The Express.
London, England, 1847-05-01 00:00:00

otorm set borne oat by experience. la tenser periods of
„0., ri& secarsty had beim established by an Woe
dr Taps is motifs* difficulty. la fact it was as absurd in a
liks this to say that the imam of the bank should be
waxy
...awl ender arcurastanoss within a certain limit by
perlisment, as it would be to compel ships by act of
_Abse to eery the same quantity of canvas in all
7siaiss, (Cries of " Divide.")
The comenttee divided—For the vote 208
AstainM it
OA vote-40,0001. for fisheries,
Ir.ROEBUCK hoped it would not be taken to-night.
Is tow to &question from Mr. Hurl,
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER said, that at
elwe of Lae session, 50,0001. was voted in aid of fisheries :
that vote oue or two applications were made, and vii
„op an application for 10,0031., for the improvement
non,ce which would be granted ; and left an un-
--- balan of 40,,
tote was then agreed to, and the house resumed.
TM ether orders of the day being disposed of, the house
Agana at 2 o'clock.

Pe Oporto.

MAILS.

btu. mega, =tufting Owl be Narks, Boadana, sad
klis,a,ssa, rift be made up on the ~Ms aid Ist
Kis aortae! avulr fur 9ibrulrar,.llldln.likana, as lamb,
ceywo, ltong-kamsed Chi% els
up oa the morning of the Sad liwg.
The sea for igitialt North Va Mermodaderg Oa lid
hmil be made up oo tbe (=lda sal
W fur the Smile, Um Mho, Place, Manse Wee. Peniale.
kw ssia !Weirs, and Boma draw, will be soda op es the
y of the adt May.
Tube mails for Vigo, Oporto, Lisbon, Madeira, Nay. sad Goa.ur,
eil to node to on the morning of the 7th May.
The oreriuld &ex! rie Marmillee. to the Mediterrutteara,
roylon. Hong Kong, Ito., will be made up on the
*Mug of We 7th May.
The aad, for le
South Wales, Van Dieenim'a Land, sad New
iegead will be made up on the everting of the Slat May.

HIGH WATAA AT LONDO244I9.IDGE.
13,44.449;4, 33 nua. Tag S ; Aftrascen. 49 WA. Out f.
jaa.,,,,,mmim, 6 WA. past 2; Aftasses. 24 mu. peat 3,

LONDON, SATURDAY, MAY 1.

THE circumstance of the government of the poorest
sod most barbarous state in Europe coming to the aid,
richest successively, of the two states in it, with accom-
modations of two and three millions of ready money,
which are welcomed with the moat profound acknow-
ledgment, if not of gratitude, at least of self-congratu-
lation, is certainly very ludicrous and somewhat die-
raid, in despite of its being so " very satisfactory."
It is always the instinct of a despot to
bard. And the Emperor NICHOLAS, who has been
all the years of his reign meditating one military
eelaught or another, could not but have felt the
necessity of keeping in store a certain sum sufficient
for the exigencies of a sudden war. Even though his
Majesty borrowed money, and paid five and six per cent.
interest, he loved, as one of our magnates is reported
to do, a hoarded sum, for fear of accidents. The
increasing produce of the mines, which some value as
bights three millions sterling annually, facilitated this.
And sow that England has been paying in specie for
millions of quarters of Russian grain, the greater
part of which has found its way into the Russian
treasury, the ruler of St. Petersburg strikes at once a
good pecuniary bargain and a great political coup,
by accommodating the Banks of France and of
London, and by displaying to Europe the abundance
of his overflowing coffers.
An older and a prouder monarchy might have
disdained this dabbling in our western funds ;
it would have left such operations to Mr.
ROTHSCHILD, or to the court banker of the day.
A government's undertaking to perform by itself, and
openly, the great task of restoring the balance of ex-
change, is really taking, we were going to say, the
bread out of the mouths of the great capitalists (but
bread is not exactly the expression). It is for them
of bad omen and example, and only shows how ex-
tremes meet, sad how the autocrat of Russia, and the
great military, President of the United States, arrive
at the same idea of governments doing without the
professed dealers in money and exchange.
Of the distress, which has been relieved by this God-
send, the Chancellor of the Exchequer last night gave
no very satisfactory account. It was not the fault of
the Back, nor of the system, nor of the want of
accommodation, nor of the want of currency, but of
an idle panic. What is it, however, which gives
birth to the panic, but the system ? Every one knows
that oar great imports of corn are to be paid in specie.
This creates a much greater need of accommodation.
But all know, that, in proportion to the need will be
the harshness of the terms, and the rigidity of the
refusal. The example of the great chartered purse
influences the closing of the lesser ones. 'f he
Chancellor of the Exchequer says the Bank
has not applied the rule. But the existence of
the rule is enough to create the panic. The law
does the harm, even without its being executed. It
would be difficult to pronounce a keener satire upon
any measure.
The interventien of his Russian majesty has been
a godsend to the great Irish trunk railroad, as well
as to British speculations. The House of Commons
arms to think that if a potentate from the far side of
Europe could lend England four millions,England might
afford to lend to the beet, and already half completed,
Irish railroad, half a million. The idea of comparing
this safe investment for so very short a time, having
the good cantonal effect of keeping in employ a large
body of labourers who would otherwise come on the
relief fund, with Lord GEORGE BENTINCK'S gigantic
plan of binding the Treasury to the outlay of four
millions a year for four years, is an assertion of that
monstrous extravagance which some folks venture to
Indulge in, whenever Ireland is ooacerned.
Mr. HUME was amazed that the house should not
at once have adopted Mr. ROEBUCK'S proposal to
refuse the grant, without even hearing the minister.
But the fact is, that Mr. ROEBUCK'S speeches produce
the impression that he is influenced more by spite to
Ireland than tenderness for England or her money
market. Such motives are neither large nor credit-
able. The House of Commons is not in love with
Ireland; but spite towards it, if indulged as a private
feeling, is scouted as a political one. Parliament
cannot condescend to the motives of Conciliation-hall.

