The Express.
London, England, 1868-01-21 00:00:00

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.

(THIS DAY.)

DR. LIVINGSTON'.
The Daily News assumes that Dr. Livingstone ie
safe, and thinks he will possibly return to England by the
Mediterrenean, having worked his way from one end of
the African continent to another—from the Cape to Alex-
andria. The report of the Search Expedition which has
just returned to England bee established beyond all
question that he was not slain at Lake Byars, but
had pressed on into the interior. Mousse and the
Johanna men returned to the coast under the belief that
Livingstone was marching to certain death, and, anticipat.
lug the fact, gave oat that he had been already
Dr. Livingstone's researches in the regions between the
two Nyanza Lakes and Lake Tanganyika will bridge over
the chasm between the explorations of Speke, Burton, and
Petherick, and leave no break in the continuity of our
knowledge of Eastern Africa from the Cape of Good Hope
to the Delta of the Nile. Central Africa has at length
been laid open to Europe by the individual courage and
skill of three or four Englishmen, amongst whom the
name of Livingstone will occupy the first place.
One desire alone survives with the Telegraph, and that
is " that Moou and his crew should have about as sound
a rope'rending as ever was laid on a rascal's hide, and
then be clapped into prison till Livingstone comes safe to
hand, and asks to have the knaves released."

THE BIFINOPILIC OF NATAL.
If anything can induce the Bishop of Capetown to pause
in his precipitate course, the Times thinks it will be the
considerations adduced in the temperate letter of the
Bishop of London, which we give elsewhere, together with
the fact of such a letter having been deliberately made
public by so high an authority. The Bishop of London
not only informs us that many of the English bishops hold
that the see of Natal is not vacant, but that members of
the same body, whose authority is very great on such
matters, believe that (quite independently of questions of
English law) the deposition is uncanonicaL Simulta-
neously with the consecration of a new bishop, these
statements of the Bishop of London will go out to the
colony. Bishop Colenso and his supporters, therefore, will
he able to proclaim that the episcopal invasion is con-
demned by some of the leading members of the English
bench, and that in the opinion of these authorities the
acts of the Bishop of Capetown and his subordinate are
equally uncanonical and illegal. tinder such circumstances
has the new bishop any reasonable prospect of success?
If Mr. Blacrorie is still ready to go how is he to be conse-
crated ? The fact that the proposed consecration in Scot-
land was abandoned is a practical acknowledgment that it
is at least doubtful whether the consecration is permissible
by English law, and the Bishop of London points out that
the royal mandate is legally required before a bishop can
be consecrated in England. Those who place a church at
his disposal, or who join with him in the ceremony, will
equally reside: themselves liable to penalties. This whole-
sonic restriction of English law must be maintained. We
cannot allow our churches to be converted into manufac-
tories for antagonistic bishops. It appears that Dr. Gray
actually proposes to take the unprecedented step of conse-
crating the second bishop next Saturday. It is to be hoped
that, for the sake of common propriety, he will at least
wait until the chief authorities in church and state have
been distinctly and publicly consulted.
The Slandard cordially approves of the Bishop of Cape-
town's conduct, and is persuaded that Dr. Macrorie will
enter upon his mission with the sympathy not only of
churchmen but of all who value religious liberty. If Dr.
Colenso founds 1115 claim to be a bishop upon the spiritual
element, it is obvious that the power which conferred that
element can hold it in abeyance, and the spiritual sentence
of the Bishop of Capetown's court has that effect, and
interpreted by the Anglican episcopate in that sense. If
he relies, as he says he does, upon his letters patent, the
proof that they are mere waste paper is supplied by the
source whence they were issued. Church and state alike
have thrown him overboard, and the solitary evidence that
he is " Bishop of Natal" °waists in the payment of his
salary.

TAE ABTS.STNIAN ZINEMTION.
The Times observes that whilst most of the Abyssinian
difficulties anticipated seem to be either disappearing or
diminishing as we advance, the money difficulty looks
worse and worse. What we hare actually found is •
, country which, compared with some of the regions of
.04 North-Eastern and North-Western India, is perfectly
Ala practicable, • population whose services as well as goodwill
lem-
the can be bought for money, and an enemy in such straits
4.1 that it is a chance if we ever meet with him at all. It is
m probable that, if we had but known originally as much as
we know now, we might have saved half our preparations
and a vast proportion of our expenditure. The result is
so far unpleasant, no doubt, but it might be much worse.
I° The " Abyssinian penny," the Times fears, will have to be
I, multiplied, but the Abyssinian expo lition, as far as it can
o yet discern, will cost us neither lives nor credit.
to The Hero/d expects that Theodore will fight when fairly
at bay, but the chances are that he will make but a feeble
19 stand, and as yet there is no probability of the cam-
paign being marked by either complicated or sustained
operations.
The Poet bids us prepare for a heavier taxation than we
have been accustomed to for some time past. It is
extremely doubtful whether the war can be concluded in
much less than two years.
The Star thinks the Cabinet must now be of opinion
that it would have been better to send up to Theodore the
presents we bought for him in exchange for the sum of
3,000 t. lie presented to Mr. Ramon, as is the custom of
the country. That piece of obstinate unwisilom has landed
us in frightful expense, and placed the nation in • posi-
tion from which it can only by soave lucky accident escape
without disaster.

lIISCILLANEOCS TOPICS.
Thankful for small mercies, the Daily A ewe is inclined
to seek a momentary respite from the apprehensions of
wee which prevail in France, in observing that as yet
Chassepois are wanting for more than eighty or ninety
thousand men ; that the Emperor of the French is sixty
years of age, and well aware that his military genius is
fitter for the closet than the command in the field ; that
among all hie marshals there is not even a Marmont, much
lees a Moltke ; that the peace movement is advancing ;
and that, without coalition, or secret treaties of alliance,
all Europe will be found allied, by the forms of the common
interests, against the first disturber of the general pesos.
The Time places before its readers the broad issue in-
volved in the controversy which has been carried on in it.
columns between Lord Hobart, who defecds the attitude
of the American government in the case of the Alabama
claims, and " Historicus," who defends the position taken
by Lord Stanley, concluding by counselling the utmost
patience and forbearance on the part of our government,
but adding that at the same time it is not prepared to
conned submission where submission, instead of promoting
reconciliation, could only lower us in the eyes of the
American nation.
Assuredly, the Standard says, England will not lower
her tone in reference to any threats that may be uttered.
It thinks the Americans have little reason to be grateful
to an advocate like Lord Hobart, who states, as a reason
why we siarahl concede what they demand, that they are
capable at permitting privet* war to be levied within their
jurisdiction agmiest a nation with whom they remain at
peace, by mat wits have no other home, no other foothold.
*as they rd linen' American protection. Such a crime
levities! gweesdowt in the history of nations.
Diewatiag the welt of Mr. Train, the Telegraph enters
Into a seakaanet of what it believes to hi the undoubted
law of the ease. If, it says, an American in New York
aide end mists la way way to get up a private war for the
overthrow of the goverment of a foreign owastry,he coca-
mite en Mime balk agabot tie satuddipal law of that
country and the law at MOM

PATB3I7-011105 1101131711, SOUTH Kusnoffrox.—
Millibar of whiten for the week sedan Jim. 18, 3,012„
Total number time theAsaing of the Mumma free daily
(12th May, 1858),1M9