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Aug. 2, 1851.] ®f>e %ta * btt> 729
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MRS. HICKS AND LORD SEYMOUR. A bird whic...
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THE "DAILY NEWS" ON ASSOCIATION. In welc...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Absolutism In Its Panic. Thb " Order " N...
continually arrested by waggons full of wretched political detenuii on their passage to new dungeons ; for the dungeons of Rome are long since surfeited . And this ruin , this silence , this desolation you call order ; and your official journals cry , "O happy Rome ! if you knew but the privilege of being the City of the Pope 1 " And what was the address of the benevolent Pius to the municipality of Albano the other day i " I know well there has been some chattering about my visit to the King of the Two Sicilies ; but what matter , we have troops enough : * ' da \ far hollar tutti sopra un quarzino . ' ' * The benevolent Pius ! But the mine is yawning beneath your feet . You speak of a secret organization , a conspiracy at your very doors . I Most
true ! In Rome itself , where you cannot find even the nucleus of an army , are 70 , 000 volunteers enlisted , regimented for the service of the Roman Republic . Your Police are not your own ; 200 of them at least , belong to the "Invisible Government . * You stifle all free thought , all writing , all discussion , and you cannot prevent a flying sheet published anonymously being distributed by the Government Post-office and carried across the country by every diligence that travels . The Gazette of the Republic ! dropped in the public thoroughfares , posted up on walls and houses , distributed by your agents , your police ! Let a suspected stranger be committed to their care , with two hours' notice of arrest , and shall Antonelli touch him ? Is not a
mere slip of paper , duly signed , a passport from one extremity of the Roman States to the other ? Will it not secure a seat by the side of the bearers of your despatches ? Will it not gain admission to any gallery in Rome ? The function of your police has absolutely ceased , so far as prevention is concerned . The " spying are spied . ' * And the Republican army are not the Papal troops of Gregory . They do not forget that they have kept French troops at bay more obstinately than did once the Citadel of Antwerp ; that 14 , 000 half-disciplined men defended an extent of wall which
150 , 000 men would barely cover . They do not forget the actions of the Villas , Vascello , Valentiui , or Corsini ; or how opposite the Porta Chinsa they repulsed Oudinot . They treasure up the memory of fortified posts stormed and taken from French troops at the point of the bayonet . They have learned to fight and die righting ; they have shaken off the trammels of ages of deadening superstitions , and are once more the old " Romana virtus , " selfreliant , conscious of a country , and of a history . Cross the frontier to Naples , and even there the functionaries do not carry out the instructions of the Government . Even there the Invisible
Government is felt , and moves , and walks . Are not the Quarantine restrictions relaxed in certain cases ? Is not trade with Corfu permitted , where at this moment some two thousand Neapolitans are skulking from the conscription ? At iiari you may have found the brother of Garibaldi , talking politics , not long since , and no man laid a hand upon him . And what of Sicily ? The Neapolitan steamfleet incessantly manoeuvring ; for the Sicilian insurrection is only scotched , not killed . Yet the Government of Naples employs , who knows not ^? all " salutary rigours" for its preservation . The
passport system was never carried to so vexatious an excess . But revolution is in the air . From what sort of Government will revolution deliver Naples ? Hear Mr . Gladstone : —• " There is a general impression that the organization of the Governments of Southern Italy la defective—that the administration of justice is tainted with corruption—that iiiBtuuccH of abuse or cruelty among subordinate public functionaries arc not uncommon , and that politicivl offences are punished with severity , and with no groat regard to the forms of justice .
