Chapter VIII (3)

The road on either side was lined with dragoons armed _cap-a-pié_. The poor tired horses were munching the forage with which the muddy ground was strewn; and the troopers sprawled listlessly about, smoking their short pipes, and mending their torn costume or shattered accoutrements. Indulging, however, in the _dolce far niente_, as they seemed to be, they were ready for action at a moment’s notice. There was, about two o’clock, an _alerte_—a rumor of some tumult toward the Rue St. Denis. One solitary trumpet sounded “boot and saddle;” and, with almost magical celerity, each dragoon twisted a quantity of forage into a species of rope, which he hung over his saddle-bow, crammed his half-demolished loaf into his holsters, buckled on his cuirass; then, springing himself on his horse, sat motionless: each cavalier with his pistol cocked, and his finger on the trigger. The crowd thickened; and in the road itself there was a single file of cabs, carts, and even private carriages. Almost every moment detachments of prisoners, mostly blouses, passed, escorted by cavalry; then a yellow flag was seen, announcing the approach of an ambulance, or long covered vehicle, filled with wounded soldiers; then hearses; more prisoners, more ambulances, orderly dragoons at full gallop, orderlies, military surgeons in their cocked hats and long frock coats, broughams with smart general officers inside, all smoking.

As to the soldiers, they appear never to leave off smoking. They smoke in the guard-room, off duty, and even when on guard. An eye-witness of the combat told me that many of the soldiers had, when charging, short pipes in their mouths, and the officers, almost invariably, smoked cigars.

At three, there was more trumpeting, more drumming, a general backing of horses on the foot-passengers, announcing the approach of some important event. A cloud of cavalry came galloping by; then, a numerous and brilliant group of staff-officers. In the midst of these, attired in the uniform of a general of the National Guard, rode Louis Napoleon Bonaparte.

I saw him again the following day in the Champs Elysée, riding with a single English groom behind him; and again in a chariot, escorted by cuirassiers.

When he had passed, I essayed a further progress toward the Rue St. Denis; but the hedge of bayonets still bristled as ominously as ever. I went into a little tobacconist’s shop; and the pretty _marchande_ showed me a frightful trace of the passage of a cannon ball, which had gone right through the shutter and glass, smashed cases on cases of cigars, and half demolished the little tobacconist’s parlor.

My countrymen were in great force on the Boulevards, walking arm and arm, four abreast, as it is the proud custom of Britons to do. From them, I heard, how Major Pongo, of the Company’s service, would certainly have placed his sword at the disposal of the Government in support of law and order, had he not been confined to his bed with a severe attack of rheumatism: how Mr. Bellows, Parisian correspondent to the “Evening Grumbler,” had been actually led out to be shot, and was only saved by the interposition of his tailor, who was a sergeant in the National Guard; and who, passing by, though not on duty, exerted his influence with the military authorities, to save the life of Mr. Bellows; how the Reverend Mr. Faldstool, _ministre Anglican_, was discovered in a corn-bin, moaning piteously: how Bluckey, the man who talked so much about the Pytchley hounds, and of the astonishing leaps he had taken when riding after them, concealed himself in a coal-cellar, and lying down on his face, never stirred from that position from noon till midnight on Thursday (although I, to be sure, have no right to taunt him with his prudence): how, finally, M’Gropus, the Scotch surgeon, bolted incontinently in a cab, with an immense quantity of luggage, toward the _Chemin-de-fer du Nord_; and, being stopped in the Rue St. Denis, was ignominiously turned out of his vehicle by the mob; the cab, together with M’Gropus’s trunks, being immediately converted into the nucleus of a barricade:—how, returning the following morning to see whether he could recover any portion of his effects, he found the barricades in the possession of the military, who were quietly cooking their soup over a fire principally fed by the remnants of his trunks and portmanteaus; whereupon, frantically endeavoring to rescue some _disjecta membra_ of his property from the wreck, he was hustled and bonneted by the soldiery, threatened with arrest, and summary military vengeance, and ultimately paraded from the vicinity of the bivouac, by bayonets with sharp points.

With the merits or demerits of the struggle, I have nothing to do. But I saw the horrible ferocity and brutality of this ruthless soldiery. I saw them bursting into shops, to search for arms or fugitives; dragging the inmates forth, like sheep from a slaughter-house, smashing the furniture and windows. I saw them, when making a passage for a convoy of prisoners, or a wagon full of wounded, strike wantonly at the bystanders, with the butt-ends of their muskets, and thrust at them with their bayonets. I might have seen more; but my exploring inclination was rapidly subdued by a gigantic Lancer at the corner of the Rue Richelieu; who seeing me stand still for a moment, stooped from his horse, and putting his pistol to my head (right between the eyes) told me to “_traverser_!” As I believed he would infallibly have blown my brains out in another minute, I turned and fled. So much for what I saw. I know, as far as a man can know, from trustworthy persons, from eye-witnesses, from patent and notorious report, that the military, who are now the sole and supreme masters of that unhappy city and country, have been perpetrating most frightful barbarities since the riots were over. I know that, from the Thursday I arrived, to the Thursday I left Paris, they were daily shooting their prisoners in cold blood; that a man, caught on the Pont Neuf, drunk with the gunpowder-brandy of the cabarets, and shouting some balderdash about the _République démocratique et sociale_, was dragged into the Prefecture of Police, and, some soldiers’ cartridges having been found in his pocket, was led into the court-yard, and there and then, untried, unshriven, unaneled—shot! I know that in the Champ de Mars one hundred and fifty-six men were executed; and I _heard_ one horrible story (so horrible that I can scarcely credit it) that a batch of prisoners were tied together with ropes like a fagot of wood; and that the struggling mass was fired into, until not a limb moved, nor a groan was uttered. I know—and my informant was a clerk in the office of the Ministry of War—that the official return of insurgents killed was _two thousand and seven_, and of soldiers _fifteen_. Rather long odds!

