The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-07-27 00:00:00

THE POPE'S IRISH BRICIAIjE.

RETURN OF THE IRISH GENTLEMAN WHO
DREAMT OF A MARSHAL'S BATON.

A young gentleman, possessed of an inde-
pendent income, was induced by the Pope's
clerical recruiting officers to join the grand army
of invincibles, *liieh iris to preserve the Papacy
in spite of itself. -He was guaranteed a commis-
sion, and dreamed of a marshal's baton. He
furnished himself, at the suggestion of the tempter,
with a very handsome uniform—green and.gold,
and so forth—and he left our quays in the con-
fident belief that honours and rank were
open to him. On Tuesday (says the editor
of a Dublin paper) we had an inter View
with him; and it was; indeed, difficult to recog-
nise him. He Was lean; ague-stricken; feeble;
and squalid. He was dressed like ri• decayed
acrobat, whose "properties" had been seized.
As long as he travelled through France and
Austria, and his own money lasted, he managed
to live ; but once he reached the Papal terri-
tories he had a more vivid idea of purgatory
than any dogmatic theology could give him. At
Macerata, a town most appropriately named; his
splendid uniform was taken forcibly from him
and sold by auction. In exchange he was fur-
nished with an old flannel shirt, and an indes-
cribable pair of knee-breeches. That was the
uniform of the Pope's Irish Brigade. He had re-
served a second coat, and was once, unfortunately,
teripted to display it, when that too was sold by a
drum-head auction. He found that remonstrance
only subjected him to extra drill and threats of the
bastinado. The drill was more severe even than
the Austrian, for it was a discipline involving such
severe punishments for disobedience, that numbers
of Irish have already been shot down by Lamori-
ciere, others have been flogged, and many have
been sent to till the sands of Algeria. Once he
had, with others, to march 30 miles, with nothing
to eat, or means to procure any. Every day he
was given by an agent of the Pope four copper
coins, about the size of a halfpenny, bearing the
arms of Pio Nono on one side, and an inscription,
testifying that its value is one bajoccio, on the
other. Even in the Roman territories little could
be got for four bajoccio. The recipient was-, at
the utmost, able to procure some .macearoni and
salt, no very pleasant food to an independent
Irishman. • His health naturally gave way, and
abiast he managed to procure his release. The
man who went away in splendid uniform, full of
hopes, and in robust
_latiilth, was landed on
Monday on our quays., in the remains of the
flannel shirt and knee-breeches so worn down
that nobody could identify him.
There were-about eighty assembled in Abbey-
street, on .Sunday, and as many more on Monday,
in the same miserable plight. Those who seduced
these unfortunate men had not done their worst
when they persuaded them to leave home and
kindred. They now endeavour to blast their
characters, and they say these Irishmen were
driven from Rome in this wretched state solely
because they wanted to pillage and plunder the
Pope's subjects. A more atrocious calumny, we
believe, never was uttered. It 'is a law, of the
Roman Court, that if a beggar be hungry he may
take the loaves from the bakers with impunity.
and, perhaps, in their starvation, some of these
poor men may have availed themselves of the
privilege. When these men were departing, they
were extolled as the chivalry of Ireland, the bone
and sinew of the land, as full of piety and faith.
Now that they are broken down and cast back
upon their own shores, they are accused of being
cut-throats, ruffians, incendiaries, and robbers.
Had they been such characters, they_vvould have
been better treated, for we know, from the pre-
cedent of Kalbermatten, that the surest road to
honour and emolument, under the Pope, lies
through robbery, pillage, treachery, and murder