Star.
London, England, 1822-07-30 00:00:00

FRANCE.

Although the Bastile has long been destroyed, and
the 4i Most Christian King" can no longer resort to
Lettres de Cachet, yet France has loathsome prisons,
secret tortures, and a tremendous engine of despotism
and oppression in the Police, which appears to have
not only regained, but even surpassed the activity
which it displayed during the Reign of Terror, in the
Revolution. The abolition of Trial by Jury gives rise
to acts of the most flagrant injustice; and if a dispo-
sition to complain is manifested, the refractory per-
son is handed over to the Police, and made to bear
in silence what the Constitution declares no one has
a right-to inflict even on a condemned criminal: nor
has the sufferer any relief; it is true, he may appeal to
the Chamber of Deputies, but this is a mere mockery ;
for whenever accusations are brought against the Go-
vernment or its agents, they are either treated with
contempt or rejected as unworthy to occupy the dig-
nified attention of the Chamber. In no instance
was this denial of justice more unblushingly mani-
fested than in the rejection of the Petition of Colonel
DUFAY, recently presented to the Chamber. A copy
r.f. this Petition, which the French Journals have not
dared to publish, has reached us. It states, that
_

" Ott Tuesday, June the 4th, 1822, at five o'clock, the Peti-
tioner went to the Prefecture of the Police to demand the release
of his friend Captain De!tour, whom the gen. d'armes had ar-
rested for bathing in the river opposite the' quatre Nations.'—
Detained a prisoner without crime, mandate, without pretext,
by the caprice of the agents of the Prefect, the Petitioner was
taken to the prison called Salle St. Martin."
He was afterwards removed to a dungeon at the
bottcm of the Court of the Prefecture of Police, in
which there was camp bechtead, with iron rings
fixed into the wall.
" The whale furniture consisted of a chair and an epen trough,
filed with the most offensive materials. In this horrible place
was confined, at six o'clock, the Petitioner, formerly a Colonel
in the army, covered with honourable scars, and to whom, after
a month's confinement, not a crime had been ascribed, to serve
es a pretext fur the commission of such cruel acts."
lie W.AS bound to his bed, severely beaten, a: d on
complaining, gagged almost to suffocation.
" While opposing the forcible opening of h mouth, the Peti-
tioner bit one uf his torturers ; immediately a cord with a run-
ning noose was placed round his neck, he was thrown upon his
bed and beaten with redoubled violence—the cord was tightened
till he became Insensible, mid during his swoon his mouth was
opened with a piece of iron, which nearly forced out several of
his teeth. The gag and strait waistcoat were then applied, his
head was fixed tiS one of the iron rings, and his fret to the other.
The Petitioner, during his tortures, implored the pity of the
13:igadier of Gendarmerie, who coldly answered' this does not
concern me.'

" The mattress having slirped away, the body of the Petitioner
being without support, remained suspended between tls, two
rings by the head and feet ; his hands being muffled up in the strait
waistcoat were not of any avail to him, and the gag prevented
his cries for assistance being heard."

Such were a few of the hardships suffered by the
Petitioner, and for which he vainly demands justice;
the Petitioner concludes, by obset ving, that
" It remains for the Deputies of France to know whether the
right of arrest tetthoutwirrant, and of destroying in dungeons the
prisoner whose complaints it is desired to stifle, are the inherent
lights of the Prefecture of Police."

A shocking murder was recently committed in
Perris, on the person of Richard Yarworth, a fine
young man, aged twenty-four, son of Mr. R.
Yar-
worth, of London, an industrious pressman, and fa-
ther of a large family. The unfortunate victim of
barbarity was a compositor, and had been employed
for two years in a printing-office in Paris, where he
gave perfect satisfaction, and was esteemed and be-
loved by all who knew him. The details of this
hocking affair are communicated in a letter from
his brother to his father in London, of which the fol-
lowing is an extract : _ _ _

" Wednesday, July 17, 1822.
" DEAR FATHER—My hand trembles so at this moment that
I am scarcely able to write to inform you of the dreadful cir-
cumstance which has taken place. On Sunday, the 7th of this
month, I left my unfortunate brother at home in the morning,l
as he would not go with me to the Louvre, which I visited that
day, he feeling tather low spirited, so I went with another
young man of the name of James. In the afternoon I went
outside the barrier, and !too out rather late; when I returned
home it was past one o'clock, and I could not gain admittanie
into my lodging, so that I was obliged to wait at the door till four
o'clock in the morning, when I was let In by an Englishman.
During my stay at the door three of the National Guard came up,
and inquired if I belonged to the house? 1 answered In the affir-
mative; they then proceeded to examine the ground close to the
door, and I perceived by the moon-light that they were looking at
some blood which appeared to have been shed near the spot.—
When I got up stairs I was rather surprised at not finding Dick
in bed, as he never had, since my arrival, nopt out the whole of
the night. Ou the following day I had no tidings of him, and I
felt rather alarmed, and made inquiries of the whole of his ac-
quaintances and friends whether they had seen or heard any
thing of him? but all that I could learn was, that he had been
at the English house on the evening of Sunday, and had left
there about twelve o'clock to return home, when he patted from
a young marl at no great distance from the house where we lodge.
The time passed on, and I made all the inquiries possible, but
still I could gain no intelligence till Wednesday morning, when
I got the overseer, a Frenchman, to go with me and make in-
quiries • we went to the house of the National Guard. and
learneifrom the drummer that as the patrole of the troops of the
line were going their rounds on Sunday night, they discovered a
young man lying at the door of the house where we lodge wel-
tering in his blood, apparently lifeless; that they bad taken him
up and placed him on a mattress, and proceeded with him to the
Hospital, called the Hotel Dieu ; and while they were carrying
him there he faintly groaned out, " U Gobi-0 ?RA r but be
still remained apparently lifeless, till they began to dress his bead,
when he uttered a most pitiful shriek, but he still remained in an
Inanimate state.

4, As soon as I learned this, I went to the hospital with a
young man of the name of Sabin, and found my poor unfortu-
nate brother tied down in a bed, with a strait jacket to confine
him, with his head in a most horrible condition ; his forehead
had been laid open with a large knife or sake, 40 that Too
might put your two fingers in the wound, and his skull had
been broken to pieces with some hieSp instrumelit, so that
the brain had. been bridled, which caused him toile delirious,'
while both his e4es were closed vital the News be battle.]