The Express.
London, England, 1867-05-17 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, MAY 17, 1867.

ITALY.

(FROM OCR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)
FLORENCE. MAY 13.

Amid the universal rejoicing at the news of the
signing of the treaty which is to regulate the
Luxemburg trouble in peaceful guise, the Nazione
publishes this morning a few words conceived in a
spirit of such admirable good sense and good taste,
that I cannot refrain from citing them.

We have been among the first(s►ys the Nazione) to rejoice
at the admission of Italy to the London Conference, and we
have not been niggardly of praise to the ministry, whose
enviable lot it has been to associate its name with this
incident, so honourable to our country. But certain
journals, either misled by excess of national self•love, or
by some less worthy sentiment, have taken • delight in
exaggerating by every sort of rhetorical artifice the
influence of Italy, and of the part which it is
possible for her to have had in winning the happy victory
for the cause of peace which has been won at London. We
do not think that by boasting and declamation the true
dignity of the country can be profited. Italy, in showing
herself so exceedingly flattered at sitting among the great
powers, has the air of one of these enriched plebeians who
can hardly realise the delightful foot that they are sitting
at the same table with dukes and marquises of ancient
race. The influence of Italy in the great event which has
rejoiced us all can have been but small. Her merit must
have been limited to abstaining from taking side with the
passions of either of the contending parties, and to having
given her voice with modesty and impartiality to the
cause of justice and truth. . . . It is impossible for us
to pretend to govern European events. Let us content
ourselves with taking that modest part to which our
newlyborn power entitles us. By this mode alone, avoid-
ing all presumptuous interference, we shall obtain in the
councils of diplomacy consideration and authority, and
shall come to be wished for and sought by all as an element
of order, of justice, and of accord between the different
governments.

Nothing could be better said.
I was not wrong in my expectations of the re-
ception that would be accorded to the speech and
plane of the new Finance Minister. The accounts
from the different parts of the country are very
good. The upward movement of the funds, as I
predicted, has been most marked. Of course the
coinciding news of the signing of the treaty at
London has contributed in some measure to this
effect. But it is unmistakable that the whole of
the rise is not due to that cause. The accounts
from Naples are very good. And even the project
of the corn-grinding tax, which might have been
expected to meet with especial resistance in that
part of the country, does not seem to have excited
any marked disapprobation. A certain degree
of uneasiness was expressed there, as, in-
deed, it has been elsewhere in Italy, and here
also, at the obscurity which hangs over the
minister's plans for the management of the church
property, and for the obtaining from that source
the six hundred millions which are needed for the
filling of the deficit up to the end of the present
year. Is the ecclesiastical property to be sold out
and out ? If so, who is to have the selling of it ?
To whom is to belong the capital of the value of
the property beyond the sum of the six hundred
millions 1 For a sufficient answer to all these
doubts we must wait till we have the text of the
proposed law to be presented to the chamber
before us. It is supposed by some that the inten-
tion of the minister is to leave the fee-simple of the
property in the hands of the clergy. And the
phrase used by him in his address to the chamber,
in which lie spoke of giving to the measure " the
simple character of an impost," has been supposed
to favour such an interpretation of his intentions.
No clear notions, however, on the mode in which
this part of the financial plan is to be carried out
are to be obtained from the speech of Signor
Ferrara. I trust that it may not be part
of his intention to leave the fee-simple of
the church lands to the clergy ; for such a policy
would be very likely to cause the rejection of him
and his plans. At the time when Signor Scialeja's
plan was under discussion, I told the readers of the
Express, in contradiction to the opinion ex-
pressed by moat other English journals on the sub-
ject, that the provisions made by it with reference
to the ecclesiastical property, and not the tax on
grinding corn, or any other, however unpopular, pro-
visions of the scheme, would be fatal to it ; and
the result showed that I was correct in my opinion.
And now I say the same thing again; the stumbling-
block, if stumbling-block there is to be, in the way
of Signor Ferrara's measure, will be the provisions
for the disposal of the ecclesiastical property. lam
inclined to believe, however, that &proposal simply
to leave the church in possession of the fee-simple
of the lands, subject to the payment
of 600 millions to the state, and subject
also to proviiing for the pensions for life to the
members of the suppressed religious bodies, would
meet with a less uncompromising resistance than
the Langrand-Dumonceau scheme. For men
would feel that the property would still be there—
that it would always be competent to the nation to
take possession of it—that it would be always
time to do hereafter more conveniently what
might be attended with mischievous consequences to
insist on doing now.
A few days ago—on Wednesday last—l was
present in the magnificent villa built by Luca Pitti
for his country-house, when he erected the Palazzo
Pitti for his city residence, at the wedding breakfast
of an English subject with one of the loveliest, per-
haps the loveliest, of the marriageable girls in the ca-
pital of Italy—dove non ne muneano. Mr. Gustavus
Oppenheim had thatmorning married at the English
Embassy, and before the civil authorities, Eugenia,
the eldest daughter of Signor Sebastian Fenzi, the
second surviving son of the senator and well-known
banker of Florence, Emanuele Fenzi. The Pope
utterly refused to allow any catholic marriage to
be performed in Italy. With difficulty permission
bad been obtained for the marriage to be performed
according to the catholic rite out of Italy ; and
the newly-married couple, man and wife, as far as
the law of Italy could make them so, had to start
by rail shortly after the marriage breakfast, toge-
ther with parents and friends, for Lugano, there
to perpetrate the scandal which Papal propriety
could not see done on the sacred soil of Italy. His
Holiness, however, did not succeed in throwing
any cloud over the numerous and merry party as-
sembled to wish joy to the young couple. We had
no catholic priest to bless the meat ; but the Rev.
Mr. Tottenham, the chaplain to the Legation, re-
presented the cloth, apparently to the perfect sa-
tisfaction of all parties.

