The Express.
London, England, 1846-12-24 00:00:00

.01~ ,__z-,_

JUVENILE ATTRACTION.-ROYAL
ADELAIDE GALLERY, STRAND—CHRISTMAS HOLI-
DAYS.—MOILNINO ENTERTAINMENT.—The Lessee, with a view
of enabling parents to indulge the juvenile branches in an Entertain-
ment calculated for their taste, hoe determined on giving SEVEN
MORNING PERFORMANCES, thetheSMmeameenxm6ATUßDAY
next, Dec. 26, and to continue dosing the bilowing week ; and, with
this view, has made arrangements with the original LANTUM
ETHIOPIAN SERENADERS, in conjunction with the celebrated
Turner Family (pontively their last appeerenee, in consequence of
their provincial engagement.), of the respective ages of 4,6, and 8
years, who have bad the honour of • at mom of the Nobility's
parties, and whose precocious talent Les been the theme of universal
admirsUon. The Wonders of Creation, illustrated by the On
Microscope. Commence at Three o'clock precisely. Admissimt ts.
-—— - -

LUREN'I"B CASINO, at the ROYAL'
A ADELAIDE GALLERY, still continues to be the magnet of at-
traction, inightly luring its habitues within that maelstrom the
POLKA, and each vortex of the mazy dance. Orand Vocal and In-
struewatal Concert. First appearance in Lord= of the celebrated
LANTIIM ETIIIOPIAN SERENADERS, whose performances have
created the most perfect furor in the provinces, end which have been
Lenouncedr .r. it i novel ea
by the musiMll worldto. be unrivalled. The tone
route minstrels will the
tgive
a MORNING ENTERTAINMENT at the Casino each day at Three
o'clock, and in' the Evening will again appear after the concert.—
Doors open at Seven o'clock; performances terminate at half-past
Eleven. Admission, Is.

DRINCESS'S THEATRE.—NEW DRAMA.—
_IL NEW MUSICAL ROMANCE.—NEW PANTOMIME.—On
SATURDAY, The. 26, will be presented a Drama entitled BUNCRE
DE VALMY. After which the Musical Roman., of THE SEVEN
MAIDS of MUNICH. In the course of the evening PROPES3OR
HEMMING and his talented Children. To conclude with in, New
Comic Pantomime entitled THE ENCHANTED BEAUTIES of the
GOLDEN CASTLE; or, Harlequin and the One.eyed Gimi! Clown,
Mr. Iftesmore.—Doors open at a Quarter past SM.
;-

SERENADE J.—lt is respectfully
announced, that THIS EVENING (being Mathias Eve) there
be NO PERFORMANCE ; but this inimitable Entertainment
will be Resumod on SATURDAY EVENING NEXT, and continued
during the ensuing week, on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday
Evenings: and, in compliance with numerous applications, on Wed-
nesday morning, beginning at half-past Two o'clock.
St. James's Theatre, Thursday, Dee. 24.

ETHIOPIAN SERENADERS.--MECHANICS'
_EA INSTITUTION, CIIINCERY-LAN E.—The celebrated ETIIIO-
- SERENADERS, Pell, Barrington, White, Stanwood, and
Germon, will have the honour of airing their inimitable Entertain-
ment in the Theatre of the above Institution on MONDAY neat, De-
m.-umber 28, at Eight o'clock. Tickets, Is. 6L ; &venal seats, 2a. ed.
To be had at the Institution.

'ENV STRAND THEATRE.-]

1)7nre71;17 atTO;e eniqlPrngbefil—retTeCC7rTtiYODCi
superbly arranged, will OPEN on SATURDAY, the 26th I/member.
—Doors open at 7, commence at half-past 7. Admission, Drew. Circle,
Es. Promenade and Upper Boxes, in. Gallery. 6d. Private Boxes
to be had at the Box office at the Theatre fmm 11 till 4.

