The Express.
London, England, 1859-10-29 00:00:00

&VICTIM', SATURDAY, OCT. 29.

TIIIR6 is a true savour of esa salt in the grim
irony of that couplet in one of Dientres sea songs,
where JA. K is contrasting the freedom and security ai
life aboard ship with the continual jeopardy to Odell
landsmen who walk about streets and dwell in bows
are exposed:
_ _

While you mid I, Bill, on the deck
Are condoetably lying,
My eyes '. what tiles and ellimbly pots
Around their beads are flying.
The recklessness of temperament which nada a
lad to sea, and which, hardened and confirmed by
conflict with the elements, laughs at real danger,and
yet is apt to shriek with • sort of dismayed disgust
from the vulgar incouvenieoces of artificial existence.
is happily and humorously expressed. The dweller
in dims, on the other head, with all his habitual
scepticism and indifference, who peeps at the moon
as at a raree show, and takes a return ticket to go
and gape at an eclipse from some distant hill in
the country—your acute, hard-headed, practical
man on 'Change, in the Law-court, in the
(tub, stares and marvels like a mere baby
when he is brought face to face with the
terror and mystery of nature in any of her sublimer
moods. A fashionable public) at Brighton running
out lo Pee the effects of a gale of wind upon " real
"water" is merely as sorry and ludicrous a combination
as the genius of mockery can devise for the laughter
of the stars. Accidents and offences, fires and mur-
ders, burglaries and poisonings, are es dull and stale
as taxation, or aa births, deaths, and marriages
they are the " useful and the beautiful" of well-
regulated society ; and who but a dry statistical
philanthropist reads the wreck-list, or ponders the
significance of the annual catalogue of casualties
among merchantmen and coasters ' It is only when
the great meteorological staple of Engliak
coovereation derives a certain freshness and
novelty from • sudden attack of winter
upon the rear of autumn, or when a hurricane lute
torn up a tree in the park and blown an old woman
into the neer or • child into the canal, that our
inland world begins to feel that the Universe is sot
absolutely done to order yet.
Last Tuesday night, when town and country were
well abed, and let us hope not without thank•
fulness of heart, nor without having taken thought
of " all those who travel by land or sea ;"—when even
the rancid haunts of vice in London were emptying,
and the homeless were shaking off to snatch forget-
fulness Walt here out of reecho( wind and run:—in
the dead hour of • desolate night, desolate enough
among street lamps flickering in a clammy fog,
more desolate still when • sickly moon peered dimly
through a drift of ragged cloud, and the wind
howled and moaned with • roar of 'ogle and anguish—
in that desolate night and that dead hour one of those
terrible calamities which are remembered for cen-
turies was hurrying near five hundred of our
fellow-creatures to sudden death at sea, after • safe
and prosperous voyage of twelve thousand miles.
within six hours of port, and within stooethrow of
the long wished for land. Heartrending and dis-
astrous is the shipping intelligence of this week all
round our coasts, but the wreck of the Royal
Charter will be a melancholy fireside tale among
our children's children. If, indeed, what is called i The above has been sworn by the executors,
progress" be truly defined ea en increasing demi. I George Robert Stophemea, dell "newer ; Charles Parker,
, or Bni:ifiel.danhdCcohas. P
sure tark..er
sßidder,heets orcivfd engineer.
tpis
Dion over time and apace, then England, marching Tsobli.citord
at the van. atones for her pre-eminence by many • demi the 13th of August, IMO. The persoetalty% el;
rn
hostage. We talk of bridging seas by the size and under 400.0001. The principal legatees are the executors.
speed of our ships, but every now and then we offer I The coon. of the dammed, George Robert Stephenson, of
up costly sacrifices to avenge our triumph', and coo- Wimbledon, in the county of Berrsy, boa bequeathed to him
net our pride, the deceased's letterset in the factory at Newcastle, and in the
Saitetone Collieries in Leicestershire, which the deceased
It would be eery for some glib interpreters of Pre- Inherited from his father, the late Gorge Stephenson.
videoce to prottotance homilies on the fate of a ship Tho wow., also i.ees to the same curia his leasehold
