The Sun.
London, England, 1862-08-27 00:00:00

THE ITALIAN GO VERNMENT.

(From the Correspondent of the:Tunes.):
TURIN, AUG. 24.
We live here in such a dense atmosphere of lies
that the very perceptive faculties of the utterers of
falsehood are darkened and perverted till they are
unable to see how easily truth makes its way
through the colossal fabric of deception with which
they strive to environ it. Liars, says the old pro-
verb, ought to have good memories ; they ought
equally to be supplied with a proper amount of
common sense and discernment. It may, indeed,
be questionable whether " stories" can ever do any
good, even to those who know how to tell them,
but those who go to work clumsily are sure to be
much more harmed than aided by any deviation
from the truth.

The Diseusszone, a paper lately got up by the
Deputy Boggio, at the expense and in support of
the Rattazzi Ministry, had the assurance to publish
yesterday afternoon the following as an " official
communication :"

"The great majority of the population (of Cata-
nia) is in favour of the Government. Palermo,
Messina, and the other parts of the island are quiet.
In Caltanisetta, and in all the places where Gari-
baldi and his bands have been, everything has been
restored to order, and the King's Government is
perfectly re-established."

Could any one believe, after such cheering " offi-
cial" intelligence, that the Military Gazette, also an
official organ, should inform us that Cialdini takes
with him to Sicily " the 9th, 14th, 15th, 33d, 34th,
and 60th Regiments of Infantry, two squadrons of
the Novara Lancers, and two companies of Engi-
neers ?" Can it be possible, when we hear that the
Sicilian movement is everywhere suppreised, or at
least reduced to the walls of a city, more than half
the people of which are " against Garibaldi,"—a
city, too, beset by an overwhelming Royal force
quartered at Misterbianco, only a very few miles
from the place,--cannot be possible that so consi-
derable a division should be despatched by sea, at
so great an outlay of money, with such utter disre-
gard of the dangers accruing to the Emilian fron-
tier, from the line of which those troops are impro-
vidently removed, that it should be sent to a coun-
try which has shown so little disposition to listen
to the voice of the charmer, and which has so soon
recovered its senses, even where it allowed itself
one moment's aberration and madness ?

It is by such shifts of palpable equivocation that
the Rattazzi Cabinet forfeits whatever credit it ever
enjoyed with the country at large, and weakens
its own influence at a crisis which calls for the
greatest energy on the part of the ruling powers.
Every effort that is made by the authorities to pal-
liate, to put off, or any how to tamper with
the damning truth, far from calming the ex-
citement which has here risen to the highest
pitch, only adds fuel to the flame, as the people
are easily made aware that the real truth is hidden
from them, and they naturally enough put upon
that constant, jealous, systematic concealment a
construction a hundred times more distressing and
harassing to the public mind than the most
desperate intelligence would be. There must be a
reason even for mere reticence, but for deliberate
fabrication there must be a hundred reasons, and
all bad ones.

I spoke in one of my foregoing letters of certain
information which had reached one of the Southern
deputies here that 17 officers of one of the regiments
at Aderno had thrown up their commissions, as
nothing would induce them to fight against Gari-
baldi_ I had good reason to believe the fact to be
precisely as it was represented. The report, how-
ever, was strongly contradicted by official authori-
ties, and even my well-grounded belief was stag-
gered, when lo to-day we have in black and white
the names of the officers in question, and the assur-
ance that other officers of the same brigade, making
up altogether 46 persons, have also given up their
epaulettes and abandoned their posts.
There seems, moreover, to be no doubt that the
Bersaglieri battalion, which landed the other day at
Genoa from Palermo, had to be hurried away from
the island, in consequence of the Garibaldian ten-
dencies it had most unequivocally evinced. Were
it even possible to reject al'. these particulars as un-
founded reports, the damning fact would always
remain that 20,000 men under Ricotti and Melia,
whose only object was to prevent Garibaldi's enter-
ing Catania, signally failed in their efforts, and that
Cialdini declined to accept the command of the
Royal troops in Sicily, unless he could take along
with him such troops as he could trust—a sufficient
evidence that he did not think he could equally
rely on those who are already on the spot, and that
the unsoldier-like conduct of the commanders who
preceded him must be excused on the ground of the
untrustworthiness of their troops.
You must not think that I am only repeating what
I have already said in my yesterday's letter. The
proclamation of the state of siege, the appointment
of Persano and Cialdini to the supreme civil, mili-
tary, and naval command, and the decree announc-
ing the blockade of the island, have thrown the
whole of Italy into a consternation which I have
no power to describe. Everyone feels that those
measures are extremely bad in themselves, that the
state of siege, the suspension of all constitutional
rights, the suppression of all liberties, are remedies
which hardly the very worst disorders could justify ;
that Persano, who was highly unpopular with the
service before he became a member of the Cabinet,
has only added to the number of his enemies by the
exercise of his Ministerial powers; that Cialdini,
however distinguished for his valour and genius in
the field, gave proofs of incapacity as an adminis-
trator at Naples, and showed at that juncture too
great a favour to that very Garibaldian party which
he is now going to crush; that the blockade of
Sicily, absurd as it is in itself, is sure to give offence
to all foreign powers interested in free commercial
intercourse, those very Powers Italy should do all
in her power to conciliate ; and that the resolution