The Express.
London, England, 1858-04-16 00:00:00

k 'BM,

.THE GREAT FIRE AT CHRISTIANIA.

In the terrible conflagration at Christiania on the
night between the 13th and 14th inst. three quar-
ters of the city are reported to have fallen a prey
to the fames; aaiong other buildings the bank, the
Exchange, and other public offices are a heap of
ashes. The money and papers of the Bank were
saved. The loss is estimated at 10,000,000 fr.

THE TRIAL OF SIMON BERNARD.

CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT.—THIB DAY.
This morning keying been appointed for Mr.
James to 'Waring the jury for the defence, the greatest
anxiety appeared to be evinced by the public to be present,
and the court was filled long before the hour appointed for
the commencement of the proceedings.
The Lord Chief Justioe, the Lord Chief Baron, Mr. Jus-
tice Brie, and Mr. Justice Crowder, 011118 into court at ten
o'clock.
The Attorney-Garserel, Mr. Macaulay, Q.C., Mr.
Welsby, Mr. Bodkin, and Mr. Clerk, apposite} for the pro-
secution. Mr. E. lames, Q.C., X. Simon, Mr. Hawkins,
Mr. Sleigh, Mr. Brewer, and Mr. Scoble appeared for the
Rte•

The prisoner was placed at the bar and the trial proceeded.
Mr. James commenced his address to the jury by de-
claring that he was not using ordinary language when be
said that the decision in this ease affected the liberties of
England. It had best the boast of England hitherto that
it was her privilege to defend the weak against the strong.
Many illustrious men had stood on the very spot that he
now occupied to defend the freedom which had ever been
the pride of Englishmen. This case had been fairly intro-
duced to the jury, but at the same time he had a right to
protest against the extraordinary manner in which this
indictment was framed. The real purposes of the pressen-
tion had been disguised from the very opening—it was not
instituted to satisfy some complaint of Englishman,
but to gratify the thirst for vengeance of a foreign
potentate. But not content with having forfeited the lives
of Orsini and Floret, that potentate wished to see an English
scaffold stained with innocent blood for the sake of serving
his own selfish ends. The Attorney-General had been silent
throughout upon the act of parliament under which the in-
dictment was framed. He made no mention that the law
wee being strained for the first time in English history to
gratify the demands of a foreign power. The government
had shrink from proceeding in this matter by act of parlia-
ment, and they were seeking to get out of a difficulty by in-
stituting a criminal prosecution, the like of which was never
before known In the jurispi admix of the country. It was at
' the suggestion of the meet acute criminal lawyers of the day
Olt this exist iment was being tried; but for the
MU of British freedom, and the glorious principle
of Nein& fair play, he appealed to the jury to interpose
their mks and defeat it. Let him meal to their minds the
isellials of this are, with the view of showing that a poli-
tical *pees was to be accomplished by this prosecution.
The annooncesnest of the event of the 14th of January was
seesived in these realms with a feeling of horror and indig-
nities. Detestation for the assassins was universally ex-
pense, but though the people of England could not re-
cognise the principle of tyrannicide, they could not shut out
from their view, in considering that crime, the positioa of
Italy, and the antecedents of the Emperor of the French;
while protecting in the liveliest language against the
dagger of the meads, Englishmen could not avoid
feeling some sympathy for those whose rights and liberties
had been rudely destroyed by the legions of the despot.
After the attempt upon the Emperor's life, there ammo the
threats of high French function►ries, and the abusive ad-
dresses of the French colonels. A demand was previously
made by the Emperor of the French that something should
be done to check the proceedings, if not to expel political
refugees from these shores. In reply to that demand, the
minister of the day brought a bill into the House of Commons
to restrict the asylum we had offered to the unfortunate
refugees of all climes and countries. The House of
Commons, however, refused to give the bill a second
reading ; from all aides it was condemned as
being a measure dictated to the British parliament,
and Lord John Russell, one of the greatest politicians of the
age, declared that if the bill passed he should feel himself
ashamed and degraded. Not alone was that opinion con-
fined to the noble lord, but to the majority of the English
House of Commons, and eventually the measure led to the
downfall of the Palmerston administration. Lord Derby
then succeeded to power, but the French difiloulty still
remained, and the new government set themselves to work
