The Express.
London, England, 1866-05-21 00:00:00

EXPRESS FROM PARIS.

(TIMM 0111 OWN 0011.111117011MEICI.)

PARIS, SUNDAY EVENING.
A Florence letterof May.lB,tn the Dibets, speak-
ing in precisely the tone of all the Italian letters,

which speak of war as inevitable, says :
There are Italians who would not even be satisfied by the
session of Venice. A senator, who has held high office,
said yesterday, "It must not be given to us ; we must take
it ; we must prove by deeds that we are good for some-

thing."
A Vienna letter of May 14, in the Boersenhalle,
Bays:
We believe ourselves able to state with certainty that
the cabinet of Vienna has never even confidentially sur

gested the possibility of Silesia being a suitable oompensa-
tion for Venetia. . . . It is positively confirmed that
Austria and England are drawing closer together. The
Auxerre speech seems to have materially shaken the
resolution of the cabinet of St. James's to staxd altoge-
ther aloof from Continental eventualities.

The appeal of Tapponnier, the Swiss groom who,
under the representation that he was a nobleman
and a man of fortune, married a French heiress,

who supposed him to be Baron de Laney, was
decided yesterday. The Imperial Court, in every
point, adopted the judgment of the court below,
and confirmed the sentence of four years' imprison-
ment prongunced against the defendant as a
swindler.

The divorce suit between the false Baron de
Laney and his wife, which was to have been pleaded
at Geneva this week, is put off till May 29, in con-

, .
sequence of an unexpected difficulty about the
French advocates, MM. Hebert and Laya, who
are retained on either side. Hitherto French and
Swiss advocates have been practically allowed to
plead at the bars of the respective courts of both
countries without question. But recently a Geneva
barrister, when presenting himself before the court
of St. Julien, in Savoy, was told by the President
that he could not be heard, because there

waa not perfect reciprocity between the
two countries. It appears, in fact, that
in Switzerland an application to the Council of

State is a formality necessary to be gone through.
The French judge, therefore, said that he could
not hear the Swiss advocate without the permis-
sion of the French Council of State. The Swiss
government feels nettled at this, and alleges that
the Swiss Council of State being easily accessible,
and, in fact, nothing more than a municipal
council, cannot be compared to the French Council
of State, whose proceedings are solemn and
dilatory. It is apprehended that by way of
retaliation the Swiss Council of State will refuse
permission to the French advocates to plead in
the Tapponnier case.
The Toulouse murder case, that of Asps, a
Christian brother, called in religion Frere Lanni phe,
who is accused of having killed a woinan and given
her head to his pigs, in the hope of rendering proof
of identity impossible, is yet going on.
Mrs. Bigelow gave a grand soiree at the American
Legation last night, in honour of Mr. Millard Fill-
more, ex-president of the United States, and Mrs.
Fillmore, who have recently arrived in Europe.
Among the lions of Parisian society invited to
meet them were the Duke de Persit,my and MM.
Emile 011ivier, Michel Chevalier, Prevost Paradol,
Henri Martin, and Gustave Dore. The Turkish
ambassador and several other members of the corps
diploinatique attended.
The sparrow whose sad fate formed a prominent
feature in my yesterday's letter was seen hanging
on his gibbet at 1 o'clock this morning. But he is
no longer there, and, according to the report of the
concierge of the Bourse, he was cut down by the
I very means which occurred to me as alone possible,
namely, a funereal congregation of neighbouring
sparrows who pecked the cord asunder. The event
is the talk of the quarter.

PARIS, SATURDAY EVENING.
Passing through the Place de la Bourse at three
o'clock this afternoon I saw an extraordinary sight,
such as I never saw before, and, in all likelihood,
shall never live to see again. My attention was
attracted by a group of about a hundred people,
regarding with upturned eyes the capitals of the
Corinthian columns of that edifice. Influenced by
the almost irresistible curiosity which induces us
to join with a multitude in staring, I paused to
see what was the matter. After looking in vain in
the direction in which all eyes were turned with-
out perceiving anything remarkable, I made
an inquiry of a fellow gazer. His answer was
" C'est un moineau qui s'est pendu" (a sparrow has
hung itself). Sure enough on looking again I saw
suspended from one of the acanthus leaves of the
third column on the south side of the Bourse,
nearly opposite the Rue de la Banque, a full
fledged good sized sparrow. There was a nest in
the niche behind the sculptured acanthus leaf, and
the only rational account of the phenomenon is
that the sparrow must in some way or other have
got its neck entangled in a piece of wiry grass or
hay forming part of the nest, andinstrugglingtoget
away must have dropped down and found it-
self sus per coil. The fall was about ten
inches. The wire grass or straw, or whatever
the suspensory tissue may be, was twisted round
the bird's neck as artistically as if Calcraft had
done it. For a while it made convulsive motions
and clutched at the string with its claws, but after
several minutes it gave no sign of life, and with
extended legs was blown backwards and forwards
by the wind. When the death throes were over
the crowd dispersed, but the sparrow hangs. there
yet, and any of your readers coming to Paris who
may doubt the truth of my narrative may in all
probability see it themselves for a long while yet
to come, seeing that unless a scaffolding were built
up on purpose it would be impossible to cut the
bird down. The only chance that I see of his not
rotting on his gibbet is, that his surviving sparrows
doing him funeral honours may so peck at him
and his curd that the latter may break.

THE WEST INDIES.—LIVERPOOL, MAY 19.—The
West Indian, from Colon on the 27th April, and Kingston
on the Ist inst., arrived here to-day. Governor Eyre was
to leave Jamaica for England on the 15th inst.
Intelligence has been received at the Colonial-
office of the arrival of Mr. Manners Sutton at Melbourne.

On Saturday afternoon, the Edinburgh Museum
of Science and Art was opened by his Royal Highness
Prince Alfred, in preemies of a hop and entitusiastii
assemblage. The opportunity was taken by the magistrates
and council to present his royal highness with the freedom
of the city, and the Senates Academic= of the university
made arrangements to confer upon him the honorary de-
gree of LLD.
After the ceremony of conferring the degree,
His ROYAL HIGIINESB spoke as follows:—Mr. Principal
and Professors,—lt is with pride and pleasure that I as-
eept the honorary degree graciously conferred upon me hr
this university, with which I was already connected by
many intimate and cherished associations. Of these asso-
ciations some are derived from recollections of the abeam-
stance to which yen have adverted, that my lamented
father held and valued the degree with which you have to-
day been pleased to honour me ; others are the result of
my own experience of the university, and the many happy.
and, I tenet, profitable days which I spent whilst studying
within its walls. To the expression of these personal feel.
inga I must add the gratification with which I find the
university so intimately connected with the Industrial
Museum, which we are about to open, by the contribution
of its collections of natural history to that insanities. I
will only observe, brecedesteargautt-trust-rtregyStesr
frequent opportunities of evincing my interest in this seat
of learning, and of cultivating the acquaintance of the
eminent men who preside over it.
The Prince then subscribed the list of graduates ; after
which his royal highness left to open the Museum, which
communicates with the University by a bridge thrown over .
West College-street.