The Press. — London, England, 1856-09-27 00:00:00

916 lortign Ql;orrEsponbtutt. BRUSSELS, September 24. IN these days, when republicanism, on the one hand, would destroy every vestige of monarchical institu tions, and despotic Romanism, on the other, would bind again kings and people in abject submission to Pontifical authority, it is gratifying to witness a royal prince, well instructed in the nature of go v2rnment and the duties imposed upon its chief, take an active part ix the examination of the evils that afflict society and of the remedies proposed for their alleviation. Animated by that pure goodwill which renders duty pleasing, the Duke de Brabant presided at one of the meetings of the international " Congres de Bienfaisance." A chair of state had been provided befitting his royal position ; this he had the good taste to decline, and placed himself in the usual presidential seat. Much good is mutually learnt by the constitutional governor and the con stitutionally governed at these more familiar and public assemblies, where truth is employed of neces sity as an exponent of evil and a means to test the worth of remedial measures. Three speeches attracted particular attention—those of M. Cher buliez, of Geneva; M. Damota, Consul-General of the Brazils at Brussels ; and Mr. Ewart. M. Cherbuliez openly professed to have no sym pathy with the general objects of the meeting, and could only consider " pauperism " as a clime, and charity as the chief cause of that crime. Low wages, and a want of prudence, and idleness, were, accord ing to the Swiss deputy, the sources of poverty, and the pauper labourer who received public aims was protected by the State in his career of misdoing. Before the Protestant Reformation there was no " pauperism " in Switzerland, on account of the pe culler organisation of religious societies, that em p'oyed mendicants as a part of the system, and by thus converting them into conventual servants rescued them from a state of misery and want. When the Reformation deprived the Catholic Church of its property, these mendicants were thrown for support upon the State, as occurred in England, which was e tten up (ronge) by its poor from a similar reason. Foundling hospitals and an increase of bastardy were the immediate consequences. The Protestant canton of Berne, opulent and fertile, is weighed down by its excess of pauperism, which is augmenting at the rate of eleven per cent. upon the population ; whereas the Roman Catholic canton of the Jura re fuses all aid from the Confederation, and is without paupers. " Gardez, disentils, votre argent et vos lois, et laissez nous nos pieux usages." It therefore results that all charitable institutions foment the evil that they profess to avert—M. Pascal Duprat, in a few trite and forcible remarks, replied to M. Cherbuliez, and distinguished between voluntary and involuntary poverty, showing that often, by imperfect legislation, a state of voluntary poverty was govern mentally and primarily created, against which industry could not successfully contend. M. Damota, of Rio Janeiro, in detailing the vast agricultural riches of South America, and the high price of labour, accounted for the absence of want in Brazil. Upon being questioned as to the state of slavery, lie remarked "that nothing could be more erroneous than the supposition that slavery was onerous in the Brazils. I; was so to the maters and not to the slave. The slave is there considered in the light of an orphan, being nourished, educated, and maintained in comfort under the superintendence of public overseers. As a proof that free labour was preferred in the market, the wages of artisans reached twenty to twenty five shillings a day, and such a thing as an unemployed labourer was not known. In fact (said M. Damota), we are anxious to get rid of slavery, having proved and become thoroughly cognisant of its disadvantages; but it would be impossible to manumit two millions of slaves unprepared for the charge of personal respon sibility. There are many countries in Europe that du not accord to their labour population the same amount of liberty that we give our slaves." This remark caused some " reclamation." " Brazil," he continued, " has an army of 20,000 men, more than sufficient to uphold the law and maintain domestic peace, for revolutions only proceed from misery and oppression." Ewart recapitulated the number of sanitary regulations lately adopted by the municipalities of England, and dwelt forcibly and at length on the necessity of a better education of the working classes. He maintained that the improvement of the mind rendered the artisan more able as a work man and more contented as a subject, and by stimu lating thought led him to trace crime to those causes which would be as signals of danger to avoid. The great obstacle against a system of general education was the Church of England—" C'est la religion Anglicans qui s'interpose pour empecher I:education kb THE PRESS. publique de devenir ce qu'elle devrait 'etre." A senseless opposition to Sunday recreation was suffi cient evidence of Anglican clergymen misunder• standing the temper of the