The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1853-02-08 00:00:00

•
legitimate monarchy were shut age

covered be was a parrent
tifying his passion and 1
fling I

and, while in reality gra-

s resentment, affected

:nself on the s

mpathies of his peop

to cons

_ .
titute himself the representative of the elec-
tive as opposed to the hereditary principle. That
sympathy he has not obtained. The crowd looked
coldly on him as he came and as he went, and the
listless spectators of his nuptials keenly criticised
the getting up of the ceremony, but forgot its po-
litical import and thought little of the prospects of
a future dynasty. The proprietors of private houses
would not illuminate, and the public buildings dis-
pensed their splendours to empty streets and de-
serted quays. For once, Paris was not "i' the
vein." She was for once deep in thought, thinking
of a disastrous past, an unstable present, and a
lowering future—of all the idle ceremonies she had
seen and may yet see—of all she has lost and of all
she has gained—of the Monarchy, of the Republic,
of the Empire—and of the unseen void which lies
beyond them all.—The Times.
The marriage of the Emperor and Empress of
the French was solemnised at Nutre Dame on Sun-
day with that lavish magnificence to which parvenus
of all classes are particularly prone. We smile at
the splendour of the mushroom court; but it is
precisely because it is so spurious and ephemeral a
thing that it puts on so gorgeous a dress and apes
so carefully the etiquette and ceremonial of royalty
—a childish masquerade after all, unless they sym-
bolise the traditional dignity of a time-honoured
throne. Tailors, jewellers, and decorators, are
called in to supply the absence of all that can touch
the feelings, impress the imagination, and corn-
mand respect. Moreover, the taste for pomp has
been in the Parisian populace pampered and culti-
vated to such a degree that every show must be
costlier than the last. Nothing but real magnifi-
cence will go down.--Gicardian.

THE ACHILLI CASE, the Queen's Bench hav-
ing properly refused a new trial, was wound up on
Monday by the infliction of a punishment, mild
indeed, but sufficient under the circumstances to
satisfy the ends of justice—a fine of £lOO, which
was paid on the spot. So ends the most painful
and disgusting of our causes celebres. Its close at
least was worthy of an English court of justice.
Mr. Justice Coleridge's address is a touching and
dignified piece of judicial eloquence, redeeming the
character of the Court, deodorizing (if we may use
the word) the filthy details of the case, and fixing,
while it softens and corrects, the impression it has
left on the public mind.—London Guardian.

On this subject the Morning Post says :
must pronounce the bold, able, candid, and digni-
fied review which Mr. Justice Coleridge took of
the whole case to be a fine model of judicial beha-
viour under very trying circumstances. The case
admitted the expression of a great deal of feeling.
The Court had to inflict punishment, not to ascer-
tain facts. It had to weigh motives and conse-
quences, to determine what amount of retribution
would satisfy the alleged injustice to Dr. Achilli,
and yet not disregard the mitigating circumstances
of Dr. Newman. A wide margin was thus left.
In injudicious hands this latitude might have been
singularly prejudicial to the dignity of that high
Court. But in the hands of that learned judge and
dignified gentleman, and devout Christian, not a
single word was uttered which could have embit-
tered the personal feelings of any, not an opportu-
nity was lost of tempering the stern rigour of the
law with all the softening accompaniments of
Christian sorrow, and divesting it of all shadow of
a connection with the bitterness of religious con-
troversy. Not a word of harshness against the
faith of the offender, not a single comparison of
the two Churches, no one word that did not apply
to the actual business of the occasion, escaped the
lips of the judge, or betrayed any suppressed feel-
ing of the Court. A very proper care was taken to
prevent the question between the prosecutor and
the defendant from being considered as between the
two Churches of England and Rome. The con-
troversy between these lies far wide of any persona-
lities. At the same time, it was only just to the
Church of England that the court should declare
how wholly uninterested she was in the case from
first to last. And this Mr. Justice Coleridge did,
in language how forcible, in a spirit how charitable,
and in argument how irresistible, let the reader
ponder and judge for himself. Had Dr. Newman
been proved to be the wicked and bitter slanderer
which the criminal information alleged him to be
(but which evidently the court did not consider
him), the answer was, unhappily for him, that he
belonged not to her fold, but to Rome. On the
other hand, had Achilli been all that Dr. Newman's
libel asserted, the Church of England was not
answerable for his training, but the Church of
Rome. It was under the discipline of Dr. New-
man's own church that he became what he was
represented to be. Either way the Church of Eng-
land has no credit at stake; and the argument on
either side proves more than is good for the Church
of Rome."

We

The Morning Herald, taking up the same subject,
says :—" The Court of Queen's Bench has suffered
we fear, sentimentality' to lead it in pronouncing
its judgment yesterday. To the court generally it
would doubtless appear a glorious opportunity of
contrasting the clemency of the laws of a Protestant
state with the cruelty of the laws of such a state as
Tuscany. At Florence, a poor man and his wife
have been incarcerated for more than seventeen
months, for the crime of reading the Scriptures, in
their own house, to one or two of their domestics.
In London, an eminent Papist is brought to trial
for calumniating a convert from Popery. It is
proved, as Lord Campbell remarked, that at least
six flagitious crimes had been charged by him against
this poor convert, for the truth of which not a tittle
of evidence could be produced. Yet, after being
found guilty of these frightful calumnies, the sen-
tence of the Court of Queen's Bench is, that he do
pay a fine of one hundred pounds We repeat, that
it is not possible to understand this sentence in any
other way than that the court was romantically bent
on showing, that while Protestants cannot get any-
thing like fair play in Popish countries, Romanists
will find in England a contrary system is pursued.
We doubt not that the judges would reply, that
they felt this to be a case which might be made an
exception to all general rules—a case in which it
would be noble and graceful in a bench of Protestant
judges to lean to the side of mercy in dealing with
a pervert to Popery. Such feelings maybe honoured,
to a certain extent ; but they may be carried to such
lengths as to work a practical injustice.
May not the mediators
hant confidence present
for
rTthhee Smtaaiduilaair
iclvitsha3trsri:u—n;
to the despot of Tuscany the record of Newman's
conviction and punishment ; the victory ofof
Pro-
testant toleration, which sheaths even the sword
justice rather than wound too deeply the adver-
saries of the faith it holds ? Such an example
whatevercannot
effectfailof it may produceits effect up
upon the Tuscan
on Europe generally,
gaoler. Letcommute the remnant of the
three or four years'
him
imprisonment to which the
Madiai have been condemned for reading the Holy
Scriptures for £lOO, and it will soon be seen how
the sympathy of British Protestants will open the
prison dpors of the eaptivel,
The vale of Achilli