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Northern Star (1837-1852), 13th November 1852, Edition 1 of 2, Page 9, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      ates a tetter understanding with the « fair , fat , and ftrtv" T ) m MiBlA , with tv * to that important branoh of « SlJ ^ flat country . We are sorry to add that her MaiestvZ ^ m f fte continuance ot _ an » cable relations with aU foreig ner W e Bnst m , that to jar , upon onr feelings . It is „ ^ ^ J ™ db and ammble lady , n pnvatelifc should announce heSE ' nKtlo , nnth a gang of counted smashers , pegurers , 2 ^ assassins . ° fflates a better understanding with the " fair fof „„ j n , „ ^ ! ft . « fi . romwi in tu ° ; * „ ., V » and foty" Donna

      This is an age of wonders . Last Tuesday we had * m no . * u ^ akc ; in another Tuesday or two the J ^ jT ^ finally proclaimed ; and on some other Tuesday not Zvv * distant , the Revolution will be in full swin * « Sr ™^ f chawing up" the crowned vam ^ ^^ S ?^ speak of the future , it appease vtoZftJ ^ * are closely verging upon the Millennium . « Prosperity » k Z general that only the suffering landlords , like « pW Wout gardeners' need and claim the sympathy of the Le <* slaW Alas ! that Majesty should send to May * fidr onlyKS possible advisers . " If only Rag-fair might be coJulted , what another story there would be to tell » '

      And now let the reader turn back to last Saturday ' s Star ot ttOBDOX , and read over the speech Victoria might have delivered . Imagine her inaugurating free knowledge and universal suffrage . Imagine her expressing sympathy for the > down-trodden nations of Europe , her appeal to the hearts and arms of the people , and her declared resolution to defend England s own and Freedom ' s cause against « a world in arms "

      -the voice of all the nations would pronounce her " every inch a Queen , ' or rather the benincent incarnation of power , combined withnghtand justice . But the speech of Thursday proves that it is not the mission of monarchy to regenerate the world that glorious task is reserved for Democracy—for the peoples

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      * * " - - iJftJJniy \] H "| J'fl'iriMljLimU-IJLLU THE SQUIREA RCHY AND THEIR GAME LAW . In another column will be found an account of a " riot , " which took place last week at Keighly , in Yorkshire . The facts of the case are briefly these : —Some poachers , while pursuing their nocturnal avocation , fell in with a game-keeper in the employ of Mr Busfield Ferrand , of Harden Grange . To prevent his being troublesome , the poachers tied his hands to his heels , stowed him

      away among the leaves , and there left him . A truly pitiable condition , this , for the defender of the Law and the Rights of Property . He was , however , relieved by some of his fellows , and in consequence of his knowledge of some of his captors , a reward was offered for their apprehension , and three were duly caught , and placed in " durance vile ' . ' a few days afterwards . They were examined before the magistrates , and held to bail to answer the charga » at the sessions .

      But as the defendants left the court , Johnson , the gamekeeper , was surrounded by the immense crowd that had collected outside of the court-house , and it is very probable that the keeper was addressed in no very good-natured terms , since it is just possible that the persons forming the crowd were mere " rabble , " altogether incapable of appreciating the justice and the advantages

      of the Game Laws . That they laboured under this deplorable incapacity is all the more probable in that a goodly number of the inhabitants of Keighly are somewhat averse to recognize those laws ; and it is likely enough , therefore , that very many in the crowd had ample reason to hate one of a body by means of whom they had had relations , friends , or acquaintances arrested and imprisoned , or had themselves suffered , in pocket or in person .

      Be that as it may , it is certain the crowd gave Mr . Game-keeper Johnson no friendly greeting , but it does not appear that he met with any personal injury . In this pitiable plight was the unpopular keeper , when up comes the still more unpopular master , Mr . W , Busfield Ferrand himself . Now it so happens that this Mr . Feiirand has been at considerable pains to win for himself the heartvr execration of the inhabitants of the

      district , in which he has residence and authority . During the period of political excitement in 1848 , the conduct of this worthy was especially ferocious . Then , his manner had that in it which seemed to say , that he would be far more at home , as the assistant of Haynatj in the Italian and Hungarian butcheries , than as an English " country gentleman , " resident among the democratic population of the West Riding of Yorkshire , where , unfortunately , he had no sufficient opportunities of proving his sincerity in the cause of Monarchy , and his hatred of « ' rabble rule . "

