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

THE SUN, LONDOY, FIUT) gvENINr7, AUGUST 8, 1.F62.-

holding it still to this day with his garrison.
Beyond which—all the minor princes of Italy, or
at least of that portion of Italy lying between
Lombardy and the States of the Church, between
I the Adriatic and the Mediterranean—all those
his Imperial Majesty was willing enough to have
restored to their respective territories, to Parma, to
Modena, to Tuscany ! Provided, that is, that
nothing could possibly be done in the way
of agglomorating all those petty States into one
good-sized one, which could then have been quietly
handed over to the newly-married bridegroom of
the Princess CLOTILDE, the EMPEROR'S first cousin,
(once the heir presumptive to his Crown) H. I. H.
Prince NAPOLEON.
Then as to Naples, as to the Kingdom of the
fwo Sicilies? We are referring throughout
these remarks to the period antecedent to the
wonderful exploits in the South accomplished by
GARIBALDI at the head of his 800 or 1,000 Gari-
baldians. Why, in regard to the Kingdom of the
Two Sicilies, the views of the French EMPEROR
were then but darkly hinted at, it is true,
but they were all the while perfectly com-
prehensible. His MAJESTY had not been—any
more than England had been—for some three or four
years previously, in the sm sliest degree friendly, even
in appearance, to the then King of the Two SICILIES.
It is undeniable, of course, that when FRANCIS 11.
and his gallant young wife took refuge at Gaeta,
there standing at bay in opposition to the forces of
King VICTOR EMMANUEL, the imperial squadron
of France remained there during several weeks of the
bombardment ! All that while preventing the Italian
ships of war frum effectually co-operating with the
land forces, and thereby lengthening out the de-
fence quite unnecessarily--as, indeed, the event
proved. From which interposition of the French
EMPEROR it might be argued by superficial obser-
vers that his Imperial Majesty was favourably dis-
posed to the then fast failing cause of the
Bourbons, and would fain (if he could but have
had the hardihood thus to falsify all his own ante-
cedents) have actually supported it. Keener sighted
lookers-on knew perfectly well, however, that the
real facts in regard to that anomalous proceeding
on the part of NAPOLEON led to quite a contrary
conclusion, if those facts were but seriously
looked into. It being manifest that the French
squadron hovered during all those weeks of
bootless bloodshed off Gaeta—not because the
EMPEROR loved the cause of the Neapolitan Bour-
bons more, but because he loved that of
GARIBALDI and of all the champions of
Italian Unity less. He had an eye, in fact,
all this while, he has still, to what we may
call—dynastic windfalls! There is Prince MURAT—
still living, still attached to the EMPEROR'S Court—
with a very " presentable" claim to a reversionary
interest in the Crown (if it were only once more to
go a-begging !) of the Two Sicilies. No—however
much the Moniteur may disclaim any such intentions
and aspirations—their existence is not be denied.
And as to the EMPEROR'S individual preference for
Italy not " United,' but, on the contrary, (as his
IMPERIAL MAJESTY has himself put it in black and
white in his ever memorable programme) as A Con-
federation of indepenaent Kingdoms, Duchies, and
Principalities—the truth that such is his preference
is a fact notorious and undeniable. So that—the
declaration of one after another of the Minor States
of Italy in favour of VICTOR EMMANUEL as King
of ITALY was glaringly in direct opposition to the
EMPEROR'S wishes ! So that—the amazing success
attendant upon GARIBALDI'S wonderful expoits in
Sicily and in Naples, was a result as distasteful as
could be to NAPOLEON 111. So that—equally
as a matter of course—the unfurling of the
GARIBALDI Thinner now once more for the
renewal and completion definitively (if that
ne possible) of these astonishing exploits of the
great Italian adventure, are again diametrically an
tagonistic to the will, the aim, the ambition of the
French EMPEROR. It has been proved by this time
to be so incontestibly—and has been so proved on all
hands ! By GARIBALDI'S bearing in NAPOLEON'S
regard—by the bearing towards GARIBALDI of
NAPOLEON'S creature the Italian Prime Minister
RAT A in regard to them, one
and all ZZ
a— bearingy the
very
silent,bearing
but very significant
b
of NAPOLEON himself! As to GARIBALDI'S treal

