The Express.
London, England, 1846-09-14 00:00:00

thus, in the name-of one of tlas sant pleas princes,
precipitate a marriage, whist may redound to a
personaFtriamph, but which Join in the royal family
of Spain the seeds of misery, disorder, and crime.
Ammo the many experiments which the humane
and good are making to increase the sum of individual
happiness, there is not one more interesting, or more
worthy of candid observation, than the attempt to
extend the field garden allotment system, which was
the object of the Dorsetsbire meeting reported in our
paper of Saturday.
Many of the best virtues can only develope them-
selves in the atmosphere of home. But how few of
our labourers can be mid to have homes ! The
squalid huts of the agricultural poor are scarcely
so well entitled to the name, as the wigwams of
savages and the abodes of those who dwell in
towns are mere barracks. Where all but the family
circle cannot be shut out, there is no home. The
feeling that it is entirely and exclusively their own;
that so long as they occupy it, all others but the
family circle are strangers, admitted as a matter of
favour, or invited because, and only so long as, their
company is agreeable ; is required to make a dwelling
a home. Space wherein to exert invention and labour
in storing up articles of convenience, is required to
make a horn. Where these two requisites exist, a
family can contribute to each other's happiness ; they
have something in common to which none but them-
selves can lay claim. They have a motive for acting
[in such a manner that the family union shall not be
broken
more independent up. They
eiyhaee" sources
of of
happiness within,
and
without. We do not wish to be understood as attri-
buting to " home " the power of producing ideal ex-
cellence in its inmates. We would only direct atten-
tion to its natural and necessary tendency to impress,
even upon the rude and illiterate, habits of self-
control and steadiness ; and to add to the amiability
of the naturally well-disposed and the well-trained.
Using the term in this sense, few of our labourers
either in town or country canbe said to pawn" homes."
They have places to shelter them from the worst in-
clemency of the weather ; places to sleep, perhaps to
eat in; but no homes. The most thriving labourer
of afford a spacious house. Two or throe, at the
four apartments, are the utmost he can look
for. Teo many have only one. There is small scope
for the surplus activity of the members of the family
within this limited room. Even in the rural districts,
it is now too rarely the case that a small patch of
ground out of doors affords them what they cannot
find within ; and in the crowded towns and villages,
economy of space crowds four, five, or six families
into one house, where not only domestic activity but
domestic seclusion is impossible. The country la-
bearer's hut, we repeat, is not so much of a home
[as the savage's wigwam; and the town labourer's
SP,' so much a home as the soldier's barrack.
To give the labourer fair play, you must give him
elbow-room ; you must unable families to live apart
from each other, and find occupation, at once agree-
able and profitable, for those hours which cannot or
need not be devoted to the service of employers,
within their little respective family dominion. This
is a doctrine we might have been slow to preach
before the reign of free-trade commenced. Something
else is required before they have it : the means of earn-
ing it. It would have been beginning at the wrong
end to have said, let the labourer have a dwelling
airy and apart,' so long as a suicidal law, by narrow-
ing artificially the field of profitable employment,
deprived him of the power of earning where-
withal to hire or purchase a home, and left him no
time to spend in it, even if he could acquire it. But,
now that liberated commerce is about to create a
demand for labour which will necessarily render it
remunerative, it is time to adopt measures for awaken-
ing, or re-awakening, in the breasts of English
labourers, the love of home and the ambition to pos-
ses one.
When penury and precarious employment have
reconciled men to the vrretchedno-homes in which our
labourers are but too glad to find a shelter, mere im-
provement of their circumstances will not of itself make
them desirous of better accommodation. Habit is a
terrible tyrant. There is a book which has been of great
use in Scotland, and which will serve to illustrate this
position even for the benefit of those born south of the
Tweed ; the Cottagers of Otenburnie. Every person who
has read that book will remember the strange co-exist-
ence of sluttishness and disregard of comfort with con-
siderable wealth, in the establishment of a small Scotch
farmer; and we may add, the demoralising influences
of this combination. The secret was, that the penurious
and filthy habits acquired during the period pictured
in Warerky--when, as Sir WALTER Scorr well
remarked, poverty seemed to be rendering naturally
strong intellects and genial dispositions stunted—sur-
vived the impulse given about the end of last century
to productive industry in Scotland. When the Scots
first began to earn money, they did not know how to
make themselves comfortable with it. So will it
prove with our labouring class, upon which an age
more remunerative to their unrivalled powers of
steady and intelligent toil is opening, unless some-
thing be done to give them a foretaste of domestic
comforts, and an appetite for them.
In the rural districts this may moat easily be done.
There, every yard of land is not so valuable as in
large towns. The separate cottage, and the bit of
garden ground, can be afforded to each family. Rural
labour is not like that of the factory, regular and un-
intermitting. There are many days and half-days in
the year, when the peasant's employer finds it difficult
to invent tasks for the peasant to perform. These he
might turn to good account in his own garden.
The rough work, the breaking in, having been per-
formed at extra times by his own sinewy arm, the
task of neatly finishing off, and keeping it tidy, is
quite within the compass of his wife and children.
To the former, it would supply an occupation com-
patible with keeping the house in order, and looking
[ after the younger children. To the children them-
[ selves, it would supply useful recreation in the hours
they were not at school. A man, his wife, and two
or three children, might make a quarter of an acre of
fair average ground grow vegetables sufficient for
their own consumption, and that of a few pigs, or
even a cow. This might be accomplished without
missing one day of the average working-days of the [
man throughout the year.
Fortunately we are not speaking of a mere con-
jectural matter. The experiment has been tried in
various parts of the country, and with uniform sue.
ems. It requires no great persuasion to induce the
Meurer to try it. If there be one taste
mere universally diffused than another, it is that
of cultivating plants, and of rearing tame animals.
Every boy would have his rabbit-hutch if he
could. The strange array of broken jugs and tea-
pots, and boxes with small quantities of earth in
them, in which the artisans of London and the great
manufacturing towns grow bits of flowers in our
smoky and dusty towns, show how ineradicable is
the desire to follow the occupation of our first ancestor.
These instincts may be made, and have been made,
to supply the family with food throughout the year ;
leaving the proceeds of the father's from-home labour,
for rent and clothing, and the savings bank.
There are some of us old enough to remember a
elan of labourers who have almost disappeared before
the rapid growth of our manufactures and the intro-
duction of the big-farm system. They were that
Glass which we wish to see reproduced, if possible,
by the means of field-garden allotments. A
kitchen garden or paddock was attached to their
dwelling. When their employer did not require
times, they could find employment within their
own premises. They were independent; for they
could be thrown out of employment for weeks, with-
out any fear of coming upon the parish. They could
always find employment for their children suited to
their strength, and thus implant habits of industry in
them by times. It was principally from among their

