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Leader (1850-1860), 18th August 1855, Edition 2 of 2, Page 6, 786

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      A Thief-Hunt In Night-Clothbs.—The Premi...

      wm ^ mm inNe wman-street . The house is well known as being ^ unected with the traffic in foreign women , and has more than once attracted the notice of the police and parish authorities . MatUde Colbert , the head of the firm was also brought into court dressed m man s apparel , and was required to find bail to answer the same charge . The woman was taken into custody in Panto ? - street in her disguise , and just prepared for a flight to [ France- % Tuck Gut , the Chinese juggler who was severely wounded some weeks ago in an affray with several of his countrymen , is now convalescent , though at first his life was despaired of ; and on Thursday he appeared at the Thames police-court , and gave evidence . All the four -prisoners were committed for trial . Edward Agae has been remanded at the Mansion House on a charge of uttering a forged cheque &»<<>< " on the house of Messrs . Stevenson , Salt , and Oo ., ot Lombard-street . He had got a carpenter to present the cheque , and had furnished him with a very elaborate tale to give hi answer to any questions which might be addressed to him at the banking-house . A bag containing farthings and waste paper was given tor tne cheque , the fraudulent character of which was dis-°° iSebVan » exbrook , a professor of languages , was found guilty on Thursday , at the Middlesex bessions , ot stealing three diamond pins and a pistol . On the same dav William Falkner , a jeweller , was convicted of receiving watches and jewellery which he knew to be stolen ; and Benedetto Spinola , an Italian , said to be highly educated , and connected with a respectable bardinian family , was sentenced to a yeai ' s hard labour for Stealing two hundred pounds from a countryman .

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      THE LEABEE . [ No . ^ > Saottoay ,

      The Reign Of Terror And Madness En Italy...

      THE REIGN OF TERROR AND MADNESS EN ITALY . Naples , at the present moment , may be said to be wideTaReign of Terror . In addition to the horrible instances of oppression and intimidation which we recorded last week , several cases of a similar nature have since come to light . A lithographist , having made a device for the bottom of a gentleman ' s hat , accompanied by the words " Costanza e Fedelta al nostro augusto niico Signore e Padrone Assoluto Ferdinando , asked permission of the authorities , according to law , toprooeed with his work , and have it printed . For the offence of thus obeying the law , he was imprisoned for several davs , because " he did not understand that some things are to be done from an impulse of devotion and not with the usual forms of permission . " The Daily News Naples Correspondent , who relates the foregoing , states that even the military are now under the heel of tho police , and adds the following anecdote :- "An officer haying been insulted by a policeman , corrected him with the flat of brfTsword . Sbirro lays his complaint before his superior . ' Had you your dagger by your Bide ? was III first question . < Yea . ' ' And why was it not used r He was then driven from the presence with reproaches , and turned out of his situation . " The people are goaded to desperation ; and two pamphlets have been discovered ^ vehemently denouncing the Government . But , while quiet persons are punished for obeying the Uw , the Jolice Ve allowed to break it . Bourbon or Eoyalist iluba , though they are notoriously illegal , have been established : % nd it is said the Commissary of Police , Campagna , is at the bottom of one . The members are reirated to be armed . From Borne , we have further details of the Pope ' s OU The e AUocutions of his Holiness on the affairs of'Piedmont . Spain , and Switzerland , have been published . They are father long speeches ; and their style is diffuse , abounding in unnecessary synonyms , like an Act ot Parliament . Having , with respect to Piedmont , lamented in general terms over " that supremely unjust and disastrous law by which it was proposed , among other thinirs , to fluppress almost all the monastic and religious oommunitieB of either sex , the collegiate churches , all the simple benefices with right of patronage , and to hand over their revenues and property to the adminiatration and free deposition of tho civil power , " his Holiness reminds all offender * that they " have incurred major excommunications , and the other censures and ecclesiastical penalties imposed by the sacred canons , ' & c . It gremUy . grieves the Holy Father thus < to depart from Sat KenSeneas and manmietude" to which he is " naturally inclined ; " » ufc Bti 11 h 0 muflt do bSB duty * i T garde Spain , the Pope alludes to an agreement made in 1861 with « bin very dear daughter , " the Queen , with reject to the rights of the ohuroL , which was , to ^ have th / e * clusive care of education , and was to be maintained "to the exclusion of every other form of worihip . " fie , « dd»— " with a heart full of astonishment

