The Express.
London, England, 1866-04-26 00:00:00

TIIRT LE, TURTLE, TURTLE.
Clear, Thlok, and Invalid TURTLE SOUPS always ready.
ST. JAMRSII-HALL, REGENT-STREET, PIOCADDLLY.
WM. DONALD, Proprietor.

LONDON must have a SUPPER and MUSIC
ROOM for Gentlemen.—Remember, we watt for you at
" WANT," aitie Mie Covent Gordan Opera and tan theatres.

~r » P~~.

Tun Wrsinia, A ROMANTIC ATTACHMENT. Mears.
Comptes and W. Tanen ; Wm AdaCavendbaL-4111FAVOWTE
ON IOSTUNT.. Wane Bucketone Chippendale. end Both= •
Yen Chippendale, etc.—And A DAVOIfTEE TO RAWLY.

PRIPIC.ESES.
EvIRMO, A GHOST IN SPITE OF HIMSELF —Atter
which STREETS OF 'DIMO. Messrs 'lathe, .
H. M THEurray, Shoß re, and ; Mrs.N H. Maisksi, sad 11=
Barsett and IL Rodgers.

LYCRUIL
Tim Evmono, SLIIPSON AND 00. Men 110111 Mia.—And
THE MA I= OF RAVENSWOOD. Mews. Jordan, Hofmann,
vim, Wlddlcoinb, Fitspataick. , 312.mai Taman,
Etsworthy, Lawn, and C. Leeiereq.

Teri THB BAILORS RETURN.-1141chanteFanly.
—CLOUD AND 81INSIIVIK Mr. James Anderson—To con-
clude with THE DARK KING OF THE BLACK MOITNLILINS.
Miss Clara at Cane, !dm S. Lana

MGR-117AT= AT LONDON-BRIDGE.
TEA DAY —Morning, Oh. OM Afternoon, Oh. 7m.
To-Monanw—liornlng, Oh. Um Afternoon, Oh. Wm

LONDON, THURSDAY, APRIL 26.

Sreetnaroas for a fall are very busy just now
with the movements of Italian troops. Having
received a check in Germany, they are pursuing
their operations in a country where the possibility
of war can never be pronounced extinct so long as
an Austrian army remains encamped between the
Mincio and the Adriatic. Rumours of the con-
centration of Italian troops on the Austrian fron-
tier have always an air of probability, and may
easily be worked into a semblance of facts by dex-
terous manipulators of what is called " informs-
" tion." Recently, indeed, the mutual exaspera-
tion of the two great German Powers, the noise of
their offenaive and defensive despatches, and the
rancorous display of their warlike preparations,
have set the imaginations of the mischiefmongers
on fire, and played havoc with the savings of cre-
dulous investors. It was more than enough that an
Italian general had visited Berlin and Hamburg,
received the courtesies due to his military rank,
visited arsenals, and attended reviews. From the
arrival of General GovoNE in the Prussian capital
to the conclusion of an alliance between
Italy and Prussia was but a step.
More than half the young linguists in pub-
lic offices, and especially the budding diplo-
mends, seem to be employed now-a-days in
concocting mock treaties and counterfeiting official
documents of the gravest import with the most
enterprising levity. Public journals, so often
and so inconsiderately accused of exercising their
invention in the absence of facts, are reduced to
the thankless but necessary duty of contradicting
false reports. Official amateurs cultivate forgery
as a fine art. Telegraphic agencies vie with each
other in anticipating events, more or less possible,
summarising State papers which have never been
written, and pointing the moral of contingencies
that have not happened. There is no fairer field in
all Europe for the manceuvres of these ingenious
disturbers of the public peace than Italy. Take
Italy, France, and Austria, and shuffle them
well together, and you may turn up a panic at any
moment. Add M. do Ilisirmufx, and the panic
becomes a conflagration. Unfortunately, the ,
chronic crisis of the Italian kingdom, between
France and Austria, lends itself only too easily to
the combinations of calculating prophets. With
finances at the utmost strain, with an enemy in
the midst, a Shylock for ally, and a peace that is
an armistice undefined and unconditional, wasting
like a fever the energies it intensifies, Italy is
the natural prey of those who live by the dangers
and disasters they provoke or precipitate. Of
course no friend of that interesting and important
country can pretend to be blind to the precarious-
ness and the instability of its fortunes, so long as its
independence and unity are not secured. Not the
least of the dangers that encompass Italy at this
moment is the incessant temptation which besets
her statesmen to make a desperate rush out of
domestic difficulties and to set all the future on
the hazard of a die. Of the two great and con-
stant evils, an enemy that prefers a false point of
honour to a chivalrous reconciliation, and an
ally who exacta in secret the price of promises
unfulfilled and the usury of a dissembled
vassalage, the latter is beyond all question the moat
insidious and the most consuming. Yet we are
very far from believing that the Italian statesmen
of to-day are so destitute of the hereditary astute-
ness and patience of their race as to suffer them-
selves to be made the dupes of occasions not their
own. To our thinking, the text of a treaty be-
tween Italy and Prussia was not so much a pre-
mature as a silly fabrication. Such a document
would, under any circumstances, be super-
fluous. It needs no acuteness of calcu-
lation, no gift of prophecy, to un-
derstand that it is the simplest prudence on the
part of Italy to be ready to take advantage of op-
portunities in Europe. But to take advantage of
opportunities is one thing ; to consult the con-
venience of doubtful friends and dangerous allies is
quite another. The visit of General GovoNe to
Prussia at a time when hostilities in
Germany seemed imminent might be explained,
if it suited the purpose of the speculators to ex-
plain anything, in the simplest manner, whether
or not the Cabinet of Berlin had made advances
to the Italian Government or simulated a de-
sire for closer relations, in the event of a
German war. The most prudent and obvious I
step the Italian Government could take was to
send an officer of military experience and sagacity, ,
and specially acquainted with the organization of
the Prussian army, to judge for himself whether
the warlike preparations so loudly and ostenta-
tiously announced by M. DE BISMARCK'S journals
'were really such as to indicate a serious resolve,
or nothing more than the marching and counter-
marching of supernumeraries across a stage, and
mere theatrical thunder. General GOVONE will
doubtless have satisfied himself of the true value
of all this trumpeting and parade, and will have
informed his government of the political and
military aspects of a tedious German quarrel. But
the misinterpreted mission of General GovowE
can be no excuse to the Austrian Government for
pretending to treat the wild and unfounded
reports of a concentration of Italian troops on her
Venetian frontier as realities-, to be encountered by
a sudden increase and displacement of forces,
by hurried movements and by costly armaments,
which can only have the effect of creating
emergencies ever present to the susceptible
conscience of the Cabinet of Vienna. The
worst of these menacing military movements is
that the Italian Government may feel itself obliged
to resort to similar measures for its own protec-
tion. Up to the present time the Cabinet of
Florence has done nothing of the kind ; it
has in no way threatened the Austrian frontier,
and the provocation, if provocation there be, has
proceeded from Vienna. It might be supposed
that the Austrian Govenunentwas content—consi-
dering the actual condition of its finances—with the
cost of its preparations to resist M. DE &muse'.