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320 &U* &**&**? [Saturday,
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DEATH OF THE PASSATORE. And so poor Pass...
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THE KORN8KY PATHWAY O.UEBTION. The paris...
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MYSTKUIOUH DKATHS. Wk much fear that the...
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ITALIAN REPORTS OF THE ENGLISH EXPOSITIO...
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CHARITY NOT TO BE BEARDRD. Paul interdic...
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The Drag Chain.—A dominant clergy chaine...
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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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Bad Faith. Sir James Graham Makes An Adm...
alartn , resent the " inquisition / ' and suspect a lurking Exchequerism . The forms call upon you to state your various occupatious : it is notorious that numbers who combine various occupations , perhaps neither one of which singly would be chargeable , evade the income tax : the census will feupply a check on that evasion , unless the census returns be equally false . The census returns then will falsify the income tax returns , or share the falsehood . If the " statistics" are correct , will statistics turn King ' s evidence against finance returns ? A mala fides of that kind is suspected ; also a design to render the Income tax as immortal as the Decennial Census . Suspicion guides the hand that fills up the returns ; suspicion mistrusts the statistics collected under such circumstances
the low standard of morality nightly illustrated m the National Council vitiates a national record , and paralyzes the public spirit which would otherwise cooperate in supplying materials for national information j a practical retribution .
320 &U* &**&**? [Saturday,
320 & U * &**&**? [ Saturday ,
Death Of The Passatore. And So Poor Pass...
DEATH OF THE PASSATORE . And so poor Passatore is dead . " We could much better spare a better man . " The chief who had sufficient talent of combination to contrive , and sufficient daring to execute ,, the coup de-main on Forlimpopoli , of which all the newspapers in Europe were full a few weeks ago , might certainly have done good service in a more honest and less desperate cause . The brigand chief , it is now proved , never had more than sixty men under his orders .
It was only with twenty to thirty that he overpowered the gensdarmes of the abovenamed place , and took prisoner a whole pitful of the astounded townspeople . And these , too , not some of the fever-wasted population of the Roman Campagna , not some of the lazy and macaroni-fed hinds of the Neapolitan Terra di Lavoro , but men of Lower Romagna , always reckoned amongst the fiercest and most combative characters in Italy . The man ' s end is sufficiently epic : —
" On the 22 nd , " says the Bologna Gazette , " a column of Papal gensdarmes and Austrian chasseurs proceeded to the house of one Giacomo Strocchi , in the parish of San Lorenzo ( district of Lugo , Romagna ) , in consequence of private information that the robbers had taken refuge there . But the latter , who had in their turn been informed of the movement of the troops , had abandoned it , and concealed themselves in its immediate vicinity . As soon as the troops arrived the bandits fired upon them , killed two gensdarmes , and mortally wounded one . The troops returned the fire , but the darkness of the night enabled the assailants , aided l > y the perfect knowledge of the locality , to make their escape . Giacomo Strocchi was arrested and taken to the prison of Lugo .
On the morning of the 23 rd the authorities of Ruspi were informed that two of the band were lurking in the neighbourhood . As they had been sren taking refuge in a house near Muraglione , a brigadier of gensdarinerie immediately repaired thither with a few men . At their approach they were saluted with several shots ; the brigadier was severely wounded . The two brigands then took to flight across the fields , hotly pursued by the gensdarmes , who fired upon them at intervals . At length the fugitives were wounded . One of them , however , succeeded in crossing a river and escaped ; the other fought with desperation until he fell down dead . His bod y was taken to Lugo , and legally proved to be that of Stefano Pelloni , surnamed II Passatore . Valuable articles , it is said , were found about him . "
Notwithstanding this official establishment of the man ' s identity , we should only find it characteristic of the manner in which such matters are managed in that country if we were to hear of the Brigand Chief being still alive and well , and startling the world with some new exploits in some other district of the peninsula . We find in other Italian papers the following account of one of Passatore's last memorable deeds : —
" On the 19 th , being St . Joseph ' s Festival , he suddenly appeared in the public square of Prnda , in the dioccsis of Faenza , where the inhabitants were assembled nnd proparing to go to church . II PuHsatore was barefoot ; he made everybody stop and show him his shoeo , and , finding a pair which fitted him , he took possession of them and paid their value . Meanwhile , an Austrian soldier of the lino made his appearance ; the bandit fired upon and wounded him , and then escaped with his companions . " The success of such comparatively weak bands of malefactors is but too readily explained . The
rustic of Romagna is deprived of all means of defence even to the z ampin a , or poker in his hearth . The ( government demands utter passivity on the part of the prostrate population . A troop of citizens that should arm themselves as special constables to rid the country of the miscreants who ravage it , would bo dealt with by Austrian chasseurs or Pontifical gendarmes with even greater severity than the marauders themselves . It is a crime fort the Roman subject to think of protecting his life or
Death Of The Passatore. And So Poor Pass...