laden with the root of all evil, and of men hasting to loam in Olouceater-square, Hyde-park, together with the
be rich ; for it is certain that the Royal CAorter I ternitare, pictures, plate, library, win., and other affects;
belf of the furniture and effects in the deceased's
had at least 400,0001. on board, and that many Or her
passengers were returning from Australia with for- 4111",........„jaCimaiCie""*.treel'Wistai"ter'kbe°tharb.ifb.1"
to Mr. George Parker Bidder. Mr. George
tunes in their hands. But this catastrophe may
further obtains as absolute bequest of
point, we think, a osier and more serviceable moral. To stook is massy. The other two elevators receive
mortal eight human destinies are at best a chute, and IO,OJOI. esch. To Messrs. Robert sad James
it is not for mortal wisdom to presume to fabricate Stephenson, two other cousins of the deessesd,
rosident is Newaestle-on-Tync, then beensatheill
out of inexplicable chances • providential orderer its
own. Here, for instance, was a ship touching at t;l:ietb.su'aN f
ew 6616:1* each. Thh: de""•,.. M's Carlow
Queenstown, and landing thirteen passengers, one
watt that establishment,t ,aanre eacht lerftgen2,to:l4a. c4rusessd
. is
of whom left his wife on board to pursue her voyage wed to a lady named Emily Lister, late of Boulogne.
to Liverpool, and, as it turned out, to meet death on wer-lier, ant 1,600!. each to her two eisters. Legacies of
the way; here were ten poor riggers, just returned 2,llooLimehare left to various civil engineers, including Mr.
from working • vessel to Cardiff, taken on board from " Una ailwk of Sydenhern. Mr. Thomas Eliot Huriesi
Mr. W. M. Buidae, of C
deceud lapham, Au.% Several Smola
a steamtug in the Chaunel, and five of them con-
demned to perish with • ship that had come all the I deed, swim krpeies
of 2,000,'":t Tohet whom
aare67.
1.
way from Australia in safety. Who will Preum. Ifa left ter lb. mainwaance and education of the
to jadge? " The one was taken and the other left.* I caiktrea of the late Mr. &arbor*, of Walbrook. An
Let us be content to morelloe more humbly and i sanuity of 100/. is provided for • servant of the deceived,
humanely on the fate of oar fellow-creatures. eamt.d Margaret Torolineou ; and the sum of 20/, each lt Mrs •
M all the other servants who hod been with Mr.
miserable task, while the bodies of the poor castaway
aispheases upwards of twelve nx.whe The will further
people are still awaiting Christian burial, to look
lathlike begun," to vast philantbroide and educational
about for whom to blame, when all but • score are Mediations, the particulars of which have been already
beyond the reach of blame or praise. It is easy published; and it concludes by veering the residuary .State
for us to wonder and regret that the Royal I equally is the three esecurors. The will Is remarkably
simple is Its language, and almost entirely hoe from technical
town should ever have passed on from Queens-
town and sailed up the Irish Channel without a pilot Pbram44"Y'
in wild and threatening weather—that without a
pilot, and with a northerly gale cowing on, she should
have pawed by Holyhead, and kept hogging • dead
lesshore at night along the most dangerous line of all
our coast. Any one who knows that coastor who has
even glanced at a chart, cannot fail to be struck
with consternation at the bare thought of such a

with her four hundred and seventy souls on
board, and her chests of gold—all going down
together in that hungry sea, and torn to
pieces by these cruel rocks. Yet even a ca-
lamity like this has its compensations; for all
ea board, from Captain TAYLOR—who by his stead-
fast devotedness and unalterable courage preserved
discipline to the last, and died like a British mansua
at his post of duty—to the poor seaman who volun-
teered to carry through the blinding hurricane and
the foaming surf a hawser to the rocks, and the good
clergyman who calmly said the last prayers for the
dying, all met death unflinchingly, and in their lut
moment' left an example to the few who survive, and
to all who mourn them.

THE INDIAN MIITIMY.—The Gaztite ofyestertity
pallitahon a report, submitted to the Secretary of State for
lode in Council by the Governor•Geneeal, from Lieutenant
G. Hawthorn, commanding kid &tic:Moroi 24th Bombay
Natty. Infantry, of operations usenet the rebels at Gonda,
on the 19th of Juno lreS9. Hot Becelkoacy M Council desires
to record hie sppr, al of the manner to which them opera.
time wan conducted, and odors Ilia thanks to all engaged on
ecostioa.