29 NOVEMBER 1856, Page 2

The Paris Constitutionnel returns to the suhjeet of the affiance

and the English press ; this time to defend the French press against the charge of being under a censorship. The articles for the papers are not revised in the bureau of the Censure ; but the Paris correspondent of the Daily News has blurted out two in- stances which have been frequently discussed in conversation— two extreme proofs of the rigour with which the official classes coerce the journals to their will. An aspiring tragic actress is forced upon a theatre ; her dant is a failure ; but the journals are forbidden to criticize. A man is prosecuted for an infamous traffic ; but the report is suppressed, for he is a fashionable fencing-master. Some journals, however, would be quite free to attack the ally of France, or to propose an alliance against that ally. If the writers are not compelled to submit their manu- script to the officers of the Censure, they are compelled to court the sufferance of the authorities by the adroit sycophancy of their writing ; a much surer way to tame journalism than the process of the preliminary censorship.