The Express.
London, England, 1867-03-18 00:00:00

RUSSIA.

ST. PETERSBURG, Rises 16.
The provisions of the Paris International Tele-
graph Convention will be extended to Siberia.
BT. PETERSBURG, MARca 17.
_ _

The Journal de SC Peterebourg of to-day, in an
article on the speech delivered by M. 011ivier in
the French Legislative Chamber, says :—" Friend-
ship between Germany and France has nothing
alarming for us ; on the contrary, we honestly
wish it to exist, and no Russian wishes it to be dis-
turbed. But though Germany may be proud of the
courtesies with which she is treated by French
orators, she will as little as Russia believe that her
relations have become less friendly towardasthis
country, which was always friendly to Germany
and has been her ally in time of danger."

AMERICA.
(in ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH.)
NEW YORK, MARCH 15, 5 P.Y.•

Several detachments of British troops have been
sent to the Canadian frontier, a Fenian raid being
apprehended.

Closing prices:—Gold, 134. Sterling exchange
on London, 109. Five-Twenty United States
Bonds, 1091; Illinois, 1151 ; Erie, GO.

NEW YORK, MARCH 16, Noox.

The Virginia Senate has offered to co-operate
with General Schofield, who commands the Virginia
district under the bill for the military government
of the South.

The Senate of Louisiana have made an appro-
priation to test the constitutionality of the military
bill.

Opening prices :—Gold, 1344. Sterling exchange
on London, 109. 5-20 United States Bonds, 1094;
Illinois, 1154 ; Erie, 69.

NEW YORK, MARCR 16, 5 P.M.

The Senate has appointed a committee to examine
into the affairs of the Treasury printing bureau.
Closing prices :—Gold, 134 i. Sterling exchange
on London, 109. 5-20 United States Bonds,
1091. Illinois, 1151 ; Erie, 59. Cotton, mid-
dling Upland, 32.
The North German Lloyd's steamer Union, and
the Hamburg and American Company's steamer
Hammonia, arrived out yesterday.
• Received in London at 5 p.m. on Saturday, March 16.

THE WEST INDIA AND PACIFIC MAILS.

The Royal Mail Company's steamship Douro,
Captain Beres, with the above mails, arrived at
Southampton yesterday morning. She brings 21
pabsengers ; specie, value 877,068 dollars ; also 135
Berens indigo, 93 serous jalap, 23 cases cigars, 89
Barons cochineal, 105 bags and 22 tierces coffee,
137 bales bark, 40 bales cotton, 966 bags cocoa,
and 166 packages sundries. The Douro loft Peter
Island on the 3rd • on the 7th, lat. 36.53 N., lon.
45.0 W., she exchan signals with the English
barque Bellona. Dates by this arrival are
town, 16th Feb.; Jamaican, 25th ; Demerara,
25th ; Trinidad, 25th ; Barbadoes, 27th ; Colon,
22nd ; St. Vincent, 26th ; French Island, 28th ;
Antigua, St. Kitt's, and Nevis, Ist March ; and
St. Thomas, 3rd.
. _

From Jamaica the only news of interest is the
introduction of a bill in the Legislative Council,
imposing a license tax upon trades, professions,
&c., which has led to considerable discussion.

REPRESENTATION OF BRDFORD. —A second Con-
servative meeting was held at the George Hotel, Bedford,
on Friday evening last, Mr. Bingham Newland in the
chair ; on which occasion Captain Polhill-Turner was pre-
sent, and declared his acceptance of the invitation of the
previous meeting to come forward as a candidate at the
next election. It was further announced that a requisition
was in course of signature to Mr. James Howard, of the
Britannia Iron Works, to come forward as a colleague with
Captain Turner ; and the secretary of the association
stated that though the requisition was not completed, it
had at present received a larger number of signatures than
an like requisition in the town of Bedford.
THIEARL OF DERBY AND THE CONSTITUTIONAL
Anaocismog.—The Constitutional Association has for.
warded to us the following letter, received by the execu-
tive committee of the association, in reply to one sent to
Lord Derby on the 13th inst. enclosing a copy of the reso-
lutions passed at the meeting in the Corn Exchange on
the 2fith ult. :—"10, Downing-street, Whitehall, March
14, 1867. Gentlemen' —I am desired by the Earl of
Derby to acknowledge your letter of the 13th inst. toge-
ther with its enclosure, and to return his best thanks to
the Constitutional Association forthe resolutions passed at
.

• meeting held on the 26th ult. Robert S. Bowler, Req.,
Q.C. in the chair, which express confidence in her Ma.
jesty's government for their policy on the question of par-
liamentary reform, and deprecate the factions opposition
with which they are threatened.—l have the honour to be,
gentlemen, your obedientservant,Eamtiecrrow.—ToJames
Taylor,and Y. H.Chadwick,Eipqrs.—MaiscArater Guamhaw.

FRANCE.

(raox ocra OWN coaassroxourr.)

