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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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To the foregoing observations , the Association wisely adds a few words to the constituencies themselves , imploring them to use their trust with honesty and independence , to shake off the influence of the clubs and their agents , and to put an end to election corruption , so that the best men may be returned to Parliament . " With these objects before them , the Association invite every constituency in the kingdom to make
themselves acquainted -with the opinions of their representatives upon Administrative Reform—to call upon them to support every question in Parliament bearing upon the subject—to hold meetings—to organise local committees—to enrol members—to collect funds—to put themselves in immediate communication with the Committee of London—to be ready for an election—ready with worthy candidates , an honest committee , and a thorough determination to have done with the abuses of elections . " The document is signed ( by order of the committee ) by Samuel Morley , Chairman ; William Tite , Deputy-Chairman ; and J . J . Travers , Treasurer .
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THE HOLY WEDGE . L . IMEKICK Town Council met on Thursday , last week—Ascension Day—only to adjourn ; and we are to suppose that henceforward that Town Council will conform itself to the annual custom of the House of Lords . la observing the Roman Catholic festivals , the peers only preserve an ancient custom ; while the custom is an innovation in Limerick ; and it is an innovation that may have rather serious inconveniences . Its object is easily understood . Hitherto Town Council business , as well as every other business , has gone on in the city as usual ; but on Thursday last one of the aldermen observing that it was a holiday of strict obligation in the Roman Catholic Church , moved an adjournment , as a deference to the Church which he thought the Town
Council" ought" to render . Another member of the Council put the alderman ' s sincerity to a speedy test : he asked whether the alderman ' s place of business was closed on that day ? The alderman confessed that it was not . Other members of the Council , one of whom at least belonged to the Catholic Church , endeavoured to resist the pharisaical movement ; and perhaps if every voter had been ealled upon to state his own conduct as distinctly as the alderman who made- the motion , common consistency would have rendered the opposition successful . Numbers , however , are frequently self-supporting , and fourteen members of the Council stood by each other in voting the adjournment , against eight that resisted it .
Now the empire will not stand still because Limerick Town Council omits its meeting on an annual Thursday ; but we are not to suppose that the movement will stop at that success . The same movement will be made in other Irish towns , and the pliancy of the fourteen at Limerick will be held up as an example to shame or terrify Roman Catholics in other towns . Perhaps , also , the Romanists will not stop at Ascension day . Besides a saint for every day in the calendar , with a reserve of nineteen per day more , and several at the end of the enumeration , for all kinds of Saints and Holy Virgins that might be brought forward in future , the Roman Catholics recognise some fifty distinct days ot
of solemn fast * and festival ; and if the example Limerick be improved , the Romanist sect may dictate the suspension of temporal business on as many days in the year . It is not for Protestant interests that we fear , but we do sympathise with our Roman Catholic fellow countrymen in being compelled to submit to this dictation by a Foreign Ecclesiastical Government . Sectarian rule is always vexatious , even to the intelligent member of the sect that dominates ; but sectarian rule by a foreign administration , and that administration distinguished for its hostility to enlightenment , is a double triumph that must sink deep into the bosom of many a sincere man whom hereditary family custom restrains from leaving the communion of hia forefathers .
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LETTERS FROM PARIS . STATE OF PUBLIC FKBLING IN FltANCK . ( From Private Correspondence . ") Paris , May 21 . No one who observes tlic state of public affairs with consistent attention can fail to bo struck With the significant turn they arc taking . There ore evident symptoms here of tho awakening of opinion , an awakening c aused by the conviction , right or wrong , but generally entertained , that wo are already at " the beginning of tho end . " Ce Jtfon-* i « ur is committing Incoaennt mistakes and nialadresaes ; ' in a word , ho eucceeds in nothing , a rather serious matter for a man whoso single raiaon d'etre is tauoceas . SDbJs Exposition , from which so much was
expected , is , up to this time , a solemn and ridiculous fiasco . Nothing is ready , and nothing will be complete before the end of June . The exterior of the building is in the vilest taste , and the interior resembles a court-yard of one of the old Messageries when the diligences are being loaded . And then ^ a confusion of which you can form no idea ! ^ Country cousins have been arriving for , , the last fortnight , and living at a great expense for no purpose . They return home discontented , and spread discontent in their neighbourhoods . The Parisians , whose business has been slack for some time , were looking
forward to a harvest from the 1 st of May , but now it looks as if the foreigners wo uld not arrive before August , so that they , too , are irritated and disappointed . Then there is the threatening prospect of failing crops . The rye crops are ruined ; the wheat looks ill enough , and all the vines in the Bordeaux country are diseased . Here we have the prospect of a dearth , a financial crisis of the most formidable character , added to the more and more inextricable complications of the war . ^ You know I am not prone to illusions , but I very seriously begin to think that , saving some unforeseen event , we shall pass through
a crisis before the year is out The removal of Canrobert" from the command of the army has had the worst effect here . Canrobert is not an object of regard , but the abrupt harshness of the letter of the Minister of War reads like an outrage to the whole army . Pelissier is said to be a man of more capacity than Canrobert , but up to this time he has only displayed it in smoking poor defenceless Arabs , and the Russians are not customers to be got rid of by quite so summary a process . Pelissier is little liked , it is said ; he is excessively harsh , and le plus mauvais coucheur de Parmde .