to discover some other method of getting rid of it. It then
occurred to the Attorney-General, instigated by Mr. Bodkin,
to change the charge against the prisoner from one of mis-
demeanour to that of wilful murder. For that purpose
an old act of parliament was resusitated whose
framers had never contemplated its application to such a case,
and now it was sought by that means to assuage the anger
of the despot without having recourse to the machinery of
parliament. Lord Derby's government were seeking to ob-
tain from an English jury what the English House of Com-
mons had refused. Well, that being so, let them just see
what ground the government had to justify such an unconsti-
tutional mode of proceeding. They were anxious, they said, to
check conspiracies to murder foreign potentates; but, while
denouncing such crimes, the jury should not lose sight of
the events which had induced the attempt of the 14th
of January. Italy—formerly the Queen of the Earth,
the home of liberty, and the promoter of all that
ennobled civilisation—was now :the prey of the tyrant.
Her institutions were suppressed, her eons scattered to the
four quarters of the globe, end her fertile lands made a dead
waste. Who could wonder, then, that while breathing the
air of freedom on English soil, the Italian should sigh for
his own sunny dime? Who could wonder that he should
conspire to regain liberty in his own native home ; nay, who
could wonder that dark thoughts of assassination passed
through his maddened brain? But though Englishmen
detested the meassin, they never had and never world
deny the right of Italians to make open or disguised war
against him who had destroyed their liberties. 8o
much, then, for Italy. Now let them glance at the his-
tory of Franca. Since the time of the revolution in 1791,
every one must have read of the scenes of bloodshed that
characterised that period of French history; but the people
then were struggling for liberty—which they enjoyed for a
cement, and then followed the Empire of the Groat Na-
palms. After that the Bourbons; of whom It was said that
they learnt nothing and forgot nothing by the vicissitudes of
their dynasty. Again the French people arose in defence of
mmatitutimal government, and the revolution of 1830 placed
Lents Philippe on the throne. In that reign, what hap-
pened? Why, the real pmeeentor—Lonie Napoleon—made
• illmemit upon France to recover the sceptre of his great
ends; bat the attempt failed, and he afterwards
might that asylum on our shores which he was now
denying to the victims of his own tyranny. While in exile on
the Rhine, in Switzerland, in England, and is America, he
wrote and preached in favour of liberty and republicanism.
Time wore on, and the revolution of 1848 arrived. Then
followed the republic, which Louis Napoleon solemnly swore
to uphold as its presidential head ; and finally, in December,
1852, the butchery of an unarmed mob by a drunken sol-
diery. The President of the Republic had the leading men
of the nation arrested, the people bayonetted and shot down
by thousands, and eventually he waded through blood to the
second empire. And this was the man who appealed to an Eng.
lish jury to have his vengeance gratified against a refugee,
of whom it could only be said that he had takes part in an
attempted regeneration of Italy I He did not deny that the
prisoner had assisted Orsini in obtaining grenades, bat that
act was not inconsistent with the idea that be was taking part
in the preliminas lea for a general rising in Italy. Be that,how-
ever, as it might„before be could be convicted the prosecution
must show beyond all doubt that the remade' used in Paris,
were those with which the prisoner was connected. Now
had they done this ? He contendod that the identity
of the grenades had entirely failed. None of the
witnesses could swear that the grenades produced
in the coarse of the trial were like those which the pri-
soner produced in London and Brussella. The evidence of
identity was in one respect suspicious, because the witness
was under arrest in Belgium, and on the whole en-
tirely defective. The descriptions given by the witnesses
of those which were connected with the prisoners
did not correspond with those found in Paris
and now produced, after the attempt of the 14th
of January. Then again, as to the pistols par-
chased of Mr. Hollis, in Birmingham, and forwarded to
Paris by the prisoner. It was not denied that the prisoner
was collecting arms in Paris, with a view to a rising or an
smuts somewhere or other, but it was denied that he insti-
gated this murder, or that he was a party to the ill-fated
attempt which Onial maim In ea voigniutled se rat.
There was no illegals* or attempt at co•eeelment is the ac-
tions of the prisoner. He took the phisk to Os beobtag-