The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1860-01-27

leaving their orders at the Counting-room during
the day.
When the infamous Jacobin Club of the French
Revolution was, after desperate struggle, sup
pressed by the Convention, M. THEIRS tells us
that "a frghtful uproar was the consequence. !"
Though the oceans of innocent blood it had shed
still REDEEMED the streets of Paris and the fiendsh
atrocities 1t had perpetrated were still familiar
things to the terrorsricken citizens its followers
were not ashamed to denounce as tyrannous and
illegal the decree which forbade further butcher
les. The abettors of the ruffians, who were ex-
PEELED from that den of iniquity, urged resistance
to the law, and speaking in behalf of the murder
Gus association, they had the hardhood to exclaim
-"When the government violates the rights of
'the people, instruction is for the people the most
''sacred of rights and the most indispensable of
'duties." When the wretched assassin CARRIER,
who had caused six hundred children to be
drowned in the Loire, and five hundred to be shot,
even while clinging in agony to the knees of their
executioners who had sent three hundred young
women of Nantes to death in single night, and
ordered hundred priests to be bound and sunk
ster was brought to trial, terrible outcry was
made by his party. The central authority, they
skrieked, was about to strike through him at con-
sttutiona freedom, and to invade the franchises of
the people His Internal actions were palliated or de-
MED by many, of the deputies of the Convention
saying, ''the witnesses are almost all of them per-
''sonally interested in making great noise about
'this affair."" and ''the newspaper writers and
1.-THE pamphleteers have joined to exaggerate the
most trihing facts to mislead public opinion. :"
'Let then all good patriots beware" shouted
CRAssoUs. "The attack on them is already be-
''guRr Let them close their ranks and be ready
''to defend themselves with energy" The men
who figured in that hellish saturnalia of seventy
years ago have gone to their account, but it would
be idle to suppose that the world has been thence
forth rid of all who, under like circumstances
would be capable of similar cruelties and folies.
1t becomes US then to lay to heart the lessons
which that stained page of history teaches No
scenes have been enacted in our time, nor are
likely to be we trust, which will bear COMPARE
son with those of the frghtful period we speak Of
but there is, nevertheless, an experience to be at
tanned from the study of those events that may be
much the same in all ages, and differences of stu
auion are sufficient to account for its apparent
changes. The brutal instincts which guided and
impeed the French Revolution are operative here
to-day, though on a far mnuter SCALE They who
have denied the outrages inflicted on this people
would, under higher state of excitement have
denied the massacres of Nantes and defended the
Jacobins. The class which considered the trial of
CARRIER and the proceedings against the Clubs
illegal and despotc would, if living now, dis
sent from any honest Interpretation of the laws,
and would resist their energetic enforcement
Thus warned of the anarchy in which the disor-
ders ola State may end, we should be prompted,
at the outset, to repress with strong hand the
progress of lawlessness and crime There are
also other truths suggested by the events of that
dark epoch, which it may not be amiss to con-
slider. These remind us that there is no cause too
vile to find adherents, and no reasons too absurd
for faction to advance in support of its purposes
The unhappy occurrences in our own midst afford
melancholy confirmation of these propositions
Though the police deliberately and openly refused
to protect the people at the balot-box individually
can be found to swear that they all discharged
their duty faithfully-though voters were brutally
assaulted at the polls in the sight of a hundred
bystanders, the authorities will aver that they
were only crowded-though men have been
cruelty murdered on the sidewalks, the officers
Of the law will assert that such enormities
ere perpetrated solely in the recesses of low
drinking houses-though nne-tenths of our citi.
zens well know that the last election was one
StuDpnd0nS nd & Al
didates who profted by it will defend its purity
and accept its disgraceful results. Nor do sucl
INSCRIPTIONS partsans hold any arguments to b.
so preposterous, or any appeals to be so low that
they will hesitate to resort to them to stimulate
reckless and unthinking men into resistance to
the laws They will declam by the hour against
the passage of the Police Bill by the Legislature
on the ground that it is despotic and partisan
measure, intended for the disfranchisement Of
Baltimore. 1t was not despotsm when one mar
nominated and controlled the police force, and
made it the instrument by which all show O
opposition to his single will has been suppressed
but it is sheer tyranny to vest precisely the sam,
powers in Commissioners who will be each
check upon his colleagues. 1t was not partisan
police when the Hon., and honored, THoMA
SWAMI appointed it; but it is Objectionable OF
this ground TO honest patriots, when it is to b
enrolled under the direction of a Board, and il
members are TO be enlisted for five years, an,
will be irremovable except when charges are regu
larly preferred against them and publicly inves
tigated. This city not DISTINGUISHED whe
ruffianism took possession of the polls, an
foreigner and native, clergyman and layman
LII
when, in one large ward, but seventeen voter
were permitted to record their opposition to tn
municipal government; but it will be utterly dis
franchsed if the arm of the law is now raised t
protect the ballot-box, to shield the citizen fror
outrage, and to overawe the armed bullies VIII
menace the public peace. This solcitud
for our liberties is more than suspicion
when manifested by those whose present clair
to power is through usurpation. This regar
for the laws is but a barren afectaton o.
the part of those who have seen our franchise
trampled under foot in the broad streets, and i
open day, when they could and should have ur
held them. Their pretence of desire for a
efficient reformation here is too flimsy to deceive
and the plan they have proposed is evidently
mere juggler's trick, by which the rufianism tina
rules US will transfer its weapon from its RICH
hand to its left but will continue still to brands
1t. Nor is the spirit that ANNA ties those VIII
thus deny apparent facts, and apologize for glar
ing wrongs, less iniquitous than their argument
and purposes They are striving to incite in
subordination and anarchy, and to bring the law
and the constituted authorities of the State int
contempt They have in all this adopted the ider
teal principles which the Jacobins professed, an
they would the more nearly resemble the latter
practice, were it not that their sphere of actio
is limited, and their power comparatively insie
n6cant.
The OUTRAGE BOARD OF THE AMERICAN SHI
JoHN BRIGHr.-We learn from the Liverpool Euro
pedn Times that on the 3lst ult. the two prisoners
Philander Hall and David Davenport the forme
the second mate, and the latter the boatswain, {
the American ship John Bright, were again charge
before Mr.. Mansfield, at the Liverpool Polio
Court, with causing the death of a seaman name
Green, on the above named vessel. From tn
statement of two passengers, named Pritchard an
Hackett it appeared that the prisoners were in tn
habit of brutallv ill-treating the deceased an
hat h.