Triumphant Swam of Hoc'. New Christmas Piece
THEATRE ROYAL LYCEUM.
Under the Management of MRS. KF.ELEY.—On Saturday,
December 26, will be presented, a Drama founded on the New Christ-
mas Annual of CHACIAA DICK Ex., Eel,, and adapted to the stage by
Albert Sc.,ith Esq., railed THE DAME OF LIFE. Principal cha-
racters by Mr. F. Matthews, Mr. Leigh Murray, Mr. F. Vining. Mr.
Turner, Mr. Meadows, Mr. Keeley , Mrs. Weollidge, Miss Daly, ?dies
May, Miss Grove, Mi4s Foster, and Mr.. Keeley.--With a New Comic
Pantomime, entitled TILE BUTTERFLY'S BALL. Harlequin (tot
timel, Mr. John Lauri; flown, Mr. J. W. Collier; Pantaloon, Mr.
Gough ; Oolumbine, Mrs. Laiillaw ; Atteudant Sprites, Maiders C.
and F. Lauri.

-gilt 0; virtoo.

MAILS.

The overland closed mails, ria Marseilles, to the Mediterranean,
Egypt, Aden, Ceylon, India, Ileac Kong, Re., will be made up on the
evening of the 21th December (Mix day).
The mails for Vigo, Op 'tin, Lisbon, Madeira, Cadiz, and Gibraltar,
will be made up on the morning of the 211th December.
The Mal for New South Wales, Van Diernen's Land, and New
Zealand will be made up on the evening of the Slat December.
The West India mails, including those for "deign, Honduras, and
the liavannih, will be made up on the morning of the 2nd January,
'fbs overland mails for Gibraltar, Malta, Greece, the lonian Islands,
Egypt, Men, Ceylon, India, Ilong-Kong, and China, rid Southampton,
will be made up on the evening of the 2d January.
The mails for British North America, Bermuda, and the United
States, will be made up on the eveniag of the 4th January.
The malls for the Beast* the River Plate, Monte Video, Pernam-
buco, Bahia, Madeira, and Buenos Ayres, will be dispatched on the
evening of the 4th January.

TO COTtIiESPONDEN TS.
We cannot notice, in any way, any communication that is sent to us
anonymously ; but the wtmchoine to address no in confidence will
find aleir confidence respected. NEITHER CAN Wl: UNDFItTAKE
TO RETURN ANY MANUSCRIPT:I WHATEVER.
•.• Advartisementi intended for The Erpress, London evening paper,
must be at the Othce by Two o'clock on the day of public:di:in.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON-BRIDGE.
Tnis DAY. —Morning, 51 min. past 5; Afternoon, 17 min. past 6.
Tosiloalow—Morning, 41 min. past 6 ; Afternoon, 10 min. past 7.

LONDON, THURSDAY, DEC. 21.

