The Express.
London, England, 1849-10-25 00:00:00

OUTGOING MAILS.

The mails for British North Amy) ita and the 'United
States will be made up to-marrow sr:scion, Oa. 26.
The next mails fir Lisbon, Spain, and 011iraltar will be
made up on Oct. 27.
The Vest India Malls, ineludiag Bermuda, Hawses,
Nemo, Ilonduru, New Orleans, aad Mexico, mid excluding
those tor Madeira. St. Jaaa.d•-Nisaragua, New Granada,
Chili, and Pent, will be made up on Nov. 2.
The mails ler Madeira, the Brazils, and Buenos Ayres,
will be made up en Nov. 5.
The malls fee Gibraltar, Malta, Greece, the lonian Islands,
Egypt, Ceylon, India, and Chins. vie Southampton, will
be made up on the morning of Nov. 20.

HMI WATIR AT LONDON DRUMM
Tau Day—Montag. 79. Afterason.
T,seasin•—)Aendag. 99.

LONDON, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25.

THE series of meetings on financial reform, and on
" the way to get it," which we announced yesterday,
is 601110 little evidence that the cause of chesploveru-
ment is " ping ahead." Only let the promoters of
these meetings keep up the agitation with spirit and
earnestness until parliament meets, and we sh3ll hare
something more than "cheese-parings and candle•end
savings," even next session. Not, indeed, that any
thorough reform in the system is to be expected until
the suffrage has been prev.oisly extended. But in
the face of such an agitation ks is 1 kely to be main-
tained, we shall have the estimates cut down to the
lowest figure that the continuance of the system will
allow; and those figures will, r.otwitustonding,
remain' so high as to convince the most incredu-
lous that it is only by a complete change of system
that any appreciable reduction of taxation is attain-
able. If the extended suffrage of 1831 have produced
so mach good, haw mach greater are the benefits to
be achieved by a still further extension of the
suffrage ? Financial reform and extended suffrage
ought to be inseparable ebkcts : for evai if the
former could be attained without the latter, it could

not be maintained. To have cheap government we,
must have a thorough representation of the people.
The good to be achieved by these meetings is in-
calculable, if they can only reconcile, unite. and pre-
serve in concord the middle and the working chases,
whose distusion in past times has constituted the
strength of the common enemy. Now, there is at
present a very fair prospect that such concord
may be established. In the first place, the
loaders of the working classes, who had a pecu-
niary interest in their isolation from all other classes,
are either fest disappearing from the political scene,
or are falling into disrepute. In the second place,
there is • disposition to unite and to forget past
differences on the part of the working classes. And
in the third Owe, the middle classes are booming
thoroughly disposed to extend the suffrage, not per-
haps to the extent desired by the working classes,
but to an extent which will answer every honest and
liberal purpose. The late Aberdeen meeting con-
tained evidence that such is the case. It was entirely
a meeting of the working classes. Not lets than 2,000
of as intelligent mechanics, artisans, and weavers, we re
assembled as can be got blether in the United King-
dom. But though the self-elected dfather"of Chartism
attended ; though Aberdeen has always been a city
whereof he boasted much; and though mischief
might have been anticipated, the results were moat
satisfactory. Everything the was not made to give
way to the charter. The business of the day, and
not the " five points," prevailed. And in a com-
mittee of working men, held preparatory to the
meeting, to agree on the resolutions to be proposed,
all extreme views vete renounced lest they might
give offence to the middle classes. Nay, the identity
of their common interests was recognised by all the
most intelligent workmen present •, and the conse-
quence is that in all probability another meeting will
be held in Aberdeen, where both classes will meet in
common, end pursue a common object by common
means and agency.
This tendency and inclination of the working and
middle dames to unite must receive evertencourage-
meat. The time is propitious for the union. We
have an administration despised by the former, and
which has not the confidence of the latter—an
administration which is propped up s Jely by the
disunion that prevails amongst these classes; an
administration which did little last session, and
from which less may be expected next session.
The middle chums have, therefore, no attach-
meet to this administration to withhold them
from reconciliation with the working classes;
and in the want of attachment et the middle
classes to that administration the working
classes may recognise the fact that the
class above them has long ceased to b 3 whiggish,
and is gate prepared to enter on • career of substan-
tial, provided it be also temperate, progress —a
progress devoid of all revolutionary tendencies, but
fell cf practical, of material advantage.
If the Aberdeen meeting suggested these remarks,
they receive a strong corroboration from a meeticg
held at the other end of the empire, on Tuesday
eveuing4toSouthampton ; the largest building in the
to n did not suffice for the convenience of those who
attended. Though convened at a period of contention
and strife—on the eve of the municipal elections
—all the professors of liberal opinions, and all
the friends of progressive improvement, how-
ever fir the time divided amongst themselves,
were of one mind as to the necessity of giving a cor-
dial and earnest support to the plans of the National
Aseoci .tion for the Advancement of Parliamentary
and Financial Reform. Though the meeting
was for pneely political objects, the assembly was
nevertheless graced by the attendance of a large
number of the fair inhabitants of the place—a sure in-
dication that the principles of justice which support
the present movement have been discussed, and have
been appreciated and espoused in the domestic circle.
Though called by persons belonging to what are
denominated the middle classes, the meeini

was attended by many hundr..ds of the
working men of Southampton, hitherto the
sturdy and inflexible advocates of extreme mea-
sures ; but instead, as heretofore, of attending to ob-
struct, to mar, and to defeat the efforts of their more
privileged neighbours, they came to Hideo, to com-
mend, and to give their warm co-operation ; and we
believe there have been few scenes exhibited at public
meetings more gratifying or more prophetic of future
suecees in a movement depending upon union and
mutual good-will than that which took place on
Tuesday last, when the proffered hand of a leader of
the working classes was accepted by Sir JOCUUA
WALICILEY, and the tumultuous cheers of the
vast assembly sanctioned and ratified the
friendly compact between parties once unhap-
pily estranged from each other. The pro-
w:lllgs of this great meeting were appropriately
concluded by addresses from two highly respected
ministers of religion. These gentlemen entered
warmly into the objects of the aaseciation, and, by
ther remark', confirmed their hearers in the convic-
tion that the discharge of the civil duties of citizenship
is not only compatible with the functions of the sacred
office, but incumbent upon those who are the accre-
dited exponents of the great principles of national
morality.
We congratulate the people of Southampton on
their splendid demonstration of attachment to the
cause of safe and practicable reform, and we doubt not
that their example will have a salutary influence
throughout the muntry, and give a powerful impulse
to the came in other regions.
A numerous committee, we understand, has
been already formed, and active measures will be
Wren during the present week effectually to combine
and organusa the elements of a strong political body.
Mr. WILCOX, one of the borough members, wa-
present, and must have been abundantly satisfied
with the reception given him, both amongst his en-
franchised supporters and the non-electors of the
town.

PEOPLE had made up their minds that they knew
the worst of Mr. HUDSON. Of this charitable mis-
apprehension the final report of the York, Newcastle
end Berwick Company's committee of investigation
must have die.tbu.ed all who entertained it. . _

Nobody expected that Mr. HUDSON could come
clean out of the affair. But the apparent incapacity
of the man to k.ep regular systematic books; his
rule•of-thumb method of aquariogacoottnts, by giving a
sum here and taking a sum there; the enormous mag-
nitude of the sums with which the ex-retail linendra-
per and itinerant teacher or preacher bad been called
to deal ; the unb•.unded sycophancy of money grubs of
all ranks which had attended on him ; all
these things were taken into account and