The Express.
London, England, 1858-09-09 00:00:00

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.

A SPECIAL EDITION of the " EXPRESS,"
sustaining the results of the day's Rams, is pub-
lished every evening during the Sporting Season, at
six o'clock.

Or the Qt•EEtt'S three memorable visits to three
of our principal centres of industry—Manchester,
Birmingham, and Leeds—each has a marked charac-
ter of its own. The Manchester Exhibition of Art was
a wondrous achievement of the accumulated wealth,
and of the prompt energy in carrying resolves into
action, which characterise the capital of the cotton
districts. It was the work of the " cotton lords"—of
men proud of their wealth, proud of their taste for
art, self-reliant even to an excess. Aston Hall is •
combined achievement of the capitalists and the
workmen of Birmingham. Among the indm►
trious chimes of the great iron distrist
around Birmingham there is—owing to the ebb
cumstancs that so many work in their own house*
—a more developed individuality of character
than in the same classes in and around Maw
chaster. The men are not so entirely workers's '
Mr. This's or Mr. That's mill, and more TM.
Dlcu, and MARRY with their personal peen- I
liaritiee. A great number of small masters, too, are
found in Birmingham and its vicinity mingling with
the great ones ; whereas in the cotton districts it is
• few mammoth capitalists floating about on the
waves of a proletariats ocean. Aston Hall is • per-
manent institution for the enjoyment of all down to
the lowliest ; it was the conception of working men,
and its completion was to no trivial extent
the result of their contributions. The Exhibi-
tion at Manchester was, on the other hand, a
great but ephemeral effort on the part of the
local millionaires to prove that they had se much
wealth and as mach taste as " the upper ten thou-
" sand." In the great Leeds celebration, to lend •
finishing grace to which her MAJESTY WAS illTiEltik
the predominant expression seems to us to haw
been the community's consciousness of its own poli-
tieal importance.
This feeling speaks out in the Address of the Cor-
poration. Her MAJESTY is reminded of the mag-
nificence of the powerful Municipalities of Italy
and the Netherlands, the memory of which
has stirred the emulation of Leeds ; and •
hint is thrown out respecting the destinies
which await the town. "We venture," so runs the
document, "to hope that so excellent a judge as
" your MAJESTY may find something to approve in
" the Hall in which we are now for the first time
" assem►led, and may be well pleased to see a
" stirring and thriving seat of English industry
" embellished by an edifice not inferior to these
" stately piles which still attest the ancient °paktum;
" of the great commercial cities of Italy and Flaw
" den. For the mere purposes of municipal govern.,
" meet, • less spacious and costly building might
" have sufficed. Bat in our architectural plans we
" have borne in mind the probability that, at no
" very distant time, civil and criminal justice may
" be dispensed to an extensive region in this town,
" the real capital of the West Riding. We were
" also desirous to provide a place where large
" assemblies might meet in comfort to exercise their
" constitutional right of discussing public questions.
to listen to instruction on literary and phileiso-
" phical subjects, or to enjoy innocent amusements."
While these words were penetrating into the ears
of our Sovereign, there were objects meeting her
gaze which went far to account for and justify this
political self-consciousness of the good burghers of

Leeds. In one of the recesses of the hall stands •
colossal statue of the late EDWARD BAINES, in the
act of addressing an assembly. The late representative
of Leeds was a 'elf-made man. By his talents—and
still more by his regulated continuous industry, his
spotless integrity, and his genial benevolence—he
made himself a position as the proprietor and editor
of one of our most ably conducted English journals.
As the conductor of a liberal journal his whole
career was ementially political ; and hie public vir-
tues were appropriately rewarded by the confidence
of his fellow-citizens, unmistakeably expressed in
their chokes of him to be their representative in
Parliament. Near the base of this statue her
MAJESTY also maw the two distinguished eons of the
diseemeed; Mr. MATTHEW TALBOT BAlNES—under
the Waig Ministry, President of the Poor
Law Board, and subsequently Chancellor of the
Duchy of Lancaster ; and Mr. EDWARD BAINES,
alike distinguished for his public servises in pro-
moting free trade, asserting the oanse of civil and
religions liberty, and diffusing educition. From
the public oMoss he has filled, Mr. TALBOT llama
is known to all who take an iatereet in Builide
politics ; his brother enjoys, it may be, t•ese at •
local celebrity, but from his sound judgment mad
extensive acquirements exercises perhaps MINI MIN
inflames is public affairs. These who attended the
earlier meetings of the Anti-Corn-Law Delegates is
London can not have forgotten a touching scene thetaa
curved at one of their meetings. Mr. EDWARD BAINES I
along with three colleagues—of whose RICHARD
COBDEN and JOSEPH PriTaGa were two—was
charged with the preparation of the business for
each meeting, of the drafts of 'Admen, &o. Some
difference of opinion having on one occasion arisen
in this Committee, Mr. BAINES prepared an elaborate
exposition of his views for a general meeting. The
paper was remarkable for the amount of detailed in-
!amebas, and for the broad and massive maser
in which the whole was made to tell on his audience.
By seem accident Mr. Batten, seniOr, was pretreat
while it was being reed ; and his pleased and proud
expression of cJuntenance as he witnemsd the
attention with which his son's words were
hung upon, went far to divert the atten-