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Leader (1850-1860), 5th April 1851, Edition Town of 2, Page 320, Untitled Article

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      Untitled Article

      alarm , resent the " inquisition , " and suspect a lurking Exchequerism . The forms call upon you to state your various occupatious : it is notorious that numbers who combine various occupations , perhaps neither one of which singly would be chargeable , evade the income tax : the census will supply a check on that evasion , unless , the census returns be equally false . The census returns then will falsify the income tax returns , or share the falsehood . If the " statistics" are correct , will statistics turn King ' s evidence against finance returns > A mala fides of that kind is suspected ; also a design to render the Income tax as immortal as the Decennial Census . Suspicion guides the hand that fills up the returns ; suspicion mistrusts the statistics collected under such circumstances ; the low standard of morality nightly illustrated in the National Council vitiates a national record , and paralyzes the public spirit which would otherwise cooperate in supplying materials for national information ; a practical retribution .

      Untitled Article

      DEATH OF THE PASSATORE . And so poor Passatore is dead . " We could much better spare a better man . " The chief who had sufficient talent of combination to contrive , and sufficient daring to execute , the coup de-main on Forlimpopoli , of which all the newspapers in Europe were full a few weeks ago , might certainly have done good service in a more honest and less desperate cause . The brigand chief , it is now proved , never had more than sixty men under his orders . It was only with twenty to thirty that he overpowered the gensdarmes of the abovenamed place , and took prisoner a whole pitful of the astounded townspeople . And these , too , not some of the fever-wasted population of the Roman Campagna , not some of the lazy and macaroni-fed hinds of the Neapolitan Terra di Lavoro , but men of Lower Romagna , always reckoned amongst the fiercest and most combative characters in Italy .

      The man ' s end is sufficiently epic : — " On the 22 nd , " says the Bologna Gazette , " a column of Papal gensdarmes and Austrian chasseurs proceeded to the house of one Giacomo Strocchi , in the parish of San Lorenzo ( district of Lugo , Romagna ) , in consequence of private information that the robbers had taken refuge there . But the latter , who had in their turn been informed of the movement of the troops , had abandoned it , and concealed themselves in its immediate vicinity . A » soon as the troops arrived the bandits fired upon them , killed two gensdarmes , and mortally wounded one . The troops returned the fire , but the darkness of the night enabled the assailants , aided by the perfect knowledge of the locality , to make their escape . Giacomo Strocchi was arrested and taken to the prison of Lugo .

      On the morning of the 23 rd the authorities of Ruspi were informed that two of the band were lurking in the neighbourhood . As they had been seen taking refuge in a house near Muraglione , a brigadier of gensdarinerie immediately repaired thither with a few mm . At their approach they were saluted with several shots ; the brigadier was severely wounded . The two brigands then took to flight acros « the fields , hotly pursued by the gensdarmes , who fired upon them at intervals . At length the fugitives were wounded . One of them , however , succeeded in crossing a river and escaped ; the other fought with desperation until he fell down dead . His body was taken to Lugo , and legally proved to be that of Stefano Felloni , surnamed II Passatorc . Valuable articles , it is said , were found about him . "

      Notwithstanding this official establishment of the man ' s identity , we should only find it characteristic of the manner in which such matters arc managed in that country if we were to hear of the Brigand Chief being still alive and well , and startling the world with some new exploits in some other district of the peninsula . We find in other Italian papers the following account of one of Passatore ' s last memorable deeds : —

      " On the 19 th , being St . Joseph ' s Festival , he suddenly appeared in the public square of Prada , in the dioceais of Faenza , where the inhabitants -were assembled and preparing to go to church . 11 Passatore was barefoot ; he made everybody stop nnd show him his shoes , mid , finding a pair which fitted him , ho took possession of them and | Nrfd their value . Meanwhile , an Austrian soldier of the « nc made his appearance ; the bandit fired upon and wounded him , and then escaped with his companions . " The success of such comparatively weak bands

      of malefactors is but too readily explained . The rustic of Komagna is deprived of all means of defence even to the zampina , or poker in his hearth . The Government demands utter passivity on the part of the prostrate population . A troop of citizens that should arm themselves ns special constables to rid the country of the miscreants who ravage it , would be dealt with by Austrian chasseurs or Pontifical gendarmes with even greater severity than the marauders themselves . It is a crime for the Roman subject to think of protecting his life or

