The Express.
London, England, 1867-01-09 00:00:00

EXPRESS FROM PARIS.

SECRET SOCIETIES IN FRANCE.
(nom OUR OWN 001WINSPONDINT.)
PARIS. TOMAS Evwio.

There was never a more frivolous cam of a pro-
secution for belonging to a secret society than that
which culminated yesterday in the by no means
nominal sentences of the various terms of imprison,
meat against twenty-two citizens, which I have
already mentioned.. What is a secret society is by no
means a simple question to answer. The opponents
of the law against secret societies asked in vain for
a definition when it was passed, and no definition
has ever been given since. In the present case the
whole thing proved against the accused was that
they were, with twenty-two other people not prose-
cuted, in a public billiard-room in the large Cafd
Matthieu on the Boulevard St. Michel, where a
political pamphlet was read on the night of their
arrest, and that several of them had attended the
"civil" burial of persons belonging to the society
of Solidaires, founded by a student named Aria•
tides Rey, who pledge themselves to each other to
di* ,without receiving the sacrament, and to do
their utmost to be buried without religious cere-
monies. Some of the defendants attended the
Liitge Congress, where doctrines were enunciated
which led to the expulsion of several students who
uttered or approved them from the Paris University.
The pamphlet read at the meeting at the calif
was one published in London by M. Felix Pyat,
which I, an old advocate of liberty for France, do
not hesitate to characterise as most wicked and
abominable. It was an undisguised exhortation
to the students of France to assassinate the
Emperor. It called for a second Orsini, and
cited the assassination of President Lincoln by a
political friend of slavery as an example which
should a fortiori stimulate generous French
youth to murder the Emperor. The Advocate-
General, M. Lepelletier, read the whole of this
incendiary pamphlet to the court in order
to excite a prejudice, and it is all printed
in the Droit and Gazette des Tribunatm. But
he admitted that it was irrelevant to the question
at lame. He quoted it to show the principles of at
least some of the people who listened to it, but
confessed that it wan no proof of the secret society.
In like manner he quoted, not as evidence, but
merely by way of illustration, the statutes of the
Society of Solidairva, a society to which some of
the accused belong. These statutes, which, but
for the publicity given to them by this trial, would
be as little known in France as they probably are
in England, are thus worded :

STATUTES or THE SOCIETY " ACT AS YOU THINK."

1. Whereas he only is an honest man whose acts are
always conformable to his convictions, and such a man
cannot in his heart despise and condemn certain cere-
monies and yet practise them.
2. Whereas conscience repudiates all religions, since
they all seek to govern man by the vilest consideration—
his interests and his lean ; and whereas our more en-
lightened intelligence rejects the various beliefs of primi-
tive people now transformed into religious dogmas ; and
whereas reason gives us knowledge and truth, and the
good which is inseparable from the true cannot possibly
coexist with the lying doctrines of any sect whatsoever. .

3.40.0 wheeem;o3;ununioa of ideas between man and
woman can alone found a family ; whereas a rational edu-
cation is necessary for a child, and to impose upon him
beliefs in opposition to all that his growing reason reveals
to him is to bias his judgment, blind his intellect, and
pervert his conscience ; and, whereas oar weakness in re-
gard to the defenders of the past to whom we abandon our
women, is the main cause of the sufferings of our modern
society.
The undersigned, therefore, promise and engage with
each other never to receive any sacrament of any church ;
they desire to have no religious ceremonies whatsoever,
either for births, marriages, or deaths. They do not form a
secret society ; they have no other positive bond of union
than the inscription of their names on the present re-
gister, and can never assemble together except for the
purpose of paying the last duties to one of the confra-
ternity.

The counsel for the defence urged in vain that
the fact of attending funerals of Solidaires, with
whom the accused had no personal acquaintance,
was no more than thu fact of their listening in a
cafe to Felix Pyat's pamphlet a proof that they
belonged to a secret society. There might possibly
have been a pretext for indicting them for attend-
ing without permission a meeting of more than
twenty persons, but that count had been aban-
doned by the prosecution as untenable. Counsel
also insisted very pertinently upon this, that if
there really was a secret society in the billiard
room of the cafe all the forty-two persona arrested
must have been members of it, whereas only
twenty-two were selected for prosecution. No ex-
planation was vouchsafed by the crown counsel of
this difficulty.

Foaziow-orrice, JAN. B.—The Secretary of
State fur Foreign Affairs has received from her Majesty's
Charge-d'Affaires at Vienna an order, issued by the Aus-
trian government, dated 28th December, 1866, respecting
the customs' treatment of British, Italian, and French
productions, which was to come into operation on the Ist of
January, 1867, and to take effect in all the countries of
the general Austrian customs jurisdiction. A translation
of the document will be found in the Gazette of yesterday
evening.
FOREION-orrice, JAN. 4.—The Queen has been
pleased to approve of Don Victor Shakery as consul at
Liverpool for the Republic of Costa Rica.— • .
Earl Fitzwilliam, in acknowledging a vote of
thanks on Thursday for presiding over a large meeting of
the subscribers to the Oaks Colliery Relief Fund, held at
Manchester, said the conduct of two young men in going
down the pit after the explosions and rescuing a man at
the risk of their own lives, was worthy of much admiration
that he had considered it his duty, in his official capacity,
to communicate with her Majesty on the subject.
lie had received a most gratifying and gracious
answer, in which her Majesty expressed her "un-
bounded gratification and admiration of the heroic conduct
displayed by Mr. Merriman and Mr. Buibleton jun., on the
occision." On the motion of Mr. Stanhope, it was agreed
that some fitting memorial should be placed in some public
part of the town in commemoration of the event. Lord
Milton seconded the motion, which was agreed to.
DEATH IN THE SNOW.—PiewszT TEESDAY.—
This quiet Wiltshire village has been thrown into a most
painful state of excitement by the death, in the snow, of
Mr. Pople, parish clerk of Pewsey church, who was tho-
roughly esteemed: by all classes throughout this district.
Mr. l'ople, in addition to his duties at the church, carried
on the business of fishmonger, and on Thursday he
started from home, and visited the villages of Burbage
and Collingbourne. In the afternoon he commenced his
return journey, and on passing through the Barbee.,
turnpike the keeper requested him to have • cup of tea,
but be declined the offer, and continued his walk home-
wards, having several miles to go. Ile walked about a
mile further, and it appears that be must then have lost
his way, or intended to have taken a short route across
the fields, as he was found by a labourer on the follow-
ing day lying a short distance from the road, quite
'Th dead. e body of the unfortunate man was removed to
a neighbouring public-house, where an inquest has since
been held. The evidence given left little doubt but that
be died from apoplexy, induced by exposure to the intense
cold.

•••••••:-
ABOLITION OP THE BESHEL MKASURE.—The
Chicago Board of Trade have voted an approval of the
"oeutal " as the standard of measurement for grain,
seeds, &a, instead of the " bushel," as at present, the
new system to take effect ma the Ist of January inst.—
provided the leading Boards of Trade in the country
agree to adopt it. Action has also been taken by the
Boards of Trade of Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, and
Detroit, with the view of substituting the rental for
the present cumbrous and unequal system of measuring
by the bushel.