The Express.
London, England, 1858-06-26 00:00:00

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.

A SPECIAL EDITION of the "EXPRESS,"
oontaining the results of the day's Races, Is pub-
lished every evening during the Sporting Season, at
six o'clock.

No wonder General ESPINAUE was dismissed.
LOUIS NAPOLEON is the most vigorous despot in the
world; but there are things which even absolute
power cannot do with impunity. A few months
were sufficient to convince even this man, that an
obsequious aide-de-camp cannot govern a great
people by martial law. Great was the surprise
when a general officer was installed as Minister of
the Interior : scarcely lees was the surprise when
this officer was replaced by the civilian DELANGLE.
It seemed probable that the appointment of General
Esentasen portended the inauguration of a system
of terrible severity : it seemed also probable that the
dismissal of the General implied the failure of the
new system. Till within the last few days all was
myiiery. Matters are now a little clearer. Some
correspondence, which has appeared in our able con-
temporary the Continental Reroute, throws con-
siderable light upon the ESPINABBE principles of
Government.

It is clear that after Oasors attempt upon
the French EMPEROR'S life, on the 14th of
last January, the:Emrzitoa himself, and his Mini-
sters, were panic-stricken. It was imagined that
the perpetrators of that crime were the agents of
the secret societies throughout Europe, and that
vigorous measures must be taken if a great cata-
strophe was to be avoided. Instantly the lista of all
those who had taken part in the transactions of
1848 and 1862 were inspected. Against these men
there was not a particle of evidence. Indeed the
fact that ORSINI was connected with them was
from the beginning the merest conjecture, and, as
his since been proved, purely imaginary. But France
was to be awed—her spirit was to be cowed—the
people most be terrified. A sudden blow must be
struck, not only in the capital, but in every province.
On the 18th, the 17th, and the 18th of January, and
again in February, numerous arrests were made.
It now turns out that these arrests were made by
orders from Paris. Every department was assessed
by the Minister of the Interior. As a General
demands of the chief magistrate of the town se
many loaves tor his soldiers, so the Minister de-
manded so many victims from the Prefect of the
department. " The EMPEROR'S life," he said, " has
" been assailed. The Government is in peril. The
" cause of order must be maintained. The country
" must be awed into submission. Let this Prefect send
"me 20 victims—that Prefect 30 victims. If he

" wants to know where to find them, let him con-
" stilt the proscribed lista of 1848 and 1832." The
order wu obeyed in the capital and in the provinces.
Thus in Paris alone not less than 300 er 400 per-
sons were arrested—the majority in the Faubourg.

St. Antoine and Montmartre, in the vicinity of
Rue Mooffetard and the Jardin des Plantes, at the
Battignollee, at Vangirard, Petite Pologne, and near
the Temple. The town, in fact, was divided into
quarters, and victims were demanded in proportion
to the numbers of the population. Between mid-
night and five in the morning troops of police-
ravers in plain clothes, with concealed weapons,
entered the houses, and straightway surprised the
person "wanted" in bed. Only in some cases war-
rants were produced. But the apartments of those
seized were always searched, and even the pencils
of their wives and children. Hurried off to the
Commissary of Police without one word of farewell
to their family or their Mends, the wretched men
were transferred to Marne before daylight. Some,
indeed, are still there : a few have crossed the fron-
tier; but the majority have bee* sent to Africa,
where they are scattered throughout the villages
and small towns of French Algeria.
T. same thing happened in the provinces. At
Toulouse—an ancient provincial city, once the meat of
a Parliament—many were arrested, and they were
men of every clam, notaries, physicians, advocates,
merchant*, workmen, and peamats. Many of them
had been involved in polities during the last ten
years, but nose of them had said a word to provoke
the animosity of the present Government. Foe •
few momenta, indeed, they were -permitted to see
their families, to bid them • last adieu. Notate,
were admitted to take the last instructions of the
unhappy men, touching the disposal of their pro-
perty. Even this, however, was done in the presence
,ot the police. At one place a notary, who had been
thus arrested, died at an inn whilst under the charge
of the officer who had visited him on a sick bed. The
gaoler refused to take charge of the dying man. The
thing became known, and the whole town followed
the bier of the victim of tyranny. Even priests were
found on board the transports bound for Algeria.
How many men were torn from their homes it is im-
possible to conjecture : nor is the emelosh impertemt
It is enough to know that on any Biwa night the
Commissary of Police may erred a men in Ms bed
without warrant, and that this is still the law of the
French Empire. Assuredly the laws of peddle
safety lately decreed are bypeeddeal seywiladdea.
No doubt it may seem strange that these feeds
have been made public. If the people were amid
off secretly and in the night, how have the names of
the Acetone come to light ? It appears that the Set
rumours of the arbitrary proseedings of the Goners-'
meat originated in the provinces. In a small country
town or in a country district everybody is known to
his neighbour. A death, or a marriage, or the
&bassos of any of the inhabitants, is an event
Persons disappeared. Inquiries were made, add
it greelimily costd out that the Prefect had been
called upon to focal& Government with a certain
number of primers, and thus the mysterious de.
parture of many a father and brother was at ono*
explained. The news spread to Paris. The heart-
rending details of wives suddenly taken from their.
husbands,and children from their fathers, excited the
strongest feeling. Men could not sit still and watch
these things, with their arms folded. Personal

