The Press.
London, England, 1856-10-11 00:00:00

FOREIGN MISCELLANEA.

M. Louts Bt sec has replied to the article in the
lloniteur of last week, and denies that any of his
charges against the Imperial Government are replied
to, and reasserts that the political prisoners at
Cayenne are overworked and in a pestilential climate.
He also asserts that secret transportation is still
going on :

As regards the fact of the political prisoners living side
by side with ordinary criminals, the Moniteur states that
there is in Guiana a whole class of common felons, who
had nothing to do with politics ; these were " occasionally
located on one and the same island with the political
prisoners, but never beneath one and the same roof."
This assertion may be true, but it is quite irrelevant and
uncalled for. It has never been asserted that the class of
those who are merely common convicts and the other class
are herded together in Guiana. The question is, whether
in the political class itself men of honour do not live side
by side with liberated galley-slaves, whom, in the dark con-
fusion of the coup-d'etat, it was thought fit by the military
commissions to condemn, on a pretence of plots or risings,
so as to degrade the rest by their contact. If we are to
believe the Monilcur, such would be the case, for it says :
" Even among these—the political prisoners favoured with
the indulgence of the Emperor—there were many whose
antecedents, in a criminal point of view, were deplorable.
Their descriptions swarm with statements that would have
justified the classification of them either with old offenders
previously discharged or with convicts." The Moniteur
is glad to call to mind that among these deported to
Cayenne many have been condemned by the Republic
itself. In the first place, by the word " many " the Moni-
tear means some nineteen or twenty. Seoundly,—the Re•

96t

public never sent any political prisoner to Cayenne. The
selection of Cayenne as a political penitentiary belongs
entirely and exclusively to the Imperial regime. Such
among the insurgents of June as were condemned by the
Republican government were sent to Algeria.
"Yellow Jack," writing to the Times this week, ob-
serves:—

A white man, exerting himself as little as possible, shel-
tered from sun and dew and rain by a good house when
indoors, and by an umbrella when abroad—riding or
driving, but never walking, from place to place—protected
in his sleep from mosquitoes and sand-flies by carefully
closed curtains—generously dieted and judiciously clad,
considers himself fortunate if he can preserve his life, I
will not say his health, for few do that at Cayenne for any
length of time. What must the condition of the ill-fed,
ill-lodged, half-clad, and over-driven white galley-slave be
in such a climate?

THE ADVANTAGES OF TRAVELLING IN RUSSIA are
alluded to this week by a correspondent of Le Nord.
He writes : •

The labour of leaving Russia is one worthy of Hercules.
In order to obtain a passport at St. Petersburg, I have
been compelled to undergo the following torture :—l. To
be announced three times in the public journals-2. To
obtain a certificate of the execution of this formality-3.
To carry this certificate to the police magistrate of the
quarter, who furnished me with a second certificate-4. To
betake myself to the bureau of Prince Dolgorouki, where
this certificate was exchanged for a countermark-5. To
go to the bureau d'addreates, where another certificate was
given me-6. To run to the governor-general, who fur-
nished me with a passport-7. To exhibit this passport at
the steam-packet office before obtaining a passage. I was
particularly fortunate, for the accomplishment of the above
formalities took up only three day's; many others have
been detained three weeks.

A SINGULAR OPTICAL ILLUSION is recounted in a
letter from Aden, Sept. 15th :—" Yesterday, a little
after noon, the signal was made a steamer to the
eastward,' and was kept flying the whole afternoon.
Towards evening the signalman reported that the
st anier was gradually receding, and supposed that
she had either broken down or run out of coals. On
nig the Political Resident ordered the Hon. Com•
pany's steamer, Queen, to get up steam and go to her
assistance. The Queen accordingly left about nine
o'clock, and met the Oriental at three o'clock this
morning steaming along all right. At the time the
steamer was signalled she was 150 miles from Aden,
and we can only account for this very singular phe-
nomenon by some optical illusion, such as the mirage
THF. MALTESE JURY summoned to try the assassin
Giuseppe Meli, for the murder of Captain Graves
on the 25th of August last, in the face of the boasts
of the prisoner before the magistrates that he
intended to assassinate Captain Graves, and of the
ee d--nce of fourteen medical witnesses—the highest
medic authorities in the island—that the death of
Captain Graves ensued from the effects of the
wound inflicted by Meli, deliberately found—right
against judge and evidence—that the death of Cap-
tain Graves was owing to "a supervening accidental
cause, and not to the nature or consequences alone
of such harm as Meli was only guilty of." The
prisoner was sentenced to nine years' labour at the
public works.

