The Express.
London, England, 1853-08-25 00:00:00

ANN HICKS IN MELBOURNE.

The voice of an old acquaintance has reached us
all the way from Melbourne—even the voice of Ann
Hicks. Our old friend does not appear to take cor-
dially to her new home ; but we reserve comment
till we have allowed her to speak for herself. Her
letter is dated May 15 :

" I had a long voyage, and Fanny was very ill ;
but I did not ail anything. I landed on the lit of
January. My first home was with the ltev.
I then took a situation as a cook near
Melbourne, but had to leave it in consequence
of spraining my right hand. lam now nurse at the
IMelbourne Hospital, where I have been three
'months. But no night nurse is kept ; and our living
is bad; and I have only 12s. per week (ss. a week
in London woull go much further); and I have to
pay 10s. a week for the care of my little child—for I
seut her out to service, and she was so overworked
that she has been ill ever since. And this is a very
unhealthy countrv—mud and dust every other day.
All articles of food and clothing are very dear, and
house-rent is dreadfully high. I intend to go out as
monthly nurse as soon as I can.
" I have in vain advertised in all the Melbourne
land Adelaide papers for my son Arthur. I cannot
get any information of him; so I am quite resigned
to give up all hope of his being alive. Thousands
who have come into this land of gold and slavery
(for it is nothing better) die every year of dysentery
and fever.

"As all things go, however, I may as well stay
where I am. My utmost wish is to obtain a few
acres of lend, and build a cottage ; and if it shall
please the Almighty to permit me to live to see my
little daughter old enough to earn her own living, I
will be contented. I have lent a petition to her
Majesty the Queen, to grant me a few acres of land
out here, instead of the money due to me for the
materials of my cottage in Hyde-park; and if this is
granted, I shall do very well. If I do not get an
answer to my petition, I will try to get home next
year, and petition the Queen in person."
Now, we know quite well beforehand what will
be said of this letter by the parties to the evicting
of poor Ann Hicks, and the coteries in which they
move. They will be eloquent about her inca-
pacity to help herself, and her dissatisfac-
tion with her lot. As to her capacity to help
herself, had she been one of those who ever were
very good at that, she would not have drifted down
into a vendor of toffy and brandy-ball.. As to her
!rumbling, it is but natural. It must be kept in
mind that she had been allowed to establish herself
as a vendor of juvenile confections in Hyde-park;
that she was harmless and inoffensive there, and a
burden on nobody ; that she was wantonly and use-
lessly evicted, to make way for a favourite of the
powers who rule the park, who now supplies glasses
to the thirsty who resort to the fountain near where
her hut stood instead of her. At her time of life, it
is not easy to acquire the ways of a new country. and
they who drove her to make the difficult experiment
have much to answer for.

The Queen cannot grant land to Ann, but it will
be hard to make the poor woman understand this.
If she return, however, as she threatens, to this coun-
try, to urge her claim in person—and she is Just the
woman to do it—she will trouble her old unfriends
by her clamorous grievances. There is a noble
lord who owes her amends for the cantons and super-
cilious harshness with which he treated her. He
might do a worse and less graceful act than by pro-
curing a few acres for Ann in Victoria, to save him-
self and his Royal mistress from the annoyance of
her re-appearance on the stage here.

INDIA.

THE OVERLAND MAIL.

(SY SUBIIARINIt TIM/I/APR.)
MARSEILLES, THURSDAY.
The Indian Mail arrived here at nine o'clock this
morning.

RUSSIA AND TURKEY.

Through a channel which scarcely allows us to
entertain a doubt of the accuracy of the statement,
we are informed that the acceptance of the proposal
of the great powers by the Porte had been shown to
their ambassadors at Constantinople, and that there
everything was considered as dually settled.
Baron de Meyendorff, son of the ambassador of
Russia at Vienna, left Trieste on the 17th, for Dal.
matia, to proceed to Montenegro, whither he is carry-
ing, it is said, the order of St. Anne to Prince
Danilo.

A letter from Constantinople of the Bth, in the
Wanderer of Vienna, states that M. de Bruck, the
Austrian Internuncio, had declared to the Porte that
in proposing to occupy Fiery* the Austrian go-
vernment had no desire to make the slightest attack
on the integrity and sovereignty of Turkey, but
merely to aid in the maintenance of order ; and that
if the Porte did not consider this aid necessary, the
Austrians would not cross the frontier.
A letter from Vienna states that • commercial
house in that city has lately, by order of a banker at
St. Petersburg, made considerable purchases of me-
tallic bonds, paying for them by bills on London.
It is stated that these purchases, which have tended
to keep up prices, have been made for the account of
1 a Russian archduchess.

A letter from Jassy says:—" General Danuem-
berg, before his departure from our town, set at
liberty all the inhabitants of Moldavia who had been
arrested for resistance to Russia. At the same time
the inhabitants were informed that they would be
severely punished if for the future they endeavoured
to thwart the views of Russia."

FRANCE.

