The Express.
London, England, 1848-08-19 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, SATURDAY EVENING, AUGUST 19, 1848.

ghe Oppreoo.

)&AILS.

The maßs for British North America, end the 12n1tol States
Mil be made up this evening of the 11th Aug.
The overland mails for Gibraltar, Malta, Greece, the lonian blonds,
Egypt, Aden, Ceylon, Hong-Kong, and Utica, via Suuthmap.
ten, will be made up on the eveninq of the 10th August.
The overland cloned mats rio Marseilles, to the Mediterranean,
Egypt, Aden, Ceylon, India, (long-Kong, Sc., will be made up on the
evening of the 24th Aug.
The mails for Vigo, Oporto, Lisbon, Madeira, Cadiz, and Gibraltar
Will be made upon the lhong of the II th Aug.
The mails for New South Wale 3, V.in Dieman's Land, and New
Zealand will be mode op on the evening of the 31st August.
The mails for the West Gaut of Africa and Madeira will be made
upon the evening of the Met Augwa•
The West India Made, Including Bermuda, Nemo, Havana,
Honduras, New °ileums, Vera Crux, Tampico, and Porto Rico, and
excluding there for Madeira, Jaemel, Curthagen I, Santa Martha,
Chumer, Panama, Wert Cant et South America, and St. Juanale-
Wituragh,, will be made up on the morning of the Mad Sept.
The mails for the Bruno, the River Plate, Monte Video, Pernam-
buco, Bahia, Madeira, and Buenos Ayres, will be made up on the
evening of the 4th September.

NOTICE TO ADVERTISERS.
The number of STAMPS issued by the authorities of the
Statugoffice, during 1847, to the
DAILY NEWS wae 3.447,009
This, we believe, is within eight per cent. of the murber
Word to the Morning Hera 'd, Mortutilfv.C/troniele, and
Mrning Pat, ALL PDT TOGETHER.
In sidition to the above, issued to t e DAILY NEWS,
Morning Paper, they: were issued for the Evening Edition,
TEE EXPRESS 778 714
Which was more, we believe, than were issued either to
the Gtotto or Standard, Evening Papers.

HUM RATER Los:,lri Ramo&
Tang DAm--Atortftut,SJ Ma. ,PSt 4 Afternoon. II mbs. past S.
I.IIOIISIoSr—NO.IIIX, st mlo. lust S; Worms.. SS u.5.P.4%

LONDON, SATURDAY, AUG. 19,

- -
WE have beard of Englishmen in Ireland becoming
more Ilish than the ir.digouous inhabitants of that
country; which is natural enough, for these English-
men, having become Irish by birth and property,
espoused the interacts of Ireland with an English-
man's firmness and pertinadty. But how shall we
account for politicians in this country being more
Austrian than the Austrians—being more ultra-mo-
narchic in thtir views of Austrian affairs than the
Court and Emperor of Austria themselves ?
Such, however, is, or was some time back, the
Times. That
.journal on Thursday informed us that :
The sooner the forces under Radetzki can be with-
drawn from Italy, the sooner will a regular government,
pported by a competent military authority, be re esta-
blished in Vienna; and by facilitating the conclusion of the
Italian war, Lord Palmerston and General Cavaignac are
enabling Radetzki to undertake the restoration of that order
by military means which the chief of the French govern-
ment has already happily acomplished in Parts.
The English organ of METTERNICH spoke here,
we have no doubt, in the full spirit of its in-
structions. But its publishing such views
must have brought town upon itself an instant repri-
mand. For we find the Tines, of Friday, containing
every long article, written evidently and solely for
the purpose of unsaying_ its formidable announcement
of the previous day. Even the METTERNICH faction