ment of the EMPEROR'S name, wishes, power—
language could not be expressive of feelings more
intensely antagonistic. As to RATAZZI'S words in
reference to GARIBALDI, none could be more
heinous in their ingratitude. As to the French
EMPEROR, finally—what are "the facts" just now ?
Now that the game of war is again afoot,
among the Italians ! Now that GARIBALDI is call-
ing the youth of Italy together for another
manifestation ! Now that under the French rather
than the Italian Premiership of RATAZZI at Turin,
the Ministers of VICTOR EMMANUEL are committed
to a policy directly opposed to the policy of GARI-
BALDI. The Emperor NAPOLEON, from his early
autumnal seclusion at Vichy is—even in his me-
ditations over the " Life of Julius Caesar"—perfectly
prepared for the new emergency. The French gar-
rison at Rome (at his orders) are on the qui vine,
have recovered all the positions a!ong the southern
frontiers from which they had but very recently
fallen back. The French squadron off the coast
there in the Mediterranean are (at his orders) in-
structed to act now with the utmost promptitude
and vigilance. The EMPEROR knows that he has
dragged into (for them at least) a fatal
accord with himself, RATAZZI and his col-
leagues and with them the Chambers—and
with the Chambers the KING. GARIBALDI in

the meantime has fairly sounded the tocsin. All

the Youth of Italy appear to be answering the sum-
mons upon the instant, to be rapidly rising in arms

and hurrying together from the North and from the
South to swell the ranks of the first little band of

the Garibaldians. The odds against them—even if
they could be promptly brought together and

massed into an army under the leadership of their

idolized Hero, GARIBALDI—seem to be very for-

midable. The KING has declared against them.

For how long we know not. RATAZZI'S Ministry
is dead against them—and will doubtless remain so

as long as NAPOLEON'S creature continues to be at
the head of the Italian Government. The imperial

army and navy of France are against them. But
—even against all these stupendous odds they

have their Cause and they have GARIBALDI. The

result of the threatened conflict it were impossible

of course to predict. We can only watch the pro •
gress of events now with breathless solicitude. Ear-
nestly hoping that they will lead to the solution of
of the Italian problem otherwise than by the sacri-
fice of a Hero like GARIBALDI.

As if to make a little fun for other countries in
LIN in blue
the midst of their remorseless war, the Americans
have at last taken to issuing halfpenny paper, with
various multiples of this notable unit. It seems
incredible, but the fact is that the head of FRANK-
by the Government or to the Government. In yel-
ls to be good for a halfpenny payment
hill°VB°PllASEler's head
INGTON in pink stands for three
is to be worth thirty
low
halfpence.the p
but WASIIINQTON in blue is to be
hairpence; WyAesl
luoiwNGF, Oit
AN
Nil:, the, nigger colour,
WASHINGTON lilac, a sort of mulatto,
liB and ninety blue
wfoorrtthwetliavre:e
for twenty-four;

FRANKLINS. JEFFERSON is put into chocolate at
five halfpence, but 117— ASHINOTON even when green is
to be wort h twoJEFFERsoNs. We in England find the
convenience of postage stamps, and we think them
well worth the pence marked on them. We are
quite sure we can get the value out of them. Even
if encumbered with their number, we sell them at a
reasonable discount; they have an Intrinsic value
in their own county, 240 of them being really worth
the gold sovereign.

