The Express.
London, England, 1847-04-28 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, WEDNESDAY EVENING, APRIL 28, 1847.

military force in uniform and actual service, look
flown and despise it. A oollision, therefore, between
troops and citizens, between the active army and the
liberal population, would prove a dangerous experi-
ment for the government.
The conservative ideas of police have ever been
uppermost in the mind of the Duke of WELLING-
TON, and therefore we fully understand the perti-
nacity with which he insists on keeping old soldiers
in the ranks of the actual army, not on the re-
tired lists, and the (vial emphasis which his Grace
lays on this necessity, to time of peace, as much as in
time of war.
Bat the Duke of WELLINGTON, with all his con-
servatism, sees also the necessity of forming and ad-
ministering the army in harmony with ,the ideas of
the age. It is not legislation, but public opinion,
which has disarmed the drummer of his whip. The
law is but limping after public opinion, in this as in so
many other respects; and our military legislation has
yet many strides to make, ere it comes up with its
powerful precursors. The present is a good step, and
in the right direction. But, as we have before
said, we are as yet hut in a state of transition with
respect to the army, holding a middle couree between
our old aristocratic system, and the more popular
ones of France and Prussia; and we must take care
lest we lose the advantages of one, ere we are able to
grasp the benefits of the other.
The consideration which tells moot against us is,
that whilst England, the great upholder of the pacific
and defensive principle, maintains an army, organised
chiefly fur offence, the more warlike and aggressive
states of Europe, such as France and Prussia, have
been driven to organise the great defensive system
of training the whole population to arms.

SINCE the increase of physicians, and surgeons who
do not dispense, and the conversion of the old apothe-
cary into the general practitioner of medicine, who also
frequently does not dispense his own medicines, the
business of the chemist and druggist has become of
increased importance and responsibility. A sense of
this some years ago led the leading chemists
and druggists of London to form themselves into
a body called the Pharmaceutical Society, which
had for its object the elevation and better education
of chemists and druggists throughout the kingdom.
This society obtained a charter of incorporation in
1843, in which provision was made that no
person should become a member of this society,
" without passing an examination, and thus proving
his qualification to act as a pharmaceutical chemist.
That this society has done much towards educating
the chemists and druggists of the metropolis by insti-
tuting lectures to be delivered by competent professors
on the various departments of knowledge which are
especially required in the preparation of medicines,
is, we believe, well known, and their examinations

will be the means of ensuring, that the persons
who have passed them are fully competent to the
supply of medicines. That the public require such a
guarantee, is abundantly evident from the many
instances of gross ignorance and carelessness on
the part of persons employed in dispensing
medicines which have recently occurred, some
of which we have felt it our duty to comment
upon. At the same time there can be little doubt
that there are many districts of the country where
the name of the Pharmaceutical Society could carry
. .

little weight, and where it is yet desirable that the
lives of the inhabitants should not be sacrificed to
ignorant venders of potent poisons; and we have now
before us the draft of a bill for regulating the quali-
fiation of chemists and druggists throughout England
and Wales.

