The Express.
London, England, 1847-01-20 00:00:00

l Company, appeared npin a summons issued on the
application of Mr. W. SMITH, of No. 30, Poultry, to
answer for an assault alleged to have been committed
on Mr. SMITH. The circumstances were as follows:

—Mr. SMITH, a shareholder in the Great Luxembourg,
presented himself at the Belgian Railways Amalga-
mation meeting, held on Saturday last. Mr. TIMM
took upon him to prevent Mr. SMITH from entering
the room where the meeting was held, although the
advertisement calling the meeting was addressed to
the shareholders in the Great Luxembourg, along
with others. This was the assault eomplamel of :
a gentlemanly friendly assault, performed on the one
side and submitted to on the other simply for the
purpose of enabling Mr. SMITH to raise at the Man-
sion-house the question of Mr. TILSON'S right to keep
him out.

Mr. Tu.sos did not deny his assault d reau'de rose,
but justified it on the ground that it was necessary
to keep Mr. SMITH out of the meeting in order;to
prevent a breach of the peace. In corroboration of
this statement he handed two letters to the presiding
alderman—Alderman Glass. The precise tenor of
the letters did rot transpire, but they appear to have
been addressed by Mr. SMITH to Mr. MASTERMAN,
jun., who presided at the meeting, and to have con-
tained expressions tending to provoke a breach of the
pmce. Alderman GIBBS, after perusing them, and
hearing Mr. SMITH acknowledge the authorship, dis-
missed the summons.

Alderman Glans is doubtless a great authority in
such a case. He has had considerable experience as
to the annoyance that may be occasioned to men in
office by angry men calling upon them to tender their
accounts, and the tendency of such applications when
urged in nncourtly language to provoke to a breach
of the peace. His view of the case, too, is corrobo-
rated by Lord DENMAN'S decision in the case of
ISNES and WILEY, that a policeman was justified in
preventing a person from entering a room in which a
public meeting was held, from the belief that a breach
of the peace would ensue in consequence of his ad-
mission. Notwithstanding, however, the apparent
unanimity of those two great authorities we are still
inclined to question the soundness of the decision.
"A public meeting" is a very. vague term. The
meeting of Saturday was a meeting of shareholders
in the Belgiin railways, convened to deliberate on a
proposal affecting their pecuniary interests. Mr.
Salem is a shareholder in one of these railways. It
must be a very strong case of necessity, indeed, that
can warrant the chairman and solicitor of one of
these concerns to exclude a shareholder from par-
ticipating in a discussion where the value, perhaps
the existence, of his property, is at stake. No such
necessity is established in the present instance. Even
assuming that the language in Mr. SMITH'S letters was
calculated and intended to provoke a hostile rencontre,
there must be two parties to a duel, and in Mr.
MASTERMAN'S official position he would have been
quite safe in taking no notice of any intemperate lan-
guage. A meeting. of men of business ta, discusa
matters of business, is not so easily converted into a
ehaude nu,lge as a large promiscuous assembly : Mr.
MASTERMAN, under the protection of the gentlemen
present, and of a police officer, who is said to have
been in attendance, would have been quite safe from
any assault, even on the assumption that Mr. SmITII
intended to commit one. The hazard incurred by ad-
mitting this terrible Mr. SMITH does not appear to have
been by any means so great as to warrant the
extreme step of shutting out a man from a meet-
ing at which measures were to be adopted for
the future management of his property. If every
railway shareholder who has written an angry letter
to a director or chairman is to be excluded from the
meetings of his company, there will be but a scanty
attendance in some cases.