PARIS, SATURDAY EVENING.
At the sitting of the Corps Legialatif it was
announced that Marshal Niel, Minister at War, is
appointed by the Emperor a government commis-
sary, to support the reorganisation of the army
bill. This is a very important practical instance of
the working of the new principle that ministers
may be sent to defend their acts before the elected
of universal suffrage.
It was also publicly stated that the bureaux have
refused to allow M. Picard's interpellations on the
Senates Cuesultem which most seriously curtails
the rights of the Chamber. This is a result which
I led you to expect. That the interpellatiorui on a
subject of such vital importance should have been
disallowed is conclusive proof that the majority is
entirely in the hands of the executive power, ut-
terly devoid of public spirit, and prepared tamely
to submit to the doctrine, which there is nothing
to prevent being carried to most extreme lengths,
that the Senate, with the connivance of the Empe-
ror, who has appointed all the senators, may do
anytlimg, and that the Chamber of Representatives
only exists by the tolerance of the two other powers.
M. Piareksucceeded in getting the opinion of him-
self add hit friends upon the Senates Consultunt re-
corded in the Munittur, and that was all he ever
hoped for.
M. Emile de Girardin remorselessly and auda-
ciously carries on the war which he declared on
the evening of March 6, when he said that his con-
demnation by the Correctional Police classed him
among the systematic opponents of the government.
It will bo remembered by those who closely
' watch the course of French politics that M. Berryer
lately objected in the Corps Legislatif that the
yellow book did not contain the Italian despatch
alluded to by M. Rouher in May, 1866, which he
said contained an undertaking (etujegetneut) not to
attack Austria. M. Rouher, in answering M. Ber-
ryer, at once promised to produce; that despatch.
In so doing the minister yielded to necessity, for
the substance of the document in question has
already appeared in the Italian green book. It is
thus worded :
The minister of the King of Italy in Paris to the Minister
of Foreign Affairs at Florence.
1 Paris, May 4, 1866 (received May 6).

. ,
After the receipt of the telegram which your excellency
sent me yesterday morning, I announced to M. Drouyn de
Lhuys that I was authorised to declare that the King's
government did not intend to take the initiative of a war
against Austria. I stated that I was not speaking of any
undertaking (019aMentent), nothing of the knid havin g
been asked of us, but only a spontaneous declaration of
our past intentions and of our present intentions up to
the present day. I added that this declaration consti-
tuted; no new fact of a nature to change the situation,
which remained as before, namely, that Italy had only
armed because Austria had armed tirst.—Accept,
M. Rouher will have a hard task to make out
that this despatch, which expressly excludes
any "engagement," and only speaks of in-
tentions, with the curious reserve that they
are peat and present (not future) intentions, bears
out the description he gave of it.
M. Thiess wound up his great speech on Thursday
by saying that no one blunder which could by pos-
sibility have been committed by the French go-
vernment remained to be committed. M. Rouher,
in his reply to-day, took direct issue with these
words, and affirmed that the French government
had " not committed a single fault." In answer
to M. Thies' taunt that France had no allies, he
said that she had no enemies, and was regarded
throughout the world with deference and sympathy.

THE PARIS EXHIBITION OF 1867.