stance§
son W t

children. may be.
The benevolent among the clergy and the landlords,
such as Attended the Dorsetshire meeting, who are
either themselves making trial of tbe field garden
allotments, or instituting societies with a view to
their experiment on a larger scale and lime eva.,
tinuouslfr, may enable a few labourers in every soul
district to become what these old-world labours*
were; and this will rouse the emulation of the whole
class to become as favourably eircumetanced. Were
any sacrifice by any class required to attain this end,
wo should despair. We have no faith in artificial
institutions which demand permanent sacrifices. But
the conviction that labourers can afford to pay a fair
rental for oomfertable cottages with field gardens at-
tached, and that the occupants of such " homes" will
prove better workmen, induces us to believe that the
system only needs to be fairly introduced, in order to
become permanent.
Even though such a system were of necessity
to be always confined to agricultural labourers,
we should advocate the experiment. Next
best to improving the condition of a whole
class, is improving the condition of a large see-
, don of it. But we are far from deeming
it impossible to devise means by which ex-
clusive homes, with scope for internal activity, pro-
fitable and pleasurable, may also be conferred upon the
amaulhataziair Wawa% This is too wide a field to
as‘ar era at present ; but the following facts may be
.sated as justifying sanguine hopes in this respect.
Already many manufactories have been established
with emcees in isolated, and even secluded, districts,
at a distance from large towns. Railways are making
this of more frequent occurrence. In the course of
every year, there are seasons when the manufacturer
b wed to work short tine ; and he would resort
to this more frequently were he assured that his
labourers could profitably employ the time thus 11
thrown upon their hands. The men have the taste
common to all for horticultural pursuits, and their
health would be benefited by its occasional indulgence.
Children under a certain age are now excluded from
factories ; and when first admitted, they are worked
by relays. Light tasks for them might be found
in their father's field-garden ; and the cottage and
Held-garden (which around manufactories situated in
the country could be procured as easily as for rural
labourers) might occupy the time of the females.
These considerations stimulate the wish to see the
allotment system fairly tried ; seeing how wide and
how beneficial might be the noiseless social revolution
to which it would lead if enceendlil.

