The Express.
London, England, 1867-09-11 00:00:00

EXPRESS FROM PARIS.

THE ABYSSINIAN EXPEDITION.
A WONDERFUL OMNIBUS RIDER.
(nom an owl owatolDitirr.)

PARIS, TUEMDAY EVINING.
The King of Prussia's speech was not known
during Bourse hours, but is published in the
evening papers. It is quite in accordance with
that of the Grand Duke of Baden, which made
such a great sensation. He asks for laws which
will constitute a " first but decisive step" towards
the crowning of the edifice of the federal con-
stitution. Nothing can be more evident than
that he looks to a consummation which the
semi-official French journals say France will
regard as a cane Belli. It may still be hoped,
however, that the French Emperor, despite the
continuance of his military preparations, which is
a great fact, will ultimately think discretion the
better part of valour.
The Count du Bisson, an eccentric adventurer of
the class of Orllie 1., King of Auracania, and Count
Raousset Boulbon, who, since he organised an un-
successful Abyssinian expedition, looks upon Abys.
synia as his special property, and will not suffer
anybody to speak about that country without
correcting him and telling him that he
knows nothing about it, writes a letter to
the Patrie, predicting all sorts of ill-luck to
the projected English expedition. In the fire
place he says the Emperor Theodorus, by his
faithful and well-informed spies, knew of the ex-
pedition long before the London public. He knew
the very numbers of the regiments to be sent
against him. He knew that 10,000 camels were to
be bought, and he rejoiced exceedingly at the news
because he knew that the line of march which
the English proposed to follow was inaccessible to
camels. " The English," he said with great glee,
" are fools." He knew that Massowah was selected
as the basis of the English operations, and chuckled
in the certainty that they could do nothing from
that spot. The only practicable line of march,
says Count du Bison, would be by Galabat and
' Matamala, but this route would necessitate a
march of twenty days through Egypt, which could
' not be permitted unless Egypt were to be-
come a belligerent party. He is good enough
rto say he does not care much about
' the formidable Guedarel ant which has been
talked of, because its ravages might be avoided by
the simple expedient of drinking no water. He
says much of pestilential marshes and mephitic and
muddy oceans. He alleges it absurd to suppose
that Indian soldiers accustomed to sandy plains
and deserts—[he forgets apparently that there
are mountains in India]—can get through the
Abyssinian defiles. In his mind it is clear that
fifteen or even twenty thousand Indian soldiers
will never release the prisoners. Moreover, they will
never take Theodorus prisoner, because, like Richard
111. on Bosworth field, he has always a dozen of
his most valiant warriors dressed up in his uni-
form. Even if they took or killed him, his son
Machechu, " a most warlike, audacious, and intel-
ligent warrior, the idol of the army," would con-
tinue his policy. The English may gain " negative
victories ;" but in the end, after all the prisoners
are massacred, and they have spent two hundred
millions of franca, and left ten thousand men a
prey to vultures and hyenas, they will have to re-
embark at Manors ; and the Emperor of Abyssinia,
whether Theodorus or his son, will continue to
clean his water-closets with the British flag, which
Count du Mason assures us he religiously dote
every day.

I ahmild be sorry to contribute in the slightest
degree to underrate the difficulties of the necessary
Abyssinian expedition. But although, or perhaps
because, Count du Bisaon has been in the country
and knows the Emperor Theodore personally, his
opinions must be taken with a great many grains
of salt. His language is that of a disappointed
man whose starting point is that no good can be
done in Abyssinia unless ho is employed as an arbi-
trator.

The Moniteur yesterday gave a sensational ac-
count of a pieuvre—that spongy fish which is the
hero of Victor Hugo's last great work—having, in
the most cruel manner, pulled to pieces and de-
voured one of its own species in the aquarium of
the Universal Exhibition. To-day the Moniker
says the event came off in the aquarium of the
Boulevard Montmartre. The correction reduces
the anecdote to the proportions of a puff for a
private and not much frequented est%blishment.
The Moniteur, which publishes regular bulletins
of the health of Dr. Veron, says he was very much
better yesterday (Sept. 9).
Dr. Bayer, an eminent medical man and one of
the Emperor's physicians, has just died of apo-
plexy. . . . .

Most of the omnibus conductors in Paris—more
especially those on the line from the Barriero du
Trone to the Paleis Royal—have been for years
familiar with the face of • little old man with a
cheerful look, sparkling eye, and grey hair, who
literally passed half his life riding in omnibuses.
This eccentric individual always got into the first
omnibus which left the quarter in which he lived,
at 7 o'clock in the morning. He went in the first
instance to the Palais Royal, and then somewhere
else. He took half an hour for his breakfast and
an hour for his dinner. All the rest of the day he
passed in omnibuses, and ho always contrived to
get a number in time for • seat in the last omnibus
from the Paled* Royal to the Trone at midnight.
He sat whenever he could in • corner next the
door, so that he might talk to the conductor, and
betrayed visible vexation when he could not get
that place. On getting into an omnibus he always
asked for a "Correspondence"—i.e., a ticket
entitling the bearer to ride for nothing on some
other line, but he very seldom made use of it. His
habit was to put the ticket in his waistcoat pocket
and pay afresh in the next carriage. Two days
ago, after taking his dinner in a third-class rer
taurant which he frequented in the Rue Villedo, be
asked the waiter to lot him sleep a little, but
begged him particularly to wake him in half sn
hour, as he had to take the omnibus for Batignollea
When the waiter, with the punctuality due to a
regular customer, came to wake him, he shook him
by the shoulder in vain. The little old gentle-
man was dead. The doctor called in certified that
he had been carried off by an apoplectic stroke.
The domicile of so great an omnibus traveller uss
easily found. It turned out that he was a native
of Nantes, whose head had been turned by his un-
expectedly coming in to a considerable fortune.
He was under the delusion that he was a secret
inspector of omnibuses, whose duty is to go about
and report the number of passengers, with a nest
to discover frauds on the part of conductors.
Fifteen hundred omnibus correspondence tickets,
carefully sorted and labelled, were found in one 01
his drawers.
The Bourse opened with much animation, but
became dull for the close. The latest quotations
are nearly those of yesterday.

DROWNED WHILE BATHING.—On Sunday MOM.
ing one Thomas Crocker was bathing in the rivet Nit,
near Totnes, when he got Out of hisdepth and was drowned.
A young man named Ben.lon nearly lost his own life in it-
totoptiog to tem= him.