The Express.
London, England, 1853-02-03 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, THURSDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 3, 1853

Torches of any kind were difficult to be procured.
,1
'1 he oilmen, believing in improvement and progress,
had never speculated upon the possibility of snuffing
out the lights of London, nod regarding links, 1
as actually. of by-gone times, had few to sell.'
Thus the lieges were left in darknesa. The little "
light that was granted came chiefly from the situp
windows, by the reflection from which the heavy
wove of the fog might be seen surging like a
cloud-deluge. In the midst of these surges every-
thing else stood still. The fog overwhelmed all
things so completely that there was no safety, except
in nut moving. the estimable sisterhood of old
ladies, who are "honorary members" of the "Carlton,"
believed that the precursor of the deluge spoken of
by their priest and prophet Lord MAIDSTONE had i
really arrived, and they accordingly " rejoiced with
to It is certain the aspect of the fog
on Tuesday evening must have appeared pecu-
liarly soothing to a Carlton mind. It must
have preached the doctrine of the possibility of
stopping all sorts of progress very convincingly.
We have lately been told of the wonderful &dean-
' Ines which omnibuses have conferred on the inha-
bitants of the metropolis. The tog "put down" the
omnibuses. Not one entered the City aßer the
enemy showed itself. We have heard of the benefits
that gas has showered upon the public in lighting
up alt the dark corners that served for the perpetra-
tion and the concealment of vice. The fog was an
extinguisher upon the gas. London was practically
in Cimmerian darkness. A stalactite cavern in Der-
byshire, or • mine in Cornwall, before either is illu-
minated, is not worse off than was the great me-
tropolis of the world on the evening of Tuesday.
Looking upon it in a suggestive point of view, this
is a great fact for the Tories, and in precisely the
same point of view it is en unpleasant fact for us.
The analogy between things moral and material is
sometimes so striking as to make imaginative per-
sons believe that they stand almost in the relation of
cause and effect. That there is a moral or
political fog over the whole length and
breadth of the Continent is clear to the
eye of the least observant. Just as completely
as the fog—of which foreigners believe that Lon-
doners enjoy the monopoly—put out the moon and
stars and artificial lights of London on the evening
of Tuesday, has a dense atmosphere of despotism
shrouded the lights of liberty and intelligence in the
despotically ruled portions of Europe. "They
manage these things better abroad," has been lately
the exclamation of the few of the Tories who have
been taught to quote. The evident possibility of
putting out material lights at home, may perhaps
inspire them with hopes that they may be
able in the end to manage things in the
moral and political world just as well
here We so far coincide in the Tory reasoning as
to think that it is possible that people who shut
their eyes to material evils are just as likely to be
blind to moral and political evils. Why should
London in the nineteenth century be at the mercy of
a fog ? We have conquered wind and tide by steam.
We have annihilated space by the electric tele-
graph. We have not annihilated space, but we
have brought it under subjection by the railway.
We do battle with damp and miasma, by
draining and ventilation. We beat and conquer,
and tyrannize over nature in hundreds, in
thousands of ways by all kinds of inventions, and
yet we are brought to a stand-still in London by a
fog. In London only is it that the king of mist can-
not be combated. If any one on Tuesday even-
ing had wished to proceed from Euston-square to
Birmingham, he might have done it almost as safely
as on any other day in the year. Had he wished to
reach the City from the same place, it could only
have been done at imminent risk of life or limb. The
greater part of the omnibuses ceased to ply, and
cabs were led by link-boys, if the passengers
could succeed in obtaining their services. Yet all
the while, under the feet of every oze who lost him-
self in the fog on the evening in question, was flow-
ing a stream of gas that needed but to be evoked to
throw a light that no fog could overpower. London
is really like the plains consecrated to the Brewer-
shippers in Persia. You have but to pierce a few
feet below the surface, and the tube that is fixed in
the orifice brings you up an abundant supply of light.
Why not make this light tributary in the event
• of a great fog? Why not, in all the large public
thoroughfares, at least those streets where the public
vehizles run—have a row of extra largo burners laid
on, to be used only in the event of a dense fog? The
posts at the corner of the streets might be used for
this purpose, and each gas lamp might be provided
with one or two projecting tubes, capable of spouting
out a jet offlame such as lights the gas-pipe menders,
or like those which glorify many a butcher's shop.
It is not our business, however, to indicate a pre-
cise plan, that would be a question for parish autho-
rities and gas-light companies Our only intention
is to. point out the plain fact that when the metropolis
is visited by a dense fog, London is little better off
than it was a thousand years ago, and to suggest that
the remedy is easy.

accompanied by the Empress. Rumours are still rife
of a ministerial modification, which, it is thought,
hes town the salient of discussion at the Caswell. -
The Freese tads'', in a very spirited article;
written, as I have remain to believe, long agoEin the
expectation of an opportune inument.for publication,
records the utter failure of the system of regolatiog
! the public press which the government of. Dee. 2,
1&51, fondly hoped to carry out. Whoa Louis Na-
poleon suppressed the National, the Aveneenent, and
many other journals especially hostile to himself, and
when moreover he subjected the whole press to arbi-
trary and " harsh, biting laws' " he nevertheless felt
that the semblance of a free press was ne-
cessary in France. He shrank from push-
ing the assertion of his favourite principle
of authority to the extent of saying, " I will
allow nothing to be published that I do not approve
of." But he fancied that by means of constant
menaces of suppression by giving "warnings" to
journals that a second or third offence would entail
the destruction of their property, he might drill the
opposition press into an attitude of ostensible inde-
pendence and harmless hostility, which would impose
upon the public without occasioning serious incon-
venience to his government. The result of the ex-
periment is accurately described in the article in
question which, though signed by another name,
breathes the spirit of the courageous editor of the
Freese, Emile de Girardin.