" I advert to thin vaguo supposition of a given Htate of things , for the purpose of utating that , had it been accurate , I should have spared myself this labour . The difference between the fuintest outline that a moment ' s handling of the pencil hketches , and the deepest colouring of the most elaborately finished portrait , but feebly illuntratcH the relation of these vague suppositions to the actual truth of the Neapolitan case . It i « not m < : ro imperfection , not corruption m low quartern , not occasional severity , that I about to
am describe ; it is incessant , systematic , deliberate violation of the law , by the Power appointed t <> watch over nnd maintain it . It is such violation of 1111111111 n » d written law as this , carried on for the <> nipose of violating every other law unwritten and * --: rnal , human and divine ; it is the wholesale perception of virtue when united with intelligence , operatn upon such u scale that entire clauses may bo Buid •" ,. truUl ' <> bo its object , so that the Government is outer and crue ) , as well ns utterly illegal hostility wuutever in the nation reully lives , and moves ,
and forms the mainspring of practical progress and improvement ; it is the awful profanation of public religion by its notorious alliance , in the governing powers , with every moral law , under the stimulants of fear and vengeance ; it is the perfect prostitution of the judicial offiee which has made it , under veils only too threadbare and transparent , the degraded recipient of the vilest and clumsiest forgeries , got up wilfully nnd deliberately by the immediate advisers
of the Crown , for the purpose of destroying the peace , the freedom , ay , and even if noi by capital sentences , the life of men among the most virtuous , upright , intelligent , distinguished , and refined of the whole community : it is the savage and cowardly system of moral as well as in a lower degree of physical torture , through "which the sentences extracted from the debased courts of justice are carried into effect . "
We have already described the blessings of Papal and priestly Government at Rome . In Germany reaction has reached its extremest limits . In France the reaction of reaction is setting in steadily , but surely : arid if the Republican party , by their faults and follies and incapacity , once endangered the principle , it has now been rendered inexpugnable by the perfidy , the treason , and the terrorism of Reactionists . In ' 52 M . Louis Napoleon would seem a ridiculous if he were not an impossible candidate for the Presidency , and the Revolution of ' 48 mast resume its march to the
conquest of Social ameliorations . We have seen by the examples of Rome and Naples how the " right divine" agrees with liberty of conscience : we know that it is the suppression of all liberty , according to the maxim , " The Monarch is only accountable to himself . " We have heard enough of revolutionary terrorism ; but even if we could forget the massacres which history records , the horrors committed since ' 48 by Monarchical reaction would drown all comparison , and compel the most servile and bigoted Absolutist , to cease from dec ' aiming against the Convention of ' 93 .
We heartily abhor and abjure all terrorisms , whether disguised under the name of liberty , or of order , or of religion ; but we do say that , comparing the conduct of the Peoples when they had every capital of Europe in their power , with the conduct of the Powers who first cajoled , and then proscribed and massacred their subjects , it is not for Kings to pardon , but for the Peoples to forget ! The Peoples do not conspire ; they wait . Lord John Russell denounced a secret and well spread conspiracy against Protestantism . Against Protestantism , no doubt , so far as it involves freedom of conscience : for all liberties are inseparable ;
but he should have added—against the Peoples ; la conspiracy to discover , mislead , and prevent the hopes of ' 52 . The agents of this conspiracy are to be found everywhere : yon meet them in the most unexpected plices . Lord . Pnlmersfon , who talks so glibly to the public ear , and is the darling of the " Liberal party" in the House of Commons , is the most conspicuous , and we fWir the most successful of these agents of reaction . But we make bold to tell him that , though slaves may remain slaves without a pang , nations that , have once tasted of freedom , can no more live without it . It is their life breath and their heart's blood .
Aug. 2, 1851.] ®F>E %Ta * Btt> 729
Aug . 2 , 1851 . ] ® f > e % ta * btt > 729
Mrs. Hicks And Lord Seymour. A Bird Whic...
MRS . HICKS AND LORD SEYMOUR . A bird which has settled for a long time in your garden , acquires not only a vested right in your apple-tree , but in your feelings . Even the swallow's nest is not beaten down from beneath the eaves of your country cottage upon a light pretext , much less in spite or revenge ; and the robin is allowed to monopolize the watering-pot of the amateur , should he choose it for a dwelling-place , year after year—without molestation . But , however such sentiments may dictate the conduct of most men , even towards " inferior"
animals , a Whig Minister appears to be " ubove all that " in hit * relations with common humanity . We say common humanity , for WhigH are well known to have a tender predilection for those who are raised above the common herd . For instance , many a noble Lord derives his claim to broad acres from no higher source than Ann Ilieka to her cottage in the Park—service rendered at need to royalty in troubleand
— sonic specimens of the genun Lord might be named , whose possessions were obtained by serving the caprices and pandering to the vices vrfi >) ral M <) n 8 terw ' notably thb Ministern of Henry A it- ' * 'llG ° nly d > ffcrencc between the cane of Ann Hicks and the noblemen in question is simply this--that whereau they took good care to get titledeeds , her grandfather , lCafl worldly-wiae , got none .
