The Express.
London, England, 1866-11-06 00:00:00

THE -7EXPPTSS, I fittaliDAlit EVERING, NOVEMBER 43, • 1866:

cuous. In hardly any instance wpm shrinking or
fear of contagion allowed to interfere with the dic-
tates of humanity. The hospital having been once
accepted at the hands of the people 'proffering it,
the neighbourhood seemed determined to facilitate
its operations to the utmost. Women and child-
ren were sometimes carried in their neighbour's
arms to the hospital door : tenements in which
many deaths had occurred were forcibly fastened
up; and a system of informal house-to-house
visiting established, by means of which plain sani-
tary rules were endeavoured to be enforced. Of
course, there was stupidity, neglect, and opposi-
tion. Of course many flagrant evils are unabated;
and numberless places are standing invitations to
pestilence still. But the broad fact remains that
in the opinion of those best qualified to judge,
Bethnal-green bestirred itself to meet a pressing
evil with an energy and determination for which it
deserves full credit. It is no part of our present
purpose to speak of the discipline and treatment of
the cholera hospital itself. Dr. Sutton, its physi-
cian, is preparing an elaborate report, in which, it
is said, minute particulars will be given tending to
throw considerable light upon the pathology of
cholera. Each patient's mode of life and habits as
far as they could be ascertained, such facts as
whether there had been any other case of cholera
in the same dwelling house, and if any friend or
relative had had the disease, have all been carefully
noted. The symptoms of eye, hand, voice, pulse,
and tongue were also recorded ; and where
patients were a long time in the house
their case-cards would make a tolerably
thick volume. The local authorities cannot be
credited with any of the advantages secured to the
sufferers admitted. Those, it must be clearly
understood, belong to the managers of the hospital
itself. It is worth mentioning, however, that the
Bethnal-green vestry agreed to take a specified
number of beds for their own poor, contributing
1201. ; and that although no other vestry made an
agreement, Shoreditch gave 501. and Whitechapel
60/., the latter place now characteristically asking
for 141, back again in rates. The rent of the ware-
house used as a temporary hospital was about a
guinea a day ; and one of its most striking features
was the perfect freedom of admissions. No form,
or favour, or qualification beyond disease, was
needed. Its recommendation-book is full of such
entries as " By a man passing in the street ;" " By
a former patient of the hospital ;" "By a poor
woman living in same house ;" and there is no
doubt but that it has been as thoroughly free a
hospital as has ever been founded. Last week
there were but two cases of cholera in the entire

The most obvious conclusion to be drawn from
the recent visitation is, that certain preventive
measures are absolutely essential to prevent Beth-
nal-green being periodically ravaged by disease.
Bad water, foul drains, and noisome dwellings are
the evils most bitterly complained of ; and a local
association is on the point of being formed for their
redress. An increasing section of the more in-
fluential inhabitants are bent upon securing extra-
neous help which shall not be purely eleemosynary,
and in raising Bethnal-green from being a synonym
for begging letters into a tolerably wholesome and
popular, if a necessarily poor, parish.

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

(THIS DAY.)

THE NEW FOREIGN MINTETER OF ArSTRIA:

The circular which has been issued by the Aus-
trian government relative to the nomination of Baron
von Beust, sounds to the Times very much like an apology.
The baron, we are told, takes office as a new man, and
the pledge he takes for himself—to turn over a new leaf
—is equally binding on the government under his
guidance. This avowal has been graciously acknow-
ledged by the Prussian government, and cannot fail
to cause satisfaction at the various courts. If
Austria can, as she now professes, lay aside all passion
and rancour, if she can rise above the smart of recent
defeat and humiliation, there is no reason why the two
great itates which are now for ever separated may not be
for ever re-united. To the project of a Prusso-Russian
alliance the Times gives little heed, for the interests of
these countries can never run parallel. In the conduct
of Austria's internal policy, Baron von Benet wea not,
perhaps, the most popular man on whom the Emperor's
choice might fall. He is a German ;he is • protestant,
and he takes the reins of • state distracted no less by
jealousies of race than by conflicts of religious belief. Is
a German the minister best qualified to treat with the
Hungarians?—and should he even be successful with them,
will he have the power to make a "happy family" of
Create and Slovacks, of Poles and Ruthenes, of Wallschs
and Saxons, of all the races which it is hardly possible to
count or define? Is a protestant the minister to deal
with the Jesuits, to meddle with concordats, to mediate
between the extreme factions which threaten Austria with
a revival of her old religious disorders! Baron von Benoit
has, indeed, taken upon himself a task which will test hi'
powers to the utmost.
It is, to say the least, a singular way, observes the Dail!,
News, of entering upon office for • minister to explain
and defend himself before be can explain or defend
policy ; but the baron perhaps means no more than that
he feels at liberty to pursue new ends by new methods.
It is strange to hear an Austrian minister referring to
extra-Austrian Germany as a foreign state, and there is
no question that Austria loses very much by the sepals'.
tion. The prestige of her great position in Germany was
important to her government as a source of domestic power,
and the emperor has renounced the position without ac-
quiring compensation in security for the peace and tran-
quillity of the possessions he retains by an hereditary title.
Rather it may be said that the statesmen of Austria have
a painful conviction that their account with Germany is
not closed and settled. It remains to he seen whether the
German subjects of the Emperor will not prefer to be
equal members in the great German nation from which
they hive been for • time cut off, and whether if the new
confederation reach the frontiers of Austria they will not
feel the force of an attraction which has just drawn Venice
to Italy. Without supposing that this contingency was
especially present to the mind of Baron Benet when he
drew up his circular, it may not unreasonably be assumed
that it was one of the possible events which he calculated
when be declared that the Austrian government will
jealously guard the dignity and the integrity of the
empire.

igerned gentleman ka equally •Wiese • reg property end
aft low lewyerk

ME. BRIGHT.

°heaving that Mr. Bright's second speech has shown
the wantonness of the imputations of spoliation which
bad been rest upon him, as well as the erro-
neous assumptions of his more ardent partisans, the
Daily News proceeds to condemn his project as pro-
foundly impolitic, though not open to moral objection. If
the tenant farmers on absentee estates can, in order to
obtain possession of their land, afford to pay 10 per cent.
more rent than is now exacted from them, their present
position is not one of hardship requiring exceptional legis-
lative remedy. 111-trained to business through the for-
bearance with which they have been treated, they would
possibly swept with great eagerness such terms es Mr.
Bright proposes ; but they would soon begin to grumble ►t
the inmoste of rent, and to be tardy in its payment ; and
two consecutive bad harvests would probably make them
defaulters altogether. Then the government must either
sacrifice its money or evict the defaulters. The
noblemen who had been subjected to the expe-
riment would seek to invest their money here. The
price of land would rise, and the influence of the terri-
torial aristocracy would be increased. Yet it is exceedingly
desirable that a resident middle proprietary should arise
in Ireland, and general causes are in existence which tend
to bring this about. Further facilities should doubtless
be offered, but they ought to consist lees in positive legis-
lation than in the removal of existing restrictions.
The Times takes up Mr. Bright's proposals, but rather
for the purpose of dwelling on the defects of the Irish
character than for considering the merits of any particular
scheme of reform. After drawing a painful picture of the
condition of the country, it nays that Ireland is incom-
parably better governed than the United States of America,
than any of our colonies, than France, Italy, or Germany.
Therefore her evils do not spring from bad government.
The explanation is only too easy. The people have never
submitted themselves to that discipline which is an essen-
tial condition of material prosperity ; they have wasted in
faction, and political and religious hatred, the energies
which should have been devoted to developing the re-
, sources of their country. Their history has been one long
conspiracy against the existing state of things, diversified
by successive rebellions and civil war They love to live
in the past instead of in the present, and to dream of what
never can return, instead of catching at the great advan-
tages that are offered them. Perhaps we ought rather to
; I wonder that the machinery of government and of society,
• i under such circumstances, work so well as they do.

the Court.

