Cleanings.

Colonist, Issue 75, 9 July 1858, Page 4

Cleanings.

THE FRENCH ARMY.

The Daily News asks:—" But how comes it that the army is so powerful in France ? As it is indispensable in France to keep up a large military establishment, and to spend the greater part of the revenue of the country and the patronage of the Crown in military appointments and commands, the first duty of a French ruler, one should think, and the great necessity of the government, should be to counteract the naturally enormous influence of the army by constituting the civilian body strongly and independently. This the successive governments of Louis XVIII., Charles X., and Louis Philippe fully accomplished. The representative government which they introduced and sanctioned had at least the great merit and result of making the sword yield to the toga, of paying respect to greatness, forensic and parliamentary, and of lifting the car of state, as the French are fond of calling their political system, out of the military rut. . Since the elevation of the Emperor, however, the whole civilian class has suffered an eclipse. It has not brought forth one eminent person. Nor, indeed, is there a possibility of civilian eminence, since the Bar, the Press, the University, the Parliament, even the Ministerial Office and Diplomacy, are one and all in a state of studied discouragement. The Emperor is everything. Civilian France is nothing. If we turn our telescope upon the public stage of that country, we see nothing but the feathered hats and starred breasts of general officers, with a fierce mob scowling on all around. But even an empire cannot dispense altogether with civilian eminence. In no case or contingency was it more needed than in the formation of a Council of Regency. Yet we see one named, in which' can be found neither birth, wealth, talent, dignity, nor independence. These men are all cyphers, of value as long as. a unit, likt Napoleon 111., sfanda before them; but of themselves, and with the task of governing France, they are absurdly and unfortunately unequal to their position. " The professional portion of the French army, like the professional portion of almost every army but our own, desirS war, no matter with whom or on what grounds. But a large portion of the French army is not professional, and only anxious to lay down its arms, its term of service expired, and return to labor, marry, and make provision for old age. A ruler of France will have the professional soldier with him, whatever be his policy or his quarrel. But to engage in war for a mean cause —to strike at England, for example, because she refuses to drive innocent exijes from her chores, when culcaple men are guilty of crime—this is a cause for disturbing the peace of Europe which neither the French public nor the French civilians would sanction. All these are at the present moment reasoning beings. They were not so in 1800. The effort now to fetter and to blind them may be as strenuous, but it is not so effectual or complete. Nor has the extinction of Parliament and the Press destroyed those habits of political sentiment, criticism, and discussion that three-and-thirty years of a constitutional government had engendered. The civilian and industrial element in France is twenty-fold what it was at the commencement of the century; and no military tyranny can for any long time abuse and oppress it."

A Tale of Romance from Cheltenlwum.— Much excitement, says the Cheltenham Examiner, has been occasioned during the past week in consequence of a love adventure between a certain young lady, aged seventeen, daughter of Colonel P~— —, and a certain middle-aged gentleman, of forty-six summers, son of Colonel M- , the stratagem employed on the part of " sweet young seventeen" to defeat the hard resolves of a stem parent, being of a romantic turn. The gentleman and lady have, it is stated entered largely into the gaieties of the past season in Cheltenham. Miss P , has resided with the members of her family during the past five or six months in view of the Old Clarence Hotel, and the father having some scruples as to his daughter, whose marriage he had already once frustrated when on the point of consummation, he placed her under parental restraint, incarcerating her in her own bedroom, and rigidly excluding all communication with the outer world. Thus " cabined, cribbed, and confined," desperate means must be resorted to. She applies a light to the curtain of her apartment, filling the room with sheets of flame. And now she cries for help; her prison bars are unclosed; Pater Familias, in his anxiety to save his childi rushes to the window; a smash of glass-is heard; he cries for "water!" the small boys in the street take up the shout, and "fire!" is echoed along the street. Fortunately the engines were not required, and the alarm of the moment being somewhat subdued, the cage is searched, the door found open, but its pretty occupant fled. Taking advantage of this " wilful disaster," the young lady, we hear, soon left her father's roof, in a distant street adopted the disguise of more humble apparel than her own, and in a short time, in company with him for whom she had risked the venture, was on her way to the neighboring city of Bath, having, successfully eluded the search which was instituted immediately after her escape. The marriage took place early next morning at Walcot Church, where the bans had been previously read. The bridegroom, who is a member of the legal profession, has considerable property in Australia. The Latest Continental Difficulty. —On the continent "the great question of the day," before which all others pale, is this: —'Will highly respectable Mrs. Brown condescend to receive a visit from that upstart Mrs. Jones ? or in other words is it possible to bring about a meeting between the Empress of Russia and the Empress of the French ? "You are aware," writes a Paris correspondent," that the absolute refusal

