Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-08-20 00:00:00

matter of curiosity, or of convenience,

THE DAY'S NEWS.

Of Continental news there is nothing very
important to-day. The French journals contain
accounts of the reception of the Emperor and his
Empress at Tarbes. It is said that the Empress
Eugenie is enciente.

The friends of Italian freedom are said to be
uneasy at the presence of the son of the deposed
Grand Duke of Tuscany in Paris, and on the
other hand it is reported that the Emperor of
Austria is getting very impatient at the delay
in the ducal restorations.

Affairs will not be mended by the projected
fortifications at Antwerp, which are exciting
increased attention. At Paris it is expected that,
as soon as the Bill now before the Belgian
Chambers has passed, a decree will appear in the
Moniteur for the formation of an Army of the
North, to consist of 60,000 men, with head-
quarters at Lille. It is said that orders have been
sent to Marshal 'Valliant, who commands the
French still in Italy, not to allow the troops to
receive ovations from the Italians, but to maintain
a reserved attitude.

The Parma Gazette announces that the govern-
ment of the Duchy has given orders for the pur-
chase :of 4,000 muskets, and invited the officers
and men of the Corps Riflemen of the Alps, who
have been disbanded, to take service under Parma.
There are some slight tokens of better govern-
ment in the Papal States. A correspondent writ-
ing from Rome, in announcing the retirement of
Cardinal Antonelli, says that concessions of a
more important nature are expected to be
promulgated immediately. The Government
printing-offices in the Quirinal Palace are hard
at work in the preparation of the long-desired
motu proprio, which is to announce to Rome and
Italy the conditions upon which the Supreme
Pontiff has consented to join the Confederation.
The printers have been obliged to take an oath
of secrecy, and every precaution is observed to
prevent any revelation of the text of this docu-
ment before the day of its publication ; but ru-
mours are of course afloat; and amongst other heads
the most accredited are those of a general, but
not quite unlimited, amnesty—administrative and
financial reforms —an army of 25,000 men,
15,000 of whom in active service, and 10,000 in
reserve, for federal duty. The provinces to be
divided into five legations, having their seats of
government at Bologna, Forli, or Pesaro, Mace-
rata, Perugia, and Velletri, each to be presided
over by a cardinal with lay delegates. Nothing
very much more extended than this can be hoped
for from the Papal Government, unless under
greater pressure than the Emperor Napoleon
appears inclined to apply just now, and therefore
it is very probable that the above conjectures are
not far from the truth.

The last bulletin states that the King of Prus-
sia is gradually becoming exhausted.
There is a general impression at Constantinople
that, as soon as the Emperor Napoleon has dis-
posed of the Italian question, there will be some
striking manifestations of French policy in Tur-
key.

By telegraph from Aden, we have Calcutta ad-
vices of July 16. The King of Oude had been
released. About 5,000 of the European forces in
Bengal had received their dischage. There had
been an act introduced into the Council imposing
new duties on stamp receipts and bank notes.
Yesterday, the trial of Dr. Smethurst came to
a conclusion. The Lord Chief Baron finished
summing up at one o'clock, and the jury con-
sidered for three hours, returning a verdict of
"Guilty." He was then sentenced to death.

The half-yearly meeting of the London and
North-western Railway Company was held in
London, yesterday. The report was adopted,
after the chairman giving a variety of explana-
tions ; and a dividend was declared at the rate of
41 per cent. The meeting was then made
special, and the agreement respecting the Bir-
kenhead Railway approved of.
Mr. Hall, the aeronaut, who fell from a balloon
a few days ago, died yesterday, at Newcastle,
from the injuries he receiTecl.

LOUIS NAPOLEON comes home from Italy, and
has his Paris fetes

Mr. COBDEN comes home

would be ruin.

