6

Letter from John 

P.i;ti.-i, ‘.35tli June, 186].

Ir is not my habit to comment on the letters. of
Paris Correspondents of other journals. They
all, I suppose, gather up news and gossip as well
as they can, and retail it with more or less ac-
curacy, puiigeiicy and picquancy, varying it
with occasional more or less profound i'einarks or
inferences of their own, as I do myself. Those
assiduous writers, however, come in occasionally
for a sharp rebuke ; of which the Oonslztuliomiel
has just adiiiiiiisteieil to the eorrespoiidcnt of the
Time; a fair sample. The Times, as everybody
knows, must please the English people, and re
ﬂeet the feelings of that amiable community ;
and there is no surer way to their heart at pre-
sent tlian damaging or vilifyiiig the Emperor
Napoleon and his government, his ministers, his
law courts, or anything else that is his——but
gently itmust be done—almost covertly; for
the Anglo Saxon does not want to quarrel with
him yet. Now, the aforesaid Times correspond-
ent, ininisteriiiig to this exigciicy of Mr. Bull,
constantly finds something grievously wrong here
in France. One morning he discovers justice is
not administered to his niind—that Mires is an
oppressed nian——hints that there must be a con-
spiracy against Mires, and that the fair fame of
high personagcs may possibly be involved. Ano-
ther day he laments over the hard lot of poor
journalists, exposed to such terrible Warnings
and suppressions: and of late he has occupied
himselfin gathering up stores from all the de-
partments about governmeiit inﬂuence in the
election of Councils General : he regards it as
an awful grievance that there should be candi-
dates sustained by the inﬂuence of the prefel;
and dwells with much delight upon the few cases
in which the government candidates were defeat-
ed. For sometimes they are defeated. Some-
times the earnest advice and influence of the
worthyprefcl won’tdo; the personal claims of
the opposing candidate prevail ;for in fact, there
is no money to bribe the tens of thousands of
universal suffrage electors ; neither are there
landlords to eject them, nor bailiffs to drive them
to the polls. Instead of drawing from all this
the obvious moral——that those defeats of govern-
mentcandidates prove freedom of action in the
voters, and that the immense preponderance in
favor of the government, upon the whole, proves
the conﬁdence which most of the people repose
in said government, and their attachment to it—
iusteadiofall this, the shrewd correspondent, by
hints and inuendos , gives his readers to understand
that there is a. profound and desperate disaffec-
tion against the Emperor, that it would show
itself all over France in the return of Orleanists
or Repiiblicans, or anything but Imperialists—
only for the horrible tyranny of those wicked
prefels. It seems, that in this hot pursuit of,
facts damaging to the government, the zealous
correspondent is sometimes humbugged; he is
a. little credulous apparently, and innocently
writes down whatever Frenchmen choose to tell
him. For example : he triumphs in the election
of a M. Duperrou at Torigny, in Normandie, as
a success of the opposition, whereas, it turns out
that the said Duperrou is a hot Imperialist, and
so declared himself in his address to the electors,
ending with Vi.1:el’Empere2o7' I The C’o'nslz'lulio-n-
ml at last thinks it worth while to correct a few
of the correspondent’s misstatements, and with a
contemptuous sharpness, unusual to the Paris
press, charges him with “ignorance,” and adds
“ If the Paris correspondent of the Times is al-
ways as Well informed, its readers must be bet-
ter instructed as to what passes in China than in
France.” Really the Canslil-wliomtel is too harsh ;
he does not consider that it is not what is actu-
ally passing iii France that forms the French in-
telligence ﬁt to spread out upon every Briton’s
breakfast table every morning. In fact, the true
Briton‘ ,Wll0 takes the Times, would stop, his
paper if he did not ﬁnd these continual proofs of
the',debased -and afflicted condition of France, of
the l;ate'ful tyranny of the Emperor, and of the
attachment of the people (which they would
show but for those savage prefels), for the brood
of that much-regretted “ Citizen King,” whom

th.6-English keep in hand for future use, and feast.

