The Express.
London, England, 1853-12-16 00:00:00

BOROUGH HOP MARKET.-THIS DAY.

Messrs. Pattenden and Smith report that the hop market
iarery quiet, with prices about the same as for same time
put.

COAL MARKET.—THIS DAY.
Walls End Haswell, 30s. ; Walls End South Hartlepool,
305.—16 ships at market.

ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OP SALMON ON THE
Tax.—The ponds fur this purpose are situated on the river
batik near Sioremountfield, the spawning boxes being 16
feet above the summer level of the river. The water which
supplies the ponds is taken from Stortmouutfield lade (but
owing to the impurity of the Tay during spates, a supply is
also to be taken from a neighbouring spring), by a pipe with
a valve into a filtering pond; from thence it is carried by a
canal along the upper end of the spawning boxes, through
which it runs. These boxes arc S 4 feet long by one foot six
inches broad, and three feet deep. They are placed with
a fall of six inches, so as to allow the water to flow freely
through them, and are partly filled—first with a layer of
fine gravel, next coarser, and lastly with stones somewhat
coarser than road metal. In distributing the ova, it is
gradually poured out of the vessel which holds it, at the
upper end of the box. The water flowing downwards
carries it amongst the stones, sud.x which it settles down,
and by gently applying a few buckets of water at the upper
end of the boxes the ova is taken down and distributed
equally amougst the gravel. When the young fry are
in • proper state they are allowed to escape into a pond
situated at a foot lower level than the bases, where they
will be fed and allowed to remain until sue
time as they are in • fit state to be turned into
the river. 'lbis pond is not yet made, but will be
finished by the time the fry are hatched. Great
care has been taken to prevent any animal entering with
the water that would prey upon the young fish. Mr.
Ramsbottom, from Clitheroe (who has experimented suc-
cessfully for the Messrs. Ashworth en the Lough Corrib
waters, in Ireland), has the hole management of the Tay
ponds. Saturday was a remarkably fine day for the season,
and we we:e privileged in being peeve t at the eperation
of stripping the fish. When we left the river side upwards
of 400,010 ova in tine condition had been ..pained. In the
math of March tho fry will have burst their shell, when
we hope to report farther.—North British Mail.
MATRIMONIAL TRADE.—Yesterday there were 111
proclamations for marriage in the barony parish, and 78 in
the city parish—a number altogether unpr, cerleoreo in one
day. No doubt the proclamation trade would be propor-
tloaately elastic in the Govan and other suburban perishes.
Despite the rise in the price of provisions, thW still be-
tokens a comfortable condition amongst the working-
classes, to which these parties, no doubt, principally belong,
and who get proclaimed thus early in the month, that the
knot may be tied before the old year has run its coarse.—
Glasgow Herald.
TRADE IN SOUTII CAROLINA.—The Charleston
Mercury of Nov. 23 has the followinir news:—At a public
sale of negroes yesterday by Colonel D. Condy very
high prices were obtained. A girl of 16 was sold for 776
dole., one of 18, 790 dole.; one of 20, 760 dole. ; a man of
40, a labourer, 770 dols.; and a boy of 18, apprentice to $
tailor, 900 dole. We noticed also the sdeof a tract of lan-
in Christ Church, about six miles from Moult Pleasant, of
about 320 acres, for 4,000 dais. Taking the stringency of
the money market into consideration throe prices indicate
as advat.eing tendency in both land and negroes.
DUMAS IN AMERICA.— Alexander Dumas has
written a letter to a friend in Net/ York, in which he says:
—" Find for me on the borders of the St. Lawrence, the
Hudson, the Delaware, or the Ohio. a center where, sur-
rounded by my chosen friends, I may spend my last dap,
and die in tranquillity under the sun of liberty." It is
stated that M. Dumas has already ',alibi. 0 several manu-
script weeks to the hands of his agsirs, who have esta-
blished a publishing house in New York, tor the purpose of
brining them out originally and exclusively in this city.
The manuscript ef hiecamedy,the " of Louis XIV.,"
which was prohibited at the Theatre Francais, is in the
Ihands of his agents. Several of our in inn are in nego.
dation for its production.—New York 7'r•eune.
I ROBBERY IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGR.—A lady who
I arrived in Glasgow on Saturday by the five o'clock train
from Edinburgh, bad a bank cheque hir 2,0001. abstracted
from a leathern reticule, which she curl, d with her. The
cheque has been stopped at the bank ou which it was drawn.
—Scotsman.
A YOUNG MAN SHOT.—Yesterday afternoon, Mr.
John Levy, of White's-cottages. Camberwell, was rabbit-
shoot.ng at Sydenham. Having climbed up • tree, in the
hope of getting a better shot, he requi•ti d a friend to hand
him his guy. In executing this the piece went
off, and lodged the charge in Mr. Levy's thigh.

