The Express.
London, England, 1858-07-12 00:00:00

SPORTINO INTELLIGENCE.

A SPECIAL EDITION of the "EXPRESS,"
eentaining the results of the day's Rama, is pub-
lished every evening during the Sporting Season, at
siz o'clock.

'fats Telegram informs us that a massacre was per-
petrated on the Christian residents of Jiddah—the
pert of Mecca—by the Mara'nun population, on
the night of the 15th of June. All telegraphic
asnouncementa are necessarily brief and obscure, and
those of our Acting-Consul-General in Egypt parti-
cularly so. We are therefore left quite in the dark
as to the actual extent of the butchery, and ss to
whither it has been the result of some strictly
local outbreak, or of some insurrectionary move-
ment with wider ramifications. It is stated that
the English Vice-Consul, the French Vice-Con-
sul and his wife, with twenty other persons,
have been martkred ; and that the daughter of the
French Ceased, and the French interpreter—both

badly wounded, with twenty.foar other Christian
-fugitives, had been brought to Suez in her Majesty's
ship Cyclops. The Oovernor•Oeneral of the
Hadjaz had arrived at Jiddab, with 800 soldiers,
bet whether he had succeeded in re-establishing
erase is not known.

If the statement that the French and English
Vie►(brasM have both perished in this massacre
he cornet, the affair will, and ought to be narrowly
inquired into by their Governments. It is, however,
of vital consequence that their interference be in a
proper spirit. Infinite harm may be done if they
act merely with a view to make political capital—
to curry favour with their respective publics, by
attaining specious and showy results. That this may
be their polity is quite within the range of possi-
bility. The present French Government is quite as
much a Government of Cusps de 77tidere as of Corps
sr Etat : and the present English Government—
with its " Conservative policy and Radical princi-
" plea"—bas a natural propensity to imitate ita
Gallic prototype at humble distance.
It is possible that the murderous outbreak at
Jiddah may have had its origin in some widely
ramified combination to resist Christian influence
and encroac►ments throughout the Museulman
world. Everywhere in Islam we may trace
recent symptoms of a resuscitated feeling
of bitterness towards Christians. In Turkey
it may be discerned in the movements of the old
Mahometan party. In Persia, we had not long ago
something nearly approaching to • proclamation of
a holy war against Christians. In India England is
fighting with an insurgent population, of which the
Mahometan element is decidedly the most invete-
rately hostile. From all the rude and predatory
bitussulman tribes to the North-West of our India&
frontier* come ominous murmurs. All these things
indicate a simultaneous re-awakening of hostility to
Christians, and everything Christian, among the ma-
jority of the Mahometan populations, that may lead
tea general combination, if it dace not spring from •
general conspiracy. It has been too much over-
looked that, effete and apathetic as Mahon•
taniens is by many people supposed to have become
a large proportion of the world's population still holA
the faith as it is in Islam, and that these peoples have
constant systematic communication with each other.
the mere existence of which, not its mode or nature,
is known to Christendom. hlnesulman communities
exist as far south as the line in Africa, and in the
Indian Archipelago. Mussulman communities—
independent, or in subjection to Governments of
some other faith—are found as far East as Chios ;
within a short distance of the West Coast of Africa;
in Morocco and all along the south coasts of the

hfeditarraisean ; se far north ea the Danube, and fez
into the interior of the Russian dominions both in
Europe and Asia. Different Mahometan tribes and
nations have attained to different grades of civilisa-
tion. Some can warmly be regarded as baring
risen above the savage eats; others are possessed
both of refinement end knowledge. The various
shade. of opinion among the professore of Islam are
almost as numerous as those among the professors of
Christianity. In proportion as you remove from
the Arabian centre, you find Mahometaniam

varying in character.ln Persia it has retained a
tinge of Zoroastrian ; in India it fades by impercep-
tible gradations into the native ruperstitions; among
the Malays to the South, and the Tartar tribes in
Ramie, many aboriginal superstitions are prevalent;
in Africa, Fetishism has frequently made strange
asenpromises with Islam. But among all Mahouts-
bra populations there is found a capacity and in-
elligencs--latent or developed--superior to those
which characterise peoples which have not yet
emerged from Heathenism. The Mustilman creed—
social and religious—has a common origin with the
creeds of the Christians and the European Jews: it
confers upon its follower,, in common with the pro-
fessors of those other true creeds, a higher civilisation
than has been attained to by any other portion of tne
human race. Except in China, Christians and Ma.
honsetam are the only dominant races wherever they
are fiend. Except in Chins, Maltossetans are thennly
religionists who hare not yet entirely seccumbed
in the struggle for ascendancy with the Christian
rases. And them widely diffused reasoner' of •
eammea faith have a central place of to-union when
every year, at a Fled season...representatives of
every tribe and tongue among Sheen meet together.
At Meom, on each recurrence of (he great religioua fes-
tival of Islam, assemble crowd, of Mahotoetana from
every region where Mabometans exist. And their
thoaghts and convenation, during the time they re-
main together, are not %reclusively devoted to mil-
itia'. They find time fee the transaction of more
amides. business. Many conunersial transactions
are then and then carried on. And political news