The Express.
London, England, 1851-09-23 00:00:00

ITALY.

NAPLES, SEPT. 14.
As the Neapolitan government, at the present mo-
ment, is about defending its acts and policy in the
form of a reply to Mr. Gladstone, I will occupy the
present letter with a few facts (carefully notified)
which arc calculated to show the value of statements
emanating from such sources. It will be clearly
seen too, the King is alone responsible for such in-
human persecution and injustice as I am about to
narrate, since it were idle to suppose that the ad-
visers of the crown—the judges of the criminal
courts and the lower officers—could carry on a syste-
matic violation, not only of law, but of civilisation,
unless they were inspired to do so by tho highest
authority of the state.
The president of the grand criminal court, Novara,
who conducted the:illegal trial of Pocrio and his com-
panions, and is now playing the Judge Jeffreys with
the victim of royal vengeance, has been rewarded by
having his son appointed keeper of public records in
the Abruzzi; one of the most valuable gifts of the
crown. The same gentleman is also made a cavalier.
His Majesty thus rewards the violation of the courts
of justice.
After the publication of Mr. Gladstone's letters,
17 compositors were thrown into prison, and some
printing offices shut up, because it was supposed Mr.
Gladstone's revelations would be reprinted in Naples.
And yet the government is preparing an answer to
the very accusations which the public are not to read.
On a late occasion the Minister of Police, l'ecche-
neda, wrote to the sub-mayor of Melti (the scene of
the late earthquake) for information as to two gentle-
men whose political opinions were supposed to be
hostile to the government. These unhappy men bad
lost mother, wife, child—every relative, in the ruins
of their dwellings; and yet, with sueh an accumula-
tion of misery around them, they were arrested on
suspicion.
The government is now employed in confiscating
the property of absent members of the Neapolitan
parhament. I withhold the names only for the sales
of not injuring the relatives of the exiles. This
act, prohibited by the old law as well as the new,
is performed without any trial or regard to families,
whose ruin the government systematically contem-
plates.
Since Mr. Gladstone's letters have appeared none
but the near relatives of prisoners are allowed to
visit either the accused or the condemned. On a
late occasion an aunt took her niece to visit a pri-
soner confined in Santa Maria Apparente. The turn-
key said the young girl could not pass, but that she
might remain in his room. No sooner had the aunt
moved on than this scoundrel made improper ad-
vances to the unprotected girl, who, by violent
screaming, saved herself.
The governor of the Layne, at' Ischia (where Poerio
is chained in a cave below the level of the sea), livea
publicly with a mistress, and to this woman the
mother, the wife, the child must apply when they
visit the father and the husband. 1 he woman, it
appears, has so much influence over her innamorato
that she actually threatens the prisoners with
flogging. All this is known to the government—
probably known to Prince Luigi, who, as grand
admiral, has fall control over the island prisons; and
yet we hear so much about religion and morality in
high quarters.
M. Fortunate, the prime minister of his Sicilian
Majesty, is to defend all this.
The Neapolitan police press (and there is none
other) reprints Mr. Macfarlane's letter, the articles
from the Unirers, and the productions of one or two
other agents. So that here, where there is no free-
dom of the press, we find a license to abuse of the
most unlimited nature. Mr. Gladstone's crime is
' that of being an Englishman and a protestant.
Lord Palmerston figures in these prints like the
evil
.spirit of a ballet. He has only to wavo his
magic wand, and all sorts of disasters take place—

thrones tremble, and revolution jumps out of those
trap-doors with which it is supposed every political
stage is so plentifully provided. The terror of the
Neapolitan government can only be measured by its
dishonesty.
I must now turn to the affairs of the Roman
church. The good King Ferdinand is entering into
new arrangements with the "benevolent Pope."
i The church has prayed for certain powers, only a
few of which the King has granted, and that with a
liberal return. Pio Pono has given the pious Ferdi-
nand power to appoint his own Archbishop of Naj( :
instead of submitting, as formerly, three names for
the approval of his Holiness. The abbe is no longer
to be elected by his brother monks, but the King is
to appoint him, by which means his Majesty can re-
vise the political opinions of the congregations. In
fact, his Holiness has so much confidence in
him who has violated his oath to God and

' man, and persecuted thousands of his sub:
jects for believing in his sincerity, as to make
Ferdinand a little Pope in his own dominions. The
Jesuits call the King "Il prinangenito della elsiexa."
11 This good understanding, not with the Roman Ca-
tholic Church, but its enemy, the papacy, is part of
'the European policy of despotism at the present
moment, when perjured Kings and dishonest go-
vernments can only exist in strict alliance with the
very worst features of a corrupt church.
IYis Majesty has left Naples with a body of troops
for Melti, from which district we hear of fresh vol-
canic action having caused some damage on the Gth.