What is the case of Ann Hicks ? Her grandfather helped to save the life of George II ., and as a reward was allowed to have a cake-stand in the Park . , He kept it for sixty-nine years , and his son kept it for forty-nine years . When Ann Hicks came into possession of it , she asked permission to build a small cottage on the spot at her own expense , and Lord Lincoln complied with her request . For about seven years she held the lodge erected unmolested ; but when it was resolved to erect the Crystal Palace in Hyde-park , a razzia was made upon all cake-stands , and Ann Hicks
was served with a notice to quit . " Lord Seymour was prepared to recommend the Board to make an allowance to Mrs . Hicks for house-rent for a short period af ter her removal , " provided she removed witb a good grace and gave no trouble . She remonstrated in vain . The solicitors of the Board proceeded to eject her , and pulled the cottage down . Twelve months' lodging at five shillings a week was all they allowed her . She laid her case before the Queen , and was told for answer that her Majesty had so many claims on her bounty that she could not relieve Mrs . Hicks . Under these
circumstances she got a basket and a few cakes , went to the Park to sell them , and was arrested . " Hicks' pietatis honos ? Sic nos in sceptra reponis ?" A great deal of sympathy was excited , and money has been subscribed for her . And in the progress of the story we find two curious letters in the Times , signed " Increduius , " having all the air of officiality about them , redolent of red tapism and scepticism . In fact , they have all the characteristics of Lord Seymour's speeches . They are an attempt to blast the character of Lord Seymour ' s antagonist ' .
. " Mrs . Hicks ' s case" next comes before the House of Commons . And how does Lord Seymour behave on that occasion ? He represents Ann Hicks as a kind of mystical person who was suddenly found in the Park selling ginger-beer in 1843 . He said not one word of her ancestor , or the service he had rendered to drowning royalty . He tried to make the House believe that Mrs . Hicks , by persecuting and boring the Commissioners , had obtained leave to change her stand of wood to a " hut" of " brick" (
everybody else , my lord , called the cottage " stone" ) , and by stretching the liberty allowed her to " repair the roof , " he further alleged that she had made a " fireplace and a chimney , " she had bearded the Commissioners , and hurdled off * piece of ground , and had made herself a terror to the " Park authorities , " who trembled before her " noise and abuse . " Lord Seymour gave no distinct contradiction to the allegations of Mrs . Hicks in the jiolice court ; he siinpJy developed the idea started by " Increduius , " that of blackening the character of the woman .
Here is plenty of prosy injustice : why not have taken after the dose a little poetical justice ? Wo see a way . On Tuesday Lord Seymour said : — " As lo any other cottage being erected in tho Park , the only one he was aware of was the cottage proposed to be built by 1 ' iinec Albert as a model cottage . When it was built , Lord Seymour said it could not be allowed to icmain , and his Royal Highness said it should be taken down next November . "
Hut why taken down ? For retribution on tho land commissioner , let him be compelled to maintain this cottage : let it he given to Mrs . Hicks for the rest of her days—Lord Seymour keeping it clean for her , Prince Albert and the young princes and princesses buying cakes at her stall ; and so all live happy ever after .
The "Daily News" On Association. In Welc...
THE "DAILY NEWS" ON ASSOCIATION . In welcoming the Daily News to the discussion of Socialism , the writer will permit us to explain some points on which his information is not yet complete . That he should discuss the subject at all we hold to be a public service , since the first thing to promote the principle is to make it rightly understood ; and to that end wo must hare out the objectors . In this instance , we owe the service to Mr . VVilliam Coninghum , whose lecture at St . Martin ' s-hall in the subject of comment . The writer draws n di . stiru'tion between the Socialists of France and England : —• " In both countries there is indeed oik ; common immediate object , a reeonstitution and reconstruction of society , in all its various tiHpcctH , political , commercial , domestic , nnd religious ; with thin ditl'rrvncu in intention und irkimate application , however , that our own entlyisiaHts aim at u restoration of what they deem u niiim ' cito utato of Christianity ; whilst their Continental allies never think of K om lmck » but 1 UO resolutely bent on progress wherever it may loud to j
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 2, 1851, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_02081851/page/13/
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