AUSTRIA, as a great agricultural country, is thus
des gibed by "J. C." in the Times :
In reviewing the various productions of Austria, it will
he found that she may truly be designated an agricultural
country, as three fourths of the population, nearly
30,000,000, are in one way or other engaged in or depen-
dent upon agriculture. The annual value of her agricul•
tural produce has been estimated at 174,000,0001. sterling ;
and if all the good land of the country were as highly cul-
tivated as England that estimate might be doubled. In
examining the map of Europe one cannot but be struck
with the fact that the greatest extent of rich corn land is
to be found in the least civilised part of it. Beginning at
the shores of the Black Sea there are all the fertile pro.
vinces of Southern Russia, then Turkey and her rich
Danubian provinces, then Hungary, Galicia, and Poland.
In England we are accustomed to deal with a soil where
nature must be constantly aided by art; and an English
farmer will find it difficult to believe that in these out•of-
the•way countries there are immense plains of the richest
corn land, many times larger in extent than in England,
where manure is little needed, and, in the more favorable
districts, possessing a climate which admits of a double
crop in the same year. Hitherto their competition has
not been formidable, because they have no roads to con-
vey a heavy corn traffic, and the river navigation has
been obstructed. The expense of carriage over several
hundred miles of country without roads is an effectual
barrier against foreign demand; and, however fertile or
populous a country may be, if there is no foreign demand,
no market for the surplus, there will be no exertion
made to gain a surplus. In some parts of Hungary at
this moment corn is worth twice as much as in
other parts, just as it was in England one hundred
years ago, before roads, canals, and now railways have
equalised prices. But the astute politicians who manage
matters in Austria have discovered this defect, and in
two years more the fertile provinces bordering the
Danube will be tapped by railways in every quarter.
The market of the world will then be open to them, and
remunerative prices will at once be followed by increased
production.

THE PRESS.

MR. EMERSON ON KANSAS.

MR. EmEasoN attended the Kansas Relief Meeting
in Cambridge, U.S., Wednesday evening, Sept. 10,
and delivered a powerful speech in support of the
free•soilers. He said .
There is this peculiarity about the case of Kansas, that
all the right is on one side. We hear the screams of
hunted wives and children answered by the howl of the
butchers. The testimony of the telegraphs from St. Louis
and the border confirm the worst details. The printed
letters of the border ruffians avow the facts When pressed,
to look at the cause of the mischief in the Kansas laws
the President falters, and declines the discussion ; but his
supporters in the Senate, Mr. Cass, Mr. Geyher, Mr.
Hunter, speak out, and declare the intolerable atrocity of
the code. It is a maxim that all party spirit produces the
incapacity to receive natural impressions from facts ; and
our recent political history has abundantly borne out the
maxim. But these details that have come from Kansas
are so horrible that the hostile press have but one word in
reply—namely, that it is all exaggeration ; 'tis an Abolition
lie. Do the committee of investigation say that the out.
rages have been overstated? Does their dismal catalogue
of private tragedies show it? Do the private letters? Is
it an exaggeration that Mr. Hoppa, of Somerville ; Mr.
Hoyt, of Deerfield; Mr. Jennison, of Groton ; Mr. Phillips,
of Berkshire, have been murdered? That Mr. Robinson,
of Fitchburg, has been imprisoned ; Rev. Mr. Nute, of
Springfield, seized, and up to this time we have no tidings
of his fate? In these calamities under which they suffer,
and the worse which threaten them, the people of Kansas
ask for bread, clothes, arms, and men to save them alive,
and enable them to stand against these enemies of the
human race. They have a right to be helped, for they
have helped themselves. This aid must be sent ; and this
is not to be doled out as an ordinary charity, but bestowed
up to the magnitude of the want, and. as it has been else.
where said, " on the scale of a national action."
Alluding to the hesitation tof the Government to
afford effectual aid to the oppressed, and to put an
end to this systematic war and defiance of all law
and liberty, he remarked :

