The Express.
London, England, 1867-10-23 00:00:00

BUTCHERS' BILLS.

Contrasting the wholesale prices of meat with the retail,
and the difference between the charges in London and in
moat midland and southern towns with those in the north
of England, the Timm remarks that the butchers' trade is
in the hands of the sellers. We are all either too indif-
ferent or busy to look into the matter. It has been so
with fish for years. As • rule the loaf is cheap when
wheat is law, hut it now seems as if the price of beef and
mutton were to be maintained quite independently of the
price of oxen and sheep. Let us understand how it is
that mutton can be 6d. a pound to one customer and Is. a
pound to another, or Is. a pound in London while it is
61 in Lancashire. The very beet of beef was actually to
be had for 7d. • pound in Liverpool maiket on Monday
morning ; tho very best of mutton fetched Id. less. Are
we to be told that the south of England is shut oft from the
north of England so completely as Orissa from Bengal!
Meanwhile the Tilliea would like to see the bushiest' of
the Australian supply taken largely and effectually in
band. For every sheep standing in the Metropolitan
Cattle Market on • Monday morning Australia could with
the greatest ease send us two, and at about tie. a carcass
as bought on the spot. It is of no use importing a few
tins as curiosities. Australian and English meat should
lie side by side on every stall, and if 1$ butchers in l'aris
have already consented to sell home, we may expect that
our own butchers will make up their minds in the end to
deal in preserved beef and mutton. First of all, however,
we have our home tariff to rectify, and, after the figures
just placed before the public, • reform cannot be long de.
layed.

MISCELLANEOUS TOPICS.

The Tines regards the Emperor of Anstria'a visit to
Paris as merely one of oeremony—a return for the civility
that ham been shown to him at adsburg. He will have his
two prime ministers—Heger& Von remit and Andraasy,
in his company ; but it is in order to carry on indispensable
home lumina., of their own, not to meddle with other
peeple's affairs, that the Kaiser's reepensible advisers
travel with him. The Emperor is a man both of a natural
and a cultivated taste, and Paris would have at all times
sufficient attractions for one who has so few days to devote
to them.

A comparison of the last electoral returns from the
United States with those of the oongresaional elections of
last year confirms the anticipations of the Dail!, Neu., that
the democratic gains would be found to be relative rather
than absolute, and the local issues involved render it im-
possible to accept the result as • conclusive evidence of
any change of opinion on matters of national policy. Even
should the hopes of the democrats be realised by New
York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio all sending democratic
delegations to the forty-first Congress, the republican
party would still have • large majority in the house, and
an almost undimissiabed majority in the senate. All that
would have happened would be that the power to pass a
bill over the veto of • democratic president would have
ceased. But simultaneously with the meeting of • new
congress—for the present will exist till March, 1859, • new
president will take up his abode in the White House—•
president elected by the same majority which has elected
the congressional majority.

The Tinieg, on the other brut!, :nannies that the repub-
lican party is all but destroyed, and that the long struggle
of parties is about to pass into another phase. Tice party
in power, =calling to our contempormy, has filled every
prablie ollieu with its most comipt agents and dependents,
it has created a " negro difficulty" which it will take gene.
rations to unravel, and it has experimented upon the
national finances and commerce until a general sense of
insecurity has been established.
Tim St,,r, treating of Mr. t;ilidn's speech at Northamp.
en•: on rtlonday, expresses its satisfaction at finding that
not only does be announce as a matter of course a complete
change in our policy towards Ireland, but that he gives in
his adhesion to the cause of national unsectarian educa-
tion, tlg.tinst which he bad fought for long years by the
side of his friends, now also converted to the same prin-
ciples, Mr. Morley, Mr. Baines, and Mr. Miall. As a
voluntaryist be makes confession that voluntaryism has
failed to meet the exigences of the crisis. Ho sums up the
situation in words which pat the case most clearly and
irrefragably:—" If the national funds are to be spent in
grappling with popular ignorance an its fatal effects, it is
better to spend them on schools than on prisons."

the Court.

BA.LIIORAL, Ocr. 21.

The Queen, Prince ;Ind Princess Christian,
Princess Louise, and Prince Leopold attended Divine
Service in the parish church, Cr.ithie.
The Marchioness of Ely and Colonel Porslishy were in
attendance.
The Rev. A. Scott, of Glasgow, officiated.

The Princess of Wales took a carriage drive yesterday,
attended by Viscountess Walden,

THE COURT A f BALMORAL.—On Thursday last
her Majesty and suite drove from Balmoral Castle to the
Ballochbnie, and thence ascended the wooded profile of
Craig Cluny, opposite Invereauld.house. On Saturday her
Majesty and party drove from Ike/moral through Braemar
and rig Corriernulzie Falls and New Mar-lodge, &c. Their
Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess Christian, on
Friday last, drove through Braemar to the beautiful falls
of the Quoich, returning to the Highland palace in the
evening. Both in going and returning, horses were
changed at the Invercauld Arias HuteL On Sunday the
Queen attended Divine service in the church of Crathie.
I fer :Majesty was accompanied by their Royal Highnesses
Prince and Princess Christian, Princess Louise, and Prince
Leopold, and attended by the ladies and gentlemen of the
court, including the Marchioness of Ely (Licly.in•Waiting),
the lion. Mrs. Gorden, the Hon. Ifilrriet Phipps, his Grace
the Duke of Buckingham, General Grey, Sir Thomas Bid.
dulph, Colonel Ponsouby, &c. The Rev. Mr. Scott, of
Glasgow, preached from Acts xx. 24—" But none of these
things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself,
so that I might finish my course with joy, and the minis.
try which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the
gospel of the grace of God." The church was well filled.

