The Express.
London, England, 1868-12-02 00:00:00

The middle-aged Paterfamilias whose means, like
his family, are large and continually on the in-
crease, comes home at six o'clock to a bright fire,
cheerful faces, and a cosy dinner ; and when that
important meal is concluded, after some talk with
the children, takes up his Blackwood or Certain,
or perhaps the loot new novel, until by their help,
for novels and magazines are excellent soporific*,
he "snores the snore of the just." After
tea he is himself again, and enjoys a game
at chess, or reads aloud, or plays at billiards, and
if addicted to creature comforts, has a glass of
" something hot " and a cigar before retiring for
the night. Sometimes be dines oat, sometimes
gives dinners at home, or the young people have
a party, or ho is allured to some local meeting, or
ho will, when sufficiently pressed and coaxed,
take his children to the play. Generally, however,
be is not fond of " turning out " after dinner, and
thinks those evenings the most cheerful which are
spent by his own fire. Such a man, be it remem-
bered, has earned his leisure before taking it, and
it would be hard if, after a day of severe toil,
be could not enjoy his ease.
There are men of another stamp, wholook forward
to the winter evenings in London, not as seasons of
repose, but for long hours of delightful work.
There is a language to be mastered, or a quarterly
article to be written, or a history to be studied, or
a scientific investigation pursued, which will hold
them spell-bound until past midnight. The labour
is solitary indeed, but it need not be performed in
solitude, and the lamp that illumines the manu-
script or the book may shine also on the sweet
English face of a happy wife and mother.
But in the country—far away among mountain
solitudes, or standing upon a wild coast remote
from village or from town, there is a charm in the
winter season even beyond what is felt in the midst
of cities. After a hard day's sport the rest of
evening is delicious, while it is a luxury to feel that
since your nearest acquaintance lives six miles away
there is no risk of being disturbed. In nature
it has been truly said there is nothing melan-
choly, and every season brings with it
special enjoyments. It may be said also that it
brings with it special duties. It is sad
°lough to remember that a large number
of our countrymen and countrywomen think
of winter only as a time of hardship and
almost of starvation. Their oocupetion fails them ;
their wants, owing to the inclemency of the
weather, are all the keener. They find it difficult,
to use a common phrase, to keep body and sonl
together, and they drag helplessly through the
winter months in despondency, if not in despair.
During this winter it is said that owing to the
depression of trade and other circumstances there
may be anticipated a more than usual amount of
destitution. Let us hope then that there will be
at the same time a wider benevolence and a keener
sympathy on the part of the public. Work is per-
haps quite as much needed as money, and if we
are willing to sacrifice some of our winter evening
pleasures in order to minister to the wants of our
poorer brethren we may be quite sure that the
employment will bring its own reward.

THERE has been a small revolution in one of
the most famous colleges of Oxford. All the
undergraduates of New College have been
" rusticated," in other words sent home, in
consequence of some damage done by idle hands
to a window. At a distance this severity looks
somewhat excessive, since it condemns a whole
college for not giving up the name of a
single offender. The right and duty of the autho-
rities of the college to preserve the striated disci-
pline cannot be celled in question. Nor is this
wholesale rustication without precedent. But
would not a less indiscriminate sentence have
'stifled the demands of justice in such a case
Brooking windows is an absurd folly ; but it is

The Star Waists that nothing is same unsatisfactory
than the article which ignorant and tricky private senuol.
wasters supply to ignorant and gullible customers. There
are many districts in which really intelligent parents,
loathing the vulgarity and pretence, and conscious of the
inefficiency of the private schools around them, are
almost fain, in the absence of any good public institution,
to send their children to the nearest National or British
school ; and but for tho inoonveniences of unadvisable
companionships, or the risk of I,.sing social prestige in
their neighbourhoods, they would probably do so.

♦ LESSON SEM TIANSALTLANNIC r
The Telegraph says that the silent and

energy with which iho capitalists of New York, supported
by their government, have undertaken the construction of
a canal across the Isthmus of Panama or Darien, in order
to unite in that latitude the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans,
contrasts favourably with the fussiness and bombast
which have accompanied the construction of the Soar
Canal by Prance, and with the absence of all effort in the
capitalists and government of Greet Britain to surmount
the inconveniences of the British ChanneL Is there, asks
the Telegraph, no hope that, profiting by the example of
transatlantic enterprise, our own government, in concert
with that of Prance, may be tempted to lend such en-
couragement to private capital as shall induce it to embark
upon the difficult task of conquering 22 miles of sea ?

ROYAL VISIT TO Tint CIIILDRILT'S HOSPITAL
nr 01121? Ourown-ernser.---Yeeteniay afternoon her

Royal Highness the Crown Princess of Prussia (Princes.
Royal of England) honoured the Hospital for flick Chil-
dren with a visit. Her royal highness, who was attended
by lady C. Barrington, was resolved by Sir William
Jenne; Bart., M.D., the hospital officials being in attend-
ance. Her royal highness passed through the wards open
to visitors ; the other wards, not public, are foe infectious
cams (without which no hospital for children would be
complete), and are most effectually cut off and isolated from
the main building. Her royal highness made many inqui-
ries concerning the arrangements foe sick children, and
those recovering from sickness, and remained • consider-
able time in the hospital. Hospitals for children are not
unknown in Prussia ; indeed at Berlin • children's depart,
meat was founded some years before the hospital in Ores!
Ormond-And, which was opened in Mt _

PRESENTATION TO A CLEROTMAN.—Yeeterday
afternoon there wee a very numerous' ' of the con-
gregation attending Hanover Church, in A.amset,
for the purpose of witnessing the presentation of several
souvenirs of affection and regard to the Rev. W. Barker,
M.A., curate, who has just relinquished his connection
with the church, but who during the past six years has
laboured zealously among the people who yesterday bade
him farewell.

