The Express. — 1855-05-08 (London, England)

NAPOLEON 111. passed unharmed, and safe even from insult, through dense crowds, with no other protection than our ba:oned police. In Paris not all the ramifications of a prying and inquisitorial secret police could prevent the attempt of the assassin. In England the EMPEROR was protected by the popular detestation of violence and cowardly, clandestine vengeance. The people of England have learned to conduct their popular movements by means of argument and votes, without recourse to arms. Even before they attained to this high grade of civilisation, they bad discovered the folly and criminality of assaseivation. With the exception of the Cato-street conspirators, we have had no political assassins in England, except • few maniacs; and the Cato-street conspiracy only excited abhorrecco and detestation. The rabid brawling of the vitriol declaimers of Dublin would have aroused indignation had it not been so utterly contemptible. It is to the moral sense of the people of England that we are indebted for our emancipation from deeds of political bloodshed, public or clandestine. So strong Is the influence of this moral sense that even those who in other lands give the rein to their murderous propensities, pay homage to it, and conform to the customs of the country. Hence it is that England is a neutral ground, on which the most inveterate political antagoni,ts meet on terms of truce. It is a sacred asylum, within which they lay aside for the time their ferocious internecine propensities. Such declaimers as the author of PIANORI'S acts craccusation would gladly see England deprived of its character as an asylum, in order that they might gratify their short-sighted animosities by laying hold on their foes ; whereas this " centre of the moot audacious agitators," by serving as a school of humanity, saves even themselves from many perils. All this railing will not induce Englishmen to forego the proud distinction of their country, that on its soil political antagonists, though they may not cease to hate, must at least suffer each other to live in peace and security. It is not by sanguinary laws, or by police spies, that the other countries of Europe can hope to • attain to our exemption from political violence ; but by teaching their populations that liberty, though • it may occasionally be defended, never can be perma, neatly established and maintained by arms. We have within the lapse of less than thirty years man, cipated our Roman Catholic brethren, reformed our electoral institutions, abolished a grievous monopoly , to which the oligarchy clung with insane greed, all by peaceful agitation ; and we are now commencing a still more arduous agitation than any of these with the most perfect confidence that it will be prosecuted to ■ triumphant conclusion without any breach of , the peace. When the other nations of Europe have learned to imitate us in this then will their kings and nobles be safe from the plots of assassins, and not till then.  We have ventured t suggest to the EMPEROR of the FRENCH that his payment of CANTILLON'S legacy may almost be regarded as an encouragement to the murderous attempt of Purim. Let us, in couclulion, call upon such as may sympathise with the perverted principles of that poor foul to read aright the lesson taught by his failure. Had his plot succeeded he would only have plunged France into anarchy. His failure has only strengthened the EMPEROR of the FRENCH in the possession of despotic power. Peaceful arguments, and a conciliatory deportment, might have encouraged the French people to assert their claims to a greater share in the Government, and induced a man possessed of so much sagacity as