The Express.
London, England, 1852-12-23 00:00:00

EXECUTION OF ITALIAN LIBERALS BY

AUSTRIA,

LUGANO, Dec. 16.
You will have received through the medium of the
Italian papers accounts of the recent executions
in Lombardy. Bat hitherto, I think, none of those
papers have reported what appears in private corre-
spondence from Mantua—that the Priest Tazzoli
was whipped twelve times during his trial, and that
by such means they vainly tried to extract from him,
as well as from filcareellim and the other three who
were executed with them, confessions and revela-
tions against themselves and others—that a few in-
coherent words, pronounced in the agony of pain,
seem to have been extorted by the inhuman judges
from the rest, or from some of the other five who
bad their sentences commuted, and those words were
the only foundation on which were rested both the
accusation and the sentences. On this foundation
solely were the accused declared guilty, and self-
convicted. Another fact in this most atrocious
drama, which reminds one of the barbarity
of the middle ages, and goes indeed beyond it,
is, that the other political prisoners were
carried before the presiding judges, and interro-
gated, at the moment of the execution of the other
victims, and within hewing of what was going on,
in the hope that thus, under the appalling impres-
sion of the fate of their brothers, answers might be
more easily obtained in conformity with the blood-
thirsty vengeance which stirs these imperial
savages. Other particulars are contained in the fol-
lowing article, copied from a Turin paper which pro-
bably does not reach London. I have not the heart
to relate one by one all the horrors and enormities of
which Austria now makes Lombardy again the scene.
It is the gauntlet thrown by the persecutors to the
oppressed. A terrible defiance. But woe, if the op-
pressed shall arise to take up the challenge all bloody
with the assassination of their brethren ! I cannot
tell you what I have suffered from this news from
Mantua—a suffering embittered by the personal ac-
quaintance I had with Scarsellini. Poor young fel-
low, he was the type of patriotism and of courage ;
his life was held precious in Venice, where he was
universally beloved by the people—and in all Italy,
to which he would readily have devoted it in the
field of battle; instead of this it was taken from him
by the imperial hangman. But our youth will learn
more than erer not to hesitate too long between one
fate and the other, and in order not to fall martyrs
they will become the soldiers of their country and of
liberty. This fruit we shall gather from the terror
with which Austria presumes to prostrate us.
(From the Gaudin del Popolo.)
We have rellatcdffiow on the 7th instant, in Lombardy, in
the town of Manta.. from five gallows erected by Austria,
were hanging five patriots—ltalians executed after the
most shocking tortures in defiance of all humrnity, by
means of • newly-invented halter—invented by the fertile
ingenuity of Austrian janisearies—which prolongs the strug-
Ilse and agony of those unhappy victims of enraged de-
spotism.
Now we think it well to add some further particulars.
Twenty days had sufficed for the Austrian councils of
war to collect proofs, documents, and witnesses. Some
spy was summand to declare on oath, " In the name of
the Holy Trinity, I swear I recognise him (the prisoner)
es possessor of such and such subversive papers." Thole
11 thus charged answered, " Yon fratricide, you lie in your
throat.- The Director of the Cowell then wrote at the

head of the process, " The culprits hays confeued
,"
the sentence was published on the 4th of &timber agsinq
ten SI guilty, being both convicted of and confessing high
treason. All ten were condemned to death. but the
paternal feelings of Marshal Itadetsky were moved at „,
much slaughter, and for this time ho sati•tied his a,e
tense of justice with the hanging of only five.
The five sentenced were all of good and respeetsb:e fen:.
lies. The sentence was signed by a certain Charles Brn
de Culos, who, having been spared by the emity el the
Venetians in March, 1311, with restored in safetto k,
fugitive troops after a few days' imprisonment. abs.T
the Croats remember benefits. What a 1040 a to the
Italians !

