The Express.
London, England, 1851-12-22 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, MONDAY EVENING, DECEMBER - 22, 1851

bill, and nothing but the bill,"—ualess the goodness of
the bill be shove all suspicion.
Lord JOHN may listen to the representations of
the people, or he may not ; but of this he may rest
assured that their minds are made up as to the neces-
sity of reform, and as to the minimum of reform that
it is worth their 'while to accept from him. They
insist neon the extinction of small and corrupt con-
stituencies; they insist upon having. representatives
for communities that are at present inadequately re-
presented or not at all ; they must upon a real ex-
tension of the franchise ; they insist upon the votes
of electors being given in secret as the only means
of eliciting a sincere expression of their estimate of
the capacity and trust-worthiness of candidates.
They believe that anything short of these demands
will be mere change without improvement. They
will not so much as stir one little linger to promote
any bill which does not embrace these indispensable
requisites. Aud if Lord JoliN and his colleagues
should offer them a less efficient measure of reform,
the people will find others to do their work for
them. Lord Jules RUSSELL may reform Downing-
street etiquette if he 'e ill, but he must also reform
Parliament.

THE
REVOLUTION IN FRANCE.

THE ELECTIONS.

(BY SUBMARINE TELEGRAPH.)
PARIS, MONDAY, 9 ♦.Y.
The elections known up to the present time are as
follows : ltouen, yes, 28,050 ; no, 6,810. Lille, yes,
50,272; no, 0,132. Bourges, yes, 7,194; no, 1,095.
Angers, yes, 9,857; no, 1,625. Sevres, yes, 1,101 ;
no, 143. Same proportions are stated to be shown
in many other places.

PARIS, SATURDAY EVENING.
This morning, at eight o'clock, commenced the poll
which is to determine the acceptance or rejection by
the electors of France of the government imposed by
violence upon the French people. Each arrondisse-
ment throughout Franco is divided into several sec-
tions, in which some convenient room is selected for
the operations of the election. Before entering one
of these you observe generally in the court of the
house a strong detachment of the national guard
mixed with troops of the line. Lounging about the
doors and passages are a great number of Bona-
partist touters, who thrust into the hands of all
comers tickets printed our. I did not observe
any agents distributing tickets inscribed with
non ; although the 3.l;hritemr of this morning
states that the president of the chamber of printers
has been ordered to notify to the printing establish-
ments throughout Paris that the government is only
desirous of arriving at the sincere wishes of France,
and repudiates, as a calumnious invention, the re-
port that it has taken any means to prevent the
printing of negative votes. I found, indeed, that
there was no lack of these in the offices of papers
that survey the Elysce with no friendly ccc. In
such resorts piles of "Noes" wait to be used by the
faithful. Very different is the aspect of the polling
places from what it was on the 30th of November,
when M. Devinck was recommended as a conserva-
tive candidate for the representation of Paris, in the
Assembly where he was never doomed to take his seat.
Then but a few dozens of electors presented them-
selves in the course of an hour. To-day,even though the
sections are multiplied as much as possible, to give
room for the enormous crowd, the doors of all arc
densely thronged. When you enter the room where
the operation takes place, you see six persons seated
at a table, who form the board. The president of
the board is either mayor or deputy mayor, munici-
pal councillor, or a delegate appointed by the joye
ale pal:. Each elector is provided with a card, which
he has applied for at the mayory, and which identi-
fies his person, and confirms his right to vote. This
card he hands to the president, who calls its number,
and delivers it to the secretary, who checks the card
by the roll of the electors of the section. The elector
then slips a folded ticket inscribed with " Yes" or
" No" into a slit in the cover of a small square box
on the table, which constitutes what is called the
electoral urn. If there should be more than
ono ticket in the same fold, the fraud or
mistake is at once recognised on the ex-
amination of the votes, and the vote is annulled.
After the end of the operation the box is scaled
and deposited during the night at the mairie,
where they are guarded by a post of the national
guard or hue. The doors of the room where it is
laid arc also sealed. Each box has two locks, one of
the corresponding keys being in the hands of the
president, and the other in the hands of the eldest
assessor. All the operations have been conducted in
the must perfect order. The ballot is to be kept
open until 8 o'clock instead of 0, by decree of the
Minister of the Interior. Up to 4 about 100,000
electors had voted. Telei;raphic despatches have
been received from the provinces, stating that the
same eagerness to vote is manitisited everywhere.
The Union Flectorale has published, to-day, a pin-
sad, giving its full adhesion to Louis Napoleon.
The Mualteur contains decrees of the President of
the Republic, for increasing the punishments now by
law incurred by persons guilty of selling arms, am-
laanition, sulphur, and saltpetre to the natives.
I'llsere is also a decree for liquidating a bill of
12.137 f. 50e., fur binding books for the library of the
Ltravre, before the revolution of 1818, which from
the staleness of the claim may be presumed to have
encountered difficulties under a less simple financial
administration than that which now prevails. There
are also decrees, upon the application of the Minister
of Public Instruction and Worship, opening credits
to that minister of 300,000 f. for granting compensa-
tions to the empluyt's deprived of their situations, by
reason of alterations in the office of tho ministry
shortly before the events of December 2; of 12,3001.
for increased comfort in the public library of St.
Genevieve ' • of 129,357 f, 3c. for salaries and indem-
nities to the members of chapters and of the paro-
chial clery ; and of 3,734. 11c. for prize purses in
seminaries.
A telegraphic despatch from the Prefect of the
Acranches to the Minister of the Interior, announces
the arrest of Colonel Menton, at Cherbourg, the chief
of the demagogues of that department.
General Castellano has made a vigorous speech in
favour of the President at Lyons.
M. ltondeau, who was one of the representatives
of the Loiret in the Constituent Assembly, has been
arrested at Montargis, and conveyed to the prison of
Orleans.
The commission charged to estimate the damage
caused by the late insurrection in Paris met raters
day at the Hotel de Ville. In this first sitting it
merely allowed t - aid for the wounded and

