The Press. — London, England, 1858-04-10 00:00:00

TO CORRESPONDENTS. Whatever is Intended for insertion must be authenticated by the name and address of the writer, not necessarily for publics• 'don. but as a guarantee of his good faith. Advertisements sent from the country must be accompanied by a remittance or a reference for payment in town. Cljt.2) rtgg• LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL 10, 1858. POSTSCRIPT. FRANCE. PARTS, Thursday evening. The telegraph brought to Paris yesterday the Times' thunder about Suez and Perim, and a terrible commotion was caused in the coteries who patronize that wind-bag (or rather sandbag) the Pelusiac canal. Austria, through its organ at Frankfort, had already scouted the idea of making a European qu stion of a rock at the mouth of that cal de sac, known on maps as the Red Sea, hut unknown to all skippers save those of the Peninsular and Oriental Company. The Congress of Paris when it does meet will have abundance of other questions to settle more nearly affecting the quarter of the globe it sits in. Havin, editor of the Sleek, has had an interview with the Emperor, who entered upon a free dis cussion as to the limits of freedom he would tolerate in type. This journal is immeasurably the foremost in circulation now all over France, and to wield it is, to a certain extent, to be invested with a preponde rating influence on the public mind. Hence the deference paid to its manager, who would be infal libly returned in lieu of Cavaignac for the Paris re presentation, if he wished to stand. Havin, as well as Lamartine, are the targets against which the Univers shoots its most venomous shafts, but both are now shielded by the imperial aegis. ITALY. The Times correspondent from itom Turin has the fol lowing curious statement :—" One of the strongest reasons the Lombards have for keeping away from Court balls and receptions is, that, according to the usage of that country, any gentleman may ask a lady to dance without special introduction, and in that way the Austrians would become acquainted with them, and it would be difficult to keep them off and exclude them from families. lam not disposed altogether to deny the truth of assertions I have heard made, to the effect that an apprehension of rivalry in the good graces of the fair sex has some little to do with the repellent mien assumed ty the Lombards towards their Austrian fellow-subjects. Without attributing much polish or great powers of seduction to the common run of Austrian officers, among them are unquestionably to be fotind very many well bred and accomplished gentlemen, to whose merits, if social intercourse were permitted, the ladies of Lombardy might be less insensible than their lords." NAPLES. SALERNO, Thursday, April 8. A Royal decree, of this day's date, allows Park to return to England immediately. He is acquitted (mis hors de cause). RUSSIA. A report lately presented to the Emperor Alex ander contains the following statistical returns relst tire to landed property and serfs in Russia .—The number of families who are landowners amount to 127,000. Out of these 2,000 possess from 1,000 to 10,000 serfs ; 2.000 from 500 to 1,000 ; 18,000 from 100 to 500 ; 30,000 from 21 to 100 ; and 75,000 have less than 21. The total number of peasant serfs of the nobility amounts to 11,760,000, acd those of the Crown to 9,000,000. There are therefore 20,750,000 persons anxiously waiting for an improvement in their condition. THE CASE OF SIMON BERNARD. OPENING OF THE SPECIAL COMMISSION AT THE CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT. Lord Campbell attended yesterday at the Cen tral Criminal Court, for the purpose of opening the special commission which has been nominated to inquire into the charges preferred against Simon Bernard, who has been committed for trial by Mr. Jardine, the police magistrate at .131 w-street, as being an accomplice in the conspiracy of Orsini, Pierri, and others, to assassinate the Emperor of the French. In his address to the grand jury, after detailing the principal facts in the case against Bernard, which are now well known to the public, Lord Campbell proceeded as follows : Gentlemen,—Having heard and considered all the evidence which will be laid before you on the pert of the prosecution, you must form your own opinion as to its sufficiency to justify the primi•faoie inference of compli• city, or guilty knowledge of the plot, on the part of the accused. That he should really have believed (as be Wove) that the grenades were connected with a new die. ik. THE PRESS, APRIL 10, 1858. Icovery in the making of gas, I must say seems to me ex ceedingly improbable. But be might by possibility suppose that they were only to be used in some military enter prise ; although, looking to the small number of the grenades ( not exceeding five), and the whole history of them, with which Bernard was well acquainted, you may think that he had more reason to believe that they were instruments of assassination than munitions of war. But unless the evidence, unanswered, does in your judgment make out against Bernard a prima facie case of complicity in the plot against the life of the Emperor, I think that you ought to return the indictment which will be laid before you " not a true bill," and this will put an end to all further proceedings