The Sun.
London, England, 1861-03-20 00:00:00

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thrown in the way of getting up the bitst; defence to
the charge against them.
Mr. Roe, the summoning officer, said that, neither
"Empson" nor any one else ever • received the
Tightest facility or encouragement from him, with
regard to the system of "touting" at this court, and
he thought he could say the same for every other
person connected with the court.
Sir J. Musgrove said he had been given to under-
stand that the way such persons obtA. ined their
information was by attending the courts: of justice,
and becoming regular " hangers-on," ai s it was
called, and, in many cases that were :remanded,
they, having heard • the names given i n evidence,
visited the gaols, representing they were engaged
by the prisoners, and so gained admission. to " tout"
the persons accused.
Mr. Wontncr said that that was procisely the
course pursiwd,
Mr. Humphreys, jun., said the class (ll' persons
referred to did not confine their practi De te pri-
soners, but carried it on to a considerable extent
amongst prosecutors, who were often intaluced to
allow the parties touting them to condui,ct prose-
cutions, by the promise that it would be done
without any personal expense to thernsel!.ves ; and
the way in which that was managed was by giving
the so-called brief, and very brief it was as far as
instructions went, to counsel, who asked caw or two
questions during the trial, for which a sum. of money
was obtained from some fund connected with the
court sufficient to pay a small fee to the counsel and
leave something for the person acting as the solicitor. •
If such persons succeeded in getting moneyalso from
the prosecutors it was generally thrown away, as
the business was managed in an incompetent manner,
and their blundering often led to the acquittal of
the accused ; the ends of justice were entirely frus-
trated, and not unfrequently actions for false im-
prisonment ensued, and prosecutors mulcted in
heavy damages.
Sir J. Musgrove admitted it was a very serious
matter, and said he would take the earliest oppor-
tunity of bringing it under the consideration of his
brother magistrates.

ITALY AND TIIE PAPACY.

The Paris Presse has the following striking arti-
cle on the Papacy and Italy, showing the antago-
nism between the two from a very early period of
Italian history :—" ' The Papacy,' says the Monde

