The Express.
London, England, 1868-02-17 00:00:00

BRIT NNI A.

TAMVtrPO, ALL BUT 111,1. Messrs. Reynolds and
Crawl, : M dime. . urteliny. and t'oveaey,-1n ON QUI XOTK
31r, S. lane: V.,ntotnin.l.4.l Mew.. Deane. bon,. Newham. and
the I.:Lhasee F.nntly Stephan and Mine Itnee Nathan.

At the outset of the expedition it was
confidently asserted by independent witnesses
that a military embassy of a thousand or two
thousand men, of all arms, would suffice to bring ,
the Emperor THEODORE to reason, and to liberate;
Consul CAMERON and his fellow captives, sup-
posing (a somewhat important supposition) that ,
the Emperor THEODORE had not cut off their .
heads or crucified them as soon as he heard
that they were " sent for." It might be supposed
that when Parliament was summoned in November ,
to vote supplies for the expedition and the CHAR-
CELLOR of the EXCHEQUER asked for no more than
a couple of millions sterling, " a mere fleabite," as
he would say, nothing more than a military em-
bassy wasincontemplation ; yet before Mr. DISRAELI !
rose to solicitthat trifle, three millions or thereabouts
bad already been expended on freight and transport
from Bombay to the Abyssinian coast, not to men-
tion the item of mules dying like flies on ship-
board, or as soon as landed, for the greater glory
of the British taxpayer. Whatever may become,
then, of our prestige in Abyssinia when Sir Rona
NAPIER has reached the headquarters of THEO-
DORE, and found his captives alive or dead, we
must really bewara of losing our prestige nearer
home by pretending to be taken by surprise
by the little bills of five millions more or !
less, which are only just beginning to accu- '
mulate, or by this awkward co•operation of
the Egyptian Contingent. To have lost tho
alliance of that egregious runaway rebel NIENELEH
is perhaps a disappointment that may be borne.
Had Munnha stood fight or intercepted THEO.
DORE and obtained possession of our captives, is
it certain or probable that he would have given I
them up like a good Christian, to spite THEODORE
or to please the English t
From the moment when it was publicly dm I
dared that our expedition was to be strictly
limited to the release of the captives, it was
absurd to count upon any sort of " alliance " ,
in Abyssinia. Nor can we be surprised if the
Viceroy of Bovrr—under advice, perhaps, from
some European ally and patron—saw his way to
doing a little business on his own account. When
Sir ROBERT Names has set the captives
free or exacted satisfaction for their sa-
crifice, are we to remain in Abyssinia
until the Egyptians have evacuated the country
in order to prevent the conquest of a Christian
people by a Mussulman government ! If this is
to be the development of the expedition, the
question of our prestige in those parts
will become enlarged to dimensions we
forbear at present to imagine. The soli-
tary fact in the latoat intelligence from
Abyssinia which maytend to allay the uneasiness of
the British public is the advance of the Commander
in-Chief as far as Addegraht on his march to
Magdala, where the Emperor THEODORE, having
put a rebel army to flight, has rejoined_hiscap-
lives and awaits their liberators.

THE great county game of " Pull lawyer, pull
doctor," is being played with all its wonted vigour
for the coronership of Western Middlesex. There
must be something abnormally fascinating in these
appointments. Directly one is vacant, Law and
Physic each select their champion, endow him
with the full weight of their professional influence,
and watch the result with an eagerness which • is
apparently out of all proportion to the value
of the prize. It seems but the other
day that our thoroughfares and newspapers
teemed with the advertisements of rival can-
didates for a Middlesex coronersktp. Physic
won the contest on that occasion, and our
medical contemporaries were demurely exultant at
their professional victory. For the present
vacancy, which is in a different division of the
county, several gentlemen were originally put in
nomination. But as the election day draws near
these have fallen off, much as a race-course is
cleared of outsiders and stragglers at the final
struggle for the winning-post ; and the prize will
fall to one of the two gentlemen—a lawyer and
a doctor—whose names are now prominently
before the public. Both committees are working
well. " The priority of the claim of the legal pro-
" fession " is boldly put forward on the one hand,
and "generous and overwhelming promises of sup-
" port" triumphantly alluded to onthe other. Taverns
and central committee-rooms are hired, bills printed,
advertisements drawn up, and noble names and pro-
fessional status all invoked in the struggle to confer
upon one of two amiable gentlemen certain unplea-
sant duties and a few hundreds a year. A borough
election does not produce more excitement, and in
some instances does not coat so much. We sup-
pose everybody concerned has decided that the
game is worth the candle, but it seems certain
that the salary of the post must be consider►bly
discounted before it is attained. However, Friday
next will decide the great question whether a lawyer
or a doctor is to practise " Crowner's quest law"
for Western Middlesex ; and in the mean time one
or other of the candidates is throwing away the
substance of solid hundreds for the shadow of a
possible appointment.