      and grief "—that this agreement has been broken . " Laws have been passed which , to the great injury of religion , destroy the first and second articles of the Concordat , and which ordain the sale of the property of the church . Various decrees have been published by which bishops -are forbidden to confer holy orders , and the virgins consecrated to God prevented from admitting others as novices in then- own institute , and by which it is ordered that the lay chaplaiiiships and other pious institutions shall be completely secularised . Al who so transgress are reminded that « they cannot escape the hand of the Almighty . " SimUar complaints are made against the Papal cantons of Switzerland ; but the affairs of those states are to be criticised more at large on a subsequent occasion . » , ««« Three magnates of the Roman Government have been arrested fo 7 lewd intercourse with female prisoners , almost amounting in one case to a rape . It is thougut that these reverend offenders will not receive any very severe punishment . Highway robberies and burglaries in the Roman States are increasing in an alarming degree ; and the use of the bastinado is to be revived . The Spanish Minister , Senor Pacheco , has demanded his passports , and is about to leave Konie as soon as he has had an audience to present the » Memorandum of his Government to his Holiness . Ho take * the whole of his diplomatic stall- with him , except Scnor Moreno , who remains charged with the execution of ecclesiastical business only . , A corresponded of the Tndependance Btlye writes from Turin that , at the request of the Archbishops of 1 p iedmont , the Holy See authorises the clergy of that kingdom to receive the sums put at their disposal by the Government , conformably to the new law relative to trie convents . They are to protest , but not to refuse the ° When will the great heart and brain of Italy awake , and throw off these ugly yet preposterous nightmares i

      Mademoiselle Doudet. {From A Private Let...

      MADEMOISELLE DOUDET . { From a private Letter . ) Paris , Aug . 1 6 . I suppose the great majority of the public have already forgotten a case which excited so much interest a few months ago , namely , that of Mile . Doudet , a governess , accused of cruelty to some children confided to her care . She was tried and condemned , ihe ends of justice seemed satisfied . The victim went to her celL The public passed on , dividing its attention between various other judicial spectacles , or pausing to wonder at the reappearance of Lasnier on the surface of society . They had consigned him also long before to oblivion . The ends of justice also seemed satisfied . The victim had gone to the galleys . His head had probably been moulded aa that of a celebrated criminal . It starts up as that of a martyr—a painful reproach to the pit of the Cour d'Assizes Many persons believe that before long Mile . Doudet will again enjoy the unenviable honour of studding the columns of tho Paris papers with her name . She stands in a remarkable position . Although the mere lovers of excitement no longer think of her , or think of hor only as a kind of vampire most justly chained up between stone walls , a large and increasing section of tho public of the salons—of those best situated to obtain correct impressions on this matter—appear to be becoming more and more firm and eveu triumphant in the assertion of her innocence . This , in itself , tells singularly in her favour . It ia not wonderful that her friends rallied round her whilst tho struggle was going on . But she has been condemned , her appeals have been rejected ; and yet her partisans increase in number and in fervour . Is not thia a notable phenomenon ? And , mark ! ahe has no beauty , no youth , nothing romantic about her to excite the sympathies of young men and girls . Young men think tho cose a bore ; and girls are forbidden by their parents to atudy ita details . Mile . Doudet ' a friends arc all married women and mothers , or sober men , politicians , magistrates , who have accidentally had her strange adventures forced upon them . . . The whole case against the victim 1 roally rests on a marvellous supposition—that it is possible for a woman of strong mind so to influence children on whom she has exorcised great cruolty that after they have been delivered from her they shall continue to write affectionate lettors for some time . Obviously the natural inference is , that if tho children were ho impressionable as to be induced to mako wiliul false statements by fear of an absent person , th « y could « lao be induced to make wUful false statement * by four of a present person . ... I have very carefully examined all the evidence in this caao ; and am quite convinced of Mile . Douuet ' s innocence . It Is quite impossible that she should be guilty . In fact , lu an English court ' , of justice the case would have broken down ut once . . However , I will not at present examine tho detailsi merely wishing to draw your attention to tho coni soling fact that public opinion is struggling , and may i probably struggle with success , against tho decrees of a . series of prejudiced courts . We Englishmen are partf-. oularly interested in thin question on general grounds , i Wlusn tho first examination of MU « . Doudot took