of the Czarina to meet the empress Eugenic at Stutgardt, and her arrival the instant she knew the latter could not be brought into contact with her, as rankled in the hearts of Louis Napoleon and those nearest to him ever since the month of September; and now, one of the greatest desires of the Cabinet of the Tuileries is to obtain the consent of the consort of Alexander 11. to meet the Empress of the French at some period during the ensuing summer. Immense efforts are being made with a view to this by the Court of France; but there are very different versions as to how it is all received in St. Petersburgh. Some say that the meeting will be compassed; others affirm that never was the Russian goodwill towards Imperialism so weak as at this moment; and it is hinted that, since Lord Derby's advent to office and the return of Baron Brunnow to London, the attitude of Russia is by no means what it had used to be even for the last two years, but that its leanings are quite the reverse of French." London.— During parts of the day Oxford street and the Strand are all save absolutely choked with human beings; and the thoroughfares remain the same while the tide of life is swelling every hour. London contains 250 more souls than it did yesterday. To-morrow it will contain 250 more than it does to-day. A town as large Brighton is added to London every year, a city as vast as Manchester every four years. And much of this addition, by the very law of social existence, tends incessantly towards the central thoroughfares. How, in a few years, will the tide flow through the contracted space ? The rule of persons walking the same way keeping to one side —Indian file—would do something. At Dresden, the police compel all persons to walk on one sido of the bridge, so that the stream of passengers flows in two currents, as trains move on the up line and the down line. Some rule of this kind, if adopted in our streets, would assuredly prevent much jostling, ill-humour, and loss of time. Liversedge church, near Leeds, was the scene, on Sunday, the.2Bth of March, of a melancholy event —the death of the clergyman during service. In the absence of the incumbent of the church in the afternoon, the Rev. W. Hughes, a retired clergyman, residing in the locality, officiated. He was reading the usual prayers, and was observed to pause and turn pale; recovering himself, he proceeded for a sentence or so, and then fell heavily backward in the pulpit. He was immediately removed to the vestry, and medical assistance was obtained; but the rev. gentleman's pulse had ceased to beat. The cause of death is thought to be apoplexy. The New London Daily Newspaper. — From the issue of the National Newspaper League Company's Periodical Record of progress, the "Dial Register,' it appears that the directors have at length deemed it practicable to fix a probable period for the completion of their leviathan Proprietary of 20,000 shareholders, and for the starting of their Journal. From ample data before them, they feel justified in concluding that it simply requires a force of agitation fivefold that now in operation (which has already yielded 4000 shareholders, who have taken stock to the amount of £100,000) to fill up their muster-roll within twelve months from this time, and this augmented pressure they have, no less wisely than boldly, resolved to bring to beer at once. By the spring of next year, therefore, we may expect to learn the true time of day by consulting the Dial, better than by trusting to the rusty old clock which figures as the device of the Times. This announcement cannot fail to inspire with fresh zeal all the friends of the new enterprise, and to stimulate them to be up and doing to help it to a triumphant issue. Colonel Cialdi, an officer in the Pope's service, has been sent to London to receive a couple of small steam vessels which have been constructed by order of the Pontifical government, and which are intended for the navigation of the Tibor between Ostia and Rome. The Gazette announces that the Queen has nominated Dr. Cotton to the bishopric of Calcutta. The Court Circular states that Mr. Charles Dickens has declined to bring out serials in future. The applications for leave to marry have so much increased in the French army, that the Government has found it necessary to place fresh restrictions upon the indulgence. The Dailg News Paris correspondent states that the budget, instead of showing a surplus of 40,000,000 francs, as reported to the legislative body, will show a deficit of 100,000,000 francs. On Saturday, March 27, James Mellon lately a solicitor at Ashton-under-Lyne, was tried upon one of several charges of forgery, and convicted. Mr. Baron Martin sentenced the culprit to penal servitude for life. A hon mot of Thiers is going the round of the -Parisian salons. " Orsini's infernal bombs have missed the Emperor, but have killed the Empire," said he in reply to the congratulatory remark upon the safety of Louis Napoleon. ■ The Morning Star announces that the committee of the Athenaeum Club have elected Mr. Cobden a member of that institution. The distinction has been awarded to that gentleman in consideration of his eminent services on behalf of free trade. It is stated in an Athens journal that a manuscript copy on parchment of the Gospels in Greek, and bearing the date 480, has recently been found in the garret of a house in that city. It is said to be in good preservation, and has been deposited in the public library of Athens. It is stated that on the appointment of Sir Frederick Currie, Barf., to succeed to the chairmanship of the East India Company, at the expiration of the usual term of office of Ross Donnelly Mangles, Esq., M.P., on the 14th of April, Captain Eastwick will be nominated to the deputy chairmanship.

The follovviTjg advertisment appeared in the Morning Star lately:—" J. W. A., who advertised for a wife in the &tar of the 13th inst., begs to inform his lady friends that 109 applications for his hand and his heart have awakened him to a full sense of his own value, and that he has determined to remain a prize still to be won."