.a.n.él,ﬂat.ter, and address as Royal Highness, and
make chairmen of literary dinners.

France iguominioiisly chased away that absurd
old king and his brood in "-18, but now we would
have them back, only for these devils of pre-
felsh’ I

ANOTHER CORRESPONDENT.

The Tablet, Catholic organ in London, has
alsofits correspondent in Paris ; and it is his bu-
siness, as another faithful lsliiglishman, to see and
represent everything that passes herein the most
unfavorable light. There is one thing, that no
true Briton, you are aware, can regard without
disgust—I mean the law and practice which re-
gulate the press in France. Accordingly this
Tablet correspondent, enlarges, last Saturday,
upon the ‘shocking restrictions, the awful adver-
tisements, the suspensions, and utter annihiliation
that a journal is exposed to at the hands of M.
de Persigny. And the writer makes this remark
-—whieh is the occasion of my noticing him at all
——“ Such is the system Mr. John l\litcheljpro-
claimed a few months ago freer than our own
——To be cure he wrote in the Co-n.ililu.l£onml,”

.-

TI-IE PI-ICE]]_\ll1X.

No, he never had the honor of writing in the
C'on.slilz.nliomzel. The Tablet undoubtedly refers
to an article which really did appear some
months ago, signed “ H. Marie Martin,” com
paring the system pursued towards the press in
France and in Ireland: and inasmuch as that
einiiicnt writer showed minute acquaintance
with the tricks of the Crown office, and the
_;\tIOl'llCy Geiieral—and inasmuch as Ei glislimeii
make it an especial point that those doings
in Dublin might not, must not,‘ cannot be
known to foreigners, it very naturally occurs
to this English writer that it could he no other
than a factions Irish refugee who described so
faithfully the packing of the panel in the sheriff’s
0fiice—tiie packing of the jury out of the packed
panel in the court on occasion of any pretended
“ trial”—the religious exclusion of all Catholics
—tlie pereinptory cliallcnge even of most of the
Protestants who answered to their names, and,
lastly, the predetermiiicd “ conviction” and ig-
iioiiiiiiioiis liaiiisliineiit to a penal colony. The
inference of the Eiiglisli writer is natural : such
things are supposed not to be known in Europe.
The one is, to hold up England as the grand ex-
emplar of freedom of the press,'and also of fair,
open and impartial judicial proceedings. And
when Irislimeii venture to mention some incidents
which give the lie to this pi'ctension—-(as the
’98 trials-—tlie Magee trial lll 1813-—the O'Con
nell trial—the ’48 trials—_thc Phoenix trials, or
the like)—the cue is, to pretend you do not hear,
to turn your head away, and speak of something
else. Tlierofore it is quite natural that an Eiig-
lisliman, ﬁnding this plain narrative of my pre-
tended trial in a French newspaper, should con-
clude I had written it myself. ,

I do not deny also that I furnished the facts of
the case to the distinguished writer. They have
never been contradicted: and being too noto
rious in England, it is probable they never will
be ; but if the writer in the Tablet dislikes those
facts, perhaps he would like to try his hand at
invalidating them a little.

In the meantime—awaiting the Tablefs exami-
nation of that “ trial”—I must go a. little far-
ther. The short sentence I have cited contains
a well-known British equivocatiou, which I wish
once for all to turn inside out. The writer says
I proclaimed the regime of the French Press
“ freer than our own.” Pray which is our own ?

The article in question did not compare the
French system with the English. In truth I
know little, and care nothing about English law
or practice in prosecutions of the press; and
could give Marie Martin no information upon
that head. But as to the law and practice in
Ireland I am a perfect adapt and expert. :_Ac-
cordingly I informed the writer in the C'o7istitu-
lionel.

Fz'rst—That whereas in his country a journal
might be suspended after two warnings, in our
country it is_conﬁscated ﬁnally without any Warn-
ing at all.