exacted from them,

WE cannot agree with Alderman COPELAND in
regarding the complaints of the Common Council
against the Court of Aldermen as a mere " St.
Thomas's-day clap-trap." On the contrary, the con-
test between the two bodies appears to us to involve
matter of deep and serious interest, and to be carried
on, on one side at least, with a conviction that they
are discharging an imperative and important duty.
It is the misfortune of the City that its internal
administration has been so conducted as to alienate
from its deliberations the very class who ought to
be most prominent in them. The most important
municipal interests of the most important city
, in the world are regulated by a class of men hardly
qualified for the charge, either by education, habits,
ar position. The great merchants, bankers, and
wholesale traders of the City stand aloof from cor-
porate office. It is hardly to be wondered at, that
mischievous results have followed.
Few of our non-City readers, probably, are familiar
with the matter in issue between the Court of Common
Council and the Court of Aldermen. It is
briefly this : there are two bodies in the
City possessing jurisdictions, often concurrent, some-
times conflicting, always ill-defined, as to their
respective limits. These are, the Court of Aldermen,
consisting of the Lord Mayor and twenty-six persons
elected by the freemen of the several wards for life.
They are both a legislative and an executive body.
In the latter capacity it has a power to order pay-
ments out of the City cash; it superintends the prisons,
orders prosecutions, and instructs the Remembrancer
in preparing acts.
The other court is that of Common Council, consist-
ing of 206 persons elected annually by the freemen of
the wards, with the Mayor and Aldermen.
The Aldermen for a long time claimed a rein in all
proceedings of this court. This was sanctioned
by the City Election Act (11 Geo. 1., c. 18),
but the clause was, after a violent struggle, re-
p Wed by 19 Gee. 1., c. 8. To make up a court,
there must be present the LORD MAYOR or his
locum tenens, at least two other Aldermen, and
• sufficient number of Common Councilmen to make
up forty, exclusive of the Lord Mayor. This body
has, by a standing order of 1794, unlimited command
over the funds of the corporation, it being thereby
required that as often as there shall be occasion for
disbursing considerable sums of money out of the
chamber, this court shall be consulted, and their assent
had thereunto : and no bill whatever, exceeding
the sum of 1001., can be paid without the previous
consent of this court. They have also the
sole power of affixing the common seal, and, conse-
quently, of the disposition of the corporate landed
property. We need not speak at present of its ex-
ecutive functions.
These powers, it might be conceived, render the
Court of Aldermen powerless over the city funds.
But in practice this is not the case. We are not
sufficiently versed in the private history of the Cor-
poration, to say how the stringency of the first of
the above orders has been evaded. But certain it is,
that the Aldermen seem to have disposed of the
city funds without the sanction of the Common
Council. We are informed by Mr. Norms, in the
Aldersgate wardmote of Monday, that pensions have
been granted by that court to the amount, in 1800, of
4301. 3s. 4d.; in 1820, 7501.; in 1830, 500/. ; in 1840,
2,0961. ss. 9d.; in 1841, 2,4891. 16s. ; and in 1846,
3,8811. This sum was divided among ten persons,—
one alderman, four aldermen's widows, four aldermen's
daughters, and a alderman's grandaughter.
Several members of the Council, anxious to give a
more complete control over the city funds to that
body, as the real responsible representatives, the com-
mons house of the city have long struggled to
strengthen that body at the expense of the Court of
Aldermen.
In pursuance of this object a committee of the
Common Council brought in " a bill for declaring the
qualification of freemen of London to be elected
members of the Common Council," in which such qua-
lification was fixed at rate-paying occupancy for
twelve months of a house, shop, counting-house, or
office, within the ward for which the freeman should
be elected.
This bill was read a first and second time. In the
interval between the second and third reading, the
Recorder was consulted by the aldermen, and gave his
opinion against the powers of the Common Council
to pass such an act, "as being contrary to the customs,
charters, and laws of the city." On this ground the
Lord Mayor refused to put the question for the third
reading of the bill, and the court broke up, after an
interchange of sharp recrimination, in great disorder.
The two courts are thus practically at issue. It is
well known in the city that the present bill is merely
a preliminary to one for determining the control of the
city funds absolutely to the Common Council. In
fact, the struggle involves the whole question of city

corporation reform. The question at issue is, do the
Common Council possess the power of passing such a
measure? There can be no question as to the general
fact that they possess, besides the ordinary power of
making by-laws inherent in every corporation, a more
extensive privilege in this respect, confirmed by
the charter of EDWARD 111., enabling the mayor
and aldermen, with the assent of the commonalty,
" where any customs theretofore used and obtained,
proved hard or defective, or any matters newly
arising within the City needed amendment, and no
remedy had been previously provided, to apply and
ordain a convenient remedy as often as it should seem
expedient ; so that the same were agreeable to good
faith and reason, for the common advantage of the
citizens and other liege subjects sojourning within
them, and useful to king and people.' This charter
is generally recited in acts of Common Council, and its
powers havebeen largelyand from an early period acted
upon. Thus it was by virtue of the powers thus declared
that an ordinance of the Common Council, in the
time of RICHARD 11., fixed the present constitution
of that court. Thus also has been changed the na-
ture of the aldermanic office from an annual tenure to
one for life. In what respect does the present exer-
cise of their powers differ from those, so as to become
illegal, as the Recorder declares it to be ?
The answer to this question must be deferred.
But we may here state that our conviction is with the
Common Council, and against the Recorder.