But whatever doubt we may entertain as to the
law of the case, we have not a shadow of a doubt as
to the injudicious character of the course that has
been adopted by Messrs. MASTERMAN and TILSON.
Mr. Small stated on Monday that his intention
was to " state his opinion of the Luxembourg Rail-
way Company, in which (he says) he has lost money,
and will lose more before he is done with it." lle

afterwards admitted that his object was " to blow up
the company." Mr. SMITH is evidently very
angry, and may be for aught we know very un-
reasonable, but the credit of the Luxembourg Com-
pany is not likely to be improved by the directors
shrinking from confronting him face to face at a public
meeting.
Notwithstanding the exclusion of Mr. SMITH, the
voice of discontent was not altogether stifled on
Saturday. One gentleman called for "a financial
statement of the affairs of each company, together
with a return of the works that had been finished (
adding that " before this was done it was impossible
to judge of the propriety of amalgamation." An-
other, in terms that we do not choose to repeat, inti-
mated that one, at least, of the other Belgian com-
panies looked upon the amalgamation movement
as originating in a desire on the part of the
Great Luxembourg Company to improve its not
very prosperous financial condition by the in-
corporation of more flourishing, concerns. Looking
to the estimation in which the Belgian railways, as
investments, appear to be held in the London market,
there does not appear to be much to choose between
any of them. Here is a view of their position on
Monday last, extracted from the official share list :
Paid.
21 Belgian Eastern Junction (no quotation.)
4 Dcndre Valley (no quotation.)
0 Louvain ula Sambre 41 41 die.
6 Luxembourg 3/ 3) di.,
8 Namur and Liege 4' 41 dis.
10 Sambre and Meuse 51 51 dis.
8 Tournay, Jurbise, &c. (no quotation.)
G West 1• lenders 3l 3 dis.

For the depressed state in which Belgian railway
sham are, and have been, there must be some reason.
The industry and wealth, the dense population of the
country, the general absence of engineering difficul-
ties, are all favourable to railway enterprise : how
comes it that these concerns are one and all so indif-

ferentiv esteemed in the London money market ?
We 'believe the truth to be, that the vaunted system
of coupling conditions for the public advantage with
the concession of incorporate privileges to railway
companies, has been carried to such an excess in Bel-
gium, that doubts prevail whether the Belgian rail-
ways, under the load of obligations to government
contracted by their projectors, can be made to'
pay. A large, we believe the largest, portion
of !Belgian railway shares is held in England. The
Belgian government recognises only the directors;
negotiates with them alone. Do the English share-
holders in these railways know exactly the position of
their respective companies? The proposal to amal-
gamate—originating with a body of directors —is a
confession that an entirely new mode of management
must be adopted. Such a confession, coupled with
the rather strong measures adopted to exclude a re-
fractory member from the meeting of Saturday,
ought to stimulate the shareholders in all Belgian
railways to insist upon immediate, comprehensive,
and distinct explanations from their directors.

It appears from the French journals of Monday,
that the question of subsistence assumes every
day a more serious aspect. Further accounts of
disturbances throughout the provinces, owing, not
only to the dearness but to the actual deficiency ot
grain in the market, were received in Paris. This
state of things is not local; the public disquietude is
general. Popular disturbances have spread over the
northern, western, and central departments of France.
The transport of grain has been interrupted ; ware-
houses pillaged ; proprietors assailed, in Mayenne,
Sarthe, Vendee, Ile-et-Vilaine, Mee du Nord,
Pas de Calais, Nord. Cher, Nievre, Dordogne,
Indre, and various other department+. Two boats
laden with corn have been pillaged at Tours.
The acts of violence and crime which have been copa-
-1 miffed have in many cases the appearance of being
perpetrated by those malefactors, who trade upon the
ignorant and blind passions of the crowd. Thus acts
of wanton destruction are committed, which to the
most vulgar apprehension must have the effect of aug-
menting the evil. Houses are pillaged, while the pro-
prietors who dare to defend them are assassinated
chateaux are devastated, mills destroyed. and work-;
shops pulled to pieces. The department of Indre
is the theatre of some of the most violent disturbances.
On the 12th and 13th, at Levroax, Chateauroux,
and Buzanzais grave disorders broke out, the authori-
-1 ties were resisted, and the entire military force avail-
able found insufficient. Waggons of corn were
stopped and seized, and the owners compelled to sell
their contents at 3 francs, the actual price being 7
francs. On the 14th, a body of 1,500 assembled at
Brizanzais, when frightful scenes of pillage and
blood took place. One proprietor, M. Chambert, who
resisted the aggressions ot the mob, was immediately
1 strink down I)), kilo ,vs of dull. an:. Vilur.i.lly litaLu iu