The Express. — 1863-07-18 (London, England)

EMPEROR. At length, after the elections, the consc;ence of the Imperial Government woke up, and one fine morning Murrain', the chief of the Botritsox brigand army, was arrested at Rome and lodged in prison by the French police, and with him several of his aides and associates. So active has the French police at Rome become of late in hunting out and seizing the villains it has harboured for two years past, that the headquarters of brigandage are utterly routed and broken up, their funds exhausted by mutual thieving, and their occupation gone ; even Fitzricis 11. himself and all his court are on the point of throwing up the game, and decamping to Bavaria or Bohemia. The tardy but decisive action of the French authorities has almost persuaded the Italians to believe once more that their great ally was a misunderstood man and more honest than he seemed. Renewed confidence in the good intentions of the EMPEROR has taken the form of excessive zeal in one instance, and resulted in the untoward occurrence at Genoa. It appears that five of the most notorious and bloodthirsty of the brigands upon whom the French police had lately laid hands, were shipped for Spain in one of the steamers of the French Messageries Imperiales, and furnished with Pontifical and French passports. No sooner had the Audis come to an anchor in the port of Genoa than news flew through the city that these five criminals were on board. Presently the Governor of the town proceeded to the French Consulate to demand an authorization to seize them. But before matters could be arranged with tle Consul, the steamer was observed to be preparing to proceed to sea again. She was instantly surrounded and boarded, and the five brigands arrested and conveyed on shore be, fore the proceedings at the Consulate were completed. The Consul very properly acceded to the request of the Governor ; but the actual arrest had taken place without waiting for his autho.  rization or the Governor's. There way therefore, a superficial informality in the manner and 'moment of the act of seizure, but an informality susceptible of the simplest and most satisfactory explanation, and absolved in substance if not in form by the authorisation of the French Consul, which arrived too late. The people at Genoa and throughout Italy were naturally delighted at the arrest of five men who were not, except in a BOURBON sense, political offenders, but common thieves and murderers of the blackest dye. Probably there was also a feeling of satisfaction at this unusual evidence of goodwill on the part of the French Government, and of independence on the part of the Turin Government. Probably the Genoese were pleased at the resolute act of their own prefect. And will it be believed that in France this arrest of five cutthroats in an Italian harbour, is regarded as an insult to the French flag ; as almost another " Trent affair ;" and that even French liberal journals are so blinded by that false national vanity and that false point of honour which are the curse of their country, as to insist on reparation for the offence ? Such is the latest but not the last incident of the Roman question, as between France and Italy.  Or Court.