NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 13050, 15 December 1905, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

AN AMAZING CAREER.

Mr. Swkkxey, formerly of Scotland Yard, wrote a volume of " Reminiscences," in which he described a certain Luigi Parmeggiani, a London dealer in works of art, as having been a dangerous Anarchist, and hinted that his art collections had been; dishonestly come by. In an action for libel against Mr. Sweeney, which occupied Mr. Justice Ridley and a special jury for four days, the first charge was proved up to the hilt, the latter was not maintained, and the jury gave the plaintiff a farthing damages. The Daily Telegraph says : — There would have been some sympathy for Luigi Parmeggiani had he emerged from the ordeal of cross-examination with hands even moderately clean. - But, instead of that, he was revealed in the most odious colours as having been for some years a dangerous Anarchist, and as being brutally unchivalrous and callous to a cast-off mistress. The career of this man, who is now an art expert and a connoissuer of all things rich and rare,' is simply amazing. Born in Italy, he first appears as a shoemaker at Cannes, where he induced the wife of a. neighbour to live with him. Then he migrated to Genoa and Lyons, where the woman's dressmaking seems to have been the chief support of the menage. Paris was his next home, where his .Anarchism brought him under the notice of the police, and he was expelled. For he kept dynamite in his rooms, was the bosom friend of Pini, and an acquaintance of Ravachol, and was suspected of having had a hand in some of the explosions which startled Paris in 1887. France having by this time become far too hot to hold him, Parmeggiani fled, and found a natural refuge in London, where he and another man started an Anarchist newspaper, which advocated the use of explosives, and gave directions how to store them. He sold photographs of ' Pini, the martyr,' was an associate of the ruffian who blew himself up in Greenwich Park, was the correspondent of an Anarchist paper in Paris, and also eked out a precarious living by selling foreign cheese and sausages in Soho and doing a little shoemaking. All this time Parmeggiani was living in penury with the woman who had linked her fortunes with his in Genoa; but then came a marvellous, Aladdin-like change. He obtained employment with a, firm of London art dealers, named Marcy, ingratiated himself with the principal and his family, and suddenly the violent shoemaking and sausage-selling Anarchist became transformed into the highlyrespectable . connoisseur of high art, in charge of a remarkable collection in Bedford Square, and dealing in wonderful treasures commanding fancy prices. The contrast was quite beyond the range of the Scotland Yard inspector, who prosaically thought that Parmeggiani must be a ' fence,' and the treasures stolen. He was quite wrong, however; Parmeggiani had been admitted to partnership by Marcy's widow, and the clever Italian emerged like a brilliant butterfly from the purlieus of Soho. Naturally, he changed his name, and took that of his benefactors. And, only too happy to have done with the past, he deserted his old mistress, refused her any support, and completely spoilt what little chance he had with a British jury by foully blackening the name of his ' companion in misfortune,' whose hairs are now gray. It is *.s we have said, a pretty career, and the finale is superb. The cobble; Anarchist, who wad to write furious articles for wild journals, which the British Museum modestly hides away, now expatiates to wealthy patrons on the ' marks of genuine crackle, ' the perfect blueness of ' bits . of

blue;' and the Correggiosity of C&rreggio'. We repeat that it is ho wonder that* British Mr. Sweeney did not understand. vAnother thing this trial has done has been to lift a earner of 'the veil which hides from '.. the casual ; glance the inner life of the foreign refugees 1 in Soho. ;'" It is not a, pleasant glimpse. V Soho is evidently 'the plottinggrouiid of many a dark deed. But we,also see that Scotland Yard keeps a good eye on these gentry, and never lets them \ get : far out of sight. : They are rarely molested, but they are* well shepherded, and, what is more, v they know it!" "!,..'.

THE ■ FLEET IN NELSON'S TIME. :■ ,In a long and interesting article in the London Times on the personnel of the fleet in 1805, the writer says: —The officers were of, various dispositions and professional qualities. There were captains like Trou- : bridge, whom St. Vincent described as "the ablest adviser and best executive officer in the.-British navy, with honour and courage bright as his sword." Not every officer, it is true, was a paragon, as readers of St. Vincent's biting letters may be aware. Some had been trained in a hard school, and could not forget the sternness of their youth* There were a few addicted to pleasure; and in their hands discipline would decay. We read, some months after Trafalgar, that the wardroom' of the Barfleur was reported to be " a scene of licentiousness: and profligacy." : But officers of these classes were the exception, and the vast majority in Nelson's time were men of strong and earnest qualities. As to; the men, though, when the press was hot after stragglers, and leave-breakers all kinds of fish got swept into the net it was for the officers to decide what should be retained. When the press ..took place in Torbay in May, 1803, men weie discharged to the shore as unfit who were shipwrights, sailmakers, fishmongers, coal factors, grocers, coopers, watchmakers, ostlers, waggoners, labourers, and such like, and Cornwallis even discharged some fishermen who had previously been pronounced fit. On the other hand, some months after Trafalgar, St. Vincent was horrified to view 45 of the most filthy creatures ever embarked coming on board his flagship, and said there must be something radically wrong -in the Salvador del Mundo at Plymouth, "originating in that animal Dilkes." Their skins were coated* 5 with dirt, and he was the more alarmed,because there were already 80 on the sick list " before the receipt of this germ of disease." Pestilence was the great scourge which all admirals and captains most dreaded, and although without doubt they strove to suppress it on grounds of humanity, they rightly insisted in their official letters upon the grave danger to which it subjected the fleet. Nelson; who never spared! his ships when a proper object was to be gained, jealously husbanded' his means, and allowed no detail to escape him. " You will agree with me," he wrote to Dr. Moseley, "that.it is easier for an officer to keep men healthy than for a physician to cure them." The fleet had been without a friendly port in which all things necessary could be procured, but, by changing his cruising ground, he did not allow " the sameness of prospect to satiate the mind—sometimes by looking at Toulon, Villefranche, Barcelona, and Rosas then running round Minorca, Marjorca, Sardinia, and Corsica." He would anchor for a few days, and was always careful to have onions on board as a reputed anti-scorbutic. He procured good mutton for the sick, cattle whenever he could get them, and plenty of fresh water. He added to his letter " Our men's minds are always kept up ' with the daily hopes of meeting the enemy." Thus the great Admiral had in view both the physical and mental health of his ships' companies. It is known that amusements were provided on board the ships, and that many officers took an interest in arranging entertainments. ~ Collingwood always kept this in mind, and had written' a few years before that his wits were ever at work to keep his people employed, both for health's sake and to Gave them from mischief-.