We were in-doors betimes this Friday evening, comparing notes busily, as to what we had seen during the day. We momentarily expected to hear the artillery again, but, thank Heaven, the bloodshed in the streets at least was over; and though Paris was still a city in a siege, the barricades were all demolished; and another struggle was for the moment crushed.

The streets next day were full of hearses; but even the number of funerals that took place were insignificant, in comparison to the stacks of corpses which were cast into deep trenches without shroud or coffin, and covered with quicklime. I went to the Morgue in the afternoon, and found that dismal charnel-house fully tenanted. Every one of the fourteen beds had a corpse; some, dead with gunshot wounds; some, sabred; some, horribly mutilated by cannon-balls. There was a _queue_ outside of at least two thousand people, laughing, talking, smoking, eating apples, as though it was some pleasant spectacle they were going to, instead of that frightful exhibition. Yet, in this laughing, talking, smoking crowd, there were fathers who had missed their sons; sons who came there dreading to see the corpses of their fathers; wives of Socialist workmen, sick with the almost certainty of finding the bodies of their husbands. The bodies were only exposed six hours; but the clothes remained—a very grove of blouses. The neighboring churches were hung with black, and there were funeral services at St. Roch and at the Madeleine.

And yet—with this Golgotha so close; with the blood not yet dry on the Boulevards; with corpses yet lying about the streets; with five thousand soldiers bivouacking in the Champs Elysées; with mourning and lamentation in almost every street; with a brutal military in almost every printing-office, tavern, café; with proclamations threatening death and confiscation covering the walls; with the city in a siege, without a legislature, without laws, without a government—this extraordinary people was, the next night, dancing and flirting at the Salle Valentino, or the Prado, lounging in the _foyers_ of the Italian Opera, gossiping over their _eau-sucrée_, or squabbling over their dominoes outside and inside the cafés. I saw Rachel in “Les Horaces;” I went to the _Variétés_, the _Opéra Comique_, and no end of theatres; and as we walked home at night through lines of soldiers, brooding over their bivouacs, I went into a restaurant, and asking whether it had been a ball which had starred the magnificent pier-glass before me, got for answer, “Ball, sir!—cannon-ball, sir!—yes, sir!” for all the world as though I had inquired about the mutton being in good cut, or asparagus in season!

So, while they were shooting prisoners and dancing the Schottische at the Casino; burying their dead; selling _breloques_ for watch-chains in the Palais Royal; demolishing barricades, and staring at the caricatures in M. Aubert’s windows; taking the wounded to the hospitals, and stock-jobbing on the Bourse; I went about my business, as well as the state of siege would let me. Turning my face homeward, I took the Rouen and Havre Railway, and so, _viâ_ Southampton, to London. As I saw the last cocked hat of the last gendarme disappear with the receding pier at Havre, a pleasant vision of the blue-coats, oil-skin hats, and lettered collars of the land I was going to, swam before my eyes; and, I must say that, descending the companion-ladder, I thanked Heaven I was an Englishman. I was excessively sea-sick, but not the less thankful; and getting at last to sleep, dreamed of the Bill of Rights and Habeas Corpus. I wonder how _they_ would flourish amidst Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, and Musketry!

WHAT BECOMES OF THE RIND?

Of all the occupations that exercise the ordinary energies of human beings, the most abstracting is that of sucking an orange. It seems to employ the whole faculties for the time being. There is an earnestness of purpose in the individual so employed—an impassioned determination to accomplish what he has undertaken—that creates a kindred excitement in the bystanders. His air is thoughtful; his eye severe, not to say relentless; and although his mouth is full of inarticulate sounds, conversation is out of the question. But the mind is busy although the tongue is silent; and when the deed is accomplished, the collapsed spheroid seems to swell anew with the ideas to which the exercise had given birth. One of these ideas we shall catch and fix, for occurring as it did to ourselves, it is our own property: it was contained in the question that rose suddenly in our mind as we looked at the ruin we had made—What becomes of the rind?

And this is no light question; no unimportant or merely curious pastime for a vacant moment. In our case it became more and more serious; it clung and grappled, till it hung upon our meditations like the albatross round the neck of the Ancient Mariner. Only consider what a subject it embraces. The orange, it is true, and its congener the lemon, are Celestial fruits, owing their origin to the central flowery land; but, thanks to the Portuguese, they are now domesticated in Europe, and placed within the reach of such northern countries as ours, where the cold prohibits their growth. Some of us no doubt force them in an artificial climate, at the expense of perhaps half a guinea apiece; but the bulk of the nation are content to receive them from other regions at little more than the cost of apples. Now the quantity we (the English) thus import every year from the Azores, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Malta, and other places, is about 300,000 chests, and each of these chests contains about 650 oranges, all wrapped separately in paper. But beside these we are in the habit of purchasing a large quantity, entered at the custom-house by number, and several thousand pounds’ worth, entered at value; so that the whole number of oranges and lemons we consume in this country may be reckoned modestly at 220,000,000! Surely, then, it is not surprising that while engaged in the meditative employment alluded to, we should demand with a feeling of strong interest—What becomes of the rind?

