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The rebel Hottentots attacked five wagons while roceeding from Graham ' s Town to Fort Beaufort , though guarded by a detachment of 31 Sappers and Miners , under the command of Captain Moody , on the 13 th of June . The rebels on this occasion had posted themselves in the thick bush of the Konap-hill , and as soon as the small convoy appeared they Opened a sudden olley , by which the leading inule-wagon was disabled , and nine of the small convoy killed . During the contest which lasted for some time > nine more were wounded , but the remainder were brought off in good order by the cool gallantry of Captain Moody . The wnwons contained some ammunition and Minie muskets ,
which latter were , however , rendered useless by the precaution of removing the nipples . On the 19 th of June , Major-General Yorke , with a large force , supported by Colonel Michel and Colonel Evre marched against the camp of the rebel Hottentots , which was reached the next morning ( a day before the Hottentots expected to be attacked ) . The Hottentots were routed and their huts burned . A Cape Corps sergeant , who was taken prisoner , was immediately hanged . Three of the Minie rifles , and part of the ammunition lately taken at the Konap were fpund . Among the slain was a Cape Corps deserter , who had a gold watch and chain ; and a soldier found a pouch full of sovereigns . A Kafir boy was taken in Fort Beaufort , who disclosed the mode of replenishing the
stores of the enemy . In the evening , women , carrying wood , enter the town and remain till ten at night , when they manage to leave , laden with supplies . An important treaty was concluded in January last , between Pretorious on the part of the emigrant Boers , who have established themselves beyond the Vaal river , and the Commissioners of the Orange River Sovereignty guaranteeing the independence of the Boers . Major Hogg , one of the coinmissioners , has since died of a fever at Bloem Fontein .
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LETTERS FROM PARIS . [ From our own Correspondent . ] Letter XXXIII . Paris , Tuesday Evening , August 10 , 1852 . The result of the municipal elections is decidedly far more significant than could have been expected . The abstention from voting has been almost universal . Everywhere the result has exposed the failure of the Government and of its agents ; everywhere what the official iournals call the " indifference" of the
population has been unmistakably proved . In many cantons the election was annulled , for want of voters . I may cite Nantes , where only 6000 out of 25 , 000 electors voted ; St . Etienne , where only 4000 out of 19 , 000 ; Bordeaux , Rennes , Beauvais , Bourges , Vierzon , Angers , Bourg , Caen , Besancon , Dole , Evreux , Orleans , Troyes , Abbeville , Toul , Strasburg , Lyons , Niort , Poitiers , Auxerre , Dieppe , La Rochelle , Nevers , Toulouse , Versailles , equally " indifferent . " In many rural cantons it was the same . In default of other
weapons , the country has , on this occasion , replied to the appeal of its Ruler by contempt . It was impossible to falsify the results , where the voting was by canton . There were only the votes of nine or ten communes to be added up , to obtain the total result of each canton . Mistake was out of the question , and the trick of the 20 th of December , and of the 29 th of February , could not be played . In the rural districts , as in the towns , the real isolation of our Ruler ia now glaringly distinct . The Dictator , now that he has created silence around
him , hearing only the false and fulsome flatteries of his courtiera , tho glo / ing reports of his functionaries , and the grovelling adulations of his lacqueys , had begun to persuade himself that he had cheated the country , und that till who once cursed , now adored him . Tho negative vote just accomplished , may , perhaps , have opened bin eyes . Now ho may gee that a void is gaping around him , and a void which broadens and deepens day by day . You must have remarked that Straaburg , whore tho President lately found such an enthusiastic
reception , has , by abstaining from tho municipal elections , refused to concur in recognising tho government of the usurper . Tho official journals , the Moniteur , I * alrie , JPays , &c , endeavour to create a diversion s / row * tho elections . Tho Constitutionnel alono , for spito against Porsigny , dwells with a malicious pertinacity upon the checks and defeats which tho Government has gone-rally experienced . Cruel , you may imagine , l > ns been tho disappointment at tho Elyse ' e . Louis Honaparto wan so struck with tho result , that » o fell in . r jpi , chronic rheumatism from which hoi witters , hus Htruck his logs , and some days ho is