I hear that Changernier' Lamoriciere, and the re-
rosining prisoners at Ham will be liberated.
Immedietely after the comp d'etat of Dec. 2 I indi-
cated the probable suppression of the national guard.
Sines then two legions have been dissolved at Paris,
and I now learn from a good source that the resolu-
tion has been definitively taken to put down the in-
stitution altogether, and to replace this civic militia
by a new organisation of the garde mobile.
Some reforms are meditated, I understand, at this
moment, in :a province of society which have Fo-
duced general alarm among a numerous class. lou
are aware that there mists in France a set of pri-
vileged callings, as those of notary, attorney, bailiff,
auctioneers, stock-brokers, which, by an inveterate
abuse have acquired the right of sellintheir licenses.
The whole system of legislation • regarding these pro-
fessions is to be entirely re•mode led, and great is
the stir made by threatened privi ege in this swarm-
ing tribe of citizens.
It is reported that a censure will be established on
books containing less than three or four sheets; as
the suppression of the daily
,press causes opinion to
take refuge in pamphlets. This is what occurred at
the Restoration, when a censure was established for
the same reason.
Up to eight o'clock last night immense crowds of
electors thronged to the polling sections. In the
Place des Vosges I saw about 2,000 people patiently
awaiting their tarn to vote. Numbers of agents
with packets of tickets inscribed " our " threaded
the crowd offering their wares in all directions.
They were generally taken and immediately after
dropped in the mud, where they lay like snow flakes
innumerable. It was evident that Bonapartism in
this district of the Mairies was at a discount ; and
affirmative tickets, a drug, rejected with loathing.
I should also mention that electors who can
write generally disdain a printed ticket as
the resource of the illiterate, and prefer
inscribing their own choice on the bulletins. Several
assured me they would not use a printed ticket for
the world, they felt such a keen pleasure in writing
" Nov." In this quarter the National Guard having
been dissolved the sections were guarded by detach-
ments of the line.
Newly printed placards in very large letters are
abundantly posted on the walls repeating the real
question which the people arc called upon to decide.
APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE.—.' The French people desire
the maintenance of the authority of Louis Napoleon Bona-
parte, and delegates to him the necessary powers for esta-
blishing n constitution upon the basis proposed in his pro-
clamation of Dee. 2, 18.31. Those who wish to give those
powers to Louis Napoleon Bonaparte will put into the urn
a bulletin with the word ' Yes ;' those who do not wish to
give him those powers will pat is a bulletin with tho word
' No.'"
Some placards, counselling abstention, were posted
up yesterday morning, but were speedily effaced by
the police.
Close at hand is the fourth polling section of the
first arrondissement, established in a largo hall form-
ing part of the Hotel des Cupucines, or Ministry of
Foreign Affairs. At this moment there is not the
least difficulty in inspecting the whole process of
voting. Before the garden door, which opens on the
boulevard, arc two sentinels pacing up and down,
one a national guard and the other a soldier of the
gendarmerie mobile. Three touters stand about the
door with packets of tickets, which they Assiduously
thrust upon all who enter. One of these I ob-
served, held a packet of tickets printed "Non."
On the wall are stuck four placards. One, signed by
