The Express.
London, England, 1867-04-16 00:00:00

TO TIM XDTTOZ 01 TEI EXPRISS.

SIR,—I am glad to
.Ond that the proprietors of
the several London evening newspapers have resolved not
to publish on Good Friday. Such a step is, I think, un-
precedented in the annals of metropolitan journalism ; and
while conferring a boon, long prayed for, on a large and
hardworking body, the non-publication will not be missed
by the general reader ; neither will commercial men regret
the absence of the stereotype intimation that,
"to-day be' Good Friday is, of course, observed
as • strict holiday in the City." The ordinary
avocations of • newsvender have been so gra-
phically described by Charles Dickens and other writers
that • mere allusion to the vast human machinery em-
ployed in the distribution of news is all that is necessary
on my part. Incessant toil and exposure to weather are
the leading characteristics of • newsman's business.
Many have no rest on the Sunday ; even to obtain
papers for deliveryon the Sunday morning involves the task
of attending at the office sometimes later than 12 o'clock on
the Saturday night. If, therefore, the proprietors of
papers will continue to follow the example set in the
withdrawal of the publication on Good Friday and
Christmas-day, the " trade " will at any rate hail with
delight a holiday twice a year—and on such occasion. the
dearth of news, and the silence of Renter's " wires," fully
warrant the course adopted.—l am, &c.. T. B.

Out of the ninety-four young women Miss Rye is
now sending in the Atalanta to Melbourne,twenty-four are
orphans, and twenty-nine have only one parent living.
The Atalanta sails to-morrow morning, The next ship for
single women will be the White Star, to leave Birkenhead
on the 25th of May.
The death is announced of Mr. William J.
O'Brien, second son of the late William Smith O'Brien,
and nephew to Lord Inchiquin. He was hunting, and re.
ceived an accident by a fall from his horse, which was not
taken much notice of at the time, but shortly after be was
confined to bed, and died on the Bth inst., in the 28th year
of his age.

V Cfnirers, the organ of the Jesuits, is announced
to reappear at Paris under the direction of the old editor.

A Milan journal says :—" Preparations are now
being actively made for the marriage of Prince Amadeus.
The ladies of Brussels intend to present to the Princess a
splendid diadem of exquisite workmanship. Prince de
la Cisterns, as will be remembered, was in 1821 obliged to
quit Turin, in consequence of being implicated is the
trial of Carbonari ; be then took refuge in Belgium, where
he gained the symp►thy and esteem of every ono. The
King has sent to the young lady a necklace of pearls and
diamonds of the value of more than 100,000 fr. On the
wedding day six young girls are to be married to six
workmen of Turin, sad the Prince will give in each case a
dowry of I,ooof r."

Tar Lint GILII.--SWANSEA, MONDAY.—We
were visited by a very severe gale of wind from the S.W.
yesterday (states Alfred Steffy, Eaq.) At 8 p.m. a brig
was seen to part from her anchors in the Mumbles Road',
and to burn signals for assistance. The lifeboat Wolver-
hampton, stationed at the Mumbles, was promptly launched
and reached the vessel soon after she grounded about a
mile S.W. of Swansea Pier Head, and remained by her
for two hours, when she began to float on the tide rising
and broke again from her moorings. The lifeboat then
went into Swansea and obtained the services of a steam tug,
by which means the vessel was safely taken into harbour.
She was the brig Wellington, of Aberystwith, bound from
this port to Gibraltar with • cargo of coals.
Tess GOOD PARSON IN HIS OLD AO& —Mr. Har-
ding was at this time living all alone in the deanery. For
some few years the deanery bad been his home, and as his
youngest daughter was the dean's wife there could be no
more comfortable resting-place for the evening of his life.
During the last month or two the days had gone tediously
with him ; for he had had the large house all to himself,
and he was a man who did not love solitude. It is hard
to conceive that the old, whose thoughts have been all
thought out, should ever love to live alone. Solitude is
surely for the young, who have time before them for the
execution of schemes, and who can, therefore, take delight
in thinking. In these days the poor old man would
wander shout the rooms, ahambliag from one chamber
to another, and would feel ashamed when the servants
met him ever on the move. He would make little apolo-
gies for his uneasiness, which they would accept graciously,
understanding, after a fashion, why it was that he was
uneasy. "He ain't got nothing to do," said the house.
maid to the cook, " and as for reading, they say that some
of the young ones can read all day sometimes, and all night
too ; but, bless you, when you're nigh eighty, reading don't
go for much." The housemaid was right as to Mr. Hard-
ing's reading. He was not one who had read so much in
his earlier days as to enable him to make reading go far
with him now that he was near eighty. So he wandered
about the room, and .at here fora few minutes, and there
for a few minutes, and though he did not sleep much, he
made the hours of the night as many as was possible.
Every morning he shambled across from the deanery to the
cathedral, and attended the morning service, aiding in the
stall which he had occupied for fifty years. The distance
was very short, not exceeding, indeed, a hundred yards
from a side door in the deanery to another side-door into
the cathedral ; but short as it was there had come to be a
question whether he should be allowed to go alone. It
had been feared that he might fall on his passage and hurt
himself ; for there was there a step here and a step there,
and the light was not very good in the purlieus of the old
cathedral A word or two had been said once, and the
offer of an arm to help hint had been made ,• but he had
rejected the proffered assistance—softly, indeed, but still
firmly—and every day he tottered off by himself, hardly
lifting his feet as he went, and aiding himself on his
journey by a hand upon the wall when he thought that
nobody was looking at him. But many did see him, and
they who knew him—ladies generally of the city—would
offer him a hand. Nobody was milder in his disliking,'
than Mr. Harding ; but there were ladies in Barchester
upon whose arm he would always decline to lean, bowing
courteously as he did so, and saying a word or two of con-
strained civility. There were others whom he would allow
to accompany him home to the door of the deanery, with
whom he delighted to linger and chat if the morn-
ing was warm, and to whom he would tell little
stories of his own doings in the cathedral services in
the old days, when Bishop Greatly had ruled in the dio-
cese. Never a word did he say against Bishop Proudie, or
against Bishop Proudie's wife ; but the many words which
be did say in praise of Bishop Graetly,— who, by his show-
ing, was surely one of the best of churchmen who ever
walked through this vale of sorrow,—were as eloquent in
dispraise of the existing prelate as could have been any
more clearly-pointed phrases. This daily visit to the
cathedral, where he would say his prayers as he had said
them for so many years, and listen to the organ, of which
he knew all thapower and every blemish as though he
himself had mule the stops and fixed the pipes, was the
chief occupation of his life. It was a pity that it could
not have been made to cover a larger portion of the day.
It was sometimes sad enough to watch him as be sat
alone. He would have a book near him, and for a while
would keep it in his hands. It would generally be some
volume of good old standard theology with which he had
been, or supposed himself to have been, conversant from
his youth. But the book would soon be laid aside, and
gradually he would move himself away from it, and he
would stand about in the room, looking now out of a
window from which he would fancy that he could not be
seen, or gazing up at some print which he had known fat
years ; and then he would sit down for a while in one
chair, and for a while in another, while his mind was
wandering back into old days, thinking of old troubles and
remembering his old joys.—The Last Chronicle of Barad,
No. 19.