The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-11-06 00:00:00

DIR. GLADSTONE AND THE FENIAN
FEISONERS.

A Correspendent ("Lex et Libeit:e 0) Pines the following
letter to The Times tor publication :
Mr. Isaac Butt has endeavoured to Feniafihre our
sympathies by an unmistakable allusion to Mr. Glad-
stone's former denunciation of the cruelties practised
in Italian prisons to so-called political offenders. It is
a pity s^ree of those enthusiasts who carry green
banners with "Befrees our captive brothers" ire-
printed on them in letters of gold mild not see, as I
have seen, the Italian victims, between whom and
"our captive brothers" a parallel is sought to be
drawn. As an example, take the fate of Poerie, a gen-
tleman of high position and eminent talent, who, on
pleas the most unjust and absurd, was for years
confined in loathsome underground places, fettered
to another so-called criminal of a lower class; never
unlinked from him for a mement, neither for net,
meals, nor the common necessities of human nature.
I saw Poerio when he was being transpceted
from one prison to another in Naples. Too feeble
to walk, be was carried in a sort of sedan chair
by pottefa; is face, emaciated with suffering
and starvation, %Ye the eolour of the gray ash
of an extinct fire; his tod-y "raved from side
to side from sheer weakness, his hedd, crhieh he could
not protect with his hands, occasionally hitting the
sides of the jolted vehicle. I saw him afterwards, in
his days of recovered freedom. He was then among
lotlee friegde and admirers at Florence. The mark of
the connthrig fe•-•eel was still on his wrists, and his
health was slowly eie mg Weer to the approach of death.
I said to him, "You have enterer.' 0".! n happier phase
of life than when we were at Naples." ". 'Yes,' he
answered, 'but the other phase lasted too long; f AM
dead at the root, like a blighted tree." His companions
in captivity, darkness, and chains, many of them
81 tel even. know the alleged cause of their impri-
sonment. I ttet theca gentlemen once at a
luncheon given in theit beton', One of them said
to ace, "We are grateful, and ought to be glad; but
I give you my word thisPe is a buffering in Iteraf. I
yearn for darkness and quiet ;I have been used to it
so lorg. This odour of meat, of flowers, of confec-
tionery stifles me and makes me sick." One handsome
young Tan attracted the attention of a little Italian
girl of eve yeeee of age, Ile talked with her and
smiled. Iler mother said, " 1?..) net, tease that gentle-
man; come away." Ile caught the little thing's hand,
sod said, Oh !do not cheek her. It is new sltteen
years that I have never heard music nor played will, a
Nile chid." "Sixteen years ! and for what ?" That
'I do not know. I was a mere boy when I was arrested;
twice thoce years mike more than my life."
wPaesseel in Naples a great family anxiety on
account of a mlafiof member of their circle, a young
man of ability and of high Inuit atd political. I urged
measures for discovering his whereaborite. "We dare
not meve too openly," was the reply, "for feat it may
he a Government arrest and no accident that causes
his disappearance ; already we have had one of our
family arrested, confined, and then liberated, and we
hate he.ree !thorn elthee why he was imprisoned or
why be was reieas.ed;
When men are calling for the libeeation of
"brothers in captivity," condemned by no unreaeoning
and irresponsible deseot, but on the sworn testimony
of some of their' brothers" at liberty, and the sworn
verdict of others in strict accordance with the law of
the laod, end when the friends of those men seek to
establish a piti-rOnt! with the prisoners for political
offences elsewhere, let us ;:orieidef tbeth Italian pic-
tures, and ask where the resemblance lies :
There is a story, or rather there is a famous Irish
trial, which, thirty or forty years ago, Wait made the
groundwork of a most interesting romance, and which
that: ?teently has loaeen still further popularized by the
dramatic talent ;:t Me- Boretcanlt under the title of
the Codfen &ma. In the rear exact history
of this event—the hero was a coward and thlef a* well
as a murderer. Ile drowned the girl he had &Tele:A
he endeavoured to fix on his servant and accom-
plice the whole guilt of the deed, and he
stole frottt the dead girl's locket the few shillings she
ponebed bomee b 0 left e body lie hid under his
mother's bed when the o—ceee of fart,ee earns to seek
him, and shook with fear at the prapett of death,
LABOUR, RECIPROCITY, AND though he hail so cruelly and suddenly inflicted it on
FREE TRADE. another. In the melodrama, this man igmade ahero; his
Some of the working men of Birmingham are hold- nry crime but the mad thought of a moment.
Lovios and beloved, his treachery vanishes in a coil-
ing " flatuedey nieht eetiega for the hut-post of Mead +Aired. of reconciliation ; the girl ie saved from her
diecussing the " Policy of I ree Trade." These fate-ot drowning hi f gene oceurpassiing beauty, and
assemblies are promoted principally by the " Constitu- as the curtain falls wear: het e:apresee that they
tionalista." On Saturday night last there was a con- both " liaed happy ever after."