Every body knows that Scotch marmalade uses up the rinds of a great many Seville oranges, as well as an unknown quantity of turnip skins and stalks of the bore-cole, the latter known to the Caledonian manipulators of the preserve as “kail-custocks.” Every body understands also, that not a few of the rinds of edible oranges take up a position on the pavement, where their mission is to bring about the downfall of sundry passers-by thus accomplishing the fracture of a not inconsiderable number—taking one month with another throughout the season—of arms, legs, and occiputs. It is likewise sufficiently public that a variety of drinks are assisted by the hot, pungent rinds of oranges and lemons as well as by the juice; but notwithstanding all these deductions, together with that of the great quantity thrown away as absolute refuse, we shall find a number of rinds unaccounted for large enough to puzzle by its magnitude the Statistical Society. This mystery, however, we have succeeded in penetrating, and although hardly hoping to carry the faith of the reader along with us, we proceed to unfold it: it is contained in the single monosyllable, _peel_.

Orange-peel, lemon-peel, citron-peel—these are the explanation: the last-mentioned fruit—imported from Sicily, Madeira, and the Canary Islands—being hardly distinguishable from a lemon except by its somewhat less acid pulp and more pungent rind. Even a very careless observer can hardly fail to be struck at this season by the heaps of those candied rinds displayed in the grocers’ windows; but the wildest imagination could not guess at any thing so extravagant as the quantity of the fruit thus used; and even when we learn that upward of 600 _tons of peel_ are manufactured in the year, it is a hopeless task to attempt to separate that prodigious bulk into its constituent parts. Six hundred tons of candied peel! of a condiment employed chiefly if not wholly, in small quantities in the composition of puddings and cakes. Six hundred tons—12,000 hundredweights—1,344,000 pounds—21,504,000 ounces! But having once got possession of the fact, see how suggestive it is. Let us lump the puddings and cakes in one; let us call them all puddings—plum-puddings of four pounds’ weight. We find, on consulting the best authorities—for we would not presume to dogmatize on such a subject—that the quantity of peel used in the composition of such a work is two ounces; and thus we are led to the conclusion that we Britishers devour in the course of a year 10,752,000 full-sized, respectable plum-puddings, irrespective of all such articles as are not adorned and enriched with candied peel.

Citrons intended for peel are imported in brine, but oranges and lemons in boxes. All are ripe in December, January, and February; but as it would be inconvenient to preserve so vast a quantity at the same time, the juice is squeezed out, and the collapsed fruit packed in pipes, with salt and water, till wanted. When the time for preserving comes, it is taken from the pipes, and boiled till soft enough to admit of the pulp being scooped out; then the rind is laid in tubs or cisterns, and melted sugar poured over it. Here it lies for three or four weeks; and then the sugar is drained away, and the rind placed on trays in a room constructed for the purpose. It now assumes the name of “dried peel,” and is stored away in the original orange and lemon boxes, till wanted for candying.

The other constituents of a plum-pudding add but little testimony on the subject of number. We can not even guess the proportion of the 170,000 lbs. of nutmegs we receive from the Moluccas, and our own possessions in the Malay Straits, which may be thus employed; nor how much cinnamon Ceylon sends us for the purpose in her annual remittance of about 16,000 lbs.;(6) nor what quantity of almonds is abstracted, with a similar view, from the 9000 cwts. we retain for our own consumption from the importations from Spain and Northern Africa. Currants are more to our purpose—for that small Corinth grape, the produce of the islands of Zante, Cephalonia, and Ithaca, and of the Morea, which comes to us so thickly coated with dust that we might seem to import vineyard and all—belongs, like the candied peel, almost exclusively to cakes and puddings. Of this fruit we devour in the year about 180,000 cwts. Raisins, being in more general use—at the dessert, for instance, and in making sweet wine—are in still greater demand; we can not do with less than 240,000 cwts of them. They are named from the place where they grow—such as Smyrna or Valencia; or from the grape—such as muscatel, bloom, or sultana; but the quality depends, we believe, chiefly on the mode of cure. The best are called raisins of the sun, and are preserved by cutting half through the stalks of the branches when nearly ripe, and leaving them to dry and candy in the genial rays. The next quality is gathered when completely ripe, dipped in a lye of the ashes of the burned tendrils, and spread out to bake in the sun. The inferior is dried in an oven. The black Smyrna grape is the cheapest; and the muscatels of Malaga are the dearest.