THERE are (among others) two points on which
the Society of Friends have been resolute in their
non-compliance with the laws and customs of the
land sine the origin of their sect. They will not
take an oath, and they will not pay church-rates. In
respect of the oath, their quiet, imperturbable, pas-
sive resistance has triumphed. Seeing they could
not be iro ight to conform to it, the world has in part
conformed to them. Quakers see . O net required to . • ;
- - iiistice, ar oti other ocoasioss •
- • •

--•••••••9111111.1•11 e. 1
when ordinary men are required to swear : their sim-
ple affirmation is taken. But church-rates are still

It is not that lawyers are made of more yielding ma-
terials than churchmen. There is quite as much of tho
martyr spirit in the lawyer's devotion to prescriptive
usages as in the churchman's. But in the question of
church-rates, it is simply a business of taking money
1 from the Quaker for the use of the church as a bait
corporate ; in the question of judicial oaths, the re-
fusal to receive Quaker evidence upon a simply
affirmation, might take or keep money out of the
pockets of a great many other people, and in par-
ticular, by occasionally rendering lawsuits impos-
sible, might curtail the gains of the lawyers. So the
Quakers have carried their point in the matter of
oaths, because other people had an interest in com-
plying with their humours; and they have not car-
ried their point in the matter of church-rates, because
other people have an interest in not complying with
their humours.

The practice of exacting church-rates from Quakers
will undergo the same fate as the practice of
committing them for refusing to take judicial oaths
as soon as you can convince the parties who
think they have an interest in exacting the church-
rates, that they are, in fact, losers by the operation.
Nor does it seem impossible that they should be
convinced of this. We publish in this day's paper state-
ments respecting two seizures for church-rates from
members of the Society of Friends in Guisboro'. In
the one case the sum claimed was 3s. 40. ; in the
other it was is. 51d. The legal expenses in the
former ease amounted to 11. 4s. Sd. ; in the latter, to
11. :Is. Id. To pay the rate and the legal expenses,
flour was seized, in the former, to the value of 21. Gs. Bd.,
and sold for a trifle less ; in the latter, various
articles, worth 31. ris. 6d., were seized, and sold
for 21. 12s. 6d. Now, it must be remembered that
these are not isolated cases. No member of the
Society of Friends ever pays church-rates—a seizure
must always be made. Sometimes, for common
shame, the rate is not exacted ; sometimes a pro
Arm"; seizure is made by lenient and just men. But
the Society of Friends are at the mercy of the
tempers of men in of ; and not a year elapses, but
wantonly harsh and iniquitous seizures for poor-rates
are made upon its members, in many towns in
England.
Can the Church afford to make such exhibitions
year after year? The Established Church is the only
christian communion in the land whose clergy possess
property of their own in virtue of their office. Dis-
senters and Roman Catholics pay their clergy
out of their own pockets; but the clergymen of
the Established Church have broad lands, and tithes
which the landowner has no right to consider
as a tax, seeing that when his lands are bought or
sold, allowance is made forthe tithe as something that
does not belong to him. The Established Church
costa its members less than any other church. Is it,
then, becoming that the members of this favoured
church should insist upon non-members contributing
to build and uphold its edifices, to pay for its organs
and communion elements, when these non-members
make no such claim upon them in return ?
By exempting Nonconformists from the payment
, of church-rates, members of the Established Church
, may have to pay double what they do now. A rato
of 3s. 40. may be swelled to Os. 9d., or a rate of
Is. 51d. to 2s. 11d. But in return the members of
the Established Church will cease to present them-
selves to the public in the shabby attitude of men
who, paying less for the services of their own clergy
than any other sect, call upon the sects more heavily
taxed for that purpose than themselves, to contribute
to the building of their churches.
As for the clergy of the Established Church, the
question is one that scarcely concerns them at all,
except in so far as they ought naturally to wish that
their flocks should desist from this shabby extortion.