      property ; it is interference with the Government s right and privilege ; mistrust of its power , usurpation of its office . We have no doubt in the first surprise of the melo-dramatic attack at their theatre , the good people of Forlimpopoli thought that the robber-scene was nothing but a masquerading contrivance of the police , got up with a view to produce a row , and find a pretext to inflict summary cbestisement on the audience on the first show of resistance . The rancour and mistrust between the Papal Government and its subjects exceed all English belief . Hence it is that any participation in the prosecution of even notorious malefactors is looked upon as base and dastardly on the part of the citizen . Why should an honest man exert himself in the furtherance of the ends of such a justice ? How often is it that the police set up the hue and cry after a patriot , designing him as a thief and murderer ? How often has an upright and high - minded citizen been made to march to the galleys , along with a string of abandoned ruffians ? The man at war with such hideous Governments is always looked upon as a hero in his success , as a martyr in his fall . Prosecution , arraignment , trial , all is involved in impenetrable mystery . The people have no means of satisfying themselves of the prisoner ' s guilt . No consciousness of the malefactor ' s enormities interferes with their sympathy for the sufferer ' s situation . If the hunted-down robber turns at bay with some show of spirit and resolution , if he spares the weak on his path , and turns his wrath against the powerful ; if he robs the rich to give to the poor , if he pays for the shoes he is obliged to take from the first comer , what is to prevent an ignorant , trampled people from looking upon him with a mixture of a % ve and admiration , from cheering him up as their natural ally and avenger , from screening and warning him against danger , from offering him a shelter and hiding-place in every hut and homefield ? Such is the history of Italian bandits from Marco Sciarra and Fra Diavolo down to this illstarred Passatore . " Is not the robber the enemy of our worBt enemies ?" It is far otherwise in Piedmont , where the people have arms , and can at a moment ' s notice organize themselves in town and country patrols . There we may occasionally hear of robberies , but never of a combination of robbers . The Roman States have at all times been the nest of the worst depredators . Nor is this to be ascribed to want of courage on the part of the men charged with the immediate execution of the Government ' s orders . Roman gendarmes and Austrian chasseurs , as it results from official accounts , hunted in couples ; but it was the former soldiery that bore all the brunt of the combats , that was more lavish of its blood , that achieved the main triumph . All the blame must fall on the priestly Government , on its almost fabulous weakness and improvidence , on its incorrigible falsehood , on its arrant iniquity . So long as there is a reigning Pope shall the world be startled by bandit-stories , and no longer .

      Untitled Article

      THE IIOKN 8 EY PATHWAY QUESTION . Thr parishioners of Hornsey have , by their zral and activity , succeeded in securing the two important footpaths which the Great Northern Railway Company had sought to stop up by the extraordinary allegation that it was doubtful whether they did not possess tlie right , and they , therefore , by the bill proposed that Parliament should enact that they did . We drew attention to this case last week . It was manifest that if such a power were enacted in favour of one company , all the other companies would have sought to stop up every path in their way , instead of making a road under or a bridge over .

      The pariHhioners appeared before the . Parliamentary Committee , who struck out the clause as to one of the paths , and effectually and satisfactorily modified it as to the other . The parishioners nrc about to secure the opening of several other paths which private individual have nought to appropriate from the public . Wo triiKt that they will bo successful in securing these pathways , which nre ho important to the health and convenience of the public in the suburbs of this rapidly-increasing metropolis

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      SPORTS OP AM&KNATION 8 , . Prince Albert and his colleagd s arSgojnjrto exhibit the goods and arts of all nation * : A . lext * - 'Sdyer , the cookery ; assembled visitors , the countenunees , costume , and voices : but who will illustrate their sports ? The idea is worth the consideration of Batty , who is building an equestrian amphitheatre at Kensington . The German version of our ninepinB , ' or rather " bumble-puppy , " would amuse . A sight of " pallone , " in which we have seen a lost ball go over a tree at the second bound , would astonish our players at cricket or five 6 .

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      ITALIAN REPORTS OF THE ENGLISH EXPOSITION . " Molti preparativi , " says an Italian paper , " si fannb pur sin d ' ora per una fesU di ballo nel tunnel "— "great preparations for a ball in the Tunnel " ! What is a tunnel ? We remember an Italian account of an English murder , in which a man killed his wife with a " pokero "; the writer " not knowing whether a poker was a domestic or surgical instrument . " One effect of the Exposition is expected to be an international equalization of weights and measures—not a bad idea .

