The Press. — London, England, 1858-11-27 00:00:00

THE PRESS, NOVEMBER 27, 1858. 1148 substance. A certain individual of alleged Eng lish extraction, Iberian birth, and Romish education, emitting from his headpiece and lower extremities bright scarlet-coloured rays, was ob served moving in an abnormal path and with somewhat irregular speed over the green soil of the Emerald Isle, and attracting in his course crowds of wondering spectators who had never seen such a sight before, composed, mainly, of the ignorant peasantry of the sister kingdom, with a goodly sprinkling, everywhere, of Popish priests. Nobody could tell exactly what it all meant. Various guesses were made, some shrewd, others, probably, wide of the mark. Some thought that " llis Eminence," as the ecclesiastical luminary in question delights to be called, having found the atmosphere of England rather chilly of late for his Italian constitution, had determined to warm himself into something like comfort by the sparkling fire of Irish enthusiasm for "the auld Church" whose scarlet livery he wears. Others were of opinion that he had undertaken the tour, which was destined to be a nine days' wonder, at the invitation of the Romish hierarchy in Ireland, who in the altered circumstances of that country found its soil less congenial to the growth of Popery, and conceived that the sight of a Cardi nals hat, like a gleam of bright sunshine, or the coruscations of a comet's tail, might give a fillip to the flagging spiritual vegetation. Others, again, pooh-poohing the notion of any deeper design underlying the strange affair, looked upon it as a mere holiday freak, and asked with much point whether a Cardinal was the only man that was not to be allowed to take a trip to Ireland or anywhere else for his own recreation. Amidst all these conflicting opinions one point was toler ably clear,—as " Archbishop of 'Westminster," Dr. WrsEmaN had no business, because no eccle siastical jurisdiction, in Ireland, and if he kad any mission at all in going there, it must have been some secret mission with which he was charged as the Pope's Privy Councillor. This is phenomenon the first. Now for phe nomenon the second; the existence or non existence, probability or improbability, of a connection between the two, after the law of cause and effect, being the social problem which we propose for solution. No sooner had the Cardinal returned from his Irish tour, than he gathered a " fashionable " London audience, in the " spacious " Hanover-square-rooms—a locality whose very name is calculated by its " heretical " associations to dissipate all suspicion of insidious Popish designs—for the purpose of detailing to those who flocked to hear hint the "impressions" he had received during his recent progress through the stronghold of "Catholicism" in the United Kingdom—" impressions which," he observed, " if he were to live for the longest period that " was possible, would never be effaced." Scarcely, however, had the sound of his voice died away in the fashionable lecture-room at the west end of London, than the startling intelligence arrived from the west of Ireland that a general revival of Ribbon societies was taking place, and that the peasantry were being sworn in by hundreds as members of that secret and illegal organization. In illustration of the purpose of this movement, and as an earnest of what might be expected from it, the further and not less startling intelligence came to hand that a Protestant clergyman had been shot at, in broad daylight on a frequented road within sight and call of a cluster of dwellings, on his return from church in his own carriage, in the company of his wife and daughter, by a party of these assassins disguised in female attire, with their shawls pinned down flat on their :heads,—a variation of their usual costume which, it appears, the female population of the district had very generally adopted for the occasion. The object of the assassins was evidently to scatter the brains of the unfortunate victim of " Catholic " antipa thies ; as it was, they only succeeded in shattenng his jaw, or, as the operation is facetiously de scribed by one of the organs of Irish " Catho licism," "drawing his teeth with a pistol." The same mouthpiece of that "Catholic opinion " whose devout homage Dr. Wiszus.s has engaged to consecrate for everlasting in his memory, accounts for the commission of this crime by denouncing the Protestant clergyman as one a the improvers " who, by their endeavours to raise Ireland from the state of degradation to which she has sunk under the nurturing care of the Popish priesthood, "are converting all around hem into touchpaper and gunpowder." Accord ng to this authority, the only thing to be deplored is, not the attempted assassination of a peaceable citizen in broad daylight, under cir cumstances which implicate the great body of the population in the murderous intent, but the state of the law which provides " no legal remedy " against improvers for imperilling the public " peace by their greedy avarice—trampling upon " the feelings and maddening with unreasoning " wrath the passions of a peace-loving yet ex " citable population." And as regards the par ticular victim selected for the vengeance of this " peace-loving yet excitable population," the " Catholic " journalist who constitutes himself the apologist of murder, unhesitatingly affirms that "he has no right to be let off less severely " than he deserves from public opinion for his " criminally incendiary conduct—to which "—that is all—" attention is more particularly aroused by " this event." Is there—this is the important problem which " social science " is called upon to solve in regard to Ireland—is there, or can there be,:any connec tion between the revival of Ribbonism, with its firstfruits, the attempted assassination of the Rev. Mr. NIXON, and that highly interesting visit of the " Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster," the account of which sounded so charming in the ears of the "fashionable audience" in the Hanover square-rooms ? " What a notion, to be sure ! " we fancy we hear some of the easy dupes of Papal policy exclaim, "to imagine that a Cardinal " Archbishop, a Prince of the Holy Roman " Church, would descend so low as to conspire " with a band of Irish bogtrotters for the murder " of a Protestant clergyman in a remote corner "of the county of Donegal !" But softly ! who ever said that the Cardinal passed the night in an Irish cabin with the sham-females who danced round the car of Mr. NIXON, and one of whom fired what he believed, as he intended it, to be the fatal shot ? We have not—we are not aware that any one else has—suggested anything of' the kind. It does not, however. by any means follow that because Dr. WISEMAN has not, in a sense which would be held good at the