The Express.
London, England, 1867-12-28 00:00:00

i RE1377215 TILEGILIM.)

The Royal Mail steamship China, from Boston
and Halifax, arrived at Queenstown at 12.15 p.m.
yesterday, with 60 cabin passengers, 220,000 dols.
in specie, and 2,5001. She landed 90 sacks
mails and 9 passengers, and proceeded for Liver-
pool at 12.30 p.m.—all well. The China took on
the Liverpool and Scotch mails.

(Per Chinn, vit. Queenstown.)
NEW YORK, Dec. 17, EVILNING.
_

The House of Representatives has refused, by
83 to 55, to suspend the rules in order to receive
a resolution offered by Mr. Ruler for payment of
the public debt in currency except when specified
to be slue in gold. A similar resolution is still
beim) the Committee of Ways and Mesas.
By a strict party vote of 111 to 32, the house has
passed a resolution declaring that Congress will
adhere to the Reconstruction Act, and censuring
President Johnson for recommending its repeal.
The full returns show a majority for,the Conven-
, Ulm in South Carolina.

Governor Humphreys, of Mississippi, has issued
a proclamation, announcing the general appre-
hension that the negroes in portions of Mississippi
were forming conspiracies to seize forcibly upon
lands unless they were distributed among them by
Congress by the Ist January. The governor warns
the negroes that no such distribution is possible,
and that any conspiracy upon their part to seize
lands will be discovered and frustrated. He urges
upon the negroes to work and obey the laws, and
calls upon the whites to accord the negroes all
their rights.
General OH has endorsed the proclamation. He
has instructed General Gillem promptly to arrest
any white men instigating the negroes to violence,
and to aid the civil authorities to protect property
and maintain order.

A fight hna occurred between the whites and
negroes at Albertson, Georgia, in which the sheriff
was killed.

I Great destitution prevails in Louisiana. It is
reported that thousands are in danger of starvation.
The negroes at Richmond are organising a grand
reception for General Butler.
It is reported that a fusion between the rival
Fenian factions in America is being effected.
Advices from Hayti state that the revolt is in-
creasing against President Salnave, who is accused
of counterfeiting Haytian notes.
I General Cabral, with a San Domingo force, is
marching upon Hayti. It is reported that
Basseterre and Guadeloupe have been burned.

(FROM OUR SPECIAL COSSESPONDEET.)
NNW YORK, Dsc. 14.

Apart from politics, Mr. Dickens has thus far
!proved the great sensation of the winter. In
NeW York, where I have heard him, he
has had crowded houses. Persons begin to
assemble before the office where the tickets
are sold as early as midnight, and stand through
the winter's night, waiting, in order to be sure
' of getting places. The day broke yesterday on one
• hundred and fifty persons standing in line, of
whom a large proportion had been at their posts
since the previous evening. Of course, here too
large numbers of the tickets find their wayinto the
hands of speculators, and are sold by them at ex-
tortionatc rates, and there is no conceivable way of
preventing it. Even places in the line of appli-
; cants are made the subject of speculation. Men
occupied them in many cases long before day-break,
merely for the purpose of " selling out" to later
comers. Nevertheless, 1 have no doubt that for
every dozen who obtain admission, a thousand
are eager to hear him but cannot procure tickets in
this way.
The audiences are attentive, I think delighted,
and mean to be cordial, but they are not warm in
their manner. They give no sign of enthusiasm.
A few rounds of applause when Mr. Dickens comes
on the platform, a few in the course of the reading,
but always measured and somewhat decorous ap-
plause, are all that are heard, not,l am sure, because
there is not deep feeling, but because it is not the
habit in this country of the kind of audiences
whom Mr. Dickens draws together to express deep
feeling. One sees the same coldness at the theatre
and at the opera. The actor or singer is very
lucky indeed if, no matter how great a favourite, or
ihow long absent, he is greeted on his re-appear-
' &nee with more than a little decorous clapping.
In fact, the only way in which I have ever seen
New York audiences express strong approbation was
by " encoring," which they do to ridiculous excess ;
but of course it was not possible to apply this to
Mr. Dickens's case. Then it must be confessed
that all those whom I have seen have been more or
less disappointed, not so much in the degree of
their entertainment, but in the kind. People go with
expectations based on their experience of the stage.
They look, in short, for acting, and expect, I
think, Mr. Dickens himself in his turn to display
more abandon. They forget, until the entertain-
ment has begun, that " reading" is not acting at all,
and that what Mr. Dickens offers is not complete
impersonation, but simply first-class story-telling.
Then a great many people go to " see Dickens "
literally to feast their eyes upon him. They do
not much care how he reads ; they want simply to
watch him and hear him repeat passages from his
own books aloud, rather as a " spectacle " than as
an intellectual entertainment. And yet there are
some of his characters which are so familiar to the
community that the mere mention of their name
rouses in the audience all the enthusiasm of which
it is capable. When I heard him, the other night,
reading the trial from "Pickwick," and Sam
Weller was called—l think two-thirds of the
audience had a flash of expectation of seeing that
well-known serving-man present himself on the
stage in bodily presence—so thoroughly have
readers " realised " his existence, and even though
he came not, his name was greeted with plaudits
that were certainly, I think, the highest compli-
ment a living author has ever received.
At the rate charged for admission, each even-
ing's reading must bring Mr. Dickens4,ooo dols. net,
or about 5001., the currency being reduced to gold.
His eight readings here and in Boston would con-
sequently bring him 4,0001. ; and I certainly see no
reason why he should not give eight times eight in
the same places with exactly the same result. The
same thing may be said of Philadelphia, Cincinnati,

Chicago, St. Louis, and perhapirsix other towns.
In fact it would be hard to put a limit to the sum
which is within his reach, if money be his main
object, for there is no part of the country in which
he might not fill any room to be had, nearly as
often as he chose, with people who simply want to
see him, even if he did not read at all. There are
but few foreign authors whose appearance would
draw the farmers from their firesides on
winter nights, and yet I think Dickens would
do it. Let him offer to read, or make a speech in
any country town in this State, however small, and
I will warrant that the roads on the appointed
evening will swarm with old waggons bearing
weather-beaten yeomen to the scene, with their
wives and daughters packed in behind them, their
heads full of Little Dombey, and David Copper-
field, and Mr. Peggotty, and their hearts full of
warmth towards the man who had told them all
about them. Such are the marvellous triumphs
which the spread of the Englishj tongue, and the
spread with it of the common schools, have pre-
pared for English genius.