The object of this bill is not to prohibit all
persons from selling drugs who have not: the
licence of the Pharmaceutical Society, but to prevent
any one from using the name chemist and druggist
who has not been qualified as the bill directs. The ,
bill, in the first place, provides that a register be
kept and a registrar appointed, and then proceeds to I
the clam of persons to be registered, who will be all
previous members of the Pharmaceutical Society, or
persons exercising the business or calling of a phar-
maceutical chemist, or chemist and druggist, before
the passing of the act ; or those who submit to the
examinations to be instituted by the Pharmaceutical
Society. These examinations are to be made in the
Latin language, and classical knowledge, in botany, in
materia media, and in pharmaceutical and general
chemistry, and toxicology. The bill further enacts,
" That from and after the end of one year from the
passing of this act, it shall not be lawful for any
person, not being duly registered according to
the provisions of this act, to exercise the business
or calling of a pharmaceutical chemist, or chemist and
druggist in any part of England or Wales, or to use
the name or title of pharmaceutical chemist and
druggist, or chemist and druggist, or any other name,
sign, token, or emblem, implying that he is registered
under this act," under a penalty to be afterwards
specified. There can be no doubt that the passing of
this act will have a very beneficial influence on the
character of those employed in the making and pre-
paring of medicines ; and those engaged in this occu-
pation will hardly object to a measure which will do
so much to elevate their position in the social scale.
Some persons may think that the total interdiction of
the tale of medicines by unlicensed persons would
have been better than the object of the present bill,
but it would be found that this would act very inju-
riously in some parts of the country, where the popula-
tion is small, and where no licensed chemist would
be likely to be found. In such cases it would un-
doubtedly be better for the interests of humanity
that medicines should be vended or made up by an
unskilful hand than by none at all. There are other
cases also in which the forbidding entirely the sale
of drugs to unlicensed persona would be productive
of serious evil. We think, however, that some re-
striction might have been introduced into this bill
with regard to the sale of poisons even by licensed
druggists which should extend to all persons. That
poisoning, u a means of murder and suicide, is a
frightfully increasing crime in this country, there can i
be little doubt, and that this crime is greatly pro-
moted by the facility with which poisonous dens
can be procured is also very evident. We
think, then, that as the licentiates of the Pharma-
ceutical Society are the persons who will have the
prerignacritral sale of these substances, restrictions with
to the sale of particular drugs, such as opium,
arsenic, hydrocyanic acid, corrosive sublimate, and
others, might have been introduced into this act, and
the sale of them positively prohibited by all unlicensed
persons whatever.
No part of this act is to apply to the venders of
patent nostrums. This is too profitable a source of
revenue, we suppose, for the. government to dare to
interfere with ; and yet, it is strange, that, whilst
provision i made that only duly educated men shall
prescribe medicines, and only qualified men dispense !
medicines, there should be any wish to maintain
a system by which ignorant and designing men are
allowed not only tocouipound bat to prescribe poisonous
drugs, and this not only in ignorance of the proper-
ties of these drugs, but in ignorance of the special
CM/ for which they are prescribed. The system of
compounding and employing secret remedies is a
remnant of the dark ages, when the alchemist and
astrologer obtained from an ignorant public a mysteri-
ous confidence ' • and that any enactments of our sta-
tute-books should uphold the monstrous belief in
" universal' remedies and cures for all diseases is a
disgrace to the age in which we live. Better that
some of the comforts of life should be taxed than that
the weakest part of the community should be deluded
into the practice of drugging themselves to death
by the impudent falsehoods of advertising
quacks. The revenue that is derivable from
the sale and the advertising of patent medicines
is small, eompared with the sum that is paid for
the useless, but mote frequently injurious, drugs
which they contain. Let the government, then, re-
solve to give up a revenue derived from so question-
able a source as secret remedies, and let it be an
instruction to the Pharmaceutical Society, that all its I
members be required to state the composition legibly
on every compound they send out from their shops,
"lees compounded in accordance with a prescription
given by a legally qualified practitioner of medicine.
By such a measure, one of the most powerful induce-
ments to the practice of quackery would be with-
drawn, and the public, when coos they knew the
composition of the nauseous compounds they now
swallow so greedily, would owes to patronise them.

The Paris journals of Monday contain little do-
mestic intelligence which 'can interest the English
reader. The losineal des Deltas, which has so often
lately devoted its leading articles to arguments in
favour of the extension of absolute free trade in food,
say. that it ham received numerous communications

from farmers Lad aOcultarista in the provinces (one
of which it publishes), advocating the same policy,
and showing how much agriculture itself is inte-
rested in it, more especially in the free importation of
cured meat. This is a measure which, if carried,
would be attended with very important ffecta on the
commercial relations of France and the United
States, considering the immense quantity of beef and
pork annually cured in, and exported from, the latter
country.. It is not, probably, an exaggerated esti-
mate to say, that cured meat of every description may
be purchased in the ports of the United States at
one-third of the price which it would at present cost
in France.

A letter is qaote 1 in the Paris journals, dated
Frankfort, which says that an unusually active inter-
course is going on by cabinet couriers between Paris
and St. Petersburg. " Not a day passes," says the
writer, " that a cabinet courier does not pass here
between those two capitals in each direction." It is
added, that the alliance between France and Russia
is growing close and intimate, and that the present
communications are not ascribed to the late purchase
by the Emperor Nicholas in the French funds, but to
more serious motives.