We stick at the technical difficulties. I think there
never was a people so choked and stultified by forms. We
adore the forms of law, instead of making them vehicles
of wisdom and justice. In this country for the last few
years the Government has been the chief obstruction to
the common weal. Who doubts that Kansas would have
been very well settledif the United States had let it alone?
The Government armed and led the ruffians against the
poor farmers. Ido not know cny story so gloomy as the
politics of this country for the last twenty years, centra-
lising ever more manifestly round one spring, and that a
vast crime, and ever more plainly, until it is notorious that
all promotion, power, and policy are dictated from one
source—illustrating the fatal effects of a false position to
demoralise legislation, and put the best people always at
a disadvantage ; one crime always present, always to be
varnished over, to find fine names for, and we free States-
men, as accomplices to the guilt, even in the power of the
grand offender. Language has lost its meaning in the
universal cant ; Representative Government is really mis-
representative; union is a conspiracy against the northern
States, which the northern States are to have the privilege
of paying for; the adding of Cuba and Central America
to the slave marts is enlarging the area of freedom. Mani-
fest destiny, democracy, freedom, fine names for an ugly
thing. They call it otto of rose and lavender—l call it
bilge water. It is called chivalry and freedom—l call it
the taking of all the earnings of a poor man, and the
earnings of his little girl and boy, and the earnings of all
that come from him, his children's children for ever.

But this is union, and this is democracy; and our poor
people, led by the nose by these fine words, dance and sing,
ring bells, and fire cannon with every new link of the chain
which is forged for their limbs by the plotters in the
Capitol. What are the results of law and union? There
is no union. Can any citizen of Massachusetts travel in
honour through Kentucky and Alabama and speak lair
mind? Or can any citizen of the Southern country, who
happens to think kidnapping a bad thing, say so ? Let Mr.
Underwood of Virginia answer. Is it to be supposed that
there are no men in Carolina who dissent from the popular
sentiment now reigning there? It must happen in the
variety of human opinions that there are dissenters. They
are silent as the grave. Are there no women in that
country—women, who always carry the conscience of a
people? Yet we have not heard .ine discordant whisper.
In the free States, we have a snivelling support to slavery.
The judges give cowardly interpretations to the law in
direct opposition to the known foundation of all law, that
every immoral statute is void. And here of Kansas, the
President says: " Let the complainants go to the courts ; "
though he knows that when the poor plundered farmer
comes to the court, he finds the ringleader who has robbed
him, dismounting from his own horse, and unbuckling his
knife to sit as his judge.
The President told the Kansas Committee, that the whole
difficulty grew from " the factious spirit of the Kansas
people, respecting institutions which they need not have
concerned themselves about." A very remarkable speech
from a democratic President to his fellow•citizens, that they
are not to concern themselves with institutions which they
alone are to create and determine. The President is a
lawyer, and should know the statutes of the land. But I
borrow the language of an eminent man, used long since,
with far less occasion :—" If that be law, let the plougshare
be run under the foundations of the Capitol ; and if that be
government, extirpation is the only cure." I am glad to
see that the terror at disunion and anarchy is disappearing.
Massachusetts, in its heroic day, had no Government—was
an anarchy. Every man stood on his own feet, was
his own governor, and there was no breach of peace from
Cape Cod to Mount Homo. California , a few years ago,

SATURDAY,

by the testimony of all people at that time in the country,
had the best Government that ever existed. Pans of gold
lay drying outside of every 1131111's tent, in perfect secusityi,
The land was measured into little strips of a few feet wide,
all side by side. A bit of ground that your hand, could
cover was worth one or two hundred dollars, on the edge
of your strip; and there was no dispute. Every man,
throughout the country was armed with knife and. revolver,
and it was known that instant justice would be irdminist,red
to each offence, and perfect peace reigned. Fey the Saxon
man, when he is well awake, is not a pirate., lout a citizen,
all made of hooks and eyes, and links himself naturally to
his brothers, as bees hook themselves to one another, and,
to their queen, in a loyal swarm.

