The Express.
London, England, 1851-04-30 00:00:00

I over the world, and he believes, therefore, that
Downing-street is nothing else than the branch
establishment of St. Petersburg, and Lord Painters-
ton but the first clerk of the omnipotent Csar. You
do not imagine how anxiously the expectation is
raised about tho ultim ite decision of this cause;
everybody feels it that it is the decisive diplomatic
battle between England and ltussia, and if England
is out-genemlltsl again, as it has been for these last
twenty-five years, all the liberal speeches of Lord
Palmerston, which insure him the majority in
the House of Commons, arc in vain ; they cannot
maintain the English influence in the East, for
the Turks draw their conclusions from facts not

(ruin words.
In the meantime the tidings from Kutaja are of a
sinister kind; for tho last weeks the rumour is cur-
rent that frequent cases of poisoning have happened
at Smyrna, at Ismid, and there is no doubt
that in Kutaja four persons at least met an untimely
death by arsenic. In the last week of March a
grocer had invited the prior of the dervishes, a holy
man, celebrated throughout Asia Minor. They par-
took of some sweets for breakfast, and both died in
a few hours, under dreadful convulsions. Soliman
Effendi, the commander of the fortress, had the case
investigated, and it appeared that the sugar was
mixed with arsenic. A few days later two other
persons were poisoned by sugar. People became
alarmed: it was found that in other shops the coffee
was infected and Soliman was obliged, in order to
calm the general anxiety. to put under seal all the
groceries and pastry-shops; and even the salt is sold
only in one place. The excited people curse tho
Russians, for they feel instinctively that all the evils
of Turkey come from Russia.
Now the explanation of these poisonings is very
simple. Arsenic, sugar. pepper, sublimate, cuflio, aro
sold promiscuously in the Shops ; the grocer does not
clean the spoon with which he measures the arsenic,
and puts it immediately,perhaps,in thesugar; he does
not wipe the scales after he has weighed the poison,
and a mistake can also easily happen. But all this is
a very poor consolation for the detained Hungarian
refugees, who are now in continual fear of being
poisoded so much the more, as the Turkish authorities
themselves had warned them in Shumla as well as
in Kutaja against Austrian assassins. They all have
been of course long ago condemned to death by the
Austrian courts-martial, and the Austrian government
was never too particular as to the execution of a death-
warrant. Who can, therefore, assure the refugees,
that instead of the usual powder and lead or tho
halter, the Austrian government will not resort to
arsenic ? The result is the same, and the induce-
ment to do it is now stronger than ever, since tho
Sultan has declared that he is willing to set Kossuth
at liberty. And if an accident should happen at
Kutaja, would not the Turkish goveniment bo
accused of a want of watchfulness ? and would there
not be raised a general outcry against England, that
it has not supported the Sultan, when he declared
his intention to set Kossuth at liberty, but had not
the energy to do it without delay.

APRIL 15:

Austria has raised fresh difficulties about the
liberation of Kossuth and his companions in exile,
and insists upon their continued detention. Sir
Stratford Canning had had an important interview
with the Sultan. The Russians seek to prolong their
occupation of the Itanultian provinces indefinitely, by
raising claims with which the Porte is not in a stato
to comply.