The Express.
London, England, 1861-06-27 00:00:00

=OS WATIII AT &Mar 118,11114.

iim.77.7747f•V0ir ia. us.
Mi.

WiDON, TRUESDAY, JUNE 27.

TO OCR READERS.

smitTINO INTELLIGLNCL

A !Ate elletion the Ni 1."... pabliehed every
ee,zse; aerie.; ties racing ,ea.on, containing the
rt,ulta ul the (Lay's roam

TIIr sessmien M Agony. Lem to the throes
lately occupied by his brother appears to have
taken place without difficulty er emesolies. The
general rule of Moseinicuan soreMOSIOS bee been
observed in this case, and the eldest member of
the Imperial house has taken the crown. That
rule must now therefore be held to be the law of
the Turkish Empire, though whether it bu so in
fact is a point on which the highest authorities
=niece themselves induubt. Considering the manner
in which treaders of the sceptre have usually been
accomplished at Constantinople, it is something
to find that any rule has been peacefully followed.
Since S.anitAN, the last of the great Ottoman Ida -
prior% who had his noble son bowstruiig to pion
his fascinating female slave, the reigning SCLTANI
have been aseertiusied by a principle of " natural
" selection," such as Mr. DARWIN has described
in hie " ongiu of Species," the destruction of com-
petitor, or those who might become such. Of the
twenty successors of Sutinior who preceded the
late SULTAN, only nine reached the throne by a
regular succession. Illiento 11., father of the
late and present SULTAN, was indebted for his
emersion to the rebellious l'ache of Rciminee,
who, appearing suddenly at Constantinople with ea
army, deposed NI rwriken• IV., the reigning
Sutra% and put him to death. MAHNLD suc-
ceeded as the ouly adult descendant of (lrureir,
but found it necessary to deliver himself from
future danger by putting to death the
infant son of Mcierarni, and drowning the
pregnant slaves of the deposed SULTAN in the Bos-
phorus. Those things were dome when Turkey had
hope, and when it was still something to be &SULTAN.
Nobody is murdered now, less because the Porta
is more civilised than because the motive to inhu-
man violence fails. The cruelty of the ticurax
was often associated with a ravage energy, which
was at times put forth for the good of the country.
But the fatalist'. which once nerved the Ottomans
to great enterprises now teaches them to sit down
languidly amidst the surrounding portents of their
ruin. The cares of the SULTANA of our day do not
reach beyond the present hour. They do not ask how
they may strengthen their house and confirm their
dominion ; bet how they may find some specula-
tor of Paris or Gelato to supply them with ready
mammy with which to appease for the moment the
exorbitant cravings of the harem. And of late
the inquiry has been made in vain.

Two years ago it seemed se though the old
Ottoman spirit, quickened by a sense of its
degradation, was about to find an heroic
remedy. A conspiracy, of which military men
and ulemas (or clergy) were tho leaders, was
formed to sweep sway the millionaire pachas who
had grown rich by the ruin of their country, and
renew the vigorous administration of the old
powerful viziers. Its accidental discovery saved
the throne, possibly the life, of Aant-b MCWID,
and placed forty of the conspirators before the
tribunals. Your pachas were condemned to
death ; but public feeling was too warmly
excited in behalf of men who, it was be-
lieved, had been moved by a sincere desire
to save the Empire, and in a capital so
stained with blood as that of Turkey, the
highest of political crimes was visited with a light
punishment. The investigation of this conspi-
racy, and still more, the publication of the appeal
to the just judgment of Europa, which had been
prepared in anticipation of its success, exhibited
the Court and Government of the SULTAN in •
light that powerfully affected the estimation in
which Turkish aliens are now universally regarded
in Western Europe. It was seen that the art of
government at Constantinople had consisted in
trading on the Sovereign's weakness of mind and
incapacity for business ; an incapacity which his
Ministers had cultivated by supplying him reck-
lessly with the means of indulging his passions
or caprices. The oligarchy which surrounded the
Throne lamented to European statesmen that their
endeavours to advance the prosperity of Turkey
were frustrated by the want of capable men
to second them, and that Mum bles.
fanaticism paralysed their endeavours to better the
condition of the Christians. To the Moslems they
insinuated that the constant pressure of Europe
counteracted their efforts to improve the internal
state of the empire. Wade thus deceiving all
parties they wore overwhelming the country with
misfortunes. Marimi u had left it without in-
debtedness and without paper money. lie had
laboured to improve the government, to raise up
the army from its depression, and to promote
public instruction. But the men who surrounded
Ann! 1. Minute, while trebling the revenues of the
country, had involved it in a debt of more than
thirty millions sterling, and had left the soldiers
unpaid. Their own luxury stood out in strong
contrast with the public penury. Their places
were splendid and tilled with beautiful dares, and
one of thew dying just before, had left a fortune of
two millions sterling.

While these expeeuree ROTS fresh and new,
Western Europe was amused with inhalations
of the new and emnietie spirit in which
the Poste was about to enter on • career of
reform. It appears that for • time the SCLTAN
was really frightened. But the conspirators
were bouitshol, And with the disappearance of
present davicr the old course waa resumed, with