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116 1 Vie Leader andSaturday AnalystV [F...
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THE EAST COAST OF AFRICA.* I N the year ...
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* La Jlouw (Lea I'Ripda. Premier Volume ...
laugh at their abject homage to a consummate quackery ! The question of the popedom may " be supposed chiefly to concern Italy ; but it . concerns the whole civilized world . In all religious bodies the priest is inclined to . place his privileges and prejudices as a priest higher than his love for : mankind , or his country . But the priest of the Roman Catholic Church regards it as liis duty to strangle in his breast all spontaneous impulses , ail human emotions . He lias condemned himself by his vows to obey without murmur and without examination a foreign authority ; he lias surrendered his free will ,
his tenderest instincts , the freshness and fulness of his nature to a spiritual despotism , in whose service he is content to be a soldier without glory and a spy without reward . If he is sincere how tragical is his doom ; if insincere how monstrous is his guilt ! Now , 'tlie remoter from Rome the sincerer is the Roman Catholic priest ;—"the nearer to Rome the more the priest is vicions and vile , an ^ unbeliever and a charlatan . Our author has skilfully and elaborately traced the growth of popery from the beginning ; but what principally interests us is popery in its actual workings . # __ the
In Rome , and throughout Italy , priest means pollution . If ^ Italian varies idleness , apathy , effeminacy with unnatural crimes , you may trace whatsoever is weakest or worst in him to the precepts or the example of the priesthood . The yell of protestant bigotry in England against the Vatican finds no echo , produces no effect , simply because it is the yell of bigotry . Instead of that foolish yell we should like to hear a grand cry of wrath marching from nation to nation , proclaiming war not to what offends the dogma of the sectary , but to what is flagrantly immoral and inhuman . With the quarrels of rival theologies we do
not meddle . Let each theology fight for itself * But if we recognise certain principles of everlasting justice * mercy , and truth , and see them systematically violated , we cease to gaze at either theological frontiers or geographical boundaries ; we only behold an abomination and rn iniquity which are a curse to man , which contradict the scheme of the universe . What matters it whether the torturers and the tortured are found in the slave states of North America , or in the slave states of Rome ? Our author demands the annihilation of the Popedom ; he demands it as a Roman , as ail Italian , as a moral and religious reformer , as the prophet of a holier
civilization . . Italy free , Italy without a pope , Italy with its twenty-nve millions under a wise , valiant , and patriotic monarch , would be much to rejoice at for things far nobler than politics . It is the clear moral gain which in revolutions we have always to considergain not confined to one country alone , but extending from realm to realm . The Reformation wai a moral triumph ; so was Puritanism ; fo was the French Revolution . Now it is not enough to say of Italy that it is politically enthrjilled , writhes under priestly tyrants , is what has to
is withered by priestly deceivers . Tlie moral disease be cured : the moral taint is what hns to be removed ; the moral fetters are what have to be broken ; the moral results are what we have to contemplate , In reference to Italy , even if the Popedom were overthrown , it is not easy to hope . The Italians are , or have been , a people of eunuchs ; but not for the kingdom of Heaven's sake , nor even for their own , but for the sake of the mangy rascals who , in the garb of God ' s servants lounge , and leer and lie in the stupendous city which of old conquered all nations , only in its turn to be conquered by priests . and iis the truehearted of
Our author . wnt . es admirably , son a famous fatherland . But in order that the fatherland may be redeemed , should it not be declared that its sons are as much to blame as the cunning , cruel priests ? In the fate of an individual , in the fate of a people , wo must not ascribe too much to the outward . All complete regeneration in the individual , and in a people , must begin from within . The papacy , if an Italian malady , is likewise an Italian creiHion . Few but Italians have sat on the Papal throne ; few but Italians have taken part in Italy ' s long crucifixion . We- would not insult the misfortunes of a race which seems to ho gifted with the genius of antiquity in addition to ita own . But may not , the idolatry of Art have killed the Italian soul , corrupted the Italian bosom , poisoned the Italian nature P The cheap rhetoric to which Italian tribunes and Italian exiles have
treated us , must not lead us astray on this point . Whence is it that the sympathies of Englishmen jr ° wore , heartily toward the Hungarians than toward the Italnns ? It ia because in Italy we pee the effort ) as the thrall of the obsolete and the obstructive , ' whereas in Hungary we sec bountiful valour chained and buffeted by exhausted humbug , JEvcn for tho Italians , redemption has to come from tho strong right arm and from the inspiration of the North . Southern Italy , left to itself , would g-o on weltering in filth and in feebleness forever . Italy is called by our author the loveliest land on oarth , and what has been designated its deadly dower of beauty has been deplored . But tho enchantment of tho climate , and the other splendours clothing Italy , did not hinder it from giving , birth
in ancient days to invineiblo , inconipiirable heroes . All victory is tho sweeping away of circumstances- — tho outburst of an internal fire . Recent revolutions have nearly all failed through being imitations . French democracy imitated what it did not understand , the antique ; and Germany and Italy have , in their democratic movements , imitated democratic Franco . It is futile denouncing tho unnatural , unless wb return to nature , To denounce tho iiiuintnral , nn < l yet to imitate the imitation of ivn imitation , is the madness we both lasli and lament Even , however , if there were do moral forces in tliQ univorso , there are certain physical forces which put an end to wickedness , When the moral eoases to act , tho physical becomes tho moral . , Italy is so placed at this hour that it must cither get rid of
the Pope , or submit to be again conquered by the barbarians . The prinibrdial difference between Germany and Italy is that the Germans are healthier ; they may submit ; to medieval mum , meries and bureaucratic balderdash , but through their homes blow fresh and balmy breezes . Up , Italy 1 -not because thou detestest the Pope and the rapscallionry around him , but because thou hast in thyself the pith and the purpose to be good and great . Up , Ililv ' tioor paltry Pins the Ninth will , perhaps , be the last of the pope ' s ' But the one demon driven out ^ many other demons inay eriter in if thou canst not enshrine the Divine where the diabolical has been . Up , Italy ! we love thee well ; but if thou art to be saved , thou must work out thy own salvation .
