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

STRAND.

Tws Evrma. NEIGH Wt it.4.---LAfter which will he prnclncetl
a Orand thuicaque, Gt. Y FAWKES.—And BOOTS AT THE
SWAN.

FIOLBORY

Tins Ermened, MY Tia:T Mr. Delmore; Muses
Foote and Lennox —MI FLYING SCUD. Meson. Neville, Bel-
more, It Voltaire. eve.: Mesdames F. Joaepbs, Lt. :Menders,
Heade Foote, nide*, Lennox, Raymond, &c.

BRITANNIA.

. .. . .. .
THIS EVENING, THE PRINcEss 01, THE PEARL ISLAND;
OR. THE THREE KINGOONts or PEARL. COLD, AND
LVER. %IN lace ni,l MIAs .Incohs.—Eirst.ritte Paat,Guintisti
—Awl THE lON CREW.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.

Mt DAT ---Aft;;;;;;, lilt. 1417.
TO-MOlLROW—ltortung, lib. 461 n Afternoon, Olt Om

LONDON, TUESDAY, JANU.I RY 1.

THY. disastrous year which has just passed
away, and on which we look back with that sort
of regret which BYRON says one feels "in leaving
" unpleasant places and people," was destined to
close in Englithd with a calamity only too repre-
sentative of all its previous history. There is
nothing very remarkable in a " great fire ; " it is
a vulgar accident enough ; but such a tire as that
at Sydenham on Sunday last seemed to concen-
trate into one great blaze of havoc a review of all
the troubles of a twelvemonth ; of cattle plague,
cholera, war, pestilence, inundations, explosions, fire,
slaughter, panic, and a "crisis." One of the noblest
palaces of art and pleasure ever built in modern
days, perhaps the noblest ever built by private
enterprise, a palace " that rose like an exhalation"
out of the dawn of the new era of International
Exhibitions, or, as some enthusiastic contractor
described it, that was created out of the ribs of the
Hyde-park Adam, barely escaped by the breadth
of a cotton screen complete destruction in the
course of a short December afternoon. Although
the Crystal Palace is the property and enterprise
of a Company, it enjoys a more than national re-
putation and popularity. Probably not one of the
great cities and great monuments of historicinterest
which all travelled people are supposed to visit
at least once, is half so well known to what may,
with less than the usual exaggeration, be
called " all the world." Among the hundreds of
thousands who have visited this great glass-house
at Sydenhant, which gleams like a colossal diamond
on all the horizon of this capital of fog and smoke,
for the sake of its art galleries and spacious
courts, with their unique reproduction of the whole
life and story of the civilization of East and West ;
or for the sake of its more than regal or imperial
terraces and gardens, in which the simple
charm of the English landscape is so
skilfully ad qitAl to the more formal combination
of French inagniiieence and Italian grace ; or for
the sake of the fountains, with which the great
waters of Versailles are superior in local interest
and associations only ; or for the prodigal variety
of popular amusements, which make the place a
paradise to the multitude who possess no gardens
or galleries ; or for the admirable concerts
which have inaiie a fame of their own ; 'or
to take part in roue grand ceremonial or cele-
bration fur which u,a other place of public resort
is comparable in attract' and convenience—
among all Ouse crowds of people of all nations
who have found rational and harmless pleasure in
this wonderful Palaee, the disaster of Sunday last
will be counted as something of a personal mis-
fortune. And among the English public, not the
public of Coeknoydien only, but of tho three
kingdoms, it will be felt that the Crystal Palace
can ill be spared. We are not so rich in galleries
of art, and in public gardens universally accessible
and universally enjoyable. Then the Palace and
its gardens are already beginning to have
associatiomi which au immense number of poor
people WOlll.l mud willingly let die, such as the
Handel Festivals, the Garibaldi days, the Volun-
teer prize distributions, the Dramatic College
Fetes, not to mention the annual festi-
vals of fricudly societies, Odd Fellows,
Foresters, and we know not how many other
more or less helm:dial brotherhoods. Surely
it would be no common chance that should
suddenly make a ruin of this prodigious creation
of enthusiasm and enterprise, in which the craving
for instruction and amusement at small cost and
with little teen uhe, the impatience and curiosity,
the restless and versatile tastes and wants of

an overworked generAtion, find so complete and
so commodious an expression, and so easy and
inexpensif. e a sstisfaction. The Directors no
doubt will not lm surprised if, when so consider-
able a publi, are interested in the fate of
a building, the cans and ori,,in of the accident
of Sunday last is eagerly and anxiously, and
even vociferously, debated. People will con-
gratulate th,f, Comp:lny on having saved by far
the larger p,rti. of the Palace, but they will not
be satisfied to hear but for the " providential "
direction mid lightness of the wind, and for a
temporary screen, the whole interior could hardly
have escaped the conflagration. It will be asked,
as it has }ken so I,ften asked before in similar
cases, how so vast •L ra:lL;e and collection of really in-
valuable property liap:fened to beleft almost to take
care of itself for a whole day ? Whenever the
origin of a tire is di.,•overed, a formula explaining
everything is hit upon. In the present instance,
the old story, " the flues have done it all," is given
out ; and from the inquiries we have been able to
make on the spot we have very little doubt that
the flues had a great deal to do with it. But
does not the mere mention of flues suggest
the necessity fur extraordinary precautions ? Here