The Express.
London, England, 1868-05-25 00:00:00

THE DISTRIBUTION OF EFFECTS TAKEN

AT MAGDALA.

Secretary Sir Stafford Northcote has received
from Sir Robert Napier the following telegram,
dated Antalo, 13th May, 1868 :
"No booty found at Magdala. Some articles
which could not have been carried away, except
distributed throughout the whole force, were sold
by auction, and purchased by officers at high
prices, with a view to giving small sums to
the non-commissioned officers and privates of
the force at Magdala. Total amount will not
exceed 3,0001. 1 arrived at Antalo 12th instant,
with rear brigade. Shall keep with the rear, push-
ing on to Zoola all troops as quickly as possible.
Fifth Battery, 26th Brigade, Royal Artillery,
and Cameroman Regiment, are now embarking ;
118th Bombay Native Regiment have sailed.
Stores are being shipped fast. For a
fortnight there have been daily storms of rain, but
troops have not been detained. Weather now
better. Heavy rain had injured road through
Sooroo defile temporarily. Road again in good
order. Troops all well.

" SIR ROBERT NAPIER."

THE GERMAN CUSTOMS PARLIAMENT.
The King of Prussia closed the firstiellioll of tho
German Customs Parliament on Saturday last. In
the speech delivered by his Majesty on the occasion
he said :

I likewise hope that the session which I now close will
serve to strengthen the mutual confidence of the German
peolies and their governments, and t. destroy, or at least
to weaken, many prejudices which have been an
obstacle to the unanimous manifestation of love
of the common country, which is the common inheritance
of all members of the German family. You will carry
home, gentlemen, the conviction that, in the universality
of the German people, lives the fraternal sentiment of a
solidarity which is independent of the form that gives
it expression and which will surely increase in
strength and progress continually, if, on all
points, we endeavour to bring out that which
unites and keep in the background that which separates
us. Called by the unanimous and repeated wishes of the
legitimate legislative powers of our German country
to occupy this exalted position I regard it as
a duty of honour to declare before the chosen
representatives of the German people that I
I shall exercise and enforce the rights which have been
conferred upon me as a sacred trust confided to me by the
German people and sovereigns by conscientiously respect-
ing the treaties and the historical titles on which the
community of the country is based. It is not the power
which God has placed in my bands, hut the rights
resulting from treaties freely consented to by my allies
and the oonstitutional representations of their subjects
that from this day forth shall be the guide of my policy in
the future. It is by desiring the solution of our common
task, and with firm confidence in the Divine assistance,
that I look forward to the next meeting of the Customs
Parliament as soon as new labours *hall require its new
action.

At a banquet given in the large hall of the
Exchange by the representatives of the commerce
and trade of Berlin to the members of the Customs
Parliament, Count Bismarck said :
Gentlemen, permit me to give free expression to the
sentiment which induces us, North Germans, to give a
friendly adieu to our brethren of the South. The
short time that we have been together passed
rapidly, like • day in spring. May it produce in
the future the fruitful effects of spring. (Applause.) I
believe, gentlemen, that after having l►boured in common
for the interests of Germany, you will be able to carry
home the conviction that you will find here, is all situa-
tions of life, the hearts and hands of brothers. (Applause.)
Let us maintain these relations and cherish this family
life. With this feeling I bid our brethren of the South •
cordial adieu. (Groat applause.)

OUR PARIS LETTER.

(TROY OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)
PARIS. SUNDAY Ermmo.
_

The cardinals and clericals were badly beaten in
the Senate yesterday. It is probably but too true
that the church has lately received such encourage-
ment at court as to stimulate it to make a great
struggle for predominance. It is true, also, that
the majority of the Senate sympathises with cle-
rical principles, as being far more favourable to
the prolongation of the part which it now plays in
the state than parliamentary government would
be. But when the government says distinctly, as
M. Charles Robert, and his superior, M. Duruy,
have done, that it expects a certain vote, the
conservative Senate has no pluck to say
nay. The petition professing to ask for
" free superior instruction " in principle waa
rejected by 84 votes to 31, and another vote
declaring the allegations of the petition to be in-
correct in point of fact, rallied 80 votes against
31.

Lord Lyons gave a grand dinner yesterday at
the Embassy in honour of the Queen's birthday.
Covers were laid for forty. Among the guests (all
English) were the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Seaton,
Lord Abercrombie (in the uniform of a deputy lieu-
tenant), the Hon. Mr. Herbert, Hon. Denis Bing-
ham, Consul Falconer Atlee and theattacbeaof the
'Embassy, all in court dresses, Captains Hore and
Lynch, in the uniform of the royal navy, the Rev.
Mr. Cox, chaplain to the embassy, the Rev. MM.
Forbes, Gurney, Sargent, and Marriott, Sir Joseph
011iffe, Dr. Chepmell, Mr. William Galignani, and
Mr. Whitehurst, wearing the riband and cross of
the Legion of Honour. The band of the 64th Line
Regiment, sent to Lord Lyons by the Minister of
of War, played in the garden during dinner and
struck up "God save the Queen," when her
Majesty's health was drunk. A feature in the
ambassador's dinner, excellent from first to last,
was some real English turtle, the taste of which
old British residents here have almost forgotten.
Marshal M'Mahon, in a letter to the Petrie,
denies that he ever threatened or intended to
break up the orphan asylums founded by the Arch-
bishop of Algiers. He only said in the course of
private conversation that if the parents or the
" families " of the children receiving relief from the
archbishop should come forward to claim them, he
thought they could not be withheld. In case of a
conflict as to their custody, it would not be for
him, but for the law courts to decide. The
marshal's letter makes it difficult to understand
what can be the real point at issue which has
caused a serious quarrel between him and the arch-
bishop.

Those who saw the widow in chief of Theodore
on the day of the stormiog of Idagdala, when her face
wee exposed, ray that she must in her day have been •
very great beauty, "cruelly thrown away upon Abyssinia;
of the thoroughbred type, the features delicate and well-cut,
I the bands and feet small and exquisitely shaped. The
British soldier did not, of course, understand that the
removal of her veil (the profoundest proof of sub-
mission and humiliation that an Abyssinian Wye= give)
was anything out of the way, and his efforts to console her
by slapping her on the back and informing her that nobody
should burs her were scything but rewiring. Happily
Dr. Blanc came up in time to rescue her, and she was •
month ago sae somewhere in our camp, o'( ssly muffled up
and screened from profane