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Leader (1850-1860), 16th April 1853, Edition 1 of 1, Page 366, Untitled Article

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      vate speculation , and must have had in view hostilities or insurrectionary movements of a very destructive character . " On this statement the Times founded some unhesitating denunciations of M . Kossuth " and his adherents . " The great journal , however , lias been lnisinformed , and the paragraph we have quoted is c rowded with misstatements . No house in the occupation ot M . Kossuth has been searched ; no arms , ammunition , or materials of war have been found in any house belonging to him . There has been a search , and " ammunition" has been found , but under very

      different circumstances from those detailed in the Times Mr . William Hale is a civil engineer . He has been distinguished for years for the invention of rockets and other weapons of war , and he has carried out his inventions for some time in a manufactory at Rotherhithe . He has had frequent communications with the British Government , and has placed at the disposal several useful inventions . With their cognizance lie has also dealt largely with foreign Governments ; he supplied the Americans with rockets in t heir war with Mexico , and supplied the Danes in t heir contest with Schleswig Holstein . His ingenuity and enterprise have received official and general recognition . Not

      long ago he was in communication with the Government regarding the sale of some of his rockets , and the existence of his factory at Rotherhithe was as patent a fact as the existence of the arsenal at " Woolwich . On Wednesday evening last three policemen demanded entrance at the factory at Rotherhithe . Mr . Hale was absent . The man in charge refused admittance ; the police threatened to break open the door , but the man , wishing to prevent injury to the building , gave up the key . The police entered and overhauled the premises and their contents , consisting of a large quantity of rockets , manufactured by Mr . Hale in the regular course of trade , and which he was anxious to dispose of to the Government .

      A rough search was thoroughly carried out ; rockets were found in profusion , but no gunpowder and no store of arms . The man hurried up to town to apprise his master , leaving tlie policemen in charge of the premises . A rocket manufactory requires peculiar care in keeping : exposure to damp may destroy a large amount of valuable property in a few hours , the composition used iu the preparation of the rockets demanding much attention . That attention the policemen did not give ; they simply overhauled the goods and kept watch over them . On hearing of this event , Mr . Hale hurried down from London , and finding his premises and property in the

      possession of strange men , he demanded their authority . One of them held up his staff . That was the only authority they had ; but they referred Mr . Hale to Mr . Superintendent Evans . Mr . Evans showed Mr . Hale a Bow-street warrant to search the premises in question for gunpowder . " Well , " asked Mr . Hale , " have you searched , and did you find gunpowder ? ' " We brought away some stuff ' , " said the policeman . ( Some of our readers may not know that it is illegal to have over 50 lbs . of gunpowder within three miles of London . ) Mr . Hale demanded why his premises

      were guarded and his good . s detained , if the object only was to search for gunpowder . No gunpowder had been found ; some of hi . s property had been taken away ; the remainder was left , uneared for , in the hands of strange men ; and tlie exposure to which it was subjected might cause tlie loss of hundreds of pounds worth of property . What was the charge ; against him ? By what right was his factory broken open , liis property overhauled , a part of his goods taken away , and the rest exposed to damage ? Mr . Superintendent Evans could give no explanation . Mr . Hale applied to Commissioner Mnyne , and " no answer" was returned as a reply .

      Yesterday , Mr . Hide ' s son went down to llotherhithc to inspect the premises and prevent damage , lie asked to be allowed to take away some needed portions of the goods : he was refused . Mr . llule himself has demanded permission to remove some of bis property , that he might prevent injury to it : lie has been refused . The Times stated that " a house occupied by M . KosKuth" was searched . The house Neurehed was never occupied by M . Konstith : he was never in it . Tho Times . stated ( hut " arms , ninmunition , and materials of war" certainly form " no part of the-

      household goods of a private ; gentleman . ' 1 he " materials of war" found wen * not there an the household goods of a private gentleman : they formed part of tho articles in u business factory . The Times stated that they might have been " the stock in trade of a political incendiary ; " they were the stock in trade of nn English trader . Tlie Times stated that tho preparations were " u | M ) ii a scale entirely inconsistent with the idea of any private speculation . " Tho scale on which the ltotherhitlie works nre now curried on is tho wale readied for tho last five yearn . Tlie Times Htuted that it pieHuined the police acted under u warrant from tho

      Secretary of State : the only warrant used was an ordinary Bow-street warrant , obtained upon a false pretence .

