The Express.
London, England, 1847-09-11 00:00:00

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LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPT. 11.
IT has for some time past been matter of general
notoriety, that, with a view to the introduction of a
bill for establishing an efficieat sanitary police in the
metropolis, government had resolved to issue a special
commission of inquiry. The instruments of government
in the newspaper press were permitted to announce
the names of the gentlemen composing it yesterday.
We are happy to be able to say that, on the whole,
the composition of the commission is such as to entitle
it to general confidence.
Mr. CHADWICK and Dr. SOUTHWOOD SMITH are
entitled to be considered the first efficient agitators and
organisers of the sanitary movement. The latter gentle-
' man brings to his task immense stores of professional
knowledge—the former rare powers of arrangement
and eteelenatioa. In Professor Ctwas, Dr. SOUTH-
WOOD Burrs finds a coadjutor, every way his
equal, richly furnished with the same prelimi-
nary scientific knowledge, and experienced in
conducting investigations in this particular field.
Lord ROBERT GROSVENOR'S friends maintain that
his habits and tarn of mind will render
him a not inefficient second of Mr. CHADWICK.
We incline, however, to regard his lordship
rather in the light of the representative of the
dubious proprietary metropolitan interests outside
of the City wall ' • just as Mr. RICHARD
LAMBERT JONES is the representative of established
institutions within it. There is no reason to complain
of the addition of Lord ROBERT and Mr. JONES; in
commission of inquiry merely, three reformers to two
conservatives is a fair allowance. Mr. JONES Will of