Old Bailey, made himself an accessary before the fact to the murder, or projected murder, of this Protestant clergyman, there is no connection whatever between the reorganization of Ribbonism, of which that crime is the first tangible evidence, and the Cardinal's Irish tour. There may be a connection not less real because not personal and direct. Nor has the Cardinal any right to com plain of the question being mooted among other subjects of investigation, in the pursuit of " social science." If an individual of suspicious appear ance were to be seen traversing a county, with no ostensible object except his own diversion, and were seen distributing lucifer-matches among crowds of ill-conditioned boys following on his heels wherever he went, and, presently after, within a day or two of his disappearance, the stackyards were found blazing in every direction, who doubts that, although not a word might have been uttered by him as to the use to be made of his matches, nor a single private con ference held between him and the loons in his train, the detectives would, nevertheless, think it their duty to look pretty sharply after the strange visitor and his lucifer-matches ? A wink, a nod, a leer of the eye, while throwing about his matches, might have sufficed. The "boys " un derstand it; their intelligence is attested by the burning ricks. Now, what we would venture to suggest is, that, by parity of reasoning, looking at those two almost simultaneous events, Cardinal WISEMAN'S visit to Ireland, and the revival of Ribbonism, there is sufficient prima facie ground of suspicion to render it desirable to look after " His Emi nence," to inquire into his antecedents, into the general character which he bears, and into the nature and object of his somewhat eccentric movements. To do this, however, we must travel over a wider field than we have room for, at this moment ; and we must, therefore, for the present, adjourn the interesting investigation. On follow ing it up, as we intend to do, we think it more than probable that we may stumble upon mate rials which may assist our readers towards the solution of the problem proposed at the com mencement of our remarks, as to the existence or non-existence of a connection between the red legged " English " Cardinal and the barelegged Irish itibbonman. Sortiga Corrtsponbente. THE trial of Count de Montelemlbe'llurts'beTfohrtuesthdaeY;ri. bunal of Correctional Police took place yesterday, and and ended in his condemnation to six months' imp ' s. sonment and 3,1/Mfr. fine, and in that of the preusbpolisnh sible editor of the Correspondant, in which to one month's beyond lmn the text siva article appeared, and I,ooofr. tine. None of the news neither was any account whatsoever of the trial newspape rs s --soornent of the judgment, it being contrary to law in this country to report press prosecutions ; anybody in court allowed to take notes. Notwith standing this, the London daily newspapers will, I understand, publish a detailed account of the pro. (feedings ; but as these accounts will be merely written from memory, and by men who have a strong bias in favour of Count de Montalembert, they mast be read with considerable distrust. The t r i a l, certa i nly, has excited considerable interest in this contemporaries city; altogether untrue, as some of your have alleged, that it has produced anything like coin. motion. So far from this being the case, I verily believe if the Parisian population were polled, they would, by an overwhelming majority, express app ro • bation of the prosecution—first, because Count de Montalembert is believed to be a Jesuit, and the Jesuits are hated here ; next, because his article has wounded the national vanity of the people, by the exaggerated praise it gives to England, and it; exaggerated disparagement of France. M. Berryer defended the Count, and he not only displayed all his usual eloquence, but, as was to be expected from one who, in addition to being an eminent advocate, is leader of the Legitimist party, said some very bitter things of the Imperial Government. Nor was M. Dufame, who defended the responsible editor, lei.; bitter : and that is not to be wondered at, for he was a Minister under the Republic, and has cast in his political lot with the small knot of men who remain faithful to that, for France, absurd and impracticable system of government. But all the bitterness aid all the eloquence of the two learned gentlemen will, so far as the public are concerned, go for little, for nothing more will be known of their speeches than the vava and contradictory statements of the very few people who were present. The sentence of six months' im prisonment may appear severe ; but confinement for press offences in Paris, when the offenders ace gen• tlensen, is more nominal than real—the said offenders being allowed to undergo the imprisonment wherever most convenient, being allowed to go out of gaol whenever business calls, on condition of returning at night, and being, moreover, able on the pretext of illness, or even of simple indisposition, to obtain removal to a nazism' de sante, where they enjoy every liberty, except, perhaps, that of sleeping away from the establishment. Of course, when the personal restraint is so slight, it follows that the offenders when actually in gaol have everything in the sh ther ape of food and comforts they choose to procure , to g e with free access to books, writing materials, and newspapers, and the privilege of receiving as many visitors as they please. In fact, I have heard jour nalists say that imprisonment for press offences is rather a pleasant break in the ordinary monotony of existence, than a thing to be complained of. The state of the relations between France and Austria has for a long time been so notoriously un friendly as to cause uneasiness; and this uneasiness has been aggravated during the last few days by the receipt of news that events in Italy are evidently tend• ing towards another outbreak, and by the belief that an outbreak in that country cannot fail to lead to rupture between Austria and France—perhaps even bring them into collision. It has be en further in creased by the appearance of some rather violent articles against Austria iu the governmental news papers, and especially by one in the Presse, the organ t of Prince Napoleon, declaring in expr ess terms the " war with Austria " is desirable. So great, inde ed, has been the sensation occasioned, that a rathe r _ heavy fall has taken place on the B ourse. I thin k, however, from what I hear said in well-info rme d quarters, that the public fears are , i f not ahogether _ unfounded, grossly exaggerated. Th e situation the Papal States, of Naples, and of t he Austria n e 4 i3 o ll t f tzt provinces of Lombardo-Venetia, certainlye satisfactory ; but tho populations of those