(FROM OUR sermil CORMEIPONDINT.
After struggling through the mud of the park,
and over the packing-cases and through the hay
and straw which encumber the Exhibition build-
ing—after taking as calm a survey as is compatible
with personal safety of the main avenue that
leads from the Pont de Jena to the principal
entrance to the building—it is hardly possible
to realise the still undisputed fact that the
Exhibition of 1867 is to be opened on the Ist of
next month. The mud must give any of our
soldiers who are here a keen recollection of the
Crimea. I have just returned home from an Ex-
hibition campaign. I, too, have seen wheels half
buried in mud, and stood hopeless fora few mo-
menta with a yellow slough before and behind me.
It moves one's pity to see the picturesque hooded
workmen from Egypt at their work in the east
wind of this most uncompromising March, and
painting their temple hard by, where French work-
men are raising a Calvary. The Germans take it
coolly, for they have their German beer-
house in their space, where they may
smoke, and where sausage and brown bread are to
be had at reasonable prices. It is true they have
blocked the railway once or twice ; it is true that
the southern part of the park, which has been
given up to Prussia, is abroad expanse of muddotted
with the half-finished timber skeletons of buildings
planted here and there. The German is not to be
driven forward. The alert and vigorous Swedes
have set up their handsome timber Gustavus Wasa
house, and set it about becomingly with pines and
shrubs, so that it is a pretty characteristic picture
to look upon now, and is a relief to the eye, in the
midst of the surrounding confusion of workmen
and waggons and struggling teams and goods trains
moving round the building. The Russians, too,
show an example to their neighbours. Their hand-
some timber buildings are finished, and are
delightfully fantastic. The Austrians' ambi-
tious work in the park is growing apace to
completeness. Tho English agricultural shed
is hniahed, and most of the important con-
tributions are in it. Hornsby and Son, of
Grantham, are quite ready ; the St. Pancras
Ironwork Company have set up their highly-
finished model stables ; and a host of others lave
arranged their bright blue and red implements
ready for the opening day. But the remaining
English buildings in the park are sadly backward,
if we except the testing-house opposite the Em-
peror's pavilion, which looks like a suburban
builder'sfolly, but is mean to be an exhibition in
itself of English building materials and appliances
and fittings, from the chimney pots to the kitchen
ranges. It represents not less than 140 exhibitors.
Our backwardness in the park la an injustice to the
Imperial Commissioners. We occupy the right
line of the main avenue, along which the procession
of kings and princes will pass to the opening cere-
mony, and now it is the muddiest and wildest part
of the scene. Not that this part of the park can
ever be made park-like. The buildings lie about
as thick as the leaves of Vallombrosa. The
eye lights on harsh-coloured buildings and low
red-tiled roofs on the French side, and on ugly
square buildings on the British side. But for
deliberate, and it must be intentional, ugliness—
for ugliness that is aggravated by the rich variety
of the oriental buildings in which it is set—nu
structure in all the park can compare with the
methodist order of architecture displayed in the
meeting-house of the protestant missions. Our
zealots who are coming laden with cheap or gra-
tuitous Bibles, or fragments of Bibles, to carry for-
ward the work of waste they opened by the road-
side of South Kensington in 1862, will not, we
trust, convert the heathen (and they are set in
the very midst of them) to their way of building.
The British department in the building is in a
forward state, and compares advantageously with
every other nation. I have no doubt that it will
be quite ready. at the appointed time, if the railway
authorities will cease to make London as far from
Paris as St. Petersburg. The Newhaven and Dieppe
transit authority (M. A. D. Bossou) deserves credit,
nay honour, for the efficiency with which he,
the father and present animating soul of this route,
has forwarded goods, to the disgrace of the so-
called shorter mute. It matters not where the
fault lies on the short route. The facts are patent
and incontrovertible. Monstrous delays have oc-
curred, to the confusion of the British section, and
possibly to the loss of honours by some of the ex-
hibitor. It will interest your readers to learn that
Letts and Co. (of the Diaries) were the tint Eng-
, lish exhibitors who were ready for the opening.
Their good example has been followed by many
others by this time. The booksellers' cases are in
the building. The Huddersfield manufacturers are
quite prepared to spread their fabrics on their
imposing row of cases. Mr. Cronmire's case is not
only ready, but his mathematical instruments are
arrayed in it. The Science and Art Depart-
ment are forward with their illustrations of an in-
ternational system of reproduction of works of art
for the use of schools of art. Gillows are on the
ground. Jenner and Knewatub have set up a hand-
some case. The lettering bureau is in full activity.
everywhere English workmen, who look sober and
serious amid the gangs of light-hearted official exhi-
bition porters, are adjusting cases, unpacking
goods, putting chandeliers together, screwing, saw-
ing, driving, and planing; and the sappers are
doing their part of the labour bravely and intelli-
gently, as usual. An antelope is the only living
creature who could move comfortably about amid
the frames and boxes and gangs of porters carrying
loads. The pictures are being got in rapidly, and,
I fancied,a little carelessly—when I saw porters
carrying them through the confusion, totally un-
protected, to the art gallery. Over the entrances
from without, to the British department, Rue
d'Angleterro and Rue des Indes are painted.
Benson's great clock—no Exhibition would be
complete without that—is up, and waits, carefully
shielded under a sky-blue case, for the opening
day. Harry Emanuel is ready. Best and Hob-
son, of Birmingham, are hanging their chandeliers
to a light and effective pagoda-like construction.
Tho Winfield', of Birmingham, are also hanging
their chandeliers ; but their framework looks rough
and heavy beside that of their neighbours.
The Indian court—for it is a court of black cases,
albeit the British authorities set their faces against
courts—is finished, and some of the delicate work
of the East is spread in them. Peeping into the
British-Art Gallery (from which public and press
are rigorously excluded), I saw "W. Mulready,
R.A.," painted ingold letters upon the wall above
the picture line. I presume Mulready is not to
enjoy this posthumous honour alone. Poor New
South Wales is driven into a corner of the ma-
chinery gallery, with her skeletons of wombats and
over stuffed birds, which an lying about fully ex-
posed. In the machinery gallery, British section,
the exhibitors are very forward, and many of the
heavy engines and machines an in their places.
The carriages also are in position, and are under-
going a careful final polishing. Moreover, three of
the gallery windows are already filled with illustra-
tions of the progress of machinery, notwithstand-
ing the concessionnaire M. Ber, who claims an in-
demnity of 50i. for every window so occupied.

A LIFEBOAT AT THE PARIS EXHIBITION.—The
National Lifeboat Institution tent on Friday, on the sire-
-6111 invitation of the commissioners, • tine lifeboat,
3.3 feet long, fully equipped, and mounted on a transport-
ing e, to the Paris Universal Exhibition. A com-
modious t•house is being prepared on the banks of the
river Seine for the reception of the lifeboat, /to., and the
whole establishment is expected to be a correct represen-
tation of a lifeboat station, like what is now happily seen
in connexion with the institution on overly every dan-
gerous point of the coast of the United Kingdom.