Berger, prefect of the Seine, quotes the Gth cnapter
of the electoral law, which describes the penalties to
which fraudulent electors are subjected. rho second
states, in larger print, that any elector who votes in
two or more sections is certain to be discovered by a
comparison of the lists, and is subject to be impri-
soned for six months. and to pay a fine varying from
2001 r. to 2,000 fr. A third states that the ballot will
close at 8 o'clock this evening. The fourth bill is
the one mentioned in my despatch of this morning,
which declares the meaning of the vote.
From the gay crowd of promenaders that sweep by
on the broad pathway, a portly tradesman, cigar in
mouth, steps out, and wings the white glove of his
friend the national guard. The opposition touter
thrusts one of his negative tickets at the head of the
' new comer, who puts it aside somewhat briskly with
his cane. The touter exchanges a sly wink with his
colleague on the other side of the door, who holds a
packet of Oars," as much as to say " That fellow's
a rank Bonopartist." Two well-dressed electors enter
arm-in-armoleelining the preferred tickets. The crowd
seems greatly diminished at this hour (four o'clock).
20 electors entered in the course of a quarter of an
hour. The garden was strewn with scraps of paper;
blank tickets, negative and affirmative, lay strewn
about in equal abundance. §everal of these were
written as in the large band of infantine penman-
, ship. There was no difficulty in entering the hall,
I winch, with the electoral board at the end, presented
precisely the appearance which I have described in
previous letters.
One feature of this day it is important to notice.
Generally, on a fine Sunday before Christmas you
sec hardly one of the gaily-dressed crowd upon the
pathways without a little packet of some sort, a toy
for children, a box of Lon-bons, or some sort of
etrennes. To-day, although the weather is brilliant,
and the streets are crowded with brisk groups pacing
in the sunshine, you hardly meet a person bearing
home one of the Christmas toys with which the
tempting shops swarm. The shop-people, who, a
week ago, were sanguine as to the good effect of the
coup-detat, to-day look quite blank at their starved
custom, and begin to suspect that they have been
duped into hailing a fa se prophet for their Messiah,
and that the settled government they looked to for'
curing the disasters of late years is further off than
ever.
The shops are many of them shut already (at G), in
consequence of the desertion of customers; whereas
they generally keep open on the Sunday before
Christmas to a late hour.
If there were the remotest chance that the result
et the ballot, which terminates at 8 o'clock this
lingear questionto whatever, teve
who
seek evening, would be accepted by the French nation as
amsoiglhemt
b solemn
psa
decision:ipossible
of any Pliticsill
toloud a willing
seek to justify the emtp. detat upon the pleaof necessity.
It is an old and pertinent saying with regard to the
French, that anyconstitution would be good for them if
they would only obey it. If, therefore, there were any
likelihood that the vote of to-day would ensure
to France the stability, prosperity, tranquillity,
and contentment so lavishly promised by
the
government journals, which now enjoy a monopoly
of political discussion, an impartial observer could
only rejoice at the prospect, and, not disputing the
free and deliberate choice of a great and independent
nation, would think only of the morality of the means
by which the happiness of that nation had been
achieved as of a theme for solitary meditation.
Bat the melancholy part of this monster
burlesque,
appeal to

