The Express.
London, England, 1868-03-12 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, THURSDAY

thanks of all dames of the coin It c
be well that clergymen who are a Inc
of speaking effectively in the shot
placed there to their own discomfort and
distress of their hearers a hundred times
year.

PARLIAMENTARY LIFE IN FRANCE.

ENCILISIDISN are inclined to mums that parlia-
mentary forms and usages all the world over should
conform to those of the " mother of Parliaments."
The pretension is a little arrogant, perhaps, yet
not without excuse. A visit to the Corps Ligis-
latif of France during a great debate cures our na-
tional conceit for ever. To pass from the Palace of
Westminster to the Palais Bourbon is more
startling than even the first surprise of hearing
little dirty boys talk fluent French at Calais.
There, in that august representation of the legis-
lative wisdom of the Second Empire, we find a
President who is emphatically and par excellence a
Speaker, for he is scarcely ever silent. Be is
incessantly interjecting a word of censure, or
caution, or rebuke, or grave admonition, or sar-
castic and sententious apothegm ; snapping np
an unconsidered epithet or • too poignant epigram
which bas escaped the lips of a liberal member,
arresting inconvenient allusions, or repressing
with the aid of a clamorous majority the wit and
logic of the Opposition. An intelligent foreigner
observing this restless zeal of the President of the
Chamber, asks himself whether it is • pedagogue
presiding over a pupil room, or a chairman of a
bubble company bullying a few recalcitrant
shareholders, or simply an agent who takes his
orders at the Tuileries and acknowledges no other
duty than to make things as pleasant as pi:alibis
for his master. Then there are the members on
both sides and in all parts of the Chamber inter-
rupting each other's speeches at every turn with
explosions of impatience and • running fire
of cross-questions and crooked answers. A
few days since there appeared in the Tri-
bune • fashionable member of the ma-
jority—an ultra imperialist and a cham-
pion of all reactionary and repressive measures—
who began to assail the Liberal Opposition with the
grossest abuse and the most violent gestures of
hatred and contempt. The Liberal Opposition sat
still and calmly but anxiously attentive to the
raging orator, neither rising to protest nor ap-
pealing to the PRESIDENT for protection. Nor
was it until this devoted Imperialist had fairly
exhausted his fury that he was persuaded
by his friends to come down from the Tribune.
The forbearance of the Opposition has since been
explained. They had received information that
their assailant had literally gone mad of reaction-
ary rams, and was to be conveyed from the
Chamber to a private lunatic asylum. What is
more surprising isthattheMiniater of State,to whom
he had paid a visit on the day before, dressed as a
Turk, should have allowed this lunatic imperialist
to remain at large, and to disgrace that devoted
party in the Chamber upon whose unanimity in all
emergencies rests the safety of the Second Empire,
and of that society which the Second Empire has
created after its own image.

Coattail% L.imp selh.examp o extripie me,
but w ea:3z t• *
active kW. Our tem . •r deflating
its wish to gill • • honouts, to'
our sißatit vetesils, b ••• • • 'Oat
old men should not be •-• . perform
duties which can only be • •• • by
their younger brethren proceeds :—" Sir .Williasal
" Bowles; wits heads the list of our active admirals,l
" is 88 tsars of age, Sir George R. Sartorius is
" 78, Sir Fairfax Moresby is 82, Sir Houstonl
" Stewart is 77, Sir Provo Wallis is 78, Sir W.
" J. H. Johnstone is 70, Sir W. F. Martin is 67,
"Sir H. I) Chads is 80, Sir H. J. Leeks 77, Sir
" C. H. Fremantle is 88, Sir M. Seymour is 66,
"H. Eden is 71, the Hon. Sir F. W. Grey is
" 63, Sir R. L. Baynes is 72, John A. Dtattse is
" 63, Charles B. D. Bethune is 66, Sir Charles
" Talbot is 67, Sir Thomas Pailey is 64, Lord E.
" Russell is 63, and H. J. Codrington is 60. Of
" the above it is no less strange than true that
" two of the youngest have never served at all
" since their promotion to flag rank ; not from
" any fault of theirs or disinclination on their
" part, but simply from a flaw in our Admiralty
administration."

If these figures are correct they are as damaging
to our Admiralty system as any of those brought
forward by Mr. SIKLY, and we may ask of what
use is our vast expenditure on guns and ships and
men, if in time of need Nature herself is to play
traitor in our camp, and to fight the battle of our
enemies t Madame DI STAIL insisted on the diffi-
culty of growing old gracefully, and our Admiralty
rules convert difficult into impossible.

Lxv-rsas from Washington and New York re-
ceived this morning mention as a fact which is
characteristic of American political life, that
the impeachment of President JOHNSON has had
the effect of lulling instead of increasing excite-
ment. "In spite of the bitterness," writes our
correspondent on the 29th ult., " which has
" marked the political contests of the last four
" years, and, in particular, the disputes
" between the PRESIDENT and the Con-
" grass, the minute the PRESIDENT was int-
" peached every body seemed to be suddenly
" sobered. There is, perhaps, no other country in
" the world in which such a termination to such a

" struggle would not have raised the popular
" excitement to a higher pitch than ever. Here
" it has actually had the effect of putting an end
"to all excitement. Those who were loudest and
" fiercest in their denunciation of the PALSIDENT
" in Congress a week ago are now not only cool
" but proud of being so, and are making a great
" parade of it. Everybody seems anxious to
tt

show the world how well the country can stand

" an impeachment even of its highest officer. The
" Democrats say that all they ask is a fair
" and impartial trial, and the Repnb-
" limns say that this there must be. " The
Republican success in the New Hampshire
elections, of which we receive intelligence by the
Atlantic Cable, is a promise of moral support
on the part of the country to the politicians who
have been most active iu the impeachment. Con-
siderable importance bad been attached to the
elections in this State, as it was known they
would turn upon the issue of the PILIMIDINT'S
trial. They were also taken to indicate the pro-
bable character of the congressional elections
which follow later in the year.

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.
(THIS DAY.)