course be crammed by his City friends with every
possible objection that can be offered to any reform
that threatens to interfere with their power, and he
will urge these objections with ability. One good
result will come of this—that the exact form and
pressure of the prejudices to be overcome or avoided
will be made more apparent to the earnest reformers
on the commission. They will be enabled to adapt
more completely their theoretical views to realities—
to provide for making the most of questionable instru-
ments when no choice is left them. When it comes to
a vote the three reformers will surely be able to keep
their ground even should Lord ROBERT be found
always in accord with Mr. loxes ; but it is most
probable that his lordship, in the true spirit of aristo-
cratic liberalism, will be found inclining now to the
one side and now to the other. In a commission of
inquiry:such a balance of parties, as we have indicated,
helps to elicit truth, though in a commission of
administration it would only serve to obstruct and
embarrass action. Oar hopes of a profitable result
of the labours of this commission rest mainly
on the enthusiasm, talents, and experience of Pro-
fessor OWEN, Dr. SMITH, and Mr. Casbwicit. We
also anticipate good uses from the " devil's advo-
cate " cleverness of Mr. Jom ES. But above all, we have
faith in Mr. CHADWICK'S protracted exposure to the
abuse of anti-poor-law agitators. He mast by this time
be callous to vituperation as the hide of a rhinoceros,
and will have good cause ere all is done to be thankful
that he can shelter himself beneath such a covering
from the buckets of vestry eloquence that will be
emptied upon the commission.
The inquiries into which the commission will have
to enter are so multifarious and extensive that they
' will have enough to do to be reedy with a report or
the outline of a bill before the meeting of parliament.
They have to investigate all the seers commis-
dein, all the water supplies, all the s'ing bonl7lll,
all the separate trusts for lighting and cleansing
of the metropolis. In addition to this they will
have to extend their researches to the in-
finitely various relations in which these trusts,
boards, companies, and communions stand to the rul-
ing authorities of parishes, wards, liberties, counties,
hundreds, and manors. During the last twenty years
an immense store of information on all these matters
has been accumulated and published, but it is chaotic
in the extreme. The cleansing of the Augean stables
was a joke to the task of cleansing dirty London. We
wish our five-headed Hercules, the commission,
, well through his labours.
In appointing this commission, ministers have
given a pledge that they are in earnest in the cease
of metropolitan sanitary reform. On the first of
this month we called upon government to
prepare • comprehensive and efficient measure
of sanitary reform for London, and upon the inhabit-
ants of the metropolis to support it. We argued that,
without such a combined movement, there was no
hope of anything to the purpose being effected. Go-
vernment is doing its part ; it is for the Londoners
to do theirs. An intelligent conviction of the im-
portance and necessity of sanitary reform has been
spreading for years. The public interest in the quai-
-1 trop has been and is everywhere rising. The sani-
tary reformers far outnumber and farexceed in know-
ledge and influence its interested or ignorant oppo-
nents. Bat the latter are organised bodies which
can easily combine ; the former are individuals
for the most part unacquainted with each
other, without any rallying point. Government
if it produce a really comprehensive and efficient
measure, has a right to expect that those who approve
of its object will make some efforts to promote it.
Prom Hammeramith-bridge to the month of the Lea,
and from Brixton-hill to Hampstead, the inhabitants
of the metropolis must be preparing to bring com-
bined support to a comprehensive scheme of sanitary
police embracing the whole included dirtrict. We
are not speaking of public associations with commit-
tees, and imecretarisk end minors. Of these there will
be enough ; the mit @vials exist in plenty, and they
are run up at a moment's warming. We do not
deny that tiny have their asst' and would
be far from • g the; but there is
a large and very estimahle
rti and important
on of the emmaanity, who are, as a matter po
of taste, rather shy at sae • It is
to this class in parbealar that we aiirsm ourselves,
for in it we bullsw the meet simwee end intelligent
friends of an alleiset 1111111111atamlftry reform will
be found. We wield remind Ursa of a
_passage in
the early life of Ihnualmt Fassain.ni. We allude
to the club of twelve which he instituted at Phila-
delphia. It was never allowed to wooed that num-
ber, but each of its mapabers was essuaraged to form
a club of twelve imile MOM visishr• his s
members of See* Who tbeirwalabere wens
up, again hems( Misr elate d twelve. 'When
any, useful instil/Aka soy teem in the sity
institutions, mainmi to a member air • any of these
clubs, be rejigged It he By aeons
of the mein imam to *kw slabs, It was
discussed by all at two hl relmtisw, sod lie result
of the deliberatiems of wits turtenudiabd it the
others. In a wooderhdly sheet this the *AM aphrion
of Philadelphia was thus assartslard or propane for
est reform eta by the taming it and the
•wing the pit by
set miter
°labs
iisaßy way ba WOO' - -
Maw witeshrlake
the azeggeradons
tbiatialves twig
of their passed
sanitary rev
tying thmishse
selvee fres Asir
duse* pleamnia,
as abase whist the •
pollee bileworth7
whether they insist

free-tradeis
catossioss (they

-

maturing the plait by repeated" discusZoi:s.Titight
not similar clubs for dieensan,g sanitary reform in agigt
friendly way be instituted throughout the metrope ie P
Men who shrink from publicity., and have a distaste foe
the exaggerations of agitating
porrearalrir
themselves usei4d in this way in c . 0
of their personal friends; and the ."7"-. ;le
sanitary reformers would thou be . "•• ‘`
.....-
tying themselves to any leader, or Wi .' 44... . - X
1
selves from their industrial • . ~,, 1:: '. .r.
domestic pleasures, to be ready to :41 ba '.,1 ..),.."
en mane when the authors of a -s. "... 4:
et •
police bill worthy. of their ... Itr-.., ..
whether they insist upon its being • : ,
Ws have never prediessed souk . . .b.. - _
menial treaties; and nkewid, ' ..-irs• --1.- r- r -le.
regret the cessation of a contract ~7,4,.,..
Prussia has renounced in the . ~ 1....,, = ..,
The terms of the treaty in queeti . '
.. _ rrir" to
but such as free-traders could a. '. LiZrr.„, --"`
conowsions (as they have been . •"" '"7"- T.:*
P4,..t)) ' 41;...2 . .
A u1_....-. •
T. - • 0
. t.)

