The Sun.
London, England, 1864-05-07 00:00:00

The Garibaldi Indignati.u2 Meeting on

Primrose-hill.

WERE T„, p0i,r.,;;8 TUSTIFIED IN SrPPRESSING IT?
The following remarks thereupon are from the
the Law Times of to-day :
The dispersion by the police of the indignation meeting
held upon Primrose-hill, to protest against the sudden de-
parture of Garibaldi, is likely to be submitted to judicial
decision. As for the meeting itself, it was harmless enough.
There was not the slight est danger of a breach of the peace,
and the only ground upon which the authorities can justify
their interference is, that the parks are places for recreation,
dedicated to the use of the whole public, and that meetings
held there would be an obstrucfion of that free enjoy-
ment by Lall. The newspapers have very generally as-
sumed that the act of the police was not only illegal, but
undesirable, and they have treated the question as if the
point at issue is the right to hold meetings in the open air.
But that right will probably be admitted, or at least it will
not be contested. The sole plea of the police authorities
will be that they have general orders from the Home Office
not to permit of assemblages in the park that obstruct the
full and free enjoyment of them by the whole public: The
justification of the police is that they have acted in obedi-
ence to orders, and as those orders are not denied, the ques-
tion resolves itself into this—Are such orders legal, and
can meetings be lawfully held in the parks in defiance of
those orders? The special character of the recent meet-
ing must not be permitted to influence the judgment.
It must be steadily borne in mind, that if a
meeting may be lawfully held in the parks to complain
of the abrupt dismissal of Garibaldi by the
Government, it will be equally lawful to hold any other
meeting for any other purpose, and meetings of any mag-
nitude and in any number. If Mr. Beales, revising bar-
rister for Middlesex, may make the top of Primrose Hill
impassable for three or four hours to-day, any other man
who seeks notoriety may block up any other path in any
other park at any time he pleases—or twenty such as Mr.
Beaks may take it iuto their heads, either for business or
for mischief, to hold twenty meetings at the same hour, and
so practically close all the parks to all but the mob ; in fact,
the persons for whose enjoyment they are designed would
be deprived by those for whose use they were not intended.
Establish the right contended for by the newspapers, and
abundant advantage would be taken of it. They forget the
origin of the order of which they complain. The Sunday
meetings in Hyde Park had become a nuisance, and threat-
ened serious consequences. What did the newspapers then?
They vehemently abused the authorities for not suppressing
them—they urged the self-same argument that the parks
were places for recreation, and not for public meeting, and
it was in obedience to an almost unanimous call for official
interference that the orders now so much complained of
were issued, Such is the inconsistency of writers
who are moved by excitement and not by no-
son. They cannot, or will not, see that they
must permit or refuse the use of the parks to all meet-
ings alike, but having procured the prohibition of meetings
which they did not like, they are wrathful now at the sup-
pression of a meeting whose object they are pleased to ap
prove. But the law knows no such distinction. It will
give or deny the privilege to all equally. If it should be
determined there is common law right to hold a public
meeting in any public place, it will give that right to the
preacher of sceptism as well as to the friends of Garibaldi;
and if its judgment should be that there is no such right,
both must submit to the same restriction.
Thus much for the right to meet. Whether it would not
have been more prudent for the police to have folded their
arms and permitted the business to be concluded without
interruption, is another question, We think it would. There
is no doubt whatever that Garibaldi's departure was
hastened because Austria would not (and indeed could not)
come to the Conference. The shouts were in her ears that
greeted the declaration of her mortal enemy, that he would
take Venetia from her. We should have refused to send an
ambassador to a congress at Paris while the Parisians were
welcoming with enthusiasm the declaration of some Irish
patriot that he would not rest till he had torn Ireland from
England. But reasons of state such as these are not likely
to be intelligible to the multitude, and their indignation at
the spiriting away of their idol is natural and laudable. It
is only to be regretted that they should have been so ill-
advised as to choose one of the parks for giving expression
to it.

Garibaldi Permanent Income Fund,

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

SIR,—At a meeting held this day at Stafford
House, it was stated on satisfactory evidence that
General Garibaldi would certainly decline the sub-
scription for the purchase of an estate to be made
on his behalf.

The meeting therefore resolved to desist from any
farther efforts.

I am instructed to express the regret of the com-
mittee and of the contributors at this determina-
tion of the General, but they fully appreciate the
high motives which have dictated such a refusal.—
Your obedient servant, CHARLES SEELY.
P.S.—The subscriptions already paid will be
returned in full.