The Express.
London, England, 1866-09-11 00:00:00

RUSSIA AND POLAND.

The Courier of Witna contains the following :
By a circular of August 28 the Governor-General of
Wana notifies to the officers of government under his
jurisdiction that he has opened at Wiles " a special office
for the introduction of Russian proprietors into the pro-
vincea of the West." The business of this office will con-
sist—Lt, in the transfer of property to persons of Russian
origin ; 2nd, in the compulsory sale within two years of
the properties comprised in the ukase of Sept. 22, 1865 ;
3rd, in the sale and letting of confiscated estates and the
property of the State ; 4th, in the colonising of the State
property with Russian peasants and soldiers who have
passed through their term of service.

(azoTEß's rzisaaews.)

REDUCTION OF THE •AUSTRIAN ARMY.
VIENNA, Styr. 11.

An imperial decree, published to-day, orders an
immediate reduction of the army in all depart-
ments and its restoration to the normal peace
footing.

TURKEY.

CONSTANTINOPLE, Sarr.lo, Evraxa.

The Porte has promised the French Am-
bassador, the Marquis de Moustier, that a
portion of the State revenue and the
Egyptian tribute shall be transferred annually to
the Ottoman Bank for the purpose of redeeming
the Turkish loan contracted abroad.

The Turkish government has also engaged to
effect a saving of 3,500,000/. annually by reduc
tions in the civil list, so as to establish an equili-
brium in the budget.
Conflicts between the Turks and Christians in
the island of Candia are of daily occurrence.
Energetic military measures have been taken
by the Mussulmans. Husin Pacha, the Governor-
General of Macedonia, has been dismissed from
his post.
The Porte is about to establish an Embassy at
Washington.
Petitions have been forwarded to the Porte to

appoint Aristides Bilcazzi, Prince of Lantos.
The railway between Varna and Rutschuk is
completed.

The Council-General of the Loire-Inf‘rieure has
voted 2,500 fr. towards the purchase of the tower and the
erection of a monument to Joan of Aro ; that of the
Loiret, I,ooofr. ; the Var, fioOfr. ; the Council of Savoy,
500 fr. ; and that of Upper Savoy, 100 fr. for the same

purpose.
The Paris correspondent of the Times says
•

" For some time past little doubt has been possible as to
how the Mexican adventure would terminate, and the
abdication of the Emperor Maximilian has been looked
upon as merely a question of time. But the complexion of I
the last accounts from that country is so bed that we now
expect his Majesty by eve'', boat."
In Switzerland the season has been most unsatis-
factory both for tourists and hotel-keepers. The war at
first kept many persons at home, and, when that finished+
the increasing stream of tourists was met with such a
counter-current of rain that many returned or diverged in
quest of less pluvions latitudes. In most parts of Swit-
zerland nearly the whole of July and the greater part of
August were wet, cold, and altogether unseasonable.
The Genoa Court of Appeal has just given judg-
ment in an important case. The registrar of that town
had refused to sanction the civil marriage of a priest. His
refusal had been validated by a lower jurisdiction, but
that sentence has now been quashed, and the principle
solemnly affirmed that priests can legally depart from their
vows of celibacy.

The British Consul at Geneva mentions a piece I
of sharp practice on the part of the Communal Council at
Zermatt. A monument had been ordered to be erected
over the graves of the deceased gentlemen who perished
last year on the Mont Cervin, in the churchyard at
Zermatt, and inquiries had been made whether any inure.
dimcnt existed, the answer being In the negative. The
I workmen were sent up last week with the stones com-
pleted for putting up the monument, when suddenly
the Communal Council made a demand of 5,000 fr. (2001.)
for the ground !
" It is curious," says a letter from Venice, "to
observe the tentative degrees with which the Venetians
begin to assert their independence. A week ago the go-
vernor had good-humouredly to rebuke an impatient lady
for banging the colours from her windows, and a dashing
youth thought it something to march up and down with an
insurgent necktie. Now the shops are all red, white, and
green ; Napoleon, and Victor Emmanuel, and Prince
Humbert are severally exhibited on scarf and tie for the
purpoce of dangling over • white shut like a welting
standard in the faces of the mild Austriaci, who are indeed
so inoffensive that it ceases to be • joke to outrage them."
A Paris correspondence of the IndApendance
writes :—" I am assured that the Mon iteur will publish
in • few days a note on the subject of Mexico. It is also
affirmed that Count de Germiny, President of the Com-
mittee of Mexican Finance, is about to leave for Tarbes,
where M. Fould must now be, to consult with him as to
the means of reassuring in some degree the Mexican bond.
holders, whose alarm is on the .recrease. If M. Fould
persists in refusing • guarantee on the part of the govern-
ment in favour of those secuuities, the probability is that
the President of the Committee will resign."

The first-class passengers by the mails of the 20th
and 28th ult., from Southampton and Memelllea, including
several oaken, bitterly oomplain of the treatment expe-
rienced at the hands of the Baptism Transit and Penin-
sular sad Oriental Companies on the road from Alexandria
to Suez. The carriages were " something between beast
trucks and fourth-elms carriages," sad between 6 o'clock in
the evening and 7 o'clock the following morning—the time
taken by the journey—no food or drink weld be Ind at
the stations. They arrived perfectly exhausted at Suez,
" where the whole Book of us, herded together during the
journey across the desert for some fourteen home, without
any necessary conveniences, were innuediatelz huddled on
board a lighter, exposed to a tropical sun without a pre-
tence of an awning, and after 45 minutes' tow scrambled
up the sides of the steamer BengaL"