the continuation of restrictions imposed in the spirit 1
of our navigation laws, after repeated breaches in
these laws had shown that parliament was not afraid
to acknowledge that once famed bulwark of our naval
supremacy untenable. The treaty gave power to
German vessels to trade with us from certain ports.
By this stipulation other ports were excluded from
the permission. The restriction was one-sided, for no
restricted stipulation was inserted or presumed on
the side of the parties contracting with us. Our ves-
eels might load for Baltic ports, under that treaty,
from any part of the world, and with the produce of
any country. To restrict the Prussian flag to German
and Dutch porta, for the import trade to this country,
would some years back have appeared a meritorious
exertion of our influence. The British pediment is,
we trust, about to declare that it looks upon all re-
strictions of the kind as militating against the pros-
perity of the country.
Early in the course of the inquiry respecting the
operation of the navigation laws the Daily News
pointed out the absurdity of supposing that foreign
countries were prevented by these laws from increas-
ing the number of their vessels. From the port lists
of continental harbours it was then shown that one-
third of the commercial navy of the continent was
continually going about empty. As a necessary
consequence, there mast have been one-third more
ships afloat than, under ordinary circumstances,
would be requisite to carry on the trade of Europe.
No other conclusion can be drawn from the fact that
about one-third of all the vessels belonging to the
continent which visit the ports of the Baltac,the Ger-
man Ocean, and the Mediterranean, leave the ports
at which they have unloaded in ballast. We regret
to be obliged to acknowledge the well founded com-
plaints that foreign countries have recently raised
against us, as pretended advocates of free commercial
intercourse. Ihe protected list of goods in our tariff
is still a long one. Silk wares, copper, and other
articles, pay higher duties in England than those
levied in the Zollverein states. Arms of all kinds are
altogether prohibited. The arbitrary decrees and in-
terpretations of the Board of Customs have thrown
an uncertainty over whole branches of trade that is
highly disadvantageous to the commission business of
our merchants. The operation of an act of parliament
can be delayed, and even counteracted, under pre-
tence of doubt, by, a resolution of this board.
Now free trade is either a benefit or it is not. It
has indeed often been advocated on grounds that have
not borne examination,' but it by no means follows
that it cannot be defended on grounds that defy dis-
rite. Since the principle has been recognised by the
parliament of these realms as the foundation of our
commercial policy, there is something doubly invi-
dious in enforcing any restriction against a neighbour-
ing country, and especially against one which is so
largely a consumer of our manufactures as the Zell-
,
verem. We have reason to complain of the tariff of
duties levied by that league, but their navigation laws
have hitherto given no ground for complaint. The
simplest mode of renewing the treaty about to expire
with the states of the Zollverein would be to adopt
the basis of unrestricted access which they grant to
heir ports as the rule for the admission of all German
-ve noels to our harbours. On such terms Prussia nei-
the r will nor can refuse to meet us. It is not easy to
why we should presume to dictate any other terms
ta Pi 11.511111.
f3ui 'h a recognition of the right to claim parity of
tnedin, privileges would come with a good grace from
nt as the merchants of Hamburg have published a
snifter', survey of the trading relations of Germany,
and pro, 11 that the foreign trade which exists has
been pre, ?reed and organised by the Hansa towns—
that is to my, by the portion of Germany which has
never men
-ed from the principle of free and unre-
stricted intei course. On this showing, which is but
a counterpart to our own recent le illation, any de-
viation from t he strictest reciprocity is an absurd con-
tradiction on our part, which involves an insult
towards the country to which we recommend
restrictions the .t we have declared to be in-
jurious to our elves. As matters will stand on
the expiration of the treaty, the Prussians re-
quire to change nothing in their existing code,
according to which mir vessels are admitted into the
Baltic ports whences ewer they come. We should be
truly glad to see an or der in council relieve our Ger-
man customers from the temptation to impose restric-
tions on trade, purely because we have chosen to
enact such, and to enferoe them on our unresisting
neighbours. The approaching conference of the
Zollverein states will give us frequent opportunities
of recurring to the nature of our relations with those
states. We shall avail ourselves of these opportu-
nities, less in the expectation of swaying the decision
of the congress respecting the abandoned treaty, than
to proclaim our undiminished confidence in the advan-
tages which free commercial intercourse promise to
confer. We shall thus best record our protest against
the insidious deductions drawn by protectionists of
this or of other countries, from data furnished by a
year of famine ; forgetful that if trade had been un-
shackled many years since, the famine of 1817 would
not have been felt on our shores. That famine may
not again be deplored by oar manufacturers, let ua
hasten to enlist as many traders as we can in the ne-
cessarily increased intercourse which ,importations of
grain cannot fail to produce. It has been said that every
pound sterling sent out of the country in payment for
grain lays a stone on the wall of a foreign factory.
We cannot descend to such a narrow-minded 1
covetousness. Far more cheering is the reflection
that every shilling taken by fair trade from the price
of a quarter of wheat gladdens the hearts of millions
in our factories at home, without the slightest dimi-
nution of the incomes of landlords, whom as con-
sumers it would be bad policy to impoverish.

