The Express.
London, England, 1867-01-05 00:00:00

AUSTRIA.

VIENNA, JAN. 4.

Count Belcredi, the Minister of State, has sub-
mitted to the Emperor a proposal for extending an
amnesty to all persons convicted of offences against
the press laws, and deprived for that cause of their
rights as electors.

AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY.
PESTH, JAL 4.

The royal rescript, in reply to tho address of the
Hungarian Diet, is expected to arrive here to-
morrow. It is believed that it urges the Diet to
hasten the discnsaion of common affairs.

In consequence of a speech delivered, on the
15th December last, by M. Milities, a member of
the Hungarian Diet, a vote of censure has been
passed upon him by his electors of the town of
O'Becse.

RUSSIA.
ST. PETERSBURG, JAN. 4.

An imperial ukase, issued to-day, authorises the
commanders of the different army corps to grant
temporary furloughs after the completion of
the recruitment, to the number of men found
to exceed the required effective strength. This
measure is exclusive of the general furlough
ordered by a former imperial decree.

THE EASTERN QUESTION.

BERLIN, JAN. 4.

The New Prussian (Cross) Gazette and the Zeidler
Correspondence of this evening express their opinion
that, according to all present indications, the
Eastern question is beginning to assume greater
dimensions.

THE DANTJBLAN PRINCIPALITIES.
MINISTERIAL CRISIS.
BUCHARIET, JAN. 4.
The entire ministry have resigned. Prince
Charles is said to have accepted their resignation
with great reluctance. The new cabinet has not
yet been formed.

THE PARIS BOURSE.
PARIS, JAN. 4, 3.30 r.e.
The Bourse has been very firm. Reales closed
at 69.95, or 20c. higher than yesterday.

INDIA.
(By direct Overland Telegraph.)
BOMBAY, Die. 21, 4.13 P.M.

71b. shirtings, 6r. 12a. ; 811 b. ditto, Br. 40's
mule twist, 154 d. Cotton quiet. Dhollerah, 260 r.
Shipments of the week, 15,700. Exchange on
London, Is. Hid. Government securities : Four
per Cents., 88 ; ditto, Five per Cents., 105 ; ditto,
Five-and-a-Half per Cents., 110 k. Freights to
Liverpool, 20e.
CALCUTTA, Dee. 20.

811 b. shirting', Br. 6a. 40'. mule twist, Ba.
Exchange on London, 2s. Old. Freights to Eng-
land, 50s.

THE ARRESTS IN SPAIN.

Referring to the reoent arrests of deputies in
Spain, the Independence Beige says :

It would be unjust to charge the cabinet alone with all
the responsibility of this deplorably violent measure.
Tho members of the dissolved Cortes who voted the
suspension of the constitutional guarantees ought
to bear their share of it. That Marshal Marne:
puffed out by hie mission as the pretended saviour of Spain
and annihilator of disorder should wage war upon what he
calls the revolution by all the means at his disposal, in
virtue of the extraordinary powers he has succeeded La
obtaining from Congress ; that he should execute with the
utmost rigour not only the preventive sad repressive
laws but the terrorist regulations and prescriptions that he
has thought fit to add to them for the greater advantage
of authority ; that he should prevent the
voice of the country from making itself heard
through the medium of the press, and from
bringing the complaints of the nation to the ears of the
Queen ; that he should prevent the protects and the ad-
vice of the most enlightened, the most eminent, even the
most moderate citizens from reaching the foot of the throne,
is natural enough, and none of those who assisted in arming
him in order that he might crush and destroy liberty have
a right to wonder at it or complain. If the arms they have
forged with their own hands turn against them they only
bear the penalty of their culpable weakness or blindness.
But we, as the invariable friends and defenders of liberty
everywhere have a right to complain and protest fur them.
May ibis harsh experience not be thrown away, and may
it revive in the breasts of the victims of to-day the liberal
sentiments of which many, in other days, were the elo-
quent and brilliant interpreters. As to Kanner, in strik-
ing down the men whose devotion to the dynasty equals
their moderation, he ban exceeded the measure of violence,
and the event will not fail to prove to him, we are con-
vinced, that there are limits even to despotism, which are
not transgressed with impunity.

