Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-04-01 00:00:00

THE NEAPOLITAN EXILES•

MEETING IN THE TOWN HALL.

A meeting was held in the Town-hall, yesterday, Tor the
purpose of expressing sympathy with the sufferings of the
Neapalitan exiles, now in this country, and of organizing
a subscription in their behalf. There was a ;large and
influential attendance. Theehair was taken by his Worship
the Mayor, William Preston Esq., and amongst those
present were the following :—Messrs. Christopher Bushell,
C. E. Rawlins, Charles liolland, Rev, Mr. Howson, J. T.
Danson, C. S. Parker, S. B. Jackson, Philip ;Rathbone, C.
Ronald, Edward Heath, Francis Hamilton, Charles Melly,
Charles Robertson, I. Pemberton Heywoed, Robertson
Gladstone, J. Ridley, W. Shimmim, &c., Sec.
The Mayor, in t 4 few words introduced the subject of the
meeting, and then called on Mr. Rawlins to read a letter
which had been received from Mr. Alderman Holme, whom
an accident prevented from attending.
Mr. Rawlins read the following letter :
"ero THE WORSHIPFUL THE VANOR.
'" My dear Mr. Mayor,—l have received a copy of the
first resolution to be proposed at the moeting to-morrow,
with a request that I would take charge of it. I regret that
it is not in Icy power to do so.
On Morley last I had the misfortune to fall, and have
lacerated my leg so mach that I cannot leave my room, and
I fear that I shall not be ableto do so for some days. I pain-
fully symeathise with the vietr;rns of N olitan tyranny. In
that unh4py land, the slightest expression of opinion—nay,
the bare suspicion of a desire for freedom—is a reason for
incarceration. During a shert residence in the Neapolitan
dominicns' I saw enough to convince methat its Government
is a feel blot upon humanity, and that the whole of that
lovelyeaud fertile land is it irtually a huge prison. I knew
of one geatleraan who was torn from. his family in the night,
andlept for ten months in confinement. He was then
discharged without further inquiry 3 salad on his protesting
that he had given no expression tan.ey political views, he
was;told that he had been taken care of for his own sake,
as+is opinions were suspected! .After the manifestation of
putlic sympathy in England, the ,unhappy victims of
oppression will never again be able to visit their homes—
unless, indeed, the wretched goverekment which curses their
crantry is overthrown, and some measure of freedom is
'established. They .are thergore thelmore deserving of our
aid —their only crime being ta :desire: for that freedom which
is inherent in the human:breast, anti which is the blessing
and the boast of our highly favoured land.—Believe me,
`stir. Mayor, yours, very.faithfullye.e," SAMUEL HOLME.
"Holmestead, March Soth, 1859'."
Mr. C. K Rawlins, jun., said :.Mr. Mayor and gentle-
men, I regret exceedingly the absence of Mr. Holme on this
`interesting occasion, not only forlisown sake, but because
I had fully calculated on his moving the -first resolution.
I will, however, at once respond to.yeur call, and, as briefly
as I can, introduce,the subject which as called us together•
this morning. Some six yoars•ago, you will recollect, that
this country was startled by the publication of two letters
addressed to the Earl .of Aberdeen, by one whom we arc
proud to call our townsman, Mr. W. E. Gladstone, describ-
ing the dreadful political condition of the Kingdom of
.21 aples. These letters were written from personal inspec-
tion, and after the closest personal :inquiry:---
"It is not mere 'imperfection, rnot corruption in low
quarters, not occasional severity, :that I am about to de-
scribe ; it is incessant systematic, deliberate, violation of
the law by the Power appointed eto watch- over and main-
tain it. It is such violation of human and written law as

this, carried on for the purpose of violating. every other
law unwritten
.and eternal, human and divine; it is the

-wholesale persecution of virtue when united with intelli-
gence, operating upon such a scale that entire classes may
with truth be said to be its objeck,, so that the Government is
in bitter and cruel, as well as utterly illegal, hostility to
whatever in the nation lives and moves, and from
the mainspring of practical progress and improve-
ment; it is the awful profanation of public religion,

