The Express.
London, England, 1861-11-14 00:00:00

TO OUR READERS.

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.

A !ate edition of tho Express is published every
•veuiug during the racing season, containing the
results of the day's races.

Tue. attempt is once more made to break the
spirit of the Hungarians by delivering them to
the tormentors. All further discussion of public
rights is interdicted, and for property and life
there is no other security left but the caprice of
the sword. Absolute power is locally delegated to
ono man, and that man a soldier bred in the school
Of WINDIMAIItATZ, and likely to prove a worthy
adept in the arts of which that celebrated
chief was master. Count PALFFY, to his shame
be it said, is • Hungarian, descended
from an ancient stock, many of whose
branches have in other days afforded shelter
and protection to the country in whose
soil it has long held feudal root. Not a few
patriotic recollections are associated with the
name ; and in the days of the heroic QUEEN the
family gave not a few distinguished senators and
more than one Palatine or Viceroy to Hungary.
Thu present Count, however, like others of higher
aristocracy, has uniformly aided with the Court
against the Diet and the nation. Throughout the
parliamentary struggle which came to a crisis in
1848, there was always • minority of the nobles
who could not by relied on as supporters
of the Constitution against prerogative, and who,
whenever any attempt was made to uphold the
political rights of the community, openly abetted
the policy of resistance pursued by the Cabinet of
Vienna. Some rarely or never attended the later
sittings of the Diet, and others by degrees with-
drew from its deliberations, and in the Austrian
capital awaited unmoved the issue of the conflict.
The same course has to some extent been pursued
during the last twelve months, in which the reso
lutioas of the representative and hereditary
branches of the Legislature have rarely been
otherwise than unai us. Count PALIFIi has
spent the greater part of his life in the Im-
perial garrisons and camps. He was Aide-de-
camp to Prince Wistemutuasre in 1849, when
the Bohemian General undertook to suppress by
force the constitutional liberties which had
been conceded to other parts of the em-
pire, and when, by energetic cruelty, he suc-
ceeded rapidly and effectually in accomplishing
his purpose. The pledges given by the Ers-
rswra the popular assemblies that met at
Vienna and at Prague were effaced in blood ; and
such an indelible impression was left upon the
popular mind of the worthlessness of all Imperial
assurances and revokable concessions, that the
recent repetition of a similar farce on the part of
the Court has been looked on with listless unbelief
by the best men of every race throughout the
empire. What wonder, then, that in Hungary,
where for centuries there had been a Constitution
defensible and defended by • national army, some
distrust of Aulic promises and schemes should have
been manifested, and a determination formed by
every man of patriotic feeling, whetherooivervative,
like M. Draw and Archbishop Borrows'', or
liberal, like Eorvon and TILZ[I, never to
barter the tune-honoured guarantees of Hun-
garian freedom for the paper constitution prof-
fered in the diploma of the 14th October, 1860
The result has but too fatally verified the pre-
scient wisdom of their unbelief in royal words and
centralizing schemes. For the second time every
vestige of parliamentary and municipal liberty is
suspended by the irresponsible breath of despotism.
That the Austrian Court has found a fitting in-
strument to carryout the designs of arbitrary power
may be inferred from the terms in which the suc-
cessor of HArxxy announces himself to the mem-
bers of the Council of Lieutenancy. " The
" liberty of speech has been much abused of late.
" As for me, you will know mo by my acts, as I
" shall judge of you by yours." And to take
security against the abuse of free speech for the
future, he has inaugurated his vicegerency by sup-
pressing three of the meet popular journals. Yet
the stupid man takes the trouble to assert that his
mission is to restore confidence in the Crown and
loyalty, such as formerly characterised the Hunga-
rian people, without which the Eursaoa cannot be
expected again to convoke a Diet, or to restore coo-
stitutioncl franelielec If the ancestors of Count
Palen/ could speak from their tombs they would
remind their degenerate descendant that they
never suffered • King of Hungary to be crowned
without taking the oath to observe the laws and
immunities of the realm ; and that when he talks
of blind and abject confidence in the professed
good interstices of a usurping and f..rsworn
despot, he asks his fellow countrymen to abandon
the traditional path of national liberty, and
to abjure the political faith of their forefathers.
If Hungary be nentitied at the choice of one of
her own aristocratic sons to be the spokesman to
her of insult and of wrong, let her remember that
history is full of like examples, and that there
never has been an oppressed nation whose fetters
have not been rivetted by apostate hands. While
the state of siege is maintained at Warsaw, be-
cause the Poles wear mourning and sing national
hymn' over the graves of their murdered kinamen,
Poles of rank and fortune are found ready to hold
high odic* not only in the remote provinces of the
Cnia, but in the local administration of Poland
itself ; yet no one thinks meanly of the gallant
captive race on diet account, and no one outside