honour of the Peace, and they
amply redeemed their promise. The come of re-
joicing might es well have been a great victory, the
birth of a Prince, or the marriage of • Prisons.
Nobody thought of that. The people were bent upon
a jubilee, and no one who saw the streets of London
last night can doubt that they had it. Everything
wee admirably arranged. So numerous were the
places at which the fireworks were exhibited,
that the hundreds of thousands who crowded to
witness the spectacle were dispersed into
manageable groups. Close about the centre
of the Magician's workshop the crowd was
no doubt dense. But a little way off there was ample
walking room. The aerial parachute was, we believe,
transferred to Primrose-hill—the moat spacious

arena. An arrangement so judicious does the mind
which suggested it considerable credit Indeed it is not
improbable that the PILENIER himself, in one of his
happiest inventive moods, may have given the hint.
It is said that the great NAPOLEON drew up with his
own hand the programme of his marriage. Lord
PcurnsTow, perhaps, has not disdained to apply
his versatile powers to a somewhat similar purpose.
We dare say there are some morose people who
look upon the whole of this popular fete with a
morbid disgust. They calculate how much labour
bee been lost to the productive power of the country,
how much money each taxpayer has spent in these
evanescent pleasures, and =template with serious
foreboding the dangers of supplying the mob with
amusement at the public expense. Is this the be.
ginning of the poison et arcemes of falling Rome
Let such rueful pedants aim their anxiety. No
man can do hie work without relazatiou, and those
who have the means carry this principle into practice.
It is surely right that sometimes at least the great
mass of human creatures who cannot procure enjoy-
ment for themselves should have it supplied at the
public expense. To amuse that the working classes
of this country are incapable of appreciating a day
of rational amusement, I. a stupid calumny. No
doubt some, nay many, will indulge is excesses. No
doubt if you mane men overmuch to their work
they will, when they do get twenty-four hours'
relaxation, be guilty doom extravagance. But it is
oat so with the vast majority. Give:them a moderate
epee of amusement, and that out of doors—don't
bat on shutting up the miserable victims, exhausted
hp weeks of labour, within their darkened hovels,
where they most consume their dreary holiday in a
dislikes stupor. Let them refresh themselves in the
spa air as they did last night. Barely there was
emnelhing delightful and even touching in that army
4 pledgee:To—ma, women, and children, from the
pm of the realm to the every-day working
man sauntering through the streets with
looks of good-hummed contentment or crowded
into carriages, omnibuses, Dug* covered wag-
gons, carts, and vehicles of every variety.
Flooded as the parks were with a sea of human
heads, there was nothing like noise or turbulence.
Hyde-perk and St. James's enjoyed no preetnineaos
slice ilisilirloppark. It might be supposed, indeed, that
in the West the mass would be leavened by the eat-
pearls. of the Clubs and the denizens of St. Jamas
Bat se sash thing. The people of the Beat who Mei
Ilse ample epee, of Victoria-park were jest as wall
misted as their richer fellow-eitisses New
seedy it is apparent that the oommose of this
country are just as It to enjoy themselves in
a reasonable fuhioa as the populace of France
sad of Germany. Nervous fathers of families who
implored the aid of the Government to protest
their unlighted windows, went to bed in peso—their
carpets unpolluted by oil, their senses untried by the
greasy odour Oar master contemporary who yes-
' terday morning published the rules of etiquette for
country cousins in a crowd might have spared the in-
.

strootCos. No windows won broken, sail noon. woo
cesshad to death.

la short, the whole spectacle went off admirably.
And we would fain hope that the admirable conduct
of the people on this median will in some degree
increase the salutary tendency towards those public
recreations which the laborious working men so well
deserve, and which by their ended they have shown
themselves so able to appreciate. The advance of
civilisation and the lacrosse of population have no
doubt added something to the weight of toil. Even
statesmen and independent members of Parliament
succumb to their self-imposed exertions. The gam-
bling days of Fox and the theatrical triumphs of
81IERIDAN are out of date. The Morino and pains-
tskisg is now the model for our statesmen.
Men, now-a-days, work harder and with more per-
tinacious obrinacy. We most beware lest even in
our daily labour we labour overmuch.

NM week our good nightmare in Paris will sae
a real beginning made of the greet work of reducing
the pries of provisions. Everybody who is inte-
rested is the welfare of our Allies—and that is a
subject of interest to everybody—is aware that the
middle and lower Glean of sonny in Frank and in
Paris particularly, hen for son time pest fond it
difficult to live, owing to the enormous prise of the
nnessarise of life. In the same way that the vast
and imposing architectural improvements in Paris
have not served to weasel from thoughtful obesrven
the miseries of overcrowded back streets and sordid
alleys, where mare wretchedasse is congregated
than in oar want Irish lodging-houses the
pomp of the ant and the peanut animal-
leled luxury of the gay world, where the ladies
feel it intambut on them to speed 1,0004 a year as
dross, de not hide from the world the stress ender
which the prudent and laborious classes are living
'Ms recut laws on the price of bread and the distri.
lotion of meat would of themselves scallop to show
that there is extraordinary difficulty in feeding Paris.
There are political meant' =ugh is Paris to in.
street the rulers and the ruled that laws which bear
bard on hatcher* and beim% and istselsr• with
prices, can do no good, bonus, they sawn innessel
the supply of the article wanted ; whereas the fain
hopes excited by such legislatioa, as by all promises
which moot be kept, are ear* to nose an explain
of disaster, sneer or later. Such regulation are
fatal, whether they messed or faits but rather less
fearfully so whoa they fail. In Frans they are
failing, evidently ; and jut while this is becoming
elan' news arrives from the whole south and west
lea the coastry that the promise of the her-
vest is destroyed by inuadation The floods
I appear to be Wood of a kind sad wont not