SeC0'7ld——Tllt).l'. whereas in France a journalist
after trial and condemnation may be mulcted in
a pecuniary ﬁne—and that is the worst they can
do to him—in Ireland a journalist may be
chained up and sent to the hulks as a common
felon wilitoztt any trial at all. «For I carefully
explained to my friend that a form of trial be-
fore a carefully packed jury, all of one religious
sect, is «no trial. _

T/zird——That whereas in France, even after
warnings, suspension, and" suppression, there
is no conﬁscation of the property of the
journal to the State, but the propricto_r can sell
it to whomsoever he pleases—in Ireland, on the
contrary, the pretended conviction before a. false
jury is followed by immediate robbery of
the premises, by burglars in the garb of po-
licemen.

Fourl/z—That whereas in France all proceed-
ings against the press are open and straightfcr
ward, in Ireland there is kept up an insulting
pretence of law and justice as if there was actu-
ally a species of judicial trial going forwaitl,
when in truth the foreign Viceroy for the time
being might just as well at once waylay liis
enemy with a band of cut-throats, on a dark
night gag him, chain him, and pack him off to a
penal dungeon. In fact, the latter would be
much the more honorable proceeding.

Fifi/i‘——When he remarked’ that in prac-
tice Irish journalists seem to say whatever

they pleased; and that those prosecutions,~

although terrible when they do come, are exceed-
ingly rare—— I bade him observe that the French
government indeed may be obliged to manage
the press with a tight rein, because Frenchmen
are armed men, because France has six hundred
thousand soldiers, all Frenchmen and all readers
of newspapers, and because public spiritisthere.
high and public resentment perilous—in Ireland-
on the contrary, the mass of the people being
carefully disarmed, the foreign government can
allow them this apparent “ freedom,” in contempt.
The opinions or resentments of unarmed men sig-
nify about as much as those ofﬁsh or fowl ;and
those who own them and manage then can
sa ely allow them a free press and free speech
(or rather freedom of whining, bowling and
mouthing)——are rather glad, indeed, to see them
ease their minds in this way, because it carries
oil’ the, bad huniors and leaves the creatures
more fit for their work. In short England (thus
I expounded the matter to my friend) say-sto Ire-

land—Cry away dear sister! Curse a little my jewel,
it will do you good! You would like to call me a few
bad names ? Oh I by all means; it will make you feel
easier, dear 1

Such was the iiiforinution I gave to the writer in the
(}onsi‘t'lul£omzcl. He believed itentirely: and l.l1CI‘C'ilpt)ll
wrote the searching article which the Tablet correi=.pond-
ent does me the honor of attributing to me. It was the
writer of that article also, and not I, who on full consi
deratioii preferred the French 7-eginze ‘- to oui‘s”—inean-
ing by ours, not the English system. which was not in
question. but the Irish system. He thought that on
the whole he would rather pay all he had in the world as
a fine than go to a penal colony for fourteen years. He
would rather have a real trial (such as is to be hud in
French courts) than the impious pretence of a trial in
the Irish ones.

But, perhaps, the correspondent of the Tablet will tell
me that iii Ireland there is. in fact, a real trial by jury
for political offences. Truly I am glad, when any
English journal has imprudently alluded to this centre
versy. that it is a Catholic journal ; and I would ask the
writer whether he considers that a transaction in Ireland
such as I have descr'ibed—wliere every Catholic in that
Catholic country is deprived of the common civic office
of jiiror——z's at trial, ay or no? If he, being a Catholic,
shall be base enough to say that a pretended trial in the
city of Dublin before twelve men selected out of one
small sect of the population. about a tenth of the whole,
to the exclusion of every Catholic, without exception,
and every Protestant who did not belong to that small
scct.—wasa trial, then I have no further remarks to make
to the address of that individual. If he shall say it was
not a trial, why then I defy him to ﬁnd in all the history
of the French press. within the present reign, so iiifam.
ous a transaction. It is not then a question of more li-
berty or less liberty; there is just simply in Ireland no
liberty, because there is no law. If it be true that the
highest. test and noblest use of a. good government is to
bring an impartial jury into a jury box, then the Brit.-
ish Government in Ireland is the very worst that ever
cursed any land under Heaven.

