The Express.
London, England, 1850-01-14 00:00:00

ITALY.

NAPLES.—Our correspondent writes.
NAPLES. JANUARY 4.

Sicily is again exciting considerable interest. The
dissatisfied state of the whole island is now ackaow-
h dge d by those who pointed exultingly a few months
since at the innumerable addresses to the crown, con- I
gratulating his Majesty on the triumph of the loyal
troops. It was said these addresses represented the
ft elings of the majority, although it was well kn..wn
that they were " got up" by the mayors and other
newly-applinted officials, quite indepertent ..1 puolic
opirion. Events are now showing the reel velum of
such documents. The island is full of concealed
arms, and in some instances the possessors have suf-
fered death for holding the instruments of vengeence ;
add to this, w.tain the lut few days some fl:ty
or sixty persons, including lawyers, traders, and
other individuals of the middle-classes, were
arrested in Palermo and Catanis, and taken off
to Messina. General Filangieri has eent for more
troops. The national guard of Palermo no longer
exists. Sueh events betray di-content on the one
hand, and on the other a government vigilance which
acknowledges fear. The discontent appears to have
arisen out of new taxes, which the Lard Lieutenant
nas thought proper to impose with a view of repair-
Me the dilapidated state of finance. &me twenty
millions of ducnta are to be raised on government se-
curity; to meet which taxes on windows, on mills, a
stamp duty, and, I understand, some other minor
objects, commenced from January 1, 1830. The
impoverished state of the country will r. nder the
collection of these taxes exceedingly difficult, and
their imposition occurring at a period when
the Sicilians are told by public decrees that
they are to be governed as a province of Naples, bees
excited universal discontent. Ido not imagine any
important movement will take place. The prisons
will receive more victims—poverty and misery will
increa-e, and secret hatred for the government continue.
It does not appear to be the policy of the Neapolitan
government to conciliate, but rather to terrify and op-
press—to reduce the resources of the nobility, to in-
corporate the middle class as much as possible with
the interest of the crown, by the creation of endless
petty officers, whilst the labouring population must
exist like swine on the earth. Such is the
patent system adopted by his Sicilian Majesty, and
faithfully executed by the "popular" Filangiei
i.
Had the king shown any of that generosity which
his friends here and in England so loudly proclaimed,
wounds would have gradually healed ; and the intro-
duction of an intelligent, open, and honest govern-
ment might have mingled the recollection of recent
independence and freedom with the existing royal
rule. As it is, the prospects of Sicily are indeed
gloomy.
I have nothing new to communccate about the
Pope. His Holiness remains at Portici. The town
is full of reports about his return to Rome, bat I am
still of opinion Pius IX. is as far away as ever
in a political point of view. A messenger
arrived three days since from the Roman
States with important despatches, recemmencVng, it
I. said, his Holiness not to return. I believe the
Pope has no fear. himself, but it may be the interest
of those who surround him to create them.

Proposition 10 is sleeted ; but the committee
declare that it is not eassenstitutional to establish a
special court of law for the trial by jury of persons
accused of high Weenie.
Propwition 13, respecting the validity of ordi-
nances, was rejected, and the following amendment
adopted : "The authorities are not to question the
validity of ordinances, so long as wither chamber
shall claim the right of co-operation."
BERLIN, JAN. 10.
The most important of the alterations given in my
letter of yesterday (see Saturday's Express) are, of
coarse, those under 4,5, 8,9, 10, 11, and 13. The
real import of which I will mention in a very few
words :-4 secures the social, and 8 the political, ex-
istence of the Pruden aristocracy ; 5 renders the re-
spunsibility of ministers a mere illusion ; 9 secures to
the government the right of so arranging the electoral
districts as to paralyse the democratic influence
in any one particular part of the constg by joining
it to another more conservative district in the neigh-
bourhood ' • 10 prohibits trial by jury in the most im-
portant of all criminal caws, namely, political ones ;
11 secures the irresponsibility of government officials
towards their inferiors, and places the instruments of
the executive power in a position above the read!: of
the law ; 13 destroys ell the political influence of the
courts of law of the country in opposing the nefarious
attempts of anyabsolutist tyranny, an influence which
your English courts have so often exercised with such

great success.
The Second Chamber has been occupied since the
recess in dismissing the budget of 1849-50. Most of
the items referring to the iidirtot taxes have been
passed.
It is already rumoured that several fractions of the
opposition will oppose these alterations, but with what
success remains to be seen.