COUNTRIES prolific of food have ever been noted
as seats of famine. Hunger has, perhaps, presented
itself nowhere with so awful an aspect as in Egypt
and Bengal. In Europe, until recently, the horrors
of famine have been almost exclusively known
in Hungary, Russia, and Ireland. A drought in
the cast is famine ; the contrary of drought
generally so in our climates. Of this problem many
solutions have been given. Want of thrift in a people
with whom abundance is the rule, and scarcity the
exception, forms a plausible mode of accounting for
distress. The absence of good roads or communica-
tions between scattered settlements, becomes sen-
sible as population increases. The disadvantage
arising from bad communications has been beautifully
reduced to calculation by BARON VON TIIUNEN, who
contributed largely to Mr. licon's reports. A false
system of taxation, such as prevails on the greater part
of the continent of Europe and in India, represses all
production beyond that needed for daily support. The
effects of produce taxes arc strikingly exemplified in
the scanty grain, sugar, and cotton crops of British
India, as compared with.those of the United States.
It is the freedom from the vicious system of taxation
which the East India Company inherited from its
Mahomcdan predecessors that enables many states of
the union to keep up slavery. There is no inherent
advantage in the use of slaves as field labourers, but
the Americans can, in the absence of due competition,
afford to keep them.
More powerful, perhaps, than any of the causes we
have enumerated, is a faulty distributionproprietorslarge of the land
appliedas a perpetual entail of barrenness and poverty.
tportionsrtions to the thlaendgrov'ev!ititiedofinfoo:o.or
Then a minute subdivision of the arable soil is a
faulty distribution ; it produces the same effects
wherever we meet with it. The conies, the " bauer,"
the fcllah, or the rajah, who devotes his whole time
to the growth of his own food, wastes the talent en-
' trusted to him unprofitably, and does not fulfil his
high duties as a man and a member of society. If a
member of a civilised state, he ought to produce
more than he requires himself; and let others have
the benefit of it. The very meaning of the word.
civilisation points to a security of personal sigh**
all who contribute in the various tasks that muWhe
performed to produce a greater mass of necessoyies,
combined with more refined enjoyments than an- 41:11.
civilised state commands. We have no occasiols-,to
hunt up new-fangled theories to excuse this oldest Oald'
best confirmed law of political economy. o
securing of personal rights in contradistincthis
to the privileges emanating from the owner:
ship of land, water, mines, &c., has been every-,
where attended with increased production. 'Are
should be glad to add, that it also conferred tvery-
where more refined enjoyment. It is, however, for us
enough if it furnish the means of commanding refine-
ment. Now, to assert, as may be done in many con-
tries at the present day, that the ownership or
the mere occupation of a piece of land, ir
sable for the support of a family, is to
in such countries the rights of persons
land are insecure. Such countries, t'

-

I

is in many coun-
nership or even
and, is indispen-
to confess that
ons not owning
therefore, cm-
-0

