The Express.
London, England, 1866-11-16 00:00:00

TUE EXPRESS, pLIDAY EVENING,.

forms, other persons, suppoced to bt lot 11qt same
dining, were as brutally assaullpd.• • MGT ablpi
but vigorous defiance of the "V&A' ei.aplfuta
Mr. WhfEsmur and his friends succeeded in

fighting their way to a lower room, the
door of which they closed and barricaded.

The mob, however, forced the doors ;
one obnoxious gentleman was surrounded by a
band of men, " several of whom seized him by
" the hair, struck him, knocking him down,
" kicking him on all parts of the body, and
" beating him with a piece of the door they
" had broken off." While these events were
taking place a religions meeting was being held
in a Presbyterian Church opposite, at which
several magistrates were present. Making his way
thither, Mr. M`Mzinaz presented himself in the
church, bareheaded, and loudly demanded protec-
tion and the suppression of the riot. Two
magistrates accompanied him to the Music Hall,
but declined interference with the mob on the
ground that no breach of the peace had been
committed. In spite of Mr. WMEEHAN'S exhorta-
tions to them to do their duty, and his denuncia-
tions of what he called their infamous forbearance,
they did nothing.
If the report of the proceedings now before
us is unexaggerated, it is scarcely possible to find
fault with the strength of Mr. M`MzzazN's con-
demnatory epithets. The narrative recalls the
fatal and pusillanimous inactivity of partisan
magistrates in the Belfast riots of 1864,
when their conduct was the subject of cen-
sure by a Government Commission, and gave
occasion to corrective legislation in the Imperial
Parliament. But taking the case at its worst,
some consolation may be extracted even from this
wretched display of party violence and ecclesias-
tical fanaticism. The dark cloud has its silver
lining. If the north of Ireland were free from
the faults and excesses which disgrace the south
and west—if Fenianism had no counterpart and
provocative in Orangeism—the future of Ireland
would be darker than it really is, though the
misery of the present would receive some alle-
viation. There would then be some show of plau-
sibility in the shallow theory which attributes
to the vice of race the misfortunes of Ireland.
We are sometimes told that what Ireland needs is
capital, industry, material prosperity, the substitu-
tion of the Saxon for the Celtic race, and of the
Protestant for the Catholic religion. Well, Bel-
fast has all these advantages. It has made more
rapid advances in wealth during the last dozen
years than any town in the Empire ; its merchan:s
and manufacturers are as enterprising, and
its artisans as industrious as those of Glas-
gow and Manchester. Its inhabitants and
the people of the province of Ulster generally are
the descendants of Scotch and English settlers. The
portion of them which is most given to violence
is Protestant to the core. Yet they display in ex-
cess what aro commonly held to be the peculiar
vices of the Irish character. The phenomenon is
not a new one. It is an old story how the English
soldiers of STRONGBOW, and of the adventurers
who followed, soon became Hibintis ipsis Iliber-
nivres ; and what is true of them is true
also of tho soldiers whom CROMWELL and Wm-
max 111. left behind them. An old chronicler
attributes to the English of the 12th century
the servile vices, especially proneness to treachery
and murder, which it is the fashion now to
consider peculiarly Irish. The fact is proved
that races exchange what are held to be their
characteristic virtues and vices as they change
their circumstances. If the vast differences of
physical and moral character which separate the
Hindoo from the Englishman are simply the result
of diversity of causes acting upon men of a com-
mon stock—and this seems to be established—
there is no need to attribute the vices of the
Irish character to any defect of nature or taint
of blood. The opposite doctrine is neither
more nor less than political fatalism. It
attempts to throw on PROVIDENCE the blame
due to human misgovernment. Even when the
theory does not spring from selfish indolence, it
yet strikes at the root of all honest effort to remedy
a state of things assumed to be incurable. On
the other hand, the evils which external circum-
stances and events have produced, external cir-
cumstances and events may remove. The equal
faults of the Saxon and Celtic races inhabiting
Ireland—faults which differ only as the vices of the
oppressor differ from the vices of the slave—show
that the legislator has in both ductile material to
deal with, which may be fashioned, as he has
wisdom or lacks it, to honour or dishonour.