ST. Penes Canninam..—The Hilltop of Lon-
don het iffOnted the folloZzrgantleman to preach in
toe geaday lath the month of
December, 1868 :—llnaday_ , Dec. the 800. .1 dui Henry
Coward, M.A., of PesilirsksHector
of Bt. Bent's, Paul's Wharf 94= cfrbs grits Her.
William of Bahia oal Oxford, Bettor
of Bt. Botolph,eim ; Sunday, so. ID, the Bee.
William B 3L.A.,_ of Trinity College,
Cambridge, Preacher at the Bolls Chapel ; flundstDsgez
27, the Bev. Charles Marshall, M.A., of Mufti on
Cambridge, Visor of Bt. Bride's, Fleet-sheet. The Very
Bev. Dr. Masa (Dr. B. L. Mensal) will preach on the
morning ol 16th, Wang Chrisfmne-day.
BRITISH Cain Assoolanatr.-11'hie association,
which annually holds its weenie alienist in London
and in the provinose, mmte be Leedom season this
year at the Bt. Games Clissa-slal, Kieg-siasst, St.
Junes's, co the al
Nev., with a gewaral ander
the prosidoncy al Lard Lyttallen, at which • special
vote ad thinks was mmissosaly puma to Mr. Lowenthal
for halim. spa unlieleins the/mad basins arrange-
rants. The contsis for the varisns=was himun
the next day phi pllll4lal Imam They
comprise the diellpille sap was hy Mr. Be Vero
in a previous eglldllll4 IPS IN bearsu=tarty woo
by bim a mead ; howilet• atm to all
calms, widame waswatiag to aim Om Mk; the
llo•grodiss of 10 rirrei la whisk •
the
of the plows place ham MI siossmossesall of the
Sum; ma ram mime in mine hos U. ft 104
Blindlolg play, in which mites Mown Binaries, andelsinits
will against einshinis and each slim; are also
gmr ; as well as a teleiferk mat* with the
rtieMllbeia-elab (on Friday nest), and 93 gamin to be
played siosiftaemaq by Mr. Lo wsnthoL
The Railways Ireland Oommierlenere met on the
Ist December, at 2. ViOoriesetLWeelaninitar. Pre-
sent—Sir Alezeader Y. fig, Bart.; MINN. JOlllll
Finder, 0.11., &gram and Christopher John-
stone. The morstazy, Mr. W. Apra flasoodro LL.D.,
was also proem&

The fact of a ministerial council being sud-
denly summoned to meet at Compiegne this day,
Tuesday not being a regular council day, has
given rise to conjectures that something of extra
importance must be in the wind. The explana-
tion of the semi-official journals, however, is that
to-morrow all the ministers will be wanted in
the Council of State to defend their budgets
for 1370. Apropos of the budget. all hope of
reduction is given up. Tho estimates for the
army and navy will be 88 high as ever, and in all
probability excuse will be found for augmenta-
tions. This is substantially admitted by the
Eteadard.

General Bourbaki yesterday gave a dinner at the
Grand Hotel to 80 officers of the Ist Division of
Voltigeurs of the Guards. Not only reporters,
but also strangers, unless they could contrive to
disguise themselves as waiters, were rigorously
excluded. Nevertheless the Gault:de undertakes to
say that the general made a speech predicting
war with Prussia, which was greeted with
thunders of applause.

M. Oloxaga, although he has in his pocket cre-
dentials as Ambassador Extraordinary and Mi-
nister Plenipotentiary, takes only for the moment
the title of " member of the Provisional Govern-
ment on a mission." He will have his first inter-
view with the Marquis de Monadic on Monday
next, but is not to be officially reoeived by the
Emperor until the form of government in Spain
is settled.

The new deputy for Toulon, M. Peyruc, has
already done good service to the government
which procured his election. Ho has purchased
the opposition journal, the Towlennais, for
120,000 fr.
Forty-four Paris printers have agreed to give
the 10 per cent. additional wages demanded by
the men, and so prevented the general strike
threatened. But M. Paul Dupont, the deputy,
who has a very largo business indeed, will not
give way, and his men have struck. In conse-
quence, the Avenir National, of which he was the
printer, does not appear this evening.
It is now said that not M. do Laroy, but M. de
Barthelemy, formerly a peer of France, will be
brought forward by the legitimist party to succeed
N. Berryer as deputy for the Boucher-du-Rhine.
Some papers speak of N. do Falloux and M.
Prevost Paradol as candidates. I incline to think
the Benches-du-Blaine will regard their late re-

presentative as a man by himself, and will be
likely to return a nominee of Jules Fevre
and Marie rather than a legitimist or an
Orlesnist of any shade whatever.
Some yaws since N. Berryer talked of oompiling
his memoirs for publication. He had a vast mass
of materials carefully docketed in his library, and
his correspondence filled a dozen boxes. It was
his habit never to burn a letter. He often pointed
to his collection of documents and letters, saying :
—" All my life is there." Once, when pleading
for a large compensation on behalf of a client
whose house was pulled down by IL Hausmann,
he said, by way of illustration, that if his own
house in the Rue Neuve des Petits Champs
were to be demolished the damage would
be irreparable, as he should never live to
put his books and papers in a new plans, in such
order as to be able to lay his hand on any one
whenever he wanted. Although, however, he
caressed the idea of publishing his memoirs, ho
repeatedly postponed the execution, even after he
had made a contract with a publisher. It was
only within the last 16 months that his friend.
Paul Andral (eon of Dr. Andra) began the work