Zit ewrprt,Sgs.

at school. Cneltcnham may form an exception per-
haps. Apprentices no longer receive corporal pu-
nishment from their masters. The army and the navy
preserve but a few fragments of the old custom.
Public whippings have disappeared. Even so late
as the reign of GEORGE HE. it was enacted that
every unqualified person taking or killing a par-
tridge in the night should be whipped publicly. Whip-
ping was so prevalent as a punishment in the reign
of JAMES 1., that a law was passed to exempt the
gentry from the infliction. Would a custom so uni-
versally prevalent at one time have almost utterly
vanished, unless time had shown its thorough worth-
lessness? Cruel punishments make • cruel people.
Depend upon it that if the populace is once more to
be accustomed to the exhibition of bleeding backs
parading through the town, as Sir It. CARDEN pro-
poses, at the cart's tail, the public taste will
become more bloodthirsty. If Mr. BARRETT were
to be whipped at a cart's tail—by the hands.
as Sir It. CARDEN suggests, of MARGARET TUBAS, the
poor woman whom he maltreated,—in the very spot
where the crime took place, there would be at least
as many sympathisers with the suffering criminal, as
approvers of the punishment. In addition to this,
there would be the terriblo evil of encouraging a
taste for bloodshed. No criminal was ever deterred
from committing a crime by witnessing the execution
of one condemned for committing the crime. Public
executions are bad enough : do not let as add to the sin
they engender by the public exhibition of torture.
It may be suggested, en passant, to Sir It.
CARDEN that the spectacle of a woman taking
the law in her own hands by permission
of the law itself would fortify in the minds of the
lower orders that feeling of the right to vindicate
one's own injuries which is at the bottom of half
the acts of brutality that are committed. The
second objection is that all methods have not
been tried. The crimes of such men as Batmen stop
but little short of murder, and the Legislature has a
right to adopt any measures, however extraordinary,
to diminish the crime or to reform the criminal. Six
months' imprisonment is an absurd trifling with a
crime like this. The criminal is a ferocious beast, and
be must either be locked up for ever or tamed. If
all the imprisonments experienced by atairrr,which
have been spread over twelve years, had been united
into one, time might have been afforded him to ex-
perience the benefit of reformatory discipline. Ser-
vitude in a colony away from all women would at least
have prevented the exercise of his peculiar brutality.
His mind might have been worked upon. He might
have been tamed. In cases where the prisoner is charged
with habitual ferocity he must either be shut out
from all opportunity of venting his evil passions or
they must be subdued. It is absurd to suppose that
six months' imprisonment will suffice for this. How-
ever, as it is not our present object to propose any
favourite remedy for one of the most perplexing aced
melancholy of our social evils, we would simply enter
our protest against hastily turning back to old pre-
tended remedies, which have totally failed. In the
meantime, the only true remedy is the increas-
ing intelligence and morality of the people. If
they are taught, they will not need to be punished.
Prevent crime, and we shall not need to avenge it.
In this respect Cowena's remarks on London are as
applicable now as when they were written :

TO CORILESPONDENTS.
lkooad Edition Al The F.iprve," oo n 4 the ~..me twenins'e
..liaat.tte," to pubi:shed aver) 'fwd.,' tad Ynday to
for poet.

'e'enlifilneals.in'mled for "The Ea press," London E.enusi
slot be M tto Boureriaetzeet, by Two o'clock on the
iey of pub:treuon.

HUT WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Tots DAY —Monition, th. Afternoon, -h. ten.
7.110ak --)lvralasg, 3h. 3e. Afternous, 311. 20m.

LONDON, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16.

JAMES IttRRETT was on Wednesday convicted
before Alderman C'aro,ex of one of those brutal
ansaults upon women with which we have lately been
DO painfully familiar, and which are becoming an
opprobrium to the nation, and the despair of the
legislator. The magistrate is reported to have
addressed the criminal in terms of regret that the
proposed enactment to punish such persons u the
prisoner by flogging had not yet received the sanc-
tion of the Legislature. He is then reported to have
said," Had he had the power he would certainly have
ordered the prisoner to be tied to a cart-tail, and
dogged through the town, and he would have placed
the scourge in the hands of the prisoner's victim, so
that he might have known how she felt when suffer-
s% from his brutal rage. Imprisonment was not
safficient punishment; and he (Si: It. CARDEN)
trusted it would not be long before the rejected mode
of punishment was adopted."
Sir It. CARDEN is sailing with so unmistakeable
• current of popular opinion at this moment—the
blood of the universal public is boiling with such
indignation against the bloodthirsty ruffians whom
the Alderman would expose to the vengeance of
the law,—that it is an ungracious task to interpose
. .