...... The affair of the pistol shot has produced a deep sensation , and it is still talked of . Perhaps you may have heard that the man ' s name was neither Pismori nor Liverani , but a certain Count Alveroni . This , however , is but an on dit . What is certain is that his firmness was unshaken to the last . There was not a single moment of failing nerve , or of unusual excitement . Repeatedly he was offered his life if he would make revelations , but he constantly refused . Before the trial , the President Partarieu Lafosse , went to interrogate him . "Do you feel no regret , " he eaid to the prisoner , " for having committed the attempt ?"—" Pardon , M . le President , I regret having missed . " After the sentence he was transferred to the prison
of La Roquette , situated close to-the place of execution . He was placed in a cell on the ground floor , looking on the street , so that all night he could hear the hammering of the men who were setting up the scaffold . But this had no power to move him . At four in the morning , the Avocat-General came into his cell , and , taking out his watch , said , " You have only one hour to live : name your accomplices , and you will be pardoned . " The prisoner replied , " I am ready . I have nothing to say . " — " But have you no desire to live ?"— " Pardon , I am a young man ; I should be glad to live ; but I would not live dishonoured . I have nothing to say . " At a quarter to five , the executioner came to take him . A black veil was thrown over his head . When he reached
the foot of the scaffold , he threw back the veil by a brusque movement of the head , and shouted , with a very firm voice , " Vive la Iie ' publique / " On the scaffold he raised the same cry , adding , " A bas le trailre du Deux Ve ' cembre . " Then the executioner seized him and bound him to the planchc ; but even when his head was in the lunette he cried once more , for the last time , Vive la Iie ' publique / with so loud a voice that it could have been heard at a great distance . Although it was not five o ' clock , and the time of the execution had been kept as secret as possible , there were 2000 persons present . An employe' of the Minister of Justice , who officially assisted at the execution , said to the governor of the prison afterwards , " If there are ten such individuals in Europe , wo arc done for . " I give you these details , which you may consider authentic , because tho newspapers have been tumble to say a word about it , and were even forbidden to publish any account beyond tho paragraph supplied directly by the Minister of the Interior . . .
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CONTINENTAL NOTES . M . Gkassot , tho well-known comedian of the Palais Royal Theatre , wna recently sitting in a cafe * . After waiting for sonic time in vain to bo served , he called a waiter who was passing , rind , in a too audiblo voice , said : " C ' est done ici comme en Crimfe , on ne pent . Hen prentlre . " These words wore no sooner out of his mouth than hia shoulder was lightly tapped by a gentleman who had boon Hitting unobserved , but observant behind him . " 8 uivez-mol , " said this mysterious individual to tho surprised M . Grassot . To this highly operatic injunction M . Grassot demurred ; but on tho . police ngont , for such it was , producing his card , there was nothing to bo done but to follow the representative of law and order to tho Prefecture , whoro tho incautious M . Graaaot was duly locked up , and only rcloasod after very urgent roolarnntiona from the doctor of ( ho thoatro ,
On the 4 th of June , all the members but one of the late Danish Ministry are to be tried by the High Court of Justice . The accused are seven in number , including the President of the Council , the Minister of the Interior , the Minister of War , the Minister of Foreign Affairs , the Minister of Marine , the Minister of Finance , and the Minister of Justice . They are generally accused of having expended public money without consulting the Diet and of Soliciting and obtaining the royal sanction to such an unconstitutional expenditure . The High Court of Justice is composed of sixteen judges , of which eight are members of the Second Chamber , and the other eight are members of the Supreme Tribunal : both are elected . The real motive for this solemn accusation ia the suspected sympathy of the late Cabinet for Russia , and their consequent apprehension of the Western Powers .