116 1 Vie Leader Andsaturday Analystv [F...
116 1 Vie Leader andSaturday AnalystV [ Feb ^ 4 , 18 G 0 .
The East Coast Of Africa.* I N The Year ...
THE EAST COAST OF AFRICA . * I N the year 1856 the Government , for sonic " good and sufficient reasons thereto moving them , " appointed Mr . Lyons McLeocl British Consul at Mozambique , the capital of the Portxiguese dominions on that side of Africa . The King of Portugal ^ duly eranted his exemcatur to this first consular representative ot threat Britain in these parts , and Mr . McLeod left England for Ins perilous post in December of the above-named year . He did not arrive at Mozambique until the July following , and left the place again :. m to his statementbthe
May 1858—driven awav , according own , y disgraceful persecution to which he was subjected from the Portuguese official slave-dealers , with whose nefarious violation of the laws of their own sovereign , and scandalous breach of his treaty engagements with England , lie had interfered . Many persons who reco g nise the name of Mr , McLeod as the British consul who brought aboTit that condemnation of the " Charles et Georges , which imposed upon Portugal the humiliation of abandoning her sovereign rights at the dictation of France , will hear with surprise that he denounces Portugal herself as the great European sinner in this
matter of the continuance or startling revival of the slave trade . So he docs , however , supporting the charge by a mass of corroborative details iii these important and interesting volumes , m which lie has recorded the incidents of his sojourn in Africa . . ' . The sovereignty which Portugal exercises upon the ; east coast of Africa is rather nominal than real . Over the whole immense line of territory which extends from Delagoa Bay in the south , to Cape Delo ^ ido in the north , her power is confined . to . the immediate neighbourhood of ' the few Government establishments . The influence she exercises upon the native tribes is , however * as might b e expected , great , and it would be in her power to put a complete stem to the slave trade along the coast , and develop greatly the
resources of a country which , as described by Mr . McLeod , are immense . We will name only one product , but that the mo > st important to this country—cotton . Dr . Livingstone has already acquainted the world with the capabilities of this part of Africa to supply cotton ; and Mr . McLeod assures us that it grows almost every where , and might be cultivated to an extent which would almost supply the requirements of the world . Before , however , commerce arid cultivation can spring up in these rich regions , the all-destroying slave trade must be suppressed . The Portuguese ofiici « ls , however , encourage and participate in the slave trade , and discourage commerce as much as they possibly can . They make the most hypocritical pretences of an abhorrence of slavery , and profess
a warm desire to suppress the trade to the British naval officers who visit their ports , and who too often suffer themselves to be deceived by the false information given them by governors , who are themselves active participators in the traffic , and monopolisers much as possible Us advantages . There is , it seems , a regular tnnft of allowances to the governors of districts and the governor-inchief for' each slave sold to Amorican or Spanish vessels , or to the French Free Labour Emigration agents . Mr . McLeod charges the Lisbon Government with a full knowledge of the abominations exercised by its delegatesand declares its avowed desire to suppress
, the traffic to bean imposition upon England . If the facts are as he has stated them , the charge appears but too well founded . The officials sent to Mozambique are allowed salaries quite insufficient even for their absolute wants , and those salaries are irregularly paid . It was stated to our author that the soldiers at Mozambique had not been paid for more than four years , and the officers had not received a farthing for two - Yet theRe officials , scantily paid as they are , return to Portugal with immense fortunes , and the posts are consequently eagerly struggled for by the relatives of persons nossessiner Court influence . Of course , they make their fortunes by
the slave trade . Although the trade is abolished by Portuguese laws , domestic slavery is continued by the same code for some twenty years longer , and that allows every facility for tho traffic . The masters have absolute power over the slaves , may uso the most inhuman tortures , and no one therefore has a right , to ask , if indeed any one were disposed to ask , what had become of any number of slaves who might disappear from any particular estate . The condition of these slaves , wo may observe is , according to Mr . McLeod , most distressing . They are most scantily fed and cruelly used , beaten to death , and compelled to bent their own relations to death ; the facility with which they can bo procured and their consequent low price making the preservation , of their lives or health a ^ matter of small consequence to the Portuguese master . Such being the ptato of affuirs in Mozambique , it , will bo readily conceived that Mr . McLeod ' a arrival was far from welcome to the Governor-general and his friends . Tho Consul had alrondy on his way there obtained
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mm in h ^ t—fi . ii i i am i I i mi ¦ ' ¦ l" 1 —| Mi . i »» mi urn ¦ i » i > ¦ ¦ . ;¦¦ -- wi ^^ iiii " " * Travel * in JCastcrn Africa / with the Narrative qf a Residence in Mozambique . JGy J . vons MoLkod . Two vojs . Hurat nnd Blnokett .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 4, 1860, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_04021860/page/16/
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