Glasgow Courier. — 1860-05-01 (Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland)

ASSEMBLY.  MEMBERS  PRISBYTERY.  TEE AUSTRIAN EMPIRE.  There is an omen in States far more terrible than comet or eclipse. There are signs of weakness and impending ruin more certain even than lost battles and dismembered provinces. Before the storm broke out in France in 1848 black clouds had gathered round, and an unusual heaviness had filled the air for months. There had been a vague and fearful expectation of impending era, induced by the feeling that rulers were stricken with judicial blindness, and men in high places were demoralised and corrupt. The unhappy empire of Austria shows signs of similar import. To those who look below the surface the late gigantic frauds are more discountging than the loss of Milan or the threatened insurrection in Hungary. Not only are the branches of the State likely to be torn away by the storms of popular passion, but a slow disease is withering the trunk, and all will be a dry and sapless block together. A telegram which we publish gives a darker shade to this gloomy history. We now learn the melancholy circumstances of Baron Bruck's death. This statesman, justly considered one of the ablest in Austria, and the only Minister who was capable of retrieving the finances on the State, has just put an end to his life in an agony of despair and shame. It will be remembered that a few days since the resignation of Baron Bruck wasiumounced, and that immediately after came tidings of his death.. The mysterious sequence, which at once gave rise to the most painful suspicions, is now fully explained, and there need be no more delicacy on the subject. The Minister was dismissed for complicity in the system of frauds, which seems to have extended from Bohemia to 1 Trieste, and he has expiated his offence by cutting his throat, after having, as seems to be suspected, swallowed poison. The fate of this eminent politician is one of those terrible events which leave an impress on history. That the Finance Minister of a great empire, the trusted adviser of an ancient throne, the friend of the chief statesmen in Europe, the honoured guest of Princes in, every capital, the liberal supporter of enterprise and commerce, the representative of enlightenment amid the bigotry of nobles, soldiers, and priests, should betray his trust, plunder his country, and only escape 1)3 suicide frail the retribution due to such offences, is an event syhichkannot be easily forgotten. The cause of pi ogreu and leralism in Austria has been imperilled by the fall of this tuthappy, statesman. No one had done more to break down theprejudices which are the bane of Austria; no 'one will prove to have done more to confirm them. The aristocrat will be always able to point to the bloody corpse of the porvenis financier, and to ask if this is what Comes of raising men from the counting-house to tbd GOitneil Chamber. The General will have a ready sneer ler the Administration which affected to curtail military expenditure while it was embezzling thousands with the assistance of contractors and jobbers. There will, we fancy, be something not unpleasing to the highest society in Vienna in the fall of a man who had raised himself so conspicuously above his station. Baron Bruck was in early life engaged in business; and was one of the founders of the commercial prosperity of Trieste. The Austrian Lloyd's was principally his own creation. His diplomatic and ministerial career was in all respects most successful, and when five years since he resigned the Embassy to Constantinople in order to take charge of the fin Inoes of the Austrian empire, he may be considered to have risen to the height of his fortunes. Unhappily, the system of fraud which is now being disclosed must have begun about the ssme time. How far Bruck is implicated it is impossible for us to say. He may have been a leader in these malpractises, or he may have merely connived at the illicit gains of others. But that the matters which are now investigated extend over a long periOd there can be little doubt. The luxury of Viennese and Triestine millionaires has evidently been supplied for years out of the plunder of the State.  We learn that the Emperor is carrying on the examination and the punishment of the wrong-doers,with a rigour which verges on cruelty. The Chevalier Revoltells, an intimate friend of Bruck, and the leading merchant of Trieste, has been apprehended, thrown into prison, and treated like the lowest criminal. Brambilla and Mandolfo, two other commercial magnates, have shared the same fate. But it is not in the Adriatic provinces alone nor in Lombardy that these frauds have taken place. Arrests have been made in other parts of the empire, and everywhere the accused have been treated with equal severity. Commissions sit in Vienna, Prague, and Trieste to examine the documents which can throw light on these transactions. It is said that for weeks before the apprehension of Revoltella and his companions their books and papers were under the scrutiny of emissaries from Vienna. It may well be said that a reign of terror exists in Austrian society. Although a man of clear conscience may not fear for himself, yet no one knows how far his neighbour is free from the taint of that corruption which the government is qo tardily bent on punishing. The details of the frauds are still kept strictly secret by the government, but it is known that the amount is enormous, that they extertded over the greater part of the empire, and that the parties implicated are numerous and of high station. The military advisers of the Emperor are urging him on against such men as Revoltells, and with an obvious motive. The alleged villany of the Civil Service and of the contractors may serve to excuse the incapacity of the military authorities, or even- to cover their own delinquencies. In this country we are not free from crimes of the gravest kind. At this very moment the commercial world is excited by a fraud which for magaitude and bokixissii is ihnest without a parallel. We will not stones, which the Austrians might have a right to w back, no will we make comparisons between the service of a free cotintry and that of an autocrat. One thing, however, Englishmen may be proud of. What. ever the temptations of wealth may be, and however much the commercial and speeulating classes may yield to them, the higher official world in this country has never of late years been found guilty, or even been suspected, of peculation. The officers of both services have been equally free from the imputation. It is strange that Austria, which has always laid claim to something of the same high tone in the conduct of public business should come before the world as the victim of the most nefarious practices, carried out on the most gigantic soale.—Trwies.  Ithrow throw