lower orders and the proper scope of their ministerial duties. Brussels, said Mr. Ewart, was peculiarly adapted, by local situation, to become the focus of international gatherings. Like England, the Belgians enjoyed the benefits of sell government, and had shown them selves worthy to reap the advantages they had won. England, indeed, might on some points take an example from Belgium ; and that freedom of com mercial exchange, which was now universally acknow ledged to be in the highest degree beneficial, would accelerate an interchange of ideas, whereby the en lightenment and toleration of governments would be made yet more profitable and stable. The speech of Mr. Ewart, well delivered in French, was listened to with marked attention, and frequently excited the applause of the audience. It is worthy of remark that, at the moment these observations were made on public education and re ligions toleration, the Bishop of Ghent should have afforded practical illustration that they could not apply to him or to the Roman Catholic party whom he is said to represent. In his pastoral letter and subsequent publications, the University of Ghent is stigmatised as a school " d'atheisme et d'immoralite," capable of teaching monstrous doctrines (" capable des plus grandes monstruosites "), and of subverting the laws of social order. Another diocesan, the Bishop of Bruges, has advanced a step farther, and has formally anathematised as contrary to the Roman law, pronouncing the same to be that of the Deity, "the liberty of conscience, the freedom of speech, the liberty of the press, and of public teaching." The liberty of conscience he declares to be that "erreur contagieuse " which is the imme• diate herald of that other "erreur funeste," the curse of modern days, the liberty of the press. Both these bishops, together with the Cardinal Archbishop of Mal;nes, call upon the faithful to agitate, to conspire, and to dedicate themselves to the service of God, in endeavouring to extirpate the "pests effroyable " of free and unrestricted education. It is easy to per. ceive what these prelates mean by summoning Roman Catholics in the name of religion to do battle for the exaltation of the priests; and how strictly true was the assertion, promulgated by them advisedly, that a representative government with free institutions was contrary to the spirit and the law of the Roman Catholic religion. It is said that the Emperor of the French has written privately to his military tutor of old, General Dufour, to exert his influence with the Swiss Govern• ment that the royalist prisoners of Neufchatel may be treated with moderation. Any forced measures might embarrass the question at a future stage, and render difficult any approach to a compromise. Per sonally, the sympathies of the Emperor cannot be strongly enlisted in favour of the Neufchatel royalists. When Queen Hortense was a fugitive in 1815, on the borders of the Lake of Morat, she was seized by the gendarmes, and threatened to be confined in the dungeons of Fribourg. Alone and unbelriended, she appealed in the emergency of the moment to Mme. Pourtsies, the mother of one of the present prisoners, from whom she experienced the contrary of kindness, accompanied by expressions of unbecoming in a female at any time, and doubly so when the object of them was in sore distress. The subsequent escape of Queen Hortense was not owing to the friendly intervention or Mme. de Potutales. It is amusing and somewhat instructive to perceive the radical and revolutionary press of Switzerland fore most in the crusade against insurrectionary move ments, and counselling extreme measures of punish ment and repression. These identical journals pub lished the manifestos of Mazzini, justified the assas sination of :kings and emperors, and one of them, printed at Geneva, called upon the Swiss prophets to instal a new religion, to zupply the place cf an incapable and effete Christianity, more in consonance with that stern virtue of republicanism that cries with its mighty voice, "Mort aux rois." One of these radical and republican worthies, foremost in exciting the rebellions of '4B, proclaims in large type : 11 faut titer a ces incorrigibles la possibilite de nuire. Guerre I lour fortune —guerre aux aristocrates du dehors et du dedans. Le people est souverain. This choice medley of communism and conservatism is a fair sample of the rampant radical who would first steal his neighbour's goods and then place him self under the protection of a law of his own making. On the other hand, the Austrian press is lavish in its defence of the royalists. Habitually wont to censure and defame Protestant Prussia in Germany, it perceives that an ultramontane object can be in directly gained by siding with the Court of Berlin against the Confederation. It thus hopes that an opportunity may be afforded to the Romanists to revenge themselves in some degree for the injuries of the Sonderbund. All the insurgents that have escaped have taken refuge in the Boman Catholic cantons. Prussia will not be guided by any impul• SATURDAY, sive movement, and as the matter is purely of a per sonal nature, the