property ; it is interference with the Government s right and privilege ; mistrust of its power , usurpation of its office . We have no doubt in the first surprise of the melodramatic attack at their theatre , the good people of Forlimpopoli thought that the robber-scene was nothing but a masquerading contrivance of the police , got up with a view to produce a row , and find a pretext to inflict summary chastisement on the audience on the first show of resistance . The rancour and mistrust between the Papal Government and its subjects exceed all English belief . Hence it is that any participation
in the prosecution of even notorious malefactors is looked upon as base and dastardly on the part of the citizen . Why should an honest man exert himself in the furtherance of the ends of such a justice ? How often is it that the police set up the hue and cry after a patriot , designing him as a thief and murderer ? How often has an upright and high-minded citizen been made to march to the galleys , along with a string of abandoned ruffians ? The man at war with such hideous Governments is always looked upon as a hero in his success , as a martyr in his fall . Prosecution , arraignment , trial , all is involved in impenetrable mystery . The people have no means of
satisfying themselves of the prisoner ' s guilt . No consciousness of the malefactor ' s enormities interferes with their sympathy for the sufferer ' s situation . If the hunted-down robber turns at bay with some show of spirit and resolution , if he spares the weak on his path , and turns his wrath against the powerful ; if he robs the rich to give to the poor , if he pays for the shoes he is obliged to take from the first comer , what is to prevent an ignorant , trampled people from looking upon him with a mixture of awe and admiration , from cheering him up as their natural ally and avenger , from screening and warning him against danger , from offering him a shelter and hiding-place in every hut and homefield ?
Such is the history of Italian bandits from Marco Sciarra and Fra Diavolo down to this illstarred Passatore . " Is not the robber the enemy of our worst enemies ?" It is far otherwise in Piedmont , where the people have arms , and can at a moment ' notice organize themselves in town and country patrols . There we may occasionally hear of robberies , but never of a combination of robbers . The Roman States have at all times been , the nest of the worst depredators . Nor is this to be ascribed to want of courage on the
part of the men charged with the immediate execution of the Government ' s orders . Roman gendarmes and Austrian chasseurs , as it results from official accounts , hunted in couples ; but it was the former soldiery that bore all the brunt of the combats , that was more lavish of its blood , that achieved the main triumph . All the blame must fall on the priestly Government , on its almost fabulous weakness and improvidence , on its incorrigible falsehood , on its arrant iniquity . So long as there is a reigning Pope shall the world be startled by bandit-stories , and no longer .
The Korn8ky Pathway O.Uebtion. The Paris...
THE KORN 8 KY PATHWAY O . UEBTION . The parishioners of Hornsey have , by their zeal and activity , succeeded in securing the two important footpaths which the Great Northern Railway Company had sought to stop up by the extraordinary allegation that it was doubtful whether they did not possess the right , and they , therefore , by the bill proposed that Parliament should enact that they did . We drew attention to this case last week . It was manifest that if such a power were enacted in favour of one company , all the other companies would have sought to stop up every path in their way , instead of making a road under or a bridge over .
The parishioners appeared before the Parliamentary Committee , who Htruck out the clause as to one of the paths , and effectually and satisfactorily modified it as to the other . The parishioners are about to secure the opening of neveral other paths which private individuals have nought to appropriate from the public . "We trust that they will be successful in securing these pathways , which are so important to the health and convenience of the public in the suburbs of this rapidly-incrensing metropolis
Mystkuiouh Dkaths. Wk Much Fear That The...
MYSTKUIOUH DKATHS . Wk much fear that the number of deaths from starvation in London is far greater than in commonly suppoHcd . In the last weekly return of the Registrar- General , we find in addition to four deaths " from privation , " seven deaths of children " from want of breast-milk , " and three " from cold , " no less than CO cases in which persona are reported ns " found dead , " or as having died «• from the visitation of God . "
SPORTS OP ALL NATIONS . Prince Albert and his colleagues are going to exhibit the goods and arts of all nations : Alexis Soyer , the cookery ; assembled visitors , the countenances , costu me , and voices : but who will illustrate their sports f The idea is worth the consideration of Batty , who is building an equestrian amphitheatre at Kensington . The German version of our ninepins , ; or rather bumble-puppy , " would amuse . A sight of " pallone , " in which we have seen a lost ball go over a tree at the second bound , would astonish our players at cricket or fives .
