The Express.
London, England, 1863-09-15 00:00:00

ITALI.

TURIN, Rwr. 14.

The Provincial Council of Ravenna has promoted
an address to Prince Carignan, thanking him for
having honoured the inauguration of the Ravenna
Railway with his presence.

timid, and careful to keep aloof from any sort of
connexion with the insurrectionary movement. The
other three individuals who were executed, were
common murderers.
Not many days since the bead of the pompon
department was stabbed in the streets in broad day-
light, but only badly wounded. This man was deter-
mined to find out at all risks how the insurgents
obtained passports, which enabled them to pass
from Ws.reaw to Cracow. He resorted to the
desperate measure of repairing to an insurgent
camp, where he remained a week, feigning the
most bitter hatred of the Russian government. By
his conspicuous bravery he was so completely taken
into the confidence of the insurgents that he wormed
all their secrets out of them, and at the end of the
week was missed. His return to Warsaw was im-
mediately followed by the arrest of numerous in-
fluential persons, and, his guilt being established,
sentence of death was passed on him by the judi-
cial tribunal of the National Government. Neg-
lecting the notice which was served on him to fly
within twenty-four hours, he underwent his M-
I
tepee- last week, but, owing to the clumsiness of the
executlboer, he may recover from the wound.
Before condemning annunination nod* any ciroure.
stances, it should be borne in mind that it is the
I only possible means the Poles can resort to of
saving some hundreds of their countrymen from a
lingering death in Russian prisons, and that no
person is assassinated by order of the National
Government without receiving at least twenty-four
hours' notice of sentence of death passed upon him.
Saturday being the one day in the week on
which their friends are permitted to furnish the
prisoners with a few luxuries to eke out the in-
sufkient supply of nauseous food which is pro-
vided by the prison authorities, the gates of the
citadel are on that day besieged by an anxious
crowd. I, too, repaired to the citadel at the
appointed time, and I suppose was the only indi-
vidual who had no business there. Though there
were not half-a-dozen men amongst them, the de-
fenceless crowd of women was kept back by a line
of soldiers with fixed bayonets, and no one was
allowed to approach within fifty yards of the gates.
In the crowd are women of all ranks, from the
elegantly dressed lady of fashion down to the poor
Jewess and the peasant's wife, forgetful now of all
differences in their common misfortune. None
oome empty-handed, and you may see delicate
ladies dragging about heavy baskets, filled with
all kinds of provisions, making it • duty to
deliver them with their own hands to the sol-
diery appointed to receive them. Let us look into
this basket. It contains a leg of mutton, two or
three pounds of bacon, a couple of small cheeses,
several leaves of bread, and three bottles of beer.
How much of all this will reach the paisoner i If
be gets a bottle of beer, a lost of bread and a cheese,
he will be in. luck, for the baskethas to pees through
many hands, and none will let it pass without lay.
ing an embargo on the contents. Don't suppose he
will get even his one loaf of bread as it came from the
baker. It must be first cut up to see that a letter
has not been baked up in it, and the cheese will be
submitted to the same investigation. Not even
an apple or an orange reaches the prisoner whole,
fur fear they should contain treasonable correspond-
ence. It isa melancholy sight to see the poor women
stretching out their arms in supplication, and to
hear them clamouring for tidings of husband,
father, and brother. Look at this poor mother,
clasping her babe convulsively to her breast and
sobbing her heart out bemuse she can get no
answer from yonder soldier. What does he know
of or care for her husband I perhaps he is dead, or,
still worse, sent to a living death in Siberia. In
either case she is free to get another father for her
child, for Siberians have no wives.

A few of the more favoured have got leave to
send a few lines of writing with the baskets of pro-
visions, and sitting on the grass or on the railings
which line the roadside, are spending the last
minutes in scrawling tender messages in pencil,
using their baskets as writing desks.

" Make way, there," shouts a coachman, whom
by his low crowned beaver, shaped like an inverted
cone, and his close fitting garb, like a ladies' riding-
habit cut short, you recognize to be a Russian
domestic servant, and the crowd of women—all in
black—flies asunder, and the sentinels present
arms, while the carriage of a general officer rolls
over the drawbridge into the citadel. And now
another equipage drives up with a very different
freight, a pale delicate lady in deep mourning. She,
too, would drive over the drawbridge, but the
officer on duty rudely orders her coachman to back
his horses, before hearing what the lady has to say.
She holds a permission in her hand to visit her
husband in the citadel. It isn't time yet, she may
return in two hours, replies the officer. " Panie
lask►wy" (kind sir) begins the lady in a suppli-
cating tone, but the officer turns away before she
can finish her sentence. And now a couple of
dust-begrimed Cossacks ride up, probably return-
ing from a reconnaissance in the country. Their
wild uncouth mien, combined with the long
lance, and musket slung carelessly over the shoulder,
give them far more the air of children of the desert
than of troops forming part of a regular army.
Threading their way through the black crowd, they
pass into the citadel, and are soon lost in the maze