The Express.
London, England, 1867-05-14 00:00:00

PROVINCIAL MIRE MAME=

ImerooT., MAT IS—ilea today Great Beaters, new
account, ES 7/—Great Western, 41 , new account, 41—Lancashire
and Yorkshire 1231 4 ; new account, 164 I—London and North
Western, 113 111 111; new account, 1121 4—Metropolltan,
117 161—Midland, new account, 106/ 7—South Latent, new
account. 6s 14 I—Birkenhead, 87—United States 610 Bonds,
1862,721 new account, 721—Great Luxemburg shares, 94: new
account, 9 5-16—North Western Bank (Limited), I—so al In-
surance, 21—Anglo-American Telegraph, 18 6-16—Atiantic Tele-
-8 per ant., 4 6161 7-10—Buncorn Soap and Alkaline
Lktalted),l.
MAlOnlarin, MAY 13.—The market opened steady, but
afterwards gave way, closing rather above the lowest point.
Atlantic Telegraph Preference Eight per Cent., 881--Great
Bastern, for account, 271 S--Great Luxemburg, for account, 01
I—Great Northern, A, for account, 1094 I—Great Western of
Canada, for account, 14 9-16—Great Western, for account, 414
401 1 I—Lancsahlre and Yorkshire, 1231 ; ditto, for amount,
1231 I—London and North * esters, 1131 : ditto, for account,
113 111 e 4—Manchester, BbsiSeld, sad lincoinahlre, *II
for account, 464 1 11 6 614—Metropolitan' for account, 11611 1
—Midland. 108: ditto, for account, 10717 6117 GM—Bough
Medan, ditto, for account, 611 21 31 21 I—naaes and
Mersey Marine Insurance (Limited 15 16 33 p —United States
620 Years' Bonds, 721—Loodon, Brighton, and South Coed, 60 ;
ditto for account, 66 61 1:
Butinrozam, MAT IS—Badness dam: Birmingham Joint
Block Bank (Limited at** ; Lloyd's Bank (Limited), at 71 ;
Birmingham Gas, clam et 128 : Ditto, new ordinary, at 61:
Midland ,Vagoo, at 96; Patent Nut and Bolt (United), at 31
db , and Patent Shaft and Arbitrate (Limited) New, at 1 pm.
Closing prices: Staffordshire Joint Stock Bank (Lbnited,, 21 to
2.1 pm ; Metropolitan Railway Carriage sad WAIOII I Ltnated,,
third lune, to dia. ; and Birmingham Water Works, Si to 314
par share.

THE Canct Tza Race.—The latest advioss
from China are to the effect that six ships have entered
for the race to England, viz., the Ariel, Series, Taitaing,
Taeping, Sir Launoelot, and Black Prince. Although the
Ariel won the run home last year by a neck, the shippers
of the new season'. tees this year have to a certain extent
transferred their favours to the Black Prince as the win-
ner, but still retain the fast ship of last year's race as a
favourite for a place.
THE FOUNDER or CALIFORNIA.—A California
letter states that Marshall, who discovered gold in Cali-
fornia, has recently found a rich silver mine on almost
identically the same spot where he first discovered gold in
1848. After an interval of 18 years he resumes his pick
and shovel at the very point where the precious metal first
met his vision, and which discovery has peopled this coast
and built this great city. Marshall is a half hermit,
misanthropic, wild and erratic character. He lives alone
in • little house in the suburbs of the village of Caloma,
where he has for some parapet cultivated a little garden,
raised grapes, and made wine in • small way, from the
sale of which he has managed to live. He is a tall, sinewy
man, with grizzly hair and beard and wild eyes. For
years he has lived in great poverty, but was too proud to
receive assistance.

