"Of Italian democracies and young Italy's sorrows, of extraneous
Austrian Emperors in Milan, or poor old chimerical Popes in Bologna,
I know nothing, and desire to know nothing; but this other thing I do
know, and can here declare publicly to be a fact, which fact all of
us that have occasion to comment on Mr. Mazzini and his affairs may do
well to take along with us, as a thing leading towards new clearness,
and not towards new additional darkness, regarding him and them.
"Whether the extraneous Austrian Emperor and miserable old chimera
of a Pope shall maintain themselves in Italy, or be obliged to decamp
from Italy, is not a question in the least vital to Englishmen. But
it is a question vital to us that sealed letters in an English
post-office be, as we all fancied they were, respected as things
sacred; that opening of men's letters, a practice near of kin to
picking men's pockets, and to other still viler and far fataler forms
of scoundrelism be not resorted to in England, except in cases of the
very last extremity. When some new gunpowder plot may be in the
wind, some double-dyed high treason, or imminent national wreck not
avoidable otherwise, then let us open letters--not till then.
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