The Express.
London, England, 1856-12-12 00:00:00

AT THE WOODS OF ITALY.

Dao. 1.

One of the greatest injuries inflicted upon
Italian agricultural economy resulted from the
all-sweeping destruction of the fine timber that
ono, mantled the Alps and Apennines. The
hatred of the Italian husbandman for all sort of
foliage could not be greater if every stick growing on
his fields had the baneful properties of the nue tree.
The whole of this plain lying so lovingly before me
is indeed likes vut plantation, or half cleared forest;
but there is not a bush, not a single plant, that has
not its uses. Away from the hills you see nothing
bat short, stunted, stripped mulberry trees, all.l
important to the silk trade; closer to us there are'
rows of young oheenut sapling! and other trees
necessary to make stakes for the vineyards; but they
are all carefully clipped, shorn, maimed, and crippled,
so that in the heat of summer you will not find an
inch of round where you may rest in the shade. The
exigences of Italian husbandry may require it, and
I have nothing to say • but deep in the valleys, and
all along the steepest hill-sides, most glorious walnut
and chesnut trees used to grow, some of which
are still there to beer witness to the prodigious
strength and fertility of the soil ; but they are disap-
pearing with an amazing swiftness, and the next
gustation of Italians will hays to go to England or
Germany to conceive even an idea of what a real
tree should be like. lam not quite an old man yet,
but I remember both in the hilly and in the level
regions of all Italy most glorious. gorgeous oak trees
that had nothing to envy in the English kings of the
forest. The Italians in those days still suffered them
to stand, not on account of their beauty, but for the
sake of the acorns with which their loorlegged pigs
could be fattened. How good pork is now obtained
and salami made I know not; but I know that the
fine oaks have disappeared, and the few young plants
that have grown up here and there, almost
in spits of the owners of the soil, are
either stripped of their branches up to the
topmost shoot, or are shorn down to unseemly
pollards, a very useless encumbrance to the soil. The
sun fats is now rapidly clearing the ground of the
no less stately walnuts and chennuts : the shads of
the first of these trees is considered to have a mu-
dorm effeet on the ground where it grows; of the
cheseuts a few are still standing in remote corners;
about a score of them close behind this castle are the
only refreshing sight that recreates my eyes for many
a mile around. %t far away in the darkest recesses
of the mountains a kind of universal conspiracy
seems to have been got up amongst these moun-
taineers—a destructive mania to sweep down every.
thing that etude on roots, notwithstanding the
Saturnian acorns that used to be their staple food. So
many chesnut trees have been done away with, that
a bushel of chesnute, which ten years ago used to be
worth two bushels of mesa or melee (Indian corn),
exchanges now for one. As to the glorious pine, beech,
and fir trees which used to mantle the Alps and
Apennines to the very loftiest summits, sweeping the
stars, aa Taman' quaintly said it in the 17th century:

I:Avoids la mil alas anbrasa • Salta
Bern dl Napa ally stellate volts,—
gothic( actually remains, or only some gnarled and
thunder-riven trunk, here and there. on summits
actually inaccessible to the woodman's axe; for in
truth, whole forest, have been hewn down before the de-
etroyere had well made up their mind by what road
the timber could to carried to the plain, No that it has
often been left to rot and moulder where it fell.

There are huge pyramids of mountains now bare
and bleak from base to summit, now miserably bare
and bleak, which men still living and still young
remember seeing mantled all over with all but me-
val forest; and I have seen in the valley of Lento-
rude, near Lome% in Italian Switzerland, a pine
tree which might boast five hundred winters at least,
cut down close to the top of a steep wall-like ravine.
I have seen it cut down, I say, and let down the
precipitous slope, although it could only reach the
bed of the torrent that was to convey it to the Lake
Maggiore by forcing its way through many fathoms
of wood of minor growth—crushing, maiming,
killing perhaps, a hundred of its younger generation
in its crashing descent.

The Prince of Prussia arrived in Paris yesterday
at two p.m. Priam Napoleon and the military 'selloff-
tie, »seised hiss at the Northern Railway station.
Two battalions were drawn up in the courtyard,
when four earsiages of the Emperor were in waiting. The
two Princes, sesorted by a squadron of the Guides, pro-
ceeded to the Palms of the Tuileries, when they alighted.

The number of students at the varioaa metropoli-
tan borpitals animists to 1,080.