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      LETTERS FROM PARIS . . [ Fbom our own Correspondekt . ] Lettee LXVIII . Paris , Thursday , April 14 , 1853 . Fob some days past we have been living in the midst of arrests , without number and without end . Bonaparte , alarmed at seeing the threads reknit of the conspiracy which will entangle him in ruin , has set on fbot all the forces of the police to try to seize the threads of the plot , and so , if possible , to get at the chiefs of the vast organization which embraces all the working-men of Paris . Disheartened at the fruitless

      results , he is now endeavouring inadly to recommence terrorism : but the time is gone by for that ; and we arc perfectly hardened . Meanwhile he is taking advantage of all occasions , small and great , to make arrests . Several citizens , suspected of entertaining correspondence with the London refugees , have been torn out of their houses , and thrown into the prison of Mazas . In many trades in which the workmen demanded an increase of wages , on account of the rise of rents , and had struck to obtain it , they have been thrown into prison . A friend of my own , a working blacksmith , Lebon du Gros Caillou , one of the artilleurs of June 13 , having lately died , a demonstration

      was organized to follow his body to the grave . Fifteen hundred men accompanied his mortal remains as far as the Barriere Mont Parnasse ; but there the procession was charged in front and rear by two squadrons of municipal horse-guards , followed by a host of sergents de ville , who proceeded to knock down with leaded sticks all who came within arm ' s length , and to drag off to prison all who fell bleeding under their blows . We shall be compelled henceforth , whenever we want to bury our dead , to take muskets by way of tapers . Perhaps that is just . vhat Bonaparte desires ; certainly it is what he will jne day get . More than 400 persons have been arrested this week and the last on these

      different pretexts . All this time the Corps Lc ' gislatif holds its sittings , and discovers that we live " in the best of worlds , " { dans le meilleur des mondes possibles . ) These bought and sold individuals have been presented with the definitive settlement of the Budget for 1854 . There was a report in four volumes , crowded with infinite details and certain adroit criticisms , 1 am told . No one offered to speak , and the items were voted by show of hands ( par assis et leve ) . The whole affair took ten minutes . The Commission for the examination of the Budsret of 1854 has been nominated : it is

      composed of names utterly insignificant—all the men of last year , with the single exception of M . Gouin , having refused to form part of it . Apropos of this famous Budget en equilibre , do you know by what conjuring trick this precious equilibrium was obtained ? Here is the receipt , which I recommend to the notice of your legislators and Finance Ministers . All the estimates of receipts were swollen out by calculating them , not on the mean average of tho latter years of Louis Philippe ' s reign , but on the highest figure of last year . Thus , the product of the Customs was calculated on the month of November , 1852 , giving the highest

      result ever yet obtained ; whereas since that period the product of the Customs has been diminishing : we may therefore be sure that the total product of 1853 will be far below the estimate givon . So it is with all the other branches of revenue . Hence this pretended balance is nothing more than an immense trickery . It has also been remarked with Home surprise that the budget of the Ministry of War m still , or nearly ho , at the same figure oh that of 1853 . What hotter proof can we have tluit the pretended reductions of the active forces were only designed to throw dust in the eyes of the donkeys on both sides of the Straits of Dover- —the MustermaiiH of France and England . There in one itoin , however , which has gouo through no such cooking- process ; 1 mean the Police ; that budget attains

      the majestic elevation of six millions of francs ( 240 , 000 / . ) Lastly , would you like to know how much all the legislative apparatus of tho now constitution costs us— - Corps Legitdutif , Senate , and Council of State ? All this business costs u . s just forty-three millions of francs ( 1 , 700 , 000 / . ) Add to that the twenty-fivo millions ( 1 , 000 , 000 / . ) of Bonaparte ' s civil list , and wo get the very pretty total of sixty-eight millions of francs ( 2 , 720 , 000 / . ) , all for the purchased creatures and tho piM'UHitcH of our iuwv regime ! All thoso figures were mibmitted to the committee on tho budget . Tho committee finds it ( juite impossible to demand any further reductions . Yet , unwilling to accopt tho work of tho Government nil standing , they have actually taken into tlioir IioiuIh ( an a joke , it is assumed ) to demand augmentations . Under the Parliainontury regimo it whs

