The Express.
London, England, 1857-12-30 00:00:00

TSB EAR.THQUALE IN NAPLES.

The Ojk-ial Journal of the 22nd says :—" The
mind shudders at the details of the calamities which
now absorb our attention, and so much the more that
they far exceed all that has yet been published. A
despatch from the Intendents of Salerno, who has
been to Polls, says that the number of bodies already
disinterred amounted to upwards of 2,000 in that
place alone, and that they were still taking them out.
After Pella, Pertosa, Atena, and Anletta suffered the
most. All these are entirely destroyed, excepting
Auletta, which is nearly so. Padilla and St. Pietro
come next, and then Sala, Diane, Sassano, Monte
Santo, Arsenio, and Sapri. The number of the dead
in these communes is 2,000. In the Basilicata,
we have the names of six places where houses
and churches had falllen, and people been killed;
the same misfortunes have befallen many places in
the Principerto Citeriore, as also in the province of
Bari. Canosa also has suffered deplorable losses of
property and life. In the provinces of Principato
Ulterior, of Abram Ulterior Secundo, of Capitanata,
Molise, and the three Calabria, es also in the dis-
trict of Taranto the earthquake was felt less violently,
and occasioned only slight damage to the houses and
the churches."

EXPRESS FROM PARIS.

ANOTHER EXTRAORDINARY CABE OF
PRIVATE VENGEANCE.
cram ova OWN COZZAMPONDII3II4

PARIS, TURSIM,T EVSNINO.
A remarkable instance of the length to which the
doctrine of private vengeance, sanctioned as it has
so often been by French juries, is likely to be carried
out in practice, has just occurred at Briey, in the
department of the Moeelle. The facts remind one
forcibly of the Jenfosse case. In the present instance
the person who set the example of taking the law
into his own hands was the mayor of the commune.
He, however, like Madame de Jeufosse, acted by
deputy. Instead of an old and faithful servant, Ms
own son, acting under his orders, laid in wait to tab
a fellow-creature'. life. The name of the mayor is
only indicated by an initial in the Droit, which
reports the case as follows :—" A young man named
Basset, alias Faufan, one day met Mdlle. P—,
the daughter of the Mayor of Al], walking In a
wood. He induced her to talk with him, made love
to her, and succeeded in obtaining a promise
of another meeting. The interviews, inno-
cent at first, went on till they wise
guilty. For three whole months the maples
daughter secretly received Basset in her bed-rasa
at night. His habit was to get over a low wall
which sepusted the mayor's garden from the street,
to use as a ladder the bars of the blinds of the
ground-floor windows, and thus to get to the
window-sill of the young lady's chamber on the
first-floor. Neither the mayor nor his family knew
anything of these clandestine meetings till two
cousins, of the female sex, ferreted out the affair,
and told M. P— of it. On the 22nd of December
last, just as the family was going to bed, M. P—
ordered his daughter to sleep on the ground•floor
instead of her own bed-room. In that bed-room he
placed her brother, his son—he put into his hand a
loaded double-barrelled gun, and told him to shoot a
man whom be would probably see getting in at
the window. The young man drew a chair
towards the window, sat down upon it, kept his
gun cocked in his hand, and remained ready to exe-
cute his father's orders. At a quartos past nine
o'clock be saw a man's head through the window.
Basset, as usual, was at the top of the first blind,
expecting to be let in. The mayor's eon rose from
his chair, went to the window, opened it, and fired
both his barrels at Barnet, who fell dead on the spot.
The mayor when the deed was done sent for the
gendarmerie to tell them of it, and he was
lost in astonishment when they said it was
their duty to arrest him on a charge of murder.
He bad doubtless read M. Berryer's speech at
Emu:, and drawn from the conclusion (which, the
premises being admitted, is entirely logical) that be-
cause the law excuses homicide upon the person of a
man found breaking into a house in the night time,
ea the ground that he must be presumed to cone
with the intention to rob or murder, therefore it is
justifiable to lie in wait to kill a particular
individual who is known to come secretly indeed,
bat with the sanction of one of the inmates of the
dwelling, and with no felonious intention. The
Mayor of Ail thought it a matter of course to avenge
his daughter's easy virtue by assassinating her
favoured lover. He and his son arc in prison, and
meat undergo the form of a trial for murder; but
if modern doctrines on the veniality of examination
are to prevail, they will be acquitted with flying
colours."