Our Correspondence. New York.
My dear Editor,—I am sending to you the New York Echo—our local Organ for Secret Societies. It will be, I believe, of special interest to you that our President, as representing the opinions of our Society, is taking a very prominent part with the Republicans of the Italian Colony in this our country in inaugurating a monument to Mazzini.
The ceremony of the unveiling will take place on May 29th in Central Park, and a copy of the various documents regarding this function will be sent to you. The Commission would like me to make an address in the Russian language; but with all the love and admiration that I avow for Mazzini I have had to refuse. I detest making a show of myself, feeling myself more fit to live in the forests of India among tigers and serpents than among persons in white gloves and swallow-tailed coats.
I have been informed that the Italian journal Fanfulla has censured the Italians of America forming part of this Commission, declaring them to be a lot of communists and individuals of the worst reputation. This is an infamous lie. They are republicans in heart, soul and body, and when the name of the Italian Consul general, de Luca, was proposed for unanimity, it was hissed. That must be attributed partly to the fact that he represents a monarchial Government, to which Mazzini has never subjected himself; but principally it is due to the reason that the said Consul was principally interested in the nefarious traffic of importing Italian boys and selling them to a veritable slavery to players of German organs that made them die of hunger and by the cudgel, making those poor creatures sleep chained one to the other! Our brother H. C. Monachesi, a member of our Society, an American of Italian origin, who belongs to this Commission, was one of the most active in overthrowing the above-mentioned traffic, and has been several times on the verge of being killed by persons hired by the Consul. The president told me that all the associates were in agreement with the opinion of Mr. Monachesi concerning Consul de Luca.
The Mazzini Commission is presided over by Dr. G. Ceccarini and all the other members are highly respectable. It is a true infamy on the part of Consul de Luca to spread such a calumny, and for no other reason than spite. As a Theosophist you are asked to communicate this to all those who hate falsehood and calumny, and, if possible, to insert these facts in as many Italian newspapers as you can, for which I have sent you The Echo. There is no time to lose: act.
Blavatsky.