found the Times much too naive and too frank in thus
openly and audaciously marking out the intended
course of reaction, and begging for Italian peace, in
order that RAI/UM% bayonets might be turned
against the Austrian parliament.
On the following morning, accordingly, we find
the Thnes recanting its dangerous altraisms. The
citizens of Vienna are represented as full of respect for
their sovereign, and ashamed of the popular intoxica-
tion of the first moment of freedom. The Diet is
depicted as a body, prepared to lend its aid to the
sovereign against tumult. And, in short, the capital
of Austria, represented in the Times of Thurs-
day as a democratic pandemonium, which RADETSKI
e-uld alone reduce to order, and to enable him
to do which, France and England were begged
to conclude peace with him and Italy—this
same city is daguerreotyped in the Times of Friday
under altogether different colours. It is amiable,
orderly, loyal, and requires not bombardment and
martial law, but congratulation and festivities. In
short the philippic is turned into an idyll—the fierce
strain of the denouncing sorceress becomes the ode of
a hurt poet. And the winter of the journal's discon-
tent becomes all of a sudden " glorious summer" at
the suggestion of the wily MFATERN.CH.
We hail this as a good sign, and congratulate our-
selves, not upon our contemporary's sudden return to
moderation, probably short-lived, but upon the forced
moderation of the German ultra-royalists here, who
evidently do not think it yet safe to uttack with RA-
DA.TZKI'S conquering soldiers the liberals of Austria,
Bohemia, and Ilurgary. They form a force
not to be despised. And if the gallant
citizens of Bologna were able to repel the
burglarious attack of Weldon, the citizens oftne great
I German towns might not prove less formidable or less
brave in a good and a national cause.
Much that has taken place at Berlin and at Vienna
is indeed strongly to be condemned. But the assemblies
and the burgher guard stem fuliy competent to pre-
serve peace. Nor is there any symptom, in the
conduct of the people of Vienna especially
in the least resembling the conduct or the
principles of the red republicanism of I'aris, and at all
requiring the same dreadful repression. Let the
monarch of Germany satisfy the moderate wishes of
the middle classes ; let the courts and ministers keep
in harmony with them, and tolerant of constitutional
liberty, and they will require no cannouadiug or mar.
tial law to restore order and loyal feeling in the midst
of freedom.

The German assemblies, chosen by universal suff• age,
may not, in acquirements and t xperience, meet all
the necessities of a civilised empire. But these con-
stituent bodies arc not opposed to all aristocratic and
monarchic institutions ; the system of government
they seem inclined to e-tablish will evidently contain
as strong a conservative guarantees as can be required.
The Prussian c anmission has even proposed double
election as n eme for the uPra-democracy of un-
limited suffrage. To the present assemblies, therefore,
others may be (-specie(' to succeed of a character at
which even Mr. Disirti.u, from his height of intellect,
nerd not sneer. _

The thoughts of too many, however, in an I out of
Germany. are bent on military reaction. The senti-
ments which impired the Thursday's article of the
Times am trite:Wined by an influential clans; whilst
the moderate hopes, that dictated the second, struggle
not always with sauces. It is, however, a good sign
that the Emperor of AUSTRIA has returned to his
capital, and thus withdrawn him.elf from the exclu-
sive dictation of such persons as M. DE BOMISELLES.
His Majesty is now within hearing of his constitu-
tional advistrs. The hope is that he will listen to
them, and not to the mere canr.iers who place all
their hopes in RADETSEI.

