The Express.
London, England, 1867-04-02 00:00:00

EXPRESS FROM PARIS.

THE OPENING OF THE EXHIBITION.

(NEON OUR OWN OUREOPONDENT.)
PARIS. MONDAT Winn.

We have had the fine day which I ventured to
. predict. From morning to night the sky was
almost cloudless. There was, however, a sharp
' north wind, with a strong March rather than April
flavour, which led to a very general evasion of the
, order that gentlemen visitors to the Exhibition
on this opening day should wear evening coats and
white cravats. They did indeed don the full dress
. costume, but nine men out of ten wore a good
woollen paletot over it, and some sported com-
forters round their necks. Frenchmen agree with
Shakespeare that a March sun is " full of agues,"
and I suppose it was in deference to this maxim
that the ushers winked at the infraction of the
published regulations about dress. It was a great
thing to have the sun at all. The weather was far
more favourable for the purpose than any day in
the past month would have been, and we have had
so much wet of late that there was no dust.
, There was none of that " movement " in Paris
which betokens a great national fete. I
was in several parts of the town in the
course of the morning and could not help remark-
ing the absence of any particular stir and bustle.
Nothing at all approaching the expected number
of foreigners has yet arrived, and this is not to be
wondered at considering how far and wide the
news has spread that the Exhibition would cer-
tainly not be ready on April 1. I went to the
building at about 1 o'clock, passing by the Arc de
Triomphe, the Avenue Josephine, the Pont des
Invalidew, and the Avenue La Mothe Piquet. This
was but an hour before the Emperor was to come,
and yet there was nothing like crowding anywhere.
Along the quays stretching from the Place de la
Concorde to the Pont de &Ma there was just a
thin, and by no means unbroken line of spectators
waiting to see the imperial cortetjc pass—and that
was all. A grand review or a horse race at
Surdsnes puts a great many more people on
foot than did the news that this was the open-
ing day of the world's show. The fact is
the Parisians well knew that there would be little
to see outside ; and the entrance fee of 20fr. for
this day was a prohibition price effectually prevent-
ing the million from thinking about the inside. 1
have reason to think that very little money indeed
must have been taken at the doors, those who
could afford a napoleon for a spectacle not caring
to part with one for an imperfect sight of a cere-
mony which at best could not be extremely in-
teresting under the circumstances. It was quite
unnecessary, as it turned out, for the Imperial Com-
mission to warn the public that those who wished
to avoid being blocked up in a crowd would do
well to take the Ceinture Railway at the Rue St.
Lazare station. There was not the least difficulty
in getting carriages up to the doors, and gendarmes
and *ergots de rifle judiciously placed at
every spot where a " jam" was thought possible
had scarcely anything to do, and nothing occurring
to provoke or perplex them, they were most par-
ticularly civil. The senators and other great bodies
of the state, whose attendance was not, so far as I
could observe, very numerous, did, I believe, avail
themselves of special trains provided by the Ceinture
Railway ; but a friend of mine who was misled by
the Commission's proclamation into patronising
the roundabout rail, spent about an hour and a
half in performing a journey which a cab would
have done in twenty minutes. Inside the
building and in the park there were of course a
great many people, but the place is so vast
that there was nothing like crowding or excitement
anywhere. The public consisted, I should think,
almost entirely of the exhibitors and their families,
the juries, those specially invited for the occasion,
and of season ticket-holders, whose number is very
considerable; of 20-franc peOple caught in the
tourniquets this day I am persuaded there was a
very /Ma sprinkling indeed. I saw the Emperor
arrive from the gallery of the handsome Inter-
national Clubhouse, erected under the auspices
of the Duke de Valmy at the Pont de Jihis end of