The recent submission of Kabylia as a dis-
trict tributary to the French government, is made
the subject of much congratulation with the
Paris press. It appears that the capture of Itou-
Mara, which we have already mentioned, is, strictly
speaking, not a captive, having, with a view to evade
being captured, voluntarily announced his intention
of desisting from future resistance to the French
government. "He has," says the I:obats, " re-
nounced war, declaring that his career has terminated
—his efforts being powerless before the ascendant of
the French arms."

The Journal des Debate gives the particulars of
interviews which Marshal Bugeaud, governor of Al-
geria, had with several of the Arab chiefs, the result
of which appears to have removed almost altogether
the obstacles to the establishment of French authority
through the country. The sheik Ben-Azzeddio, whose
influence is unbounded over the tribes of the Kabyles '
to the west, has sent one of his nephews to assure
General Belleau of his pacific dispositions. Advices
from Tlemcen announce the return of Abd-el•Kader
to the Dews., still encamped in the environs of
Ainzohra, in Morocco.

The Madrid correspondence of the 20th and 21st
inst. states that reports of another ministerial modifica-
tion continued to prevail. The great majority of the
committee on the financial projects of M. Salamanca are
opposed to the government; independently of which,
other grounds of dissension exist between M. Sala-
mance and his colleagues. It was still said that a'
further change in the liberal direction would take
place in the cabinet, and M. Oloraga was spoken of
as its probable chief. This deputy had been twice
sent for by the Queen, with whom he had confi-
dential communications. General Serrano had
been recalled to Madrid, where he arrived on the ,
20th. A large number of new senators had been
appointed from the party of the progressistas. Gen.!
Manuel de la Concha, who was lately sent to Paris on
a mission to Queen Christina, is appointed to command
the army of intervention in Portugal ; but is for the
present detained in Madrid by family affairs, mean-
while Gen. 'Vista Hermosa has the command.

At the Bourse, on the 20th, there was a
fall of the funds. Reports were circulated tLeitbe;ht
projects of the Minister of Finance were rejected in
the Bureaux, and that they would meet with decided
opposition in the Chamber, in consequence of which a
new ministerial crisis was feared. Capitalists conse-
quently held back ; and the holders of securities,
sharing the general apprehensions, threw them on
the market ; and as the scarcity of money still in-
creases, an extraordinary fall in every species of secu-
rity, but especially in the public funds, was expected.
The operations, as well in public securities as bank
and other shares, were few.

FRANCE.—Pants, APRIL 26.—0 n the evening of
the 21st, about 26 workmen employed on the railway
between Tendu and Saint M,reel, in the Indre, on leaving
work went to a boat waiting for them at the passage of La
BOOIIO2IIC. The last comers leaped suddenly into the boat,
and thereby caused it to rock .0 violently, that the greater
port of the men who had entered it were thrown into the
water, and nine of them perished.
The Union Monarchique says:—lt appears that'
the governim nt has at last recegnised how shameful it is, ,
to imr natiLnil dignity, that in present circumstances there
should be no French ambassador at ltzdrid. It i►announced
in feet, as a thing definitively settled, that this important
post is very soon to be confided to M. de Bois-le Comte, at
present ambassadcr in Switzerland. It is not yet stated who
will be the successor of M. de Bois-le-Comte, nor what will
be the new destination of Count Benson.