PARIS, WEDNESDAY EIFENINO,

It is now beyond a iloubi thiiititeat;senCeoFthe
French ambassador from Brussels at the moment of
the Duke of Brabant's marriage was a calculated
affront to Belgium. M. Amedee de Cesens, who on
the Emperor's fête day received a decoration for " emi-
nent services rendered in the political press" startles
the Parisian public today by an article occupying
five columns of the Conslatunonnel, the obvious pur-
pose of which is to manifest the displeasure of his
imperial master at the Austrian alliance, and to
threaten Belgium with annexation to France.
Should this article excite premature uneasiness, or
more attention than is intended, the I/ma-
te/4r will repeat the common form that the
government is not responsible for the opinions
expressed by other journals. But although part of
the duty of a French government writer is to suffer
repudiation when necessary, M. Ami:dee de Cesena
un this occasion has contrived to evade even his own
personal responsibility for the feeler he has put forth.
He has found a convenient Belgian, and the more
convenient because an anonymous Belgian, who pub-
lishes with a Parisian publisher, M. Ledoyen, a
pamphlet entitled " Belgium and the Austrian Mar-
riage," stuffed full of " Napoli aliennes,"
arguing the impossibility of Belgian independence,
ridiculing Belgian patriotism, and affirming that
all sensible Belgians arc eager to be an-
nexed to France. M. AmMee de Cessna,
who by the way makes no allusion to the absence of
the Drench Ambassador from Brussels, merely
notices the pamphlet in the dry discharge of his
duties as a journalist, not that the French govern-
ment has the least hankering after the banks of the

EVEIiNG. AUGUST 25. 1853.

Bebekft,istit beams the public ought to be made
aeireisted with " state of opinion in Brume's upon
'so vests problem as the destinies of a kingdom bor-
deringon one of our frontiers."
An additional brigade has been ordered to rein-
force the camp at Helfaut immediately.
The Emperor has declined to accept the gift of the
Hotel de Ville of Dieppe. In a letter to the Mayor,
thanking him for the offer, his Majesty says the
existing claims upon the civil list do not permit
him to provide for the expense of keeping
up an additional residence. This puts an end to a ques-
tion which has been raised, whether the municipality
had any right to give away the town property at all.
The weather at Dieppe has been very bad, and the Em-
pies, has been unable to continue her promenades. It
appears that the Patrie, in saying so much about
the 3nrepressible enthusiasm of the population, has
not Seen speaking in the right key. The Moniteur
this morning says that the people scrupulously attend
to their Majesties' desire to remain incognito and
that their " respect equals their affection." The: Pays
also says that the Dieppe people are most " circum-
spect" in theexpression of their sympathies.
A letter from Dieppe gives the following account
of in incident which occurred during the launch on
Monday :
The Emperor, who observed the dreadful state of the
beach from the quantity of large stones and shingle which
lay about, asked the Mayor why something had not been
done to remedy such a state of things. The Mayor replied
that the local authorities had long endeavoured to have
tte beach improved, but that the military engineering de-
partment, under whose jurisdiction the beach was
placed, had opposed the general wish. The Municipal
Council, he added, had for some time past come to the re-
solution to send in a petition to the lumperor on the sub-
ject. His Majesty then directed the Mayor to send him in
a plan, assuring him that he would do all he could to for-
ward the views of the corporation. The Mayor and the
' Municipal Council immediately set to work, and in
Ifour and twenty hours a plan will be ready. The news of
this circumstance has caused the greatest satisfaction in the
town.

The journey of the Emperor in the north appears,
says the Constitutionnel, to have been postponed, and
it is now almost certain that the Empress will ac-
company him. M. Duhamel, Prefect of the Pas-de-
Calais, announced the day before yesterday to the Coun-
cil-General the approaching visit of their Majesties,
and he demanded from the Council a credit of 10,009
francs for their reception in all the department, and
a further credit of 2,500 fr. for furnishing the apart-
ment at the Prefecture for their Majesties' reception.
It appears certain also that the camp at Helfaut will
have an additional brigade for the let of September,
which will be placed under the command of General
Lespinasse, Aide-de-Camp to the Emperor. The
brigade will he composed of the 12th Horse Chas-
sears, and the Gth and 15th Light Infantry.
Prince Jerome on Monday received the visit of the
sub-prefect and the civil, military, and administrative
authorities of Havre. The Prince, accompanied by
Queen Christina and her children, afterwards visited
the imperial yacht, the Reine Hortense, which was
anchored in the King's basin. The crew manned the
yards, and, waving their hats, shouted 1, Vice l'Em-
pereur ! Vive Jerome!" as the illustrious party went
on board. After having minutely visited the imperial
yacht, they returned to shore, and, amidst the accla-
mations of a large crowd, drove off in the direction
of Ingouville.
The llfonittur says :
The Emperor of Austria, whose attention had been called
to the manceuvres which have been executed for some
weeks put at the camp of Satory, has been pleased to have
his army represented there. That mission has been entrusted,
on the designation of the Emperor Francis-Joseph himself,
to Prince Jahlonowski, Field-Marshal, Grand-Master of
the households of their Imperial Highnesses, the brothers of
his Majesty ; to Colonel Baron Leykam, brother-in-law of
Prince Metternich ; to Colonel Baron Smola ; and to Colonel
Auhin. Prince Jablonowski and the ',Meets who accom-
pany him have just arrive•' in Paris.
The obsequies of General de Montholon, which
were to have taken place to-day, have been post-
poned by "high command." It is supposed that the
Emperor intends to order a public funeral.
A legitimist journal, Le Foi Bretonne, has received
a warning for an historical article reflecting upon
the memory of Napoleon I.