FEVER, though not produced by famine, is sure to
follow in its wake with rapid strides ; and of this fact
Ireland is, at the present moment, an unhappy instance.
The poverty and the squalor of Ireland have ever made
it the hotbed of fever. During periods of comparative
affluence and comfort this disease is constantly to be
found amongst the poorer classes of the Irish, by
whom it is fostered, and the seeds of its dreadful con-
tagion preserved through habits of indolence and
neglect. Frightful at all times, and liable to spread
from one person to another, from house to house, and
from city to city, it becomes a thousand-fold more
alarming when it attacks communities whose bodies
are wasted by famine, or through poverty or other
causes are pent up in the ill-vensilated and crowded
courts and alleys of large cities and towns.
Fever is not, however, the necessary concomitant
of famine, and it cannot be too well known, and too
energetically acted upon, that fever may be arrested
even where famine exists. On a knowledge of
this fact, and a resolute determination to act upon it,
depend the lives of the people of Ireland as much as
upon supplying them with food. Every means that
humanity can suggest, and skill devise, consistent
with the welfare of the sick, should be pursued, for
the purpose of keeping the diseased from the healthy.
We do not say that it is possible, under the present
circumetancee of the population of this country or
Ireland, to arrest this disease, or that it is desirable to
attempt it, but we believe that an immensity of
human life may be spared by proper precautions.
This, also, is a question in which the lives not only of
those who are ready to perish from famine are in-
volved, but of those who are anxious for their wel-
fare, of those who feel not the pressure of destitution
in the supply of their daily food. The fever that is
constantly lurking in the hovels and homes of the poor
sad destitute, may be suddenly developed by an at-
mospheric change or the pressure of want on some
portion of the community, and then its poisonous
virus becomes intensified, and it spreads from class to
clam till none are safe. Many noted instances of this
have occurred is Ireland ; men who could be ill
at such a crisis have been snatched away by
spaced
treacherous malady.
To suppose that a disease like typhus would be
confined to the country in which it rages, when that
country is in constant communication by means of its
ports with almost every part of the world, would be
absurd ; and it is not to be wondered at, that typhus
has shown itself on board some of the Irish provision
vessels in the Thames. We have, however, made
inquiries on this point, and find that at present there
has been no importation of the disease sufficient to
excite general alarm. There is sufficient to lead to