Italian Reports Of The English Expositio...
ITALIAN REPORTS OF THE ENGLISH EXPOSITION . " Molti preparativi , " says an Italian , paper , " si fanno pur sin d'ora per una festa di ballo nel tunnel "—" grea preparations for a ball in tlie Tunnel " ! What is a tunnel ? "We remember an Italian account of an English murder , in which a man killed his wife with a " pokero "; the writer " not knowing whether a poker was a domestic or surgical instrument . " One effect of the Exposition is expected to be an international equalization of weights and measures—not a bad idea .
Charity Not To Be Beardrd. Paul Interdic...
CHARITY NOT TO BE BEARDRD . Paul interdicted hats . Austria has made the Lombards shave . Certain manufacturers in'the-North have been forcing their men to crop their hair . The Leicestersquare Soup Society will not grant relief to those who wear mustachios or beards . It is evident that institutions are endangered by hair and hats ; but we Englishmen are only beginning to learn that truth .
The Drag Chain.—A Dominant Clergy Chaine...
The Drag Chain . —A dominant clergy chained to an authorized creed constitutes about as effectual a bar to national progress , as it is possible to imagine . —Miall ' s Nonconformist's Sketch Book . Love of Life . —What a native clinging of mankind to this poor life there must be , what an inextinguishable sweetness in the mere fact of existence , or at least what a dread of the hour of dissolution , when millions of human beings placed in circumstances which many of their fellow-creatures regard as insufferably wretched , yet pursue their weary journey faithfully to its natural end , grudging to lose the smallest inch Watch a poor old man in rags slowly dragging himself along in a mean street as if every step were a pain . His life has been one of toil and hardship , and now he maybe wifeless , friendless , and a beggar . "What makes that man hold on any longer to existence at all ? Is it any remnant of positive pleasure he still contrives to extract from it—the pleasure of talking twaddle to people Mho will listen to him , of looking about him at children playing , of peering into doors nnd entries as he passes ; is it fear and a calculaiion of chances , or is it the mere imbecility of habit ? Who can tell ?—From the North British Iteview , No . 27 . Tun Great Dogmatisms . —The most arrogant and the most intolerable of all usurpations is that of one age presuming to dictate or dogmatize to another , and the more important the topic , the more grievous the presumption . Yet , strange as it may seem , mankind have been hitherto more tolerant of the flagrant violation of their religious freedom , incomparably the highest , than of any other tyranny , intellectual or material . This may , perhaps , be accounted for by the fact that religion , as a sentiment , is the concern of the mnny , as well as the few , and has , therefore , been , thus far , too much at the mercy of sacerdotal superiority acting -upon multitudinous imbecility . Religion , as externally represented , has hitherto been under popular protection , and adapted to popular understanding by priestly contrivance . Its laws and language have , consequently , been always regulated rather in accordance with superstitious credulity than enlightened faith . The interests of intellectual science have been better protected , because under the guardianship of less numerous , but more vigilant and competent votaries . They have had their battles to fight against ecclesia .-tical partisans of permanency as opposed to progress , but their struggle has never led to a surrender at discretion of science to superstition . The astronomy , chemistry , geology , & e ., of this century have not Buffered themselves to be tied and bound by pedantic pretensions of earlier date . They have not entered into an engagement under heavy penalties , to lay aside thought « md research , lest now discoveries should clush with foregone conclusions . They have never signed and scaled their adhesion to a dogmatic settlement of all questions past , present , and to come , touching the special study of their respective pursuits . They have gone on from nge to age , clearing , Htrcngthening , and expanding their views of God ' s works , by fulfilment of the conditions on which alone wisdom and knowledge are revealed to man . They have sought that they might find , and have knocked tlint it might be opened unto them . Hut not bo has it hitherto been ordered in the annals of the science , " falsely bo called , " of theology . Under cover either of avowed infallibility as the living oracles of God , or implied infallibility as Hole accredited interpreters of oracular books , every priestly caste has bent its full strength to tho tnftk of limiting » nd fixing future generations to their own standard of religious opinion or speculation . This tyrannous and shortfriKhted policy lmn always been successful , for a time , in proportion to the hclplcHB ighorunce of the great body of tlio people , whose fanatical violence , springing from morbid terror , has usually rc ; ducod the intelligent minority to the degradation of outward conformity , and esoterio reserve . —From the Reverend T . Wilton's Catholicity Spiritual and Intellectual .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 5, 1851, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_05041851/page/12/
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