The Express.
London, England, 1866-12-31 00:00:00

the erpreoo.

TO COBSEISPONDIINTS.
advertbements Intended for " The Exoreea," London reening
We, nowt be st the Moe, 10, bouverk-atreet, by Two
co'lt on the day of public:stem.

DRURY LANZ.
to, A
VHS Evincn DAY AFTER TIM WEDDING.—And
NUMBER NIP. Mesdames L Thompson, Hudspeth, Seymour,
Cardonnl, Yandenboff ; Mesas. T. Matthews. Clifton, Rester
Roselle, Boleno, Laurrussek de.. Wiles. Boleuo and Marlon.

lATIAARKRT.
TWS Ressreo, A IMILS cumuli! ews. Bowe, Gordon,
itc.; Meacham Chlppendele, Fitzwilllaro, Laws, Powell, de.—A
LZSSON FOR LIM. Dewar. &other's, Auger., Clark. --JEN NY
LLND AT LAST. DLLs kw--And the SALLIT. Sid Sophia.

runcves.
TEM Isisront BARNABY BUDGE. Moore 8. COrnball.
7. Villiers. J.O. rlsore, and G. Honey; Wass Amanda Thom-
son and Hatherin Rodgers, Wm H. Vining, and Mrs. C. Hors-
man.—And THE INVISIBLE PR NCI

LICKS*.
THIS tvaarnte, THE TWO POLTS. Yr. Wlddlcomb. —And
ROWS NT NOIR. Mews yachter, Emery, Cowper, Moreland,
Anderson, do.
3ttsystrick. D atop, Reynolds, Lomas. Andrews,
Sirs. L. Hurray, and Mimes Remade. Grattan, nod C. Lecleroq.

STRAND.
THIS ammo, NBIGHBOUBS. —Atter which will be produced
• °rood Burlesque, GUY FAWKEd.—sud BOOTH AT TSB
SWAN.--------

HOLBORN.
THIS Samar:Hi, MY TURN NEXT. Mr. Belmom; HMIS
loot. and Lennox.—An FLYING SCUD. Messrs Neville, Bel-
lmore, Blake, Vollake, &c. ; Mesdames F. Josephs, C. Saunders,
Dori e Foote, Fiddes, Lennox, Raymond, Re.
---
BRITANNIA.
THIS MMHG, TI M PRINCESS OF THE PEARL ISLAND ;
ON., THE THREE KINGDOMS OF PEARL GOLD, AND
SILVER. Mra Lane and Miss Janota.—Yin-rate Pantomimist&
--And THE SKELETON CREW.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Mg DAT —llorniuB, 99. 31m Attersoouom. 109. 6m.
TO-116011140W—Mortilng, 109. 41m Aftern, 110. 14m.

LONDON, MONDAY, DECEMBER 31.

Tee year that is passing away has been one
of disorganization. Old settlements, political and
diplomatic, have been disturbed. The new order
to which events obscurely tend has not yet estab-
lished itself. The period is one of conflict and
transition in both hemispheres. To an elder super-
atitjon, Nature herself might seem to have sympa-
thised with the throes of civil society. Her de-
structive powers have broken loose by land and
on sea. While in some instances the waste of life
and devastation of property are due to the out-
break of elemental forces, whose action science
cannot foresee nor control, in others human re-
sponsibility must be acknowledged for some of the
most fearful calamities that have desolated vast
regions and communities. In the storms which
at the commencement of the year strewed our
coasts with wrecks, and our streets and high-
ways with ruins, we recognise the irresistible
and irreversible d.!ereets of a Power to which we
can respond only by submission and resignation.
But the immediate source of other calamities even
more destructive must be looked for, not in the
providence of GOD, but in the improvidence of
man. Reckoning on a long impunity, men tamper
with the mechanism of nature and its mighty
powers as no one would venture to do with any
machine of humau invention. Eager to use it
for their immediate profit, they disturb the
healthful and harmonious balance of its forces ;
and the righting of this false adjustment, the re-
turn to stable eleilibrium, comes violently in the
torrents which have inundated the north of Eng-
land and the south and south-west of France, in '
the explosicn of the pent-up gases of our mines, in
peatilences among men and among beasts. Man.'s
haste to seize the hidden wealth of the earth
makes him neglect the precautions needful for its
preservation. The clearing away of the mountain
woods and the ab indonment of the upland lea-
tures, whose action distributes equally the How
of the descendiu.; streams, involves as wanton a
disregard of CI.• laws of nature, in the eagerness
to draw from it ininwdiate profits, as the miner
shows who works amid foul air by the unsheltered
light of his candle, rather than sacrifice a frac-
tional gain to tie security of himself and his com-
rades. The elm ,lira and the cattle plague are the
fine paid often by the innocent as well as the
guilty for the breach of the laws of health. The
sympathy and aid extended to the sufferers
under these calamities, to those whom the inunda-
tions which have swept through the towns and
fields of the North have impoverished, and to the
surviving victims of the mining catastrophes in
Durham, Yorkshire, and Staffordshire, but imper-
fectly discharge the obligations of society. It
is not enough to endeavour to mitigate
the effect. Law and public opinion are
bound to control the action of those who set
in motion the cause. 1866 has been a year of
fearful casties to England, which will not have I
been wholly injurious if they lead us to adhere
more closely to the known laws, and to deal more
cautiously with the ill-understood forces of nature,
which all human exertion on this globe puts in
motion.
Ecclesiastical and commercial affairs, not less
than the political world, exhibit a multiplicity
of problems not Laded, but waiting solution. The
panic and crisis in the City, and the consequent
action of the Government and the Bank of Elm-
land—one authorising the suspension of the Bank
Charter. the other evading the necessity of it by rais-
ing the rate of discount to 10 per cent —revive the
vexed questions of the currency and of free or re-
stricted banking. The failure of Overend and
Gurney, and of Barned and Company, and the
disclosures made with respect to the management •
of the London, Chatham, and Dover, and the North
British Railw tys, are illustrations of a relaxation of
commercial morality, even more alarming than I
the political disorganization which the last session
of Parliament revealed.
It is not veor easy to forecast the future in
monetary affairs, but accordiug to all pre-
cedent it would appear that a season of stag-
nation and cheap money is at hand. There
seems little reason to doubt that the Bank rate
will be reduvai to 3 per cent. early next year,
and that it may probably remain at that or a lower
point until the close of 1867. The prospect is
not satisfactory, since it betokens less an increase
in the wealth of the country than an absence of
healthy enterprise. It is often said that cheap
money begets undue speculation. This may be
the case sometimes, but it is constantly forgotten
that the very cause which over and over twain
makes money cheap—distrust--equally Witli-

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