lU WlllCn i , m ^ Hrmni /> iii « ll strtlivwMlu luiim iri-lt . o / 1 liiiurn ui-ivt-iu » vvlneh the municipal councils havo voted largo sums for the reception und feasting of tho conqueror , have nwatainod from voting in the recent olections , or havo
voted for the candidates of the opposition . It is a grave question in the ministerial councils , whether the President ought to expose himself to risk in the midst of populations so decidedly hostile . At a loss for expedients , hia adherents have determined upon the following system . Persigny is reported to have lately held this language : — " We hold all the threads of power , all the functionaries , —executive and administrative , all
the forces of the State . Let us rely exclusively upon these supports , compromise them in bur policy , make them feel that they . are lost men when we fall , and so give them at least the courage of fear in default of a better . Compromise them , but at the same time gorge them : and raise their salaries once more . The Legislative Corps must be won over and mollified ; last session we heaped insults upon them ; we made them conscious of their servitude ; this
policy must be reversed , and what is more , we must pay them—give them an indemnity of 10 , 000 f . ( 400 J . ) each , and so buy off their opposition . " It is , I believe , almost resolved that the members of the Legislative Corps shall receive an indemnity of 3000 f . a month during session . This would amount to 10 , 000 f . a year , and be much the same thing as the notorious 25 francs a day which made the National Assemblies so unpopular . The consequences of the elections are felt in every direction . Agents of the Government are deprived of their posts : especially the unsuccessful mayors . The circulars of the Prefets accuse them of
having abused their influence to carry the election of candidates opposed to the Government nominees . This accusation reveals to you a fact of deep import—viz ., that in France , where the ignorance is so dense throughout the rural districts ( and these rural districts contain thirty-one millions of inhabitants , to five millions resident in the towns ) , the mayors retain a vast influence over the minds of the peasantry . Many of the Government nominees , observing the number of electors who abstained from voting , retired from the contest , and renounced their own nomination . Among others , a candidate in the Tarn etGaronife addressed the
electors a letter in which he said , that " the suffrages he had been accustomed to obtain for fifteen years having failed him for the first time , he considered it a warning to desist from the course he desired to pursue . " On the other hand , the Prefects have taken the field again for new elections , many of them refreshing the electors with a proclamation to stimulate their zeal . The words of the Prefet de I'Eure deserve to be quoted : " Remember , " he says , " that to abstain from voting is a negation of your civic rights ; remember that it is an act of ingratitude towards the Government which makes an appeal to the electoral power , that
it is a desertion from the ranks in which you marched on two former solemn occasions , and that such indifference is an abandonment of the most precious interests of our country ! Certain persons devoted to the most dangerous doctrines , enemies of your interests , hostile to the generous Government of Prince Louis Napoleon , have dared to solicit election , and to make an appeal to your credulity . They deceive you now as they have always deceived you . They speak in the name of the people , and preach revolt against that authority which is the most sovereign expression of its
confidence and of its will . Remember , they aro all branded with disgrace , in the name of society and of our country ; remember that their candidateship is nothing but a trap to surpriso your good faith , nn insolent defiance of your own rights and of tho rights of him to whom you have confided the salvation of France . Remember , above all , that tho men who have refused tho oath of fidelity to the Government of Louis Napoleon , havo denied tho right of universal suffrage , and violated tho will of tho nation . Your contempt should be tho solo reply to their guilty manoeuvres , and tho best exposure of their impotence . "
It would be a waste of time to dwell upon all tho absurdities of this language . Two facts , however , it discloses : 1 . The abstention has been considerable enough to make tho functionaries of Bonapoi ^ o cry out . 2 . Tho Republicans are once inoro in tho lists , and their eventual triump h already alarms MM . les JPrSfels . Let us wait . Qui vivya , verra . On tho other hand , in a great number of localities , tho electors havo protested against tho manusuvros employed by the agents of Government to sccuro the success of their nominees .