With flour, sugar, brandy, &c., we do not propose to interfere; for although the quantities of these articles thus consumed are immense, they bear but a small proportion to the whole importations. Eggs, however, are in a different category. Eggs are essential to the whole pudding race; and without having our minds opened, as they now are, to the full greatness of the plum-pudding, it would be difficult for us to discover the rationale of the vast trade we carry on in eggs. In our youthful days, when, as yet, plum-puddingism was with us in its early, empirical state, we used to consider “egg-merchant” a term of ridicule, resembling the term “timber-merchant,” as applied to a vender of matches. But we now look with respect upon an egg-merchant, as an individual who manages an important part of the trade of this country with France and Belgium; not to mention its internal traffic in the same commodity. It strikes us, however, that on this subject the Frenchman and Belgian are wiser in their generation than ourselves. We could produce our own eggs easily enough if we would take the trouble; but rather than do this we hire them to do it for us, at an expense of several scores of thousands sterling in the year. They, of course, are very much obliged to us, though a little amused no doubt at the eccentricity of John Bull; and with the utmost alacrity supply us annually with about 90,000,000 eggs. John eats his foreign pudding, however—he is partial to foreign things—with great gravity, and only unbends into a smile when he sees his few chickens hopping about the farm-yard, the amusement of his children, or the little perquisite, perhaps, of his wife. He occasionally eats a newly-laid egg, the date of its birth being carefully registered upon the shell; thinks it a very clever thing in him to provide his own luxuries; and is decidedly of opinion that an English egg is worth two of the mounseers’. His neglect of this branch of rural economy, however, does not prevent his wondering sometimes how these fellows contrive to make the two ends of the year meet, when he himself finds it so difficult a matter to get plums to his pudding.

What becomes of the rind? We have shown what becomes of the rind. We have shown what apparently inconsiderable matters swell up the commerce of a great country. A plum-pudding is no joke. It assembles within itself the contributions of the whole world, and gives a fillip to industry among the most distant tribes and nations. But it is important likewise in other respects. Morally and socially considered, its influence is immense. At this season of the year, more especially, it is a bond of family union, and a symbol of friendly hospitality. We would not give a straw for that man, woman, or child, in the frank, cordial circles of Old English life, who does not hail its appearance on the table with a smile and a word of welcome. Look at its round, brown, honest, unctuous face, dotted with almonds and fragrant peel, surmounted with a sprig of holly, and radiant amid the flames of burning brandy! Who is for plum-pudding? We are, to be sure. What a rich perfume as it breaks on the plate! And this fragrant peel, so distinguishable amid the exhalations! ha! Delaeioucious!—_that’s_ what becomes of the rind!

MAZZINI, THE ITALIAN LIBERAL.

Giuseppe Mazzini is descended from a highly honorable family, and of talented and respectable parentage; his father was an esteemed physician, and also professor of anatomy at the University in Genoa, his native city. His mother is still living, an excellent and dignified lady, as proud of her Giuseppe, as Madame Letitia was of her Napoleon.

When young, Mazzini was remarkably handsome, and will be deemed so now in his mature years, by all who, in the expression of his countenance, his dark intelligent eye, and expansive intellectual forehead, can overlook the deep, we may say premature furrows, traced in that forehead by the never resting labors of a mind of indomitable activity, the constantly renewing anxieties of a generous heart for the welfare of the human race; and above all for that oppressed portion of it which claimed his earliest sympathies, as his compatriots, his brothers, alike in the wrongs they labored under, and their determined resolution to combat with them in every shape, and to win in the contest, either a glorious victory, or an honorable death. The youth of Mazzini was spent in witnessing the struggles of his country for liberty. The fruitlessness of all these struggles, the conviction they carried with them in their repeated defeats, that there was something radically wrong in their organization, or in the manner in which they were carried out, only excited ardent desires in him to trace the evil to its root, and point out the remedy accordingly: his genius naturally bent toward studies,

“High passions and high actions best describing,”

concentrated all its energies upon the situation of Italy, and on the means of rescuing her from the despotism that preyed upon her very vitals, and rendered even the choicest gifts of nature, with which she is so abundantly endowed, not merely nugatory, but an absolute disadvantage and a curse.

The revolution in France of July, 1830, communicated an electric flame throughout Italy, which in the ensuing year kindled insurrections in Modena, Parma, and other departments: the light of victory hovered over them for a moment, but for a moment only. Aid had been hoped for from the Citizen King, but in his very outset Louis Philippe evinced the political caution which marked his reign. Austria, reassured by the conviction she felt of his determination to remain neuter in the struggles of others for the same freedom which had placed himself upon a throne, again advanced upon the cities she had evacuated; the insurgents disappointed, bewildered, paralyzed, offered no further resistance, and again all was wrapped in the gloom of despotism. Then came its invariable attendant denunciations, imprisonments, exile, to all who were suspected of a love of liberty, whether it had impelled them to deeds, or only influenced their words.

Mazzini, though a very young man at this period, was already known in Italy as an author. He had published a weekly literary Gazette, at Genoa, in 1828, called the “_Indicatore Genovese,_” but this journal being strangled, ere the year was out, under the double supervision of a civil and an ecclesiastical censorship, he began another at Leghorn under the title of the “_Indicatore Livornese_” which in a few months succumbed under the same fate. He then beguiled his forced inactivity with furnishing an admirable essay on European literature, and other contributions, to the “_Antologia di Firenze_,” but the review was made the subject of a prosecution, soon after its commencement, at the instigation of the Austrian government, and was finally suppressed. Under these circumstances it was not likely that Mazzini would escape the fate of his party. He was put under arrest, along with many others, though it should seem that the strongest accusation which could be brought against him was that he indulged in habits of thinking; for when his father went to the governor of the city to inquire what offense his son had committed, that could authorize his arrest, the worthy functionary, who appears himself to have belonged to the _Dogberry_ faction, could only allege that the young man was “in the habit of walking every evening in the fields and gardens of the suburbs, alone, and wrapped in meditation;” wisely adding, as his own comment on the matter, “What on earth can he have at his age to think about? we do not like so much thinking on the part of young people, without knowing the subject of their thoughts.”

