120 HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. "And what did den sickness about this time, if he apprehends | it not the price of the cock ?" an arrant rogue 25 On the same occasion we were speaking The man recovered, and in due time appeared laughed at him; they thought he was in joke. Our worthy Jew now walks up to the Rabbi, [From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.] YOU I. YOU have heard the ancient story, For the fated Golden Fleece; With the smiting of their oars ;- gale! II. From the southward came a rumor, And the old Hellenic strand, Of a black and bearded Jew! III. And the rumor, winged by Ate, In his high Olympian hall, But detested by the small; ears, With divers sapient plenipos, like Minto and his No peers. IV. With his fist the proud dictator Smote the table that it rang- The blood-red wine upsprang! On the meanest of my men? they can not fight? MONTHLY RECORD OF CURRENT EVENTS. THE HE NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE will drew a colored parallel between the necessities present monthly a digest of all Foreign of the 18th Brumaire, and those of the present Events, Incidents, and Opinions, that may seem to crisis, and entered into a labored vindication of have either interest or value for the great body of all the arbitrary measures which followed BONAAmerican readers. Domestic intelligence reach- PARTE's dissolution of the Assembly, and his es every one so much sooner through the Daily usurpation of the executive power. The most and Weekly Newspapers, that its repetition in high-handed expedients were resorted to by the the pages of a Monthly would be dull and profit- ministry to assure the success of the coalition. + less. We shall confine our summary, therefore, The sale of all the principal democratic journals to the events and movements of foreign lands. in the streets was interdicted. The legal prosecutions of the Procureur General virtually reestablished the censorship of the Press. Placards in favor of the democratic candidate were excluded from the street walls, while those of his opponent were every where emblazoned. Electoral meetings were prohibited; democratic merchants and shop-keepers were threatened with a loss of patronage; and the whole republican party was officially denounced as a horde of imbeciles, and knaves, and fanatics. No means were left unemployed by the reactionists to secure a victory. It was all in vain. On closing the polls the vote stood thus: EUGENE SUE ..... SUE's majority............. 128,007 119,420 8,587 And, what is still more startling, four-fifths of all the votes given by the Army were cast for SUE. The result created a good deal of alarm in Paris. Stocks fell, and there seemed to be a general apprehension of an outbreak. If any such event occurs, however, it will be through the instigation of the Government. Finding himself outvoted, LOUIS NAPOLEON would undoubtedly be willing to try force. In any event, we do not believe it will be found possible to overthrow Republicanism in France. The AFFAIRS OF FRANCE continue to excite general interest. The election of member of the Assembly in Paris has been the great European event of the month. The Socialists nominated EUGENE SUE; their opponents, M. LECLERC. The first is known to all the world as a literary man of great talent, personally a profligate wealthy, unprincipled, and unscrupulous. The latter was a tradesman, distinguished for nothing but having fought and lost a son at the barricades, and entirely unqualified for the post for which he had been put in nomination. The contest was thus not so much a struggle between the men, as the parties they represented; and those parties were not simply Socialists and Anti-Socialists. Each party included more than its name would imply. The Socialists in Paris are all Republicans: it suits the purposes of the Government to consider all Republicans as Socialists, inasmuch as it gives them an admirable opportunity to make war upon Republicanism, while they seem only to be resisting Socialism. In this adroit and dangerous manner LOUIS NAPOLEON was advancing with rapid strides toward that absolutism-that personal domination independent of the Constitution, which is the evident aim of all his efforts and all his hopes. He had gone on exercising the most high-handed despotism, and violating the most explicit and sacred guarantees of the Constitution. He had forbidden public meetings, suppressed public papers, and outraged private rights, with the most wanton disregard of those provisions of the Constitution by which they are expressly guaranteed. The nomination of EUGENE SUE was a declaration of hostility to this unconstitutional dynasty. He was supported not only by the Socialists proper, but by all citizens who were in favor of maintaining the Republic with its constitutional guarantees. The issue was thus between a Republic and a Monarchy, between the Constitution and a Revolution. For days previous to the election this issue was broadly marked, and distinctly recog-regiments at Algiers. nized by all the leading royalist journals, and the Republic was attacked with all the power Appalling Calamity befell this regiment. When of argument and ridicule. Repressive laws, and a stronger form of government, which should bridle the fierce democracy, were clamorously demanded. The very day before the polls were opened, the Napoleon journal, which derives its chief inspiration from the President, Previous to the election there was a Mutiny in the 11th Infantry. On the march of the 2d battalion from Rennes to Toulon, on the 11th April, the popular cry was raised by the common soldiers, urged on by the democrats of the town, and they insulted their officers. At Angers the men were entertained at a fête; and in the evening the soldiers and subaltern officers, accompanied by their entertainers, paraded the streets, shouting again and again, “Vive la République démocratique et sociale!" The Minister of War, on receiving intelligence of this affair, ordered the battalion to be disbanded, and the subalterns and soldiers drafted into