The Express.
London, England, 1868-08-25 00:00:00

WARRIAGI LAW.

The Times comments upon the report of the Royal
Commission on the laws of marriage. The principles of
the scheme are that marriage is founded on mutual con-
sent; that it is the duty of the state to ascertain that the
consent has bean really interchanged; that the state is
not, indeed, to reject otherwise proper machinery tor as-
certaining the fact because thereby a religious sanction is
added to its own civil sanction of the marriage contract,
but that its concern is with the civil, and not with the re-
ligious sanction. Our contemporary urges that reforms
by which the marriage law is brought into closer confor-
mity with these principles ought to be acceptable in Eng-
land and Ireland whether or not they be ever extended to
Scotland.

THE BIUTIBH 1101

TABOUILIER.

The picture which Canon Girdlestone drew before the
British Association of the condition of the West of Eng-
land labourer, proves him, the Daily News thinks, to be
a brave man, if not a wise one. Our contemporary does
not hold the present generation of farmers or landlords
responsible for that condition. Employer and employed
have alike been trained in prejudice against that emigra-
tion without which there can be no satisfactory adjust-
ment of the laws of supply and demand, and it is a diffi-
cult matter to overcome that prejudice. It is in
an education which " will prepare the labourer for doing
the best kind of work, for seeking good wages wherever
they are to be found, and using them to make him bide.
pendent of charity," that we must look for a permanent
improvement in the social condition of the agricultural
servants.

the Court.

PENSION WAI.T.IB, LIICEB.NE, Auevsr 22.

The Queen, accompanied by Princess Louise,
and attended by the Marchioness of Ely, Sir William
Janney, and Major-General Sir Thomas Biddulph, has left
Lucerne for the F 1 aka, near the St. Gothard Paw, where
her Majesty will remain for two or three dap.
Despatches were received yesterday at the Colonial
Office from the Governors of the North American Pro-
vinces, Bermuda, Gibraltar, Malta, the Straits Settle-
ments, and lAbuan. Despatches were sent to the Governors
of the Set-temente on the West Coast of Africa, the Cape
of Good Rom Natal, and to the Governor-General of
Canada.

THE GOVERNOR-GINIRLIABIP OF LNDI.A.—The
appointment of Lord Kayo aa Governor-General of India
is now, we believe, a settled matter; and it is probable
that his lordship will go out even I, o early as October.—
Scotsman.

THE LATE thlt NICHOLAS CHERNERY.—The Rev.
John. Bills, in a letter written from Wyvenhoe Rectory,
Essex, August 22, respecting the late Rev. Sir Nicholas
Chinnery, who lost his life in the railway accident at
Abergele, says :—" Few men ever were so ready for so ter-
rifically sudden a translation as was this estimable baronet.
Only a fortnight ago he visited us here, and preached in my
pulpit a most masterly sermon, which none who heard Alvin
soon forget. It is doubly embalmed now in our memories as a
kind of farewell testimony of the truth which he loved, and
as a parting appeal to the men whom he so earnestly
sought to awaken into a fresh Christian energy. It re-
calls vividly the word' which Arnold, on the Sunday pre-
ceding his scarcely lea abrupt removal, addressed lo his
youthful charges at Rugby, when he demanded of each
whether he " had yet taken the great step in life—paasiag
out of the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of Christ.
Sir Nicholas spoke to us of his intended visit to Ireland
as the fulfilment of his duty as an Irish landlord, prefer-
ring to live for a time among the people to a more agree-
able sojourn abroad. Re was to leave London on the 19th,
and, unfortunately breaking the journey at Chester, he
entered the fatal train there on the 20th."