JACK AT TEI EMIT END.—Who would think of
there being a " School " in the main thoroughfare
that is the string of the Wapping and Shedwell river bow!
But there is held in what used to be • " doctor's 'bop ; "
the young ladies, I suppose, being assembled in the side
on which the shutters are put up and the gas turned on.
Strolling Jacks flatten their noses against the glass door
and the unshuttered window. They congregate in the
same childlike fashion before a shop in which a long rank
of pallid cork-cutters—packed so closely that you marvel
that their elbows do not clash at every swing, with coo-
sequent unpleasant tingling of " funny bones"—are slicing
away assiduously, ever and anon looking up to grin at the
admiring observation which their monotonous labours
attract. There is a very great deal of the child in Jack.
Here he is staring like a child at a row of tumble-down,
beetle-browed, tenantless houses, with rusty paint-blisters
on their cracked, dusty, mud-splashed abutters, and pad-
locks on their doors, as if 1665 and the plague had come
again. With a child's glee at doing what it has no busi-
ness to do, or the half-expectancy of rousing " the ghost."
he raises the grating knockers, or tugs at the bell-pulls
which return no tinkle. Like a child be fondles and pur-
chases the toy • watches, kettle-holders, blue-and-gold
butterflies dangling from elastic, and other useless articles
which the street-vendors force upon his notice. He falls
an easy prey to the shabby End pbotoplien'
shabbier touts. They allow landsman after landsman to
pass by without a single gleam in their watery eyes or
greasy smirk of their mangy moustaches, but instantly
pounce upon the sailors, and convey them upstairs in
detachments of half a dozen. The pistol and rifle galleries,
open to the street, with battered targets blinking at the
darksome other cod like damaged eyes, are irresistible
temptations to Jack. In he must turn to try his luck.
If he would only be a little leas fond of entering the less
innocent saloons, into which he is lured by painted men-
of-war's men proffering pots of porter blossoming like
hawthorn-bushes, and painted female pirates that have
worse than a wooden no-care for him in their invitations !
Even in his weaknesses, however, the genial character of
the man shines out. Jack must stand treat. Here oomes
a little mob of steerage passengers who made the voyage
with him—looking very woe-begone and astray now they
bare reached the port for which they longed ; and Jack,
who has got a week's worth of his three months' wages
left, instantly hauls the whole party through the finger-
rubbed swing-doors of the Admiral Benbow, to cheer up
their hearts with "glares round."—Afoosy for May.

THE FLEET PARSONS AND THE FLEET MARRIAGES.
—lt may appear strange to some that the legislature
should have permitted the Fleet scandals to remain un-
disturbed for the long period of three quarters of a cen-
tury. But the fact is that enactments designed to remedy
the evil were from time to time passed, which, however,
all failed of their object, since, although they punished
clandestine matrimony, they did not render such matri-
mony risrafid. The penalties which they imposed were
evaded by various clever mai:euvres, and the mischief
which they were intended to allay remained practically
unchecked. Thus " the very vitals of the salutary laws
which render property and person safe, continued to be
brought into danger by the knavish tricks that debauchers
and fortune-hunters were enabled to practise through the
Fleet clergy ;" and it was not until Lord Chancellor Hard-
wicke brought forward his famous bill that the evil was
effectually destroyed. That measure provided that any
person solemnising matrimony otherwise than in • church
or public chapel, and without banns or license, should,
on conviction, be adjudged guilty of felony, end be trans-
ported for 14 years it also provided that all such mar-
nages should be mull and void. Like all measures, how-
ever useful and salutary, which have the appearance
of interfering with an established right, this bill met with
the strongest opposition. Eventually, however, it peseta
into law, and began to operate on the 26th March, 1754.
The general public and the parsons alike made the most
of their time just at the last ; and on the 25th March the
crowd of applicants for marriage at the Fleet must have
been enormous, for, in one register•book alone 217 wed-
dings are recorded as having been celebrated on that day.
The existence of the Fleet scandals during the three-
quarters of • century which we have been reviewing is as
strong • proof as can be adduced of the degraded oondi-
tion of the English church at that period : and indeed
there is too much rearm. for believing that the Fleet par-
sons were little worse, although they might be lea' fortu-
nate, than the majority of their benefloed brethren.—Corn-
kill Mapa-inc for May.