the Besides this disgrace, an involuntary and the 3d battalion was leaving Angers, on the 16th, at eleven o'clock in the morning they met a squadron of hussars coming from Nantes, which crossed over the suspension-bridge of the Basse Maine, without any accident. A fearful storm raged at the time. The last of the horses had scarcely crossed the bridge than the head | ernment, having been condemned for a murder of the column of the third battalion of the 11th under extraordinary circumstances. He was appeared on the other side. Reiterated warn- arrested in 1830, at Chambery, his native town, ings were given to the troops to break into sec- for being concerned in a murder; but he escaped tions, as is usually done, but, the rain falling from the prison of Bonneville, where he was conheavily, it was disregarded, and they advanced fined, and by means of a disguise succeeded in in close column. The head of the battalion reaching the town of Chene Tonnex, where he had reached the opposite side-the pioneers, the went to an inn which was full of travelers drummers, and a part of the band were off the There being no vacant beds, the innkeeper albridge, when a horrible crash was heard; the lowed him to sleep in a room with a cattlecast-iron columns of the right bank suddenly dealer, named Claude Duret. The unfortunate gave way, crushing beneath them the rear of the cattle-dealer was found dead in the morning, he fourth company, which, with the flank company, having been smothered with the mattress on had not stepped upon the bridge. To describe which he had slept. He had a large sum of the frightful spectacle, and the cries of despair money with him, which was stolen, and this, as which were raised, is impossible. The whole well as his papers, had, no doubt, been taken by town rushed to the spot to give assistance. In Louis Pellet, who had disappeared. Judicial spite of the storm, all the boats that could be inquiries ensued, and the result was that Louis got at were launched to pick up the soldiers in Pellet, already known to have committed a the river, and a great number who were cling- murder, was condemned, par contumace, to ten ing to the parapets of the bridge, or who were years' imprisonment at the galleys by the senate afloat by their knapsacks, were immediately got of Chambery. In the mean time Louis Pellet, out. The greater number were, however, found profiting by the papers of the unfortunate Claude to be wounded by the bayonets, or by the frag- Duret, contrived to reach Paris, when he opened ments of the bridge falling on them. As the a shop, where he organized a foreign legion for soldiers were got out, they were led into the Algeria, enrolled himself under the name of his houses adjoining, and every assistance given. victim, and sailed for Oran in a government A young lieutenant, M. Loup, rendered himself vessel. From this time up to 1834 all trace of conspicuous for his heroic exertions; and a him was lost. He came to Paris, took a house, young workwoman, at the imminent danger of amassed a large sum of money, and it turns out her life, jumped into the water, and saved the he was mixed up with a number of cases of life of an officer who was just sinking. A jour- murder, swindling, and forgery. These facts neyman hatter stripped and jumped into the came to the knowledge of the police, owing to river, and, by his strength and skill in swim- Pellet having been taken before the Correctional ming, saved a great many lives. One of the Police for a trifling offense, when he appealed soldiers who had reached the shore unhurt, im- against the punishment of confinement for five mediately stripped, and swam to the assistance days. The French government immediately of his comrades. The lieutenant-colonel, an old sent an account of the arrest of this great crimofficer of the empire, was taken out of the river inal to the consul of the government of Savoy seriously wounded, but remained to watch over resident at Paris. the rescue of his comrades. It appears that some people of the town were walking on the bridge at the time of the accident, for among the bodies found were those of a servant-maid and two children. When the muster-roll was called, it was found that there were 219 soldiers missing, whose fate was unknown. There were, besides, 33 bodies lying in the hospital, and 30 wounded men; 70 more bodies were found during the morning, 4 of whom were officers. M. Proudhon was arrested on the 18th, and sent to the fortress of Doullens, for having charged the ministry in his own paper, the "Voix du Peuple," with having occasioned the disaster of Angers by sending the 11th Regiment of Light Infantry to Africa. In a letter from prison he acquitted the government of design in producing the catastrophe, but in a tone which hinted the possibility of so diabolical a crime having been meditated. A Notorious Murderer has been arrested in France, whose mysterious and criminal career would afford the materials for a romance. He was taken at Ivry, in virtue of a writ granted by the President, on the demand of the Sardinian gov | Political movements in ENGLAND are not without interest and importance, although nothing startling has occurred. The birth of another Prince, christened ARTHUR, has furnished another occasion for evincing the attachment of the English people to their sovereign. The event, which occurred on the 28th of April, was celebrated by the usual demonstrations of popular joy. Few years will elapse, however, before each of the princes and princesses, whose advent is now so warmly welcomed, will require a splendid and expensive establishment, which will add still more to the burdens of taxation which already press, with overwhelming weight, upon the great mass of the English people. Thus it is that every thing in that country, however fortunate and welcome it may appear, tends irresistibly to an increase of popular burdens which infallibly give birth to popular discontents. The attention of Parliament has been attracted of late, in an unusual degree, to the intellectual wants of the humbler classes, and to the removal, by