KINGDOM or ITALY.

The Monileur of this day contains, for the ﬁrst time,
the formal aniioucement that the Emperor has recognised
Victor Emmanuel as “ King of Italy." It also mentions
the rseerves concerning which there has been so much
rumor namely, that lie couples his recognition with a
declaration beforehand that France will have no solida-
-rity in any movements to distuib the peace of Europe‘:
and also, that French forces shall remain in Rome, “ until
the interests which caused their presence there shall be
protected ‘by suﬂiciept guara.ntees.”_ "Ibis, I presume,
means until the Popes temporal dominion over his pre-
sent remaiiiing territory shall be secured. So, if there is
to be uniﬁcation of Italy, it seems the body is to do
without the head. The knot of this troublesome business
is not yet unloosed: and, in fact, the present situation
cannot continue long. Naples is still greatly disorgan-
ised in the country districts, and troops are concentrating
there to shoot down the peasantry, whom the Liberal
press thinks proper to term bi-igands. There have been
violent differences in the Turin Cabinet ;3and Ca.vour’s
successor, Ricasoli, was for refusing the Faepch recogni-
tion coupled with any sort of reserve or condition. That
diﬂiculty has been got over, for Count Vimerciti arrived
in Paris and also Arese with the autorrrapb thanks of
Victor Emmanuel upon ’this happy resumption of diplo-
matic relations.

CAMP AT cnnnoxs.

An officer at Chalons, in a letter to Le JVord, describes
the encampment as it now stands. The troops are all
undergoing drill by regiments and batallions, in antici-
pation of grand manoeuvres which the Emperor desires to
direct, when he visits the camp. “ The cavalry from
Luneville will come at the same time; and then our
plains will be the scene of magniﬁcent manoeuvres where-
in forty thousand will take part.” The writer says these-
yeral foreign sovereigns are expected to visit the camp
this summer. The letter concludes thus :—“ Madame de
MacMahon is installed these ten days back at Bouy, a
short league from the Imperial quarter. Her excellency
occupies two peasants’ houses. to which a gallery has
been added to join them together; besides some other
works, to make them a little habitable. She is residing
there with her sister and her children. On the day of
her arrival, the entire population went to meet Lot Mare-
chale, and young girls presented her with boquete. His
Excellency the Marshall has also been the object of ova-
tions, and was harangued by the Mayor in a highly offi-
cial manner.” .
AMERICAN AFFAIRS.

The Spanish gpverument has issued a proclamation
precisely similar to the French one. Absolute neutra-
lity is proclaimed ; prohibition of Spanish subjects to
accept letters of marque ; prohibition of privateers With‘
their prizes, belonging to either of the belligereuts, to
enter a Spanish port except for twenty-four hours, or
except in case of necessity, &c. It may be observed that
both the French and Spanish proclamations are more fa-
vorable to the Southern States than the English one ; for
the latter forbids privateers to enter any of her ports at
all ; and it is the South, not the North, which employs
privateers. Indeed the London Ezanziner states distinctly,
that it had been the wish of the British government to
take the part of the North more decidedly, but that their
resolution was modiﬁed in order to be in accordance with
France upon that subject. I think there may be a kind
of‘ race between France and England for who shall recog-
nise the Confederate States ﬁrst. They will both ‘be
watching for the first fair opportunity. J. M.

_._j——-—> r 0.0 4 CZ---——
Who are in the Righ.t_—The North or the
South?
Tnn following letter has appeared in a.Southern paper
on the 22d of February, ‘1860, relative to the then

approaching “ irrepressible conflict” which now, alas, has; i

all the appearance of _a stern reality. Its forewarnings
have been lost on its readers, but the principle main-
tained as to both sides of the question, remain, at least,
we trust, to interest the reader of to-day :-

