The Express.
London, England, 1867-04-20 00:00:00

TURKEY.

The Levant Herald of the 10th gives the sub-
joined account of the proceedings of Prince Michael
of Servia in Constantinople :

In the lull occasioned by the graver interest of the
Western telegraphic news, the movements of Prince
Michael have formed the chief local incident of the week.
On Wednesday his highness paid his visits to the Grand
Vizier and the other ministers at the Porte, and later in
the afternoon to the representatives of the guaranteeing
powers. On Thursday he received the return visits of
AILS Pubs and his principal colleagues. and
those also of the leading foreign ministers. On Friday
Djemil Pasha invited the Prince to the palace, where be
had a second long audience with the Sultan, from whom
he received the Osmanli in brilliants and a present of five
splendid Arab horses. From Dolma-baktche he drove to
the Sweet Waters of Europe, and in the evening
dined with A'ali Pasha. On Saturday morning he at-
tended mar at the chapel of the Patriarchate iu the
Phansr. and in the evening was the guest of Lord Lyons
at a grand dinner, at which the principal Turkish
ministers and the chiefs of the diplomatic body were pre-
sent. Sunday forenoon was spent in visiting the sights
of Stamboul, and in the evening his highness dined with
M. Bout*, the French ambassador. On Monday evening
he was the guest of Baron Prokesch, and the next day
was similarly entertained by General Iviatieff.

Tax CESSION or Rumen ANEEICA.—A letter
from St. Petersburg, in the Nord, referring to the ces-
sion of Ruasian-America to the United States, makes the
following observations:—" In examining the transaction
from the point of view of national interests and the pro-
gress of civilisation in general, its importance can scarcely
be overlooked. In fine, Russia, on the oue hand, and the
United States on the other, are advancing, the first in the
east, the second in the west, towards the Pacifier Ocean,
which is destined to become the great highway of com-
mercial relations between those two states. But befoi•
arriving at that important result Russia must fill up the
immense vacancies in the population of Siberia, a work
which will require a long time to accomplish. For
American-Russia to be of any utility to the mother
country, all Siberia and the province of the Amcor must
be first sufficiently peopled for them in their turn to send
their surplus population on to the American coast. In
the United States the situation is entirely different.
They have already a compact population on the
shores of the Pacific, and Russian-America
touches that ocean. The colonising spirit of the Yankees
will soon people all the coast as far as Behring's Straits.
Where Russia would have been perhaps centuries in colo-
nising a country situated at the extreme east of her pos-
sessions, the Americans, who have it under their hands,
will arrive at the same result in a few years. The conse-
quences will be the immediate peopling of the two opposite
coasts of the Pacific ; a great and beneficial influence will
thus be exercised on the province of Amoor, the district
of Ockhotsk, and the peninsula of Kamschatka, the com-
mercial resources of which will become developed simulta-
neously with American colonization in the present posses-
sions of Russia on the continent of the new world. We
are there in exactly the mine situation as the English in
India, and we consider it infinitely more desirable to have
to do with citizens of the United States in the north of
the Pacific than with Koloclies and Foquimaux, just as
the English must prefer to treat with Russians rather
than with the barbarous and fanatical governments of
Central Asia. The transaction is therefore an advantage
to both countries, and, also, there is reason to hope, for
the progress of industry, commerce, and civilization which
it will realise."_ _ _

OaTexAL PALACZ. -ON Z SHILLING DAY.—

FRIDAY, APRIL 19.—idmiseiona on payment. 43,730;
ditto by sworn Mao* 4,213 ; total Adieu, 47,013.

FRANCE.

(noN Ott OWN COI

PARIS. THURSDAY Eva/mtg.
The following by no means reassuring paragraph
appears in the Prunes :
Three o'clock.—To-day an anxiety more marked than
we have lately observed prevails in political and business
circles. It is alleged that the efforts of England to bring
about an understanding on the Luxemburg question have
not been favourably received at Berlin. Up to the hour
at which we write we know of nothing to oonfirm these
rumours. The impression, which has had • bad effect
upon the public fund. seems to us capable of explanation,
mainly by the conatruCtion put upon certain puasges in
the King of Prussia's speech. People say that if con-
ciliatory ideas were really in the ascendant at Berlin, the
royal speech would certainly have contained some indica-
tion of such praiseworthy feelings. We . cannot, how-
ever, help being on our guard against untoward
news. It must be well known at Berlin that France
sincerely desires peace, and that peace can only be oum-
promised by a refusal to give satisfaction to rights which
are henceforth indissolubly connected with the security of
Europe.