Nothing of this character belongs to the new
American paper. It was thought that Congress
had made postage stamps legal tender in order to
meet the demand for small change. Nothing of
the sort, it seems, has been the result. A corre-
spondent of the limes assures us that it is an-
nounced that these stamps are to be issued by
the Treasury, not by the Post-office, and
to be printed on cardboard and not gum-
med, that they may not in any case
be used for letters ! Neither are they to be
legal tender, but only so between the Govern.
ment and its customers, or the Government and
taxpayers. This is, of ionise, making them of
legal value, and will hardly be any obstacle to
their circulation. So we have for the first time,
we believe, in the history of paper money, a paper
halfpenny, or what the Amerieans call a cent,
being the hundredth part of their almighty dollar,
which is worth, as nearly as may be, fifty pence.
Our paper money friends in this country ought to
be delighted. They have got in America their Go-
vernment note receivable for taxes, and got it for a
smaller amount than they ever dreamed of. None
of them, that we know of, ever asked for a paper
note of less than a pound; they have now a note
for two farthings. They must watch and study
the result, and some day they must favour us with

a report of progress.
"A Stockholder," in a letter to a contemporary,
adverts to another American affair, in which a rail-
road company figures very much in the character
known on this side of the water, as that of the "gene-
rous churchwarden." He says—" I observe in the
7i7nes of this morning that the Pennsylvania Rail-

road Company had offered to contribute 45,000 dols.
to provide for the bounties to volunteers. This is
in clear violation of its charter, no such right having
been delegated to the directors. A very large por-
tion of the stock and bonds of this corporation is
held in Europe. Innocent persons are therefore
made to bear a part of the expense of the fratricidal
war.

This may not be a case in which Lord LYONS can
interfere, and the shareholders scattered about
England and Europe, will have some difficulty in
co-operating to make the directors responsible, but
it is a case in which some steps ought to be taken
to bring them if possible to unite in joint action.
If, however, a single shareholder prosecuted the
company in an Americancourt, we do not see how
he could fail to obtain a verdict.

A farmer of Weil, in the Grand Duchy of Baden,
who celebrated his harvest-home last week, regaled his
friends with wine made from perfectly ripe grapes of the
present year's growth. The local traditions made no men-
tion of wine having ever been made at so early a period,
and accordingly it was resolved to perpetuate the memory
of this unusual occurrence by drawing up a proces-verbal
of the event, which was signed by the local authorities and
consigned to the archives of the commune.
TURNOUT OF MILL OPERATIVES AT MANCHESTER.
—The self-actor minders employed at the Holt Town Mill,
Manchester, have turned out in consequence of the small
pay thc,y receive. A placard which they have issued, ask-
ing the public to give them their sympathy and support,
states that their pay was one shilling per day; and that
sum was insufficient to procure them tha bare necessaries
of life; and that after they had Wined out, they applied
t ) the Board of Guardians for relief, whereupon their
employers saw the guardians and prevented any relief be-
ing given.

ANCIENT ORDER OF FORESTERS.—HIGH COURT
MEETING, SHREWSBURY.—The annual meeting of the de-
legates, now sitting, yesterday morning voted £5OO towards
the relief of the distress in the cotton districts, in which
locality they have numerous courts.
SOUTH STAFFORDSHIRE RAILWAY.—'ne ad-
journed half-yearly meeting of this company was held yes-
terday at the Euston Station, Mr. Moors in the chair. The
secretary having read the minutes of the previous meet-
ing, declaring the dividend, which were confirmed, the
chairman said his duty on this occasion was simply to lay
before them an abstract of the accounts of the company.
These showed that the total expenditure to June 1862, was
£1,395,309 Is. Bd., and that the general balance of revenue
account was £65,772 Is. Bd, He would move that the ab-
stract of accounts be received and adopted. The motion
having been seconded was agreed to, and the proceedings
terminated.
THE CABMEN.—Last evening ft crowded meeting
of cabmen was held at the 'White Swan, Highbury, to take
into consideration the arbitrary laws under which they now
laboured, and resolutions on the subject passed at meetings
of the east and south London cabmen. After various per-
sons had addressed the meeting, the following resolution
was carried :—" That this meeting being of opinion that
nothing ought to be done with regard to altering the Act of
Parliament by any one part of London alone; therefore,
we do heartily concur with the drivers of the south-east,
and Clerkenwell, and do hereby appoint four delegates to
co-operate with them to carry out the object of holding a
midday meeting at Exeter hall, when the delegates will
lay before the meeting the best remedy." The delegates
were then appointed, and a vote of thanks having been
passed to the chairman the meeting separated shortly after
midnight.