“ The aggressive spirit of the North in this country is

quite in keeping with the same disposition of that of Europe
in ancient. times, when the Teutonic barbarians, restless

and warlike, drove all before them like an avalanche.
Thus began that warfare, the fruit of rapacity and cove-
tousness, from which the pious, the reﬁned, and the
improving Celtae of Western and Southern Europe suf-
fered euch cruel wrong, which is not ended at this day.
The North of this country, with far less bravery and
munliness than the Northerners of old, rejoicing in a.
higher aspiration of constructive morality, are driven
headlong by a species of unscrupulous conscience-—not
so much impelled by i-apacity, but actuated by consci
ence l-—a sort of vainglorious selfsufﬁciency that approves
the destruction of other men’s prosperity or maintenance.
no matter by what means accomplished, provided they
obey——not “ the still, small voice,” that tells of slumber
ing rectitude——but the phantom of a crooked conscience !

Those are the identical pseudo-Republicans—spoile»rs
of true and generous republicaiiism-who are ever in

the van against the national and personal peace and
happiness, and against the religious freedom of their
fellow men——and whose motto, had they candor to carry
it out, would be “Death or the Koran I” None shall
think but as they think, on any subject \\‘ll(:l‘0 religion
or nationality is involved. Hence their former political
prescriptions and modern literary derision of the Celtic
1'-aiiiilies of Christendom—for whom there is no forgive-
ness. save where there appears an occasional recrcancy
to the faith that is in them, or a willingness to forego
their manhood and truculently succumb to the views of
the Suxoii. The same iiitermeddling spirit of faiiaticism
iiifests them to day that wrangled in their l1(“dl‘l;S against
the Cavaliers of England, the loyalists of Ireland, and
agaiiist their doubting co-religionists of New‘ England.
The doughfaced Yankee—a modern patroiiimic f'or
Puril:2.n—-stands isolated towards the rest of inankind——a.
hater, hated by his fellow man. He is better known
through society by his rudeness, his bigotry, and his
iugratitiide, than his philanthropy. And a rude un-
grateful bigot must be the closest representative possible
of the Goth and Vandal type. He rants in the pulpit
more like a Cromwcllian captain than a divinc—he ful-
minates on the literary rostruin as like a very distorter
of history as a selfish gladiator—he incnlcates in the
political arena more as a self made censor than a states-
man-—docti-ines subversive of all authority that should
bind all other men by the conscience, or at least lay hold
upon their honor, but which doctrine he inventively
exmgitates a h2'_qher law——suited solely to the saints,
which unction, as a matter of course, he arrogates to
himself.

Thiukest thou, oh, versatile reader, that I lay those
weighty charges at the door of every man who religiously
dissents from the views of a privileged episcopacy; or
even against every such denizen of New Eiigl-and? I
should be sorry to bear so strong a resemblance, so far,
t0 the overwhelming majority of Nort',l}er11 Yankeedom
in an intolerant hatred of whole peoples, for daring to

think in our presencc—for presuming to call their souls

their own, when they are ﬂung down to the lowly con-

dition of hired servants, wood hewers, or other ‘menials,

where they have the honor to befree ! That there are
good and true exceptions to the Yankee notions of self-
suﬁlcieucy, North and South, is as true in this as in other-
general rules ; but they are fat‘ from forming a respectable
minority.

Behold those sleek faced enthusiasts of a righteous
theology, east of the Atlantic, wielding the lash of pro-
scriptiou to the death against a non-conforming tenantry
“ at will,” who are goaded to ﬂy.in hundreds of thousands
to the pauper prison, the emigrant ship. or the uucofﬁued
grave !—exclaiming in triumph, “ They are gone with a

vengeance! I” and in the same breath forcing their hy--

pocritical compassion on unappreciating and unwilling
negroes ! Behold the selfsame doctrinaires plying the
keen lash of slander, derision and exclusion, in word and
deed—iu_their homes, in public, in their books, in their
multitudinous newspaper press—aga.iust that white race
of nobler extraction than they ; but who now seem an if
doomed to a martyrdom inﬂicted by the sympathetic
clamorers for the licentiousness of the African, of evi-
dently ignoble blood ! Oh, consistency! where is thy
blush ? We answer not in the face of an Abolitionistl
Shall we, by virtue of this aggressive fanaticism of our

