The Sun.
London, England, 1866-10-24 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC; JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The exchange of national hospitalities
in which the Belgians have now left us so deeply in
debt is one of the fruits of a movement which has
gone through singular changes, and led to unfore-
seen developments. It is still only a very few years
since England opened its eyes to the discovery, or
at least to a very strong impression, that it had
trusted too much to its wooden walls, that its sol-
diers were few against many, that the privates did
not know how to handle the musket, the officers
how to command, the Generals how to manoeuvre,
or the civil departments to equip and supply. It
was a minor, but still a serious affair that we had
neither artillery nor small arms, except of the sort
that our neighbours had long discarded. We relied
on our regimental system, our inexhaustible fund
of patriotism, our all-powerful credit, and the Pro-
vidence that had raised up a succession of great
soldiers and sailors to make the best of the worst
materials. But the prospect was not satisfactory to
sensible men, particularly as we were extending our
front and scattering our forces all over the world,
and not certain any moment that the sun might not
be setting on some disaster to our arms. A pinch
had actually come, and we had felt the want of men.
In this uneasy state of things the idea of the rifle,
to be handled by Volunteers, flashed as it were into
the national mind. We had a regular army which
beats those of all the world when the spontaneous
character of its formation is taken into account.
We had yeomanry and militia that could be easily
embodied, and no doubt developed. But the com-
position of all these services, supposing them in their
fullest growth and highest perfection, left out an
immense class that we are accustomed to call the
peculiar strength and pride of England. Where
was the middle class, where the mercantile, the pro-
fessional, and the vast accessions created by the rail
and the other new industries of the age ? It was
true that out of this vast middle class men might
sink to the ranks of the military service, or aspire
to commissions ; but, once in harness, a middle-class
man, whatever his personal prowess, his strength,
or his skill, could pretend to no real share in the
defence of his country. It might almost be said that
the whole of this class volunteered, or is ready to
volunteer, as far as is possible or prudent. But the
idea has grown with the numerical growth. The
Volunteer of to-day is not merely the sharpshooter
of the supposed Tyrolese model ; he is not the man
supposed to be useful on a mountain, or in a wood,
or in the defence of a town. He is a well-trained
soldier, fit for any service in any battle-field. But
he is pre-eminently the soldier of the people, the
defender of his country, and the champion of inde-
pendence. No dream of conquest, no vision of
glory, throws its dangerous light over his path. His
motive is duty, and his triumph freedom. 'This is
the source and reason of that sympathy England
feels with the Continental States that rest content
with constitutional freedom, desire to govern them-
selves, and neither to conquer nor to be conquered.
Under very different circumstances, and certainly
in closer proximity with the most threatening dan-
gers, the Belgians have in all ages of'history asserted
and re-asserted a sturdy independence, only suc-
cumbing for a time to the most overwhelming neces-
sity. Their name is only associated with their own
soil, for they have aspired to nothing more. Wide
rivers, reclaimed marshes, estuaries, and sandbanks
stretching many miles into the sea, with only here
and there a circuitous channel, gives Belgium
almost the advantages of an insular position. It
has seldom failed to obtain from one neighbour the.
assistance it might want against another, while the
certainty of having to bear the brunt of the colli-
sion has kept Belgium always armed. The only
danger of the country lay in the possible failure of
patriotism as an incentive to military virtue and
genius. Such a danger is not only possible; it is
even assumed as a matter of course by States of
an imperial and aggressive character. They have
always deemed it impossible to bold their own with-
out advancing, and have thought a standstill
only a sort of accidental equilibrium between
Powers straining every nerve to cross their boun-
daries. The theory of empire is the law of the
stronger, and it has never quite reconciled itself to
the exceptional fact of a strength absolutely suffi-
cient for the occasion, desirous to keep its own and
to leave others to do the same. But geographical
circumstances and a certain stubbornness of charac-
ter to which we know no beginning have made the
Belgians perform a part more like our own than
could be found elsewhere in Europe. This has been
in spite of a great difference of race and in spite of
occasional subjections, from which they have largely
profited, without the iron ever entering into their
soul. Besides conquest, the arts of peace have been
tried upon them, without weakening them or cor-
rupting their independence. The civilisations of
Italy, Germany, Spain, and France have passed
over them, leaving special and abiding traces ; but,
nationally and politically, the Belgium of to-day
is the same as the Belgium of ancient and mediaeval
story. Such are the people from whom our Volun-
teers have received hospitalities almost without ex-
ample in the intercourse of nations, but most intel-
ligible and most natural when we take into account
the old community of interest and feeling. Belgium
wishes to be at peace with all the world, and has
nothing to gain by the interruption of it, or by di-
plomacy of an aggressive character. This is also
our good fortune, and it is with us, therefore, that
the Belgian Government must feel the most sym-
pathy. Her relations with her immediate neigh-
bours are equally peaceful and hopeful. She can-
not but remember, indeed, that the tide of war has
often rolled forwards and backwards over her soil,
and that it is impossible fOr her to escape being. car-
ried away or whirled in that vortex. All that she
can do is to renew continually and to press upon
every new occasion the assurances of friendship,
and her desire to interchange peaceful services.