As the attention of the public had already been
called to the strike of engineers on the London and
North Western Railway, it is not surprising that the
accident whichdelayedthe morning mails on Thursday
last should have attracted especial notice; and the
mere fact otitis having taken place soon after the de-
parture of several of the old hands, seems by many
to be viewed as connecting it with that undesirable
occurrence. It may, therefore, be proper to offer
what it is in our power to contribute towards a right
understanding of these distinct matters, as a certain
degree of anxiety may prevail on the whole subject,
which a clear view of both, we apprehend, will greatly
tend to allay. In order to do this, it is important
first to determine the essential facts of each case; it
will then bo more easy to ascertain what are the Lela-
tier) bearings of both on each other, and on the im-
portant question of public safety.
Wo shall first consider the accounts of the late un-
toward collision at Ashton-bank. The facts here, as
far as we have ascertained them, do not give the
accident a graver character than belongs to the nature
of such casualties generally, which casualties, unfor-
tunately, will at times be apt to take place on all
lines, when sadden failures of machinery happen at
an unlucky moment and place, during unfavourable
circumstances of weather, A coincidence of all these
seems to have caused the accident on Thursday morn-
ing. The connecting rod of the engine breaks, and
thereby- stops the Peterborough train, during a thick
fog ; the firemen appears to have keen properly- sent
back at once with signals to stop the York
train, which was coming up. These were applied
and heard; and the driver is said to have
at once tried to atop his engine, which,
however, the slippery state of the rails pre-
vented from being effectually done before it reached
the Peterborou;,ll train; and the consequence was
this deplorable accident. Deplorable it is, as are all
such collisions ; but the question which under existing
circumstances it is important to decide is, whether it
implies any visible default in the enginemen of the
two t.ains ? As far as the facts are known, we can-
not see anything in the accident that distinguishes it
from other unfortunate cases which we know have hap-
pened at times with the most careful and experienced
drivers. The giving way of the connecting rod of
the Peterborough engine was a mischance that no
driver could have either foreseen or prevented ; it is
one of those casualties to which machinery is liable.
The train being thus stopped in the fog, he ent;ine-
man appears to have dune his duty in immediately
sending back the fireman, with signals to stop the
York mail train. Tho obscurity caused by the fog,
which we know was very thick in London also on
Thursday morning, would render it impossible to s.c
tho train lights at a sufficient distance; and before the
driver had time to carry out the fog signal far enough
the train came up. If, as it is stated by the superinten-
dent, the driver of the mail train instantly attended
to that signal, and did what he could to stop, on hear-
ing it explode, there would seem to have been nothing
omitted that experience could suggest in such an un-
toward combination of circumstances; and the acci-
dent cannot fairly be regarded as consequett in any
way on the employment of new hands. It is
a most distressing occurrence; and especially so,
as having happened at a time when anxiety
Lad been previously excited by the strike of
the old hands, and by their attempts to alarm the pub-
lic on the score of safety. But as far as the facts
are known to us it appears to have been one of
those accidents which might have happened under the
same unlucky coincidence of the genr breaking at a
particular spot and hour of night during a thick fog,
had the best engineers ia the kingdom been driving
the two trains that came into collision.
The case of the enginemen—which we shall, there-
, fore, consider apart from this casualty, and on its
I general bearings,—has been pretty fully brought
before the public. We have read the reports of their
grievances wo have heard Mr. GLYN'S counter-
statements in parliament, and at the late general
meeting of the company ; and we have taken some
pains ourselves to ascertain the facts of the dispute.
In the first place, it is on the whole abundantly clear
that this is a question, not of economy, but of disci-
pline. The men themselves do not urge that they nave
insufficient wages, or that they are paid less than here-
tofore. That their pay has been excellent is not
denied, the lowest class having at least 385., the
highest at least 485., per week. Nor is there any
proof whatever that the old men who are placed
on the upper work have been threatened with reduc-
tions ; on the contrary, we learn that it has
' been distinctly communicated to them by the dirce-
, tors that no such intention exists.. The grievance
complained of lies in a presumed future effect of cer-
tain regulations, as to the manner of classing and pre-
, motion, and to the mode of imposing penalties for
neglect or misconduct, lately introduced by the super-
intendent ; which the men choose to consider as a
scheme to diminish their wages 1e and upon
this, combine to force the directors—either to remove
the superintendent, or to degrade him by reversing
his deliberate orders—by a threat, which they have
since carried into effect, of retiring in body. In

order to make this u inconvenient as possible, they
choose for their time the busiest travelling season,
with the palpable object of leaving the board no alter-
native but that of compliance ; and the character of
this step, at such a time, mist be viewed in connexion
with the fact, that the men themselves do net pre-
tend that they are suffering from any present grie-
trance, but merely combine to resist one which, they
say, may hereafter be imposed upon them.
Now, in order to judge of the practical tendency of
this business, it will be sufficient to observe two
things, on neither of which can a moment's doubt
exist in the minds of those who will take the trouble
of considering the question. The first is : that the
prime and absolute condition of all safety in working
railways, is the complete discipline of the enginemen,
end their strict obedience to the orders which
they can only receive from the superinten-
dent of the locomotive department. This is a
condition impor.ant to public safety, above all
others whatever. A new engineman may be trained in
a few months so as to equal the oldest in all that be-
longs to the driving of a locomotive, and, if attentive
and obedient, will then be a safer driver than the
oldest hand who thinks himself licensed to disregard
his chief in any respect. Such being the first condi-
tion of this part of the business, let us next see what
must have been the effect of granting the enginemen,
in the case before us, the demand they enforced in a
menacing way. Simply this—that had the directors
submitted to it, the whole authority of the locomotive
superintendent must thereby and from that time
forth have been reduced to nothing; the men would
have become the real masters of the line; and, instead
of continuing to obey the oi dere of the manager
placed over them, would have learned to resist his au-
thority by similar combinations, whenever they might
choose to disapprove of uny of his rules,or to fancy that
he premeditated anything likely to prejudice them
hereafter. In such a state of things, we would next ob-
serve, no discipline could exist; and without the moat
exact discipline of all the working har.de there is not
la moment's safety fur the public on a railway. The
directors, therefore, we say, as responsible for the
public safety, were absolutely bound to resist this
attempt at dictation, the success of which in any case
must have been fatal to the orderly working of the
railway for ever after. Even bad they seen
reason to disapprove of their superintendent's
orders, it would not have teen justifiable to let
them be overthrown by means that wenld subvert
all discipline from thenceforwa-d. But in the
case before us, they were also persuaded—as they de-
clare—that the orders were not unjust or opprcsaive.
They informed the men that the opposition was
founded on apprehensions that had no real existence.
There were double reasons, therefore, for refusing to
give way on this occasion. They might well deter-
mine not to sacrilice an (Aver whose fidelity and skill
they rely upon for the sale and efficient working of the
line, and whose proceeding in this articular case
they approve of, at the instance of a combination
which, if successful, must place the line in future at
the mercy of its insubordinate servants.
Valuable, therefor:, as these servants, while
obedient, undoubtedly were, the preservation of that
due subordination on which all railway safety de-
pends is infinitely more so; and there can be no doubt
that, as gum diens of the safety of their passengers,
the directors ought on no account to have so acted as
to overthrow the whole discipline of the establish-
ment. They have parted reluctantly enough, we are
well assured, with old servants, of a class which all
railway managers will make nearly every sacrifice to
keep ; but they would have been gravely in the wrong
to have kept them at a sacrifice of the one peinciple
en which dep'nds the who'e reaurity of tie business
they have to conduct. They have informed the
public that in the place of the men who have
discharged themselves, others, of good cha-
racter and sufficient skill, have been appointed ;
and to this satisfactory assurance they have pledged
their characters. We are glad that it is so. But we
may add that, had the choice, unfortunately, lain
between appointing really inferior new man, and
keeping the eld ones, at the price of destroying all
future command over them—which must have been
the certain result of yielding to an attack on the
superintendent under the fear of a strike—there could
not have hi:en a moment's hesitation as to what
would be the best course for the safety of the
public, even in an extreme case like this. It is
perfectly clear that no temporary danger that
can arise from the mistakes of the rawest men
would be by many degrees so, fatal ne the
permanent subversion of authority by allow-
ing the old men in this menacing way to dictate
their own terms to the officers placed over them. We
must, therefore, while regretting sincerely the dispute
which has taken place, affirm that the directors appear
to us to have followed the course most conducive to
the security of the public; and it may be hoped that
nothing wiil be done to concede one inch of the im-
portant ground they have taken. This maintained,
the men, will soon be glad to return to their employ-
ment—which we cannot see they had any strong
reason for leaving--on such terms as may be fair to
them, and suitable to the discipline without which
the longest-trained engine-men would be the most
perilou of all servanui.