      the Government that demanded augmentation , and the deputies diminution . Under the new regime we are to be treated to the contrary course of action . These gentlemen insist on the restoration of several heads of expenditure cut off by the Council of State . What is more , they propose to confer pensions of 12 , 000 francs ( 480 / . ) per annum on all retiring ministers , and pensions of from 3000 to 4000 francs ( 120-1602 . ) upon all deputies who may have exercised legislative functions for twelve years . In other respects the mechanism of the imperial system works admirably . Not only it votes the budget in ten minutes , but what is better , on every question proposed you always find afc the bottom of the ballot-urns the most perfect unanimity of approval . In fact , this Corps Legislatif , to do »

      it justice , is really a marvellous voting machine . The : Government , too , for its own part , is in capital working order . It has just published a decree interdictingforeign refugees from entering France . Henceforward any Pole , or German , or Italian , or Spaniard , who , desiring to enjoy the dignity of his manhood , leaves hi * country in pursuit of freedom , must not enter France-Bonaparte has constituted himself the gendarme of European " order . " As to the refugees who have for some time past been residing in Paris , the decree expelsthem purely and simply . So the noble wreck of the Polish emigration of 1832 , the German and Italian emigration of 1848 and 1849 , will be forced to quit Paris , and to go and hide themselves in some obscure village . Nevertheless , for all its gendarme duties the Government does not forget its " littleaffairs , " its jobs and

      tripotages at the Bourse . To send up the falling railway shares , it had spread the report that no fresh concession would be granted . But the Mastermans of London and of Paris gave Bonaparte twenty-five millions of francs ( 1 , 000 , 000 / . ) , and ten millions to De Morny . Bonaparte immediately lost his memory , forgot all about the November decree , and authorized the concession of an impossible railway — across the mountains of Auvergne and the Ceyennes—the line from Bordeaux to Lyons . It is just as if your House of Commons were to pass a Bill for a line across the highlands of Scotland . What did it matter to these gentlemen ? Like the great Napoleon , they have expunged the word

      "impossible" from their dictionary . All they had to dowas to touch the premiums on the pockets of the donkey tribe . In due time wo shall find them proposing a line from Paris to the Moon ! Bonaparte will concede it to them with the best grace imaginable , and fools will not be wanting to buy the shares at a premium . Another trifling concession , in which Bonaparte has fingered the small sum of six millions of francs ( 240 , 000 / . ) , has just been arranged . This is the ' concern of 50 , 000 acres of land in Algeria , at Setif , in the province of Constantina . The concession is made to a company , which receives by way of profit 20 , 000 > acres for its own share ; the remaining 30 , 000 are destined to agriculturists to be imported to the spot

      by the said company . The quarrel of the clergy has just entered upon » new phase . The Pope has sent the French bishops am encyclical letter ( prononcez , circulaire ) , couched in theusual oily , sanctimonious , and plastering style , in whiehi he condemns the Archbishop of Paris and approves th « journal 7 / Univers . This encyclical missive consists ; of four principal points . The first is devoted to a pompous eulogy on the French Episcopate ; this is an exordium , to gild the pill ; the second exalts tho zeal of thereligious journalists , and enjoins the bishops to stir up that zeal rather than to repress it . The third point

      insists on tho necessity of making education henceforth repose on a religious basis—that is to say , in plain language , to restrict all instruction to tho Catechism , and to reject every other book . * The fourth point pronounces in favour of tho suppression of all Greek and I . in tin authors in classical studies . Too Italian to nay right out , roundly , frankly , and decidedly , that Homer is to make room for St . Basile , and Virgil for St . Thomas , ( St . Anthony for Ovid ?) tho Pope contents himself with n ely proviso that the Greek and Latin authors must only bo admitted after tho objectionnhlo Paganisms lutvo been carefully expurgated ^

      Now , I ask you , what is Homer without his Olympus T what is tho Odyssey without Minerva ? what ia tho jiineid without Venus and Juno ? Meanwhile , the Encyclic has fallen liko u stone upon tho head of tho Archbishop of Paris , who quietly bends his neck , and uimouncoH to tho faithful—that in to us—nous autrem —that ho authorizes us to read X' Univers , and that ho revoked tho preceding interdict against that journal , Tho teruiH which the Popu employs to praise the ITnivers and tho religious journals , are tho most complete condemnation of tho ( lallienn doctrinoH . " The ruligioiiH journals ( ho HiiyH ) aro worthy of all praino , for

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      * This is the policy adopted , at a respectful distance ,, by Mr . Archdeacon l ) oniaon and his co-obstructivea . —J £ i >

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      S 66 THE LEADER . [ Satubday ^

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), April 16, 1853, page 366, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1982/page/6/