_
Wo learn, by telegraph, that the Lord Advocate
was presented yesterday with the freedom. of Inverness by
the town council. An address was presented to his lord-
ship in the evening. He was entertained at a banquet at
the Caledonian Hotel.

The Countess of Cainsborough is in a very pre-
carious :tats of health. Her relatives have been sum.
moned to Exton Park, the family seat, where she is at
present staying.

_
The Earl and Countess Spencer have arrived in
Paris from Althorp Hall, Northamptonshire.

Viscountess Jocelyn, in consequence of going
abroad, is about to resign her appointmeut of lady of the
bedchamber to the Queen, and mill be succeeded by
Vi4countess Clif den.

Lord Lyons will leave either to-morrow or the
following day for Paris, to enter upon his diplomatic
functions as British Ambaraador at the court of the
Tuileries.

His Excellency the Prussian Ambassador and
the Countess Dernstorff will not return to tho legation
until the middle of next month.

Admiral Farragut left the Franklin in Plymouth
Sound yesterday morning in the Admiralty yacht and pro-
ceeded to Mount Wise to visit Port-Admiral Sir William
F. Martyn, Itcar,tdmiral the Hon. James 11.
Drummond, C. 8., Admiral•Superintendcnt of Dcvonport
dockyard, and other officers, were present. It is under-
stood that the Franklin will leave Plymouth on Friday
for Lisbon and the Mediterranean.

The Hon. Mrs. Norton thinks that perhaps the
greatest comfort a suffering and anxious author can receive
may be found in the extraordinary diversity of criticism of
the same book. Referring to the reviews of her new novel,
" Old Sir Douglas,"Mrs. Norton says :—" I have laid half•a•
dozen of these in a neat row, as if they were coloured
worsted, or Alice Ross's chenille., and I find that while
one reviewer speaks of tameness and vapid sentimentality,
another speaks of tragic force and wondrous skill ; and
while one declares the characters to be conventional pup-
pets, another is satisfied that they are only too faithfully
copied from real life, and so on with all the qualities re-
quired or denounced in a work of fiction."

At the annual meeting of the United Kingdom
Alliance, held at the Free•trade Hall, Manchester, yester-
day, it was stated that of the 50,0001. required for the "five
years' agitation fund," about 45,000/. had already been
subscribed. It was observed in the report that too much
must not be expected from the new conatitnencieN but still
the council felt certain that order household suffrage
"the power of the publicans would be weakened."
Archbishop Manning attended the meeting, but the
reverend prelate said "he had responsibilities pressing
upon him which made him act very cautiously." "He
rejoiced to work with the Alliance, and if it was possible
he would go to the full length of their programme." At a
subsequent meeting. held in the evening, he spoke with
less reserve. Moral means, ho said, were not sufficient to
meet the evil, and the lez,islature must undo the acts
which had resulted in the establishment of beerhouses
and the enormous increase in the consumption of spirits.

A co-operativo society for the sale of meat was
formed in London in May last. Thu store is at 23, Rood-
lane, Fenchurch-street. Associates pay is. a year ; mem-
bers It., without further liability. Tho present price for
best meat is SA. per lb.; everything else at corresponding
prices. The patrons are Earl Spencer and the Earl of
Ducie. The committee consists of Mr. J. W. Malcolm,
M.P., Captain Holman, Mr. D. Forest, Captain Mackenzie,
of the London Scottish, and his brother, Mr. A. C. Mac-
kenzie. Captain S. Flood Page is the chairman of the
committee. The society is managed with a view to reduc-
tion of prices, and not to profit.
A memorial has been forwarded to the Home-
office, asking for a postponement of the trial of the persons
charged with the murder of Polioe•sergeant Brett. The
memorial is signed by Mr. Ernest Jones, Mr. Cottiugham,
and Mr. Roberts, who ground the application for a post.
Nnement principally upon the representation that in the
present state of public feeling the prisoners would not obtain
• fair trial.

MR. MCLAREN, M.P., AND HIS CONIVITTIIENTS.
—Mr. McLaren, M.P., addressed his constituents last
night. He spoke of the Reform Bill. defended the con-
duct of the Tea-room-party, and expreesed his confidence
in the working classes to be enfranchised. All movements
in this country that had been crowned with success bed,
be said, originated with the workinz-classes. Regarding
Ireland, be said that the Irish church and the mode of
holding land in Ireland were almost the sole causes of
Pesianism. He would improve the Irish church out of
the country, and he thought that the Legislature ought to
pass a law compelling landlords to do for their tenantry
what landlords in Britain did for theirs. He would,
however, resist Berl Russell's proposal regarding the
revenues of the established church. In reply to a
question as to whether he would legalise trades' unions,
he said that for all lawful purposes every trades' union
should have the same power of collecting money, punish-
ing defaulters, and recovering arrears that any benefit
society had.
CONSERVATIVE DEMONSTRATION IN ESSEX. —A
rather important conservative demonstration took place
in Essex yesterday (Tuesday) evening, the occasion being
the anniversary of the Hinckforl Conservative and Agri-
cultural Club. Mr. C. Du Cane, M.P. for North Essex,
was the chief speaker. The hon. gentleman justified
the policy of the government with regard to the
reform question, and expressed his hope that
the bill of last session would be accepted as a
settlement of the matter, at any rate for •
generation. As regards the Abyssinian expedition be
regretted all wars with semi-barbarous powers, but be
believed in the present instance the course pursued by the
administration was absolutely necessary for the mainte-
nance of our preefi ge in the east. Lient.-Colonel Brims
again announced his intention to offer himself as • con-
servative candidate at the dissolution for one of the
divisions of the county.