this morning, has always lived in peace with
Italy; and so long as Italy remained Christian she
surrounded with respect the Sovereign Pontiffs.'
To express one's-self thus one of two things is
necessary—either the Ai onde knows very little of
the history of the Popes, or else it calculates largely
on the ignorance of its readers. Not only has Italy
not always lived in peace with the Papacy, but, on
the contrary, she has been the country where the
Popes have met with the strongest and most con-
stant opposition. Dating from the accession of
John VIII. (A.D. 872), they have been at feud con-
tinually with all parties. In .the course of the
105 years that elapsed between the death of For-
mes° in 896, and the election of Sylvester in 999,
there were 29 Popes, 11 of whom were strangled or
assassinated, three died in prison or exile, 14 were
only Popes in name, and one could only reign in
the society and with the protection of the famous
Theodora. This woman, marching at the head of a
powerful family and party, commanded as a sove-
reign in Itoma;iiliere she disputed the authority
of her relative, the deacon Sergius, who aspired to
the Papal chair. Conquered and driven out re-
peatedly, Sergius, on being supported by Adalbert,
the Marquis of Tuscany, returned as conqueror to
Rome in 904, as Mahomet had done to Mecca ; he
had himself proclaimed Pontiff; and was reconciled
to Theodora, whoi gave up to him her daughter
Maroza. or Marietta, by whom he had some
children. These women, braving public indigna-
tion and popular riots, disposed of the IChurelt
made Popes and had them strangled, until Maro%
was herself thrown into prison by her own son
Alheric, who turned his brother John XI., son of
Sergius 111., out of the Pontificial see. To Alberic
succeeded, in 955, Octavian, who, uniting the tem-
poral with the spiritual power, made himself Pope
under the name of John XII. ; and what a Pope !
He was half a pagan, laughed at the sacrament,
blasphemed like a Turk, and led the life, not of a
priest, but of a soldier. He was deposed by Otho
1., reascended the pontifical throne, where he took
a horrible revenge, and in 964 was assassinated,
having been caught in Itagrante delicto, like Alex-
ander of Medicis. To the Maroza family succeeded
that of the Crescentius family, descendants of
Theodora 11. The tragedies continued, and with
them the old disturbances, assassinations and
exiles. Rome offered the spectacle of the old bar-
baric regencies. Otho 111, put into the chair his
cousin Gregory V., who kept himself in it by terror
and died by poison. For 300 years the Roman
Church was a battlefield. Constantine, brought to
the chair by force, was turned out, of it by force, for
Adrian Ifit;UtlllieMPneccril
oesedhink.p
anodiithinaclie ~ ii; him assassinated.
i.
the crimes committed under his predecessor. Leo
111. took to flight to escape assassination. Pascal
I. had two dignitaries of the Church murdered in
his own palace; Sergius 11. had John, his rival, cut
to pieces ; the election of Benedict 111, and of
Nicholas I. brought about an insurrection and almost
a schism ; Leo V. and John X. were strangled ;
John XI. was deposed and imprisoned ; Stephen
VIII. died of his wounds; John XII. was stabbed
to death ; Benedict V. died au exile in Germany ;
Benedict VI. and John XIV. were assassinated by
Boniface VII., and he was massacred in his turn by
the frenzied people ; Gregory V. was expelled and
incarcerated ; John XVI. was deposed and put to
death. The rebellion against Benedict IX., who
was expelled for his crimes, as Pope Victor 111.
himself acknowledged, was smothered by Conrad
in 1047. But the peace only lasted six years, and
the Pope had to take to flight again. lie returned
to Rome a second time through blood and over the
dead bodies of his sons ; be maintained himself in
power until 1045, the period of his third flight.
We have hitherto spoken only of the revolutions of
the Romans. In 1057 began at Ancona a series of
revolutions in the other towns of the Pontifical
State. The Romans have risen in insurrection 150
times against the Papacy; the Roman States,.taken
in a lump, 111 times. To give an idea of the obsti-
' nacy of the Romans in rejecting the temporal
dominion of the Papacy, we will limit ourselves to
reminding our readers of the principal facts since
the 12th century ; the deplorable end of Arnold of
Brescia in 1155; the exile of Alexander HL in
1159 ; the splendid episode of Rienzi in 1347 ; the
general insurrection under Boniface IX. in 1375 ;
the new Roman republic proclaimed by the people
in the time of Eugene IV. in 1434; the conspiracy of
Stephen Porcari, under Nicholas V., in 1453 ;
the general revolt of the provinces on the death of
Alexander VI., in 1503 ; the Roman Revolution,
under Clement VII., in 1526 ; the revolution
of 1590, that of 1618, and the entire history
of the Roman States down to the French Revo-
lution. We have no occasion to recall to mind
what was the fate of the Papacy from 1796 to
1815 ; and no one, except the Atomic, has forgotten
the movements of 1821, 1831, 1843, 1845, and
1848-49. All that we can say is that in no country
have the people evinced more obstinately the most
implacable hatredt the most persistent hatred, of
their Government. Such is the fashion in which
the Papacy has always lived at peace with Italy.
The Papacy in Italy has been, on the contrary,
almost always either little esteemed, or tailed in
laughed , even at the time s
question, or openly attacked. The Italians have
at excommunication
when excommunications made the whole Christian.
world tremble and shook upon
rtheir thrones the
most powerful Sovereigns.
excommtricated, degraded himself at Ca-
W hen Henry 111.,
the Lombards were treating Gregory VII.
bneoisnsga,
as a heretic, simoniac, and adulterer ; when Gre-
gory 11. excommunicated the Romans, they drove
him out, pursued him with arms in their hands,
and compelled him to revoke his excom
tions ; when Innobent IV. quitted France, after
and having set Europe aghast by deposing excom-
municatingmunica-
the Emperor Frederick 11., he entered
Rome himself in terror at the threats of the
Romans, and did not dare stir abroad from his
well-known
dowbyn
palace. How many times have not the Venetians,
Florentines, Milanese,
war to Papal excommunications
e and Bolognese ?Tn ehsee
at V • -
history of the interdict Venice is unique of its
kind. Even under the wretched Spanish dominion,
under the tortures of theiSpanish Inquisition, Italian
made its
anti-Papisrn influence and strength felt ;
then it was that Fra Paoli Sarpi wrote. The whole
of the Italian literature is notoriously anti-Papal.
Dante scourges the Popes; Petrarch does not spare
the lash ; Boccaccio treats them with contempt ; all
the Italian romance writers, including Monsignore
3latteo Bandello, Bishop of Tortona, have taken
for their plots the vices and excesses of the Court
of Rome and Italian clergy. Doubtless, we need
not speak of Macchiavelli. All, or nearly all, the
Italian historians and poets are anti-Papists; Man-
zoni, despite his genius, has tried in vain to stem
the stream; and Cesare Cantu, by an attempt of
the samedescription, lost his popularity immediately.
The Mends pretends that the war between Italy and
the Papacy, between the Revolution and the Church,
has been excited lately.' The foregoing facts,nL
though very incomplete, being written e/
frserror.
calamo, prove that such is a great historical
The public spirit of the Italians is
now what it has
been essentially in every
age;h misrepresent it for
011 y and one must either
grossly ignore history, or w
the sake of a bad cause, to dare to affirm that the
Papacy has always Jived in peace with Italy.' "