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    Sept. 6, 1851.] «!> * VLeaHtV. 839

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    CONTINENTAL N O T E 8. M. 1« Docteur Ver...

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    Order Reigns In Germany. Hoti'.H On The ...

    their guests , and are themselves punished for it . Should this system of espionage and terrorisni continue much longer , travellers must abandon the Rhine route . Some of the Heidelberg innkeepers remonstrated and represented that they could only be iustly responsible for the conversations of travellers with whom they sat at table . But they were peremptorily told that they would be held responsible for all . Innkeeping will , like monarchy , become impossible . , , . . _ . . All letters are liable to be opened at the

    Postoffice . The Government sent a circular to each postmaster , commanding that every suspicious letter should be sent to the Minister . Special notification has been made to the post-masters of the names of 160 persons , and all letters directed to them are required to be opened . At ten o ' clock at night all public-houses , coffeehouses , and hotels , must be shut up . He who does not salute a constable , gendarme , or private soldier , is immediately imprisoned .

    Persons of property , on the pretext of being suspected , are dragged at night from their beds , hurried before a court , never confronted with accusers , condemned , and their property confiscated . No one considers himself safe . Fear and the silence of the tomb reign in every bosom . In order to compromise certain persons , and to have a pretext for imprisoning them , the Government have themselves forwarded fictitious letters by the post , containing sharts of the Mazzini loan ; domiciliary visits take place , and the unfortunates are condemned .

    A Neapolitan cruelty prevails in the prisons . . lhe }> risoner is alone in a narrow and damp cell , dimly ighted , but he sees not the light of the sky . If permitted for a few moments to leave this dreary chamber to breathe the fresh air , he must wear a mask . "When any one enters the cell , he is compelled to put on the mask . No other books are permitted than the most bigoted writings of Catholic priests . Once a month they are permitted to write letters , but these must be left open for the inspection of the gaolers . In the prison of Brucheal young men have become grey-haired in two years . Many have died from phthisis in these unhealthy dungeons . Some have hanged themselves from despair . Others , from the same sad cause have only escaped these prison horrors for a madhouse in Illenau .

    Persons in the most delicate state of health , always accustomed to the comforts and refinements of lite , are after committal and previous to trial compelled to sleep in damp rooms in the fortress of Jtastadt , to wear a common prison dress , live on the coarsest fare , wheel barrows , and perform the hardest labour on the woiks of the fortifications . Natives or foreigners wearing full beards are seized by the police , and have the beard cut off by a common bread-knife . The most respectable and opulent persons in the Duchy have been publicly beaten with sticks . Every soldier , constable , or gendarme can , on the most flimsy pretext , without fear of punishment , ill-treat the most respectable man , and even wound him mortally .

    People are thrown into prison for wearing red waistcoats , even in those districts of the country where this garment forms a part of the national costume of the peasantry . The same with the wearers of red cravats , Calabrese hats , and bo on . These terrible offenders may be detained in prison for many months . Whoever approaches a sentry nearer than three steps , even accidentally , may be shot by the sentry . There is now no press in Baden . There is no freedom of thought . It has become * the Siberia of Germany . The torments inflicted on this people are heavier far than those of a Russian or Neapolitan despotism ; for Baden has been for a period of fifty years accustomed to a free constitutional life , and her whole

    people possess a certain degree of enlightenment in consequence of the formerly good system of education which prevailed . But worst of all are the oppressions of the Catholic priesthood . The Jesuits , banished from almost all European towns , have within the last two years returned here , and they proclaim in every town and village the so-called days of penitence , preach that this system of oppression is the just punishment of Heaven , and extract the last farthing from the pockets of the poor .

    To sum up this catalogue of the tender mercies of the Grand Ducal Government of Baden , when a citizen visits the Exhibition in London , and should it be reported by any npy that he haw Hpokcn with any of the leaders amongst the refugee * " , he will be instantly committed to prison on his return . Such are- a few of the popular blessings under order and red-monarchy in Germany .

    Sept. 6, 1851.] «!> * Vleahtv. 839

    Sept . 6 , 1851 . ] «!> * VLeaHtV . 839

    Continental N O T E 8. M. 1« Docteur Ver...