lately been brought on the stage iu an imposing
manner is, in fact, a mere imposition ; that there rs new
ao longer any scope for such a plan to be carried out
by state authority— the main outlines of the system
being already fixed beyond recall : and that, were
there still time for tracing it now, the state, as has
been amply proved by past experiments and recent
instances, has neither the will, nor would be entrusted
by parliament with the power, to undertake it.
In such circumstances, two conclusions might be
drawn ri priori respecting any new plan of an exten-
sive interference on the part of the state, viz., that
it could only have a restrictive effect; and that its
restrictions, if severe or considerable, could not fail
to be regarded as oppressive.
The bill proposed by Mr. Sraerr, at all events
was mainly of a negative, and minatory, if not penal,
character. It proposed nothing whatever towards
the accomplishment of a " national system," in any
sense in which such a system could be nationally or
rationally desirable. Its whole efficiency would have
expended itself, firstly, in rendering the prosecution of
new railways more difficult, tedious, and expensive,
without ensuring, in return for those obstacles, any
tangible advantage, either to the promoters or to the
country, unless indeed the mere obstruction of future
progress in this way should be allowed to
count as any advantage to the one or the
other. It would, secondly, have made the
working of the railways already established a
task less profitable and more harrowing than
it has hitherto been—without at the same time giving
an efficient substitute for the management they now
have, or relieving it from the responsibility which,
under a vexatious system of official control, it would
be both painful to endure and unreasonable to exact.
Nor was this to be effected by any fixed code of regu-
lations ; the service to be done and the rules to be ob.
served were left open to arbitrary discretion ; indefi-
nite powers were to be exercised by the supreme
board on the reports of a host of subordinate offioma
who were to be quartered upon the companies and
paid out of their funds. Besides introducing this new
principle, of which it is hard to say whether the
inefficacy for good, or the efficiency for evil, the
cost or the annoyance to the suffering party would
have been the greater; it further claimed powers to
revise and reduce charges to any point below the
low scale already fixed by the legislature,—powers
which were justly apprehended as striking at the
root of those mercantile objects to which the nation
is indebted for its railways, and which, as secured by
previous compacts—to say nothing of their benefit to
the nation—it would be a mere injustice to frustrate.
Such was, generally, the tendency of the measure
brought forward by Mr. Sreurr, and opposed by the
railway interest last session. The remonstrant.'
objections, especially to the clauses regarding the
control of extant lines, were somewhat to the follow-
ing effect, and we cannot see in what respect
they deserve the odious character ascribed to
them. " What you propose," they said, to Mr.
Srrterr, " is to take from us everything you eau,
while you give us no compensation for what we shall
loge. We are to be treated as if we had abused the
trust confided to us, or deprived the state of its pro-
perty, instead of having done good service to the
country by voluntary exertions. The enterprises we
have undertaken and managed to the great profit of
the whole kingdom, you will neither take off our
hands, nor leave us adequate power to govern, nor
allow us even the hope of securely reaping the profits
of. This we have not deserved: we have neither so
robbed the state as to entitle it to rob us by way of
reprisal, nor have we shown ourselves so inca-
pable of properly conducting the system we
have founded as to justify you in letting loose
upon us a swarm of official inspectors, informers,
and inquisitors, who neither know its duties,
nor are responsible for ignorance of them,—but
whom we are asked, not only to pay, but also to re-
spect, under penalties for every act of inattention or
disobedience. While the express clauses of the bill
already hang over our heads, at every step we
are required to take, a multitude of fines, from which
it will be next to impossible to escape, there will be
new troubles, from the indefinite nature of the control
which it is a main object of the bill to establish. This
arbitrary character of the measure, indeed, is to us
the most objectionable of all its features. We will
readily obey whatever positive law the imperial legis-
lature may choose to enact, if any be still necessary
in addition to those now extant, by which our
liabilities and duties are strictly enforced already.
But we do strongly object to be made liable to occa-
sional laws issued pro Mc rice by a board of gentle-
men sitting in George-street, most of whom, we fear,
may be quite ignorant of railway matters; and who,
at all events, are just as apt to be misled, to be biassed
by partial leanings, warped by caprices, or guided by
questionable reports, as nay men standing aloof from
the business can possibly be. The subjection to some-
thing beyond the law, new to English practice, un-
called for by any fault proved to have been committed
by us, we thiuk unjust ; and on this, as well as on
the other grounds enumerated, we resist the bill.
We have further to protest against its introduction,
as a breach of the faith distinctly pledged to us by
the government in 1844, when the President of the
Board of Trade thereby induced us to consent to his
regulating act of that year. Mr. LAING, who was
secretary at that time, has publicly borne witness to
the promise given, that no further concessions should
be demanded by the state, to the detriment of the
railway proprietors' interests, or the increase of their
burdens, provided they would not oppose Mr. GLAD-
bTONE'S bill, which it was notorious—as Mr. Luse also
admits—that oar interest could then have thrown out.
The measure now proposed directly violates that
promise : to pass it would be not only to inflict un-
reasonable seventies, but to commit a positive wrong :
on this account, also, we are justified in opposing it."
We think, as has been already said, that these are
just grounds of resistance : and also that on consider-
ing the practical drift of the measure, its details will
be found liable to the objections founded upon them.
If so it would clearly appear that it was a mistake to
have brought it forward once : and that it would be
a greater mistake still to attempt it a second time.