liberty wu at an end. The country was one vast
comp. A general officer was in command u
Minister of the Interior. Martial law was vir-

timidly proclaimed. No man's liberty—no man's life
even, was safe for an instant. For the moment,
an party differences were forgotten. About
twelve persons, drawn from the ranks of every
party, met together to oppose these enormities, to
ascertain the real state of facts, and, if possible, to
assist the families of those who were carried into
exile. At first, indeed, some idea was entertained of
appealing to the law. But that would have been a
mockery. The only thing left, therefore, was to
search out the families of those who had been hurried
into prison. This was not without its difficulties.
The modest and the proud felt repugnance to exhibit
their sufferings to the world—the timid feared to
aggravate the sufferings of there who were already
sufferer.. But much has been done. In Paris alone
about sixty families have been discovered in three
months. They have been visited, and measures have
been taken to relieve them. And they are the wit-
nesses upon whose evidence Lours NAPOLEON and
his Government stand condemned for gross tyranny
and scandalous injustice.

IN the controversy between the PALMERSTON
Journals on the one hand, and Mr. BRIGHT on the
other, we have really no call to interfere. The con-
troversialists are agreed to vote for any change in
the Government of India rather than allow it to
remain as its. But each of them is equally poei-
five that the change proposed by the other will be
a change for the worse. The views of the PALMER.-
rrom journals we have repeatedly had occasion to
combat. The views of Mr. BRIGHT have at least
the recommendation of novelty. The state of his

health has prevented him from taking part
hitherto the Indian debate, and he has
been obliged to condenie into one speech
all the ignorance and all the absurdity which
would under other circumstances have been

diffused through some thirty or forty. Mr.
BRIGHT, in his speech of Thursday night, goes for
universal abolition. Not satisfied with abolishing
the East India Company, he would abolish the
Council for the Home Government of India ; he
would abolish the Governor-General ; and he

frankly confesses that his object in these especial
abolitions is finally to abolish the English empire in
Hindostan. These startling paradoxes Mr. BRIGHT
prefaced with a protestation of his " diffidence."
Of course Mr. BRIGHT knows his own feelings best ;
but we mast confess that any talk of his "diffidence"
is apt to recall to our recollection what honest Mr.
Hardcastle, in " She Stoops to Conquer," says of Mar-
low's bashfulness. The diffident Mr. BRIGHT treated
the House of Commons to a programme of his Indian
policy, should he ever become Premier. His visionary
tale reminds one strongly of the day-dream out of
which ALNASCHAR wee awakened by kicking down
his basket-full of glasses. We have no inclination
to follow Mr. BRIGHT in his imaginary history of
India from the time of AURUNGZEBE, or to trace
his devious path " from Ages to Lehore of Great
Mogul." There is, however, one passage in his
speech which deserves more notice than it is likely
to receive. Its very paltriness reveals the spirit
in which he and his school would have
India ruled, more instructively than volumes
of argument. Mr. BRIGHT accused the Direo-
tors of the East India Company of systematically
ignoring the wants and wishes of India. In
support of this grave charge he advanced only one
f'ct, or alleged fact. Mr. BRIGHT gravely told the
House of Commons that some speculative individual
at Madras bad discovered a method of brewing
beer duce (within 17 degrees of the line) as good as
can be brewed in England. One would have ex-
pected a free-trader like Mr. BRIGHT to go on
to say that this ingenious gentleman hqd esta-
blished a brewery, and, after obtaining many
customers for his beer (a commodity always
in demand at Madras), had offered to sup-
ply the troops with it at a moderate price.
But DO : Mr. BRIGHT'S version of the story is, that
without subjecting his beer to such a test, the inven-
tor applied for a large government contract for his
untested liquor. And because no attention was
paid to such a palpable job, Mr. BRIGHT brings for-
ward a wholesale denunciation of the Indian Go-
vernment as inattentive to the industrial interests of
India. The Government for India which Mr.
BRIGHT longs for, is one that would patronise all
sorts of bubble companies. If Parliament takes

upon it the administration of India it must be
prepared to be worried incessantly with appli-
cations bite that of Mr. BRIGHT'S friend, the
great untried beer contractor. We were called upon
a short time ago to comment on the noire declara-
tion of a great pillar of Mr. Bainnit's school, when
speaking of India, that the strict laws of political
economy must be disregarded when cotton is con-
cerned ; Mr. BRIGHT seems equally disposed to dis-
regard those laws when beer is concerned.