by its notorious -alliance, in the governing powers,
with the violation of every moral law under the
the stimulants of fear and vengeance it -is the perfect pros-
titution, of the Judicial office, whichbas made it, under veils
only too threadbare and transparent, the degraded recipient
of the vilest and clumsiest forgeries, got up wilfully and '
deliberately, by the immediate advisers.-of-'the crown, for
the purpose of destroying the peace, the freedom, aye and
even if not by capital sentences the life, of men among the
most virtuous, upright, intelligent, distinguiehed, and refined
of the whole community.
" The governing power, which -teaches of itself that
it is the image of God upon earth, is clothed, in the view
„of the overwhelming majority of the thinking public with
all the vices for its attributes. I -have seen and heard
the strong and too true expression used, ' This is the
negation of God erected into a system of Government.' "
Under the system. which Mr. Gladstone then described he
found there were no less than 20,004) political prisoners in
the kingdom of Naples alone—that these were principally
belonging to the middle class,- who number much smaller
proportionately than in this country - thataniong them was
a large number of the Chamber of Deputies which had been
elected in 1843, under the constitution to-which the King
bad solemnly sworn fidelity—but the majority of' which, after
suppressing the chamber itself, he had thus 'imprisoned or
driven into exile. And all these facts, afictiug as they appear to
me, to our common humanity, were detailed by one
whose whole previous life places him above the most dis-
tant suspicion, that his sympathies even elidited- on behalf
of reen who had held any other principles than :those con-
sistent with constitutional government and rational free-
dom. Well, sir, a short time ago, the tyrant of Naples
was taken seriously ill: Was it then that the reproaches
of .conccience in what he deemed. the hour of death, were
more „powerful than the demands of justice in the full
tidentlife ? Did the thought then occur to him that he
might;.have repeated fewer masses and tortured fewer
prisoners and yet have-stood. a better chance of salvation ?
I knower:et; but one thin; we all know, that King Bombe,
orderetletlie release of a large number of his prisoners on
condition, of eternal exile. They were shipped off, as you
are all aware, to Cadiz, and thenee transhipped on board
an American vessel whose captain engaged to land them in
the 'United States. What sort of a reception they woald
have received there we cannot for a moment doubt. Suffice
it, that age and infirmity, and broken health, from ten years
-confinement in irons in the dungeons of Naples, which are
only another name for • the extremes of filth and horrors,
and various .other reasons, made them shrink from the
voyage. •The captain yielded to their earnest remon-
strances, and landed them at Queenstown. A town
named directly. after our beloved Queen had thus the
appropriate honour of first receiving these victims of
oppression. In that reception was expressed the glorious
boast of Englishmen—that England as the sacred asylum
for political refugees of every rank and degree. Sir, I
trust that boast sdll for ever be justified, and that it will
never be sacrificed by our statesmen to the exigencies of
party, or to the dictates of a passing expediency. -(Cheers.)
Among these exiles are some whose atroeious trial and
cruel tortures have been graphically narrated by Mr.
Gladstone in the letters I have quoted. I will only refer
to a few. A group .of forty-one prisoners was put up for-
tried on a charge connected with the ill-fated constitution.
Of. these 35 were condemned to punishment, "for the
most part awfully severe." Of these, three were con-
demned to-death, viz., Settembrini, Agresti, and Faucitano,
and the Baron Poetic to 24 years of irons. Under
a,provision of the Neapolitan law Settembrini and Agresti
were reprieved, and Mr.. Gladstone significantly states that
he heard that the threat of withdrawing certain meal sup-
port from the government Of Naples, and not humanity,
dictated the commutation of Faucitano's panislunent. Mr.
Gladstone visited Poerio in his dungeon. He found leim,
with sixteen of his co-accused, ,coufined night and day in a
room 13 feet by 10 feet 3 inches,.und 8 feet high.
".When the beds were let down at night, there was no .!
space whatever between them,; .they could only get out at .
the feet, uud being chained two and -two, only in pairs. In
this room they had to cook or prepare what was sent to
them by the kindness of their friend:. On one side, the
level of the ground is over the top of the room; it there-
te.Y4 reeked with damp, and from thise.tried with long con-
finement,they declared they suffered greatly. There was
one window, of course unglazed, and let ,e..ot an English-
man suppose
that this constant access of -the air in the
Neapolitan climate is agreeable or innocuous e . on the con-
trary, it is even
sue iortianno.t to health there than here
to have the meansoere.em:eliud
the open air, for example,
Vicissitu.de of climate, grein, is quite
before and at sunset.
as much felt there as Here, and the early morning •is some-
times bitterly.cold.
" Their chains were as follows Each !nail wcare a strong
leather girth yound him above the hips, To this are secured
the upper ends of two chains. One chain of four long and
heavy links descends to a kind of double ri fixed round
the ancle. The second chain consists of ht
can
sttahnids
of the same weight and length with a each
our
unites the two prisoners together, so that they, and
about six feet apart. Neither of these chains is
undone, day or night. The dress of common felons, which
ever
as well as the felon's 'cap, was there worn by the late
cabinet-minister of King, Ferdinand or Naps, is composed
of rough and coarse material, jacket an trowsers of the
same stair—very like the cloth made in this country from
what is 'called devil's dust; the trowsers are nearly black in
colour. The trowsers button all the way up, that they
may be removed at night without disturbing the chains.
" The weight of these chains, I understand, is about
eight retell, or between sixteen or seventeen.
English
pounds for the shorter one, which must be doubled when
wry give each priSoner his half of 'the longer one., The,
prisoners had a heavy limping movement, much '.as if one
leg had been sh?rter khan the other. But the refinement of
suffering in this case arises from the circumstance that here
we have men of education and high feeling chained inces-
santly tort*, For no purpose are these chains undone ;