the adoption of preoautianary measures, which we
make no doubt will be speedily done.
But whilst there may be no occasion at present for
uneasiness with regard to imported contagion, it
ought not to be forgot that a fitting soil for the
increase of the disea a exists among ourselves.
Ireland is pouring her famishing population into
all our great towns by thousands. Liverpool, with
an increase of her already destitute and degraded
population of one hundred thousand in six months,
has already got fever raging in her disgraceful courts
and alleys; and some of her public officers have fallen
victims to the performance of their duties. In Lon-
don the disease has also showed signs of increase, and
amongst the same class as at Liverpool—the poor and
destitute Irish. It behoves us, then, to be up and
doing, in order to mitigate, if we cannot prevent, the
approaching catastrophe. We should be glad, on
such an *cession, to see the machinery of Lord Mon-
VETIeS Sanitary Bill in full operation, and have the
greatest confidence that by it the lives of thousands
and tens of thousands of our fellow-crea-
tures might be saved. But to those who
have opposed this bill we would first ask, what are
you going to do, seeing you have thus taken the
blood of your countrymen on your own heads ? Will
the corporation of the City of London eleanse the
abominations of Field-lane, Saffron-hill, and Cow-
cross ? Will they take care that the dens which sur-
round Smithfield, and which are redolent of its filth
and contamination, are properly visited and cleansed ?
Will they see that these dens are not over-crowded,
and that their inhabitants are supplied not only with
water to cleanse themselves and their wretched
dwelling-rooms, but that every means are employed
for carrying away the filthy fluid into the common
sewer? If they do not do this, and much more, and
fever should spread in consequence, we do not see
how they could plead innocence if charged with the
blood of their fellow-men. We speak especially of the
City of London, because its corporation boasts to be
the most efficient sanitary board in existence • Lot we
would say the same to every vestry that has in its
ignorance and uncharitableness attempted to defeat
the success of Lord MORPETEeB measure. There is
an overwhelming amount of evidence to prove that in
every town in the kingdom there exist abundant
sources of fever, all of which are removable. This
fever destroys annually fifty thousand of our popula-
tion, and now, when we are threatened with a more '
alarming visitation of it—now, when the measures
are ready for the extermination of its causes—we are
to be told that it must not, it cannot be done, because
local authorities do not approve. We trust that the
public generally will take up this subject, and that
they will not allow a handful of men in office to reject
for them the means, not only of saving the lives of
their fellow-creatures and their own lives, but the in-
calculable
suffering that inevitably attends the sad
progress of disease and death.

The reaction which has followed the railway mania
of the last two years has produced serious embarrass-
ment in France. As we have more than once said
would soon come to pass, several of the companies
now propose to throw up their contracts, unless the
state will relieve them from the oppressive conditions
to which they have so imprudently bound themselves.
The most prominent of these cases ars those of the
great trunk lines connecting Paris with Marseilles.
This enterprise is distributed among three companies,
the Paris and Lyons, the Lyons and Avignon, and
the Avignon and Marseilles. The last alone has
completed, or nearly so, its line, complying with all
the conditions of its bargain. The first has made
some trifling progress in its works, but the Lyons and
Avignon company have not ventured on any expendi-
ture. The Paris and Lyons company complain that
when they undertook the work, the government
estimates supplied to them were ender 200 millions
of francs; whereas it now appears that the actual cost
of the line will be 300 millions. The government, on
the ether hand, replies that it was open to the com-
pany to form their own estimate, and that, in fact,
the government estimate did not enter into
the contract as a substantive condition. The truth
is, however, that the company now knows, that with
the lease which has been granted of forty-one years,
the enterprise, if carried on at all, must be attended
with a heavy loss ; rather than incur which, they are
determined to forfeit, as they must do by the condi-
tion of their contract, thirty millions of francs already
disbursed in the state deposits and the works exe-
cuted. In enforcing this condition, the legislature
meanwhile will not be exempt from disadvantages.
' In the first place, the company need not incur the
forfeit for three years to come, and another yenr
would be consumed in the legal formalities of its en-
forcement: thus it is in the power of the company
to suspend for four years the construction of one
of the most important lines of railway in France, un-
less the government comes to its relief. There are
two forms by which this relief may be supplied ;
first, by theloanof capital at low interest; and second,
by an extension of the lease. When, however, it is
considered that the state itself is now seeking capital
on treasury bands at five per cent., the first mode of
relief is clearly out of the question. Unless, therefore
an extension (and a considerable one, too) of the lease
be granted, there is no alternative but to submit to
the suspension of this chief line until the year 1831.
Such is, in fact, the conclusion at which the Journal
des De; bals arrives, in its leading article on Thursday,
and as it may be assumed to speak the sentiments of
the government, it is very probable that some com-
promise of this kind may be made with the Lyons
Company, and proposed for the sanction of the Cham-
ber before the close of the present session.
A petition from the most eminent commercial
houses in Havre has been presented to the chamber in
favour of the continuance of the free importation of
provisions of every kind until July, 1848.
The new line of steam-ships between Havre and
New York is announced to make the first voyage
before the end of the present month. They will sail
twice a month.