--....-

ISH Statesmen have reason to congratu-
late themselves that they have nothing to do

with the settlement of Villafranea, either in its

preliminaries or its consequents. Ever since the
abrupt suspension of hostilities, it has been a
pUzzle to the most acute, to define the exact state

of Italy and her provinces, and of the existing

NAPOLEON and FRANcis
JOSEPH. Everything looks like peace,—the
Emperor of Austria has returned to Vienna, and
is iniating reforms in the army and in the State ;
the spirit of revolution which the war was
exciting in his dominions, has silently subsided;
and KOSSUTH, instead of being invited as an
ally, has only been mocked and deluded, or else
drawn into his enemy's net, and left there. As

relations between

for Louis NAPOLEON, he has already hung up
his arms in the temple, and pleaded with the

god the claims of his valour. France rejoices
and makes merry at the return of her AUGUSTUS
just absent long enough to make her feel how
much she owes him. All is flattery and gratu-
lation in the halls of the Tuileries—all is
laudation and tossing up of caps in the streets of
the city. The mother, whose darling was left
behind on the plains of Italy, catches a smile
from the Emperor, and is proud ; the wife, who
has lost her husband and the means of living,
is dotted down for a paltry pension, and her
miseries are supportable ; the soldier, who
parades in the pageant his mutilated limb,
settles himself for a comfortable old age

of meditation on Italian glory and the gene-
rosity of the Emperor. Even the pri-
sons are to give forth their lean and wasted

denizens, who had become acclimated to misery,

that they may swell the chaunt of gratitude.
Even in the remotest haunts of exile where the
proscribed crept and cowered beneath the eye of
Imperial hate and vengeance, which seemed as

though it penetrated even to these far recesses,

is heard a sound as if of angels in the air pro-
claiming a new era of peace and goodwill to
Frenchmen. The generals of the army are only
warned lest the rust of peace should dim the
memory of what they had done, and what they
are still able to do. All speaks of a campaign
accomplished,—an object attain ed,—a victorfwon.
It is peace evidently. Bring forth the crown.
I pete, unguentuin, puer, et coronas. Let the
conqueror's laurelled head rest upon a quiet
pillow.

Yet, how stands the case ? True, the pleni-
potentiaries at Zurich are carousing at the ban-
quet, and crown the glass to the toast of LOUIS
NAPOLEON. True, the 15th of August—the
limit of the truce—is passed, and the pen is out,
not the sword. The company of princes, their
envoys and ambassadors, are still the happy
family, who wonder how they could ever quarrel
Yet it is not peace which is signed, but the
armistice which is prolonged ! As we are told
NAPOLEON'S genius distinguished itself by a

deviation from precedent on the battle-field, so
we suppose it will similarly startle the world in
the once crooked paths of diplomacy. Accord-
ing to all analogy, hostilities are only sus-
pended, yet France has shut her temple of Janus,
and drags the captured standards of Austria in
the dust after her triumphal car. When the Ar-
mistice expires, should the conditions they are still
wrangling about have afforded no agreement, a
renewal of the war needs no preliminary, nor the
further courtesy of an ultimatum. Yet the army
is disbanded, and diplomatic notes are going all
over Europe, informing the credulous that the
armaments of France are again on their well
known peace-footing.

These are contradictions which it is impossible
to reconcile. A plain man would suppose, that
the difficulties and perplexities now raging in the
council-chambers at Zurich, offered an easy pros-
pect of decision only to a potentate ready in case
of necessity with the arbitraments of the sword.
If the cause of " Nationalities " was ever the real
motive which made Louis NAPOLEON arm, never
was there more need to be armed than now. If
the last, six months' despotism has been enacting
a solecism merely, and not a flagitious pretence,
and the cry of Italy has really penetrated the
ear of philanthropic tyranny, then is that cry
louder than ever, and stronger as the last
chance is dying out

The future perma-
nence and oppressiveness of Austrian rulo
in Italy, the

formation of a strong

basis which shall give a
new vantage-ground to her sway, depends on the
present course of diplomacy, and the events of a
month or two. Yet the " Liberator of Italy,'
and the man who is trying to make the best bar-
gain out of her patriot hopes and her abject
helplessness, are very good friends ; with so
much confidence in each other's sympathy and
intentions, that they can afford to coquette over
their differences, and bow away each others

and durable

scruples. Since the Bth we are told, the Con-
ference has done nothing. But the obstacle to
work has been only a foolish sentiment of
etiquette on the part of Austria, with regard to
the cession of Lombardy ! Verily the scruples of
Princes must be refined and impalpable some--
things, belonging to a region far beyond the
analogies of the affairs of common mortals, thus
to suspend the hopes of a whole people, and even
the attention of all Europe day after day, till
questions of precedence and punctilio are arranged.
But, it is only on ordinary grounds of reason-
ing and anticipation that all this is inexplicable.
The true explanation will probably be found by
the venturesome politician, who follows up Louis
NAPOLEON into the dark designs which inau-
gurated the present crisis, carried it on as far as'