The Express.
London, England, 1866-12-18 00:00:00

THE CAUSE OP THE STAFFORDSHIRE =PLO-

21011.

(IT inscrsio TILLIGRAPII.)
(PROM OUR owl.; cowsrosorrr.)

yr A zsTLEY, TA: isosv.

The cause of the explosion has been discovered.
The blacksmith's lamp has been found with the top off.
The man's bead was blown to pieces. He went down to
shoe horses, and strolled into the workings.

THE FREE CHURCH MOVEMENT.

MEETING.-(THIS DAY.)

A meeting of a somewhat extraordinary character
was held to-day at Exeter-hall under the presidency
of the Honourable COLIN LINDSAY. It Wee Cale
by a circular, which stated that it would be,
A meeting of the Vice-Presidents and Members
of Council of the London branch of the National Association
for Freedom of Worship and of the London Free and Open
Church Association," and that it wan called " for the pur-
pose of considering propositions for securing either (1) har-
monious co-operation, or (2) entire unity of action and re-
sources between the National Association and its branches
and the Loudon Society."
As soon as the chair was taken, an indignant letter was
handed in, signed by Mr. J. J. Powell, Q.C., the chair-
man of the London Association, and other
ottloers' slating that the circular bad been issued
by the National Association, whose headquarters are
at Manchester, without their knowledge, and that
unless some of the council of the London Society were mis-
led by it none of them would attend the meeting. (Two
or three were present) They also urged that in the
circular it was stated that Mr. W. J. Garnett, late
M.P. for Lancaster, who was formerly chairman of the
Manchester Council, had agreed to the propositions,
whereas tie. Garnett had informed members of the London
council that his name had been appended tothe propositions
in question without his consent, and that he did not wish
to be considered as assenting to them. Mr. Garnett was
preset to confirm the statement, and an angry discussion
toed place.
No result had been arrived at when our report left
but it is quite unlikely that any satisfactory arrangement
can be made under the circumstances.

CEYLON COMPANY (LIMITED).-(THIS DAY.

The half-yearly meeting of the shareholders was
held this afternoon ; Mr. LAwFORD Acuom in the chair.
The following report was presented : " The accounts of
the company for the half-year ending the 30th September
last have been made up, and exhibit an available balance of
16,800/.54. Id. at the credit of profit and loss. The directors
propose to pay an interim dividend at the rate of
10 per cent. per annum (being 84. 3d. on each original, and
2a. on each A share), on the 20th day of December instant,
free from income tax. This dividend will absorb 12,812/.
10s., and leave 3,9871. 154. Id. unappropriated. The ac-
counts have been examined and approved by Mr. J. Ball, the
auditor of the company. The above balance does not in-
clude any part of the profit derived from produce of the
company'. own estates, as some of the accounts could not
be made up in consequence of the late arrival of a consider-
able portion of the coffee."
The CHAIRMAN, in moving the adoption of the report,
observed that the 437,000/. raised by debentures was
38,0001. less than they were authorised to raise. It was
not intended to raise any more money in that i
way until a call had been made on the A
shares, which had been delayed by the state
of the money market. At the last meeting a resolution,
proposed by Mr. Baker, was passed, asking for a fall de-
tailed account of the business of the company ; but
as that resolution was carried by only twenty-
one shareholders, and the board felt that it was
undesirable that all the affairs of the company should be '
exposed, the resolution had not been acted upon. In the
report presented to the next annual meeting as much
information would be given as the board considered
, expedient having regard to the interests of the company.
In reply to questions,
The CHAIRMAN said no advances were ever made on
estates in the Mauritius without proper documents and
securities ; that s call not exceeding 3!. would be
wade on the A shares within three months ; that
the company were owners of estates to the amount
of about 2r55,0001., purchases having been mule
in the last year to the amount of 165,000/. ; that the coffee
crop had been already sold ; and that the prices of both
coffee and sugar were better than those realised in the pre-
% ions year.
The report having been adopted, and a dividend at the
rate of 10 per cent. per annum declared, the meeting ter-
minated in the usual manner.