the anthers df the deed of Dec. 2 are such prominent
professors would not stick at falsifying the votes, if
necessary, are all comparatively minor considerations.,
M. de Fallon' has made a speech at Angers to an
audience of some four or five hundred persons, in
which, wishing to recommend abstention in the pre-
sent election, and a withholding of all support from
the government, he ingeniously shadowed forth the
meaning which he dared not to express directly, by
saying that wine ought not to be given to people
w are drunk. A government which makes such
gross abuse of the force which it has ought not to be
trusted with more.
The government, it seems, is much nettled at the
presence of Thiers in London. They gave oat
that he was going to Germany, and indeed launched
him through Strasbourg in that direction. But the
current of M. Thiers's plans was setting apparently
in the opposite direction, and no sooner had ho
reached the Rhino than he doubled like an old hare
northward, until he was ferried across the Channel
at Ostend towards the hospitable mansion of his old
friend Mr. Edward Ellice.
There is an evident disposition on the part of the
government to indulge a sort of Roman munificence
towards the working classes, which would be laud-
able were it not bribery for a selfish and mischievous
end. Thus you may notice in the Mendeurof to-day the
announcement of an intention to establish baths and
washbouscs on a grand scale for the poor. Another
of these Greek gifts is mentioned in a letter of the
prefect of the Bas-Rhin, stating that the Pressident
has given orders that free leave is to be given to the
poor to cut their wood in the neighbouring forest.
Phis ostentatious beneficence reminds one rather of
the will of Cesar, to which Murk Anthony alludes,
to inflame the people against the defenders of the
republic :
He leaves his spacious groves on this side Tiber
For you to walk abroad and recreate yourselves.
It is reported to-day that M. Valette, a professor
at the Ecole de Droit, was arrested three days ago
for a lecture which he gave on the basis of the respect
due to the law. The hits at late events received, it
seems, significant illustration, and derived dangerous
emphasis from the enthusiastic applause of the stu-
dents.
I know that the lecture gave great umbrage
to the government ; but I give the arrest of the pro-
fessor merely in the shnpc of a report, which I have
not yet been able to verify.
It is at last perfectly certain that Gen. Cavaignae
is at liberty, and once more restored to his family
circle in the ltue du Helder. It is certain that he
has made no conditions whatever with the govern-
ment in order to procure this advantage over the
rest of his fellow-prisoners at llam. It was only, in
fact, in consequence of the assurance that they also
would shortly be set free that the general finally
consented to accept his own liberation.
At Amiens, the bishop, the clergy, and the mem-
bers of the religious congregations, went yesterday
in a sort of solemn proceNsiou to the poll, holding up
tickets inscribed with "
M. Vivien, vice-president of the late conseil d'etat,
has drawn up a memoir against the coup-delta,
written with great vigour, and soundly argued.
This document is much spoken of.
The C'enstitutionnel assigns a prominent place in
its columns to the following letter from Mr. C.
Stokes, of the Western Railway :
Faris, Dec. 20.
Conformably to Art. 43 of the cables des charges annexed
to the law of the concession of the NVestern Railway, we are
this day to advance to the treasury the first instalment of
1,000,000 fr. upon the loan which we engaged to make to
the state, to be employed in the works in the section between
La Loupe and Lc Mans. The mini•ter, however, thinking
that the events which have just happened in France might
hinder the realisation of our capital, was good enough to
offer us a delay for the p .yment in question. But in
coming forward to offer the assistance of our capital
and skill to French industry we were mainly in-
fluenced by the confidence that we had in the
government of l'rincc Louis Napoleon, a confidence
which has only increased since the events of December 2.
Therefore, thanking the minister ut the same time for his
obliging consideration, I have this morning paid the million
due to-day into the treasury.
Cit. STOKE 4,
One of the lessees of the Western
Railway.
The Paris and Strasbourg Railway Company have
made a treaty with the Minister of Public Works for
the execution by the state of a junction between the
Strasbourg Railway and that of St. Didier and
Joinville. This junction is of great importance, as it
will put the Strasbourg line in communication with
the central manufactories of the Haute-Marne.
_

The Consultative Commission will meet on Tuesday
next, at the great palace of the Consul d'Etat, on
the Qiuti I)'Orsay, to proceed to the examination of
the poll. The urns of the several sections will not
be opened until 10 to-morrow morning. The poll will
be open up to eight o'clock this evening, when it
will finally close.
The Deikats estimates at 290,000 the number of
electors inscribed at Paris. But it is difficult to
reconcile so low an estimate with the fact that in
the three first arrondissements 90,000 cards have
been distributed at the mairics to electors.
M. de Sesumisons having written to the Unioit, to
protest against the insertion of his name in the list
of the consultative commission, a notice appears in
the Moniteur stating that M. de Sesmaison s alarm
Is premature, his name never having been put in the
list mentioned, nor occurred to the government with
that intention.