The Express.
London, England, 1853-03-09 00:00:00

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) 'ORRESPON DENTS.

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LqNDON, WEDNESDAY. MARCH 9.

Tile decree of the Austrian Government, which
sequestrates the property of the Lombard nobles
Dow in exile, appears to some of our contemporaries
to be en act of singular impolicy and injustice. We I
admit its injustice and its impolicy, but we can see in
it nothing singular, or out of the usual course of ,
Austrian administration in Italy: On the contrary,
it seems to be only in keeping with all the ruthless
sod whites promediegs which have taken place in
that unfortunate country during the last three sears.
The only difference appears to be, that Counts LITTA
and 0.1:COME0 are persons of old family and large
fortune, while the crowd of previous victims have
been citiaens and students of the middle ranks of
society, or persons whose education and circumstances
render them still more deplorably helpless as out-
casts in a foreign land.
The friends of reaction and allies of foreign
Absolutism in this country have not only looked on
unmoved while thousands of generous and devoted
men have been driven from their homes and forced
to seek here a refuge from death—but they have
omitted no opportunity in Parliament and in the
press of outraging the feelings of these defenceless
ta,,ritives and of parading their sympathy with the
triumph of their persecutor& As every movement
towards liberty in Isis was the object of unceasing
ridicule and invective, so each succeeding act of
Royal perfidy, whereby the concessions then extorted
were gradually resumed and the broken fetters of the
people rivetted anew, were palliated and approved
by our oligarchy and their organs as proofs of return-
ing wisdom and security. To what extent the lan-
guage thus publicly held in England by politicians
and journalists may have contributed to encourage the
crowned conspirators of Europe in their crusade against
freedom, it is difficult to say. But assuredly the
language to which we have referred has been well
calculated to serve such a purpose. Nor, with
hardly an exception, has its tone been varied to the
present hour. In the House of Peers, no phrase
.more decent or more deliberative than that of assas-
sin is applied by our philo-Austrian legislators to the
men whom the cruelties of Ranrrzsior have bewil-
dered aud misled. It was but the other night that
Lord LYNDIII:IIsT questioned the Government as to
its readiness to turn spy and detective in aid of
that of Vienna. And on a subsequent evening Lord
NALYEAII'ItY manifested his impatience to learn
whether there was any truth in the report that MAZ-
wit had been permitted to take refuge on board an
English ship in the Gulf of Genoa. The
noble ex-Secretary for Foreign Affairs did not
attempt to conceal his disappointment and vexation,
if i: should turn out to be true, that the fugitive
chief of the democratic party had not been left to his
fate on terra, irma. The Minister could only declare
that he had as vet received no information on the
subject, and the humane ex-Secretary will, therefore,
hare the pleasure of renewing his manly and gener-
ous question on a future day.
The Times, however, is greatly scandalised, be-
cause certain noblemen of Lombardy, suspected of
sympathy for Italian nationalism, and for the eman-
cipation of their country from the brutual yoke of
the foreign soldiery, are now included in the indis!
criminate proscription and plunder which the ven-
geance of the eeinet of Vienna has ordained. Far
be it from us to slight the sufferings, or
trifle with the wrongs, of the aristocratic
Liberals in question. We stop not to ask, for
we care not to know, what inadverteneies of

langungsr they may have been betrayed into with
reference to the misery and degradation of their
country. Since the failure of the Milen insurrec-
tion of 1848, Counts Dna and BORROMEO, with
several others of' similar rank and fortune, have been
but too glad to live in peace and comparative safety
in Piedmont. Their properties remained unseques-
trated, and it is possible that, in the intercourse
they must have maintained with their families
and connexions in their native province, some casual
expression may have been detected through the glass
lid of the Post-office, which, unexplained and tangos,
lilted, may have sufficed to give a colour of provoca-
tion to this new outburst of tyrannical resentment.
Condemned unheard, and even unaccuscd before any
legal tribunal, the unfortunate persons alluded to are
precisely in the same position as the family of Oa-
LEANS, whose private property, by a similar act,
was last year confiscated by the Emperor of the
FRENCH. And as on that occasion, so also now, our
contemporary, who had month after month stimulated
and encouraged the counsels of the counter-revolution,
and treated with indifference the political sufferings
of crowds of low degree, is seized with a paroxysm
of indignation because afe individuals of high blood
and princely fortune have had their ancient caskets
rifled by the spoiler.
To us it is a matter of no importance what the
social rank of the victim in any case may be. Our
abhorrence of the system which condemns men in
their absence, upon real or pretended evidence
which it dares not to produce, and which if
produced it would not suffer to be questioned
or rebutted on behalf of the accused, is equally
intense, whether the absent victim be al
merchant of Milan, a professor of blantua, or a
proprietor of domains on the shores of the Lsgo
Maggiore. But after all there is a difference be-
tw.re property and life. The objects of the new 1
confiscation are, for the preient at least, in the en-
joyment of personal safety. But who is safe within
the iron frontier of Austrian Italy? Who knows
—that will dare to tell—how many innocent, or
but passively compromised, persons of humble sta-
tion, have perished on the scaffold within tho last
three weeks under the sentences of drum-head courts
martial It is easy to talk indignantly of tho as-,1
sassioation of sentries in the confusion of an abortive
insurrection. But who will affix the proper epithet
to the torturings and executions by authority which'
we chronicled not long ago in these columns? Or
who, that has the happiness to live in a land of se-
curity and freedom, will venture to measure nicely
the degree of exasperation and despair with which
such scenes must fill the breasts of those who have
witnessed and survived them? The true test by
which all just and generous men will
i try the conduct
of the Italian people and their leaders s this—how
bog should we continue loyal or submissive under
such rule? We glory in the memory of our own re-
sistance to kingly power, but what were the suffer-
ings of our forefathers in 1641 or what their appre-
hensions in 1688 compared with the blinding and
blighting oppression under which Northern Italy
wntlies at the present day?
To seek to cast the odium on MAZZINI of having
drawn down the late decree of confiscation on the
noble Lombard families, who are now refugees in
Piedmont, is wholly vain. If in reality they were
ignorant of the meditated outbreak, or un-
to:cremated by approval in the design, it
is manifest that no palliation can be found
for the Pillage to which they are doomed
in anything that may have occurred recently at
Milan or elsewhere. And if, upon the other hood,
there should, irs any instance, be a semblance of truth
in the allegation put forth by ItaDetzsur, to the
effect that these aristocratic exiles were aware of the
revolt intended, and had aided in its preparation,
lien what becomes of the shower of :legislative and
:t vary missiles directed against the poor and friend-
s_ men who, at a distance of a thousand miles
their bleeding country, would thereby appear
to have only fallen into the same error regarding its
readiness for revolt, which men of property and in-
telligence committed living close to its frontier ?

Trft
Hit %TER; ALMalltit'sES.—The Drapers' Com-
te 4„. yhave ensued to he erected two wings to their alms-
situate in King Henry's-road, Ball's-pond. The
d now presents a pleasing appearance, and will
rublitional seeommoda, ion for IS poor members. It
WI be ready for occupation in the cosine of the present
Ifttb. 'I be society of bookbinders, whose almshouses are
Whisted at the same locality, have, throat)]. the liberality
of thew subscritars, been enabled to add one wing, afford-
°l mom for eight poor persons.