I wrote to you a fortnight ago, on the faith of
a Berlin letter from a good source that Prussia
I had determined not to give way. do not really
see why she should. If indeed the Luxemburg
question, raised by France, in complicity with the
King of Holland, were anything more than a pre-
text laggishossat war which the Emperor has
long meditated, and in which he means to employ
the vast army he is raising by way of diversion
from the dreaded general elections of 1869, it might
be worth Prussia's while, for the sake of
not to let France have Luxemburg, whi is out
of the question—but to neutralise the province and
incorporate it with Belgium. But the French
Emperor unfortunately countenances writers who
say every day that he means to have Belgium.
Prussia, therefore, unless (which seems out of the
i question) some means can be adopted of binding
the French Emperor over to keep the peace, is
perfectly justified in refusing to be a party to an
arrangement, openly regarded in France as but
provisional, if acceptable at all, and which would
only have the effect of making Belgium a bigger
mouthful to be swallowed whole at no distant day.
It is a most unfortunate thing that French press
writers generally now talk as the France does
about compliance with the " rights " of France as
the only condition of peace. What rights ? The
sale by the King of Holland is no longer insisted
upon, he having, when he found what a row
the job was making, expressed his desire
not to complete a projected contract,
which, it should be recollected, M. }Wither
solemnly declared never went beyond the stage of
conversation (pntrpariers). But, quite indepen-
dently of the Dutch abortive attempt to sell
200,000 people, but for which M. Rouher again
admits the Luxemburg question would never have
arisen at all, the French papers now say France
has at least a right to turn the Prussian gar-
rison out of Luxemburg. Never was an alleged
" right " preferred on grounds more difficult to be
defined. Jealousy of German unity, with Prussia
at its head, may no doubt be a very good cases
beUi, but of " right " to an extension of territory
growing out of it I can see no shadow. It
is commonly said here, that with the de-
struction of the Diet of Frankfort the right of
Prussia to garrison Luxemburg necessarily fell to
the groune. But it is forgotten that the treaty of
1839, between Holland and Prussia, gave Prussia
a right to garrison Luxemburg with Prussian (not
merely Federal) troops, and stated that the object
was the mutual defence of the territories of the
King of Holland and the King of Prussia. It is
clear that this treaty of 1839 gave the King of
Prussia rights which the King of Holland could
not sell, quite independently of the question, by
no means of easy solution whether, in the events
that have happened, Prussia is not the executor of
the defunct Germanic Confederation, and entitled
at least to see that Germany shall not be weakened
by conquests made tor the purpose of strengthening
and consolidating her power.
M. de Tornaco, who has arrived from the Hague
on a special mission, is charged to announce to the
Emperor Napoleon that the Dutch government
wishes to isolate Luxemburg completely from the
kingdom of the Low Countries. M. de Lightenveld,
the Dutch minister at Paris, will no longer be the
representative of that Grand Duchy. M. de Tor-
nado will assume, provisionally, the post of
Luxemburg Charge; d Affaires at Paris, but in the
character of a non-resident minister.

The King of the Belgians left Paris at three
o'clock this afternoon by special train for Brussels.
He will sleep to-night at his Lacken palace, and
leave to-morrow morning for Berlin to be present
at the wedding of the Count of Flanders with the
Princess Marie de Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. Yee-
terday afternoon Leopold 11. had a long interview
with the Emperor at the Tuileries, and there are
people who hope that their conversation on the eve
of the King's departure for Berlin may have a
happy influence upon coming events ; but it must
be confessed the rumours of the day point in quite
an opposite direction.
The Bourse, which during the closing minutes of
yesterday inclined to put a favourable construction
on the King of Prussia's speech, read it in quite a
different light to-day, and leant a ready ear to the
rumours that the negotiations are not going on
well. The Rente has gone down to the lowest qua
tations since the first war panic set in, closing at
66.40 for cash, and 66.14 for account, with a fall
of 60c. and 62ic. Mobilier fell 15f.; Credit Foncier,
27.50 ; Comptoir d'Escompte, 12.50 ; the Northern
Railway, 17.50 ; and Lyons, 10f. Italian fell
1.50 f., the depression being aided by a rumour
that M. Ferrara, the Finance Minister, had thrown
up his portfolio.

