The Express.
London, England, 1857-04-23 00:00:00

ENGLISHMEN LN AUSTRIA.

TO THR ZDITOR OP TOO EXPRISO.

Eta,—Will you allow ma a corner in your
columns in reply to a writer in the Iliossehefd Won*, whose
account of hie Austrian experiences appeared in the Express
of Ist week. He evidently piques himself upon hie docile
acquiesces°, in the recommendation of his Imperial gaoler,

not to write to the English papers upon the subject.
Of census every man is at liberty to pocket
an affront, if he thinks proper, or if any good le
likely to come of it, but it is a little too bad to taunt those
who are of a different opinion with a love of notoriety or am-
bitioua cravings for the crown of martyrdom, and to lamina-
ate, forsooth, that became cigars and heltheimer were
distributed to him by his indulgent keepers, that therefore
the statemente of the "correspondent of a leading ionised,"
who was incarcerated in 1852, must have been highly
coloured—not to say exaggerated. With respect to the
simple narration of facts wntten the day after I wee
in the public streets of Vienna, I have nothing to add 10,
nor detract from it, and I can manure the welter in the
" Household Words" that there was no haeMsetirwr to melee
things pleasant, and the cigars in my pocket were tibia
from use, themfore, smoking was out of the yuedion, and if
he would take the trouble to refer to the published owes-
pondenee, he will see nothing in my letter about " bare
moi," "block bread," or ' Gamenlaufen." The arks I
heard being in the evening could not hare been mad lap the
military punishment he describes. If this writer is to be
credited, there hare been no lee than five similar
outrages upon Englishmen in Austria since my cassoceurred,
and the sufferers all agreed not to publish thou. ViSTIIICOL
This tacit submission to wrong
gratifying to the police authontiesmour+iths,tt the eFLoe
observed by the aggrieved affords a clue to the isepasity that
ham attended the sets in for you need- not be re-
minded that secrecy is the very LL6 and soul of absolutism,
and that the police at all despotic conntrice
love darkness rather than light. It may be an
agreeable reminiscence, and may salt theparpose of a cockney
tourist, or of an undergraduate boat upon sight-mel‘
and adventure, to point a moral or adorn a tale with "a
peep into Austrian prisons,' or " a night with a turnkey ;"
but to a plain man, professionally engaged in the country
where these things are done, I am aware him the Austrian
esperiencee ha describes are far from profitable, and until
the much-vaunted Anglo-Ambian Alliance bear some

tangible fruit in the sitipe of a treaty
or enderstseding
affecting the treatment of British subjects, or
travelling in the Austrian deouniciaLirigerty the per-
poses of buena'r or pleasure, I would receemnend
my fellow-countrymen to avoid that treacherous frontr—if
they would not Apure in the newspapers, or become "House-
, hold Word." Sir Hamilton Seymour may do much to raise
the. character, and I may say the honour, of the British
anima in the eyes of the ruling poorest' Austria. The least
he can do is to make the Foreign-4k" passport (without
which no Englishman can visit Austria) respected. As keg
aa Englishmen are wantonly insulted or detained, it is but a
grandiloquent putt and a sham.
1 remain, &e. B. HARWOOD.