siderable attendance. In the course of the proceedings
I do not for a moment compare the mean and misus-
e, letter was read from the secretary of the Silk
able criminal whose fate is thus reversed by the trans-
Weavers' Association of Maccleefield attributing the
decline in the trade of that town rather to the change, positions and exigencies of scenic composition with
of fashion than to thb oparaPon of the,Prehcli TreeitY. met Whose braille and hearts have been set on fire by
falsa e.hfhtsrasnid And Inflammatory political dogmas
A Mr. Harrison :make on the side of " Reciprocity." He • it b
agreed (he said) with a previous speaker, that we want free and we. INA toey ern `` tereing , the eluntry y
trade on articles imported and exported ; there was free treason to that country s ruler. Fut!, say, wee tc the
trade on articles imported, but not on aricles exported. adviser who tempts or encourages such met ic see true
Much of the pauperism and suffering of the working classes things in a false light, and to make a melodramatic fie.
was caused by the want of reciprocity. (Hear, hear.) The tion of all that is sound or sober in principle. This is
French could beat tis in silk 0, andose oods ea
otw olsr mark duty fret ; c gooould beat thth g
e f tenth in gto mdee kh.,,..aelta prvre_es should the contemplea
no time for such melodlarnatic trifling. Grave and
partly ;silk and partly cotton, and before those goods could
enter the French market they had to pay a duty of Is per cent. tion id this alas world he to all thoughtful men
Thus, English ladies were wearing French silks, but ,Freuch and all honest guides of the peorio2, tidal wave far
ladies were not, to anything, like the extent they ought to Jo, Mote mighty than that on which so many irritable
wearing English silk and cotton not:titre*. (Heat hear ;
Was that reciproeity Agaho, America wanteu our rug lest: hate been lately' bandied to and fro by weather
materiels, but when asked to have our manufactured arti- prophets is sie,..reg on the boundary shore which limits
cies the answer was," Not just yet." A Parliamentary in- every grade of human authority, —marrerealreetlessnesa,
glary into this state of things was wanted. (cheers.) It universal repugnance to controL While this pulse of the
must be remembered that a large portion of the exports world beats so hard, and the hearts of many beat to it
was mere reshipment, and no Britifili workman was a with a certain responsive echo, the least land perhaps
farthing the better for It. Oar Woirkrabn Wai`e giJOd
deal tits Worse or t portation materialbe-
the most) that any intelligent man can do for his
fhe el of raw ,
cause it went away to enable foreigners to compete ad- fellow-creatures is to endeavourto prevent reason from
vantaceously with Engl)sh manufacturers. Ind the raw being drowned in a flood of prejudices. These bearers
matelist was sent away duty free, whole the French put e cif gteeti batners, and marshallers of bands that• I
It y opal the export of their raw material. The French play the Marseillaise, might hear a warning sound
knew better, foe Initsvorso, that to let English paper-makers
compete with them a .11 their own raw mate] (al, and they through those well-known notes bitterer than the '
put a duty on the export of ags. (Hear.) Now, what was groaning of the terrible sea. Let them be assured that
the tyranny of Governments has not waited for thir
the cnaracter of the goods we imported from France? Were
they goods which benefited the working claws? (" No !") protest to disappear. It is an apparition that is fading
He should like to know how much it mattered to them from the earth, But authority will remain let the
whether kit gloves were 33. 61 a pair or Os. tal. (hear) sands shift ever so wildly on the troubled shore.
d English workmen busy hw m y FrencatChes, dhe id tir
wives wear French silk dresses I and how many Birming J.nstice will remain. It takes one man to make a
ham artisans dr.onk sour French wines I (cheers and aespot. It takes many men to make lawe. The
laughter.) While toy our one-sided polia: the French were agreement of the many is the fabled faggot o
able to make many articles instead of E•dilish workmen, sticks. You may depose the despot, but you cannot
the latter were 0111 y benefited li. a coy small extent depose the aggregate conviction of outnumbering
by the free importation of luxuries irom France. Ile minds. It is with the faggot of sticks, and not with
claimed ou behalf of a Parliamentary
and woidd ask the Free-trade labour
party whether th inquiry,
ey opposed the Minister for the time being, that the Fenian
inquiry b synthathiaers have to contend. Their prayer for
because they were afraid of it ? Cheers ; He
knew that there were persuuive advocates who held up free reale...ion of a punishment, coming from a section of
trade for admiration ; but there was a persuasion more real angry, sorrowful, hot-headed men, is met by the
than theirs—the persuasiouof hunger,the cry of want. (Hear, deliberate opinion of the great majority that if the
hear,. The erioa of
of llt the hungry would yet eater lote the Fenians were set free there might as well be a
Stephen walls , and if it were nelld the
policy was an sorer, it would be f i that
preeent
or our statesmen to find a general gael delivery throughout the kingdom, for that
t reasons which hold them in durance hold in
remedy for e h it—on the principles of reclproc ty of free trade
if they could, but, if not, the nation must act ion that maxim durance likewise all great and little offenders convicted
which WAS as true nationally as individually, that "self- of breaking the laws, among whom, perhaps, might be
pit serration was the nest law of nature." found many a poor tempted man, many law-breakers
AMr Pank, who avowed bituelf a "tree-trader to the- guilty of less dangerous offences, whose " pitiiul
hank-hone" aiked where there was a con try In which the so hip " at e uo political capital, and who must
Natoli InYn ,lbteture was in a prosperouS ld M m
condition ;lieu
hear If our principle of tree trade had brought distress , into abide Zlie set time of their deliverance with no greateo
the cotton manufacture, and our artisans were starving, while army of "sympathisers" than a half-etarved wife or
other countries, havine duties, were prosperous anti pro t child who shall meet them outside the gate when the
gtesdng, and their artisans were fully employed at MUM. dates of their sentences expire.