- 2

not be termed civilised. The source of wealth is, in
such states, in the land and not in the citizen. The
land is au end and not a means for the population. To
its yield the cultivator is bodily enslaved. If the
harvest repay his toil he can live, but no more. If
dearth ensue, he falls a miserable victim to a degrad-
ing prepossession.
Actual experience, facts that all who run may
read, warrant our going still farther. We have at
this moment a most striking illustration, written in
characters that cannot be mistaken, of the superior
power of free exertion over the comparatiuthernve freedom
of a privileged class. Russia, whose so pro-
vinces in the vicinity of the Black Sea have, from
time immemenial, been the granary of Europe, owes
this plenty mainly to the large scale on which the
cultivation of a rich soil is carried on. Hungary, or
rather the fertile portion of that rich country, pos-
sesses a similar advantage. But neither of these
countries can rise in regularity or abundance of pro-
duction with the far less numerous floe citizens of
America. The inhabitants of the southern states of
the Austrian empire exceed in number the population
of the United States. The fertile provinces of Itussia
are likewise more populous than the United States.
But from which of these countries, as they are now
organised, can we draw the supplies of grain on the
scale, and with the regularity, which we require?
We say nothing of the additional stock of cotton,
sugar, timber, potashes, tallow, and other articles,
only a portion of which we draw both from the
east and from the west. And in which of these coun-
tries is the condition of the inhabitant the best?
This power to export is nut commanded in America
any more than in Europe, by cultivators of ten, or
even of twenty acres, still less by the tillers of one,
Or of half an acre. A farm of twenty acres may ab-
Dort) the labour of an industrious family with that of
a pair of horses ; but it cannot possibly yield any
superfluity. With freedom of action, and security
from the rapine, whether of highwaymen or of legis-
lators, the same means might cultivate, under circum-
stances, fifty, or even one hundred and fifty acres.
If the family could live upon the produce of the
twenty-acre farm, the produce of the larger plot must
furnish a superfluity wherewith to provide luxury for
the grower, and food for the purveyor of luxuries.
An union of states in which this practice was fully
carried out, would have some clams to be termed a
civilised world.
It is evident, therefore, that the civilisation of Ire-
land, or of Hungary, or of ltussia, is in no way de-
pendent upon the securing of the cultivation of a
minute plot of land to every family. Freedom from
famine—in other words, the command of greater
supplies of food—must be obtained by improving the
standard of personal security. The rights of the
trader and of the manufacturer, including the la-
bourers as well as the employers, must be asserted
against the attacks and unwarrantable interference of
all enemies; whether kings or mobs, legislators or
agitators, corporations or combinations. Such an
emancipation is requisite to furnish a large and fer-
tile country with superfluous produce to export. A
small, but civilised) state can import what it can pur-
chase cheaply, and can select the most remunerating
crops for home cultivation. A minutely-divided
soil devoted to the growth of grain entails, moreover,''
a special cause of local famine distinct from the un-
productive employment of the labour bestowed upon
it. The small superfluities which supply the markets'
of a country so situated being in the hands of nume-
rous holders, each can retain what he wishes to sell
until lie obtains the price he wishes, without much in-
convenience to himself. The consequence, therefore,
of a prevailing notion that a harvest has partially
failed is inevitably a holding back from market of '
the minute but numerous supplies in the growers'
hands. The moral impression is not counteracted by
any pressure like that which the large landholder
feels, who has wages, rent, and other payments to
meet. Hence famine may be more easily produced
without sufficient cause in Ireland than in any other'
country.
Mr. TOOKE has beautifully analysed the effect of
moral impressions upon the money market in one of
his works, in which he shows the manner in which
a scarcity of money has been created under the fear
of war, of intestine agitations, or of expected scarcity.
We wish that other political economists would devote
more attention to men than to things. It would be
then more easy to follow their speculations.