Yankee dictators, esteem the dwellers south of the line-

of demarkation, blameless during the present conflict?
Very far from it. Why ? Simply because they encourage
their threatening neighbors by evinciug as much alternate
braggadocio and fear of the North as England does of
France, when the latter. frowns or breathes a word of
menace. - Thus we daily hear of the South threatening to
do w0nders——to do that which the North believes is not
within her reach; or, if it be, the latter presumes she
would not permit it to be done. The North have au-
dacity enough to use the word permil—and none need be
surprised at this when she counts her comparative
streiigth. She hears the South vaunting of war, of se-
cession, of opening up negotiations with England. This
is pitiable in each and all; but, in the latter threat, how-
ever free-traders may approve the design, as a portion of
the Union, there savers a want of sagacity or of public
principle, as if faith could, for any length of time, be re-
posed in her who has not yet quite relinquished her de-
signs of making use of her lost colonies of the West.

The sole question left for auimadversion is that of se-
cession. The potential would, could and should might
herein be investigated in this connection. That thousands
of inﬂuential Southerners would. I am grieved to say,
secede, admits of little doubt. That they could or should
remains to beidiscussed. The Democracy——— the bone and
sinew, and the truly potential elements of the Union-
though its sympathy runs in high favor with the South,
would, in the event of even a prospective loss, by revolt
to the Union, of which they are justly proud, of the most
inconsiderable of the States, nay a. promontory, an island,
would turn all their prowess on the erriug member. They
adjudge rightly that North nor South—-neither Maine nor
Carolina, Rhode Island nor Oregon——-exists for itself»-
each is there as part of the great machinery of freedom,
as it were, to do the office of the whole; they are all
there——-the providential and the fortunate result of a suc-
cessful revolt, of a. steady growth—to work out the noble
design of crushing arampant aristocracy, who aimed but.
for this UNION or STATES, to crush the commonalty of the
World-—to prove that this asylum of human freedomisno
failure-—a.ud no “ pent-up Utica.” shall spoil the aspira-

__tions of the oppressed. nations of the world. Separate,
and all is lost 1 Attempt it, and we awaits the vanquished, .

and the victors ! Dismember this Union, and from that

she is a. hissing thing before the wily diplomacy of king--—

craft. Can she then, as now, keep her foes atbay ‘3 Ah,
‘men too often, when led on by passion, and euvironed
‘by apparent security, forget how easily they may fall, as

_ greatness has fallen, by the first untoward act of internal

weakness—-the first injudicious or impolitic step. Need

we,point to Greece, or to Rome, or in our own day, to i

the first French em ire ? And. oh, what weakness or mad-
ness cau compare to lhe suicide of internal strife. Separate,
and you are one and all on is dead level with the unfor-
tunate Sta.te_s of Central and South America. And aoain
has our old enemy learned, or can she ever learn tobfori
et her nature——lier intermeddling with other nations?
°mP9-Te 1191‘ past treatment of Spain, of Portugal, of
Holland, of nearly all the States of South America, with
1101' future towards an an annexed State or minority of
States of our new invincible confederacy. Who can se-
cure a. young nation, no more than a young man of for-
tune sebadi-ift from the accustomed tie of family surveil-
ance, and against the designs and assaults of a mercenary
world ?
It is not, surely, to the interest of the North to make
enemies at the South, neither is it in consonance with the

natural tendencies of her‘ majority ; but England, who
ha -through her emissaries, thrown the apple of discord .
din ng us. covertly at the first, with a view of carrying

on la. crusade against the Southern peculiar institution,
and so divide us now, when she supposes that apple to be
ripe, steps forward to abet the South, saying : “ Well
done, then upholders ofa system against which I have

long railed ; proceed in that directiou,—but be sure to-
give me your cotton and purchase my merchandise !" Shall .

the South take_the bait with her eyes open? It can be

done, doubtless, without a consultation with other por-

gonshog the Union ; but will she do so merely to vex the
on .