A Nonce of a ease tried at the late Galway assizes,
copied in our impression of Wednesday from an Irish
paper, if it may be relied upon, is calculated to leave
a curious impression of Irish law and Irish law courts
—an impression not altogether favourable either to
the one or the other.

A person of the name of CoNNELLY was placed at
the bar, having been presen' ed as a vagrant by the
grand jury. The prisoner, when called on for his
defence, addressed the court in Irish, and Mr.
WALK Ert Boum; E undertook to translate hi, harangue
as " both ingenious and poetic." It would have been
more aptly described as a clever piece of low buffoon-
ery. Four gentlemen (two of them magistrates) had
been examined to prove that the prisoner was a
public nuisance. They stated that " He had
no settled place of residence ; was constantly
brought before the magistrates at petty ses-
sions on charges of sheep-stealing and killing
sluzap ; has publicly sold in markets legs of mutton at
6d. each ; and was committed for trial both at quarter
sessions and assizes, but so ingeniously did he con-
trive to commit those offeuces, that evidence could not
be adduced legally to commit [qy., convict ?) him."
The prisoner submitted that his having been so often
tried and never convicted clearly showed he was an
honest man ; for the same reason that gold, the more
frequently it is molten in the furnace, the purer it
becomes. He added that the fact of his going about
the country selling legs of mutton proved that he was
a man of industrious habits, following the trade of a
butcher. And he further submitted that his case
very much resembled that of JONAH, inasmuch
as his escape from the clutches of a very
corpulent magistrate, who was one of the chief
witnesses against him, was exactly parallel to
that of the prophet who a
escaped from the belly of
the whale with an untainted character." The judge
and jury, it is stated, laughed long, loud, and
heartily, at this tirade ; and then, resuming their
official decorum, the latter wound up the lurce by
finding the prisoner guilty, the former by sentencing
him " to the ward penalty in such cases, namely, to
find security within three mantles for his future Rood
behaviour, or iu default thereof to be transported for
seven years."
It is not our intention to comment upon the part
here said to have been played by judge andjury f.ser
the abandon with which they gave themselves
up to the enjoyment of a knave's buf-
foonery-, as his pet companions might have
done in a public-house, and then, recol-
lecting their dignity, passed a severe sentence
on their jocular friend. We wen) going to have
called the scene truly Irish, but the recollection of a
parallel case (of rather old date it is true), in the
grave and punctilious kingdom of Scotland, checked
the expression. A learned and ingenious judge of
the latter country, in the course of the present
century, was passionately fond of chess. A butcher at
Pertly was celebrated for his proficiency in that game,
and whenever tho judge in question presided at the
anises there, the butcher was sure to be summoned
to a friendly trial of skill. It so chanced that the
butcher came at last to be tried on a capital charge
before his friendly antagonist. Relying upon old
friendship, the culprit made his appearance in court,
radiant with smiles, which were reflected back
from the bench, tempered with the stateliness natural
to that elevated position. The jury brought in a
verdict of guilty, and the judge, with a winning
smile, addressed to his old playmate, in an undertone,
the words—" check mate," and forthwith proceeded
to pronounce the last sentence of the law. We will
allow the judicial levity of Scotland to pair off with