ROYAL COLLEGE OT SURGEONIL—The following
gentlemen having undergone the necusary examinations
for the diploma were admitted members of the college, at
the meeting of the C.sart of Examiners on the 6th
inst. :—ldesere. Robert Dewar, Winthnne D rset ; Charlet
Junes Stone, Clifton•road, St. John's-wood; Joseph Walter
Devise, Blackwood, near Newport, Ilioasoathenire; George
Pavey, Reading, Berkshire; Riekard Lovell Mutt Head,
Pelraoath ; William Adams, Ottoman Army; Samuel
Rale, Plyathath ; Wfilfas Thomu Carr, Newcastle-on-
Tyne; James Prater, Conglaton, Cteshire; and William
Ligertwood, Aberdeen.

•
TAXATION OF THE METROPOLIS.—Mr. Thwaitee,
President of the Board of Works, haring recently stated to
the Chancellor of the Ezehrquer that "there will not be
the slightest hesitstion on the pert of the ratepayers to
concur in tits financial scheme proposed by the Metropolitan
Hoard of Works," the vestry of Et. Pancras yesterday
'molted to convene a public mestieg of the ratepayers
that parish for the purpose of taking the f the rate-1
payers apes melt propmed scheme and rating, and also of!
easusidering whether the plane of the board will be the beet
means of carrying out the main intercepting drainage of
the metropolis. with a view to the promotion of the public
health and the interest of the estepayi.rs at large.

Phi GREAT igORTIIERN RilitrAT FRACD.—The
',Wenn heard at the Clerkenwell pobos court yeeterday
after oar report left, was weaned to charges of forgery
preferred against Redpath, the latter bevies; made use of
names for the pare's* of 'Hestia' transfers of stock, and
Rent was connected with thee' charges by its bring shown
that he was the atteatiog witnase to the forged signatures.
• °bergs was also preferred against Redpattt alone, in
which be had not only forged the name of the party trans-
ferring the stock, but alai the nese of the attesting witnees.
Is this ease both name were fie Wong. The prisoners ware
reesarded to Friday nest. Up to the present time eta oases
hare bete complet4 agelnet the prisoners.

DESPERATE ENCOUNTER 'WITH POACHERS.
Ahost three o'clock yesterday (Thursday) as&roisg, Dm-
oon Frith, a gamekeeper, was out on the wateb, with two
*then, in the preserves of the Earl of Rase, at Heaton,
mar Bradford, when they encountered tee o men, one
of them being armed with a gun, and the other with a
large bludgeon, ant hamlet two !archer dogs with
them. As the keepers approached them within five yards,
one of the two mes presented his gene at them, at the same
time saying, " I'll eltoot, I'll shoot." Nothing daunted by
the threat however, Dawson Firth, the chief keeper, la-
staidly rushed at the man who held the gun and seised him
behind, thus revealing him firirg ; but he had hardly doss
so when the other poseher struck him a severe blow on the
head, which knocked him down and produced a severe lace-
ratios of the scalp, from which the blood flowed profusely.
As he fell the other joscher alsotmenedistely struck him with
his gun. A desperate struggle followed, and, as the man with
the gun was at length overpowered, hie companion, who had
bees the most violent in the attack, took to his heels, and
safortunatey got away. The man with the gun (which was
found to be loaded) was secured, and removed to the lock-up
at Bradford. Ha was recognised as an old convicted poacher
santed:Williars Burton, residing at Manoinghem, a tows•
ship adjoining that of Regina. At noon yesterday (Thurs-
day), the prleoner was placed in the dock at the West Ridirg
Court; Dsween Firth sppeered also with his head thickly
bandaged. The above facts were stated by Firth, Shadrick
Rarefies, and Thomas Craven. The magistrates, deter-
mined to deal with the prisoner summarily, telling him he
bad greet reason to be thankful he was not committed for
trial at York He was, than f first eommitted for a term
of three months to hard labour In the house of Correauon,
eh the chute of night peachier, and was next fined 61 for
on aiesnit with his gun upon Firth, cad oommitted for an
additional two months in default ; being required also to
eater into sureties at the expiration of these terms for h
good behaviour.— Manchiefer Guardian.
FATAL ACClDENT.—Yesterday morning a chocking
aceident happened at the Doncaster station of the Great
Northern Railway to • clothier from Dewsbury named
Senior. Hr. Senior bad gone to the goods department to
'equine ahead a cars package., and was returning to the pas-,
siege, platform when a gods waggon, which was being
sheeted oa the liar, and which was drawn by • horse, at,
proeched him from rebind, and, se he neither beard nor saw
at, it dosed upon him before he was aware of Mr dater,
and, oonspressing ham between the heifers of that and
another truck, so fearfully injured him I. the body teat he
died almost immediately afterwards. The deceued hes Wt
a wife aad for children.

-
etTETAL PALACE. ONE SHILLING DAT.—
Tavasomr, Dzo —Adiaissiou es paymost, 1,379; tine
by NOM tickets, 274. Total visiting, 1,633.