E Union Monarch aqua states that after the speech of
M. Lherbette on the secret service money, M. Larave-
Laplagne, the minister of finances, tendered his re-
signation. Although this event has long been con-
sidered as probable, and would be by no means
unacceptable to some of his colleagues, we have not
heard any confirmation of the report.

The Madrid mails of the 24th nit. have been
received. The King accompanied the Queen to the
church of Atocha on that day. It was expected that
the budget would bo immediately presented to the
chamber.

MILAN, APRIL 24.
The vacant archiepiscopal mitre, with contingent
or rather concomitant red hat, has been placed on the
brow, not of a German as of late, but of Count Ro-
milli, a Bergamasque, who has been just translated
to Milan from the suffragan see of Cremona, hence-
forth to play first-fiddle in the church affairs of Lom-
bardy. The Milanese are in high glee at this forced
concession of Kolowrath, and in every shop window
exhibit a print of the new primate ; a faint remi-
niscence is their joy of the days when the civic go-
vernor Ambrose, was, by sudden acclamation of the
people, made bishop ; and from being a mere layman,
and it is supposed only a " catechumen," in three days
baptised and prieated and all. The new prelate
had only ruled Cremona one vear, but had shown
unexampled zeal for the social and moral bettering
of the inhabitants : proved efficiency has been his
sole recommendation. He was neither tutor of some
booby lord, nor editor of a crabbed Greek play, nor
calculating pamphleteer, nor sycophant "master" of
a college. fo the poor of Christ (the original
grantees) he banded over, on principle, far more than
two-thirds of his church revenues. Such a man
ought to succeed to the great Frederick, and the still
greater Charles, Borromeo.
The prospects of agriculture in Italy must be a
topic or interest to your readers; and as I have just
traversed the whole of the central and upper districts
of the peninsula I can affirm that for the last 20
years never was the aspect of the country, or the
operations of the farmer, in a state so promising.
There can be no doubt of an immense surplus of
grain for export next autumn, nearly double the usual
breadth of land being laid down with that view, con-
sequent on the removal of your corn laws, of which
the presence here of Cobden had been an active me-
mento. The rice fields about Milan and Mantua are
in high order: the numerous floodings of the various
streams throughout the winter have had in Tuscany
and the Romagna rather a favourable and fertilising
effect : and the second or after-crop of Indian corn is
sure to be provided for in due time (after the present
harvest) to an immense extent. The weather, which
had been bright and bracing, is now genial and warm,
—indeed, in the plains inconveniently hot for the

period of the year, and jut each as Taro described it
in his time--

Cuss al ea la plants, e tam V tots
Ms Woe oplegs a tesipmita a ramrko,
Pisa At merlin valor; siaan. !Vote
Tea iljle tr.4pik r Ucommeieriar tt .Kaggio.
(Gerustlemme, NXI.)
The duchies of Parma and Piacenza, of which I re-
ported unfavourably last year, are still an eye-sore to
the well-wisher of Italy. Incredible apathy and in-
difference seem to have descended front the ruling
power down to the lowest gradations of the social
system. The leaden dulness of despair is discernible
In every face; and cretinism—not metaphorical, but
literal and physical—is prevalent to a singular extent,
showing the goitre not to be a mere mountain
malady, but the natural growth of a sluggish circu-
lation and a stagnant existence. The sooner Bona-
parte's widow gives place to the young Duke of
Lucca (to whom this Castle Rackrcnt property re-
verts by the treaty of Vienna) the better tor humanity
in this dreary land. She wants him to purchase her
out, but he has not the cash. Is there no good Sa-
maritan, or even Israelite, in London with a spare
million ducats?

The mere material interests of the population in
Austrian Lombardy are looked after carefully, and, if
men were mere animals, no government more laudably
active in providing for the lower instincts and com-
forts of the people ; but thought is severely proscribed,
and the exercise of the mental faculties strictly inter-
dicted ; not a single " reading-room " is to be found
in all Milan, and the splendid libra'y of the Brera
has but a very scant attendance of book students ; but
woe to the possessor of a copy of any Roman news-
paper ! If the plague or cholera were in the Pope's
capital, there could not be such alarm or precaution
against what emanates now from Rome.