The Swedish frigate the Eugenia, left Toulon on
the 20th, with Prince Oscar of Sweden.
SPAIN.—The edict permitting the exportation of
grace has been put in force at the Spanish ports, but potatoes
are excepted from the meanie°, the authorities reliving to
consider these in the light of grain.
A letter from Girona, of the 17th, dates that a
Carlist chief, called the Penitent of Fin stns, was shot there
en that day, on •sentenee by a court-martial, one day after
his arrest and • few hours after his trial.
GERMANY.—At'eTRIA.—VIENNA, APRIL 15--
According to a letter from Vienna in the Nuremberg Corres-
pondent, the aulic councillor, Count Werner, sent by Prince
Metternich to Berlin on a mission relative to the project
attributed to the Prussian government to accord a free press
to Germany, by proposing it at the diet of Frankfort, is said
to have presented • note from Prince Metternich to the
cabinet of Berlin, in which Austria proposes to tie confede-
ration that all contracts and conventions on the affairs of the
press be annulled. According to this proposition, all the
sovereigns of the different states of the confederation would
be free of all etwegements, and have it in their power to set
according to their own discretion, either absolutely or under
certain mcdificationa from the representative states. It is
added, that this proposition, which abrogates the decrees of
Carlsbad and all subsequent conventions, has been favour-
received by the Prussian cabinet.
VIENNA, APRIL 16.—A1l the measures for esta-
blishing Austrian law in Cracow had been taken, but
have been suspended owing to a petition having been
addressed to the Emperor by the greater portion of the in-
habitants, demanding that the French code may be preserved
which was introduced into Cracow at the time of the crea-
lion of the duchy of Warsaw in 1909. This petition is now
be for the A ulic chamber, but if the French civil code is allowed
to remain in force no more can be hoped for. The Emperor
has Oust decreed that &gloats as the prig of provisions remains
so high an increase of salary is to be allowed to the esstploydes
in the government ahem, being an additional expense of
30,0001. All the officers of the Austrian army who are
members of societies against cruelty to animals, either in the
Austrian dominions or in other countries, have received
orders to withdraw immediately from those societies. This
measure has created universal astonishment.

PRUSSIA.—Beaux, Aran 21.—Prince Waleaky,
whose intimate relations with Prince Czartoriaki are no mys-
tery, arrived here to take advantage of the preemies of
the Polish deputies in favour of Poland, but the polite, in-
formed of his projects, have ordered him to quit Berlin.
BANK ROBBERY.—A BIZSOrtr, apparently is easy
circumstances, who gave himself oat for a menbant
of Ifce-
berg, had later taken up his
_routers is erne of the Int
hotels in Berlin. Shortly after bit snivel he hod impeetast
transactions with • booker of the *os, sad loathed a coa-
riderable sum of nary for eawddr mid to Wm, emsrat•
ing for the mart plot of bilis of embange am** ins
commercial houses of /body. Is the afternoon he left the
hotel, carrying with Wm a pertmanan hssuly Mb/ with
gold to continue, as ho mid, his jmey to delve/ by
Tint -
eela. It was supposed linsoloo then he mobil ham by the
Anhalt Railway. AM, hie ikpoinede doe head of a groat
banking house arrived at dm betel is order to anmet the
pretended Limberg nerehent. As omen had yin been
received from Brody with the news thon the eleet Abraham
W. had clandestinely left thee place, imerybig my with him
a portfolio which contained secaritne to the-vake of MAO
florins mosey of coaveatiss. The UM, aikomid to the
head of the banking lea rehrrod to, stilled OM the Indlvi
dual had peobably take. the road to DeM,_ booms may
of the sermoniseme payable there, and Miond that we
mom Meld be mooed to prevent hi embarking '
Amorist it any of the northern ports. Police agents were
immediately dispatched is puma of the fugitive.

WALLACHIA AND MOLDAVIA.—We extract
the following from a letter in Le Sick, au containing mete
curious details on the ambitious manoeuvres of Rases ;
"The thrones of Moldavia and Wallachia were simeltene-
maly occupied by Btourza and Gbika. The knew has
eacsliced the inritutions of his country to emery Mem tem
the protecting power, and still PIEB•111/ Primo anklissisi
the latter, not so deserving, has has, mid teem Midi* by
Bibelot*, a Remise' candidata. It le stetmar Isisellas to
point out here the many illegal seem deli& tee sie prince
kas bees guilty ; all the scs of Ids shelmistretke WO so
many blow, mimed at the rights of the pilleelpality. When
Russia ocesplei the principalities with bet Dow, she int-
pored upon shim the tegiale law trier whisk they are
r...tin the pretest werem. es a seem by which to
aMeer lefties' slim mad Is maw tap in this
novel charter the Reek poem pitilesee tibia tie Mol-
davian' and Welleabbee had eirtelmer this stipula-
tions with tbe Pane; NA in ere fhb bad Med,
Reuse counted tepee the divan
to 'beds any drifts the Wee AMA Is wed of to
oweelete her wink of desneelta. It wee thinks to
this mpedient that to 111111 as dolma& the Aft of sanc-
timing the leglaMeile of the pbelpillthe • new Ifter-
wards de amid Elemplimed. ehampion
Ns emelye Amy be lie wet Me telsea. In 1842
eler aelartmet Mae. end la UN die mbieieed Masco to
tleiolve the chamber midi itergher emista, owing to its