      Untitled Article

      CHARITY NOT TO BE BEARDED . Paul interdicted hats . Austria has made the Lombards shave . Certain manufacturers in the North have been forcing their men to crop their hair . The Leicestersquare Soup Society will not grant relief to those who wear mustachios or beards . It is evident that institutions are endangered by hair and hats ; but we Englishmen are only beginning to learn that truth . The Drag Chain . —A dominant clergy chained to an authorized creed constitutes about as effectual a bar to ¦ national progress , as it is possible to imagine . —MialVs Nonconformist ' s Sketch Booh ,

      Love of Life . —What a native clinging of mankind to this poor life there must be , what an inextinguishable sweetness in the mere fact of existence , or at least what a dread of the hour of dissolution , when millions of human beings placed in circumstances winch many of their fellow-creatures regard as insufferably wretched , yet pursue their weary journey faithfully to its natural end , grudging to Iosr the smallest inch ! Watch a poor old man in rags slowly dragging himself along in a mean street a « if every step were a pain .

      His life has been one of toil and hardship , and now he maybe wifeless , friendless , and a beggar . What makes that man hold on any longer to existence at all ? Is it any remnant of positive pleasure he Rtill contrives to extract , from it—the pleasure of talking twiddle to people who will listen to him , of looking about him at children playing , of peering into doors and entries as he passes ; is it fear and a calculation of chances , or is it the mere imbecility of habit ? Who can tell ?—From the North British iieview . No . 27 .

      Tin ; Great Dogmatisms . —The most nrropant and the most intolerable of all usurpations is that of one age presuming to dictate or dogmatize to another , and the more important the topic , the more grievous the presumption . Yet , strange as it may seem , mankind have born hitherto more tolerant of the flagrant ^ violation of their religious freedom , incomparably the highest , than of any other tyranny , intellectual or material . This may , perhaps , be accounted for l > y the fact that relipion , as a sentiment , ia the concern of the m ^ ny , as well as the few , and has , therefore , been , thus fnr , too much at the mercy of itacerdot . nl superiority acting upon multitudinous imbecility . Religion , as externally represented , lias hitherto been under popular protection , and adapted

      to popular understanding by priestly contrivance . Its laws and language have , consequently , been always regulated rather in accordance with superstitious credulity than enlightened faith . The interest of intellectual science have beon better protected , because under the guardianship of less numerous , but more vigilant and competent votaries . They have had their battles to fight against ecclesiastical partisan ** of permanency as opposed to progress , but their « tiuc : j » le has never led to a surrender at discretion of Rcience to superstition . The astronomy , chemistry , geology , &c , of this century have not suffered themselves to be tied and bound by pedantic pretensions of earlier date . They have not entered into an engagement under heavy penalties , to lay aside

      thought iind research , lest new discoveries should clash with foregone conclusions . They have never signed and « eakd their adhesion to a dogmatic settlement of all questions past , present , and to come , touching the special study of their respective pursuits . They have gone on from age to age , clearing , itrengthening , and expanding their views of God ' s works , by fulfilment of the conditions on whicli alone wisdom and knowledge are revealed to man . They have nought that they might find , nnd have knocked that it . might lie opened unto them . Jlut not so has it hitherto been ordered in the annals of the science , " falsely so called , " of theology . Under of

      cover either of avowed infallibility as the living oracles < 3 od , or implied infallibility m » sole accredited interpreters of oracular books , every j > riestly caste hfl « bent , its full strength to the task of limiting and fixing future generations to their own standard of religions opinion or speculation . Thin tyrannous and uhortnighled policy has always been successful , for a time , in proportion to the helpluas ignorance of the great body of the , people , whoHo fanatical violence , springing from morbid terror , has usually reduced the intelligent minority to the degradation of outward conformity , and esoteric reserve . —From the Reverend T . Wilton ' s Catholicity Spiritual and Intellectual .

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      ¦ H 320 tftt Urnftrr . gferoto ^ g

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      MY 8 TBKIOU 8 DEATHS . Wk much fear that the number of deaths from starvation in London is far greater than is commonly supposed . In the last weekly return of the Registrar General , we find in addition to four deaths " from privation , " seven deaths of children " from want of breant-milk , " niid three , " from cold . " no less than ( t (> canes in which persons arc reported as " found dead , " or as having died " from the visitation of God , "

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), April 5, 1851, page 320, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1877/page/12/