It nppcarH , from tho protest of the electors of Mhromines ( Charente-Infe ' rieure ) , that tho sous-prefet convoked all tho functionaries of tho canton , and enjoined them menacingly to vote for Lueien Murat , and that his threats involved , not loss of oflico alono , but exile to Algeria . Groat 'preparations are making for tho fAte of tho 15 th inst . The outlay will bo enormous . Games on a vast Kcalo will l > o instituted in different partH of Paris , to carry out tho famous maxim of tho Roman Emperors , " JPanem et Circences . " With bread and
shows our Ruler pretends to muzzle the people . For this coming fete a complete amnesty of all parties was announced . It was discussed more than once in the Council , and rejected . Louis Bonaparte took the side of clemency , and his Ministers that of severity . It was put to the -vote , and the farce concluded with a rejection of the proposal . But , not to cheat public expectation , excited by these rumours , too grossly , some few representatives of the people , banished by the decrees of the 10 th of January , have been permitted to return from exile . The decree of last January had established two
categoriestemporary banishment and perpetual exile . Of the eighteen banished under the former category , eight are allowed to return to France—viz ., MM . Creton , Duvergier de Hauranne , Chambolle , Thiers , de Remusat , Jules de Lasteyrie , General Leydet , and Anthony Thouret . Of the sixty-six representatives banished for perpetuity , seven are authorized to return—viz ., MM . Renaud , Signard , Theodore Bac , Joly , Belin , Besse , and Millotte . I need scarcely add , that all the agents of Government , and all the official journals , have received orders to make a great ado of this peddling act of clemency .
By order of Louis Bonaparte , dramatic performances are to be given gratuitously at the three principal theatres on the 15 th instant . Cinna ( or , the Clemency of Augustus ) , Corneille ' s tragedy , is to be presented , in allusion to the recall of some fifteen citizens . Paid claqueurs will occupy , as a matter of course , the principal seats , and will give the signal for applause to the crowd . Victor Hugo ' s brochure on " Napoleon the Little " circulates secretly in France . It 13 written with admirable vigour and vivacity . As I am not aware whether you may have yet introduced it to your readers , I subjoin one or two of the most salient and remarkable passages . *
" The men who , in their character of representatives , had received in trust for the people the oath of December 20 , 1848 , and who beheld its violation , had with their mandate assumed two duties : the first , whenever that oath should be violated , to rise up to oppose their breasts to the bullets of the usurper , regarding neither the number nor the strength of the enemy ; to shield with their bodies the sovereignty of the people , and with the resolve to combat and depose the usurper , to seize every arm , from the laws that may be found in the code , to the paving-stones up-torn in the streets . The second duty was , after having accepted the combat
and all its hazards , to accept proscription with all its miseries ; to stand up for ever in the face of the traitor , his oath in their hand 3 to cry for justice ; never to bend , never to relent ; to be implacable ; to seize the crowned perjurer , if not by the arm of the law , by the grasp of truth ; to burn red in tho blaze of history the words of his oath , and to brand with those burning words his brow . Tho writer of these lines is one of those who recoiled from no endeavour to accomplish the first of these duties : in writing these pages he fulfils the second . It is time to re-awaken the conscience of Men . Since tho 2 nd December , 1851 ,
a successful ambush , an odious and disgraceful crime , triumphs and dominates , rises to the height of a theory of government , expands in the face of the sun , makes laws , renders decrees , takes society , religion , nrul domestic virtues under its protection ; gives the hand to tho potentates of Europe , calling them 'brother , or cousin / This crime no man denies , not even the men who won , and who live by it , and who only say , ' it was a necessary act : ' not even tho chief malefactor ; he only guys that he has been ' absolved . * This crime includes all other crimes : treason in the conception—perjury in the execution—murder and assassination in tho assault
—spoliation , swindling , robbery in tho triumph . This crime bears within its bosom as integral parts of itself ; —tho suppression of law , the violation of constitutionally inviolable guarantees , arbitrary sequestration , confiscation of property , nocturnal massacres , secret butcheries , ' commissions' replacing tribunals , ten thousand citizens transported , forty thousand citizens pro 8 cril > ed , sixty thousand families ruined and driven to despair . Those facts aro patent ! Ah ! well , painful as it may bo to confess , tho assent of silonco follows tho crime :, it is there ,
prcsont , visible , sensible to tho sight and touch : i" « n let it pass , they go to their business ; tho shops aro open , tho Exchange gambles ; trade , sitting on its bak'H , rubs its hands contontodly , and we are approaching tho time when all will bo treated as n matter of course ! Tho man who soils ft yurd of cloth docs not hear tho very measure' he holds hi his hand » ay , ' It is a false measure that rules / The dealer who weighs im article of commerce hears not tho balance 1 HI its voico and say , It in a false weight that governs .. '
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August 14 , 1852 . ] THE LEADER . 767
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* Wo havo roeoivod n copy of this energetic and fiery inelictinont . It will rocoivo distinct notico next Week in another part of our paper . —Mv . of Leader .
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 14, 1852, page 767, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1947/page/3/
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