VIENNA, J.&?!. 8.

....
Our Vienna correspondent assures us that a change
of ministry is imminent. Prince Schwarzehburg has
lost himself with the court from his rashness and
blundering on the German question. The order was
given to the Austrian troops to enter Saxony. This
order was communicated to Count Bernstorff, who
thereupon protested and announced that it the order
were not withdrawn, since S army had not applied
for the assistance of Austrian troops, the Prussian
troops would receive commando also to cross thecl
Saxon frontier. Thereupon a telegraphic despatch
was sent to the Archduke Albert to revuke the order
given. The bad kitire which the foreign minister
has made his government cut in this affair has fairly
wrecked his diplomatic reputation, and he is now in
imminent danger of being turned out. Wind,sch-
gratz, it is said, will take his plate as President of the
Council, with the portfolio of war.
Prokesch Oster is arrived from Berlin
PRESBURO, Dec. 30.
A paragraph has gone the round of the German
papers, giving the world to understand the the
mother and children of Kossuth have been ea t at
hberty ; that upon leaving their prism at Pcsth they
lame to Vienna in order to provide themselves with a
passport to Turkey. The only word of truth in this
dory, is that this " noble old mother,' tv.th her three
grandchildren, le ft their prison at Peeth, but it was to
enter a new jail at Preshurg : and such a jail ! When
these helpless beings were coos'i,ened to the hoseital
of the Schloss-berg, the cholera and typhus we re both
raging there, and "D. ath busiest front conch to
couch tended the sick." The ch lera avid ty plats have
done their work, ano death is not so busy now among
the patients; the grandmother and the three little
Kosauths are still there, think God, all welt. Yes,
thank God, and not the Austrim.s for :hat.
The children consist of two little boys and a
girl. The youngest boy in a charming lute
I how, full of intantine malice. He say s to the
Austrian officers, " Wait : I will draw you papa's
picture ;" and then he scribbles one of theca naive
ovals which pass current with such artiste for sym-
bols of the human head divine, with a IA of
scratches at one end for the beard. &totes
times he pretends to smuggle som,,thirg in as
he passes the sentinel, who cries out, " Show
me what you lr..ve in your hand, sire h!" The
little 84, after some yh.em reluctance, expands, and
shows—nothing! Then off bounds in res".sies of
laughter, such as trizht have bur-t from Puck when
he, a fat and bean-fed horse beguiled, neighing in like-
ne as of a filly foal."
Will it be believed that these two helpless women,
Madame Damjareich and Madame Leitanger, after
the execution of their husbands, were nut only de-
eriled of all proper ty in laud, iaterited in their own
right, which is con rary to the Hungarian law, but
rot even suffered to retain a fraction of the pereornl
property of their husbands? Nay, even their ward-
robes were sacked, and their dresses and trieke:s
+matched from them. It doe's credit to the citizens of
Arad that they would not bid fur those articles of
senate apparel when put up to puhlic auction: tor
that they deserved th" blessing of Damjani,h. The
dresses were knocked down without civil competition
cheap to Austrian officers. Leiningen was an aecom-
(dished scholar as well as soldier, and had cAnposed
a history of the war. This manuscript, secreted with
jealous care by his widow, who valued it more than
her jewels, dii not escape the narrow search to which
her effects were exposed, ani was also torn from her
possession.
Hundreds of harrowing facts, which have never
oozed into publicity, are current in the society of this
city, from which they cannot escape even by the
po t-office : no one who wished to remain at Presburg
more them twenty-four hours would have the impru-
dence to commit to a letter aught which could shame
the government. As this will reach yell by a private
haud, I am not restrained by the same scruples. There
is a young lady here,the betrothed bride of Lopresti,
one of the Hungarian nobles who was degraded to
the ranks. The last news she received trom her
future husband, who is in Italy, was that he had re-
ceived fifty blows with a cudgel by way of