The Express.
London, England, 1867-12-26 00:00:00

TRAFFIC RETURNS.

Wien Pill- M 41, Total. Total,
9.421,12472. open. wagers. chandise. 1207. 1666.
Week ending Dee. 20. 4 A 4 A
Limerick and bulbs
Limerick and ropes
Waterford and Kilkenny Bl 143 2.43 373 390
Waterford and Limerick
Week ending Dec. 21.
Cork and Bandon
rerobroke and Tenby
Week ending Dec. 22.
Belfast and County Down 44} 490 293 789 721
Cornwall
Lancashire and Yorkshire. 408 16,263 31,246 47,5u9 48,120
South Dtvon llOl 2,750 1,802 4,142 4,701
Clem l6se 1,440 1,285 2,131 3,312

MR. DICKENIe RNAPINGg IN AMERICA.—The
Boston Advertiser of Dec. 7 says :—" Lest evening
Mr. Dickens first read the adventures of Nicholas
Nickleby at Dotheboys Hall,—his meeting with Squeers
at the London Inn, the journey down into York-
shire, the school and its misery, Miss Squeers's tea
party, Smile's flight and the filet recapture, the re-
bellion and the escape of Nicholas and his poor
friend. The chapters were considerably condensed. We
eould
any pert of the novel and not told how Nicholas pounded
the schoolmaster. It is the most successful climax in any
book which: we now recall. The sympathy of the reader
is excited to the highest pitch by the sufferings of the
boys, until he feels that there could be no earthly gra-
tification like that of twitting Squeers's nose from its
socket and pounding the face of that wretched pedagogue
until it resembled a dish of guava jelly. Just at this
moment Nicholas falls upon Squeers—it is the next beet
thing to doing it yonrself—drubs him soundly, knocks
the whole family right and let Cand rnarchesoff in triumph.
And then honest John Browdie meets Nicholas, hears
the story, and speaking—in the Yorkshire dialect—
what the reader has in his heart, "Beatten t' school
measther ! Dang it, I loove thee foil," opens his
purse to him, and bids him God speed in his journey.
I Now all this is very good to read even in the condensed
form, but it loses something, and one has to call up his
old hatred of fiqueem to fully enjoy it. Barring this
objection, Mr. Dickens was on the whole very successful
in reading "Nicholas Nickleby." The Yorkshireman was
perhaps the hest defined character—possibly it was the
easiest to bring out clearly. Miss Squeers was well done,
and so was &meas. Nicholas, who by the bye is less like
what is called in theatrical parlance • " walking gentle-
man" than any of Dickens's heroes, was done naturally,
except in the fighting scene. Here he was too boisterous
from the first. Nicholas, in • passion, would have
spoken quietly, slowly, but very earnestly end distinctly,
tugh, his clenched teeth. In Smike, Mr. Dickens
was not throughout successful, although the poor half.
witted lad's timid eagerness to find if Squeers, on his
visit to London, had beard any news of his friends, was
well depicted. It is hard to say quite when Smile's lan-
guage is unnatural, if indeed it ever is, but there is a vain
of sentiment in his character as difficult to account for,
when his training is considered, as the honesty of Cliver
Twist, The tea party was by all odds the beat scene. Mr.
Dickens concluded the evening by reading "Boots at the
Holly Tree Inn." "The Holly Tree Inn" is one of the
Christmas stories. A traveller is supposed to be snowed
up at the inn, and to while away his leisure he draws the
people of the house into conversation. This is the story
which the Boots tells him. It is a charming little tale
founded on an odd fancy, which nobody but Mr. Dickens
could have carried out successfully. A young gentleman,
not eight years old, runs away with a fine young WOM:111 of
seven. Boots discourses very qu.iintly of the loves of these
"tabbies," and tells how they eloped, and were overtaken
and brought back, and it is, as he thinks it, " a queer start."
Mr, Dickens was very pleasant and genial as he read it, and
the moral reflections of the Boots, and the pretty story
which was new to many, sent people home in a very happy
frame of mind.

HOOKING AN ALLIGATOR.—On the 19th inst.,
at eight o'clock in the morning, a large alligator well
caught by some fishermen in the Sirangoon river. This
alligator measured, from head to tail, 14 feet and about I;
feet in breadth, and is thu largest one caught for many
years in this settlement. The parties who captured it
succeeded in a very simple manner. As the alligator was
in the habit of coming on shore and basking in the sun at
low water, a large sized fishhook was made fast to a piece
of rope, and the end of the rope was fastened to a tree on
shore. The book was baited with a live fowl, and the
alligator, seeing the fowl, on shore, came forth from the
water and swallowed the fowl, book and all, when the
Malays rushed down in a body with spears and clubs and soon
despatched him. For some months past this alligator has
been a source of terror to all natives living on the banks of
the river, and we think that those Malaya who succeeded
in putting an end to him are well deserving of some re•
ward at the bands of government. This would moreover,
induce them to destroy all the alligators found in different
parts of the island.--Sia9aport Free Prasj
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A reviler daily course of this animal oil la capable of bringing
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