The Express.
London, England, 1857-11-25 00:00:00

314DPOID, FV.I.SZPIELD, ARD LBED.9
RAILWAY.

The quarterly meeting of the shareholders in this
undertaking was held reads), at Bradford; Mr, 080.
ANDEATON presided.
The BILCKETANY (Mr. H. Corr) read the quarterly report
of the directors? in which it was stated that the working of
the line since it was opened on the sth of October, for public
traffic, has been satisfactory. Mr. Seymour Clarke, had
been appointed manager of the traffic, and they have every
average. that the huedne4ss of the company sad the oonve-
nienoe of the public will be provided for in the best manner.
Mr. Hawkshaw, the engineer, reported that at the beginning
of the meant month the through traffic was along the line.
The works are heavy, and portions of them require com-
pletion, the efforts of the essences., being directed ener-
getically to this object. The capital account showed that
the company had expended tip to Sept. 30, 1857, 200,7771.,
Including 11,4671. in parliamentary expense. ; 34,2171. in land,
annpantion and attendant expenses; 144,0631. in woeful;
3,2201. in engineering; 1,5411. in law charges, do. Towards
this outlay there bad been received in calls on 9,000 shares,
at 151. 10e. per share, 129,6251. (less 9,8751. on calls he ar-
rear) ; 60,0001. in loans ; 5,3441. in prepayment.; 1,0061. in
beak interest ; 6481. on interest ca calla in arrest, &c.
Time is also a balance of 4,0871. due to banker..
The report was adopted, and it was stated that a all would
be made at the cad of January next.

DIL LIVINGSTONE IN BIaDPORD.—Dr.
Living-
ekoas, last evening, delivered an address descriptive of hi
dinieveries in Central Africa, In St. George'soball, Bradford.
An address was preeented to the doctor by the Bradford
Chmsberef Commerce.
THE BLACK COUNTIIV.—The following descrip-
Zion of a well-known district is front the pen of the Rue.
Arthur Mune% of Manchester :—" It was but a few weeks
ago I was travelling by a night train through the district on
the borders of Staffordshire and Warwickshire, known in
theneighbourhood as 'the black country,' and black enough
it Y. If you go through it by day your eye wander over a
vast expanse of grimy country unrelieved by the blushing of
the uppringing flower, and scarcely by the gleaming of a
single- Made of grass. Vast mounds there ace, indeed, but
not of turf or verdure. They are swollen dusty haip of coal
and the offal of molten iron, and the whole prospect boks like
• huge graveyard, where some grim old giants of a bygone
age Be buried beneath the blackened ashes of their owe 'io-
dine. There Is a weird funereal air around the plane, which,
to a quiet looker-on. is very striking, and full of mystery.
Away, • few hundred yards beyond thew ebon hillocks,
rises a hollow-looking building as black as themselves, with
a tapering chimney like some gaunt devil with his beet hat
on, standing sentinel over theme cable graves. Protruding
from a chum is the gabled wall is a huge iron arm, which
rises and fills in measured movement up and down, as
though it were thrusting heaps of victims deeper into the
elms below. And all along the sooty roofs sad Wee there
nage great irewthroated funnels which beach forth volumes
of black smoke, as if the infernal spirits wore sleeping tea or
a dorm in a bed, with their mouths wide oeen, and
gasping
et
out their fold and loathsome breath. Ekores upon ex
halt naked area, as black as Cerberus himself. are harrying
to sad fro, and look like imps attendant on the slumbering
demons; and the whole scene cloys on an meltable ima-
gination, and makes one feel as if we were in the general
dispensary of hell itself, and that the infernal patients
were all 111 in bed and waiting for a perspiration.
Such is the aspect of the ' black coontry ' by day. Bat
only see it in the night I The perspiration has set in in
awful force. The snoring demons pour from their seething
throats and nostrils tongues, of lurid flame. The attendant
imps ply red-hot weapons busily, arid warm the heated
bed with glowing fuel. Potions of white-hot ashen metal
are pouted down the yawning throats, and from the black-
ened hillocks streams of liquid fire run down. The swollen
mounds are crested with bright earnest, as though the lurid
giants had burst forth sad tapered on their own tombs
with hair erect end blazing with infuriate glee. There
seems but one element supreme and regnant, end that ele-
ment la ere: fire fire I Fire mows rearing up close
round you ea you sit in the train—itself Impelled by fire.
Fire around and firs afar—the horizon wears • glowing belt
of fine, end every object from your own immediate neigh-
bourhood. away to the furthest stretch of vision, is robed
in the self-same fiery garb."