The Express.
London, England, 1846-09-07 00:00:00

win only obtained by a relative majority of seventeen.
Several members of. the ministerial party voted on
that occasion with the opposition ; several more were
absent. The coop d'etat has, therefore, not been
successful, and, in feint of fact, as a first result, the
ministry in endeavonnag to drag its majority with it into
reactionary' proceedings, has dismembered and all but com-
promised it. The opposition made every effort to save one
of its members, and, what is much dearer to it, the dignity of
the Chamber. But it sees with a degree of pleasure, which
it does not seek to hide, that the majority thus adopts so vio-
lent a line of politics. No violent assembly has a long career
before it; and let it be remembered that it stirs np public
opinion against it. The Chamber of 1847 has opened ill,
and I doubt very much if the Ministry will give it an oppor-
tunity of recovering itself. The programme of the session,
which I shall make known to you, consists only of bills of no
importance, or such as are not framed with a view to reform.
It is certainly not from amongst the ranks of the Conserva-
tive party in France that progress will go forth. 0.

CONSTANTINOPLE, Auo. 19.
The visit of Mehemet Ali terminated on Monday
the 17th. On the afternoon of that
sUashe embarked on
board the Turkish steamer Esseri-Di adamdegl by As
Sultan's chamberlain, Hamid Bey, who siattmepmay blaa
to Alexandria. His suite followed in an Egyptian stessur.
As I mentioned in a preceding letter, the viceroy will Arse
direct his course te Havana, his native place, a town OIL al
eastern limit of Macedonia with a population of 9,000 soda
It is said that he intends, during the few days of kis stay
there, to take up his residence at the house in which his
youth was past ; and that orders were sent from Constanti-
nople merely to put the place in repair ; but otherwise to
leave everything as nearly as possible in the same state as
whin he quitted that modest home to seek his fortune as a
soldier of the Porte. Since his elevation to power he has
built a mosque and a school at Kavalla, which will no doubt
profit by his liberality on the present occasion. Previous
to the viceroy's departure from Stambol, he was enter-
tained at dinner both by the Sultan's mother and aunt.
It must not, however, be understood by this that
those ladies of the imperial family who are, by
the way, the leaders of the ton among the Otto-
man fair—were present, either veiled or otherwise, at
nlco'held
zecebupttibonarrionf
gMaehfeemweoccut Aliionsat
t he
oepi e h
houses.a . b e
e
the festive table : but simply that the entertainments were
gicovenentanat
on which the indispensable canons of Turkish etiquette
reduced him to the level of a vassal of the Sultan, no sove-
reign prince could have been treated with more distinction,
or with more attention to his comfort and entertainment.
Not a day has passed without some fite to vary the course of
his stay, given by the magnates of the land. But perhaps
the most interesting exhibition at which the viceroy was
present was the examination for medical degrees, at the
college of Galata Serai. This useful institution was founded
by Mahmoud, who has placed over the gate this remarkable
inscription: "Whoever sees me shall say, Well done
(Apheria)." The Sultan brought his little son, Murad
Effendi, with him, a child of live years old, and set him at
his left, on one of the steps of the dais that supported the
imperial chair. Mehemet Ali sat in an arm-chair at
the foot of the dais, sad the Grand Vizier below
Murad Effendi upon the left. On either side a screen
extended between this select party and the Sultan's suite :
while in front the professors and the catechumeni
performed their parts, the former standing up and the latter
occupying by turns a seat in the centre of the examination
hall. It is a curious and interesting example of the penetra-
tion of our institutional forms into the East, the fact of a set
of youths, partly Christian, partly Mussulman, going through
the ceremony of supporting their theses, putting on their
doctors' gowns, taking their diplomatic oaths, and being
formally invested with the dignity of doctor, in the presence
Of the Sultan and his ministers. The candidates were
examined vied voce, some is Turkish, some in French, by
the different professors, among whom Gaetani Bey, the vice-
roy's physician, mingled, putting in an extra question every
now and then to the examiners. Then forty midwives and
more, who had attended the obstetrical lectures of the school,
received their diplomas. Lastly, prizes were distributed to
the most proficient pupils. The report which the bead pro-
fessor, Dr. Spitzer, presented to the Sultan, upon the pro-
gress of the institution, presents some points of interest.
Galata Serai is not merely a medical school. It is, like our
London University, a seminary where every sort of know-
ledge needful to complete education is taught. Or rather it
is a combination of the school and university, each science
being inculcated from its simplest rudiments up. Thus the
lowest are taught to read, write, and count, while the highest
are occupied with their medical and philosophical studies.
The whole course embraces ten years. The institution failed
at its first establishment by Mahmoud, because no prepara-
tory school existed which could serve as a stepping-stone to
the scientific education proposed to be conferred by
the university. But since the incorporation of the
lower school, the introduction of a course of French,
as well as the complete acquisition of the native
tongue, and the correspondent extension of the term
of study neceaury to arrive at a degree, the establish-
ment has answered perfectly well, and is now the most com
plete educational institution in Turkey. Through the
means of this medical college, a vast empire, now either
totally destitute of the medical faculty, or dependent upon
casual foreign practice for remedies against the multftudi-
nourdiseases that flesh is heir to, will be gradually supplied ,
with competent native practitioners. Nor is the system
adopted less important in a spiritual than in a medical sense.