He spoke, too, of the future :
But the hour is coming when the strongest will not be
strong enough. A harder task will the new rm.-oblation of
the nineteenth century be than was the revelation of the
eighteenth century. I think the American Revolution bought
its glory cheap. If the problem was new, it was simple.
If there were few people, they were united, and the enemy
3,000 miles off. But now, vast property, gigantic interests,,
family connections, webs of party, cover the land with a,
network that immensely multiplies the dangers of war.,
Fellow citizens, in these times, full of the fate of the ke-
public, I think the towns should hold town meetings, and;
resolve themselves into committees of safety, go intu.per.
manent sessions, adjourning from week to week; irons
month to month. I wish we could send the sefteantid-
arms to stop every American who is about to. leave the
country. Send home every one who is abroad, lest ho
should find no country to return to. Come home and stay
at home, while there is a country to save. When it is lost
it will be time enough then for any who are luckless enough,
to remain alive, to gather up their clothes and depart. to,
some land where freedom exists.

HINCKFORD CONSERVATIVE.
ASSOCIATION.

THE annual meeting of this association took place at
Castle Headingham, Essex, on Monday evening.
The meeting this year derives some additional in..
terest from the fact that, Sir John Tyrell having,
announced his intention to resign his seat in Parlia-
ment, the chair was taken by Mr. Du Cane, the new
candidate for the representation of the northern
division of Essex.

Among the other gentlemen present were Major.•
Beresford, M.P., Lord Hadleigh, Mr. A. Hamilton,
Mr. S. Onley, Colonel Bryce, Mr. Majendie, and.
other gentlemen well known in the county by their
advocacy of the Conservative interest.

On the removal of the cloth after the usual loyal
toasts,

The CHAIRMAN, in proposing " the health et the
Bishop and clergy of the diocese," alludtdi to the
question of the maintenance or abolition et Church
rates, and frankly and honestly stated that he would
never be a party to the abolition of those rates
unless a full and satisfactory equivalent were offered,
in exchange, which he did not think would be t%*
case. At the same time he was ready to admit that
there were inequalities in the mode in whidt, the•
rate in question was levied, and which ha would,
lend a helping hand to remedy.
Mr. 1)u CANE then proceeded amid loud cheers to
give the toast of the evening, " Prosperity to the,
Hinckford Association," and in the course of his.
speech alluded to the position of her Majesty's Go.
vt.,rnment

He thought they. would agree with him that in thepro•
sent Prime Minister they had embodied the veritalik
sonification of Mr. Charles Dickens' clever fiction, and in
the noble lord they beheld the thief of the Cireumlocu?.
tion.oftlee, who had during the last six months contrived
to keep the Legislature of the country in the arduous and
somewhat complicated effort of "How Not to Ito it." Be
thought that the members of the Government, and tie
active snprorters of the able Premier, who were just now
in the autumnal season engaged in " starring it " among
their constituencies, when called upon to give sn accost' t
of what they had done during the session, would be placed
very Inuch in the position of Canning's needy knife-
grinder, and have to say, " Story, Lord bless you, 1 have
none to tell, sir." Far be it from him to enumerate the
failures of the Government during the past session ; their
name was legion. The socialist attempts of the right hoe_
gentleman at the head of the Board of Trade to deans?),
the rights and immunities of corporations, the efforts ttaai er
to get rid of the Christian character of the Legislature,
the endeavours of the Government to deal inquisitorially
and unjustly with the private affairs of agriculturists ff
the kingdom, had all, with two solitary exceptions, been
rendered futile. Like the kings of Banquo's shadowy
line, they had shown themselves to our eyes to the grief off
our hearts; they had come like shadows, andlike shadows,
they had departed. Yet, in the face of those defeats. an
in the face of a foreign policy which ba, gone far to. in*
volve us in hostilities with our brethren of the Western
hemisphere, the journal that is favoured with the personal
confidence of the Prime Minister and with Cabinet secret,.
boldly stood up and invited them to support Lord Pbl•
merston as the real and only Conservative Minister of ti e
day. They would surely agree with him in the truth of
the remark which fell from Mr. Disraeli at the close of the
session, that, if such were the case, it would be•more for •
the interest of the country that a Conservative policy:
should be carried into effect by Conservative statesmen.
He believed that the time was not far distant whew
they would be called upon to lend a hand in re