The Madrid correspondent of the same paper,
writing on the let inst., says :—" The royal family
was present on Sunday at the performance at the
Theatre Royal, and everybody remarked that her
Majesty was more communicative and satisfied
than usual."

• EARL ittre,szu, iii ITALY.—The Glasgow Herald
publishes the following letter, dated San Remo, Sunday
hat:—" Earl Russell arrived here last Wednesday from
Florence, and intends staying till to morrow (Monday).
On Friday be was waited upon by a deputation of the Ban
Remise, when the syndic presented him with an address
expressive of their gratitude for the sympathy he bail
taken in Italian aff airs, to which his lordship read a reply
couched in the fallowing terms :—' Gentlemen,—l thank
ou with all my heart for the honour you have done me.
y I rejoice with you in seeing Italy free and independent,
with a monarchical government, and under a patriotic
King. The Italian nation has all the elements of a pros-
perous political life, which had been wanting for many
centuries. In the evening he was serenaded by the band
of the town. After they had played 'God save the
Queen,' Lord Russell and his family appeared at the
window and thanked them. Ho requested them to play
Garibaldi's Hymn,' after which they dispersed, amid
shouts of Viva Lord Russell !" Viva l'amico !'
' Viva l'lngbilterra !" Viva la Popolazieste San Remise!'
Viva "

CARNIVAL TIME IN PARIS.

(PROM A 00117M9P0117)121T. )

How streets can continue to be so full without
every house in Paris being empty, is a problem I
have yet to solve. The sages who argued as to the
number of angels who could dance concurrently on
a needle's point might tell ns how the gay crowds
on the Boulevards, in the caf4s, theatres, and bon-
bon shops ever get there at one time, and being
there how they accomplish their return.; but
modern observers must be content with recording
that Paris seems steeped in gaiety, and that all the
world and his wife appear to be out of doors. Yet
the shopkeepers of the most frequented quarters
and their assistants can have but little holiday or
rest. Night after night a crowd of well-dressed
. .ple have pressed eagerly in to Giraudin's for
... -bons from early afternoon until past midnight,
without intermission or apparent diminution. Here
the two costly dolls decorated with real jewels, me
valued at more thousands of francs than I dare to
write, stand in the window and woo the passer-by.
One represents the Exhibition of 1867, the
other the City of Paris ; both are beautiful,
and elicit childish admiration from the grown-
up babies looking on. A stroll through the most
frequented streets shows the same crowding, the
same never ending ejaculation, the same present-
! purchasing for the season. Russia leather travelling
1 bags, the fittings of which include a warming pan,
coffee service, spirit lamp, wash-hand jug and
' basin, and massively framed swing mirror, all in
solid silver, elaborately chased—jewelled knick
knacks representing everything about a horse,
from its tooth set with diamonds as a locket, to its
hoof, golden capped, and with turquoise-headed
nails—stationery so gorgeously hid in case and box
that ono wonders whether the upshot of it all can
be merely plain pen and ink—ladies' boots of
proper size, and with the tassels, rosettes, and
high heels we see in use in every fashionable street,
are here containing bon-bons, handkerchiefs, and
I gloves—vulgar domesticappliancesmadeup insplen-
I dourand designed to fill widely different purposes to
their ostensible one, are among the snares set by
the clever Parisian radesmen for stranger and re-
sident alike. Useful things made useless by a pro-
digal waste of material ; useless things made neces-
sary through fashion and extravagance, form the
uniform story the brilliant shop-fronts tell. Even
the temporary stalls which line the Boulevards at
regular intervals from the Madeleine to the
Bastille, looking like rabbit-hutches or old track-
ing-eases, and the whole stock in trade of each of
i which represents, perhaps, a couple of napoleons,
• follow in the same direction. A decanter and set
I of liqueur glasses for twenty-two sous, chignons at
1 a frAne and a half, mock jewellery, sham silks,
tawdry pictures, pinchbeck finery, make up
their gorgeous total. Round these the people
flock in such shoals that walking above
a snail's pace on the Boulevards is, after
three on a tine afternoon, a sheer impossibility.
We have had recently in our shop windows at
home " leg-rests" for railway travellers, by aid of
which the purchaser is supposed to rest as com-
fortably as in bed. An enterprising inventor here
has hit upon a head-rest which professes to secure
I sleep, but which is highly suggestive of sus per coll.
A padded halter passes under the chin, and is
fastened by a strap and hook to the stick and
umbrella rack above, two other straps secure the
victim's arms, and thus trussed and seated, he
swings gently with each motion of the carriage, and
it so sleeps. Portraits of apparently moribund first,
second, and third class passengers thus strapped up
are shown, and these repulsive-looking affairs are
said to sell by hundreds. Apropos of the extent
to which wants are created to meet manufactures,
one elegant and popular New Year's gift is entitled
" Toilet for the nails." It consists of a handsomely
carved box, of the size of an ordinary dresaing-
meet-containing brushes, scrapers, knives, scissors,
and'lnondescript instruments, all devoted to the
paring and cleaning of finger nails. 1 counted
fourteen ornate articles in steel, ivory, and gold, in
one of these cases, all designed for the one purpose,
and the modest sum asked for them collectively was
450 francs.