      place by tho police , equivalent to an examination . at Bow-street , except that it is private , she was most emphatically jrronounced innocent . Then she was brought before a jury , and although very disgraceful attempts were made to influence its members , she was acquitted . But then she was forced to appear before one of those anomalous courts of which France is so proudin which the offices "of judge and accuser are practically united in the same person . No one can deny the fact that before hearing a particle of evidence , M . Hatton exhibited an absolute conviction that Mile . Doudet was guilty ; and whon the case seemed likely to break down from tho apparent absence of all motive on her part , tried to bully -her into confessing that she had been hi lovo with tho father of the children she had maltreated ! It has already been remarked that it is a principle in France that u everybody is supposed to be guilty until he is proved to be innocent . " Throughout this remarkable case—as soon as it was taken out of the province of the jury—I was perpetually reminded of that observation Generally speaking , it is true , the French judges , although incited by self-love to endeavour to make every trial end in a condemnation—and inclined therefore to abuse the power placed so absurdly in their hands of torturing a prisoner by questions and cross-questions to obtain an admission of guilt—are not inaccessible to very strong proofs of innocence . In this instance , however , many circumstances combined to warp their judgment . The complainant was an Eng lishman—the accused a Frenchwoman ; and the case was first brought forward in the midst of the early enthusiasm of the alliance . Worse than this , there is the violent anti-Protestant feeling stimulated by the clergy , and so easy to be directed against a Protestant governess in a country where Jesuits now claim the whole guidance of education A lady in a high position the other day being told by a friend that she had visited Mile . Doudet , exclaimed not , "What , that criminal ! " but " What , that Protestant ! " This will illustrate the state of feeling here . I am quite certain that the result of tho trial was influenced by it . The judges who decided went constantly into the society where M . Chaix d'Est Ange , retained for the accusation , exercised himself for months , for the amusement of foolish ladies , in relating the case with all the ornaments which his imagination could devise . They were irretrievably prejudiced before they came and sat on the bench . Then the priests whispered in their ear . This is how it happened , that in the teeth of all exculpatory evidence , and in the absence of all sound condemnatory evidence , the poor woman was found guilty , and condemned at last to five years" imprisonment . Such stupendous things , however , cannot happen , even in France , -without leaving many consciences disturbed ; and this I suppose is the reason why suddenly the rumour gets abroad that the whole cast ; may very shortly be revised . At any rate , even many of the persons who concurred in bringing about the condemnation would breathe more freely now if it wenannounced that Mile . Doudet had received hor yracr .

      Continental Notes. Tiik Tjuekn's Visit T...

      CONTINENTAL NOTES . TIIK tjUEKN ' S VISIT TO 1 'AIUS . The Munltcur ha . s thu following : — " The Queen uf England will make her entry into Paris on Saturday next at ubout nix o'clock in the evening , and will proceed from the terminus of the Strasburg Railway to the Palace of St . Cloud by the Boulevard de Strasbourg , tho Boulevard from the Porte St . Denis to the Madeleine , the Hue Koyale , Place de la Concorde , Champs lClysecH , Avenue de l'ImperatrieP , the Hois de Boulogne , and Bridge of St . Cloud . " According to the Morumj Poet , there will be theatricals at St . Cloud ; visits to the Exposition , the Grand Opera , the Opera Comiquu , tho Louvre , and tho Hotel dos Invalides ; Concerts ol the Conservatoire da Musiqiu : ; a grand ball at the Hotel do "Villoja review in the Champ-dc-Mars ; drives 111 ^ tho Forest of St . Germain , & c . The French Minuter of Finance bus laid before tho Emperor tho last returns relative to tho loan . 'llicsc show an increase upon tho amounts indicated approximately in tho report of tho 30 th ult . The number of subscribers roaches 81 ( 3 , 801 . The capital subscribed for ib U , G 52 , o 91 , » B 6 fr . ( Jeuenil Annandi died on tho 3 rd in . it ., at Aix-les-BaiuB , in Savoy , where tho physicians of Paris had ordered him to go for tho recovery of hia health . This distinguished Italian officer had been procoptor to tho present Emperor of tho French . He took an notivo ]>;»> ' «• with General Pope" in tho heroic defence of Venice , and was latterly Director of tho Imperial Library of tho Palace of St . Cloud . The Emperor of Austria has withdrawn tho BcqucBtration iinposud by tho ordinance of February 11 ) , 1 B 5 . ' ) , on the property of thirty-one porsons , political offendem ; but rumour miya that only three of these potwtwe . property auflicicnt to be worth Hoizing . —Tho ollioiul Gazette of Milan ( which ia of course an Austrian publication ) has an artiolo npuaking contoinptuoiihly ot tho idea of an Italian Legion for England , and Mhing very insulting expressions townrda this country in connexion with our doings at Taganrog and Kortch . At tho Dardanelles , order hns boon restored ; i > m tho Baaki-Buzouk desortorfl scour tho noighbourintf

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 18, 1855, page 6, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_18081855/page/6/