The Express.
London, England, 1866-02-14 00:00:00

JOHN BLOGDEN.

ORIGIN AL GOLD GRAIN MANUFACTORY,
10. aarnunTA•entiorr 00•12124WIDIN

JOHN BROGDIN'S GOLD CHAINS.

JOHN BROGDEN'S GOLD GL &RD CHAINS.

JOHN BROGDEN'S GOLD ALBERT CHAINS.

JORNBROODENS

IHOHLINS.

LONDON must have a SUPPER and MUSIC
SOOY eathettsma - Hemezobsrtislare watt jr
tae

igfte erirre%O.

PIERCZBB'B.
.To.lloabow, GTSP LODGltir.—Afler whit:ll3,lT 18
KZ, D. Murray , b. Gilliam: F. VllllenkVnthL, G. Mur.
Wm and Z. 01111rwS; Maws L Yoore sad L todsuw

LYCZUM.

To-)lnaow. THE ILOSTiIiAP3 STRANGER, Mr. E.
Widecomb.—ACHE MASTER OF RAVENSWOOD. Mews.
Ma
2,,110ed al. Vezlik Emory.av Widdlcomb. maim* Ems
Terns; 13rwatik y. Linia. C. lAciscog.

Szrrainfla.
Tzus sviango. a GRAND 001SCIRT. Supported by nume-
rous eminent Vocalists.—Johnny Day, the Champion Welker.—
IL sad skims. Sterteenhaels—Olmar.--Several Survivors of the
Craw of the Loudon, with King, the Coxswain. will appear.

wag WATIM AT LONDON-BRIDGE.
TO DAT Montag, lb. lia.....ADisseas, lA. DAL
T0450110D... limb& Ih. 590.....At1am055, St AM.

LONDON. WEDNESDAY. FEBRUARY 14.

To those who watch the movement of opinion in
Frame very serious questions present themselves.
Can Imperialism, in its present form, 00-exist with

the changeful suffrages Of ten million restless elec-
tors f Can the suffrages of the electors be perms-

neatly secured by administrative machinery to the

present system of government I Can Imperialism
adapt itself to such a contingency as a Liberal ma-
jority at the elections of '18691 Can Imperialism
live with liberty ; or without it ? And if without it,
on what terms ? These' are questions which will

pram more and more, year by year, upon the
attention, and will concern more and more the
material and moral intereata, of Europe. For u

certain as the influence of that untoward Mexican

adventure upon public opinion in France is the

. . .
influence of that public opinion, or rather of the
oontingencies it may create, upon the peace of the

When we turn to cut a glance at the domestic con-
dition of the French Empire, in its moral, social, and
political aspects, we are instantly lost in a labyrinth
of contradictions. There, for example, we find
Count WALEWSKI, in his complimentary address to
the Chamber, which had not elected him to the

chair, and of which he was not even an admitted

member when he spoke, assuring his audience that
the Empire did not fear discussion. Against
this comforting assurance we have to set the fol-
lowing recent illustrations. On February I, the

Unarm a of the Imranzon put a notice in tileMoni-

tear to the effect that the Government "wouldnot

" tolerate excesses " of newspaper comment upon

speeches in the Chambers. At the date of this
threatening notice the Senate had only sat once,
and the Corps I.4gislatif only three times, and no
business had. been transacted beyond the verifies-

ton of a few elections and the admission of a few

members. The Moniteur (in virtue of the privilege

of breaking the law daily, by dispensing with
• stamp and printing articles nnaigned) is the

only journal which publishes a verbatim short-
hand report of the proceedings in the Chambers.
This report is copied into all the other papers,
Art. 42 of the Constitution of January, 1862,
forbidding the publication of any unauthorised
report (comptc•rendu) of the debates. In 1861,
and again in 1863, the Senate defined the limits

within which the press might discuss the speeches
in the Chambers; and in the latter year the Go-
vernment declared that the discussion by the press of
debates in the Chambers had alwaysbeen permitted.
It seems that the Empire is less liberal in some
respects in 1866 than in 1863. M. Da Lavaurrra
is lOU liberal than M. DE PERSIGNY. The indepen-
dent journals have been thrown into grievous per-
plexity by the latest admonition. It may be easily
imagined that at no time under the existing ?time
is their life an enviable or an easy one. Consider-
ing the difficulties which surround an independent
journal in France, from the day of its birth to the
day of its death, the wonder is, not that such a
journal should die, but that it should ever have
been born. There is, to begin with, the authoriza-
tion of the MINISTER of the lirrzaioa, who must,
ex officio, hate the very name of a newspaper ; then
come the restrictions with which the privilege is
accompanied if granted at all, the difficulty
of finding printers prepared to face the riaks
of imprisonment for a paragraph of false
news or of obnoxious opinions, the incessant and
imminent peril of warnings, followed perhaps by
suspension, and it may be by suppression, if the
Government is more than usually irritable or
alarmed ; the denial of all legal rights and guar-
antees, and the possible confiscation of a valuable
property by an arbitrary administrative decree, or
even, in case of the death of a proprietor, by the
mere withdrawal of the administrative sanction.
These are only a few of the difficulties a news-
paper with the slightest taint of independence must
encounter between a painful birth and a probably
sudden death. Yet, according to Count Waxivrexi,
" the Empire does not fear discussion." And the
Address of the Senate, in reply to the Speech from
the Throne, argues that the press in France is free
from the fact of newspapers and even books being
continually seized and punished for the abuse of
the excessive freedom they enjoy.

Nothing—to quote an admirable paper in the
last number of the Revue des Deuz /foam, upon
the impoverished and degrading condition of the
French stage--" nothing indicates more precisely
" the state of a society than the morality which it
" tolerates or affects on the stage, even though its
" own morality off the stage may be very different."
What, then, according to the Revue., is the
actual condition of the French stage in the four-
teenth year of the Second Empire f Good taste,
imagination, and high feeling have disappeared
from the drains. A low and degraded conception
of &erecter, a contempt of all morality, a contagion
of brutality, cynicism, and violence ; a gross and
exhausted sensualism—these are the characteristics
of the theatre and the delights of the public under
a government which, while it recommends the
amelioration of public morals in its solemn
moments, systematically represses every effort to
elevate and purify the public mind, and delibe-
rately encourages the literature of the stews. A
wallowing people is so much more easy to ad-
minister than an aspiring people I
Even the Thatre Francais, the classic home of
Mourns, Columnar., and Rams, has fallen so
low, that in deference to court patronage, it is
obliged to accept a piece beginning with an orgy
Mabel masque, and ending with a scene of oom-
pound adultery and parriekle ; while • piece
written by a dramatist of acknowledged merit, in
which the baseness of the age is ridiculed, and the