The Express.
London, England, 1867-08-12 00:00:00

TEE CHOLERA AND_THE KLEWA JESSE OF

HASSBLT.

The Journai de Liege publishes the following
communication from the town of Hammett, dated Aug. 8:
" Our town is going to have • strange ;spectacle. The
Ricollets Fathers are preparing for Thursday next a
great religious ceremony—the solemn crowning of the
miraculous statue of the Virga Jesse. The crowning of
this statue, which is in the church of the Recollets, will
take place in the Grand Place, on an altar raised specially
for this occasion, in the presence of M. de Merode and
several prelate& According to the Cunstitictionael de Limburg
which receives its information from the rev. fathers, the
occasion of this crowningis as follows:—` First—Last year
the cholera was approaching Hasselt, when, thanks to a
procession through the town, in which the miraculous
statue was carried, the terrible disease disappeared, and
God did not permit it to make • single victim amongst the
people. Second—This year the cattle disease has caused
great destruction amongst the animals of the distillers.
The inhabitants in their despair had recourse to the Vi-ga
Jesse, and the same day, at the same hour that the statue
of Virga Jesse was transferred to the middle of the church,
the fearful ravages of the cattle plague ceased.' Is not
this sufficient to have the Virgo Jesse crowned twice
instead of once?' (asks the Journal de Liege). It is con-
ceivable that the Recollets, who have an interest in the
spreading of error and superstition in order the more
securely to establish their influence, should be of

this opinion ; but what is inconceivable is that
our communal council should publicly and offi-
cially countenance the rev. fathers. They have
in fact unanimously granted a subscription of 700 francs
towards the expenses of the fete, thereby giving a sanc-
tion to the pretensions put forward on behalf of
the statue." The Journal de LiOe then proceeds
to prove that the statue could claim no such merit,
as the register of the Town-house shows that 26 persons
died of cholera after the procession of the statue, and that
the cattle plague only ceased when 1,400 animals were
destroyed, for which the government bad to pay 800,000 fr.
compensation.

A largo number of delegates from tho working
classes have, during the last few days, come up to Paris
from the provinces to visit the Exhibition. They stay
longer in Paris than those who preceded them. They take
their meals at the Restaurant Omnibus, according to a
fixed scale of charges previously determined upon. As
these prices are moderate, this establishment has the mono-
poly of the whole of the delegated workmen, several
hundreds of whom may be seen dining at the same time.

DEATH OF May. ArSTlN.—This lady, widow of
the late John Austin, well known as one of the moat
eminent professors of the science of jurisprudence whom
this country has produced, expired on the Bth inst., at her
residence at We bridge, after an acute attack of a malady
of the heart with which' she had long been afflicted. Mr.
Austin was descended from the Taylors of Norwich, •
family which has in several generations produced men and
women distinguished by literary and scientific ability.
She was born in 1793, and she received in her father's
house an education of more than common range.
In 1820 she married Mr. John Austin, then a
barrister on the Norfolk Chen% and came to re-
side nut door to Mr. Bentham and Mr. James Mill,
in Queen-square, Westminster. Although that house
could boast of none of the attractions of luxury, for the
fortune of its owners was extremely small, it soon col-
lected within its walls as remarkable an assemblage of
persons u ever met in a London drawing-room. There
might be seen—a dim and flitting figure of the past—Mr.
Bentham and his two diseiples, James and John Stuart
Mill, the Grote', the rising lawyers of that day, whose
success has justified the promise of their dawn, Bicker-
steth, Erle, Hominy, and Senior, and all this widoWand
learning was enlivened in later years by the wit of Charles
Buller, by the hearty sallies of Sydney Smith, by the
polished eloquence of Jeffrey by the courteous amenity
of Lard Lansdowne, and by the varied resources of
foreizn visitors who found a home by M. Austin's
hearth. Mrs. Austin never aspired to original literary
composition. Except in some of the prefaces to her trans-
lations, she disclaimed all right to address the public in
her own person. She, therefore, devoted the singular
power of her pen to reproduce in Esiglish many of the best
contemporary works of German and French literature,
Her translations from the German, more sepealaliy, were
of the highest excellence, and among these her version of
Ranks's " Popes of Rome" has been commended by the
beat judges as deserving to retain a place in English histo-
rical literature. Much of Mrs. Austin's life was spent
abroad, and not a few of the moat eminent persons in con-
tinental society enjoyed her friendship. She had inha-
bited two German universities for the prosecution of her
husband's studies, after he had quitted the bar for a chair
of jurisprudence in she London Univenity. She had ac-
companied him to Maltawhen he was sentasacoinmissioner
to that island. She remained for some years inParis, where
her small salon had an intellectual stamp and charm not
inferior to that of her London circle. The revolution of
1848 drove the Austins back to England ; they established
themselves in the village of Weybndge, and calmly antici-
pated the day when they should rest side by side in Wey-
bridge churchyard. Mrs. Austin, however, survived her
husband for several years, and that interval was employed
by her in accomplishing a task which to most women
would have seemed hopeless. The greater part of the'
lectures delivered by Professor Austin on the principles of
jurisprudence bad remained in manuscript. His ill-health
I led him constantly to postpone the task of preparing them
for the press. After his death his widow, assisted by one
or two legal friends on whose judgment she could rely,
succeeded in completing the imperfect edifice from the
fragments of it that remained, and we owe to Mrs. Austin,
already advanced in years and struggling with a painful
disease, the production of a work on jurisprudence, which
is unquestionably the noblest monument that could be
I raised to the memory of her husband—Times.
DEATH OF Miss SEDGWICK. —MISS Catharine
Maria Sedgwick, whose writings years ago won for her a
high reputation and attracted to her many warm personal
I friends, died yesterday morning at Roxbury, Maas., in
I the 79th year of her age. Forty-five years sines her
first book, entitled "A New England Tale," was pub-
lished, and two years later appeared " Redwood,"
which was reprinted in England, and was almost
immediately translated into French, Swedish, and
Italian. Her subsequent works were " Hope Leslie, or
Early Times in America," published in 1827, Clarence"
in 1830 "Le Boon" in 1832, and " The Linwood," in
1835. During the three years followiag, appeared the
" Poor Rich Man and Rich Poor Man,' Live and Let
Live," " Means and Ends," " Home," and " Love Token
for Children." In 1841 she published, on her return from
Europe, a book of travel entitled "Letters from Abroad to
Kindred at Home," and in 1845 appeared " Milton Harvey
and Other Tales." In 1857 these were followed by • novel of
American society, under the title of " Married or Single,"
and in the following year she gave us a "Life of Joseph
Curtis," one of our most honoured and benevolent citizens.
Her successes • writer was soured at the first, and the many
peen which have followed her earliest venture in literary
pursuits have only tended to enlarge the circle of her
admirers. Her books have been read everywhere, by
almost all classes of persons, and while theyhave ever been
attractive from the purity and Foe of style, they have
benefited and instructed those into whose hands they
came. She has written much, but in it all there has been
s variety and • freshness which forbade her admirers from
becoming weary of her, and there are many who will sin-
cereonay, regret that there can be no more.—New York
V Au 1.
HOSPITAL FOR DISEASES OF TAX CHEST, VICTORIA-
PARS.—The number of patients relieved at this institution
during last week was 1,177, of which 240 were new oases.