The Express.
London, England, 1867-11-20 00:00:00

HIGH WAIT& AT LONDON GRIMM

rim .—..Afternoon, 9h rum.
!o•Yauow—Yoruing, Oh. boa.. „Aitarnoom, 10h. 35m.

LONDON, WEDIVESDAY, NOVEMBER 20

THE Cattle Show of the Smithfield Club is
appointed to be opened on Monday, the oth of
December next. The money prizes alone this
year amount to 1,1951., and the total value of all
the prizes together will exceed 2,0001. This is by
fur the most important exhibition of the year to
the farmer, and probably for a long time past
nothing has had a better effect upon agricultural
affairs than the custom of gathering together the
prime stock of the kingdom. It would be difficult
also to over-estimate the benefits of the social and
commercial meetings among our farmers which
have grown with this practice. The minds of
men living much in rural districts, and having
thus a very limited circle of acquaintance, are apt
to contract, and their views, however enlarged
and liberal they may have been in early life, when
fresh from the wholesome contests of our publ!c
schools and colleges, appear to become narrow and
sectarian, owing to some inexplicable law of
nature. In London we are rapidly beginning to
consider travelling backwards and forwards to dis-
tant places as part of the necessary conditions of
molem life. We are ready to proceed at half an
hour's notice to places so far off, that our own
fathers would have held themselves in duty
bound to avoid them till they had arranged
their affairs and made their wills. But
this is not the case with countryfolk ; to
many wealthy and intelligent country gentlemen
a journey of any considerable distance still remains
a serious enterprise, and ono not to be under-
taken without due deliberation and precaution.
The majority of our prosperous squires and warm
farmers are a vast deal too comfortable and re-
spected at home t 3 think with much pleasure
about moving anywhere ; and it must be allowed
that even a county magistrate who farms his own
land and subscribes to hounds does get a good
deal knocked and hustled about on railway plat-
forms and in monster hotels, where he is looked
upon by the waiter as only one of a
hundred and fifty numbers, each representing
an individual who has contracted, at the (prices
fixed by the company's tariff, for precisely the same
amount of respect as himself, and who is deter-
mined not to abate a fraction of it. This is not a
state of things to entice a country gentleman,
supreme in half a dozen parishes, from a home
where he enjoys the respect and loyalty he may have
created around him by a long life of blameless and
charitable doings. Strange things and strange
faces have generally but little attraction for agri-
cultural celebrities, and the usual course of their
lives to accustom themselves very early to the
rest and dignity of manner which in cities is sel-
dom accorded save to advanced age and public
honours.

Fortunately, however, for themselves, and pro-
bably still more fortunately for us, the annual
London Cattle Show rouses them at least once
every year out of their pleasant repose. No coun-
try gentleman of any weight or consideration at
home prefers to remain there when he may com-
pare, with infinite advantage to himself and his
neighbours, the produce of his own county with
the best that can be collected from all England.
However long the journey to London may be
postponed, however reluctantly it would be made
under any other circumstances, every country gen-
tleman not sofa-bound by gout and crutches,
struggles into a great coat, usually too tight for
him, and comes up to town by a train so early
that the sharpest waiters are apt to rub their eyes
with wonder when they behold his surpris-
ingly brisk appearance at so unusual an
hour. Few street sights are so refreshing to
the Londoner as ho walks towards his occupa-
tions in the dawn of a metropolitan morning,
about ten o'clock, as to observe the numerous
rosy-checked, energetic persons already in full
activity, and firmly persuaded that it is about the
middle of the day. Flushed and happy-looking
couples, with flocks of blooming daughters and
merry-eyed sons, may be seen trooping sip and
down Regent-street, and filling the shops of
wondering French folk, who are at last permitted
to behold a people of the appearance which
tradition has consecrated as the true type
of the Anglo-Saxon race—plump, rubicund,
indiscreet, liberal, large-hearted. The continental
commercial community of Regent-street are not
the only London tradesmen who welcome these
jovial strangers with enthusiasm, and are loath to
see them depart. Most of the goods slightly de-
teriorated in value by the capricious changes of
fashion, or otherwise grown dowdy and unsaleable
to habitual customers, are happily cleared off at
this festive season ; and it forms an epoch or turn-
ing point in the affairs of some, very anxiously
awaited and profitably employed.
It is certain that however important may be
the benefits which the visit of the agriculturist con-
fers upon this capital, they carry home with them to
the full as much good se they bring. They learn,
even in the brief time they can spare us, to
understand not only how mighty a nation we
have become, and that we are still growing
daily more rich and powerful, but why we have

become so. They comprehend that England is the
greatest market in the world for other things be-
sides farm produce ; and that we have gradually
risen in this small island to be the great centre of
beneficent thought and civilization for the whole
universe. It is a grand lesson : one by no means
Ito be chuckled over as the old wives' fables of
! former times about our thumping superiority in
the stand-up fights of the prize-ring. The primacy
which is now accorded to us with more or less re-
luctance by the rest of mankind rests upon a very'
different basis. It reposes upon no foundation, how-
ever, so wide or so broad as the great fact, impor-
tant to every living thing, that we have at lastsolved
the momentous question of cheap food. We have
not indeed yet succeeded entirely in making wheat
and other edible cereals as cheap as they ought to
be. That is to come, and there are still some
difficulties in the way of our final triumph. Never-
theless, it is wholly beyond dispute that whereas
the acreage of our wheat-growing counties has
' notably diminished, while our population has in-
creased and is being daily augmented by a healthy
immigration of energetic men from all quarters
of the world, still bread is far cheaper than it was
half a century ago, although money is worth less.