the judicial levity of Ireland; but the extraordinary e
law of the latter country cannot thus be passed over.
Unless the Irish reporter has strangely blundered,
a man may by the law of Ireland be transported on a
simple charge of vagrancy—of being " a rogue and
vagabind." No specific crime is alleged to have been
charged againsteoNeeeev ; the evidence appears simply
to h ave ereablished that he had been frequently suspected
but never convicted. By the Vagrant Act of England
rogues and vagabonds are defined to be " suspected
persons," "reputed thieves," persons "frequenting a
street for an unlawful purpose;" and so forth. These
descriptions appear from his own admissions to have
been perfectly applicable to Mr. CONNELLY. The
English act empowers a single magistrate to commit
such persons to prison for a month, with hard labour,
' or to the house of correction till next sessens, daring
which interval they are to be kept at hard labour.
At sessions they may be sentenced to imprisonment
with hard labour for a year, and whipping may be
ordered in addition, if deemet expedient. The lati-
tude and vagueness of the English statute have often
been complained of, as well as the large judicial
power entrusted to a single magistrate. But
from the report upon which we are commenting
the English act looks like the perfection of penal
legislation compared with the corresponding law in
Ireland, under which it would appear that a man
may be sentenced to transportation on the testimony
of a brace of magistrates that they have re-
peatedly tried but never been able to convict him.
And, to add absurdity to injustice, we are told that
the " usual penalty" for the offence of being repeat-
edly tried without couvictiou is, "to find security
within three months for future good behaviour," or,
if the culprit fail in that, " to be transported for seven
veers." The idea of quivalent punishments involved
in this sentence is ineffable. On this aide of the
water a man is sentenced to a fine of 51., or,
failing payment, to a limited imprisonment; in Ire-
land he is sentenced to find security for good beha-
viour, or seven years transportation. is as if a
Middlesex magistrate should adjudge a culprit to pay
a moderate fine, or in default of payment to be hanged.
We have sometimes thought our brethren of the
Irish press addicted to furbish up great grievances
out, of tritlzs ; but in the present instance that pro-
cedure has been reversed. The enforcement of a law
which enables country magistrates, by merely appre-
hending and examinieg a man repeatedly, and then
having him presented as a vagrant at as ices, to get
him transported for seven years, is treated as a
capital joke.

FRANCE.

PAWS FILIDAT 11 A.Y.

The 'speech of Lord I'almcretOn, delivered on
Wednesday evening, was received here last night,
and already occupies a large share of public atten-
tion. It has elicited a general expression of the most
lively and unmingled satisfaction, and will undoubt-
edly produce a very favourable fleet on public
opinion here, so far as relates to the international
relations.

From what has transpired of the evidence taken
by the insurrection committee, among the parole
evidence by far the most remarkable deposition is
said to be that of M. Arago, member of the original
Provisional Government. It is marked by complete
frankness and the absence of all reserve. M. Arago
is determined that the truth, and the whole truth,
shall be known of the history of the revolution since
the 24th February. I shall probably be able to send
you this complete in my next despatches.
From forty to tifiy representatives of the absolute-
democratic club party met yesterday, in the sixth
bureaux of the assembly. Their object was to con-
sider the proper means to adopt to calm public
I apprehension agitated during the last two days by
vague and secret rumours. The members of this
club intended to issue an address to the people of
Paria. They only renounced this on the assurance
by a member of tho government that there was no
ground for their apprehensions.
It was said yesterday evening that some of the
ultra members of the assembly had signed a proposal
tendi ig to lead to an amnesty of the insurgents of
June, and of the attempt of loth May. It was said
it would be presented to the assembly to-day.

We have received the journals and correspondence
of Madrid of the 13th. M. Mon is finally :installed
in the ministry of finance. The accouchement of the
Du^luen of Mootpensier is expected to take Outs
abDut the end of the present month. The Queen and
King Consort are tobe sponsors.