the park. The imperial cortege consisted of three
carriages only ; and because, I suppose, this was a
peaceful exhibition—perhaps also because it had been
announced that there was to be no " grand"ceremony
to-day—there was not the usual escort of Cent
Gardea. There was no escort at all—only out-
riders. When the Emperor, after passing along
the Quai Billy, arrived at the Passy end of the
Pont de Jina, his carriage halted for a minute to re-
ceive a numerous deputation, male and female, from
the workpeople employed in the construction of the
building. A few minutes before I saw this depu-
tation descending in a very long line from the
heights of Pansy. They bore with them a variety
of tools, and some of the women shouldered
brooms over their shoulders. One of these
presented the Empress with a bouquet. At
this time the fine flight of stairs extending
from the Pont de Jdna to the top of the Trocadere
was thronged by people, to the number, I should
think, of as many as ten thousand. The imperial
carriages crossed the bridge, and on arriving in the
park passed under a very splendid velum of great
length, of green velvet, embroidered with gold and
studded with golden bees. As I anticipated, the
Prince Imperial was not of the party. I
wonder at his name having been included
in the programme, for the public will be
sure to think now that he has had a relapse. The
Emperor and Empress and the Princess Mathilde
alighted, were received by the various foreign com-
missions, and then walked through some of the
galleries. And here—referring to the ample details
which you will receive from your special coy-
respondent—l can give you little more news than
the Moniker du Soir gives its readers in small print
this evening, namely, that "On this Ist of April
the Universal Exhibition was opened with the
ceremonial previously announced." The form
of the building is such that there can
be no coup d'ril. Those in one gallery
cannot see what is going on in another. I was
stationed in the Fine Arts Gallery and saw the
Emperor and Empress followed by a very long
string of commissioners pass through it. I
noticed that the Emperor paused several minutes
in the Italian Gallery to contemplate a statue
by Vela, of Napoleon 1., in a dressing gown and a
sitting posture, representing him at St. Helena
during the last hours of his life.

In the fine arts galleries there is not that ap-
pearance of unreadiness which distinguishes mod
of those where industrial products are to be
exhibited. A very clever excuse has been sug-
gested for the notorious incompleteness of the
Exhibition, namely, that if the opening had been
postponed three months longer it would not have
been ready then, it being everybody's experience
that the only way to drive masons and carpenters
out of a house is to inhabit it.

The appearance of the small central garden, with
a band playing, the sun shining, and ladies in rich
toilettes promenading round it, was very pretty.

FIGHT BETWEEN FENIANS AND THE

MILITARY.

CORK, MANnAT.

A fight is reported between three armed Fenian
and a party of police yesterday, near Mitchell's Town, in
this county. One insurgent was killed, and two others
captured ; one of those captured is bl'Clure, who com-
manded a body of rebels in the late rising.
One more arrest has been made in this city, and is. a$
Killeagh, in this county.

CORK, llnn,.tv EvemNa.

Later reports respecting the conflict between the military
end the Fenian, near Mitchell's Town, yesterday, state
that no force but the military was employed. The soldiers
surrounded a wood where the insurgents lay concealed. A
long conflict with revolvers and rifles, from behind trees,
numerous shots being exchanged, took place. Three rebels
were captured, one escaped across the river, and one pd.
goner died of his wounds. Ile was named Toomey, and is
said to have been a comfortable fanner near YouglaL
One of the prisoners, Captain Ill'Clure, for whose arrest a
reward of WO& was offered, was also wounded. Five eel.
diers, it is rumoured, are wounded.

