The Express.
London, England, 1853-01-13 00:00:00

ITALY.

The news of an augmentation of the Austrian
army in Italy is confirmed. Orders have been issued
to provide for the accommodation of soldiers, and,
more than elsewhere, in the provinces of Milan and
Como.

The correspondent of the Opinions writes from
Milan, that Radetzky had ordered each of the various
lieutenant-governors to present him, within a week,
with a list of the two hundred most wealthy inha-
bitants of his province, together with a statement of
•their incomes. This strange kind of return has given
birth to a variety of conjectures, but nothing positive
can be ascertained.

?EARFUL CONDITION OF AUSTRIAN ITALY.
(From the Italia e Popolo.)

Bawls, Dsc. 28, 1862.
We are in a fearful state ; arrests continue, and
every person arrested has immediately to undergo an
examination, which generally takes place at night.
If he do not confess his love for his country he un-
dergoes the torture of repeated floggings. At the
very sight of the instruments of torture, some prefer
being condemned to irons or to death—for to Italian
minds the punishment of flogging is more horrible
and ignominious than any other penalty. Those
who do not flinch at the flogging are put to the
secrete, that is, are placed in a narrow, damp cell
underground, where daylight scarcely penetrates,
and where they are kept on the sparest diet of bread
and water. But no sooner are the bleeding cats,
made by the lash on their bodies, closed, than they
are again submitted to the same torture, and thus
they are taken from the rack to the 'secrete, and
from the secrete to the rack, until they con-
fess in the sense that their inquisitors desire.
No one, however bold in spirit and strong in body,
can resist the reasoning of Benedek's rod, for he
knows that the torture will cease only by confession,
or by an agonised death—and their ferocious judges
remind them of this at every moment. To confess or
to die in torture—no other alternative is left to these
unhappy men. And these confessions—good God!
—in what do they consist? In manifestations of
opinions and thoughts common to all Italians.
If the Emperor would condemn all who hate his
arbitrary rdle, and who wish for the independence
of Italy, he has only to put aside the few monsters
that he keeps on Ins register of confidants, and then
make ono dungeon of all Venetian Lombardy, and a
gallows of every tree.
Well does ho know this ; and despairing of ever
being able to inspire these people with, I will not
say love, but only tolerance, he seeks to at least inti.
initiate them by massacres, and leaves no means
untried to disable them materially, and render them
impotent for action. Can a rule established on this
basis be lasting ? • • It can have but a life of
agony, and render its own fall more bloody.
In my letter of the 23rd ult. I mentioned the per-
crisition practised in all the churches of La Vattel-
him, of Bergamo, and of Brescia, with the object of
detecting hidden arms. The measure, as I foresaw,
was made general throughout all Venetian Lom-
bardy. They assume nothing less than that they
will find a deposit of a hundred thousand muskets.
Under the same impulse, they have forbidden all
matinal ceremonies, as also the ringing of bells. The
striking of Lombard Venetian bells is a great antidote
to their slumbers. And what says the Pope to such
infraction of his ecclesiastical powers?