THE LAST HOl7lttl OP THADDEUS STEMTS.—
About ten days ago he became unable to leave hie apart-
ment, but eat up at short intervals during the past week
until Sunday morning, when there were evident signs of a
change for the worse, as he then became exceedingly
feeble, and showed a marked indisposition to engage in
any conversation, as he had previously done. From that
time all visits of strangers were prohibited. Yesterday
and Monday he scarcely spoke is any one, and lay most of
the time with his hands crossed and eves closed as if sal
the only signs he gave of consciousness being feeble mut-
terings and slight motions of the hands. In the after-
noon of yesterday, however, be revived for a time, and
conversed with considerable cheerfulness, and even with
animation, on a variety of ordinary topics ; and though
he continued to grow feebler during the rest of
the day, yet he retained conecimuness and the
power of speech up to within a few moments of
his dedh, his last words being to ask for a pleas of ioe.
Many persons called to see him during the evening, but
none were admitted until after about six o'clock, when
two coloured clergymen, named Read and Hall, who had
some months before explained a desire to pray with him,
were sent for at his request, and coming to his bedside In-
voked the Divine blaming on him. One of these coloured
men was at the death-bed of John Quincy Adams. Mr.
Stevens seemed somewhat affected at the prayers of these
ministers, and at the close thanked them with feeble voice
and a of the hand. About ten minutes before
his death Sister Loretta asked and obtained consent to
baptize him, and the solemn rite was administered in
silence, which was rendered more impressive by the still-
ness of the late hour of the night. At this time his
breathing was very mace obstructed, and he maimed to
suffer from a violent palpitation of the heart; but this
=off, and during Ave-minutes Delos, he breathed his
It lay motionless and quiet as it is a galas sloop.—
New York lYmiw, August 13.

FOREIGN NEWS.

(THIS DAY.)

AUSTRIA AND PRUSSIA.

It would appear by the following letter from
Vienna in the Augsburg Gazette, that the Austrians
arc not quite resigned to their exclusion from
Germany, and that they look forward to a time
when Austria will be placed at the head of a
Southern Band:

We have no desire to revive by force a connection which
has subsisted a thousand years. With our constitutional
liberty now becoming developed with more or less force
and vitality, our parliamentary life, the intellectual posi-
tion and activity of our German elements, under the
conduct of ministers of tried liberalism, we re-
main in contact with Germany, in spite of Bismarck and
of the national advanced party; we tranquilly await the
day when we shall be called spontaneously, when we shal
be offered equal rights with Prussia, and when there wil
be conferred on us with respect to Southern Germany, to
which division we are more closely allied by our inclina-
tions, with the full assent of her princes and her popula-
tions, the prerogative which Prussia exercises in the
northern half of the common country. "Patience paw
Science" is not the motto of the Norfolk family alone.
On the other hand, the Silesian Gazette is of
opinion that Austria has not been sufficiently
abased. It says:
In the course of a long struggle by arms, ideas have
become modified, new horizons appear. . . The American
contest furnishes an example still present in every one's
memory. . . Ours with Austria did not last last long
enough.. . An astonishing manoeuvre of cabinet policy--
unique in history—the gift of a kingdom (Lombardo-
Venetia) to a third power, a stranger to the conflict,
enabled diplomacy to conclude peace before the quarrel
bad been completely settled by arms. The peace of Prague
will endure and bear its fruit so long as it responds to
certain national necessities ; but everything introduced
into it by cabinet policy will inevitably perish.

THE PROJECTED ATTEMPT TO AMAMI.

NATE M. DEAL

The Hungarian journals give the following
details of the projected attempt on the life of
M. Desk :

The Hon statee that the municipal authority of Pesth
had received an anonymous letter announcing that the
deputy referred to would be shot within the month. The
Pesti Naplo declares that it had for some time past been
informed of the conspiracy, but had not thought right to
publish the facts. As, however, the affair is made public,
it rectified the account given by saying that the anony-
mous communication was sent to M. Demokos, deputy,
and contained the name of the intended assassin. The
reeidence of the person indicated having been searched,
papers were discovered which led to his arrest. The
Naplo adds that the whole affair is without importance,
as the accused is a student of heated imagination.