Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/69

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JOSEPH COWEN.
55

however, than he was seized by the police and put in prison. He was never tried, and never told his offence; but the contents of the well-filled purse with which he had started from England were weekly disbursed to pay his board for the space of a whole year. At the end of that time he was put on board a ship bound for London, and landed penniless.

Regarding the adventures, misadventures, and hairbreadth escapes of proscribed Poles, Italians, and Hungarians, Mr. Cowen has many a curious and pathetic tale to tell. He was the chief banker and general agent in this country of the European revolutionaries. Nearly all their more important correspondence passed through his hands on its way to and from the continent; and for long his commanding position as a British manufacturer and shipowner, doing business in all parts of Europe, effectually baffled the most vigilant espionage of the despotic powers.

Having seen the abode of the great Italian, we turned into Hyde Park, and under the shadow of Albert the Gilt conversed of current politics and Radical living politicians. He was very candid, and I remarked with interest how similar were his judgments of men and things to those which I could readily suppose Mazzini would have formed in similar circumstances. One able member of Parliament was an atheist to the backbone; and why such a one should be a Radical rather than a Tory, or why, indeed, being a wealthy man, he should care to trouble himself about politics at all, was a mystery to the member for Newcastle. Another was lacking in any thing like genuine sympathy for the people, and had fallen into the abyss of wire-pulling and political beadledom. All unconsciously he had become as