    CONTINENTAL N O T E 8 . M . 1 « Docteur Veron ' g last solution is a repeal or a connidi table modification of the law of the . list May , I 860 , and a restoration of universal suffrage — nt least lor the re-election of the President and the formation of a new Constituent Assembly . This " medical advisor" of the Prince , with characteristic honhommie , redolent us Uhunl of an utter negation of fact and an utter contempt lor truth ( vulgar weapons ,

    forsooth !) , speaks of the " honesty" of his client . This is indeed playing high trumps ! The " honesty " of the man who—but we will set forth the claims of M . Louis Napoleon to a reputation for political " honesty" in detail next week . La Republique , in a lively and trenchant notice of this last feeler of the Elysee , says that the " honesty" which consents to a restoration of universal suffrage would have done better by never allowing its mutilation . How grandly nai f ia M . Veron , recommending the President to inscribe at the head of « ' our new political code , " " every

    citizen aged twenty-one is an elector "—the very words of the first electoral decree of the Republic ! La Rtpublique detects and exposes the mental reservation of the doctor , recommending absolute universal suffrage " for the election of the President of the Republic and the vote of a Constitution . " Not a word about universal suffrage for the election of the Legislative Assembly . " Perhaps , " continues M . Veron , *• there may be a few reclamations to entertain for the election of representatives . " Very probable , indeed . its

    " Each department confers a double charge upon deputies — to defend the general interests of the country and the special interests of the department . " Which being interpreted means that the President ( M . Bonaparte of ¦ cour .-e ) would be the Elect of Fiance ; and the representatives of the People mere deputies of departments , as they were wont to be called in the days of Louis XVIII . This is very clever , but just now of doubtful acceptation . The honesty of M . Veron ' s client chiefly consists in his " devotion to France . " His extremest act of honesty would - be ( in a highly improbable contingency ) , to " retire into private Jife , carrying with him into his

    retirement the esteem and admiration of Europe . " Only , if France absolutely demand him , he is " prepared to sacrifice his private happiness to public duty . " No doubt of it . Princes and kings only ask to be allowed to sacrifice themselves to the good of their subjects ! All this move of the Elysee is in consequence of the decided candidateship of M . de Joinville . A regular steeple chase , as the Republique calls it , has . begun between the two Pretenders ; a breakneck race of liberal promises . Ourleading journal has made a great fuss in large type , and with a sort of pinchbeck diplomatic circumlocutory mystification of style , of the interview of the leaders of the

    Orleanist party and of the Fusionists with the exiled family party at Claremont . As hierarchs of the Party of Order , they are scandalized at the quasirevolutionary attitude of the admiral , who is neither altogether backward in putting himself forward , nor forward enough in backing out of the candidateship for the Presidency . He leaves all to France . Even M . de Nemours confesses that his own name is not popular , and declines to consider the Regency but as an inevitable bygone . And Madame d'Orleans , the good Queen Amelie , and the " rest of the Royal Family , " make way for M . de Joinville . Poor M . Guizot cannot get at the ear of the Prince for a

    moment ' s private conversation . At Paris the Orleanist journals are fighting shy of Louis Napoleon , and sounding the trumpets for the " quasi-restoration of a quasi-legitimate Pretender . " M . Ernile de Girardin , with his usual practical and absolute good sense and farseeing contempt for these superficial juggleries , briefly writes that there are but two denouements of 1852 : the unconditional repeal of the law of the 31 st of . May , or civil war . For how are you to prevent three millions and more of excluded voters rushing to the poll and insisting on their lights guaranteed by the Constitution ? You cannot imprison three million citizens . You cannot concentrate a vast

    army in Paris and at the same time repress a universal and simultaneous movement throughout France . The Revisionist campaign proceeds in the Councils-General with doubtful success . In pome " total" is added , meaning something more than Bonapartism in others total and loyal , excluding all ideas of Prorogation . In othery , all political discussion is suppressed . Wherever " Prorogation" is voted , it is officially recorded in the Government journals . But the fact is , that these Councils do not represent the

    People . And it is remarkable that in the very departments where revision in a Bonapartist sense is most loudly demanded : not one seventh of the total number of Constitutional electors , signed the prefectoral petitions in its favour ; and thi * calculation includes ull the fictitious , double , compulsory , and official signatures . After the 21 th of February , ' 48 , the Councils General would have voted ( hud tlu ; y dared ) the Regency . The People proclaimed the Republic . They now vote " prorogation . " Tho People intend otherwise .

