The Express.
London, England, 1868-12-14 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, MONDAY EVE,

moans for ever around the steePand narroe
island of the blest, inhabited by the Slak, forta-.
nate, and the few, which the world cam" Sodsty,"
and " Society" calls " All the world?" Deem puhlb
man—we think it was Mr. Asses=
posing the other day to make the lot of the Irish
peasant as happy and contented as that of his
English brother. Surely that is not an exaggerated
ambition for the boldest statesman—to make
the lot of an English agricultural la-
bourer attainable by the high peasant !
Ministries come and go, Cabinets are changed, and
no one can pretend that in these days public
liberty and the national honour are loss cared for
by a Government which calls itself Conservative
than by a Government which calls itself Liberal.
It is not that the distinction between the two is
insignificant ; for the one seta trade free, and
establishes religious equality ; while the other
maintains every privilege, and clings to
every prejudice of the past until it must
choose between its principles and its hopes
of office. But what, it may be asked, is free
trade, religious equality, or the diaestablishment
of tLe Irish Church to tho dumb, dim millions of
our " tellow-ereatures " who are born to misery
or to crime, who are hu Idled by their landlords
together with less regard to decency and health
than the mdivals in their stables or their styes;
and who starve slowly all the year on a pittance
barely enough (with the aid of country air) to
ket p bodies and souls together, while the beeves,
and pigs, and sheep, are fattening for Smithfield
It is little, very little, th the most popular and
powerful of Prime Ministers can do to justify the
imaginative enthusiasm of the poor who are
always on the land. But man's life is short ; the
life of a people is long; and what an earnest, con-
scientious, and beneficent statesman can do is to
co-operate, so far as in him lies, with all the moral
and social forces which tend towards a happier
future for the multitude, and, so far as legislation
and administration are concerned, to let no privi-
lege, or prejudice, or disability, stand in the way
of right, and justice, and humanity.

compares in completeness with that which sustains her.
it:4,l44lWhofw. t. t
hat Matselloal es ad tends
Mai by degree, her an adlaille,
her vitality and abandon an 4 mslliflages
cadences of her bin!-like vein is Ist sear. eeh
rioted the bewitching mail, and cosepeited a mama at
once brilliant and lasting.—Twrf, Field, an Pens.
They will find Lydia Thompson to be a truly astonish-
ing incarnation of all that is fair and bright. lihe glitters
like a sunbeam ; she dances like a summer wave ; she
mugs like a morning bird; she is, if we may borrow an
tlpo/4/V0 line from Tennyson, " bright as light, and clear
as wind." The sight of a creature so Joyous, with a
chierfulnem that somehow bespeaks a good heart and •
happy temperament, is a pally, luxury.—Weekly Serino.
The main attraction was LYDIA Titomrseit,
" THoursow with the golden hair." All the
theatrical reporters an- now at work inventing
nice names for LYDIA. The Saturday paper man
is going to call her " a dramatic sunrise," while
the Sunday critic is debating whether " the
" Aurora Borealis of Burlesque " or " Little Chain
" Lightning" is the most appropriate.
now little do we know the real value of a thing
until it is lost to us !