with a protest against the consummation which he
so evidently desires. And yet it is for the veep reason
that the public mind is in a state of excite-
ment on the subject that a protest is necessary
to obtain, if possible, a pause before we
commit ourselves to a step which may be the pre-
lode to a return to the sanguinary brutalities of
the old penal laws. " Imprisonment (says Sir It.
CARDIN) is not sufficient punishment." Sufficient for
what ? For satisfaction to the injured party
TAW, in penal law, is scarcely taken into considera-
tion. The party appearing before the administrator
of the laws sinks his or her personality, and the
effetider is responsible now only to the society
whose peace he has violated. Is, then, imprison-
ment an insufficient punishment to satisfy or take
vengeance for the crime against society—against
the majesty of the law ? That surely is best an-
swered by taking the interests of society itself into
consideration. Aud the interest of society is, that
crime of all sorts should be diminished as much as
pomible. One at least, then, of the objects of •
penal law is to deter from the commission of crime.
Dose the deterring power, then, increase with the
severity of the punishment ? Experience gives the
question • negative. CLARKSON tells us that, with
the diminution of the severity of punishment in
Pennsylvania, coupled with a reform in prison disci-
pline, crime ilios 11111111111 l by one-half. The Marquis
BECCARIA tells us," In proportion as punishments be-
come more cruel, the minds of men (as a fluid rises
to the same height as that which surrounds
it) grow hardened and insensible, and the force of',
the passions still continuing, in the space of an
hundred years, the Wheel terrifies no more than
formerly the prison." BLACKSTONE tells us, " San-
guinary laws are a bad symptom of the distemper of
any Mate, or at least of its weak constitution. The
laws of the Roman Kings and the Twelve Tables of
the Deremriri were full of cruel punishments; the
Porcian law which exempted all citizens from the
sentence of death, silently abrogated them all. In this
period the republic flourished; under the Emperors
severe punishments were revived, and then the empire
fell." We might multiply similar quotations ad
infinitum. The gist of them all, however, would be
included in a question put by a speaker in the House
of Commons, so far back as 1810: " If intimidation
will prevent crime, why should not the terror of
death attend the most trifling offences? Why stop
at the terror of death itself ?"

Now mark a spot or two
That so much beauty would do well to purge
And show this queen of cities that so fair
May yet be foul : so witty, yet not wise.
It is not seemly, nor of good report,
That she is slack in discipline: more prompt
revenge than to prevent the breach of law.

The effect of punishment is curiously illustrated in
the person of this JAMES BARRETT himself. For the
last twelve years he has been continually in and
out of prison fur assaults, and drunken and disorderly
conduct. The last time he was in the Compter, he
had six weeks' imprisonment for assaulting his wife.
What an admirable commentary upon prison disci-
pline! JAMES BARRETT, strange to say, although
the law has hail him in hand for twelve years,
although the law has treated him lately for his
peculiar complaint,—a tendency to inflict summary
punishment on the female sex,—obstinately refuses to

be cured, and relaxes into his old habits on the first
opportunity. A poor woman named MARGARET
Tunas comes into his room to call out her husband,
when Ihinterr addressed her with filthy and insult-
ing expressions. The rest of the tale is told in the
woman's own words:
My husband then tried to get me away and pushed me
out; but the prisoner immediately rushed towards me
sad dragged me by the hair of my bead into the room.
Be then struck me on the eye, knocked me down and
kicked me with his ►eavy boots repeatedly about the face
and body, while I was lying on the ground. I screamed
for eminence, and had it not been for Mrs. Finalise, who
reamed me from the prisoner's violence, I believe he
would have murdered me. lam so dreadfully bruised all
OM My body, that I can neither stand nor sit without ex.
prieseist great pain is all my limbs.