      Such is Mr . Busfield Ferrand , whose presence , it may be presumed , was but little likely to allay the irritation of the crowd . Judging the countenances of those around him to be by no means favourable to himself , our anti-Chartist hero of 1848 , considering , probably , that all men entertain the same feelings , and love of violence , as he had formerly displayed , coward-like , he at once began to conjure up thoughts of a " personal attack upon him by

      The crowd . He then must needs proceed to a course of abuse and provocation . His stupid terror was such as to make him only contemptible in the eyes of all , and had there been among the ' persoas assembled those who desired to inflict upon him personal violence , they could not fail to have been reminded of it by Ferrand ' s unmis ' takeable manifestation of cowardice , showing what bis conscience led him to expect at the hands of the

      people . Mr . Ferrand ' s subsequent proceedings were absurd enough in all conscience , and they were as criminal as they were absurd . He had the Riot Act read , but the crowd seeing no good reason wh y they should disperse , refused to do so , and remained to witness the further antics of the terrified squire . As neither the crowd outside , or the fears in his own mind would disperse , Mr . Ferrand telegraphed to Bradford for the aid of the military , and accordingly , a detachment of the 21 st Regiment was dispatched to his assistance

      . __ „ It is clear that no violence was intended towards Mr . Ferrand ; indeed , our correspondent , on whose testimony we can place implicit reliance , positively asserts , that had Mr . Ferrand gone quietly on , and relieved the crowd of his unwelcome presence , he would have been allowed to proceed to the railway station without molestation . This he did not do . He took every means to

      exasperate the assemblage , whose sentiments he well knew to be hostile to himself ; and he wound up his folly by calling out the military , thus risking confusion and bloodshed , by provoking a collision between the troops and the excited population . Fortunatel y , nothing of the kind occurred . The populace dispersed ^ hen the military came up , and the heroic FebbASD was left master of the field . But if bloodshed had taken place , whose Would have been the fault ?

      Untitled Article

      and gre " TSTZl I ° Pl atlO \ «« ™ al districts is other to& ^ S ^ SSfflSZ ?^*** mmimm ^^ t * ™» JZ ~ i T . = ====

      r ffflfrt r ^ tfrtsSw * Laws . Every unjust law is demoralisin / but we bel eve thaHo

      Andwhat hope have we of obtaining their abolition so Ion * as wh- l M ^ ° Shali remain in the han ^ of tha cl ass ' of which Mr . Ferrand is a sample ? Clearly none , and it is therefore the operative duty of every man who loves ks Ce to seek by all means to obtain a Legislature composed of ^ men who w 11 not suffer such disgraceful and vitiating enactments as the Gam Laws to remain upon the statute-book .

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      THE PRISONERS OF THE INQUISITION . Two natives of Tuscany , man and woman , husband and wife by name Francesco and Rosa Madaiai , were recently condemned by the tribunals of that state , acting under the influence and by command of that priest power , which may stall be best described by that name of fear- ~< I 7 ie Inquisition , to six years imprisonment , for the offence of having been detected in the act of reading the Bible ! The advanced age ot the victims , and the severities and indignities connected with their sentence , have moved a section of the British people , —the Exeter Hall and Dublin Rotundo section , the ultra-Protestants who recentlsent a mission to

      , y Florence to solicit pardon for the unfortunate Madviais . When we saj , that « Lord" Roden headed the deputation to the " Grand Duke , " our - readers will comprehend the narrow and contracted point of view from whence our Protestant sympathisers took cognisance of this shameful act of persecution . Tory bigots standing up for the rights of free conscience , and free speech , have a rather difficult part to f

      perorm , inasmuch as they have to reconcile their assertion of religious freedom with their traditional belief in the right divine of despotism ! Arrived at Florence , " Lord" Roden and his friends sought an interview with the Duke , which was refused ; his dukeship ' s minister intimating , that his " august Sovereign ' ' ( a miserable flunkey of Austria !) could not allow any foreign interposition" in his affairs ; and this too while he is the prisoner of an Austrian Guard ! There

      was nothing for " Lord" Roden and his friends , but to return whence they came . Accordingly they faced about leaving behind them a letter and address to the " Grand Duke , " containing sentiments which make us blush for the cause of Free Thought , dishonoured by the misrepresentation of these men . In the documents before mentioned they assure his "Imperial Royal Highness" of « the profound respect , "