REGISTERED LETTERS FOR TASMANIA.—Hence
forward a letter or a packet of printed papers addressed to
Tasmania may be registered on the application of the per-
son posting it, provided the postage, together with a
registration fee of sixpence, be paid in advance.
THE MARRIAGE CEREMONY.—Is not the whole
programme admirably arranged for carrying out the prin-
ciple of female ascendancy and making a man feel particu-
larly small ? If ever a man can thoroughly appreciate the
personal application of Hamlet's remark,

ROYAL ITALIAN OPERA.

REVIVAL OF " NIASANIELLO.”

"There is nothing," said Mirabeau, "that is
more prolific than revolution," and very soon, in
proof of his words, the Revolution gave to France
every -variety of offspring. It gave an Empire—
gave a code--gave a literature—gave a fashion—
gave all manner of social benefits—and at length it
gave an Opera! Warfare, arts, enjoyments,
books, had all been the medium of its sentiment,
and at last it inspired music. The world has long
since forgotten that such was the or:gin of " Maaa-
niello." Though it was not born of the Republic,
but long after wards—ot the Restoration—it was
one of the products of the reaction that was then re-
animating France,"and which culminated at length
in the three days of July. M tny more notable signs
of the times doubtless characterised that epoch, but
none that were more distinctive. What Beranger
was doing with his songs, and Paul Louis Courier
with his pamphlets, Eugene Auber--a staunch
republican—who shared to the full their bitter
sense of the degradation of his country—tried to
do on the lyric stage. True, the scene was laid in
Naples, but that artifice was as obvious as was
that of the renowned Lesage, who painted the
French Court and noblesse in the immortal pages
of his " Gil Blas," and in order to escape the Bas-
tille threw the story into Spain. Everyone who
has listened to Auber's music must have felt it was
intensely French_ At the time that it was written
the very heart of France was beating in it. Mark
its mingled gloom and gaiety, its quick impulsive
spirit, its eager love of pleasure, its smouldering
sense of wrong, its strong domestic affection, its
merciless thirst for vengeance. The very form in
which it appeared, which was almost that of a
ballet opera, by its more vivid and striking spec-
tacle, made a more vigorous appeal to the masses.
We, who were in Paris in our youth, when this
opera was at its height, can well remember the
furore when its kindling and melodious strains
supplied the lips of the Parisians with the best
expression of their wishes. On every boulevard
and in every cafe, after a political allusion
the Barcarole especially would be hummed with a
significance, which showed that Auber, who had so
deeply shared the popular yearning of his time, had
contributed not a little to sustain and to augment
it. Masaniello, therefore, which must be regarded
as the opera of the Revolution, achieved the highest
success in Paris, but it paid the penalty elsewhere.
In every absolutist capital it was indignantly for-
bidden. Its sounds were wholly unknown in
Vienna, Berlin, or St Petersburg; and of course,
least of all, at Naples To England only it could
come with perfect safety and acceptance--England,
asylum of all fugitives, whether republican or
Royal. Accordingly, in 1829, it found a home at
Drury-Lane, and in a manner that was not un-
worthy of its claims and reputation. Whilst
Braham, still in his strength, could sing its music
in a manner that not even Nourrit could excel,
there was Stanfield to paint i s scenes and Wallack
to devise its groupes, with a mastery of taste and
spirit that made this reproduction quite an epoch
in our stage history. Since then this noble opera,
destined, we suppose, with the growth of Liberalism,
to make the tour of Europe—of course it has been
played at Naples—and Garibaldi has had a box—
has been constantly given in England, where its
undying force and sweetness, and its picturesque
vivacity must ever make it welcome, however indif-
ferent we may be, happily, to its political signifi-
cance. We can remember two revivals of this work
which are distinctive. One by Laporte at Covent-
gai den in 1833, when it was done,ai a ballet-opera—
simply serious action and chorus;. and another at
the same theatre in 1849, when Mr. Gye re-
vived it in its entirety, and for the first time
on our Italian stage. Justly great as was
the impression he created by that production,
we hazard little in saying that the revival of last
evening is likely to be the more eminent. With