This " gentleman," as the poor woman called him,
who has graduated twelve years in crime, is now
sent to take a new degree by Sir R. CARDEN, who
has sentenced him to six months' imprisonment with
hard labour. Does any person imagine that Mr.
Banarrr will have lost any one of his ferocious
instincts by that time ? Is the confinement likely to
agree with his rather excitable temperament ? Is
the hard labour calculated to put him in good humour
with the sex to which he will attribute all his mir
fortunes? By all means lock him up for six months,
for he will have so much less opportunity for in-
dulging his amiable weakness. But do not suppose
that his appetite has diminished; he will only come
oat fresher for the training to which he has been
subjected.
Well, then! say the advocates of the re-establish-
ment of the whipping discipline, as the prison does
so little, try the cat-o'-nine-tails. What harm can
there be in the experiment? What reasonable ob-
jection c►n there be found againt endeavouring to
pat a stop to atrocious crimes by a new method
when all other methods have been tried and failed?
There are two objections : first, that the " new
method" is as old as the hills, and has failed
miserably and incontestably. If any nation
oa earth is unacquainted with the efficacy of
whipping as a punishment, that nation is
not England. The Englishman has been whipped
from his cradle to his grave, in past times, and yet so
little has this custom commended itself to the prac-
tical sense of the win), that, although consecrated
by time-hor.oured traditions, whipping has been

silently proscribed from nearly all the departments
where it once flourished, and lingers, a faint image of
itself, in some few places, awaiting its inevitable des-
tiny. Our boys are no lingir flagged unmercifully

THE EXPRESS, FRIDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 16, 1853.

LATEST FROM ABROAD.

RUSSIA AND TURKEY.

make common cause with Austria and Prussia, they
have set bounds to their own actions."
The Co'vac Gazette remarks, "The Vienna pro-
tocol, instigated and promoted by the English govern-
ment, is neither more nor leas than an expedient for
getting rid of its engagements towards Turkey."
Besides our own despatches, given in our "latest
intelligence," the following, emanating from Russian
sourced, has been received. _ _

(BT SUBMARINE SUBMARINE AND EUROPEAN TRLSORAPH.)
BRUSSELS, THURsDAY.
Despatches from Vienna announce that the Cactut-
sums have made a descent in Suchumlcale.
Detachments from the fleets are gone to Sinope.
The Russians lay claim to a great victory, gained
under General Andronikoff, near Akiska.
Persia declares war against Turkey.
The Turks are forming a military camp at Nissa.

Letters from the Danube of the Gth state that
the movements of troops were, at that date, entirely
suspended. Neither battles nor skirmishes were
going on.
The Turks were at Turns., with 5,000 men, as well
as at Kalafat.

One despatch says :—"News has been received
here that Prince Orbelian encountered 30,000 Turks,
who bad passed the Arpatchai, near Alexandropol,
and, after a sharp. engagement, drove them back.
They were retreating on the 14th November. It is
also said that, in another direction General Drum-
mer charged 7,000 Turks with the bayonet, and
completely routed them, taking a cannon, two
standards, and a part of the Turkish train and
ammunition."

According to a Vienna despatch, "Advice. from
Odessa state that the Russians defeated the Turks
at Agur, in the Caucasus, and got possession of their
baggage." The same despatch states that two Rus-
sian steamers were cruising near Versa, to cut off
the Turkish reinforcements. The absence of dates
leaves the correctness of this intelligence io great
uncertainty, which is not likely to disappear until
the receipt of despatches from Constantinople.
For the purpose of obviating misapprehension, and
without any desire to reflect upon the arrangements
of other newspapers for presenting _intelligence to
the public, we notice that the bulletins from the
Danube and Asia which yesterday suppled a contem-
porary with materials for a second edition, and which
the evening journals reproduced, were published in
the Daily.ll'etes of Monday last.
Yesterday a contemporary, by nature and habit
sympathising with Russia, but who can be the friend
of Turkey, too, when the pachas are successful, thus
endeavoured to cover a change of front :—" Some of
our contemporaries, who are animated by great
confidence in the military resources of Turkey, appear
to imagine that the success of the Ottoman arms on
the Asiatic frontier more than compensates for the
disaster they have just met with at Sinope. We fear
the next arrivals will check this favourable view of
the case, for we have already received intelligence
which makes us distrust the partial advantages which
the Turks have obtained. • • • Our last ac-
counts from Constantinople inspire us with little
confidence in the alleged successes of the Turks.
They have undoubtedly taken some small forts on
the coast, but the rumour of their having gained any
decisive advantage was at least premature."
Of course a telegraph may arrive at any ono of the
24 hours, and entirely change the political horoscope ;
but whether the Times is entitled to correct its con-
temporaries respecting the advantages gained by the
Ottoman arms in Asia, we shall soon make apparent.
Not to ask what statements the Times has reported
as news, let the following summary of military events
in Asia, taken from one of its recent leaders, show
who has most landed the success of the Turks in
Asia. The Times on the sth inst. said in a leading
article :

The Russian Colonel Suchowsky is named Vice-
President of the government of Moldavia.

The Moldavian and Wallachian militia have been
united, under the command of the Russian General
Sala. Their strength has been greatly increased by
recruiting, and they are to be employed as circum-
stances may require.