For it is founded on the levelling of religious distinctions,
and on the co-education of Christian and Mussulman.
Doubtless the intimate relations that must hence be esta-
blished between the professors of these rival creeds, who sit
in the same class, and are competitors in the same race of
knowledge, will extend beyond the school, and lay the foun-
dation of lasting friendships between men whose cultivated
minds and superior position will enable them to show an
efficacious example of toleration to the rude fanatical popu-
lations of the provinces. The education of Galata Serai is
gratuitous : the pupils are clothed and fed at the expense of
the state. Notwithstanding this benefit, such was the euspi- I
cion, ignorance, and bigotry of the people, that they would
not send their hildren to a school where they would be con-
taminated by the intercourse of a rival religious community.
Dr. Spitzer says that eight years ago the prolessors could
not pick up eighty pupils to begin their course with.
Whereas, at the present time, although the college can accom-
modate 400 pupils, several hundreds are obliged annually to
be refused admittance, such is the anxiety of parents, both
Christian and Mussulman to avail themeelvee of the benefit
of an education and proression for their children. is not
this a most manifest illustration of the progress of toleration
in this country I—a healthy symptom and a happy augury
for the final amalgamation of these conflicting races ? The
system is to select five candidates yearly from each of the
tirenty-fi ve provinces. At the end of ten years, such as
issue clear and competent from the ordeal are to return to the
provinces that sent them up, and be distributed conveniently
through the different towns. They are to be exempted from
military service. Tie great number of candidates rejected,
by reason of the restricted limits of the college buildings,
has given rise to the establishment of an outside clan.
These are neither fed nor clothed at the expense of the
government, nor do they receive any appointment. They
are admitted simply gratuitously to the advantages of in-
struction. No doubt the efficiency of Galata Serai as a
medical school is at present greatly clogged by the necessity
of incorporating the lower school of preparatory elementary
instruction. But it will be released from this burthen by
the Normal School, with the organization of which the
Council of Public Instruction is at present occupied. A
large palace near Yenikeav, commenced by Mousse Saffeti '
Pacha, while Minister of Finance, but now suspended and
with windows boarded up, has been fixed upon for the
locale of the Normal School. One of the first uses which
has been drawn from the medical skill placed at the diepoeal
of the governmset, by the school of Galata Beret has been,
to introduce an important regulation into the army. The
conscripts, up to the present time, never underwent any sur-
gical examination, as to their fitness for service. The con-
sequence is the presence of a large number in the troops,
who arc not only perfectly incapacitated from bearing arms,
but in their weak and crippled state, are subjected to all the
exercises demanded from a man in perfect health—an
arrangement at once cruel, prodigal, and detrimental to the
service. But henceforward, surgeons are to be established
in all the provinces, by whom the conscripts will be examined
at the head towns of districts, previous to enrolment in tho
ranks.
An occurrence has just taken place., which exhibit?, in a
pleasing light, the better understanding that is growing be-
tween Turkey and Greece. In May last, I mentioned
that a Greek trading-vessel was carried by the rapid
current of the Bosphorus against a Turkish frigate.
The Turkish Admiral Ahmed Pacha exerted himself
with energy and success to release the Greek craft from her
critical position. The Greek captain publicly tendered his
thanks to the Pacha by a letter in the papers for the service
he had rendered. Later, the Greek government has very
gracefully and dexterously seized this occasion for presenting,
through M. Argyropylo, the Greek charg4-d'affaires at the
Porte, the cross and ribbon of the Order of the Saviour.
The Admiral deferred the proposal to the Sultan, who has,
with a praiseworthy liberality, recommended him to accept
the decoration.
The attempt upon the life of the Prince of Samoa has pro-
duced to great a sensation among the Greeks here that I
have thought proper to obtain some more detailed intelli-
gence concerning this affair than I sent you before. The
name of the assassin is Constantine Stammatiades, and his
family is one of the most distinguished of Samos. The
father of Constantine was beheaded at Constantinople
during the Greek Revolution. And there is no doubt but
that the infernal machine was designed to pay off what
its desperate contriver considered as a heavy debt
of vengeance: for, whether with any shadow of
justice or net, the family imputed the father's destruction
to Prince Vogorides, against whom they mined to cherish an
old feudal grudge. Notwithstanding this, Constantine was
not too proud to receive an office which the influence of
Vogorides procured for him at Samos in 1834, But his
republican intrigues and agitation milled him to be dis-
missed. Nevertheless, the promise of his youth, and his ta-
lents, procured his pardon andrestoration. He was dismissed
and reappointed as many as three times. In 1840, Constan-
tine Stammatiades took a leading part in a revolutionary
movement at Samos' which had for its object the indepen-
dence of Samos from the Porte, but which was strangled in
its birth, through the information given to the government
by a Santorinote priest. It was then that Moustafa Bey was
sent at the head of an expedition to re-establish order in the
island. Constantine was condemned to death, and his pro-
perty confiscated. But he succeeded in escaping to Smyrna,
and thence to Athens. There he became connected with one
of the oppositionpurnals, and indulged in violent articles
against the Turkish government and the Prince of Samos.
He was demanded by the Porte to be given rap as a con-
demned traitor ; but the Greek government sent him to
Paris to finish his studies as an advocate. It seems
that he must have constructed, or got constructed, his
infernal box in the French capital. He arrived here