Mazzini and his companions were tried at Turin by a commission of Senators, embodied for the purpose; they were all acquitted for want of any evidence against them, of evil acts or intentions: nevertheless Mazzini, notwithstanding this virtual acknowledgment of his innocence, was treated with the severity due only to convicted guilt, and detained five months in solitary imprisonment, in the fortress of Savona; a tyrannical act of injustice, not likely to turn the current of his thoughts, or to cure him of his meditative propensities. At length his prison doors were reluctantly opened to him—he was free to depart, but not to remain in Italy; accordingly he took refuge in France, along with a crowd of exiles under similar circumstances, and it was there, in June 1831, that the fruits of his long-nursed musings burst forth, in his address to Charles Albert of Savoy, “_A Carlo Alberto di Savoia un Italiano_,” on the accession of that prince to the throne of Sardinia. This address has been justly termed by Mariotti, “a flash of divine eloquence, such as never before shone over Italy. His companions in misfortune gathered in adoration, and bent before his powerful genius. Ere the year had elapsed, he became the heart and soul of the Italian movement. He was the ruler of a state of his own creation—the king of Young Italy.”

Eager to turn his popularity, alike with his abilities, to the best account for his country, Mazzini now established himself at Marseilles, as the editor of a journal to which he gave the name of “_La Giovine Italia_,” as the expression of his favorite theory of intrusting the great cause of Italian liberty to the young, the ardent, the hopeful; and moreover the unpledged and therefore unfettered; rather than to those who, grown old under a timid, temporizing policy, endeavored in vain to disentangle themselves from the net of foreign diplomacy; and who, while they flattered themselves they were endeavoring to rescue their country from slavery, were in fact still themselves the slaves of high-sounding names, and veered round with all the changing views of those who bore them.

Anxious to enlist in his cause the finest talents of the day, Mazzini invited many persons of acknowledged reputation and ability to contribute to his journal; among them the venerable and justly celebrated Sismondi, author of the “History of the Italian Republics,” and many other works of importance. Sismondi willingly complied, for he loved the high-minded character of the young Italian, and was glad to share in his literary labors, in order that he might be able occasionally to rein in, with a gentle yet judicious hand, the too impetuous spirit which, in fearlessly endeavoring to overleap every obstacle that stood before it, overlooked the destruction that might await an error of calculation: he therefore immediately replied, “If by my name, my example, I can be useful to that Italy which I love as if it were my own country, which I shall never cease to serve, to the very utmost of my ability, and for which I shall never cease to hope, then most willingly do I promise you my co-operation.”

The generous ardor of the Genevese _Economiste_ was not more pleasing to behold than the filial deference of the young republican; for Sismondi spared neither remonstrance nor advice, where he thought the interests of his young colleague, or of the sacred cause in which he was embarked, likely to be endangered by his precipitancy. But neither arguments nor advice had any power over the fixed idea in Mazzini’s mind that Italian liberty was to spring forth from the Italian people, and that Italy, formerly free in her numerous republics, would, after five hundred years of slavery, become free again in one, alone and indivisible. Meanwhile his journal extended its circulation and its influence: supplied through the channel of an active correspondence with abundant information of all that was going on in the peninsula, he astonished and excited the public more and more every day, by the facts he laid before them; he unvailed the cruelties of the tribunals in Romagna, of the government in Modena, of the police in Naples; he brought forth the unhappy prisoners from their cells, and portrayed them in every varied attitude of their sufferings, with a vividness that thrilled the compassionate with horror, and worked the ardent up to rage. It would be difficult for us in our own present state of _press_ and _post_, to imagine the possibility of our counties remaining days and weeks in ignorance of what was passing among each other. Yet so it was in the Italian provinces: under the lynx-eyed vigilance of government officials and spies, the public journals contained little more than details of church ceremonies, or the local affairs of petty municipalities: pamphlets were unknown, and news of a political kind traveled slowly and uncertainly from mouth to mouth, always in dread of some listening ear being ready to catch the words as they floated in the air. Hence the transactions in Romagna and Naples were long unknown to upper Italy; the excitement therefore that the appearance of Mazzini’s journal must have occasioned, revealing as it did facts upon facts calculated to inspire even the most indifferent with a thirst for vengeance, may easily be imagined, but the modes by which it found circulation under every obstacle are more difficult to comprehend. It is scarcely necessary to say how strictly it was prohibited throughout Italy; the possession of it was denounced as a crime, to be punished with three years of the galleys, besides the possessor being subjected for the remainder of his days to the suspicion of being connected with revolutionary factions. The smugglers, albeit accustomed to danger and little susceptible of fear, refused to have any thing to do with it; nevertheless its distribution was effected far and wide; copies were dispatched from Marseilles, by merchant vessels, in parcels directed to persons at places fixed upon for the purpose of receiving them; they thus reached the Committees of “Young Italy” in each city, and were by them transmitted to the subscribers, that is to say, to every one conjoined to the cause; thus the Society itself remained in the shade, while the journal, passed from hand to hand, was every where eagerly perused. In many places it was left, in the obscurity of evening, upon the thresholds of the shops, and at the doors of the theatres, _cafés_, and other frequented places. Never was a periodical paper edited with such marvelous activity, or circulated with such unshaken courage. The leaders risked their heads in its service, and not one of them hesitated so to do. In the same manner has the clandestine press at Rome, since the reinstatement of the priestly government, fearlessly pursued its task of exposing the cruelties, injustice, and meanness of that government in its every act—and the cardinals have not unfrequently had to go to breakfast, with what appetite they might, after finding on their tables a sheet, of which the ink had not had time to dry, wherein their unworthy deeds were set forth and commented upon, in the accents of all others strangest to “ears polite”—that is to say, of _truth_.

