The Express.
London, England, 1858-02-15 00:00:00

LONDON, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16.

Lox nox, we understand, is the despair of foreign
- Detectives. It is an ocean in which both themselves
and their prey are so overwhelmed and lost that the
latter infellibly escape or bid defiance to their pur-
suers. London is the only spot in which the spy
science of the Continent is thus completely baffled.
At a first glance one would be apt to think that if a
refugee escaped across the Atlantic he would be
much more effectually screened from the vigilance
of European police than in the thoroughfares of
London. But the contrary is said to be the case.
Every native of America and every visitor of Ame-
rica have, all and each, certain buain' eel avocations,
which are soon known and comity traced, whilst the
total absence of such pursuits would draw down upon
the singular individual guilty of such a solecism an
amount of suspicion certain to betray him. In
London alone is it permitted to a man to be or to
seem idle, and to lead a life unaccountable and in-
scrutable. Oddity itself is with us indigenous, and
at most provokes but a stare or a shrug. Bat it
seems that on the continent of either Europe or
America, singularity of character is a thing to be
inquired into, and not to be tolerated, unless it can
give an account of itselL
Whether it proceed from these or from other
causes, the foreign police emissaries are said so
effectually to exercise surveillance upon refugees in
the United States, that no one of them can embark
on his return to Europe without the circumstance
being notified ; and the new comer is as carefully
watched on his arrival as at hie setting forth. An
example of this is recounted in the case of the
brother of PIANORI. That individual, on learning
the execution of his relative, resolved to repair to
France to avenge it. Not implicated himself in any
previous attempt, he easily obtained a passport for
Havre. It was known that he landed there ; bu
for more than a twelvemonth after he had set foot on
French soil, no one ever heard of him. He die.
appeared totally. Long after, an account arrived
of a mutiny and evasion of a number of prisoners
confined in the French colony of Cayenne. Most of
the unfortunate men who sought to escape,
perished in the attempt. Several were announced
to have been eaten by alligators in attempting to per
a river. One of these was PIA/4011.

A traveller who left England one day could not
disappear the next without exciting suspicions and
awakening inquiries. But the stranger who lands
from an American packet, and disappears, is gagged,
as it were, by the police, and to deal with Um leads
to no unpleasant consequences, either immediately
or in the future. It is therefore not to be wondered
at that the great desire of the French police is to
expel the exiles from this country to the United
States, where their persons might be much more
effectually watched, and their machinations, if they
indulge in any, be prevented.

As, however, it is next to impossible that the
Legislature of this country should ever consent to
abolish the old right of asylum &acceded in England
to political refugees, the next best thing in the eyes
and desires of the French police would be our
admitting and adopting their system of isitensation.
The French allow as few suspected persons as pos-
sible to inhabit the capital. They are all Wintrais,
or commanded to choose provincial towns for their
residences. Paris, from its crowd and its confusion,
has, of course, .OCIIII of the characteristics of London
se being a capital hiding place, especially for those
French who seek to escape attention. How •
ibreigner can avoid detection in Paris is, however,
difficult to imagine. Every lodging-house, as well
ss every hotel, is registered, and subjected to a ore-
taic tax, as well se to a certain supervision. All
are obliged to make reports of the inmates. And if
the circumstance of a person like Oasint, with
strongly marked Italian features and accent, whilst
seinaiing an English name, did not attract attention
In • French hotel, the fault must be altogether that of
the police, and of the misuse or neglect of the means
placed regularly and diurnally at their disposal.
Thos French Imperialists plead that we did i•-
teraee CUAILEi the TENTH and his followers, by
assigning them Holyrood as a residence--a rigour
we did not show to Louts Nsroteoe himself. But
we believe CHARLES the Tavern preferred Holyrood
to any residence nearer London. The answer of oar
omci►ls to the French, when refusing all their desired
facilities, is that they may perfect the passport system,
and render it as stringent as they please. But the
truth is that the potent system has broken down,
not merely in Francs but all over the Continent.
Even Austria, which used to be so rigid, confines its
severity now to the frontiers, and once within these
the traveller circulates without annoyance or
challenge. The French, of course, have done the
same. How, fur example, would it be possible to
ask, examine, or register the passports of the crowds
which enter or which quit Paris daily by the rail-
way stations ?

Whatever the Consitutiocesel may say or may
plead, the truth ia, that the French polio. have aban-
doned their own old system of relying on pass-
ports; for, in fact, it is dangerous persons who
always have their papers in order, whilst those who
infringe the passport laws are precisely the innocent
and well-te-do portion of sceiety. The French polies
themeelves, therefore, have adopted the English
mode, of paying attention principally to the features,
and identifying a man by his look. By this proems
Ptsaat was discovered and seized, the peasport system