Rumours have recently been circulating in Pans , to the effect that serious dissensions exist in the French cabinet . M . de Persigny , it is said , now that he has once more gained a place in the counsels of Napoleon , is endeavouring to inaugurate a policy more unequivocally Bonapartist than any that has yet been seen . This policy , it is whispered , is by no means favourable to the continuance of the war , but provides for its conclusion by accepting the terms proposed by Russia—a consummation which , it is thought , would be popular among the masses . A " grand industrial campaign , "_ with a view to the creation of cheapness and plenty , is to follow ; and the people are thus to be attached to the Napoleonic dynasty . Such , in brief , are the
speculations now or lately floating about the cafes of Paris , according to the report of the Daily News correspondent , who adds that , though scarcely probable , they are not , in his opinion , to be- wholly disregarded . He adds that a writer in the Independence Beige , who signs " ., " and who is supposed to be under the inspiration of M . Drouyn de Lhuys " insinuates that the proposition for peace supported by M . Drouyn de Lhuys was rejected by the Emperor merely on account of certain formal objections and under temporary circumstances , but that ifc by no means follows from the dismissal of that minister that an equally moderate ( in other words an equally disgraceful ) proposition may not yet be accepted .
Further on , M . ' Y . ' broaches the following theory , which is evidently suggested by no friend to England : — The principal difficulty in the way of peace , he would have it believed , lies in the ' chivalrous sentiments and exquisite delicacy' of Napoleon III ., which make him hesitate to press England to concur in a settlement desirable both for himself and France , out of consideration for the poor figure which the badly-organised and scanty English army has hitherto cut before Sebastopol . If the war drags on a little longer , it will be only to afford England an opportunity to withdraw decently from the contest after some feat of arms which may in some degree disguise the fact of her being but a secondrate power . "
The Paris correspondent of the Times says : — - " . The malady under which it has been for some time said that General Canrobert is suffering is inflammation of the eyes . But this is not , perhaps , the only or the real cause of his retirement , as such a malady ought equally to disqualify him for the command of a corps d ' armee . The fact is , that General Canrobert has been found unequal to his position ; the Emperor , who appointed him to succeed Marshal St . Arnaud , has for some time past perceived his mistake , and the rumour of ill-health which has prevailed for some weeks is believed to have
been circulated expressly to prepare the public for hia removal . " The same writer adds that as General Pelissier , the new commander-in-chief , is a rough soldier bred up in the school of African warfare ( it will be recollected that he is the chief hero of tho infamous massacre in the caves of Dahra ) , ho will be " careless about practising those courtesies which made Canrobert stand ao well with Lord Raglan ; and some , who pretend to be well acquainted with General Polissier , would not be surprised if the English Government found it necessary before long to recal our commander . Tho appointment of Pelissier ia understood as an indication that something
more than usually vigorous is intended . " The Russian Government has concluded a telegraph treaty with the Prussian Government , in the nnmo of the Anstro-Gorman Telegraph Union , which came into forco yesterday . Stations have been opened < it St . Petersburg , Moscow , Warsaw , Kioff , Cronstadt , Gatschina , and a number of places of loss import . Hie second enactment in tho statutes provides that no private despatches containing political subjects shall in any case bo received . Thus , while information can bo instantaneously convoyed to St . Petersburg and Cronstadt by tho ltmaifin scout * in » ni « . ela and Klsmore , no P ° " { I <» J nowB of what is going on at St . Petersburg can roach u 3 by the telogrh an more thaniby-the post .- ? " > " ¦
« ,. y Tiih Chomsra m CoNSTANTiNoruc—After nearly seven months of rain and cold , tho Bummer has dawned upon uh ( H « y » tho Times Constantinople correspondent ) vill a promise of warm and sunny days , unbroken by ho ohil « which sweep down from th . Russian stoppoa ami the fogs which gather round tho headlands ot the IHnck Son ? In thin npot , which , from its position , has an exceptional climate , thoro is no spring ; for the winter inHtn , with temporary interruptions , until tho end of Anril and then tho sudden boats crack tho sodden ground , ' and cover tho hillaidea with a vegetation «*
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Max 26 , 1855 . J X i ± m Xi jbj a u jh j * . - ™»**
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Leader (1850-1860), May 26, 1855, page 489, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2092/page/9/
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