The Express.
London, England, 1866-04-11 00:00:00

A PARIS RACE COURSE.

The Bois de Boulogne on Sunday was visited by
a majority of the fashionable world, hundreds of the com-
mercial chewer, and a strong gathering of well-dressed per-
sons on foot of the workmen population of Pans. Although
the weather was showery the attendance of carriages
on the coune was such as to cause the front of the
grand stand to be clustered round by vehicles
of varied shapes and names, at least 10 or 12
rows deep, and this extending to about one-third of a
mile. In the grand stand were the Emperor, with
the Prince of Denmark, Prince Joachim Murat, Oount de
Nisuwerkerke, General Fleury, Baron Hausmann, and M.
Pietri, prefect of police. The stands on either side were
crowded with the more conspicuous of the fashionable
world, the ladies' toilettes gaily animating the messes of
dark coats and black hats of the men. " A French race-
course however" writes a correspondent, "is still very
little Mte a Derby meeting. There is an air of well-dressed
solemnity about the company, as if they were misting at
some serious Olympic games which demanded grave atten-
tion. The French seldom smile, and a Frenchman may pass
years of his life without a thorough good laugh. No one but
a Frenchman could keep the expression of his face painfully
serious when throwing hill body into the most grotesque
attitudes at the dancing casino. These ' gay people' are
not personally lively by nature, although their amuse-
ments and habits of life are admirably pleasurable.
The ladies and gentlemen at the Bois de Boulogne
yesterday sat in their carriages, in calm solemnity,
and the company at the grand stand might have
been performing a morning reception ceremony. It is the
fashion for the young men to walk about the carriages
and look into the broughams when there happens to be
seated one or two ladies, dressed in the very newest and
most striking fashions. The hair is often made golden by
art, and the eyes got up to look large and bright,
by means which the Eastern beauties employ to pro-
duce pleasing sensations in the heart of man.
The sporting youth of Paris may be seen searching
about, and peeping right and left into these smart,
well-horsed broughams, like little boys bird-nesting. Cyrus
the younger finds his Aspasia at last. There she sits in
her pretty, neat carnage, looking so much like one of the
highly-coloured prints of the modes of Madame Somebody's
last fashions. In the card laisket of the brougham are
rare flowers which ought to have bloomed in June,
but by the aid of a couple of guineas you get
them a couple of months earlier. It is highly
genteel to patronise flowers and fruits out of season. It
is a refreshing consolation to know and observe round about
these ladies carriage loads of the height of propriety—
old senators, bankers, the nobility of great enterprises
and concessions, deputies, and, I aims grieved to add, a
few English families, who go to the races on Sanday only
in France. These respectable people dre-s their daughters
in toilettes much like the ladies who are not accompanied
by their parents ; but young Cyrus only salutes them
coldly as he panes, having long ago made up his mind
never to marry. The old lawgivers leave the family
carnage, and pop their grey heads into the trap of
C—, and on returning assure Madame la Baronne that
they have been to look at Chuliateur. Ah ! that is the
gladiator by whom they are sure to be conquered and made
to bleed ! On the race ground yesterday then was more
intriguing than feasting. The one booth fur refreshments
writes up " ices ;" the greatest sobriety prevails. Thanks
to the benevolent care of British enterprise, betting
is decidedly on the increase this year, and you ob-
serve little groups of people bent on exchanging their
napoleons. There are also vehicles where you can go in
for a pool, and come home with a bag of gold. I take
this to be a great resource for expi ~sive Paris. Mean-
while, as the courtesies of turf society ii.! interchangiaL
off start a flock of neat small riders, ii,ai y-coloured, on
winged steeds, and they all come in at Cie w.:iiiing post
so near together that none but the most f.st idiom, can
care who gets the rim By 6 o'clock our Pavia world
are all streaming home down the avenue of the Champs
Elysees. The most bumble were, as usual, well-dressed
and orderly ; you have not heard a wicked oath tie whole
day ; there has not occurred a single fight. Everybody,
excepting the sporting few, are happily ignorant about the
winning horses, and most of us intend to Igo to the races
next Sunday. It?' neither expensive. nor fatiguing, nor
injurious to health ; and, then, it is higldy genteeL"

. . .
A deputation waited on 'Monday evening upon
his Excellency the Lord-Lieutenant, at the Viceregal-
lodge, Dublin, to present to him a " Declaration in favour
of United Secular Education in Ireland." e deputation
was headed by the Lord Justice of Appeal, who read the
declaration, which, it is said, had attached to it three
thousand signatures of noblemen, magistrates, clergymen.
and members of the professions. FEN Excellency replied
to the effect that he would forward it to the government,
from wham, he felt assured,
it would receive the most
careful attention.
Dicrer.sE cre CANTERBURY. —The Rev. litio,rh
Forbes Smith Marriott, l:. A., has been instituted to the
Rectory of Hormnonden, in the county of Kent and diocese
of Canterbury.
DEATH Or Da. THOMAS HODGKIN.—A telegram,
dated " Jerusalem, sth April," has been received in Lon-
don announcing the death of Dr. Hodgkin at Jaffa, after a
severe attack of dysentery. Dr. Hodgkin had proceeded
to the East in company with Sir Metres 'lontefiore, on a
philanthropic minion ; and it may be remembered that
only a few mouths ago they visited Morocco together, and
succeeded in inducing the Sultan to make large concessions
to his Jewish subjects. Dr. Hodgkin was one of the
founders of the Aborigine* Protection and the Ethnological
Societies ; an honorary secretary of the Geographical So-
' ciety ; a member of the Senate of the University of Lon-
don? and intimately connected with many other scientific;
bodies. He died in his sixty-eighth year. He was a mem-
ber of the Society of Friends.
DEATH on Da. BABINGTON. —The death
in is an-
nounced of Dr. Benjamin Guy Babington, the
seventy-td
Charterhouse, whence year of his e. The deceased was edu-
cated at theeragence he proceeded to Halley-
bury College, after which in 1812 he entered the Madras
civil service, but after seven years' service he returned to
bngland in 1819, when ho entered the University of Cam-
ridge , and obtained his M.D. in 1830. In the following
year Is became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.
For many years he was physician to Guy's Hospital and
the Charterhouse, mid is the author of many medial
works.