The Journal des Costiesiseancee Midicales contains
the summary of a paper by Dr. Broca on the popu-
lation of France with regard to ita recruiting
power, as follows :
It appears th►t the general increase of population noticed
since the beginning of the century has particularly ex-
tended to the number of young men who attain the age of
20. Of these, the proportion fit for military service in
1836 was 61 per oent, and has been constantly growing
since ;itis at present 66 per cent. 1)r. Broca states that
France, with her present population, can afford to con-
tribute to the army an annual contingent of 100,000 men,
but that the population would be materially checked in
its increase, and certain parts of the country exhausted,
were that contingent to be increased. During the four
years 1853 —lBs6,when the number of recruits was raised to
140,000 per annum, the annual increase of population under-
went • perceptible diminution. The author mention as a
favourable circumstance, that the number of men rejected
for being below the standard has been annually decreasing;
and he regrets that the average stature of men in France
should not yet nave been determined by actual investi-
gation. He does not subscribe to the opinion that statures
above the standard are diminishing ; from a minute corn.
parison of the recruiting lists of grenadier and other regi-
ments in which tall men are required, from 1836 to 1840,
and from 1860 to 1864, he has arrived at the conclusion
that tall statures are on the increase in France. Nmer-
theless there is some fluctuation on this point, the annual
contingents comprising sometimes a larger number of men
of the common standard, and sometimes of the higher one.
This he explains by the circumstance that the north and
north east of France is peopled by the Belgian race, which
is tall, with light hair and blue eyes, and the centre,
south, and west comprises the Celtic race, which is short
set and has dark hair and eyes. A casual increase of po-
pulation on one side more than on another may therefore
determine a preponderance of tall men one year, and the
contrary the next.

BOUTHAMPIMN, APRIL 19.—The New York and
Biomes Oompiny's steamer Atlantic, from New York on
the 6th, has arrived here. She brings so specie. Her
news has been anticipated.
HEALTH REsit`ORLD SY Du BARRY'S FOOD TO THE
STOMACH, nerves, lungs, and liver, curing dyspepsia (htdiges-
lion), constipation, diarrhosk acidity, headache, neuralgia, hys
teria, palpitsUon, sleeplessness, w asUr.g, cough,
asthma, fevers, consumption, low spirits, 00,000 annual cures
which had resisted all medicines, Including that of his Holinem
the Pope Tins, at ls. lid. ; I lb.. 9r. 9d. , 1111).. TL. ; .24113.. 40s.
—Du Harry and Co ,TT. Regcntstreet, London; also at Fortnum
and Marco's; and at 61, Gracechurchstreet : 4, Cheapside 04
and 150, Odurdgtswat ; and an grocers and chmands.—(Adver
Unmans.]

ftluoic.

CRYSTAL PALACE.—SACRED CONCERT.
Yesterday a series of musical entertainments
was provided for the many thousands of visitors who pissed
their Good Friday holiday at the Crystal Palace. The
performances commenced at one o'clock with a selection of
pieces played on the organ by Mr. James Coward; after
which, at half-past one, the band of the Coldstream
Guards, under the direction of Mr. F. Godfrey, gave vari-
ous sacred movements, with a perfection of execution and
refinement of style that could scarcely be surpassed
by any wind-bend in Europe. At half-past three
the vocal selection commenced, and by this time the
masses of people assembled in front of the Handel
orchestra (where the performances took place), and ex-
tending widely on each side, as well as reaching even to
the upper opposite galleries, presented a spectacle such as
can only be seen on such an occasion in such a locality.
The programme consisted chiefly of detached pieces from
well-known oratorios, and as these were given by singers
equally well known, there is no need for a recapitulation
of all the details. That the attraction offered to the
multitude was great, and that the attendance was
unusually large, may readily be inferred when it is
considered that the occasion was a holiday, the admistion
one shilling, the weather of the brightest, and the vocal
solo performers wine /Endow likelsndricr fitse sins •• 't T
Reeves, Yr. &Idler, *and Inhe. la addition Se a es.
inbreed chorus, the Crystal Palace band with that of the
Coldstream Guards, and the great organ. The concert
minesenoe4 with the Hundredth Psalm by the united
bands, organ, and chorus, with an intimation in the pro-
gramme that " the public were requested to join in unison"
—a request repeated with reference to the Evening Hymn
and the National Anthem—an invitation, however, some-
what timidly responded to, and, in some instances, with •
tendency to improvised basses and harmonies rather than
an adherence to the prominent melody. Mr. Santley's
singing of " The trumpet shall sound," with Mr. Thomas
Harper's admirable obbligato accompaniment on that
instrument; Mr. Reeves' singing of "If with all your
haute ;" Madame Ruderslorff's energetic delivery of
the " Infiammatus," from Rimini's Staled Meter; Mr.
Weias's spirited singing of " Arm, arm, ye brave," with
other equally well-known solos by those artists, are
too familiar to need fresh comment. There were
also solos fee the cornet, consisting of arrangements
of sacred pieces, performed by Mr. Levy with his
usual resonance of tone. The whole of the performances
appeared to give unmixed satisfaction to she vast con-
course of persons who were assembled within, and even
without, the range of hearing—and whose numbers,
added to the many who were enjoying the fine weather in
the grounds outside, we heard surmised as something like
fifty thousand. On this point, however, the official re-
turns will afford the only reliable information. It is cer-
tain, however, that there has seldom if ever been
finer weather, or a larger assemblage at the Crystal Palace
on any previous Good Friday.

THE VOLUNTEER REVIEW.