      towards him , which fills their breasts ; and they take care to add . —T / ms respect whichis on onr lips , is also in our hearts !" They proceed : — " The evangelical Christians who have sent us hither have all learned , in the study of the Holy Scriptures to honour established poiuers . " Elsewhere they express their ' respect for the sentiments of the prince . " With these slavish despicable ideas to guide them—Roden and his friends had

      no mission to play the part of Freedom ' s advocates . The " established powec" in Tuscany answers the deputation that " the husband and wife Madaiai , Tuscan subjects , have been condemned to six years of seclusion by the regular tribunals for the crime of spreading protestantism , which , inasmuch as it attacks the religion of the state is punished by our laws . '' Thus hath willed the established power , " and the sentence on the Madaiais expresses " the sentiments of the prince . " Both that " power " and those " sentiments , " Roden and

      his confederates profess to honour and respect even from the bottom of their hearts ! With what right , consistency , or decency can such men ask the Tuscan Duke and his Jesuitcouncillors to reverse the sentence of the " regular tribunals V The Evangelicals , whether they mean it or not , do but labour to bring the Bible into contempt , when they tell us that their study of " The Holy Scriptures " has taught them to worship Despotism and whine like scourged curs at the footstool of arbitrary power . They have been bad students or they might have learned something better . When Ehud went to Eglon

      King of Moab , with the words on his lips " I have a message from God , unto thee , 0 King ! " his petition for the liberation of the enslaved took the shape of the avenging steel . A scriptural lesson which oppressors would do well to bear in mind , and which the oppressed should never forget . Be the effect of Bible-reading what it may—whether it makes men sycophants like the Evangelicals , or tyrannicides like the immortal Commonwealth men who severed the head

      of Charles Stuaiit from his body , it is the right of all who choose , to read it ; the right of the Madaiais as it is our right to read the same book , to read the Koran , Shakspere , and Petrarch ,. Milton and Dante , Gibbon and Sismokdi . We sympathise with the Madaiais not only because of their wrongs but because of the great wrong under which entire Italy is suffering . In every Italian state it is an offence to read

      the Bible ; it is a crime to spread Protestantism ; it is treason to study the master minds of ancient and modern days ; and blackest of all earthly sins to attempt to irradiate the darkness of priest-wrought ignorance by diffusing the light of Free Thought . To sympathise with the Madaiais is well , but insufficient , miserably insufficient . It is not merely two persons but twenty-two millions who pine nnder the like oppression , wear the like chain , and should command the like earnest

      sympathy . Let these anti-popery men show their consistency and prove their sincerity by giving a helping hand to the Italian Republicans . Italy , freed from the compression of foreign bandits , would make short work with the Papal abomination . The temporal power of the Pope would at once be abolished ; and all pains and penalties for Bible-reading and " spreading Protestantism , " would forthwith terminate . With free discussion , free knowledge , and free and general education through-

      Untitled Article

      - the Italian peninsula , the spiritual influence of the Pope would Soon share the doom of his temporal rule ; and his last chance of floecing the faithful , would he to unite with Mister Lucas in editing the Tablet of Infamy . As to his High Mightiness the Arch-Duke of Tuscany , King JBomba and the Jesuit gang , they would have to tramp in double quick time . Here is a mission for Protestant sympathisers ; and their reward assured . Let them help Joseph Mazzini . Free Italy will guarantee them freedom of religion ; and that reformation commenced five hundred years ago by the bold Euglishman John Wickliffe , will be completed under the banner of regenerated Rome .

      Untitled Article

      ROBERT BLUM . In the German Fatherland , even in the more circumscribed circle of his native Saxony , it is forbidden on pain of police-violence , tine , and imprisonment , to pay public homage to the memory of Robert Blum . The throned cowards shrink at the name of a dead man . lhe purple-clad Cains tremble in the presence of that spirit of Freedom which the name of Robert Blum embodies , and which they could not consi gn to the grave along with the poor mortal frame riddled by Austrian shot .