WHEN Mr. STRUTT'S bill for there lation of
railways was withdrawn in Jane last, we briefly, but
plainly, stated our opinion of a measure, the revival of '
which appeared to be neither expedient nor probable.
Under all the circumstances of the case, seeing that
its necessity had not been proved, and that, even if
further control were needed, the manner of it, as pro-
posed in that bill, had been shown to be highly ques-
tionable, it was generally thought unlikely that any
attempt would be made to repeat, in a future
session, what might be regarded as one of the
errors of the last. Still less could it be ex-
pected that the representations of those whom it
concerned, and would have visited with more
severity, perhaps, than the framer of the measure
intended, would have been made the subject of harsh
and inconsiderate charges. We dismissed the matter
at the time in aa few words as possible, and had no
reason to foresee that it would be requisite to discuss
it again. It seems, however, that there are advocates
of coercive measures, professing to speak on behalf of
the public, who find fault with the dropping of the
bill last session ; who demand its reproduction next
year ; and who, sin the meantime, are doing all in
their power to excite odium against the body it was
meant to affect for having tried to avert the danger
threatened, and for rejoicing on the escape from it.
This, we think, is by no means justified by the facts
of the case. The best answer to misrepresentations on
this subject will be found on a survey of the general
tendencies of this measure—what it was cal-
culated to have done, and what it could not
do, nor even made any pretence of doing.
It will then be seen whether the impressions which
certain parties have studied to create, as to the nature
of the coercion proposed, and of the character of the
resistance, if met with, are fair or otherwise.
Our view on thin subject, we hope, will have been
rendered somewhat clearer already by what has been
said in former articles, concerning the relations of the
state to the railway system, and the manner in which
these relations have arisen. It has already been seen
that the companies cannot justly be called un-
authorised invaders of the province of the former ;
that they have made the railways because the state
has not chosen that they should be made in any other
manner ; that the total result of their private
enterprise has been absolutely, and without
qualification, to the advantage of the public;
that the " monopoly" of the national commu-
nication, which has fallen into the companies' hands,
has been obtained, not by any exclusive privilege, but
by the efficacy of superior usefulness and convenience;
that the gain to the promoters has been fairly earned,
not by robbing, but by infinitely enriching, their
neighbours: that nothing has been found in their
management which would give the leant reason to
conclude that in other hands it would be better con-
ducted ; and that, under these circumstances, there is
no ground for demanding from them to sacrifice the
•••• 3)enefits to be derived from their property merely be-
• canoe the nation, foe which so much has already been
done, at two* to itself whatever, may feel that it
wouldbe very agreeable to have still more. Finally,
we have seen that the " national system," which has