The artillery of Wallachia and Moldavia having
exhibited on several occasions a determination to re-
sist or evade the Russian service, are to be re-orga-
nised and placed under the command of a Russian
colonel.

On the Asiatic frontier matters look even worse. The
first incident of the war, being the capture of a fort named
after the patron saint of the Czar himself, has struck a
superstitions gloom into the army and the Russian people,
and is regarded as a most ominous event. Prince Woron-
zow's despatch, giving an account of the capture of this fort
—St. Nicholas— was certainly not calculated to diminish
the impression proddead by such a defeat; and the subse-
quent repulse by the Turks of five attempts to retake this
position has aggravated the disaster. At the MIN time a
Russian steamer, the Foudroyant, with troops on board,
the same, it is said, which conveyed Prince Mencbikoff
to Constantinople on his arrogant mission, ran aground
on the coast, and was dsstroycd by the enemy,
and a steam-frigate is reported to have been da-
maged, if not lost, in another part of the Black Sea.
There appears great reason to expect that these successes
of the Turkish farces, followed by the raising of the
blockade of the coast, and by supplies of arms and powder
from the Turkish arsenals, will be followed by a general
insurrection of the mountaineers of the Caucasus. The
hill forts and block-houses, which serve to cover the
Russian stations, will be closely invested, and the commu-
nication by-the military roads through tho province wholly
interrupted. Meanwhile Prince Woronzow is at Tiflis with
an army of about 30,000 men, but the reinforcements he
had demanded have not reached him ; his communications
by sea and land are threatened or cut off; and, to complete
the embarrassment of the Emperor, it appears by the last
accounts that Prince Woronzow himself, who may be
regarded as the second personage in the empire, and has
shown great ability in his administration of Southern
Russia, is seriously, and even dangerously ill.
Such is the picture which it now suits the Times
to repudiate and attribute to its contemporaries. It
is not ours. We have not to maintain or destroy it.
If, however, such a statement had been made in
these columns, upon sufficient authority, we should
certainly not reverse it upon such grounds as the
nmes gave yesterday when correcting " its con-
temporaries." The Tories, it seems, has intelligence
that "there is a want of unity and authority in the
command of the Turkish forces," and yet these
loosely-organised troops are those which as
yet have defeated corps after corps of the
enemy in Asia. Again, "the army of Georgia
has always been a picked corps." If so, its reverses
are the more honourable to the unpicked troops of
the Porte, but a few days ago the 2imes said it was
a " disaffected " corps. Prince Woronzoff too, who
was ill, is better; we are glad to hear it, without
however for a moment crediting the absurd story
that the Russian operations had been interrupted by
his illness. Finally, we are told that " the Russian
general is about to assume the offensive, and march
upon Kars and Erzeroum." In truth his position at
Tiflis does not appear very eligible, with Schamyl
down upon him every other week. Perhaps, however,
he may find it easier to leave Tiflis than to get back
again when he 'nad desire to do so. Should he be
no more successful in correcting the Turks than the
Times in correcting " its contemporaries " his move-
ment will be melancholy indeed.

THE WEST INDIES.

SOUTHAMPTON, THURSDAY EVENINO.

The Plata has just arrived. Her dates are—
Jamaica, Nov. 27 ; Demerara, Nov. 25; Trinidad,
23 ; Chagres, 23 ; St. Thomas, Dec. 1. She brings
specie to the value of about 630,000 dollars. Amongst
her passengers is the president of Honduras.
At Trinidad there was some fever, and the troops
had been removed in connquence. All the other
islands were healthy.
The House of Assembly at Jamaica was in ses-
sion, and had passed the Import Duty Bill with
some important reductions of the tariff. A great
struggle took place relative to the duration clause of
the bill, which the retrenchment party wished to
limit to the 31st of December, 1853; but, after several
divisions it was carried, by a majority of one, to extend
its duration to :he 30th of December, 1854. The
question of responsible government was fixed for
debate on Wednesday, the 20th, and it was contem-
plated the government views would he carried out
and the guarantee loan accepted, as all parties were
tired of the general dead lock. The return made to
the House of Assemblies by the receiver-general
showed a deficiency of 200,0001. up to the January
quarter, which would have to be added to the debt
of the country, as it never could be discharged by or-
dinary taxation.
From Demerara, it is stated that the Court of Policy
has not yet gotover its adjournment.
Plantations are thriving, and the weather favour-
able. The crop, however, cannot rival that of 1852.
Yellow fever is nearly gone.
Several thunderstorms have occurred at the ex-
tremes of the colony and done much damage at the
mouth of the Essequibo. Same estates have been
flooded.