This duty to her own immediate neighbours she has,
with happy tact, combined with the discharge of a
special debt acknowledged by herself to this coun-
try. Nothing was ever better done, and our Vo-
lunteers will bring home and carry far and wide to
many a quiet home a tale of Royal splendour, of
public kindness, and of international harmony new
to the homely insular mind. "All this," we seem
to hear often exclaimed, " in a country only three
or four hours from our shores !" Often as our
tourists have been told that they can go further and
fare worse than in the old Belgian cities, they will
now allow there is something to be said for the sug
gestion.

POST—The trial of Risk Allah Bey, which com-
menced on Monday at Brussels, will probably take
a high rank amongst causes celebres. For many
months past the journals of France, Belgium, and
even of Germany, have been discussing, with more
or less reserve, the circumstances under which the
accused is now called upon to answer the two
separate charges of murder and forgery ; whilst the
fact of the prisoner being not only a naturalised
Englishman, but well known in London, will neces-
sarily invest the present proceedings with more than
ordinary interest in this country. Arrested in the
course of last spring in Paris, the Bey was, on the
demand of the Belgian Government, delivered up to
them, in conformity with the provisions of an ex-
tradition treaty, and since that time they had been
busily engaged in procuring evidence of the crimes
of which he is accused. According to Continental
custom, the prisoner has been submitted to a series
of inquisitorial examinations. The services of the
London, the Parisian, and the Turkish police have
been made available with the view of ascertaining
his antecedents and the history of his life ; his papers
and correspondence have been seized and closely
scrutinised ; and, in fine, no effort has been spared
on the part of the prosecution to substantiate, if
possible, the accusations which have been made.
On the other hand, the Bey has been enabled to
make ample preparation for his defence. Being
wealthy, he has not only been in a position to
command adequate professional advice, but has
even secured the assistance of the ablest advocate
practising at the French criminal bar. According
to the Belgian law, a person indicted criminally
may be defended either by a relative, a friend, or
a Belgian advocate, and, as no inquiries are made
into the precise nature of a supposed friendship,.
the assistance of a foreign advocate may be
obtained under the colour of an evident fiction.
Thus it happens that Risk Allah Bey is de-
fended at Brussels by the French advocate M.
Lachaud. The trial was thought of sufficient im-
portance by the Government to be entrusted to a
special commission composed of three judges. It
may not be out of place, perhaps, to state that the
trial is by a jury of twelve, and that the verdict
need not be unanimous. It is determined by the
voice of the majority. If the jurymen are equally
divided in opinion the accused is considered ac-
quitted ; if seven find for a conviction against five

for an acquittal, the verdict is referred to the
judges, who vote as jurymen, but if eight pronounce
against a prisoner he is condemned. The acte
d'accusation, or indictment, which will be found
elsewhere in our columns, sets forth at length not
only the offences with which Risk Allah is charged,
but an abstract of the evidence to be given by the
prosecution. From this it appears that Risk Allah
is accused of having murdered, at Antwerp, on the
30th of March, 1865, a young man named Charles
Readly, and also of having been the accomplice of
one Joseph Ruscovitch in a fraud committed at
Brussels by him in forging two cheques drawn on
the National Bank of London. Ruscovitch, who
has not been apprehended, is also indicted (though
not present) for having committed this foraery,
and for having endorsed the cheques so forgedc to
a Belgian banker. For the present we will confine
ourselves to the circumstances under which the
alleged murder was committed at Antwerp, and
the manner in which the Procureur-General seeks
to connect Risk Allah with its commission. Risk
Allah, or, as he is styled in the acte d'accusation,
George Habeeb Risk Allah, is a native of the Lebanon,
and when a young man came to this country, where
he studied medicine and obtained a diploma fromthe
College of Surgeons. During the Crimean war his
services were accepted by the Turkish Government,
and on his return to England he was appointed
honorary medical attache to the Ottoman Embassy in
London, was decorated by the Sultan with the Order
of the Medjidie, andreceived the title of Bey. In the
year 1857 he married a widow named Lewis, whose
husband had died in the preceding year, leaving her a
fortune of about £25,000. By the marriage settle-
ment a power of appointment by will was reserved
to her in respect to this property, but in default of
appointment the reversion fell to Risk Allah. She
died at Cologne, after having made a will bequeath-
ing all her property to her husband, with the excep-
tion of the sum of £5,000, which was given him in
trust for a young man named Readly on his attain-
ing the age of twenty-one years, but in the event of
his dying in his minority the £5,000 were left abso-
lutely to her husband. This young man, though
styled her nephew, was in fact a natural child, but
of whom it is not known. The prosecution allege
that he was born in July, 1844, at Greenwich, and
was the son of James Macklin and Rosamond Reade.