The effect of “_La Giovine Italia_” upon the public mind became more and more developed every day. Genoa and Alexandria were the first to show its influence. Turin, Chamberry, and Lombardy followed. Central Italy, crushed for the moment, remained passive; but the flag of republicanism was unfurled, it only waited the moment to lift it up, and that moment came, every way, too soon. The government of Charles Albert was the first to take hostile measures against Young Italy. It saw that the influence of the party was beginning to spread in the army; and it immediately pointed its cannons against Genoa; three persons were executed in that city, three at Chamberry, and six at Alexandria; while Austria stocked her favorite fortress of Speilberg with such as were objects of suspicion, but against whom no charge could be substantiated. These rigorous measures struck terror through the peninsula, and instantly stopped the propagandism of the journal; still hundreds of emigrants, fearful of being compromised, poured in from Italy, and the police redoubled its vigilance in watching over their proceedings. But a step backward was what Mazzini never could take; he looked his dangers full in the face, and tempted fate, not only for himself, but, unhappily, for his colleagues also. The sufferings of his party seemed to call upon him for vengeance, and he sought it by joining himself to a Polish committee, and projecting the attempt upon Savoy, in 1833.

It is a singular fact in the moral history of man, that in the course of his life he almost invariably falls into some error, or commits some fault, which he has either condemned, or suffered from, in others. This appears to have been notoriously the case in this ill-planned, ill-organized, ill-conducted expedition. It was planned in a secret society, whereas Mazzini had always advocated open appeals to the people; he had always inculcated distrust of heads of parties, and he intrusted the command of the troops to General Romarino, a Pole, He had insisted upon the necessity of whole provinces rising _en masse_, if a revolution was to be effected, and he saw General Romarino set out from Geneva, to carry Savoy, with a handful of men. Mazzini himself, with his utmost efforts, scarcely got together five hundred followers, of whom not one half were Italians; and it was with difficulty that they, tracked every where by the police, succeeded in rallying at the small village of Annemasse, to the amount of two hundred; when lo! Romarino, who had always shown himself wavering and undecided, turned his back upon them, even before they had cast eyes upon the enemy—and thus in one single day did Mazzini see vanish at once, the hopes and toils of two years of incessant labor and anxiety. In vain he plied his pen still more vigorously, and called around him “Young Switzerland,” “Young Poland,” “Young France,” and even “Young Europe” at large; few responded to his ardent voice: the Moderates, taking advantage of his discomfiture, and appealing to the selfish prudence of all parties, under the plausible argument of trusting in moral force, turned, for the time, the tide of popular opinion, and Mazzini, banished from France, proscribed in Switzerland, and sentenced to death in Italy, sought an asylum in England, where he betook himself to the literary pursuits which had formed the delight of his younger years, and to the benevolent endeavor of improving the moral state of the humbler classes of his countrymen whom he found scattered about in London; particularly of the poor organ boys, whom, sold by venal parents to sordid masters, or lured from their beautiful native scenes by fallacious representations, he beheld lost in ignorance, enslaved in vice, and suffering under every species of ill-treatment and destitution. His founding an evening school for these unfortunate outcasts was a mortal offense in the eyes of the Roman Catholic priests of every denomination—for a layman to presume to instruct the ignorant, and to hold out a hand to the helpless, was, in their eyes, an unpardonable crime; and they strove to vilify all his acts by connecting them with covert designs of exciting anarchy and rebellion, even in the land that had afforded him a refuge. Nevertheless, the blameless tenor of his domestic life, the magnanimity with which he bore his disappointments and his trials, and the respect in which he was held both for his talents and his private character, which no calumny has ever yet been able to impugn, would have insured him as undisturbed a tranquillity as his anxiety for his country, ever throbbing in his breast, could have permitted him, had he not suddenly been brought forth to public notice, by the English government committing a flagrant act of injustice toward him, which the more it endeavored to explain and vindicate, the more odium it brought upon itself—we allude to the opening of Mazzini’s letters at the General Post-Office in 1844, by order of Lord Aberdeen and the _Right Honorable_ Sir James Graham, at the instigation of Austrian jealousies and fears. The disgraceful disclosures that were brought forward on that occasion, will be fresh in the memory of many of our readers.

The stirring events of Italy in 1847, naturally turned all the thoughts and hopes of Mazzini again to his country, and to the heightening, by his presence, the effect of his doctrines, so long, so ardently preached. But we must be brief; we shall, therefore, pass over intervening steps, and behold him in Rome—Rome proclaimed a republic, Rome, at that moment, promising to realize all the most glorious visions of his youth, all the most thoughtfully-revolved theories of his matured powers. He was elected on the 3d of March, 1849, a deputy in the National Assembly, by 8982 votes, being nearly one thousand ahead of seven other candidates elected at the same time, consequently at the top of the poll. On the 31st of the same month, the dissolution of the Executive Committee was decreed by the Constituent Assembly, and the government of the republic appointed to be intrusted to a Triumvirate, “with unlimited powers.” The citizens chosen for this important office were Carlo Armellini, Giuseppe Mazzini, and Aurelio Saffi. How wisely, temperately, and benevolently they acquitted themselves of the task assigned them, under the most complicated and trying circumstances that ever legislators had to struggle with, is known to all. The contrast of their conduct with that of the Cardinal Triumvirate that succeeded them, will live in the page of impartial history, to the honor of the representatives of the People, the disgrace of the representatives of the Church.