character of the royal right in Neuf chatel will probably be determined according to the spiiitof the London protocol of May 24, 18ra On the subject of capital punishment the Govern. ment of Prussia has always shown itself anxious to be in unison with the spirit of the age, and to avoid the brutalising display of public executions. In cases of excessive guilt, when mistaken clemency might be morally injurious, the extreme penalty of the law is sometimes administered privately in the presence of the prison authorities. A woman was lately decapitated within the precincts of the prison at Berlin for having murdered the wife and children of the man whom she desired to marry, and it was proved that she bad some time before poisoned her husband. She confessed her guilt, but exonerated the man for whom it had been committed in any participation. This is the third execution of a female in Prussia within the century. In 1800 a woman was broken on the wheel for the marder of her mistress ; and in 1810 another, with her para mour, was publicly burnt for arson. The trial at Varna for the murder of the Bulga rian girl, Nedela, has terminated in a conviction, and judgment has been passed upon the prisoners found guilty. Salih Pacha was formally acquitted, but his discharge from arrest was accompanied with such severe censure upon his conduct by the President of the Court, that no doubt can be entertained that he was supposed to be an accessory before or after the act. Arnaout Mustafa, the actual murderer, was condemned to death. Hussein, secretary and steward of the Pacha, was sentenced to five Sears' imprisonment with hard labour. Mehemet and Vasaly, as accomplices, to two years with hard labour; and Rifeat, for false evidence and perjury, six months with hard labour. The sentence against Hussein was far too lenient, and Salih Pacha himself richly deserved to be hanged and quartered. With out his protection and authority the murder would not have been committed. This poor and incompe tent show of justice will be without any effect upon the Turkish population. Their deadly hatred against all Christians is stronger than ever, and their mal treatment of them is a part and parcel of their reli gion. M. Brescianini, a young lawyer, was riding a short time since in the streets of Scutari, when his horse ran away with him towards a neighbouring guardhouse. The soldiers succeeded in stopping the horse, but, instead of affording the rider any further help, they dragged him from the saddle and coolly murdered " the Giaour " with their swords and bayonets, without any interference on the part of their officer. It has been officially announced that the Emperor Francis Joseph is about to visit his Italian domi nions. Workmen are employed day and night in the imperial palace, situate near the magnificent cathedral, in order to prepare it for the appointed time. For the last few years the greater portion has been occupied as a barrack, and the utmost care is being bestowed in effacing those marks of disaffec tion that bear unhappy reverence to the revolutions of 1818 and 1849. An accident occured on the 16th in the saloon "di Brera." Among other pictures was one representing the return of Pio Nono from Gaeta. All the cardinals and other dignitaries of the Vatican who accompanied his Holiness from tho gate of San Giovanni Laterano to the I3aschia of St. Maria Maggiore, to return thanks before the high altar, were faithfully represented, each person having sat for his likeness. The picture had been painted expressly for Duke Scotti, at a price of 25,000 francs. Whilst the saloon of Brera was full of visitors, examining the various objects of art, this picture, without any ostensible reason, and not in contact with anything of a combustible nature, un accountably caught fire and was consumed in a few seconds. It is stated to have been the effect of accident, but that is simply impossible : the de struction of the picture has a far other and different cause, palpable and self-explaining. There appears to be great apprehension amongst the ambassadors of an outbreak at Rome as soon as the foreign troops are withdrawn. The arrival of M. Ragneval is awaited with anxiety ; the Marquis Sassione Burgagli has arrived from Florence, and M. de Kisseleff and M. Colleredo, the Russian and Austrian Ministers, are in daily communication with Cardinal Antonelli. On the Bth of September, at the festival of " Pie di Grotta," the King of Naples ostentatiously passed in review 40,000 men of all arms. The ambassadors of the foreign powers occupied a balcony in the royal palace. A messenger has been sent from Paris with verbal instructions to M. Brennier, authorising him to apply to the King for his " dernier mot." The an nouncement that four ships of the line, English, and four French, accompanied by eight war steamers, were about to appear in the Bay, has created the greatest sensation. Placarus and proclamations aro distributed and posted throughout the town and the suburbs, urging the people to rise in defence of liberty, and hailing the approach of the allied squadron as an jaugury of a more fortunate time. C. A. H.