The Express.
London, England, 1859-09-03 00:00:00

LONDON. SdruaDaz SEPT. 3.

rim Independence of Central Italy is not yet
" oat of the wood." We are not cancel aed about a
hare-lwaissed Massinian fanatic or two, caught here
and there doing Austrian duty work in the name of
" Gon and the People," or about the creeping and
gnawing mischief of the clerical vermin who sneak
out of their confessionals at night to ply their dark
and deadly trade of treason and subornation ; but
we refer to the reported movements of the mongrel
myrmidons of Cardinal AtiTOvELLI, who his for
weeks past been congenially busied ;ri collecting the
scam of disbanded mercenaries, and the dregs of
cosmopolitan rascaldom, the *coatings of the gaols and
the sweepings of the hulks, with the express =jest
of drowning the infant liberties of the Legations in •
torrent of tire and blood. We hear of the General
listilEntltTTEN vulture's name') sessatifing at
Anwa• • motley horde of discharged Swim
hirelings from Naples, of Austrians disguised in
Papal uniform and other miscellaneous sad
nondescript elements of medieval savagery,
wherewithal to repeat on a larger scale
those magnificent performances' of Perugia from
which civilised Kurope has not yet recovered. The
nineteenth century Sr. PETER may not don the
shirt of mail and scale the city breach like a
t it's 11., nor may he press the hand of let enemy
with • Boaots ring and a BORGIA smile; but he
combines the fighting fierceness of the soldier and the
catlike stealth of the poisoner I'ope in nicely ad-
justed negative proportions of ferocity against the
weak and fawning to the strong. He is just too
modern to put his sword up in the sheath, or to
trust to legions of angels for support ; but in the
recesses of his palace he weeps and prays piteously
for the return of his misguided childrea to
fatherly embrace, whilst his body-guard are away
on a glorious mission of murder and rapine, desolat-
ing der/smelt's homes, massacring women and
children, earning the wages of infamy In a =evict
from which banditti would shrink in very shame,
winning pensions, medals, and decorations at the
hands of that Holy Father whose horror of blood-
shed constrained him to take no part as an Italian
Prince in a national war. Such is the peculiarity of
this mild and tender-hearted Priest's pontifical
career ! Every step of this good, easy man's bene-
volent religion is paved with professions of loving-
kindness, and slippery with the blood he hes
caused or suffered to be wantonly shed in his name.
He is a living type of the cruelty of =Antis and
the ‘iolencs of vanity in • narrow mature and a
tickle heart. We know not if the stones of Perugia
be dry, or if the echoes of shrieking women have
died away, when we hear of fetes given by the
General who planned the massacre and by the
otfiiers who executed it, in celebration of their ex-
ploits. We hear that Cardinal ANTONELLI is never
weary of declaring his exalted admiration of an
example so precious to the Catholic world and to
the Holy See. In these dap, when among the
privileged three millions who support the temporal
fabric of the Papacy men are actually daring to
assert their right to a tolerable administration of
secular affairs, and in default of Legates' law are
even taking the law into their own hands, the sack
of Perugia almost deeerves to take its place on the
wall of the Basilicas immediately after the Stations
of the Cram. People who babble about the Vicar of
Christ and the primitive Church, have not yet'
learned the alphabet of the grand ecclesiastical
theory of Development.
The ifunitore of Bologna cont►ined a quasi-official
announcement some days ago that no sggresaion was
contemplated by the Papal Government on the Lega-
tions. If any each assurance had been received from
persons within earshot of the Court of Rome, we
should more earnestly than ever urge upon our
Bo:ogna friend, the instant necessity of measures to
resist attack. The manoeuvres of the Papal com-
mander at Ancona combined no doubt with the
Austrian prot&es of Tuscany and Modena, point
to a desperate and decisive straggle, in which
law, order, and patriotism will be ranked on
the one side, against a sanguinary lust of ven-
geance and all the fury of deposed and defeated
tyranny on the other. We will not doubt the issue,
for I. not GAILIbALDI in the front of the national
army?
The position of the Liberator of Italy it must be
confessed, in regard to this Roman question, is
extremely del icateand difficult, and beset with anoaa•
hes which are not the lees scandalous because they
wen inevitable. The Roman expedition projected=
false pretences, the prolonged occupation, unattended
with • single concession to the just and moderate
demands of the protesting Sovereign on behalf of the
pepelatton which has the disastrous honour agreeing
re the scapegoat of Catholicity : all this double deal-
ing, this profound e.quetry, this elaborate mystitka.
two, which has tickled Awroptul for the last ten
years, results at last in Colossi Srustor's diver-
ses at Perugia, and the concentration of General
‘TIEN*4 rooms at Ancona.
The Emperor of the Fn rsr It in his double capacity
of protector of the Pore and liberator of Italy,
holds the Roman provinces in check, in order that
the butchers who wear the Carlow. of his HOLINESS
may be fres to carry bares ►eyond the Apennines,
and to bring tsck the stray sheep to Peter's fold in
their benignant and apoatolical arms. At Rouse.
meanwhile, the young men who rushed to the
standard of the army of indepenetenes at the sum-
mons of the EneLlon, and who have bees graciously
permitted to wars home since the peace, ere treated
by a paternal government as naughty selhosi-
boys caught out of bounds, and are Teem-
mended to keep in.dnors after dark, and to do
penance far a misguided patriotism under the
considerate supervision of the Pontifical police,
The Dec us GRAMMY.NT from time to time hand, in
his little bill which ANTONSLLI, with habitual good
humour, is ever ready to renew, and equally deter-
mined never to pay. So much for the farce of
the Roman question. But the tragedy is not far
off: and we cannot forget that the picturesque Beppo
and the fanny Gocosse, the ANTONELLI and the
Kstithateirras of the Ores' Comique, who fell
oo their knees at the " Hyma to the Virgin," seep
mumbling an Are over a stiletto.
Let no, however, make allowances fee the oat-
raged feelings of an Asiosem.i. Let us try to