Italy.
* Rome. The Roman paper *Il Contemporaneo* offers some reflections on the Slav Congress, the final fate of which it naturally did not yet know.
“The Slavs,” it says, “are doing what we Italian races fail to do. May our princes
not overlook what the Slavs are doing without their princes, and that if
the Italians, on the contrary, set their hopes on their governments, they
will not have to repent of their magnanimity one day. Repentance will be
followed by the desire to make amends.
That Slav Congress not only inflicts a deep wound on the Austrian empire,
but also destroys the old dream of the Russian emperor, who imagined he
would become the head of the Slav race and in this way gain a deeper foothold
in Europe. Russia, however, is reinforcing its armies on the frontiers! Would
this not be the moment for the great nationalities, the French, German and
Italian, to unite in brotherhood and put an end for ever to northern barbarism!
If this does not happen, may the whole responsibility fall upon the
authors of the prolongation of the war in Italy! Austria is no
longer the Austrian empire; the war in Italy is being waged by Austrian
generals on behalf of a decaying dynasty, and not of the Austrian people, still
less of the German people. … Let us have a common enemy, and a shared duty
calls us to other battlefields!”

– Naples, June 22. General Ribotti has placed himself at the head of the Calabrians. His appeal to the latter runs: “Calabrians! Here
you see the Sicilian heroes whom I bring to you. The kiss of love and
brotherhood unites us. Mighty phalanxes, at whose head the banner of Italian
freedom flutters, we shall hasten everywhere that the hirelings of the common
tyrant are still lodged. At the mere sight of us they will lower their arms, or,
if ill counsel should cause them to enter into a conflict with us, our courage
will tear from the base Bourbon his last support. Calabrians! The hour of your
deliverance has struck. Italy looks to you and is ready to inscribe your deeds
on the tablets of history. Your name will pass on to posterity and will link
itself with the ideas of vengeance for the downtrodden rights of a people and
with the memory of a throne reduced to dust.”
From a second proclamation of the same general we borrow the following passages:
“Calabrian-Sicilian soldiers! At last we are united under one and
the same banner. We are the avengers of so many barbarous
and so long-endured abuses. We are the champions of
the most sacred human right, freedom. While the north of Italy stands
in arms to drive the common oppressor from the land, the infamous one who
calls himself our monarch, and whose heart and soul have been trained
in all the infamies of the Austrian cabinet, is striving to support that very
cause which, thanks to Italian bravery, is close to its ruin.
Yes, the hellish arts of the Bourbon even surpassed the
precepts of that iniquitous school of despotism. To deceive
you, he promised to join the holy crusade. To
this end, with perfidious boastfulness, he raised armed men and ordered
the commanders to delay the marches as much as possible, while secretly
he assisted the Austrians with gold and other means and,
in concert with the other pillars of tyranny, ordered Ancona to be reduced to ruins.
In order to make Sicily and her sons odious to you,
he proclaimed that the Sicilians, with their declaration of independence, wished
to separate from you, and, while the interest of Italy presses
for union, to sow the spirit of discord. To this base
accusation Sicily did not reply, because it had no need to excuse itself before the
tyrant. But if anyone doubted Sicily’s intentions, well then, here we are
as counter-proof. All Europe now looks upon us who are here united
to tear a sceptre from the bloodstained hand, a crown from the crime-laden
brow, etc.”
Paul Versace, an official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has been entrusted with an extraordinary mission, and has left for Switzerland. It is conjectured that the mission concerns the contract between the Diet and the local government regarding the Swiss regiments.
Our fears regarding measures against the press have been only
too thoroughly confirmed. The papers *Il Telegrafo* and *Il Mondo Vecchio*
were, on the orders of the Procurator-General at the High Criminal Court, suspended
and committed for trial. *) Only – what a pity! the High Criminal Court has dismissed
every charge against the aforesaid papers. It is perhaps already known to you what kind of circular the present Minister Bozzelli has issued to all the intendants of the kingdom regarding the elections. He urges them to use
every means so that only people who are devoted to the sovereign with all
their soul are elected. The circular says, among other things:
“I do not prescribe any norm for your possible exertions; on the contrary, I leave
this difficult task entirely and completely to your discretion. For the result
you will be responsible both before your own conscience and before
the King’s government. I merely wish you to
employ, as much as possible, all indirect or unofficial means, e.g.
appealing to the religiosity of the bishops and their parishioners, to the
conservative views and aims of the most upright and influential citizens ...”
This circular outraged the Intendant of Aquila. He promptly published the following protest:
“Protest of the Intendant.” “This language is nothing new among us.
We recognise in it the author of a policy that is the main cause
of our sufferings. For it sows in the heart of every righteous person
the suspicion that the Statute is nothing more than a sham fight, our
freedoms a lie, our regeneration a political phantasmagoria. The
fact in contradiction with the ideas, the idea in contradiction with the
facts! That is the programme of a state power that is as dishonest and immoral
as it is weak and corrupting. … It has not grasped that the triumph of force over
public opinion is transient, and that the security of constitutional
governments rests on the consent of the people. ...” The Intendant of Aquila, who is going over to the insurgents and is now taking an active part in the movement in the provinces, speaks in this and in far sharper terms.

*) To experience such pleasantries, one need not live in Naples, under His Bombarding Majesty. There is no doubt about that.