FRANCE.—PARIS, APRIL 29.—FnEscn CHAU-
assts.--In the Chamber of Deputies the discussion was
opened on the grants for the extraordinary and supplementary
credits for the budgets of 1848 and 1847. In the bureaux of
the Chamber the project of law on primary instruction
came under discussion. This cine,tion was brought forward
in the Chetah.? lest neraien. The commission appointed to
examine it drew up a report, which did not come under dis-
ensaion. It demanded a credit of nearly two millions of
francs, for increasing the salaries cf the teachers. At present
there are in France about 33,000 teachers in the Oeoles yri-
moires, the average rate of their salary being 575 francs.
23,000 of these teachers have a salary under 600 fr. Of these,
again, 18,155 do not receive 500 fr. ; 11,15.5 only 400 f. ; and
3,654 only 3001 r. ' • the latter being less than the pay
of a daily workman. The object of the present bill,
I after regulating the conditions of salary of the
teachers, is to fix a minimum salary for each clam The pro-
ject divides the teachers into three classes. The Ist comprises
959 schools, and thostato is to fix the salary of those teachers
at 1,200 f. per annum. The 2nd comprises 4,629 schools,
I with a salary of 9001. The 3rd consists of '27,058 schools,
with a minimum salary of 600 f. The total credit demanded
from the state being 4,421,367 francs. The project proposes
that the vote on this grant be adjourned until the state of
the finances be more prosperous. This bill was opposed in
the bureaux, both in the financial point of view, and on the
I question of form. Dilferent member', particularly 81.
demanded that the 4,424,367 f. should be voted,
without delay, during the present session.
MR. O'CONNELL.—A letter from Valence, dated'
April 24, in the Gazette de Lyon‘, says "Mr. O'Connell
arrived here yesterday at four in the afternoon, greatly
fatigued from the heat of the cabin of the steamboat, the
weather not having been fine enough to allow him to remain
oa deck. A number of ecclesiastics and other personages '
waited upon him at his hotel, but he was obliged to decline
receiving them.
DEATH OF A SON OP MEHEMET ALL—Prince
Hussein-bey, one of the young sons of Mehemet Ali, died
ion Wednesday evening, n Paris, of the typhus fever. He
was following a course of studies at the Institut Egyptien in
Paris.
STREET LAW.—Owing to the crowded state of the
thoroughfares in Paris, an ord mnauce of the prefect of
police calls upon pedestrians to keep always to the right
hand on the footpath, as is customary in London.
HANOVER.—The General Diet was prorogued by
royal edict on the list inst. The same Oarefre in which this
notification appears contains the King's ant.wer to the request
of the Estates. that he would allow the debates to he pub-
lished. The reply concludes with this emphatic declaration
"After mature scrutiny and conscientious d,hberation
on our duties, we have irrevocably decided Ntvga to
allow the meetings of oar loyal Estates to be open
to the public." The reason assigned for this
determination is, that publicity can only be useful " in so-
called constitutional states" (in sogenonnten conltitsdion-
ellen ataaten) ; and would be positively prejudicial in his
kingdom, where the deputies " are not allowed to receive
instructions from their constituents, and are not responsible
to them." l'ublicity, be adds, would inevitably " shatter
and destroy the constitutional relations existing between our
government and the Estates." This reply has at least the
merit of frankness and a kind of candour.
. . . .

RUSSIA . —Letters in the Frankfort Pest dint
Zeitung, under date April 21, say, that the Emperor of
Russia has adjourned his visit to Warsaw. The liver com-
plaint from which he is suffering is of so serious a nature that
his physicians have advised him not to quit St. Petersburg
before the middle of the summer. It is probable that he
will then proceed to Kissiogen, and sftermsrds to Stuttgard.
At all events the emperor does not intend visiting Paris.
ST. MICHAEL'S, APRIL 27.—This island hes
been in revolt some time. Independent of the garrison,
800 caqadores of the line, there are 1,700 and odd
armed volunteers. The governing junta are displaying
great energy and activity; they have recently remitted to
the Oporto junta 15 contos of mil, island currency—about
2,7001.—a large sum for so small a place. They are seeking
for vessel, to embark a considerable portion of their force
for Portugal; and as the islanders are a fine, hardy, sad
athletic race of men, this addition to the popular cause in
Portugal would be a valuable auxiliary, apart from a grave
moral effect. The crops have failed here, and exportation
of grain is prohibited.