It is needless to say that on the entrance of the French into Rome, Mazzini, with his illustrious colleagues, and many other distinguished patriots, prepared to quit it. Again he found an asylum in England, and again he betook himself to the furtherance of the cause to which all his faculties are devoted, to the emancipation of Italy. “Twenty years,” he says, in the preliminary note to his pamphlet recently published, entitled, “The Charge of Terrorism in Rome, during the Government of the Republic, refuted by Facts and Documents”—“Twenty years, attended with the usual amount of cares, woes, and deceptions, have rolled around me since my first step in the career. But my soul is as calm, my hands are as pure, my faith is as unshaken, and bright with hope for my awakened country, as in my young years. With these gifts one may well endure with a smile such little annoyances as may arise from such writers as Mr. Cochrane, and Mr. Macfarlane.” We should think so!

The first publication of Mazzini’s that attracted notice after his return to England, was his “Letter to Messrs. De Tocqueville and De Falloux, Ministers of France.” It excited universal interest. The simple truth of its statements, which no sophistry of the parties to whom it was addressed could deny, the justice of its reproaches, the manly sentiments it set forth, gained it the sympathy of all persons of candor and liberal views, and added a deeper tinge of shame on the conduct, if not on the cheek, of the President, by whose command the unjust, inconsistent, and we may add barbarous attack upon Republican Rome was made by Republican France.

From the moment that Mazzini set his foot again upon English ground, as a refugee himself, he turned his thoughts toward the sufferings of his fellow-refugees, who still gathered around him with unshaken devotedness and admiration. By his exertions a committee was formed for “The Italian Refugee Fund.” A touching address was inserted by it in the leading journals, wherein, after briefly setting forth the claims of the Italian refugees upon the compassion of the public, it proceeded: “It is not the only sorrow of the Italian exiles that a noble cause is, for the time being, lost. Proscribed and driven from their watch over the beautiful country of their birth and their affections, they seek a refuge here in England, almost the only free land where they may set foot. Hunted by their and the world’s enemies, forlorn and penniless, reduced to indigence, bereft of almost all that makes life dear, and bringing nothing from the wreck beyond the Mediterranean Sea, but hope in the eternal might of the principles they have upheld, the Committee appeals in their behalf to Englishmen, for present help, that they may not die of want, where they have found a home.”

Mazzini’s next care was, to found a “Society of the Friends of Italy,” the objects of which are, by public meetings, lectures, and the press, to promote a correct appreciation of the Italian question, and to aid the cause of the political and religious liberty of the Italian people.

Of Mazzini’s private character we believe there is, among those who know him, but one opinion, that he is the soul of honor, candid and compassionate in his nature, and of almost woman’s tenderness in his friendships and attachments. “I have had the honor,” says Thomas Carlyle, “to know Mr. Mazzini for a series of years, and whatever I may think of his practical insight and skill in worldly affairs, I can with great freedom testify to all men, that he, if I have ever seen one such, is a man of genius and virtue; a man of sterling virtue, humanity, and nobleness of mind; one of those rare men, numerable, unfortunately, but as units in this world, who are worthy to be called Martyr souls.” Equally honorable to him is the testimony of M. Lesseps, the French Envoy to the Roman Republic, in the Memoir of his Mission: “I fear the less making known here the opinion I had of Mazzini, with whom I was already in open strife, namely, that during the whole series of our negotiations, I had but to congratulate myself on his loyalty, and the moderation of his character, which have earned for him all my esteem.... Now that he has fallen from power, and that he seeks, doubtless, an asylum in a foreign land, I ought to render homage to the nobleness of his sentiments, to his conviction of his principles, to his high capacity, and to his courage.”

The man who can win, from the depths of disappointment and adversity, such a tribute from one politically opposed to him, must have something very extraordinary in himself—and such a man is Mazzini. The faults alleged against him are his enthusiasm, which leads him into rash and precipitant measures, and his indomitable will; or, we would rather call it, his unconquerable tenacity of purpose, which is deaf to argument, and spurns control; but it is only his political character that is liable to these charges. His virtues are all his own. When he was in office at Rome he gave the whole of the salary allotted to him to the hospitals, stating that his own private income, though moderate, was sufficient for his wants; and never does distress, in any shape that he may have the power to alleviate, appeal to him in vain. Had he not concentrated all his abilities, all his energies upon the one grand object of his life, the independence of his country, he would have been as eminent in the field of literature, as he is in that of politics. He writes with equal facility and elegance in the French and English languages as in his own, and his beautiful memoir of Ugo Foscolo, his essay upon Art in Italy, in his review of Grossi’s “Marco Visconti,” and many other admirable contributions to periodical literature, sufficiently prove that if the peculiar aspect of the times in which he has lived had not impelled him into public life, he would have found abundant resource in more retired pursuits, for his own enjoyment, and the benefit of society.

CHEWING THE BUYO. A SKETCH OF THE PHILIPPINES.

With a population of 3,000,000—part of which has been for centuries the colony of a European power—and producing many of the tropical products of commerce, the Philippine Isles remain almost as much a _terra incognita_ as China or Japan!