legislation, of some of the many restrictions which now deprive them of all access even to the most ordinary sources of information. Even newspapers, which in this country go into the hands of every man, woman, and child who can read, and which therefore enable every member of the community to keep himself informed concerning all matters of interest to him as a citizen, are virtually prohibited to the poorer classes in England by the various duties which are imposed upon them, and which raise the price so high as to be beyond their reach. Mr. GIBSON, in the House of Commons, brought forward resolutions, on the 16th of April, to abolish what he justly styled these Taxes on Knowledge: they proposed 1st, to repeal the excise duty only on paper; 2d, to abolish the stamp, and 3d, the advertisement duty on newspapers; 4th, to do away with the customs duty on foreign books. In urging these measures Mr. GIBSON said, that the sacrifice of the small excise duty on paper yearly, would lead to the employment of 40,000 people in London alone. The suppression of Chambers' Miscellany, and the prevented re-issue of Mr. Charles Knight's Penny Cyclopædia, from the pressure of the duty, were cited as gross instances of the check those duties impose on the diffusion of knowledge. Mr. GIBSON did not propose to alter the postal part of the newspaper stamp duties; all the duty paid for postage-a very large proportion-would therefore still be paid. He dwelt on the unjust Excise caprices which permit this privilege to humorous and scientific weekly periodicals, but deny it to the avowed "news" columns of the daily press. He especially showed by extracts from a heap of unstamped newspapers, that great evil is committed on the poorest reading classes, by denying them that useful fact and true exposition which would be the best antidote to the pernicious principles now disseminated among them by the cheap, unstamped press. There is no reason but this duty, which only gives £350,000 per annum, why the poor man should not have his penny and even his halfpenny newspaper, to give him the leading facts and the important ideas of the passing time. The tax on advertisements checks information, fines poverty, mulcts charity, depresses literature, and impedes every species of mental activity, to realize £150,000 per annum. That mischievous tax on knowledge, the duty on foreign books, is imposed for the sake of no more than £8000 a year! Mr. GIBSON Concluded by expressing his firm conviction, that unless these taxes were removed, and the progress of knowledge by that and every other possible means facilitated, evils most terrible would arise in the future-a not unfit retribution for the gross impolicy of the legislature. He was supported by Mr. ROEBUCK, but the motion was negatived, 190 to 89. In his speech he instanced a curious specimen of the manner in which the act is sometimes evaded. A Greenock publisher himself informed him that, having given offense to the authorities by some political reflections in a weekly unstamped newspaper of his of the character of Chambers's Journal, he was prosecuted for violation of the Stamp Act, and fined for each of five numbers £25. Thereupon he diligently studied the Act; and finding that printing upon cloth was not within the prohibition, he set to work and printed his journal upon cloth—giving matter "savoring of intelligence" without the penny stamp-and calling his paper the Greenock Newscloth, sent it forth despite the Solicitor to the Stamp Office. The The Education Bill introduced by Mr. Fox came up on the 17th, and was discussed at some length. The general character of the measure proposed, is very forcibly set forth in an article from the Examiner, which will be found upon a preceding page of this Magazine. bill was opposed mainly by Lord Arundel, a Catholic, on the ground that it made no provision for religious education, and secular education he denounced as essentially atheistic. Mr. ROEBUCK advocated the bill in an able and eloquent speech, urging the propriety of education as a means of preventing crime. He asked for the education of the people, and he asked it upon the lowest ground. As a mere matter of policy, the state ought to educate the people; and why did he say so? Lord Ashley had been useful in his generation in getting up Ragged Schools. It was a great imputation upon the kingdom that such schools were needed. Why were they needed? Because of the vice which was swarming in all our great cities. "We pass laws," said he, "send forth an army of judges and barristers to administer them, erect prisons and place aloft gibbets to enforce them; but religious bigotry prevents the chance of our controlling the evil at the source, by so teaching the people as to prevent the crimes we strive to punish." It was because he believed that prevention was better than cure; it was because he believed that the business of government was to prevent crime in every possible way rather than to punish it after its commission, that he asked the house to divest themselves of all that prejudice and bigotry which was at the bottom of the opposition to this measure. The bill was warmly opposed, however, and its further consideration was postponed until the 20th of May. The ministry during the month has been defeated upon several measures, though upon none of very great importance. In the first week of the meeting of parliament after the Easter holidays, the cabinet had to endure, in the House of Commons, three defeats-two positive, and one comparative; and, shortly after, a fourth. On a motion, having for its object improvement in the status and accommodation of assistant-surgeons on board Her Majesty's ships, ministers were placed in a minority equal to eight votes. On the measure for extending the jurisdiction of county courts, to which they were not disposed to agree, they voted with a minority, which numbered 67 against 144 votes. These were the positive defeats; the comparative one arose out of a motion to abolish the window-tax. Against this the cabinet made some effort, but its supporters only mustered |