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422 THE LEADER. [No. 319, Saturday,
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" STEWARD I" Oxtb excessively nautical c...
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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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The Walewski Mystery. Rurthee Particular...
so exclusively upon Count "Wjllewski , that the Count ' s speech constituted the bulk of the telegraphic communication to Brussels and London—the . Brussels report slightly mentioning Count Bfoi , and Lord Cxa-BENDOK . This implies an admiration of the IVench Plenipotentiary which may , we trust , conciliate some clemency for the unhappy functionary who was " tampered with by M- LeJOMVET .
M . Lejomvet , the telegraphic clerk , is arrested on the plea that the Treaty was transmitted to London and Brussels by electricity . Very long messages have been transmitted , but was the telegraph occupied the livelong day in sending along its wires the text of the Treaty P It would be interesting to ascertain whether , in point of fact , any
telegraph in Paris was occupied on the day during which the despatch was transmitted for so long a time as that job would have taken . If not , then the extra-official communication must have been by another channel . Through what post ? Has the TVench Government inquired whether it was sent in the mail of any embassy ; and if so , what functionary at the Foreign Office placed it in the mail ?
There is also another curious fact . When the version of the Treaty was published in London , there were four clauses missing , the fifth , sixth , seventh , and eighth ; some accident had happened to " three slips , " at the last moment . The report was transmitted on the 21 st of April . Now it is rather remarkable that it was at the latest deliberation of the Conference that Iiord Clajusndoit brought forward the proposal embodied in the eighth clause . This proposal was adopted ,
it constitutes a most essential modification of the Treaty , it was added very late . Had somebody forgotten to correct the original draft , and remembered the omission after S 9 ndmg- the draft as the Treaty ? ^ In whose custody had the draft been permitted to remain ? Because , of course , that person , whoever he was , muat have been much trusted by the author of the draft . It is no secret that , near the person of the Emperor of theEBBNOH , have been gentlemen
who have not agreed with each other upon particular questions . It is difficult to Bay that they have not agreed with the Emperor , because , except upon important occasions , the Emperor is very reserved . He has his opinion , but whether it is in agreement or disagreement with that expressed by his interlocutor , nobody knows . The supposition is , however , that there has not been a complete agreement between Count Waxewski and his Imperial master . There is another to note
discrepancy , which it is important . " We called to mind , last week , the fact that soon after" the coup d ' tftat was effected in Paris , a decree was actually signed and set np in the office of the Mbniteur , and only cancelled at the last moment , for executing a parallel coup d ' etat in Belgium , with a direct appeal to the majority of the country more Napoleonico . In the speech which the admiring accomplice of M . Lbjomvet transmitted to Belgium and to London , were expressions extremely ominous to Belgium ,
and , amongst others , hinting that " the majority" might be the final arbitrator upon a great question . Now the word «* majority , " in a French mouth addicted to coups d'etat , would have a peculiar significance in Belgium . It ia remarkable that in the authenticated protocol of the 8 th of April , that word " majority' * disappears , and is replaced by " all sensible persons in Belgium . " There are other changes , uniformly in the same Benne . It is very singular that M . Lbjojliyst ' s accomplice should so completely have caught the Walkwski tone as to have made
the composition transmitted to Brussels and London more powerfully express the spirit that moves the Count than the formal Protocol . It often happens that a man who is very much in earnest—and the author of that passage against Belgium must have been in earnest—softens his expressions when he revises his composition . The version which
found its way to Brussels and London was like the rough draft containing the spirited touches , with all the fire of the artist m the moment of original inspiration . Now the accomplice of M . Lejolivet , who had access to the confidential portfolio of the author of that part of the Protocol , must assuredly be a person easily found out . Conti
A report has been current in the - nental papers , lately , that Count Colonna "WALEwsKii the son of a Polish lady , not without Imperial blood in his veins , has been negotiating the purchase of estates belonging to his mother ' s family in Poland . ¥ e do not know , exactly , what this means . In the lanr guage of English law the " purchase" of landed property means almost any process of obbaininfir land except by inheritance or bequest
in England , indeed , it does not mean free gift . Of course the " purchase , " whatever that may mean , by a gentleman who is now an alien to Russia , could only be effected through the favour of the reigning Emperor . In the fervour of the spirited remonstrance against a free press in Belgium , the Emperor Aiexandeb II . cannot but perceive the heart of a man who is animated by a reverent regard for autocratic authority .
In this review we have done nothing but state facts which have already been mentioned in the papers , or are in themselves notorious . Perhaps they throw some light * upon the mode in which the illicit copy of the Treaty and the extremely imperfect version of the Protocol reached Brussels and London . The French police have made nothing out of M . Le JoiiiVBT . They have , we suspect , got hold of the wrong man ; and when putting him in prison , they certainly put the wrong man in the wrong place .
