The Manitowoc tribune. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1866-1878, 1878-01-10


stopped in form, insinuating in manner,
with voice cracked and skin shriveled
by age. They do not show us develop
ment of form and a play of limb which
an athlete might envy, and ask us to
believe that this symmetry and vigor
came from boarding shekeIs and de-
nouncing a good appetite. They do not
make him bear with meekness the kicks
and cuffs administered by a merchant in
the public mart. and afterward transfer
him into court to intimidate by look, and
voice, and gesture, the highest person
ages in Venice. They do not show us a
man who lets trader spit in his face,
without resenting it, and who soon after
shrieks in rage at the duke and hectors
the judge for urging him to be merciful
to the same offender.
Shylock, we are assured of late, was
free to give vent to his fury in voice as
loud and tone as insolent as other men
might employ, for reasons which are
substantially as follows
l. Venice was q republic, noted for
religious liberation, where Jew and Gen
tile were afforded equal protection by
the law not a despotism where op-
preston held sway and laws were capri
ciously and unjustly administered, as
many enormously believe.
2. Shylock was under no social ban
nor class degradation.
For the sake of supporting the first of
these propositions, SO far as it relates
to the character of the Venetian govern
ment at the time when Shylock is sup
posed to have lived, the argument sup
presses truth and perverts history. Ven
ice a0os a republican, name she was
an odious and relentless despotism, in
fact. Now for the proofs
"No councils appear to have limited
his THE Doge'sl power, from 697 to
1892, A. D. !, or represented the national
will. * His government had all
the prerogatives of monarch. x
From want of positive restraints, his
| executive government might be consid-
| cred as nearly absolute"
SPY laws of 1898 and 1900 * * an
| exclusive hereditary aristocracy was
finally established. And the personal
rights Of noble descent were rendered
complete in 1919 by the abolition of all
elective FORMS"
s'The council of ten is chiefly known
asan arbitrary and inquisitorial tribunal,
the standing tyranny of Venice. *
The public eye never penetrated the
mystery of their proceedings F.; the ac-
cused was sometimes not heard, never
confronted with witnesses the condem-
nation was secret as the inquiry, the
punishment undivulged like both. The
terrible and odious machinery of a police,
the insidious spy, the stipendiary infor-
mer, found their natural soil
in the republic of Venice"
Hers was] GA constitution formed
without reference to property or popu-
lation, that vested sovereign power partly
in a body of impoverished mobiles, partly
| in an everything depotism * * a
practical system of government that
made vice the ally of tyranny, and
sought impunity for its own assassina-
tons by encouraging dissolutions of
private life. '-IfqStans' Middle Ages.
The american Cyclopedia says in its
article on Venice, "The government Of
Venice ultimately degenerated into a
terrible oligarchical rule"
Byron lived in Venice, loved her from
his boyhood, ana was familiar with her
history. He says of her rulers in the
18th century,
| ''Tis their duty
| To trampIe on all human feelings all
| Ties which bind man TO man, to emulate
| The fends who viii one day requite them in
| Variety of torturing'
your spies, your dungeons next the palace
roofs,
| Your unknown doonfs ana sudden executions,
Your Bridge of Signs, your strangling chamber,
and
Your torturing instruments have made We seem
| The beings of another and worse world ~
The TigO F0Seari.
!tThese inquisitors, In whom all the
powers of the state were absolutely
vested, formed court whose atrocious
proceedings have probably never been
equaled by those of any other tribunal. I"
-Lippiacott's Gazetteer.
On the subject of religious liberation
in Venice, Hallam merely says-''the
sense of religious antipathy was deaden-
ed" But the only instance he gives of
that liberation is the charge sometimes
made against Venice, of partiality for
the Mahometan nations, and opposition
to the crusades. He says that between
Venice and those nations there was
considerable intercourse" This might
make it polite for Venice to oppose any
movement which would seriously inter-
fere with that traffic, but it does not fol-
| low from this that she was safe asylum
| for people who were inexcusably and
| horribly prosecuted throughout every
other nation in Christendom. Religious
| antipathies might be SO far deadened as
| to extend the protection OF law to per-
sons of obnoxious faith, without being
"obliterated" or so far held in allegiance
as to permit Shylock to bully the duke.
| Let us read tie treatment which the
Jews were receiving in Italy and else
where, and then we car the better judge
whether Shylock could with safety in
dulge in such heroic pastime:
SIN Muscovy and the Scandinavian