only one or two defects in it, which are easily re-
movable, this is one of the most vivid and superb
presentments which he has yet bestowed on our
Italian stage. Whether for its vigour, grace, or
reality, it is equally remarkable. An entire pic-
ture such as we could see on no other boards than
his, and having seen, are not likely, whatever our
experience, to forget. Foremost among its distinc-
tions stands the performance of Signor Mario,
whose hero fisherman must now be numbered among
his many great impersonations. Whilst it has all the
manliness, which serves as a shell to the simple
tenderness of the character—the finer sense of a
natural buoyancy shaded by personal and pubic
wrong as, in the case of his sister and his country,
is mingled with it up to a point that is just as true
as it is delightful. Nor are we much disposed to mur-
mur if he invests the whole conceptionwith an uncon-
scious amount of grace which renders it somewhat
more ideal than exact. But if' all the scenes with
Fenella were marked by the tenderest feeling, and
the rescue of Alphonso in the cottage displayed
an equal amount of spirit, it was unquestionably in
the last scence in which he made his great
impression, which, brief as it is, afforded
him scope to show the power of a
true artist. Here the vividness with which he
marked the ebb and flow of life in his veins—the
poison like his royal enemies combating a vigor,
hard to subdue—the momentary strength flashing
up to a gaiety which faded almost as it came—
were an evidence of power that was quite as rare as
it was impressive. His execution of the music was
of a piece with all this excellence. His delivery of
the Barcarole, it is needless to say, was absolutely
perfect, but his share in the passionate duett with
Pietro, in which he paints with equal vigour his
patriotic and fraternal feeling, was admirable in
the extreme, whilst second to none in merit was his
delivery of the well kno vn " L'air du Sommeil" in
the fourth act, by the side of his sleeping sister—
the infinite tenderness of which it would not be
easy for us ,to describe. Signor Greziana was the
next important feature of the performance, whose
Pietro is the very best without exception we have
ever witnessed on any stage. The dogged and
determined spirit with which he infused this revo
lutionist was one of the most forcible pieces
of nature which we have seen for a
long time, and when on his leader's apparent
treachery by the rescue of Alphcnso—he first at-
tempts to stab him when on horseback—springing
at him like a panther, and then having poisoned him
follows him to watch the growth of death in him—
his acting had a reality that place it far above any
recent effort of the kind. Equally good was his
share in the music—and more especially his
delivery of the Barcarole of the last act
Ve come it yenta, in which his superb voice
and vigorous feeling produced the best possible
effect. The Alphonso by Signor Neri-Baraldi was ,
also a very manly and judicious effort. The Elvira,
however, of Madlle, Marie Bettu was a very in-
ferior performance. Her meagre voice, her inani-
mate manner, and her very uncertain intonation,
allowing her but little claim to be a member of
this theatre. Nor can we praise as warmly as we
wish, the Fenella of the evening, who, charming as
she is as a dancer, wanted the force and animation
requisite to the rendering of the dumbirl.
g
These are the sole defects of the
performance,which,
as we have said, are easily removed: To everything
else we can only give one general term of
praise.
The choruses, so prominent a feature of this
opera:
were sung to absolute perfection, more especially
the exquisite
Prayer, Auber's greatest achieve-
ment. The inise en scene--under Mr. Harris, was
actual life itself.

The various groups of the various scenes, whether
drinking, dancing, or marketting, doing it all with
a reality that seemed to imply it was their only
task—the scenery, by Messrs. Beverley,Grieve, and
Telbin, presented some of the loveliest and most
striking efforts of their pencils, whilst the band,
all that force and
as usu.il wader Mr. Costa, had
exactness which permit us only to enjoy and praise.
overture, we need n©t add, was vehemently
encored. The house was very full, and the satin.
faction of the audience was testified very loudly to
this admirable revival, which gives so just a climax
to an extraordinary season.
T

fic INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION.--The num-
ber of visitors at the Exhibition yesterday was :—By season
tickets, 4,090; ditto for 18. days, 1,022; by payment,
483799. Total, 53,911,