Before we take leave of the farmers, we de- '
sire to point their attention to a fact which '
should materially add to their rejoicing. We
do so in no spirit of self-congratulation, or
ungenerous triumph over the fallen cause of pro- I
toction. We merely state a great truth ; and
here it is fresh and reliable in all its force from
the last available source of credit. It has been
publicly stated within the last week that'
there lives at this time an agricultu-
rist—and long may he live and flourish—
who is selling bull calves at 500 guineas
each as fast as he can breed them.
Any other gentleman may do likewise who pos- 1
sesses the true " Duchess " blood ; the enormous
price here mentioned being immediately realisable
in open market for bull calves of that famous
strain. Moreover, a six-year-old cow called
" Rosedale," bred by Lady Floor, was purchased
at the Duke of MONTROSE'S sale last August for
250 guineas. 200 guineas is becoming quite a l
common price for a bull calf of high quality, and
the prices lately paid for sheep and horses
are so high that mention of some of
them could hardly be made here with-
out giving rise to a feeling of involuntary
incredulity. Does not this prove sufficiently
that we are again permitted to recognise
a truth as old at least as the Roman Conquest ti
The mild moist climate of England is fitted for
pasturage rather than for corn, and suggests that
we nay well afford to purchase cheap foreign,
wheat when we can breed and export as many as
we please of the finest stock animals in the
world. It is surely but perverse to buy cattle (and
alas! cattle plague) abroad, while we spoil our best
grass land with scanty corn crops, and seem to
forget that the gifts of the Almighty Disposer of
all things have been equally dispensed among the
various members of the great family of mankind,
and it would be but impious pride to arrogate to
ourselves a single one more than He has given us.

A SINGLE glance at the map will show the
importance of the new naval position which
the United States have acquired in the West
Indies. The Danish islands of the Virgin
Group have hitherto been of little political
consequence in the hands of a distant and
:ceble government, but in those of a great
maritime Power they must immediately assume
importance. Lying at the very gate of the
Caribbean Sea, the Power which holds them will
bestride the highway from Europe to the Isthmus
of Panama, and command its communications with
Mexico, Central America, and the whole West
Indies. The policyof the Government of the United
States since the great civil war has led it to
seek territorial aggrandisemen for the purpose of
strengthening its political position. It can hardly
be doubted that the unexpected manifestation of
the desire of Europeans for the dismemberment of
t..e Union has done much to stimulate this decision.
The purchase of Russian America had its prece-
dent in that of Louisiana, but did little mere
than remove the flag of a European Power
from the American continent. It has been
understood on both sides of the Atlantic as de-
noting the intention of the Government to take
measures gradually, and as opportunities offered,
to obtain complete control of North America,
but its material value was very small. On
the other hand, the islands just acquired
give the United States an admirable naval
position, besides enabling the enterprising citiH
sena of the Republic to compete with Europeans
for the valuable and increasing carrying trade
between the island of St. Thomas and the islands
and countries west of that purchase. The acquisi-
tion of an outlying territory not capable of physical
incorporation with the Union, is a new thing in
the history of the Republic, which has no colonial
system, and the islands will probably form a new
State. The negotiations for the purchase of the
Bay of Samana, which have from timo to time
been mentioned as in progress, have probably been
abandoned, as being rendered unnecessary by this
transaction with Denmark, which,
renders less improbable the report that the United
States Government is seeking to obtain a naval
station in the Pacific.

IT will be observed that the Earl of DERBY
confirmed last night in Parliament the statement
unofficially made in the recess that India is to pay
for the maintenance of the troops employed in the
Abyssinian expedition. His words were, " That
" country (India) will continue to pay the ordinary
" charge of the troops as if they were in India."
The noble Earl has no doubt satisfied him-
self that this is a just and equitable arrange-
ment ; but we strongly distrust the ability of
our clever Indian officials to make the QUEEN'S
native subjects in that country see its fairness.
To charge the people of India for the support
of troops "as if they were in India," when they
are not there is, on the face of it, very like
robbing them. If it can be made to look other-
wise, the sooner that is done the better. No
confidence can be felt in the financial condition of
India if the taxes of that country are to be taken
to support an army which has been withdrawn
from it for the purposes of Imperial policy, and is
serving in a distant country.

Tan ABYSSINIAN EXPSDITION.—A blue-book of
500 pages was issued yesterday, containing papers
relating to this expedition. The contents are of a
' most miscellaneous character, being a mass of
executive detail. It is satisfactory to observe,
among despatches on the subject of dubbing,
puggarees, presbyterian chaplains, and essence of
watercress, three lines from Sir John Lawrence,
Governor-General of Jodie, expressing his cln-
viction that " there is every prospect of suc-
cess if the expedition be well commanded." It
appears that the government has bad under its
consideration plans submitted by several eminent
engineers and contractors for laying down a light
railway for the use of the troops in Abyssinia.