In the early part of 1865, Readly, whilst at Spa, in
Belgium, made the acquaintance of a young Eng-
lish lady, made her a proposal of marriage, and re-
ferred the lady's friends to his guardian, Risk Allah
Bey, at that time resident in London. Whilst at
Spa, however, Readly was seized with a sudden and
severe illness ; and on inquiries being made of the
Bey in London, the latter admitted that the young
man had been subject from his infancy to epileptic
fits. Precisely at this time Readly left Spa to meet
his guardian, Risk Allah, at Antwerp, and when in
that town he received a letter from the mother of
the young lady, stating that in consequence of his
ill health she could not consent to his marriage with
her daughter. This was about the middle of March.
In replying to this intimation Readly stated that he
would only accept a refusal from the young lady
herself. A few days later the daughter wrote to
him saying that the marriage could not take place.
Immediately afterwards Readly wrote again to
the mother, reproaching her with preventing his
marriage with her daughter, and consoling himself
with the reflection that there were many opportuni-
ties of finding " a speedy and honourable death."
On the night of the 29th of March, whilst Readly
and Risk Allah were stopping at the Rhine Hotel,
at Antwerp, the former was seized with a fit, and
it would seem that the Bey remained at the bed-
side of the young man till an advanced hour of
the night. At 7 o'clock in the morning Readly was
sleeping quietly in his bed. Half an hour after-
wards the Bey, according to his own story, came
down stairs from the room which he occupied on
the same floor with that of his ward, took some
breakfast, and walked about till 9 o'clock. At that
hour, finding the young man's room door locked, he
gave an alarm, and, in company with several of the
servants in the hotel, entered Readly's room by a
door which communicated with another room. The
unfortunate young man was then found lying dead
in his bed under the circumstances stated in the acte
d'accusation, the body still warm, a fowling-piece
recently discharged lying by his side, and a piece of
paper on the dressing table, containing, in the de-
ceased's handwriting, the words, " I have done it."
The police having been sent for Risk Allah was
arrested, but after the lapse of three days was set at
liberty, the authorities having come to the conclu-
sion that Readly bad shot himself. Some months
later, however, they ascertained that Readly was on
the point of attaining his majority when he died at
Antwerp, and also the fact that Risk Allah suc-
ceeded to his property. They also discovered that
the Bey had insured his ward's life for the sum of
£l,OOO to cover certain advances made during his
minority, and that this sum had been paid to him
by the insurznce company. The interest which
Risk Allah had in Readly's death supplied a strong
motive for murdering him, and, on a more close
examination of the circumstances attending the
death, the Belgian authorities were led to disbelieve
in the possibility of suicide. They next proceeded
to make inquiries into the Bey's manner of life, his
antecedents, and the character of his associates. In
doing so they discovered that from the time when
the death of Readly look place the Bey had lived in
the closest intimacy with a man named Joseph
Ruscovitch, who had on more than one occasion
been convicted of felony. This brings us to the
second act in this strange drama. Whilst postpon-
ing the continuation of this singular story, it is only
just to the Bey to state that his acquaintanceship
with Ruscovitch at Antwerp, immediately after
Readly's death, admits of explanation.