French protestants are at this moment subjected to
a slstematic annoyance amounting to a petty perse-
cution. The dictatorial decree of March 23, 1842,
which made the permission of the prefect or mayor
necessary to legalise any religious meeting has been
the pretext for a course of conduct towards protes-
t ints wholly foreign to the fundamental spirit of
French law. In numerous recent instances meetings
of an unmixed religious character have been prohi-
bited, protestant clergymen have been tined, and
protestant schools have been shut up. Several
bishop!, encouraged by these pro.eedings of
the civil power have publicly manifested an
intolerance towards protestant, which has not been
openly professed since 1789. Complaints made to
the minister of public worship have hitherto remained
unredreased. It will be short-sighted policy of the
priestly party to carry this intolerance too far.
There are two millions of professing protestants in
France, many of them rich and powerful, and the
partisans of religious liberty ar.d equality among the
nominal Roman catholic. are without number.

The Mayor of Marseilles lately announced to the
municipality that the Emperor had condescended to
order plans to be submitted to him for an imperial
palace to be built at Marseilles. The Messages du
Midi, in making this announcement, takes occasion
to observe that Napoleon I. contemplated building
in all the great towns of France, such as
Weil:Se:az, Toulouse, Marseilles, and Lyons, and
passing. a pert of the year in each of them.
It is impossible to assign limits to the mag-
nificence of Napoleon 111., and noshing is
more likely than that he will attempt to,
realise the project imputed to Napoleon the
Great. It is thought likely that he will make
Versailles one of his residences during the ensuing
summer. No sovereign has lived there since Louis
XVI., on account of the expense, but that is not now
likely to be a difficulty.
The dismissal of M. Saida Garriga from the gover-
norship of Guyana is noticed as follows by the Patric.
It is curious to observe the way in which the semi-
official journals now speak of a functionary
whose every act, until his disgrace, they were
always forward to defend:
The government has rightly fudged that a work so con-
siderable as that of the evacuation of our hulks and the
establishment of a penitentiary in one of our distant colo-
nies requires a pet feet understanding between the mind that
conceives and the hand that executes. It could not tolerate
relaxations of discipline and those infractions of all admin-
istrative rules which infallibly lead to the depreciation of
all authority.
A Paris letter, in the Independence Belge, nave:
The following fact I have heard from a member of the
diplomatic corps, who had it from the highest authority.
The Emperor has determined to purchase from his privy
pane, the diamond necklace of 600,000 fr., which the
Empress refused to accept from the Municipal Council, in
order to have the sum voted for it applied to &imitable
works. The Emperor would not allow the Empress to be
deprived of this ornament, and was unwilling besides that
the money which the necklace would cost should be pre-
vented from flowing into the channels of trade.

There was another slight improvement on the
Bourse to-day in the prices of securities generally.
The Three per Cents closed at 79 francs 60 cents;
the Four-and-a-lhlf per Cents at 105 francs; and the
other Rentes a shade better than yesterday. Rail-
way shares were also firmer, those of the West espe-
cially; owing no doubt to the decree in the Monueur
this morning approving of the recent modifications
in the company. Exchange on London is down to
23.05 at sight.
The latest prices on the other Continental markets
were thus reported to-day :
MISTERDAII.—Four per Cents., 931; exchange on
Paris, 211}.
Baussns.—Five per Cents., 981; Four-and-a-
Half per Cents., 98; Bank of Belgium stock, 911 1.
BERLIN.—Fives, 1011; Three-and-a-Half, 94 ;
Bank Stock, 100.

MADRID.L-Threes, for account, 40; ; let class
(rend.) Debts, 10 ; second ditto, 5: ; Bank of BL Fer-
dind, par.
ValENNA.—Fiver, 941 ; New Loan (A), 94; ; ditto
(B), 1051; Bank Stock, 1,355; exchange on London,
14150.

SPAIN.

A Madrid letter of the 27th ult. states that the im-
perial marriage was the topic of discussion in all circles
of the capital. The blind hawkers, whose custom it
is to cry flying sheets containing the news upon oo-
caaions of public excitement, make the air resound
with—" El casandento del Emperador de los Fran-
capes con unit Espanola." The papers were caught
at with eagerness. It was said that Queen Isabella
intended to present the French Empress with an
Imperial crown, set in diamonds and precious stones.
The Duchess of Albs, on her side, was to send her
sister a team of eight splendid Andalusian horses.

inhtibitanh only :60 in number the resistance
wan unimportanf. Three thousand head of cattle'
enriched the Russians in this raid.
knorrospondent writes from Moscow:—
The celebrated " Uncle Tom," that remarkable negro who
has already encountered so many strange adventures, confi-
rm, his course through the world. In Russia he Is becoming
known through the medium of a very negligent transla-
tion of Mrs. Btowe's book, and enjoys grist reputation.
The polies do not interfere although the circulation of
the work repining as yet unauthorised. In Russia, you
are aware' enfranchisement is the order of the day, per-
haps this has somewhat to do with the non-interference
of the officials. As soon as the first copies of the work
arrived, there were so few of them that they made the
tour of the town, being let out to hire for two hours at
a time, and thus passing from one hand to another of
She useovite aristocracy. Trusty servants were sent
from house to house with them wrapped up in silk, or
batiste, with as much care as a new born infant, and
hidden in a little portfolio. To-nay thousands of " Uncle
Tom's" circulate in the capital, and I am informed that
a very distinguished man is at this moment engaged upon
a Russian translation.