• In print (the pamphlet was published in June, 1847), not in pri-
vate, an we were made to say, by an error of the pram, on a former
mamba.

WE are overwhelmed with bills of County Court
costs, and requests to explain how they are made up.
We beg respectfully to decline the task. The
arithmetic of law officers is like that of waiters. Un-
less you can catch them in the act of calculation, all
hope of reconciling items with sums total, must be
abandoned. At the same time we acknowledge that
we cannot, on consideration of the schedule of fees, at
all make out how the coot of a summons for a debt of
61. 17s. can amount to 1 le. Bd., and the costs of hear-
ing to 14s. 10d. ; unless, indeed, our unhappy corre-
spondent has met with a case involving every impro-
bable contingency contemplated on this list, a model
debt, in fact, such as the framers of the bill may
have bad in their eye while composing their fee-
table. These complaints, however, we are bound
to notice as symptomatic. Suitors exclaim that
the fees are too high. Clerks and high
bailiffs declare they are too low. The truth is, the
system of fees is a vicious one altogether. The suitor
measures the scale by his necessities, and the amount
of his debt; the official by his professional standing,
and the scale of fees he is accustomed to. What is a
high fee to a poor working man, is a very petty
cheese-paring and candle-end sort of a sum to a
thriving attorney, who has tacked a high bailiwick
on to his practice, because it only involves the salary
of an extra runner or two. We prophesied when the
county courts began to work, that the effect of the
payment by fees would soon appear. Already the
canker is making itself felt. Arithmetic is baffled
even now. COCKER is rejected as an authority in
the small debts sanctuary. It is no use to point to a
fee table, and beg for the items. There is too much
business on band to answer impertinent inquiries
An over-rigid scrutiny may subject the suitor to the
charge of obstructing an officer of the court in his
duty, and a committal by the judge for contempt.
this step once gained, and the old giant, Costs, is
himself again. We flattered ourselves we had fettered
him with a schedule, and locked up his club under a
Vof clauses in an act of parliament. He is up
oted already, a little daunted, perhaps, by even
an apparent discomfiture, but whetting on the small
game of twenty shilling debts the appetite which he
trusts soon to satisfy on twenty pound ones. There
is one lesson to be gathered from the history of all
courts. Fees have a tendency to multiply them-
selves, to breed delays, and to burden justice
with chicanery and superfluous form. How
these have worked in the superior courts
will probably be revealed next session, when
Mr. WATCORs committee makes its report. What

THE EXPRESS, SATURDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 11, 1847.