The scene of martyrdom was in the Fort 1321fiore, near
the place where, a year ego, the priest Utioli fell. As the
condemned reached the spot, they embraced each other,
and impressed a last kiss on their foreheads,xitying calin:r
tt We @hall soon meet in II ." Tanoli then knelt'
and holding a eracifix, addressed a last prayer to God, awl
words of peace and hope to those who had generously ac-
companied these victims. Ile encouraged hi. erompastiont
to be firm, was the first to unmet the seaffa:al, and, at the
foot of the ladder, he answered to the monk who was (flier:.
ing him not to despair yet of the imperial particle, e
quick ; far better to die on the gallows than to be pardosted
by Austria." The lent executed was Dr. Pima.
The mother of one of the condemned went out of her
mind ou the horrible announcement—the father of another
attempted suicide.
Tezzoli will formerly Profersor of Belles Lettres, awl
afterwards of Philosophy, in the Mantuan .etninary. Be
was of bright intellect, mild and charitable, lie wrote with
much elegance both the Latin and Italian languages; this is
proved by various comp° itions which he published, and
whose chief merit is great (eating and love. Ile we. the
very soul of the infant schools in both the town and pro.
vino. of Mantua—lo belorged to a very rich fae-ily. was
most liberal of his means to the poor, and was esteemed and
beloved by hie fellow-citizens.
There was no publication of the trial, which was carried
on with clewed door', and before judges who do not under-
stand—who rather misendentand the Italian languege—
while the perdition of the tried is already plotted through
false depositions. The judges proclaim that the accused
have confessed—after their death—whi-n the se..ret of that
infamous process rotted between tic judges and God. To,
victims are dragged in the flawer of tie it youth and hole
to the scaffold yet warm with the blood of the Priest
Orioli, of Selma, of Dottrel°, and of other unfortunate
brave ones, strangled by the hand of their eze-
cetioner, utter having embraced their own rela-
tions introduced to the chap. I of the condemned
probably far the very purpose of rest, ring their last mo-
ments more agonising. Such, Oh Italians are the tries,
the judgments, and sentences of Austria—that Austria
whom our opponents preach up to us ill newspapers oat
from the pulpit as a modal of provident and honourable
governments. Thus is requited iu the country beyond the
Ticino the love fur our oppressed country, and the look of
sccrn towards those • ho oppress her.
More than two hundred and forty families of Venetian
Lombardy see now pending over the head of 1.01110 dearene
the fate of .he first ten victims of imperial veettrence. A
most refined barbarity, which, rather than leave the mind
in doubt, prefers to give a taste, an earnest of the way in
which the other prisoners would obtain justice, in ceder to
reassure the truly rights Us who dreaded the too great e.o.
mency of the chivalrous Emperor.
At the head of the military tribunals stands Benedtk, the
assassin of Gallicia—backed by a Bolea, nephew of that en-
mated Botha who was spared by the no rey of the Milanese
in 18111—anti the Commissary Rossi, who holds at once the
offices of both accuser and judge!
We must °beery° that in this trial a most important part
was acted by Casatti, who was formerly employed in the
house of correction at ?Santee, and dismissed Irma his post
in PM, onthc imputation of being an wenn plies with the
prisoners in coining, and of malversation in tee adrninkra-
tion of that establishment. Casatti had now the clime of
gaoler, and directed the proceedings to which the coaxed
were subjected even in their cells.
The Emperor (grandson of that Francis L who was
pleased to force the wife of Frederic tionfalunieri to drain
to the dregs the cep of grief), through fear le.t the execu-
tion should be delayed sent as xpecial courier to Verona an
aide-dc-cam to see that his orders were fulfilled to the lit-
, ter. This Emperor is a youth in his twentieth year, and
even before he reached that age had already ordered the
shooting of hundreds of Magyars and of the unhappy
Count Bathyany. But there is ie., thing that these slanetters
teach us, that the scales in which the Almighty weighs the
lot of oppressed peoples overflow with blood.
Italians! be nut discouraged, the assassination of the
Duke of Alba opened the way to the neLpeoduare of
Flanders.

A letter from Turin, of the 17th, states that the
city of Turin had resolved upon the construction of a
commercial dock, for the convenience of the railway.
The Sardinian government had contracted fur the
construction of a screw frigate in England. for the
sum of 2,214,000 fr. It was M. Cavour who, daring
his journey to Scotland, signed the contract with a
shipbuilder at Newcastle.
The court commenced on the 16th the Christmas
Novena. It was an old tradition, which had bun
suffered to fall into disuse, but the two Queens
(Austrian princesses) insisted on its re-establishment,
and every morning they set the example by visiting
the cathedral.