The Press.
London, England, 1856-03-29 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

relationship. England is generally viewed with mis-
trust. The Whigs have always encouraged revolu-
tion and betrayed liberalism. When out of office,
they have been Radicals at home and Republicans on
the Continent. They favored Mazzinianism in Italy,
and publicly anathematised the Emperor Napoleon,
and, in short, they have done everything that mis-
demeanour could effect to disparage the reputation
of their country. Under the evils brought about
by Whig misconduct the prestige of England now
labours, and the most serious of those evils is the
decline of European confidence. Whig England
has never held out the hand of fellowship, but it was
safe to betray. Whig England has never pledged
itself to a specific line of conduct, at home or abroad,
that it did not desert the moment it interfered with
party interests; and it is the knowledge of this
supreme duplicity, gained by experience, that has
engendered a continental distrust, amounting to
aversion, and which in the truth isolates Great
Britain from other countries. England is tolerated
because fettled, but the respect, general and
particular, with which the old country was honoured
in the days of Wellington, is gone. It has been the
work of the Whige. . .

With these elements, if not discordant, certainly
not in strict harmony, a peace has been constructed,
yet hopes have not been fulfilled, desires have not
been satisfied, and wants have been neglected;
sad these omissions, however in other respects the
peace may be satisfactory, will have their results.
J. E. L.

BRUSSELS, March 27.
THE Belgians continue to vent their ill-feeling
against the Emperor of the French surely not
"wisely." In the shops of the " Galerie St. Hubert"
the prints of the Emperor and the Empress Eugenie
have been removed, and in their place have been
ostentatiously displayed those descriptive of the trial,
imprisonment in the Temple and execution of Louis
XVI. These, again, have, been followed by others
of the execution of Marie A.Utoinette and Madame
Elizabeth. This was on the.day subsequent to the
announcement of the birth of Prince Napoleon
Eugene, and the exhibition continues. The fact is
worth mention as an evidence of the feeling here.
• • • • E. R.

SIENA, March 24.
POLITICAL assassinations again mark the presence of
the republican. Lieutenant Gaetano Bordi, be-
longing to the staff at Parma, was poignarded on
the 17th, on his way home from the theatre. He
had given offence to the Liberals, and he was doomed
to death by the " coltello." At Faenza a similar
atrocity has been committed. When the Italian
journals reported the honourable encomium of the
Emperor Napoleon, in speaking of the King of Sar-
dinia, all Italy was made glad,—and behold how
republicans testify their satisfaction !
in the north, the pi iest and the executive are
already at war. The Austro-Papal Concordat has
been a mutual take in—in vulgar parlance "a
sell " on both sides. The first step after the
bargain was taken by the priest agan Ist the press
and the soldiery. Liberal jcurnals were prohi-
uited ; the confessional was made imperative ; and
the soldiers were fed on beans and oil. The digestive
organs have rebelled for supply; and the "
errant" insists on being read. Sacerdotal anathema
does not stop with the Wandering Jew. At Vicenza,
a "padre confessore " refused absolution to a party
unless he ejected from his library Guizot's "History
of Civilisation," which had been lying on the table in
Palazzo-Lon. What is to become of the "Inferno"
and the " Divina Commedia," and Faust, with the
scene on the Hartz Mountain, wherein the holy
priest acts his part? And are the likenesses of the
priests and cardinal in the "Judgment" of Michael
Angelo, in the Sistine chapel, to be erased ? Fortu•
nately, the folly of the Roman is in proportion to his
iniquity ; and conceiving his power, by means of the
Austro-Papal Concordat, to be supreme, he has
thought fit to exercise it without loss of time, and
thereby has been brought into instant collision with
the military and civil executive.

M. T. A.

RELIGIOUS TOLERATION IN SPAIN appears to be
fairly established. A Protestant clergyman, it is
stated in letters from Madrid, was lately discharged
from custody by order of the judge at Barcelona,
although arrested for acts contrary to the circular of
the Minister of Public Instruction. The judgment
stated as a ground for his liberation, that religious
toleration is established in Spain by the second
article of the Constitution. There would seem to be,
therefore, a direct conflict between the judge and the
minister.

SATUttDAY,

'ore* and (Colonial aintelligettre.

FRANCE.

The state of health of the Empress, the Prince
Imperial, and Ptince Jerome, was so satisfactory
that no further bulletins were issued after Monday.
The official documents relative to the birth of the
Prince have been published in the Moniteur. A
solemn "Te Deum " for the happy delivery of the
Empress was chanted in Notre Dame on Sunday, in
presence of all the great officers of State, and of the
superior officers of the National Guard and Army.
The great question of freedom of election has
been decided by the Court of Cessation this week.
The question was whether electoral bulletins could
be distributed without the permission of the prefects.
On Wednesday the Court gave judgment, and pro-
nounced in favour of the Government, ruling that the
electors are not entitled to know the names of any
candidates, except such as the Government ►nay
choose to tell them ; and that the act of giving a piece
of paper with a mere name upon it, by one elector
to another, is a penal offence.

The Moniteur of Tuesday publishes the following
paragraph on the present condition of the French
army in the Crimea in reply to the statement of the
Times correspondent:—

In its impression of March 22, the Times, on the faith
of its French correspondent, represents our Crimean army
as in want of provisions, clothes, everything, and as aban-
doned by the Government of the Emperor, who is sup-
posed to have no longer any solicitude for his brave troops.
The Times goes so far as to say that our soldiers are so.
reduced as to go about and pick up for their subsistence
the spoiled biscuit and the broken victuals thrown away by
the English soldiers. With regard to this last assertion
we shall observe that, if the scarcity should make itself
felt in our camps, our allies would hasten to sham their
resources with us, as we ourselves aid with them; sad
that the generous offer they recently made us at Constan-
tinople of placing their medical stores at oar disposal is a
sufficient proof for us of what they would do in the Crimea
if we in reality were in want of provisions. But the Times,
we have no doubt, will regret that it was not better in-
formed when it learns that the French army is provisions d
in such a manner as to receive fresh bread every day, that
it has in store flour for three months in advance, and that
the greater part of our troops receive rations of fresh vege-
tables sent out to them in great quantities from Constan-
tinople. As for the clothes, it may be affirmed that never
at any period were the wants of an army soaniply supplied
each soldier in the Crimea has received, in addition to Ais
regimentals, a complete winter suit, consisting of a woollen
felt cap, a short cloak with a hood, a pair of Bulgarian
gaiters, a woollen or flannel belt, a pair of worsted stockings,
a pair of wooden shoes, and a pair of gloves. It iA true
that, notwithstanding the care of which it has incessantly
been the object, our army has been for some time visited
with sickness, which seems to spare our allies, more for-
tunate than ourselves. But if one considers that our
troops are encamped around Sebastopol, on the very theat e
of the struggle—that is to say on a ground which, having
served as a tomb for so many victims, is far from offering
those conditions of healthiness which the English army
rinds at Balaklava—it will be understood that the present
inferiority of our sanitary state may be the consequence of
unavoidable circumstances, and that this cannot be attri-
buted to a want of solicitude. Let us add that they have
now succeeded in improving this condition, and doubtless
before long they will have completely mastered it. We
may hope for this happy result with the return of the fine
season, and from the measures adopted for combating the
disease, especially from the considerable drafts sent away
to Constantinople, and from the establishment at this
latter place of new barrack ambulances, roomy and web
ventilated.