tinder the commission. But if the evidence does in your judgment make oat a prima-facie case of com plicity, I would advise you to find a " true bill," so that the trial may proceed. Such complicity may be sufficient to make the accused an accessary before the fact to the murders which, in the event, were committed ; although the deaths of the individuals who were killed were not in the contemplation of the accused when he became a party to the plot. It is laid down in our books, that " an accessary before the fact is he who, being absent at the time of the offence committed, doth yet procure, counsel, command, or abet another to commit a felony; and it seems that those who by hire, command, counsel, or conspiracy, and those who by showing an express liking, approbation, or assent to another's felonious design of committing a felony, abet and encourage him to commit it, but are so far absent when he actually commits it, that he could not be encouraged by the hopes of any immediate help or assistance from them, are accessories before the fact." As to the objection that Bernard could have had no intention that those who were killed by the explosion of the grenades should be pot to death, it may be observed that such a clues. tion can only arise when the principal does not act in strict conformity with the plans end instructions of the accesaarv. But here, if Bernard was privy to the plot, Orsini, Pierri, Gomez, and De Rudio, in throwing the grenades as they did, must be considered as having acted strictly in conformity with his plans and instruc tions, and he is answerable as sect ssary for the conse quences. It is even laid down that " where the principal goes beyond the terms of the solicitation, yet if, in the event, the felony committed was a probable consequence of what was ordered or advised, the person giving such orders or advice will he an accessary to that felony. As if A advice B to rob C, and in robbing him B kills him, either upon resistance ni•nle or to conceal the fact ; or if A solicit B to burn the house of C, and B does it accordingly, and the flames taking hold of the house of I), that likewise is burnt : in these cases A is accessary to B both in the murder of C and in the burning of the house of D. The grand jury then withdrew, and shortly before four o'clock returned into court, when the foreman announced that they had found true bills against Simon Bernard for the capital offence. The trial will probably commence on Monday morning. THE WRECK OF THE " AVA." ACCORDING to the latest advices from Trincomalee, dated the 23rd of February, specie to the value of 77,0001. had been saved out of the 250,0001. that was on board the wrecked mail-packet Ava. The specie consisted of 500 boxes, each box containing 5,000 rupees. The money in every box was therefore worth above 5001. sterling. After the wreck 200 boxes were piled up on the fore part of the ship, ready to be taken ashore in the boats; but the Ava broke in two unfortunately too near these boxes, and forty six of them fell into the gap made by the separation of the fore and aft parts of the steamer, and thusnearly 25,0000/. was immediately engulfed. As soon as the Ava struck, the Admiralty agent rushed into the mail-room to save the mails, but he found the room filled with water. A quantity of bag- gage and cargo had been washed on shore, and a party of Ceylon Rifles was guarding it. As soon as the fore part of the Ara should break up some por tions of the mails would, it was expected, be floated ashore. Some divers had arrived at the wreck, and as soon as the sea was smoother they would com mence operations. The weather overhead was favourable. The Admiralty agent of the Ava and the commander and some of his officers were at the scene of the wreck, watching the breaking up of the ship, in order to save as much as possible of what was on board of her. As considerable dispute has arisen as to the precise time when the Ava was wrecked, the following information has been furnished by a naval officer just arrived in England who was one of her passengers :—Just after four p.m. the eastern coast of Ceylon was sighted for the first time on the starboard bow. At half-past seven in the evening ar. apparently stationary light was observed, which was supposed to be the Trincomalee light. Exactly half an hour afterwards the helm was put a starboard, and Captain Kerton, the commander of the Ava, gave orders to keep off the land four points. As soon as the land was seen on the port bow, the helm was put hard a-starboard, and the engines were stopped. Before, however, she lost her way, after turning astern, she bilged on a reef that was on the starboard side, and in less than half an hour afterwards the ship was fall of water. Yesterday morning intelligence was reneived by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, that nearly the wholu of th e s p ec i e an d mails bad been recovered. --- ORSINI'S LETTER AND WILL. THE letter to the Emperor is in Italian ; the will is in French. They run as follows : TO HIS MAJESTY NAPOLEON 111. , EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH. Sire,—The fact of your Imperial Majesty baring per.. mitted the publication of my letter of the llth of February, while it is a clear proof of you: generosity, shows me that the wishes expressed in favour of my