WINDSOR CASTLE, Nov. 5.

The Queen, with Princess Christian, drove in the
grounds this morning. Princes Beatrice rode in the
Home-park.
The Duke of Edinburgh, attended by Lieutenant Haig,
went to London this morning. .

Prince Christian went out shooting, attended by the
gentlemen-in-waiting.
Countess Blucher, Lord Charles Fitzroy, and Sir James
Clark have arrived at the Castle. lir. Helps left to-day
for London.

The Princess of Wales, attended by the Hon. Mrs. F.
Stonor and General Knotlys, left Marlborough House yes-
terday afternoon for Sandringham.
The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council sat yester-
day. The lords present were Lord Westbury, Sir H. V.
Williams, Sir J. Colvile, and Sir Lawrence Peel.

Dnpatches were received yesterday at the Colonial-
office from the Governors of the North American Pro-
vinces, the Falkland Islands, Labusn, Malta, and
Gibraltar.

THI RECRUITMENT IN RUSSIA.
gut lame has the anbjoined reonarks on this
Thileilisial statistics, as is known, give the population of
Russia in Europe (the Cenosens, Siberia, Poland, and Fin-
land comprised) at about 74 millions. The recruitment not
extending to Siberia or the Caucasus, nearly nine millions
of inhabitants have to be deducted : there will remain,
therefore, from 360,000 to 400,000 men tome raised. This
step is destined to produce a strong bom in Europe.
At Vienna it will be judged u the corollary of the msni-
irritation' of the Muscovite press on the subject of
: at Athens will be seen in it the reslisation of the
premises of the Ituasisu agents at the opening of the Can-
dies) insurrection : the journals which believe in aPruseo-
Illusion all anes will And in the measure a triumphant
argument. For ourselves we must do no more than simply
record a fact which requires explanation before it ass be

THE RE
THEE ATTEMPT ON THE LIFE
OF MPEROR OF AUSTRIA.
A letter from Prague, in the Vateriand of
Vienna, says
The great subject of conversation of the moment is natu-
rally the incident at the theatre on the evening of the 77th
October. There are still doubts as to whether the man
arrested really meant to take the life of the Emperor. The
individual was interrogated on the following day, and •
criminal prosecution is being prepar:d. Of course nothing
him yet been made public as to the remit so far obtained
by the inquiry, but, as we have remarked, the doubts
SG to the importance of the event tend rather
to increase than to diminish. In the first place
some information ihould be obtained respecting the
English Captain Palmer who struck down the hand of the
pretended criminal, and an opinion is becoming more and
more general that the whole affair was a plan easefully
combined by this Englishman to produce • sensation.
There is the more reason for that supposition that the
tailor Antony Pust has hitherto borne an irre-
proachable character, and his antecedents do not
authorise the belief that he was capable of each
an act. I must remark that at the police-office Pust de-
nied all participation in the crime. Captain Palmer can-
not besides max that the object the accused held in his
hand was really • pistol, and the more so that the arm,
which by the way is a very bad one, was only found on
the spot an hour later. There is also reason to observe
that Pust lived with his wife in a most precarious posi-
tion, and for some days past had been reduced to great
distress by her acoouchemeut.

(salmis's TELEGRAM&)
THE FRENCH ARMY.

PARIS. Nov. 6.

The Monitens de CA rmie publishes an article upon
the inferences drawn by the Paris journals relative
to the proposed reorganisation of the army, and
says :
" The National Guard will never be anything
but a reserve. Above all, it is necessary to have
an army before the formation of a reserve.
The effective strength of 400,000 men as
a peace establishment will not therefore
be reduced. The object of the commission
appointed to report on this question will
be to discover the means of constituting a reserve
always available, more considerable, and better in-
structed and exercised than the present. Such an in-
stitution will not permit any reduction in the war
budget, but will, on the contrary, necessitate some
sacrifices indispensable for the honour and security
of the country."