The Express.
London, England, 1853-11-03 00:00:00

merchants of the first and second guild can enter
into foreign trade, and so heavy is the entry-aioney
that their numbers have not increased daring the
last fifteen years. The other taxes to which mer-
chants resident in towns are subjected are so heavy
that the untaxed traders at the fair of Nijnei
Novcgorod can afford to sell Sheffield cutlery more
cheap than the shopkeepers of St. Petersburg, after
carrying it over live or six hundred miles of a
roadies' country. Taganrog and Rostov, the principal
emporia of the trade of the Sea of Azoff, hare one
small river steamer between them, and one steamer
from the former port to the Crimea. At Taganrog
ships load from lighters twelve miles outside the bar
of the river; all of them must unload again into
lighters, and re-load to enable them to pass the
straits of Ycni
So much for the industrial civilisation of Russia.
They who imagine that its triumph over Turkey
would be a triumph for Christianity, may be better
enlightened by a little incident related by Mr. OLI-
PHANT. In the reign of the Empress CATHERINE,
thirty Germans (of both sexes) settled at Sarepta :

Thia little band belonged to the Moravian persuasion, and
was under the guidance of some worthy missionaries, whose
chid' object in choosing so remote a locality was the con-
version of the Calmucks. No sooner had some symptoms of
succes=, however, attended t►e efforts of these noble-minded
men, thin the Greek clergy interposed, and insisted that
the converts should be admitted into their church. Think
ing, perhaps, that a Csknack vies as enlightened en indivi-
dual while a Bhuddist as he would be after he joined the
Greek church, the Moravian missionaries did not persist
in thiir efforts at evange:isation. The government, as in
day biund, supported the priests in their opposition, and
may thus ho tong-atulated is having aided and abetted ■
Christian church in its successful attempts to deprive a
whole nation of the blessings of the Gospel.

lime and space fail us to point out the encourage-
ment of sexual relations analogous to those which
exist in lands of Negro Slavery, intended by the
nobles to increase the number of their serfs; and the
direct patronage given to drunkenness among the
peasantry by Government, to increase the revenue it
derives front the sale of spirituous liquors. It is this
unhappy, rude, and perverted people, that the Times
regrets it cannot let loose upon Turkey, in order to
e;rilise the Turks. The sole aim of the Russian
Government is to keep its subjects in that condition
which admits moat easily of their being made rude
military machines. The railways executed and the
railways projected have no object but the speedier
concentration and transport of military masses from
all parte of the empire to the European and Turkish
frontiers. The Russian Government exists but for
external aggression and conquest ; its waking
thoughts, 'its nightly dreams, are of that alone.
Destitute of resources within itself, it looks only to
foreign predatory wars for the means of supporting
its armies. It is an armed Propaganda of barbarism
incessantly seeking to penetrate into Europe.
The strength of Russia is, however, merely mate-
rial or animal. And even this, owing to the loose,
incompact character of the body corporate, is of a
kind that shows greater at a distance than near at
hand. Russia is careful to wrap its true lineaments
in obscurity; to swagger and threaten, and avoid
real tests of its strength. Its diplomacy is more
active than its arms. At present it is insidiously
labouring to sow disunion between the two great
Mahommedan powers—Turkey and Persia; and
there is no lack of charity in suspecting that the
sudden and unexplained recall of the Persian Am-
bassador from our own Court is quite as much attri-
butable to the underhand machinations of Russia, as
to any difficulties about Herat.