country find an echo in your heart, and to me, about to die, it is certainly no small comfort to see how your Imperial Majesty is moved by true Italian sentiments. In a few hours I shall be no more ; but, before drawing my last breath, I wish it to he known, and I declare it with that frankness and courage which up to this day I have never belied, that assassination, in whatever form it may disguise itself, does not enter into my principles, not. withstanding that, by a fatal mental error, I allowed my. self to be led into organizing the attempt of the 14th of January. No, political assassination was not a part of my system, and I have combated it, exposing ray very life, as Well by writings as by public facts, at the time when a mis sion of Government put me in a position to do so, And let my countrymen, instead of putting faith in the system of assassination, utterly reject it, and know by the voice of a dying patriot that their redemption must be won by abnegation, by a constant unity of efforts and sacri fices, and by the exercise of true virtue; gifts which already germ in the young and active part of my co nationals —the only gifts that will ever make Italy free, independent, and worthy of the glory with which our forefathers illustrated her. die, but, whilst doing so with calmness and dignity, I desire that my memory should not remain stained by any misdeed. As to the victims of the 14th January, I offer my blood as a sacrifice, and I pray the Italians that, when the day of their independence comes, they will give a worthy compen• cation to all those who then suffered injury. Finally, let your Imperial Majesty permit me to ask, not my own life, but that of the two accomplices who were condemned to death with me. With the most profound respect, &c., FELICE ORSINI. Prison de la Roquette, March 11, 1858. About to end my days, T write with my own hand the following dispositions, which I desire to be exactly executed, and that they should have the force of an act of my free anti independent will :- 1. I desire that M. Enrico Cernusohi, of Milan, Italy, residing at Paris, shall withdraws my money, which was taken from me at thn time of my arrest,+ and which is in the hands of M. le Procureur General of the Seine, less a sum equal to those expenses of the trial which are at my charge. 2 1 desire him to dispose of the money that remains, after deduction of the above-named charges, in the following manner : ( A). He will bay a gold watch and a gold chain to give as a souvenir to M. Jules Fevre, the lawyer who defended me, the whole to be of the value of at least 800 f. On the watch he will have the following words engraved, " Felice Orsini to M. Jules Favre, souvenir." ( B). I desire that my body shall be put into a box of common wood, and sent to London, England ; because I wilt be buried in the cemetery where are the remains of the Italian patriot, Ugo Foscolo, and laid by his side. M. Cernuschi will pay the necessary expenses out of the above-mentioned money, &c. (C). All these charges paid, I wish the money that remains to be sent to my uncle, Orso Orsini, or to my brother, Leonidas Orsini, who reside together at Imols, Roman States, Italy, and who are to dispose of it excln sively for the benefit of my two little girls, Ernestina and Ida Orsini, residing at Nice, Sardinian States, Italy. 3. I authorize J. D. P. Hodge, of Glastonbury, near Bath, Somersetahire, in England, to take charge of my eldest daughter, Ernestina Orsini', born at Nice Maritime, Sardinian States, Italy, on the 9th of April, 1852, and residing in the same town. 4. I authorize Mr. Peter Stuart, of Liverpool, England, to take charge of my second daughter, Ida Orsini, born at Nice Maritime the 12th of March, 1853, and residing with her elder sister in the same town. 5. 1 recommend with all my heart to my intimate friends J. D. P. Hodge, of Glastonbury, and Peter Stuart, of Liver pool, my two above-named little girls, in order that the education they shall receive may he quite conformable with the principles of honesty, of true virtue, of prudence, and of true love of their country. 0. 1 desire that all my property in clothes, books, Ice., now in the hands of M de Lasalle, Director of La Roquette, shall be sent to Miss MIES Cheney, of London, residing in London, England, No. 2, Grafton-street, Aland-mad, Kentish New-town (sic in Gazzella), No. 10, London. Miss Eliza Cherney (sic) will dispose of them according to her free an i independent will, as well as of my other property already left to her before my arrest and during my impriscnment. All that I have done for her is but a very humble and a very small souvenir for the extreme goodness and devotion she has under all circumstances shown to me. I recommend this honest and virtuous lady to my friends in England. 7. I will, in the last place, that M. Enrico Cernnschi, above named, should he the executor of the arrangements, herein announced, at Paris ; and that with regard to those which are to he executed in England, he should have the co-operation of M. Vincenzo Caldeai, of Faenza, Roman States, Italy, and residing in London. The whole w►itten with my own band. Fe LICE ORSINI._ • With the co-operation of M. de Lasalle, Director If De Roquette, if his (ovations permit it.—F smot Oasts]. + And aleo the other things that may WM.—Mica OWN:, mai