    The Mayor of Polctiers has boon revoked , ostensibly for discourtesy to the Prefet , really for I iih frank republican speech during the stay of the President in thut lown , The Mayor of iteaunc has been suspended for closing an address to a school with Vive la IMpublique ! Ho much for the " honesty " of M . L . N . Bonaparte . We have elsewhere alluded to the result of the trials at Lyons . The prisoners have since appealed against tho sentence , on the ground of the incompittnicy of the Court . la Switzerland tho National Assembly has dissolved itself . The general elections take- placo in

    five weeks , and the struggle of parties is likely to be violent . The Radicals are in great force , especially at Berne , where M . Staempfli is spoken of as likely to be restored to the head of affairs . The King of Prussia continues his very uninteresting progress . He has met with " Bavaria " at some out-of-the-way place , and is now on his way to join his young and promising brother of Austria at Ischl . We are sorry to find reports gaining ground of a tendency on the part of Piedmont to make concessions to Rome concerning religious liberty , and to Austria about the refugees at Turin . A hearty article appears in the Progresso , on the Society of the " Friends of Italy , " lately established in London ; in which we notice the following striking and significant allusions : —

    " Navarino paid for Parga ; and we might even await from the justice of the English People something which would pay for Caracciolo ; for the Sicilian Constitution of 1812 ; for the faithless promises of Lord William Bentinck , in 1815 ; and for the beguilements of Lord Minto , in 1847 . The People will pay the debt which the diplomacy of its statesmen has contracted . " The name of Caracciolo recals a black page in English as well as in Neapolitan History . Our readers will not fail to recal the capitulation of Naples in 1799 ; the butchery of the Liberals by the lazzaroni under Cardinal Ruffo : the refusal of the

    Queen , Mary Caroline of Austria , to ratify the capitulation ; the appointment of a Junta to try the unhappy prisoners who had trusted to the treaty ; the judicial murders ; above all the ineffaceable bloodstain on the noble name of our own Nelson who , betrayed by a guilty infatuation , became the servile instrument of royal treachery and vengeance , and hung at the j'ard-arm of the Minerva frigate the aged admiral of the Neapolitan Republic , the venerable Caracciolo ! May our hearty execration of the atrocities of the worthy scion of Ferdinand IV , atone in some measure lor the innocent blood we once permitted to be shed ! our diplomacy may be the same now as then ; but the English People of 1851 are not the Tory-ridden herd of 1799 !

    The recent earthquakes at Bari and Basilicata have , perhaps , disturbed the slumbers or the superstition of King Bomba . The like calamities preceded the great revolutionary earthquake of 1789 . At all events , we read the following , and wonder what it

    means : — " A dissolution of the Ministry has taken place , we learn , at Naples , and another Cabinel been formed ; the names of the members of the new Administration had not been made public at the date of the last advices . " At Rome we are told that the Papal Government , in search of fresh victims , contemplates the arrest and imprisonment of the legionaries of ' 48 , who , at the call of the Pope himself , joined the patriotic army against Austria , and followed the standards blessed by the Pope . They placed a double trust in the amnesty and in the capitulation ; but what are treaties and pledges and capitulations to the Court of Cardinals ?

    At Florence we read of the Austrian ambassador , on the fete day of the Emperior , absolutely ignoring the Grand Duke at an official dinner . We also read of a priest being discovered in the act of burying an infant child alive ; and of another caught , Jlagrante delicto , after saying mass . Turning back from , this pleasant Btate of things to sensible and practical Belgium , we notice the following : — " The Senate of Belgium rejected , by 33 votes to 18 , the bill on successions in the direct line . This news is important . It will be remembered that the Chamber ot

    Representatives of Belgium rejected ior the first time the bill on direct successions , or ut least the fundamental point of it , which consisted in the obligation for the direct heir to declare , on oath , the importance of the succession . After this rejection , the Cabinet gave in its resignation , and a Ministerial crisis lasted for some weeks . At last , on account of the impossibility of forming a new Ministry , the members of the old Cabinet resumed their portfolios , and the Chamber , abandoning its first resolution , adopted the principle of the oath . The bill was taken before the Senate , iu which the Catholic and Conservative element dominates . "

    Military and Naval operations are brink enough . Nicholas is calling out all available levies . Tho German fleet is to be divided equally between Austria and Prussia ; the Confederation having prudently resigned all pretensions to such a " belonging . " Sardinia is preparing hIhuu hh' »< : h , and exercising her tight little fleet in company with the ltritish Admiral . The Finances of Absolutism are not flourishing . The Governments of Rome , Naples , and Vienna , an ; ( thankfully be it spoken ) uninislakcahly bankrupt .

    Our last " note" is we believe more pregnant of consequences than any fact since the lust IU vofut'on . A railway iu Russia is in itHt . lt a whole Involution . That huge ice-bound despotism iiiunI tluiw ut tho approach of Buch an i-ngine t ) f libcralimii . On Friday , the I / it" <>< August , at ten <> clock in the morning , tho first train cam .- in « m the Moscow-IVUMblmrg line . Tl . r train Imd started from tho village of Ulugowo , lyi » B «>» tUo lumliur in u northerly direction , about forty Yorsts irom . Wy »«

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 6, 1851, page 3, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_06091851/page/3/