having refused the COTIG/41M11 of certain mines to • Rowan
company. The convocation of the chamber at the ekes a
last year is to bo attributed to the fact, that, for this onee,e
Russia had lost her hearings, not finding at Constantinopl
a sultan whom, a few yeses previouely, she treated as a
child, nor ministers open to bribery or to be intimidated by
threats. The Sultan has grown up to manhood, and she
statesmen of Turkey ere beginning their political education,
Nen rthelens it was not a bad year for Russia. She obtained
from Ribero° the flagrant violation of the electoral la w, and the
suppression of the publication of the debates in the chamber,
and a law is now in preparation to prohibit the youth of
Moldavia and Welechia front studying at any other than
Russian null ersities. But let them beware--if Russia is
kt to have her way she will not stop there. The Wallachid4,
are aware that Wiesen nets entirely under the direction a
Russian influences and th it he has only escaped so 1, og che
censure of the Porte by means of Salae reports dictated and
supported by Russia, as was the case in the dissolution of
the chamber. The Waller-hums do not hesitate to affirm that
the recall of Daskow, the litissian Consul-general it
Bucharest, who compromised himself greatly by meddling
with the acts of the government, was only a step to give n
turn to the current of public opinion. A similar step um
taken with Bukhman the former consul. A new consul
will
enter the field with • better chance of success, not beiag
obstructed by antecedents."

RUSSIA—ST. PETERSBURG, APRIL 11.—The fig-
lowing is the recital of a aeries of abominable murders :
.• M. Lesniewski, a landowner, in White Russia, had given
a family fete, at which some friends were present. Ife ;s.
sited them to pan the night at his house, and promised
them a good breakfast the next morning. In the maiming,
however, nothing was ready; the cook, the coachman, and
another d imestie having passed the night in drinking. Id
Lesniewski ordered the steward to chastise the coachman an
the moat guilty of the three, and pardoned the other two.
Having learned that he was to be punished, the coachman
spoke to the two domestics, and induced them to arm them-
selves with axes and kitchen knives. They then went to the
house occupied by the steward and his family, and killed
him and has wife and daughter. Two brothers of the want
having hastened to render assistance, were also killed. A
young girl who had sought refuge behind a stove wag
dragged out, and in spite of her cries arid supplications,
was likewise murdered. The assassins then went to the
residence of M. Lnniewski, who was smoking with a friend.
They attacked the two gentlemen with great violence, bat
after resisting for some time they succeded in barricading
themselves in the dining-room. Having in vain tried to
break open the door, the three wretches spread theouelveg
over the house and killed the wife of M. Ltsniewski, bee
servant, and a child who was sleeping in a Cradle. They
then took horses and rode off to the house of Al, Porembaki,
a neighbour of M. Lesniewski, and stating that they bad an
important letter to remit, fell upon him and killed hon. Rig
wile, who was enceinte., was also slain. They then went to
the house of another gentleman, but an alarm having been
given, the peasantry took arms to defend their master, upon
which the anasems fled. hi. Lesaiewski, having escaped
from his hiding place, drew together all the inhabitants of
the neighbourhood and the police, and went in pursuit of
the assassins, They eventually overtook them, but not be-
fore the miscreants had made several other victims. The
total number of persons thus murdered was seventeen. The
assassins were eventually arrested. One of them hanged
himself, and the other two were executed "