      Robert Blum was an extraordinary man ; sprung from the lowest depths of poverty , he knew personally all the miseries of the people , and he devoted his wonderful talents to the overthrow of that system which presses with the most crushing severitv upon the working classes . Gifted by natnre with the invaluable faculty of eloquence ( so potent for good , though so often foully misused ) , he laboured by study and exercise to perfect that talismanic power ; of course he succeeded , By energy and perseverance he gradually raised himself from the ' squalor of poverty to that better situation in life which he ornamented bv his unfailing

      J 4 * 1 _ ll At _ O devotion to the cause of the people . He was essentially a man of progress . With the Free Congregations founded by Ronge he battled for the rights of conscience . As a politician / he developed his free sympathies before the Revolution ; and when that Revolution came he was ibrmost among the most advanced , and very early saw that German Unity and German Regeneration were incompatible with the continued existence of a brigand band of kings , princes , arch-dukes , &c , animated by hostile interests , and uniting onlyjn one league of oppression against the people . have doubt

      We no that had Robert Blum lived , and had the Revolution progressed , he would have advanced with the requirements of the hour , until the consummation of the struggle by the establishment of the German Republic—one and Indivisible , democratic and social . His presence in the midst of the Viennese , at the time of their hopeless struggle against masses of barbarians was as chivalrous as the manner in which he met death was unaffectedly heroic . It would be useless to indulge in a very natural but fruitless outburst of denunciation of his murderers . "Curses kill not , " as Hamlet wiselv observes ; a sufficient reason for

      postponing to the day of deeds , and the hour of retribution , the full expression of that feeling which must animate the heart of every true man at mention of the name of Robert Blum . In remembering this one martyr we do not forget the manythe multitude of Germans—not to speak of others , who in 1848 , and ' 49 , gave to Freedom ' s Tree the life-sap of their own blood . As was well said at the Commemoration , on Tuesday last , Robert Blum is homaged not only for his own virtues , and death in Freedom ' s cause , but because his name is a representative-symbol of those who shared his doom . The meeting alluded to was of importance , in so far as it manifested on the

      part of the German exiles , that prime political virtue perseverance —so properly lauded by Dr . Tauseneau . But it struck us that the occasion was not turned to the best possible account . It might have been used to have made a more direct appeal to ( he British people to renounce their criminal apathy , and commence the performance of the long neglected duty they owe to Humanity ; and such an appeal might have been made without any injudicious interference with our domestic politics . As is usualontheoccasionof any great principle being brought before a public audience , that section of the press-gans ; commonly called " the reporters , " or as Cobbett termed them , the Suclcmugs , must needs do their best to turn the Blum

      Commemoration into ridicule—the Times man taking the lead in the dirty but congenial work . Seated to report a meeting of railway directors , they would not dare to interpolate a single sneer ; or in attendance at a civic feed , their hearts warmed and their sympathies expanded by a skinful of wine and liquors , they would as soon think of hanging themselves as of interlarding their reports with their very small attempts at wit and sarcasm . But a meeting called to bear testimony for Freedom and Humanity , against the crimes of Tyrants and Assassins , is in their estimation fair game to be run down for the amusement of those who car : pay for literary prostitution . Truly these " gents " of the press are a venal and a contemptible band .

      But neither sneers nor calumnies can dim the glory of Robert Blum . " Whose name will be A watchword 'till the future shall he free . "

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      WORKING MEN'S ASSOCIATIONS . When the associative movement had arrived at the state indicated at the close of last week ' s article , a conference was found t ( be advisable , and the meeting of July was projected . Associa tions , besides those connected with the Council , were invited tc send delegates , and twenty-eight of them were represented , man > others expressing a warm interest in the result of the deliberations The questions submitted to this conference were of considerabl importance . At the . first formation of the Associations , zrea

      difficulty was experienced in consequence of there being nc available legal means of orginization . Partnerships composec of more tfean twenty-live persons were not allowable , and th ( Joint Stack Companies Act , besides being-too purely commercial was far too expensive to apply to bodies of poor working mei assisted by friends , with limited funds at command . Mr . Slaney ' s committee investigated this aspect of the question , and the bil

      for promoting Industrial Associations , lately passed , was drawn up by one of the promoters . It is worthy of notice , that , though the Whigs promised to take it up and carry it through , they brok < their word , and it was left to a Tory administration to manifests greater interest in the subject , and to pass the act . It is Avort ] recollecting , also , that the leader of the Manchester party essayec to " damn it with faint praise ; " and while consenting to its be ' in < embodied among the statutes at large , spoke contemptuously of i

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      November 13 . ] Tir ^ -======== ^^ FKEEDOM . sir : :::::::::= ^ i zrrr =- " _ ~~ . _

  • Citation
    • Northern Star (1837-1852), Nov. 13, 1852, page 9, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ns/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1704/page/9/