These islands offer a striking illustration of the adage, that “knowledge is power.” They illustrate the power of civilized man to subdue his savage fellow. For ages have a few thousand Spanish merchants been enabled to hold one-third of the native inhabitants in direct and absolute slavery; while more than another third has acknowledged their sway by the payment of tribute. The remaining fraction consists of wild tribes, who, too remote from the seat of commerce and power to make them an object of conquest, still retain their barbarian independence.

But it has ever been the policy of Spain to shut up her colonies from the intrusion of foreign enterprise—the policy of all nations who retrograde, or are hastening toward decay. This is the true reason why so little has been written about the Philippines and their inhabitants, many of whose customs are both strange and interesting. Perhaps not the least singular of these is that which forms the subject of our sketch—_Comer el Buyo_ (Chewing the Buyo).

The buyo is a thing composed of three ingredients—the leaf of the buyo-palm, a sea-shell which is a species of periwinkle, and a root similar in properties to the _betel_ of India. It is prepared thus: the leaves of the palm, from which it has its name, are collected at a certain season, cut into parallelograms, and spread upon a board or table with the inner cuticle removed. Upon this the powdered root and the shell, also pulverized, are spread in a somewhat thick layer. The shell of itself is a strong alkali, and forms a chief ingredient in the mixture. After having been exposed for some time to the sun, the buyo-leaf is rolled inwardly, so as to inclose the other substances, and is thus formed into a regular cartridge, somewhat resembling a cheroot. Thus prepared, the buyo is ready for use—that is, to be eaten.

In order that it may be carried conveniently in the pocket, it is packed in small cases formed out of the leaves of another species of the palm-tree. Each of these cases contains a dozen cartridges of the buyo.

Buyo-eating is a habit which must be cultivated before it becomes agreeable. To the stranger, the taste of the buyo is about as pleasant as tobacco to him who chews it for the first time; and although it is not followed by the terrible sickness that accompanies the latter operation, it is sure to excoriate the tongue of the rash tyro, and leave his mouth and throat almost skinless. Having once undergone this fearful matriculation, he feels ever afterward a craving to return to the indulgence, and the appetite is soon confirmed.

In Manilla every one smokes, every one chews buyo—man, woman, and child, Indian or Spaniard. Strangers who arrive there, though repudiating the habit for awhile, soon take to it, and become the most confirmed buyo-eaters in the place. Two acquaintances meet upon the _paseo_, and stop to exchange their salutations. One pulls out his _cigarrero_, and says: “Quiere a fumar?” (“Will you smoke?”) The other draws forth the ever-ready buyo-case, and with equal politeness offers a roll of the buyos. The commodities are exchanged, each helping himself to a cartridge and a cigarrito. A flint and steel are speedily produced, the cigars are lit, and each takes a bite of buyo, while the conversation is all the while proceeding. Thus three distinct operations are performed by the same individual at the same time—eating, smoking, and talking! The juice arising from the buyo in eating is of a strong red color, resembling blood. This circumstance reminds us of an anecdote which is, I believe, well authenticated, but at least is universally believed by the people of Manilla. Some years ago a ship from Spain arrived in the port of Manilla. Among the passengers was a young doctor from Madrid, who had gone out to the Philippines with the design of settling in the colony, and pushing his fortune by means of his profession. On the morning after he had landed, our doctor sallied forth for a walk on the paseo. He had not proceeded far when his attention was attracted to a young girl, a native, who was walking a few paces ahead of him. He observed that every now and then the girl stooped her head toward the pavement, which was straightway spotted with blood! Alarmed on the girl’s account, our doctor walked rapidly after her, observing that she still continued to expectorate blood at intervals as she went. Before he could come up with her, the girl had reached her home—a humble cottage in the suburbs—into which she entered. The doctor followed close upon her heels; and summoning her father and mother, directed them to send immediately for the priest, as their daughter had not many hours to live.

The distracted parents, having learned the profession of their visitor, immediately acceded to his request. The child was put to bed in extreme affright, having been told what was about to befall her. The nearest _padré_ was brought, and every thing was arranged to smooth the journey of her soul through the passes of purgatory. The doctor plied his skill to the utmost; but in vain. In less than twenty-four hours the girl was dead!

As up to that time the young Indian had always enjoyed excellent health, the doctor’s prognostication was regarded as an evidence of great and mysterious skill. The fame of it soon spread through Manilla, and in a few hours the newly-arrived physician was beleaguered with patients, and in a fair way of accumulating a fortune. In the midst of all this some one had the curiosity to ask the doctor how he could possibly have predicted the death of the girl, seeing that she had been in perfect health a few hours before. “Predict it!” replied the doctor—“why, sir, I saw her spit blood enough to have killed her half a dozen times.”

“Blood! How did you know it was blood?”

“How? From the color. How else!”

“But every one spits red in Manilla!”

The doctor, who had already observed this fact, and was laboring under some uneasiness in regard to it, refused to make any further concessions at the time; but he had said enough to elucidate the mystery. The thing soon spread throughout the city; and it became clear to every one that what the new _medico_ had taken for blood, was nothing else than the red juice of the buyo, and that the poor girl had died from the fear of death caused by his prediction!

His patients now fled from him as speedily as they had congregated; and to avoid the ridicule that awaited him, as well as the indignation of the friends of the deceased girl, our doctor was fain to escape from Manilla, and return to Spain in the same ship that had brought him out.

SKETCH OF SUWAROW.