they have dons in higher courts they will do on a'
smaller scale in lower courts. The county court will
be a little Westminster, with a similar superabundance
of officials and multiplication of needled's formalities,
if the system of payment by fees be allowed to con-
tinue beyond the time required to ascertain the pro-
bable amount of labour, and arrive at a fair
apportionment of salaries. Nor is it only the expense
to the suitor that makes payment by salaries better
than payment by fees, but the comfort and character
of the county-court officials will best be consulted by
the change. Respectable men are till:eyed in
time higgling for twopences. Their is t for other
purposes than explaining to obtuse sus how the
charge made for summons or hearing squares to a
penny with the scale hung up in the office. All the
delay and heart-burning, and squabbling, and disap-
pointment which such collisions inevitably produce,
would be avoided by paying the officers a fair remu-
neration for their trouble, and referring the suitor at
once to the pay-clerk of the court.
Certainly the schedule of fees, as it appears in the
act, cannot be complained of. If payment by salaries
were adopted, the suitor would have no ground for
charging the officers with swelling the fees for their
own illegal profit. And if a bill were furnished
each suitor, in whieh each item referred to
the corresponding item in the schedule hang
up in the office, by a number or letter, he would be
able to verify his bill of coats on the spot, and all
just pretext for complaint would be removed.
What we say applies only to cases in which no
attorney is employed. Where the suitor risks the
luxury of such an :appendage, of course he must be
left to the tender mercies of his legal adviser. If he
finds his coats excessive, in such a case his complaint,
at all events, must in fairness be shifted from the
county court, when the temptation to multiply fees
which the present system supplies is done away with
by the substitution of fixed salaries, alike for judge,
clerk, and high bailiff.

An outline of the following appeared in pert of our
last evening's impression :
Our Paris letters of Thursday, with the journals,
have arrived.
The government officials in Paris are in a curious
state of discord, and it appears as though by com-
mon consent it is insisted on that this violation of the
canons of ministerial harmony shall be proclaimed to
the world by all the tongues of the press. By the
French laws the police authorities have, in certain
cases, the power to compel the journals to publish
such articles as they shall prescribe. An article ap.-
peared in the government official journal, the Mont-
tear, of the 4th inst., and in the Debate of the sth,
directed against M. Delangle, the Procureur Gent,-
ral, the highest law officer of the crown, correspond-
ing in position and consideration to the attorney-
general in this country. Not only was this done, but
on Tuesday last the prefect of police sent an order to
several of the Paris journals to copy this article from
the 3foniteur, which was of course complied with.
Meanwhile, the Procurcur-General publishes, in the
same official journals of the government, his defence
against the attack made on him by the government
itself, whose officer he is, and whose confidence he
mast necessarily possess.
Abd-el-Kader, who had so long proved a trouble-
some enemy to the French colony in Africa, has for
some time turned his hostility against the empire of
Morocco. The Journal des Djbats gave on Tuesday
the important intelligence that the French govern-
' ment had received advices from Algiers, that
the forces of the Emir had taken the
city of Tara, in Morocco, and were marching on Fez,
the capital. Taza is a city situate about half-way
between the frontier of the French colony of Algeria
and Fez. It has a population of from six to eight
thousand. It is placed at the southern extremity of
one of the last links of the Rif, in a strong position,
and surrounded by an ancient wall, half Moorish and
half Portuguese, flanked by square towers.
M. Onizot arrived in Paris on Thursday evening.
The Duke de Broglie was expected to leave Paris for
London on Sunday.
Another great reform demonstration has taken
place at Strasbourg. A banquet, attended by 700 per-
sons, was given in the Halles-aux-bles, under the pre-
sidency of M. Liechtenberger, batonier of the avocets
and member of the municipal council. The toasts
given were, "The National Sovereignty," "The
future of France," " Electoral and parhamentary re-
form," " The French revolutions of 1789 and 1830,"
ts-.c. The Marseillaiso was occasionally performed
during the evening. No mention was made of the
king's health on this occasion.

