forth by their police agent in England having provoked but a shout of loathing against its hapless author, a
public manifesto became necessary; and here it is, hypocritical, crawling, cowardly, and false, as befits the
source from which it comes. It affects to treat Mr. Gladstone with respect, and to lament that he should
have taken for truth the mere invention of republican conspirators. It denies the correctness of the
alleged number of untried political prisoners now wasting out their lives in unwholesome dungeons, but
does not dare to deny the detention of a certain number of such prisoners without examination or charge,
and in defiance of every provision of the existing laws. It asserts that the judges who try these prisoners,
when any trial is vouchsafed them, are not servilely dependent upon the pleasure of the king, and that if they do
not condemn they do not therefore lose their livelihood; but it has not the effrontery to assert that such men
have not lost their livelihood when they consented to acquittals, though it affects to account for such removals
as the result of "neglect of duty." It does not attempt to deny that President Novarro, an attempt on
whose life formed part of one of the criminal charges, sat as judge to try that very charge; it silently admits
that the same Novarro compelled a particular judge to declare for a conviction under direct threats of
intimidation and removal; and the same post which brings the pamphlet to England, brings also intelligence
that the son of this Novarro has just obtained one of the most valuable appointments in the gift of the
crown as its testimony of appreciation for his father's services. It denies the filth of the dungeons, on the
faith of the wretches set over them; and it declares the untruth of Mr. Gladstone's assertion, about the
physicians finding the lower regions of these dungeons too foul and loathsome for it to be expected that
professional men should consent to earn bread by entering them, on no better authority than that it would
"insult the distinguished character of the physicians of Naples" to believe Mr. Gladstone! The double
irons it does not deny; the chaining educated men one to another in horrible cells, and keeping them so chained,
not only sleeping and waking, but in all the necessities to which bodily life is exposed; it leaves shamelessly
without contradiction. But it argues that men cast for death, whose lives have been spared by the clemency of
a king, cannot complain of any amount of "the severe rigour of the law" short of formal execution; and, for
support of this flunky reasoning by a parallel case which every Englishman may be able to estimate at its
worth, it has the incredible folly to assert that no more additional punishment was inflicted on these convicts
than the British government itself thought proper to direct against Mr. Smith O'Brien and his companions!
Finally, it is not denied that there exists, and has been circulated throughout the government establishments
and places of education, a catechism teaching falsehood upon system, and giving the sanction of moral laws
to deliberate perjury; it is not denied that this catechism was written by the person placed at the head of
Public instruction in the kingdom; but it is asserted that for its recent revival and circulation the
government cannot be held responsible, that being wholly a "private speculation!" Such is the character of
this official defence of the felon government of Europe. It does not touch, in any one passage, the real question
put in issue by Mr. Gladstone as to an open subversion of law in the political trials of Naples, and an outrageous
violation of decency and humanity in the punishments unrighteously awarded. The one case which was
taken by the English statesman as but the type of countless others, is left precisely where it was placed by
Mr. Gladstone. Even the journal which has been most disposed to regard Poerio's case unfavourably, has
at once admitted that the charges against the Neapolitan government, in connection with that statesman,
remain untouched by the present pamphlet—those charges being that this high-minded gentleman, who
had not long before served the crown in one of the most important offices of state, was arrested and confined
in filthy prisons for seven or eight months without information of the charge against him or of those
who made it; that he was first indicted on evidence so clearly forged that the perjurer stood convicted
even in the eyes of the Court; that he was then accused on testimony so full of manifest
contradictions and absurdities as absolutely to ruin the case for the prosecution in any impartial minds;
that he was not allowed the most simple means of establishing the false swearing of the witnesses against
him; that the director of the police himself had been seen in the prison soliciting the testimony of the prisoners,
and, as we have just remarked, that the President of the Court was one of the very persons against whom the
accused was said to have conspired. Such is the defence of King Bomba, now put forth by himself. It is,
perhaps, a waste of time to have noticed it even thus; but should any reader fall into the trap of thinking
that any more detailed attention should be paid to its affected particularity of statement in regard to sundry
minor incidents connected with the principal and damning charges, let him recal and consider the remarkable
and pregnant words employed by Mr. Gladstone in his first pamphlet. "I will not discuss the correctness
of my statements with those who alone are likely to impugn them, because I cannot do it on equal terms. First,
inasmuch as in Naples secrecy is the almost universal rule of the proceedings of government, and the perfect servitude
of the press cuts off the means of sifting controversial matter, and shuts the ordinary avenues of truth.
Secondly, because by entering upon such details would infallibly cause unjust suspicion to alight upon
individuals, and would thus at once give rise to further persecutions. Thirdly, and most of all, because I am so
entirely certain of the general accuracy of my statements, in the fearful pictures they present, and the general
result to which they lead, as to feel that they are beyond bonâ fide dispute." At this very moment there
are printing offices in Naples shut up, and some score of compositors in prison, for the offence of having
attempted simply to reprint the letters which the government has yet found itself thus compelled to attempt
to reply to!

From Naples to Ireland would be no very violent transition, if Dr. Cullen and Dr. M'Hale could but
order everything after their peculiar desires. But happily some check is placed upon them by what remains
of the Anglo-Saxon spirit among Irish Catholics themselves. From the first published reports of the
Queen's Colleges, which opened two years ago amid a storm of fiery abuse from the parties supposed to be
most powerful in Ireland, and which ever since have been steadily denounced by the men who are known to
represent most nearly the wishes and opinions of Rome, it is manifest that these colleges are succeeding. At
Belfast there are nearly two hundred matriculated students, at Cork more than a hundred and fifty, and,
making allowance for local circumstances, even the College at Galway shows a clear and decided progress.
In the case of the latter institution we should add that the Roman Catholic dean of residence, who had
testified during his first year's experience of the college to its happy effects on the faith and morals of the
students, was withdrawn by the usurped authority of his bishop (exerted to prostrate the lawful authority of the
legislature and the crown) before he could bear witness to similar results in the second year; and yet the
Roman Catholic students did not withdraw with him. They remained, and compensated by their excellent