FRANCE.—EXPORTATION FP.F.NCII SUGAR
TO EXCL.Viil.—Owing to the measure taken by the English
government to operate a reduction on sugar made by free
labour, some of the large towns of the North of France have
demanded trim the Minister of Commerce and Agriculture
the free exportation of home-made sugar from their menu-
factorice The minister, acceding to their demand, has
decided that sugar made from the beet-root may be exported
duty-free.
A cause which has excited great interest in the aris-
tocratic circles, was decided by the Cour Royale, on Satur-
day, after n litigation of several months. The parties are the
Duke do Valenc ny, the son of the Duchess de Dino, niece of
the let^ Prince de Talleyrand, and the Duchess de Valency,
his wife, who is the daughter of the late Duke de Montmo-
rency. The ear:ies were married very young with the con-
sent of their Barents, and the Princo de Talli grand, on the
occasion, settled on the Duke do Valeneay the estate of Va-
leucay, but as this was not to come into the Duke's po.aes-
aion until after the death of the Prince, and not then unless
a certain number of should have elapsed, the prince
allowed the duke a fixeyearsd income of 10,000 fr. a year during
his life, and the Duchess do Dino settled the same amount
upon her son. The Duke and Duchees de Valeneay had other
and larger sources of revenue, but it appears that the duke
did not live within his means, and gut considerably into
debt. When the Duke and Duchess do Montmorency died,
the Duchess de Valencay became entitled to a fortune of
about three millions of francs, and, fearing that her husband
might make use of tier fortune to repair his own, and that
their children would thus be injured, she sued for a separa-
tion de them, in order that her property might be entirely
taken out of her husband's control. In support of this ap-
plication much was said by her counsel of the excessive ex-
penditure of the husband, and of the debts which he had
contracted. In reply it was contended, that the debts of the
prince were not so large as had been represented, and that
the estate of Valeuaay, which is valued at about seven mil-
lions of francs, but yields only 100,003 f. per ununm, was
capable of great improvement, and would thus enable the
duke to get rid of all his pecuniary embarrassments. The
court decided in fuvuur of the duchess, by granting her the
separate and independent control of her property, for which
she sued.
the Courrier de Marseille has the following:—" A
singular fact, which we publish with a certain reserve, has
been reported to us by a person worthy of credit, who col-
lected the details on the spot. It appears that on the even-
ing of the 12th, at a quarter past ten, the small town of Ge-
manes experienced two shocks of earthquake at intervals of
five minutes between them. The oscillation was sufficiently
strong to displace large pieces of furniture, and to throw
down any small articles which were placed on them. This
phenomenon was felt in the house of M. Leroy, a notary,
and in almost all the houses of the commune. A recently
built house received much damage, the Walls having been
cracked by the shock. It is added that a similar commotion
has been telt at Sairt Jean de Garguier, at the Chateau of
N. de Clapiers ; at Itoquevaire, and at the foot of the moun-
tain of Sainte-VicV,ire. If this be the case, the latter cir-
cumstance may perhaps explain this physical pheuonienon,
Mont Sainte-Victoire presenting, as is known, in its fissures
all the characters of an extinguished volcano."
BELGIUM. —llaussms, Dec. 21.—1 t is now
certain that Baron Rothschild's recent interview with the
king had no reference to the dispute pending between
England and France (as some Be'gian and. English journals
asserted), but simply to a negotiation for talking up a consi-
derable quantity of treasury bonds wnich, at the present
moment, when money is very scarce in this country, could
not be easily turned to account. During several months
those bonds were offired at 31 and even 4 per cent. interest,
but very few purchasers could he found. The journals of
this morning publish a notification from the Minister of
Finance, to the effect that treasury bends may be still had
in his office, with an interest of 5 per cent. per annum at the
year's date, and at the rate of 41 per cent. per annum at six
months' date. The sum paid in must not be under 1,000
francs, nor above 20,000 francs. Those persons who will not
insist on being paid at the banking firm of Messrs. Roths-
child at Paris, will, moreover, be entitled to a commission of
per cent. All those advantages show the want
of specie in this country. It is expected that the
royal sanction of the laws relating to provisions (laws
which have been passed in both chambers) will be published
in a day or two in the Mondeur. A gentleman, named
Houyet, the manager of an extensive establishment in this
city, has laid before the government the plan of a voluntary
and permanent subscription for the relief of the working
classes during the four winter months. lie proposes to organise
three categories of subscribers—one engaging to pay half a
franc, another 10 centimes, and the third 2 centimes every
day during the above period. It is calculated that a sum of
12,000,000 of franca could be raised by that plan. The
Independence of this morning states that the project is under
the consideration of ministers.—The principal cotton manu-
facturers of Ghent, the Manchester of this country, held a
meeting this day, in order to take steps for improving the
depressed condition o7their trade, which is principally caused
by the exorbitant price of the raw materials. As soon as the
proceedings at the meeting are published, we shall not fail to
forward an account of them.—ln consequence of the recent
heavy fall of snow nod the subsequent thaw, several rivers
have already overtl) Red their bauks.—The price of bread,
which has been raised again this day, has now attained the
Limits. one of 1816.—Their Belgian Majesties will return
Irons Paris before the end of this mantb.
SWITZEIZLAND.—A letter from tine canted of
Tesin says, that the Austrian agents are intriguing in that
canton in favour of the League of the Seven Cantons. They

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