A LONDON bank between the hours of 9 and 10
in the morning is a type of that solitude amid a
crowd which BYRON ,dwelt upon item the poet's

The Daily News cannot congratulate Earl
Ramon on having, in the letter which he recently ad-
dressed to Mr. Chichester Forteseue, discovered the key to
the Irish difficulty. The greater part of this letter relates
to church questions. It also advocates the passing of such a
measure as that proposed by Lord Mayo and Mr. Chichester
'Forteseue, which would give a security to tenants
that the duties of property will not be violated by
the landlord with impunity, and that a tenant who
improves, if ejected while be pays his rent, shall have
compensation for his outlay ; bat his lordship appears to
be averse from measures in excess of that reform as either
violating the rights of property or founded on a miscon-
ceplion of the character of the Irish tenant. With re-
spect to the Irish established church Earl Russell
says be has felt for the last quarter of a century that
if he were to try to introduce religious equality into
Ireland he should be opposed bx the whole tory
party as a solid phalanx, and that they would be
assisted by a considerable defection from his own party.
Bus Mr. Disraeli, who is the great educator of him party,
is in a different position, and his pupils must be supposed
to have mastered so easy a lesson as that of ecclesiastical
I equality in Ireland. But whether they have or not, the
country cannot wait another year, as Lord Stanley Bug.
gents, for further instruction from the great pro-
, fessor. Earl Russell proposes to realise ecclesiastical
equality in Ireland, not under the form of impartial
disendowment, but by the endowment of Roman Catholics,
presbyterians, and protestant episcopalians, after the
latter body has been disestablished. Ho would deprive
the archbishops and bishops of their seats in the House
of Lords, awl empower Parliament to provide the
number of bishops to be maintained, and the method
of their appointment; but they should be known only
by their names and not by their jurisdictions. Earl
Russell contends that a mere abolition of the present
establishment would be an injury to Ireland, and he is
the same opinion with respect to the withdrawal of the
Maynooth grant and of the Regiam clonirta to the ;meshy-
terians of the north, and the refusal of all subsidies by
Ithe state towards the building of Roman catholic churches
and the support of the clergy. Earl Russell makes an
appeal to Mr. Gladstone to come forward and attempt to
carry a scheme such as his lordship proposes. Two steps
only are required—the first a resolution of the Howie of
Commons affirming tbo ecclesiastical equality asked for
as a boon to Ireland; the second, an address to
the crown praying for measures to give effect
to that resolution. But for the sake of Ireland
,as well as for the sake of the liberal party,
the Daily News trusts there is no chance of such an appeal
being listened to. The noble lord can have taken little
pains to ascertain the sentiment of the liberal party
throughout the country if he does not well know that the
adoption of this proposal by its heads would issue either in
a revolt or the utter disruption of the party.

The Timm thinks the prospects of the British taxpayer,
on account of the Abyssinian expedition, are decidedly
unsatisfactory. We are only at this moment preparing to
discover what it may mean or cost. Our enemy, King
Theodore, appears to be stronger than was represented ;
our probable allies, such as Benelek, appear to be weaker.
That our force will enable us to dispense with such auxili-
aries, and to deal with Theodore wherever we may find
him, is doubtless to be assumed ; but the way to Ilagdala
is long, the road is unknown, and the movements of the
Egyptians may deprive us of the support we have hitherto
experienced at the hands of the native population. In the
meantime s fabulous expenditure of money is going mi—
-1 an expenditure which the Times estimates at five millions
a year for freight alone between the Indian and Abyssinian
mute.