The Madrid mails, with the journals and correspond-
ence of the 4th inst., have arrived. The news of the
recall of Espartero, which we have already given, is
confirmed. The royal decree, restoring to him his
rank and honours, and nominating him Senator, ap-
peared in the Gazette on the 4th. It will be
seen, by reference to the letter of our corre-
spondent, that it is expected he will be placed at
the head of the cabinet. Indeed, it is scarcely pos-
sible for him to be in Spain without being officially I
employed, and it is not likely he would be offered any 1
subordinate position. The Duke de Frias and M.
Sotomayor have left Bayonne for Madrid. The Paris
National says that all the means necessary foe
a coup de-mars with the garrison "have been sent to
Narvaez from Paris. The party of reaction, says
that journal, sees that it has nothing now to look to
except violence, and to that it will resort on the first
practicable occasion. If this design fail, and a con-
stituent Cortes be called, as we have already an-
nounced to be probable, the question of the sue-
cession will be taken up with the view of a de-
claration
against the succession of the Duchess of
Montpenaier, on the ground of her having married a
foreign prince, such a measure being in conformity
with the ancient laws of the kingdom.
All these plans (says the National) are known at Paris,
and Christina drives u far as she can irritation into
o vengeance.eudiSheess deo. considers tuheiedrecularaaticoanu.of tolewfarorfeitiz
Chef de Famille, who in the face of Europe has
entered into engagements so solemn, cannot sustain this
outrage upon his race without drawing the sword. In less
than • year, a marriage will have been broken, the Infanta
sacrificed, and all the magnificent hope' that gilded the
horizon of the dynastic policy, entirely dissipated ! This is
• degree of insolence too audacious to be endared, with-
out a general conflagration. In the eyes of Queen Chris-
tina, it would be a base and cowardly abdication. While
the mother is thus exerting all her energies, the daughter is
abandoning herself to all the joys of emancipation. That
futurity which Christina views as being charged with storms,
Isabella embellishes with the sweetest dreams. The walls of
her palace resound with songs of joy and with festive glad-
nness.;,, thfe
those light
fi proismhenetiquette
diel:lnljnitlM
princess in the pas of easy amours—and that solemn soli-
tude into which the old monarchy was wont to envelop itself
1 is converted into a brilliant boudoir, in which Isabella
listens, tae a tae, to the councils of her seventeen years.
Nothing can exceed the delirium of enthusiasm
produced among the liberal party in Madrid, on the
4th, by the announcement of the Gazette of that day
of the recall of Espartoro. The journals which had
been published before its appearance, all published
supplements reproducing the announcement The
Eco del Comercw, a liberal journal, heads the decree
with exclamations, in large capitals : " Long live the
constitutional Queen ! Long live the angelic Isabella!
Long live the generous genius who will cause fn her
kingdom the happiness of Spaniards!" When the
decree of universal and unqualified amnesty was pre-
sented for signature to the Queen, she exclaimed,
" Thank God ! they have comprehended my heart !
It is the happiest act of my life." M. Ventura de la
Vega, the Queen's private secretary, was named as
likely to succeed Narvaez in the Paris embassy.

The most ardent friends of progress must feel sags-
hell with the doings of the Italian people. In
truth the work goes bravely on. Not a post crosses
the Alps which does not bnng a fresh bulletin of the
advancement of the great cause of Italian regenera-
tion. One state after another, Rome, Sardinia, Tus-
cany, Naples, have sent forth their voices in this
cause. The princes have friternised with the
people on this grand question. We have now
to add Lucca to the roll. Intelligence has
arrived that the sovereign prince of that duchy,
after long and fruitless resistance, yielding to the
imperious law of progress, has granted the liberty of
the press, the national guard, and the liberation of
the state prisoners! Political, like national evils,
have in them the seeds of unlooked-for good, and
their agents are the instruments of results as con-
trary. to their wishes as to their designs. The
iniquity of Ferrara will, under Providence, produce
the emancipation of Italy.
It appears by the advices just received that serious
disturbances broke out in the principality of Lucca
on the 31st alt., in consequence of some retrograde