MADAGASCAR—The Journal du Ifarre of the
26th contains intellitence from ;his island, brought to the
Mauritius by an English vessel. According to the account
of the captain of this vessel, the relations with the Wand...
still interrupted, and likely to remain so for some time to
come. All the Europeans in the island continue to be
treated with great rigour, and are severely watched. A
Malagache chief, having shown symptoms of a desire to enter
into friendly relations with the Europeans, was condemned
by the Queen to be burnt alive, and only escaped the horrid
death by taking poison. The Malagache women, who ars
suspected of having 'myth:og to do with foreigners, are sold
into slavery.
RIO JANElRO.—Advicee have been received
from Rio to the 28th of February. Exchange on London
had impreved to 28/ ; Local Stork was quoted 83i. From
Buenos Ayres dates had been received there to the 22nd of
January, and from Monte Video re the 29th, hut without
news of any interest, beyond what is already known here.
Accounts from Valparaiso to the beginning of January had
also beat received in Rio; but, beyond the contemplated ex-
pedition of Flores, and the expression of satisfaction with
the measures of the government of this country to prevent
it, they presented no novelty.

RUSSO-AMERICAN COMPANY.—The Russian colo-
nits in the north-west of America, encircling to advice, from
St. Petersburg in the German papers, have acquired a high
degree of prosperity in consequence of their excellent admi-
nistration; they have become principally important for
RUIIIiS with reference to furs and tea, because for several
years it has become evident that the fur animals have b gam
to diminish in the north-eat of Siberia, through the inces-
sant persecutions of which they are the object, or that they
have retreated into the region of the north, almost inacces-
sible to man, and that on the other side Russia iv no longer
in a condition to pay for the tea which she annually re-
ceives from China, with the furs of Siberia, which are
becoming more rare, a deficit which con only be made
good by the colonies before mentioned. The com-
mercial movement of the Russo-American company
amounted in 1845 to rather more than three millions of
silver rubles. The commercial operations bore principally
upon furs and tea. The company imported into Kiachta
30,000 furs, which, with some other articles in request there,
were exchanged against 6,150 chests of Chinese tea, the
greater part of which was afterwards sold at Nishni-Novgo-
red, the chief market of Rusaia. The commodities neces-
sary to the inhabitants of the colony wero partly brought
by land fr..m Siberia, partly from Cronstadt, and from Eng-
land, in the vessels of the Iludeon's Bay company. Down
to 1844 the colonial company possessed a factory at
Ochotsk, which was transferred in that year to Ajan,
a more southerly point, and more favourably situated
than Ochotsk for commercial operations. Irvin hence it
is proposed to introduce agriculture amongst the
nomadic tribes of the vicinity, and to establish commercial •
relations with the Tungusic, a race still entirely savage,
spread over the frontiers of China, not far from Ajan. Some
Ismailia' of this nomadic race have been recently located our
the bay of Ajan and the shore", of the river May the nays
which they have made in the culture of wheat have succeeded
beyond all expectation. Similar essays had not succeeded at
Oehotak, which is situated more to the north, and In a more
rigorous climate. If the company should come to stabil&
commercial relations with the Tanguses in the new factory
of Ajan, it may have important remake for its commerce, for •
this people would open a fruitful source for the furs whits
abound in that part of Siberia, little visited still by the
bunters. At the commencement of the last year, all the
population of the Russo-American colonies amounted to
7,783 souls, of which 560 only were Russians of origin. The
company displayed a laudable real in the moral development
ache colony, and in extending instruction. At New Arch-
angel, capital of the colonies, there were two popular
schools for the education of children of cne and the other
sex ; there was also a seminary for the training of priest':
the last year it counted 60 pupils, of whom 35 creole,, the
remainder native. These colonies have the most amicable
relations with all their neighbours, even with the Kola:his,
the most powerful and savage tribe in these regions of North
America.

The fur held at New Archangel in April, 1846, wee
visited by nearly 2,000 Koloches, who supplied the market
with fresh provisions, which was so muck the more season-
able, as at the Liana the town was in want of edibles. With
the view of extending its operations in those parts of
America, the dtrec•ora of the company had dispatched is
February, 1846, a first expedition to the Sandwich Islands,
which wee attended with complete success. Returned to
New Archangel on the 30th of April, it bad yielded a profit
to the company of more than 4,000 silver rubles, with the
agreeable perspective of creating durable commercial re-
lotions with those Wands.