VI. That a subscription be entered into in order to raise funds for the further propitiation of the said Magistrates in our favour, by bribing them additionally to persist in refusing licenses to any other individuals than ourselves.
SHAMEFUL INTIMIDATION OF AN OLD GENTLEMAN.
At the Westminster Police Office, in the course of an organ-grinding nuisance case, there was read, according to the reports, a threatening letter; which, as the following copy of it will show, was of a very dangerous character. It was stated to have been addressed to "an aged invalid gentleman;" who, we presume, had disobliged the writers by growling at them and sending them away:—
"Signor Russell,—You are one very great vicked ole man. You are one very rechted miserable man. Why you wil hart the pore horgan man that trys to get a honnest living, for you have plenty yourself money? Why you stop the poor horgan man to get a little money? You are a very ole feeble man, and cannot life much longer. When you die where will your guilty sole go to? You have no charity for the poor horgan man; what charity will God have for you in the next world? What mercy will he have for you? He will be as hard to you in the next world as you are to the poor man in this. You will go to purgatory and stop for ever and ever, if you do not repent of your vickidnys, you brown breeched, blue coated, brite button ole scarecrow; now, in conclusion, three or four of us true sons of Italy have sworn by the Holy Virgin to make of you rite over upon the top of your own dore-steps one fritefullest tomartyr.
"Sined,
"Antonio G.
"Guido R.
"Juan B."
The report further states that opposite the names were three daggers; but from the theological views apparent on the face of the document, we imagine that the daggers were merely the sort of index which his Eminence Cardinal Wiseman is in the habit of prefixing to his signature.
Mr. Broderip, we are told, read this letter, "which created much laughter." Of that convulsive affection, however, happily nobody died; so that the communication was simply dangerous—not actually fatal to the hearers. To the original recipient, however, it seems to have been productive of consequences seriously alarming, as it, "had put him into such a state of bodily fear that he was nearly dead."
We have read of people who saw their own ghosts; which rather frightened them. Signor Russell, perhaps, was in some degree terrified by his own phantom, raised by the Italian organ-grinders—the apparition of himself in brown breeches, blue coat, and brass buttons. However, besides being thus exhibited as an "old scarecrow" to his own eyes, he had cause for apprehension in one of the mysterious menaces addressed to him. The threat of perpetual Purgatory, a Protestant old gentleman might despise; but that of martyrdom by being made the frightfullest tomartyr upon the top of his own door steps, is a substantial horror. It is suggestive of an idea dreadful enough to make him tremble over his bit of fish, and shudder in the enjoyment of his mutton-chop—the idea of being pounded and crushed into a pulp, and ground by Popish organ-grinders to the consistence of tomartyr sauce.