We have received the Paris papers of Friday and
Saturday.
The preparations for the marriage of the Infanta
Luisa Fernando with the Duke de Montpensier, eon-
thine in Paris with great activity. Xing Louis
Philippe, accompanied by the Duke do Montpensier
and M. Fontaine, the eminent architect, inspected, on
Thursday, the unfinished gallery connecting the
Tuileries and the Louvre, preparatory to some works
to be executed on the occasion of the marriage.
Grand fêtes are to take place at Fontainebleau to
honour the reception of the Duchesse de Montpensier.
It was reported that the royal bridegroom was
to leave Paris with his brother, the Duke de
Nemours, sooner than was previously arranged, in
order to arrive in Madrid on the 14th inst., for the
opening of the Cortes, but this is untrue.
The returns of municipal elections in France, re-
ceived by the Minister of the Interior, show the suc-
cess of the opposition candidates in a great number of
towns.
According to the advices received in Paris by the
Levant mail, Rear-Admiral Turpin commanding the
French squadron in the Levant, left Constantinople
for Smyrna, on the 24th of August. The Ottoman
fleet was in the Dardanelles on its way to the Archi-

kr.
PeCaptain Lejenne, of the bark Leonie, which left
Panama on the 12th April, and reached Havre on
Thursday, states that they met on the 7th of August,
in 28 north lat., and 33 west long., the American
transport the Lexington, going from New York to
California laden with troops.
Preparations were making at La Malmaison for
the reception of Queen Christina, who is expected to
accompany the future Duchess of Montpensier.
The celebrated Cabrera, who had obtained leave to
repair to Paris on private business, and several other
Carlist officers, had been ordered to quit that capital
and return to the respective residences assigned to
them.
It was stated that M. Bernier, an attach?' of the
foreign-office, who had arrived from Tangiers in the
Veloce, was charged with despatches relative to an
exchange of prisoners. Abd-el-Kader was said to
have demanded four influential families and eleven
selected persons from among the Arabs taken pri-
soners by the French.
By Royal ordonnance, dated eth inst., M. Donal
post-captain, has been appointed Governor of the
French establishments in Oceania, in the room of
Captain Bruat, promoted Rear-Admiral, and return-
ing home on his own application.
The Monileur of Saturday contains, amongst several
others of no interest to the English reader, a Royal
ordonnance for the establishment at Athens of a
French Normal School, under the direction of a pro-
fessor of the University or a member of the Institute,
for the improved study of the Greek language, history,
and antiquities.
Joseph Henri left La Rocquette on Friday for the
hulks of Toulon (instead of Rochefort, as has been
previously announced) with a chain of eight other
convicts. His appearance was quite changed from
that which he wore at his trial. He was silent and
looked dejected. A journal states that the day his
trial began, he sold his establishment to his son for
the sum of 20,000 francs, (8001.) to be paid to his
creditors in five yearly instalment&
The .Reforme states that, in consequence of the rise
in the price of flour in the Paris markets, several
bakers have had recourse to the markets of Rouen
and Havre, where the price per sack is several francs
less than at Paris.
The recent accounts of the harvest in France are
more satisfactory. A letter from Colmar (Upper
Rhine) of the Bth inst. states, that " the present situa-
tion by no means justifies the fears which appear to
have been formed, as to the harvest. The results are
not so good as might have been hoped, but
are yet superior to those of the past
year. The great drought has necessarily
affected the quantity, bat the quality is excellent
, The wheat has been inferior in some districts, and
average in others. It is believed to be quite adequate
to the wants of the departments. Early potatoes
partially failed, but the others give promise of a
good return, from the late rains. In a word, the
situation is better than last year."
A letter from La Vendee remarks, that " if the
yield of the wheat is inferior in quantity to the
average , the quality is good, and the gram weighs
from 43 to 80 kilogrammes the hectolitre. The
millet and rye are pretty fair, and the department
will have a supply greater than its demand.
The vine crop in Burgundy and the Bordeaux dis-
trict is very promising, particularly as regards quan-
, titv.
•A man, named Modem, a labourer, at Germigney
(Jura), has been convicted of having set fire to a con-
siderable quantity of faggots belonging to one of his
neighbours, against whom he had vindictive feelings,
and sentenced to aix years' confinement, and tole
exposed in public before undergoing his sentence.
An accident took place on Friday on the Orleans
and Tours Railway. On the departure of the eight
o'clock train from Orleans, at the point of junction of
the two railways, the train was thrown off the rail,
and two wagons, containing goods, were broken. No
person was hurt.
The house of O'Neill and Co., of Paris, whose stop-
page was announced, is, it appears, able to pay all its
creditors, remaining only indebted, in a large amount,

EXPRESS, MONDAY Evtp
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it a man is not, he has hope that himself or his pi