Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1860-05-08

OiNoIsNATI, May 3, 1860.


beg leave TO draw your attention TO an
ugly circumstance which have detected in
the CommerciaEs persistent abuse of the Gov
ernment of the Holy See. Its mischievous
article of this day fortnight first caused me
to suspect disposition on the part of its con-
ductors to erdggerdte the foreign reports of
current events in Italy. make no charge
against it on the score of prediction; for no
one can accuse that paper of friendly feel
ing toward Catholicity; but that il should
carry its prediction 10 foul play, TO historic
perversion, If uot to historic fabrication,
never thought could establish from two of
its articles so conclusively as / think is shown
in the following letter to its editors. This
letter they refused to print, though having
published my former one, not, however, with
out yard and quarter of editorial dilution.
They heve even subterfuged me out of the
manuscript after promise to return it, and
though have sent for it six times Permit
me, then, to recall it from memory as well as
| can. jig,
APRIL Q, 1860.
To Gle Editors the Commercial:
1t was not my intention to obtrude myself
second time upon your notice, or that of
your readers, in the matter of my recent re-
ply to your dangerous article Of Saturday
week, although your accompanying structures
OF column and half on that reply afforded
me ample opportunity of dealing very Sc
verely with them. | let them pass, how
ever, as time, and to tell my mind, inclina-
ton give me no stomach for newspaper cor
respondence; and if l return to the unpleas-
ant topic now, it is because you have returned
to 1t first, by qualified repetition in your
leader this morning, of the charges to which
then replied, and which l thought / had
sufficiently disposed of. As, doubtless, no
authority can produce, no matter how liter
ally quoted, and no matter how identified
with your side of the house." will have so
much weight with you as the authority of
yourselves, permit me, then, to quote your
selves. The second sentence in your leader
of the 2lst ultimo, which provoked my for
mer letter, is this:
zone hundred and forty-seven persons
were reported as killed by the surgical ofic-
ials of the Roman Government itse1f.n
Now, gentlemen, so long as that assertion
from your ot0n pen is to be found at your side in
this controversy-quods seriptum est manet-I
have got very ugly grip of you; for no such
report has been made by those officials and
to save your character from even the suspi-
cion OF faorication, on SO serious point you
were bound to give your authority. You
have at last done so in your article Of this
day, and beg to express my obligations for
your great candor in giving it SO literally.
You say THE assertion that no life was
taken, snd only twenty-five persons were
slightly wounded is disproved by the fol-
lowing published in the London Times:
The surgical reports Of the Roman Gov
ernment made up to the 22d ultimo, show
that one hundred and forty-seven had been
killed and ,oounded in the outbreak on the
10th March,"
So, now, it appears that you "killed'' the
phote group week ago, but your master, the
London Times, has galvanized lot Of them
to-day. That number, then, includes the
wounded as well as the 'killed," so if only
one were killed and hundred and forty-six
wounded, it would be a perfectly safe asser-
ton to circulate, that the hundred and forty
seven were 'killed and woundedp 1t will
afford me the greatest delight to see you
craC king that nut between your teeth, with
out getting the tic-doloureux.
But permit me to quote you further, gen.
tlemen; really like to quote you, your pre-
clpltancy Ia SO accommodating. You say,
that but for the Foreign bayonets the Roman
government would fall to pieces" and you
bid us take them away that we may see the
realization of your prediction. Il quote from
memory here, having sent the text with the
Originally Well, your request is granted; the
French are leaving, if they have not already
left, and Rome is now defended by Romans,
at all events, by Italians; and little time
VIII show whether you are more happy in
your prospection than you have been in your
retrospection-more truthful in prophecy
than you have shown yourself to be in his
tory, sample of which, as filtered through
your pen. The reader will please take an
other glance as given abovel l now assert,
slrs, and defy refutal, that the conspirators of
Rome are not the people of Rome, but very
small minority, discontented, turbulent, ire
| liglous abetted from without and looking to
an appropriation of property within; in q
word, such faction as the trumpet of discord
could awaken at the first blast in the reeking
back-lanes of the best governed city in the
civil universe. Look at Louisvillel Look at
Baltimore, and you need not go farther t.
behold the phenomenon of organized minor
ity-rutianism intimidating the peaceably dis
posed majority from the poll-books, and
with bigh-handed terrorism and smooth
faced perhdy installing itself in the high
places. Show me ON any Fourth of July, a
more enthusiastically local demonstration in
this coutry, than that which took place in
Rome ON the 18th of April, significant day,
only three weeks after the late disturbance;
and on the 10th of March, just three days be-
fore it, no fewer than thirty thousand
people. 1t is computed, greeted the Sacred
Sovereign of Christendom, on the piazza of
81. Peters. To the demonstration of the 18th.
however, | attach the more significance, il
oeing the anniversary of the Holy Fathers
| return in 1850. ...
tou next quote whole placard from the
walls OF Rome purporting to be one of the
revolutionary proclamations, and you argue
from it intrinsic evidence of moderation and
respectable intentions; but you neither give
its date nor the circumstances which called
1t forth. | regret to say, gentlemen, that
your leaders compel me to think you pay
| your intelligent readers very poor compli
ments. Now, what is the fact, in the present
instance? Why, just this-that very dprocla-
nation, which you praise for moderation,
and whose date, let me tell you, was Lady
Day, was second thought issued with ali
haste on that morning, to counteract another
| and prior proclamation from the same party,
which breathed, SO to speak, fire and thunder,
challenging the gendarmary TO a trial OF
strength by defying that force to put down
another revolutionary demonstration, which
It then and there fixed for the 25th of March.
The police did not shrink from the challenge;
they actually went to the rendezvous and re-
mained there till, and long after, the counter
proclamation was issued by the wiser heads
and second thoughts of the party, out of re-
gard for their skins. How completely few
solid grains of fact turn the scales upon q
great bulk of pumice-stone tissue.
| am, gentleman, your humble servant