The Grand Opera Bal Masque, which takes place
every week during the Carnival, was full to suffo-
cation last Saturday, and some of the dresses and
their wearers were wild and mad enough to satisfy
the most earnest searcher after the grotesque. A
female mask, representing a sheaf of ripe corn,
with the full ears nodding in the dance, and a male,
whose monstrous moveable head-dress represented
the Tower of Babel with the men at work upon it,
were among the most singular. The dancing and
general conduct in the ball room was neither more
nor less indecorous than may be seen any night in
the ordinary gardens or casinos here ; but the
scenes in the lobbies and refreshment rooms fully
realised all that has been written of Parisian
license. Dominoes and debardeurs, men in evening
dress and women in little dress to speak of, make-
believe Turks and Circassian, and Jews who were
unmistakeably real, were struggling, proms-
ing, hugging, whispering, laughing, from
lobby-end to lobby-end, with the opera
attendants looking placidly on, and only bent on
preventing people standing long in one place, and
so avoiding any serious crush. At four on Sunday
morning these revels seemed at their height ; but
1 there was little elegance and much vulgarity ; and
though the carefully disguised figures in dominoes
are innocently supposed by young men from the
country to be women of position, the females in
costume were unmistakeably of one class. Many of
i the theatres bring out new pieces in honour of the
season, or interpolate whole scenes relating to it,
and all are full nightly. On Saturday the only
chance of seeing Le Diable Boileur at the Chatelet
was to pay five francs for the privilege of sitting
in one of the passages leading to the second tier
of boxes. A series of tableaux or short acts show
the principal events of 1866, and foreshadow some
of those of 1867. The Atlantic cable comes promi-
nently out. The bottom of the ocean, with mer-
mon, mermaids, seals, sharks, and " talking fish" in
1 conference, is seen. Then the coil is lowered at
the hack, and the scaly crew rush forward to exa-
mine it. Finally they seat themselves on the
cable, and are swinging to and fro, when an elee-
laic shock comes with a noise like thunder, and
mermaids and the rest fall dismayed as the scene
ends. This is a curiously exact repetition, though,
of course, on an infinitely larger scale, of the Great
Eastern amateur theatricals as represented in the ;
Illustrated London News the cable being lowered
and the mermaids disporting themselves in both
cases in precisely similar fashion. The New Year's
Palace of Toys, in which our old friends from the ,
toy shop appear endowed with life ; the fold-yard,
the little village, the box of soldiers all coming on
the stage in turns, and all made up in what looks
like painted wood with stiff moveable joints, and '
only moving as if dragged by a rope or on springs,
made a fair representation of big toys animate. A
pretty ballet, in which the dancers are dressed as
children, with skipping ropes, hoops, and battledores,
completes the scene. The Exhibition has its full
share of notice, the lady announcing the encourage
inent it will give to industry and virtue in one of
the most gorgeous dreams ever seen upon any stage,
and being followed by an electric light to dazzle the
more.

The Rue Rivoli and other approaches to the
Tuileries have been almost impassable for the
last day or two, as the army and nation have
been paying their respects to Louis Napoleon, who,
with the Empress and the Prince Imperial, acknow-
ledged them, on Monday, from the palace balcony.
Soon after this the rain began, and the whole of that
afternoon was as miserable as the worst hater of
his species could desire. From the window at
which I write some mile and a half of boulevard
can be seen, and this was, on each side, so thick