Baron de Alalaret, Minister of France at Flo-
rence has commenced law proceedings at Turin against the
Unita Cattolica, edited by an eminent catholic writer, M.
hlargotto, for an outrage on the government of Napoleon
111. The article complained of appeared about a fortnight
ago, under the title of " The Fall of the First and Second
Empire," and the writer, in order to insure its pub"city,
sent copies round to a number of high personages, and
among the rest to Baron de Malsret.
The entire amount of the public domains of the
United States is 1,465,468,800 acres, of which 474,160,551
have been surveyed.
Of the soldiers who fought in the American
revolutionary war of 1775-83, but one is now living'
Samuel Downing, of New York. He receives a pension,
and pensions are also paid to 931 widows of revolutionary
soldiers. There were on the 30th June, 1866, 126,722
military and naval pensioners on the rolls, and to pay this
pension list during the current year the secretary asks an
appropriation of over 33,000,000 do's. W'th the exception
of about 3,000, these are all pensioners of the late civil

war.
A letter from San Francisco says :—" Of late
the overland mail has been very regular, bringing letters
on steamer time, and on some occasions in leas ; if news-
papers could only come on the same way, the arrival of
' the steamer' would not be looked for with as much
anxiety as it now is. The telegraph during the past ten
days has been very uncertain ; we were a week without
eastern news, and all owing to the Indians, who can't let
the wires alone. San Francisco has become so thoroughly
spoiled now, that if we don't have dates from New York,
London, and Paris of the day previous, in the morning
papers, why, there is an old-fashioned growl all over the
city."
The Chancery vacation for the Christmas recess
will commence on Saturday and terminate on the lith of
January. At common law it will commence on Monday,
the 24th.
A STRANGE STORY.—I knew a strange old man
with something noble about him outwardly and inwardly—
he might have sat for R.etzsch's etching of the " Ancient
Mariner," so exactly he resembled it—who, whilst living
amid the Eastern civilisation that had reared him, one day
found his arm moved and his finger pointing, in obedience
to nerves which he could not, or fancied he could not, con-
trol. The finger pointed westward, and he resolved to
follow it. It brought him to a door in a town near the
source of the Ohio, at which he knocked. He related how
he hal been guided there to the inmates of the house, and
he found them full of faith in his pointing finger. They
entertained him for some days. and called in their friends,
who sat around this Ancient Mariner with silent expecta-
tion. Again his finger pointed to the river, and to tt the
group followed him. There they found a raft waiting to
be employed, and the old man had an impression that they
must all get on it, taking tents, clothing, and provisions ;
and that they must float down the river to some place
afterward to be revealed, or " pointed" to, where they
were to found some kind of New Jerusalem. Strange as it
may seem, well-to-do men and women, old and young, em-
barked on this singular voyage. On the slow raft, shoved
aside by hundreds of swift, amazed steamboats, they
floated one or two weeks without once landing, until at
length the old man stood at the front and pointed to the
shore. There they left the raft and made their way a mile
from the river, where they mapped out a city and built
some cabins. Then the pillar of fire which had led them
seemed to melt into the light of common day. One after
another they departed, leaving the cabins alone as the
monuments of their adventure. But I believe that none of
theeym again lived in the ordinary way in human society ;
th
_have wandered ever since through many par te of the
world, sif seeking for something they had lost. Lately,
I saw some of them walking along the stints of London
with the same sad expectant look. But I doubt not they will
all find their way back to the Ohio, where they belong, as
castles belong to the Rhine arid docks to the Mersey. Ages
before them, the red aborigines floated down the same
river„following their westward-pointing finger and dream-
ing -st fairer hunting-fields. And, with only a more eon-
vestional setperstition--ateamboat instead of raft—there
went before ahem raileionarisa, Xermene Oweettea.
Californian gold-hunters. Did any of them any more find
what they sought ?—Froser's Magazine for December.