422 The Leader. [No. 319, Saturday,
422 THE LEADER . [ No . 319 , Saturday ,
" Steward I" Oxtb Excessively Nautical C...
" STEWARD I " Oxtb excessively nautical contemporary , the Examiner , is even more at sea than usual in his rationale of a Naval Eeview . He has been so fond of taking poor landsmen like ourselves into blue water , with so merciless an indifference to the state of our stomachs , that we may be permitted to consider it a judgment when we find him avowedly qualmish , not to say sick , on a voyage from Southampton to the Nab , when the Bea was as calm as a mill pond . He begins by telling us that the sight of a Naval Beview is all an affair of calculation and reflection . In
other worda , to our contemporary , going to sea ( if an excursion on tho Solent deserves that formidable description ) is all a matter of casting up accounts . In tho next sentence wo are informed , that " ships of the same class look much alike to tho unnautical eye . " Indeed ! and to tho nautical oye ( of our contemporary ) how do they look , wo should like to know P A novftl review must be fagged up in all its scattered details , thought of , and wondered at , after a fatiguing effort . Tho column of ships , groat at one end , " small by degrocs and beautifully less , " mtist be cast up Uko a column of figures , and tho admiration ia at the bottom oommensurato with the totnl .
Wo dare say there ia something very profound at the bottom of those remarks , but wo confess the passages wo havo italicized suggest to our minds nothing so much us a bilious town-gentloman addicted to figures ( a clork in the Board of Trade , for instance ) , performing a sacrifice to Noptuno , of fill tho delicacies of the season . Tho column of ships seems to havo struck his somewhat
clouded eye obliquely , as he bent over the ship ' s side , fagging up his reminiscences of town dinners in all their scattered details ; and we do not wonder at his admiration being e ( at the bottom commensurate with the total , " whatever that may
mean . Now , our contemporary , we have said , ia so passionately fond of carrying his unsuspecting readers to sea on all occasions , and of displaying a terrible familiarity with the technical language of the nautical drama , that he might surely have given
us a livelier picture of the scene at Spithead than this dismal joint production of a man of figures and a man of buckets . Let a ship be run down , or founder , or go ashore , and , as sure as fate , our contemporary will , on the very next Saturday , be prepared to prove how the accident could never have occurred if he had been on board . With
a power of words he boxes the compass , splices the main brace , reefs the flying jibboom , and tops his binnacle , and all we poor landsmen can do is to believe and tremble . So easily is a reputation for seamanship established among land-lubbers that our contemporary has enjoyed almost a speciality in this line , though we have heard it remarked by persons well acquainted with jest-books that he is seldom orig inal or amusing now when he gets out of soundings . Perhaps this will account for his manner of reviewing the Eeview ; for it will be seen that he talks in the spirit of a coaster , or rather of a member of that illustrious Yacht
Club which is in the habit , we believe , of cruising between Vauxhall and Putney , and once or twice a year performing a perilous voyage to the Isle of Dogs . Among the members of that Club there is even a tradition that a member once penetrated with his gallant craft as far as Erith , but the story is obscure . Maybe that adventurous and daring discoverer was no less a p ersonage than our contemporary , and hence his nautical speciality . Let us test his latest
seamanship a little more particularly . He prefers a military to a naval review , because " a military review strikes and delights the sight at once . ' We do not understand how the general effect of a large army can be said to strike the sight at once more than the general effect of a large fleet . In either case , the larger the army or the fleet , the more difficult it becomes to seize all the details at a
glance . The array of an army strikes and delights the eye quite differently from t he array of a fleet : there is moro moving life , more variety , more pomp in the brilliant colours , and the flashing and gleaming steel . But , surely , a vast fleet of war-ships , stretching over twelve miles of water , with a lovely island for a natural breakwater to seaward , is also a spectacle that " strikes and delights tho eyo at
once . " It requiroa an effort to a civilian ' ey o to fag up tho details of a military review , tho mimbor of tho rogimonts on tho ground , tho various arms of tho service , and to follow their positions in the field ; and after tho first burst of smoke , whether from ships' guna or from artillorv , the eyo of faith ia necessary
" realize" tho spectacle to an unnautical or unmilitary eyo . There are people who hato tho sea , and are sick at tho sight of Bhipa ; others who caro as littlo for tho fuss ana finery of soldiery ; it ia purely a queation ot taste and sympathy . Our oontompomry , who tolls us that ships of tho same claaa look rnucn aliko to the unnautical eyo , aeoma to find himself in a similar prodicamont towarda ampa 01
totally diflbront claaaoa . You begin with the gunboats , tho uglinst things cvor contrived , much after tho model of tho Noro l-igut . * ahapo and fashion are those of a foot-pan . »< iuau «
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 3, 1856, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_03051856/page/14/
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