Tnis FENIAN Consiess.—A memorial, signed
by some 90 members of the House of Commons, repre-
senting all shades of paitics and all parts of these islands,
was transmitted yesterday to the Marquis of Abercorn,
who is at present in London. The prayer of the memorial
is, that his excellency may be pleased to extend the mercy
of the erown to those persons now under sentence of
'leash in Ireland for high treason, so far as to spare their
lives.

eintbertiftp inteittgenct.

CAMBRIDGE, MAT 16.
At a congregation this day the undermentioned
defgewere conferred :
ir —Charles Kirkby Robinson, Master of St. Catha-
rine's College.
M.A.—Frederic Win. Henry Myers, John Turnbull,
Arthur Woodham Nash, and Win. Henry Robinson Bevan,
Trinity College ; Henry Hollingsworth, King's College ;
Richard Price, Spencer Walters, Thomas Archbold, Tho-
mas Green, and Charles Herbert Burrows, St. John's Col.
loge; John Hey, Clare College; James Hill and Robert ,
James Pearce, Cahn College ; Peter Nettleton Leakey,
Corpus Christi College; Win. Boyd Carpenter, Thomas
Charles Halbert. William Henry Peers, and Leonard
Robirt Burrows, St. Catharine's College ; Janie, Grant
Peterkin and Thomas Conway Steward, Emmanuel Col-
lege ; Walter Joseph Sendall, Christ's College ; and C.
Stead Hope, Sidney College.
LL.M.—Henry &TWA, Trinity College.
The degree upon Mr. Burrows was conferred by special
in his absence, he being resident at Paumsben,
Lcralra. At the same congregation graces passed the
senate :—To confer the Honorary Degree of Doctor of
Laws upon Mr. Ruskin; to confirm the report of the
Syndicate recommending the establishment of a pro-
fessorship of Sanskrit at a salary of iOOl. per annum;
to confirm the report of the Syndicate recommending
the continuation of the Non-Gremial Examina-
tion of Girls; to appoint Mr. Vice-Chancellor - Dr.
lookson, Master of St. Peter's ; Protestors fiwlinscat
and Liveing ; Messrs. E. H. Perowne, Corpus;; Bonney,
Bt. John's ; Prescott, Corpus ; Markby, Trinity ; and
Browne, of St. Catharines, a syndicate to consider of the
acceptance of the prize proffered through the Rev. Mr.
Johns, with* view to the improvement of clerical elocu-
tion ; to appoint Hr. Browne, Sr. Catharine'', of the
University Press Syndicate ; to appoint Professor Liveing
and Mr. Osmond Fisher, of Jesus College, Examiners for the
Sedgwick Prize ; to allow Mr. Lumby, Magdalen, and Mr.
Briulshaw, King's, the ass of certain manuscripts from the
library.
OXFORD, KAT 16.

In a convocation holden this afternoon, at 2
o'clock, the proposal that the Rev. Edward Kedington
Bennet, M.A., of University College, be permitted to coin-
mute from that degree to the degree of 8.C.L., and to pro-
ceed forthwith to D.C.L., met with the approval of the
house. In the same convocation the name of John Stainer,
Musical Doctor, Magdalen College, who has been nominated
by the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors to the office of Ex-
aminer in Music, was submitted to the house and approved
of. At the same time the name of Francis Compton,
D.C.L., All Souls' College, who has been nominated to
the office of Examiner in Civil Law, was submitted sad ap-
proved.