The Express.
London, England, 1867-09-26 00:00:00

cur erpreoo,

TO CORROPONDENTS.
oteerttsementa intended for "The Reece,' London Evening
:"Srmoat be et the Mee, le, Boaverieetteet. b 7 Two
a on the day of publication.

ORTINT LANZ.
Tuts VIIIITM FAUST. Mr. Phelps, Messrs. FAnuuel
Phelps Harcourt. Warner, Webb, Temple, nc . Mesdames
Herman Venn. Vandalised stc.—And THE N D HIS
MR2'l- Mews. Ryder add Phelps; MIAs PAUL Stuart.

HAYMARKIT.
THIS ETIMIWO, ROMEO AND JULIET. Kamm Chlpp)sndale.
Hook Rogers, Ronda. Clark Compton. de ; Mee lames
veott Skidoos. Chippoodals, ac.—ro PARIS AND RACK
FOR A& Mr. Bucksionti—And MOCK IN); 2:NYS.

TIM Revered, POOR PILLICOUDY. Near. Dominick
Murray & Gresham Polly Marshall. —And 111 6 STREETS
07 LONDON. Mr. Vining, Maui. M•Lean, D. Murray, &c. ;
Mesdames Sanger, Barnett, and Addle.

LYCEUM.
Teal Entaitio, THE MISTISSS OF THE MILL—THE
LADY OF LYONS. Mr. Yachter, Maws Jordan, Addison,
Calhaent, Mellon. Dalton, Stuart, and Prances; Misses Eli-
Worthy and Carlotta Leclerc% Mn. Marston.

zurmunnA.
Tun !cringing, ALONE IN THE PIRATES' LAIR.—The
American Minstrels and Jspaoss Tommy ; 71a renowned
Gymnasts, M M. eoutellier and —And THE GRAY LA DYE
Or' PERNLEA. Mr. Reynolds; Mesdames Courtesan, Coveney.

HIGH WATCH AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Vim D►T —Morning. Oh. 21m....—Atternoon, Oh. 50m.
taMoggom—Morning. lb. Min..— —Afternoon. In. &nu.

LONDON, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26.

MANY are the reasons which are now making
it a public duty to impress upon the minds of
British landlords and farmers the fact that
there must soon be a great fall in the price of
wheat. The effect about to be produced on the
corn market by the opening of the Southern
Russian railways is not likely to be temporary, a
thing to be felt indeed when the harvest at home
is very bad, and to be forgotten in time of plenty.
Prices will go on steadily falling every year, at least
during the present generation, for there is scarcely
any limit to the supply of wheat to be reasonably
expected from abroad. We can only foretell that
it will go on increasing with the opening of eve
new railroad in the corn countries ; and that the
trade which has hitherto been the most speculative
of any will be soon made, by the nearly general sys-
tem of telegraphs now established all over the
world, one of the safest branches of coil-
merce to which prudent men can turn
their attention. Formerly, when it took
several weeks to communicate between London
and Taganrog, the whole corn trade of Southern
Russia was a mere gambling speculation in the
hands of • few Greek houses. Any other com-
mercial firms which ventured to touch this mys-
terious business were ulluqlly ruined, or driven
from the market. One British house after the othe-
tried it and went down, till it was becoming one
of the best understood principles of English mer-
.Fantile men to 'nave nothing more to do with it.
There were Englishmen at St. Petersburg and
at Archangel, at Rigs and at Moscow, who could
pursue their business with legitimate profits and
more than average success. Tallow, and wool,
and hides were all found to produce fair profits ;
but there seemed to be some spell upon the corn
trade, and there was not, and there is not one
single British commercial firm established in the
south of Russia--4 fact without • parallel in any
other district equally wide throughout the whole
civilized world.

There is, however, no difficulty whatever in
finding an explanation of this c'rcumstance. The
Russian corn trade was one series of awindlings
and falsehoods, which Englishmen could neither
understand, nor deal with successfully had
they been able to understand them. In
the first place, the Russian landlord had
immense tracts of land which he was unable
to cultivate for want of farm labour. If he
possessed estates elsewhere, or if he was a man in
office, in short, if he was a personage of any con-
sequence whatever, he was certain to be an
absentee. No man without being moved by a fine
sense of duty, or other grave reason, would
willingly pass his life in a country where the
winter lasts for eight months of every year, and
where there is neither game, neighbours, nor
quarter sessions. The estates of the nobility
were therefore left entirely in the hands of agents,
usuallyretired military officers, who grew rich while
the landlords grew poor, and it was no uncommon
thing for • man with an estate as large as a Ger-
man duchy to derive from it no revenue whatever.
The few proprietors who resided on the soil were
sunk in the lowest depths of ignorance, and steeped
to the lips in pride and poverty. Of scientific
farming they knew nothing whatever. Manuring
and draining were unheard of. They threshed their
cora by driving wild herds of horses at a gallop
through it. When it was threshed they pat it
into barns, where the rata and mice eat it if it
were not promptly sold, or the serfs burnt it if
they got angry.
All these petty resident landlords and the
agents of the larger proprietors really did care
about was their dignity. They lived for the most
part far removed from the influence of any decent
society or public opinion; and they became the
strangest objects upon the face of the whole earth
in consequence. Their houses, although so badly
built that not a door or a window could be coaxed
to shut or open, so that they had to be nailed fast
in winter and tied open in summer, were of vast
extent ; and notwithstanding that labour was so
scarce, and if intelligently employed would have
been so precious, they maintained all the state and
household of petty kings. Fifty, sixty, a hun-
dred servants were frequently employed about
one house. The wretched serfs were taught to
consider it an honour to be so employed, and
those selected for the domestic duties of the
establishment were said by their brethren to be
"at Court." These courtiers were of course all
In rags, and whenever a strange carriage
passed within sight, rushed out and cla-
moured round it like the horde of
beggars that they were, poor things. Their
masters had the queerest whims. One old
country gentleman insisted on being carried about
all night, alleging that he was unable to sleep
otherwise. Another, finding that his valet did
not answer when called, chained him for some
years to his own easy-chair. A third, a widow
lady, insisted upon her maid ceiling the hours,
that she might not be made nervous by the clock
striking. Such persons were but types of a class
in which the ladies were even more ridiculous
than the men.

It must be remembered that all these people
were entir,:ly without education or intellectual