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

(THIS DAY.)

wamd questing the Alabama claims should got be sib-
' Milted to some OW of artdeettion. shaahl not, it
t, like tp it* Ike mom se the Magma 04 Shwas-
ibcalt made &to a precedeak In certain ,ciesit
would be most inconvenient for us. If the isaians, for
example, were to establish themselves in some hole or
earner of America, out of our reach ; if they had resources
enough to enable them to purohase an American steamer ; if
this steamer were to be fitted with an armament on the
high seas, and proceed at onoe to destroy unarmed Eng-
lish merchantmen ; if the American government were not
only to wink st this, but to recognise the Fenian craft as a
lawful belligerent, we should then have cause to exe-
crate the memory of the Alabama, and the rule of
international law which we ourselves had set up.
The precedent we have allowed is, that a pretended go-
ver.tment, hat :ng no pora; of its own from which to corn-
mi.tion its ships of war, may fit them out on the high
seas without let or hindrance. The establishment of such
a doctrine would amount to a renunciation of our maritime
advantages in case of a war with any nation of the Western
world.

LATEST ,INTELLIGEN,

:11.177e1e8 TILZGRAYS.)
ITALY.
FLORENCE, Nov. 16.
King Victor Emmanuel visited Belluno and
Treviso yesterday.

HUNGARY.
PESTEr, Nov. 16.

The civil authorities of this city have sent a com-
munication to the government, representing that
Hungary has furnished this year double the usual
number of recruits, and soliciting, in consequence,
that the further levy ordered for next spring may
not be carried out.

QUARANTINE AT MALTA.
MALTA, Nov. 15.

Quarantine has .been abolished for all vessels
from England and Scotland having a doctor on
board, and bringing a clean bill of health, also upon
those from Marseilles having left that port subse-
quent to the 18th November, provided that no
new case of cholera had occurred there, and after
undergoing a sanitary process here.

THE OVERLAND MAILS.
CALCUTTA AND CHINA MAILS.
SUEZ, Nov. 15.

The Camila arrived at 2 p.m. to-day.
OUTWARD MAILS OF 27TH OCTOBEK-3aD

NOVEMBER.

The Carnatic, for Bombay, and the Sultan,
extra steamer, for Calcutta, left Suez at 7 p.m.,
on the 13th inst.

THE BRAZILS.
(By Telegrapb from Lisbon.)

RIO DE JANEIRO, Ocr. 25.

The shipments of coffee since the departure of
the last mail amount to 138,500 bags, including
18,550 for the Channel. Sales, 7,000 (! 70,000) bags.
Freight to the Channel, 425. 6d. to 455.
BAHIA, Oct 29.

Exchange on London, 25 to 25i. Sugar, 2.100
to 2.600 ; brown, 1.500 to 2.200. Cotton, 11.000
to 15.000.

PERNAMBUCO, Nov. 1.

Exchange on London, 25,1. to 25/. Sugar, 3.400
to 3.700 ; brown, 1.900 to 2.350. Cotton, 15.500
to 16.000. _ _

BUENOS AYRE% Orr. 14.
Exchange on London, 49i to 494. Dry hides,
38. Lumber, 53. Flour improving.

AMERICA.
ARRIVAL OF THE CHINA.

The Royal Mail steamship China, from Halifax
and Boston, arrived at Queenstown at 8 a.m. to-
day (Nov. 16) with 153 passengers but no specie.
She lauded 12 passengers and all the mails, con-
sisting of 122 sacks, and proceeded for Liverpool at
8.10 a.m. All well.

NEW YORK, Not•. 6, EVENING.

On Saturday the old police commissioners of
Baltimore arrested and confined the new commis-
sioners, with the sheriff, in gaol, charging them
with endeavouring to excite a riot. The latter
refused to give bail, and still remain in gaol. Their
counsel applied for a habeas corpus, which it was
decided the warder of the gaol was not bound
to return.

General Grant visited Baltimore on Sunday un-
officially, and conferred with the old and new com-
missioners. Through this interposition the diffi-
culty was compromised by the appointment of a
conservative judge and clerk of the election in
each district, in addition to the judges already ap-
pointed. 4,000 muskets have been seized in the
stores of ditiiirent conservatives in Baltimore.

The radical republicans have held an open air
meeting in front of the City Hall, Now York.
General Butler delivered a speech on the occasion,
during which he was hooted and pelted.
Fenian indignation meetings are still held
throughout the States.
A Fenian protestant priest, the Rev. Mr.Lums-
den, has been tried and acquitted in Canada. Con-
siderable ill-feeling has been aroused among the
Roman catholics by his acquittal. A new trial for
Lynch and M`Mahon will be applied for during the
week.