STRIKE OF THE PARIS TAILoRS. —At a meeting
of the journeymen tailors of Paris, held on Sunday last,
which was attended by 2,500 persons, it WWI decided to
strike for higher wages. Notice was to be given to the
masters yesterday, and if the conditions demanded wets
not complied with, the strike was to commence forthwith
In the course of the proceedings M. Deguergue read the
following telegram from the London Trades' Union, signed
by Mr. Matthews :—" Your telegram nueuived. Having
. entire confidence in your success we promise you our moral
and material support." The meeting, after several salvos
of applause, telegraphed the following reply :—" The
Paris tailors assembled in the Hall of the Elysee Mont-
martre have received your despatch, they accept your
generous offer of assistance, and thank you ire the name of
humanity and fraternity."
THE. UNITED STATES AND RoME. —The fad that
Congress has refused to appropriate money for the PAW?
' of a minister at Rome 'ought to be conclusive ; yet we
note efforts to have that most righteous action reversed.
A statement from Rome (which we presume to he
prompted by the minister) asserts that American pro-
testa:its are now permitted to hold meetings for public
worship in a house designated as the American embassy,
though it is nut the actual residence of the minister. This,
it is imagined, will nerve to allay dissatisfaction, so that
the embassy may be continued. We trust it will have no
such effect. The government of Rome is no concern of
ours ; and we have no right to quarrel with her authori-
ties concerning it. That is, in our eyes, a very stupid
bigotry which, in a Christian land, forbids
Christians to worship God according to the dictates
of their own consciences ; but Rome is not bound to see
such matters through our spectacles ; and strangers who
do not like her ,laws may keep out of her jurisdiction.
Our position is that this country should never have had s '
minister there at all. Rome, so far as she is a state at
all, is an ecclesiastical State ; and thus her important',
her power, are ecclesiastical ; and we sent her a minister
for ecclesiastical reasons—that is, with an idea of gratify-
ing or propitiating the Roman catholics, especially thee
of our own country. Apart from her ecclesiastical r!:.•
ratter, Home has not half the claims to a mission thst
Itavnria has, or that Saxony has ever had till within the
past year. And, now that Italy is trying to reconstruct
herself, integrally and potentially, our keeping a minion.]
at Rome is an unfriendly and ungenerous emlxtrresseuent
to a great though young power, with which we ought to
cherish relations of cordial amity and mutual good will.—
New York Tribune, March 18.
CAMBRIDGE UNDERGRADUATES AND THE Pe
—At the Cambridge Borough Police-court, yesterlay,there
was a large attendance of undergraduatea, who bet i• 01
drawn there in consequence of some of their nu ..ber
being charged with assaulting the police, and w at-
tempting. to rescue a prisoner from custody. It sm., ars
that during the athletic sports which were lodfl 10-4 sal
several of the Cambridge men were visited by underm-
duates from the enter university. On Saturday niuht
Dr. Ransom hail a notion that some attempt nimbi le
made to annnoy him, and so he was more watchful than
usual. When his servant reached home, at about hit.
past 11, be found that the door had been tied to the
door of another house by means of a cord re,ciiing ft
one to the other. Shortly after midnight the doter
his night-bell ring violently, and rapidly epeniir.- the
window he saw a policemen struggling with s worn, t idler
men and other constables came
and there was rePll'e
tustle, in which the constables almost lost their prisoner.
Their opponents, who were, with two exceptions. CAM-
bridge students, knocked off their hats, and aubjeete them
to other indignities. They at last aucceeded in getting their
prisoner safe in the police-office, and then they .recertaia,l
his name to be Edward Courtenay I ogle. student of
Christ Church, Oxford. The charge of 'login.: Pr-
Ransom's bell was entered against him, and yrstenlaY this
charge was heard before the magistrates. But with this
first defendant was associated others. They were John 1.-
Charington, also a student of Oxford ; Robert C. alon-
cnef, of Trinity College, Cambridge ; Alfred K Jacob'
son, of Downing Coll ; and the Hon. W. C. Wentworth
Fitswillissn, of College. Against these Inno
charges of attempting to rescue the defendant Boyle. 01.
assaulting tbs ice, and of interfering with them in the
performance their duty. Boyle was fined 30s. and me!,
or 14 days' imp isonmant, and each of the other defend-
ants were aned 50s. and costa, or one month's imprison'
meat. _ _

OEYNTAL PALACE. - ONZ SHILLING DAY'
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