The Sun.
London, England, 1862-11-17 00:00:00

711 E ITALIAN CAPITAL

A letter from Turin, dated Nov. 13, says :—lf
any reason, or string of reasons, were wanting to
excuse Italian anxiety on the subject of that most
abominable Roman question, sufficient, I believe,
might be drawn from the condition of the present
Italian capital. The town of Turin has been most
uncomfortably outgrown by its population. It is
not merely that apartments, furnished or unfur-
nished, are let out at a rent eight and ten times
higher than it was only four or five years ago—the
real grievance is that no accommodation whatever
is to be had for love or money. Those who have a
suite of a few wretched holes, or " members," as
they call them, to let, not only put forth exor-
bitant demands as to price, but insist on long leases
of nine, or twice and thrice nine, and, at all events,
no less than three years. Turin is revelling in its
unexpected, unbounded, but, as many anticipate,
transient and fleeting prosperity. Its citizens are
" eating, drinking, and merry-making, for to-mor-
row they die." Carnival is the season for selling
masks, and hay must be made while the sun shines.
To-day all Italy is thronging upon Turin ; next
week, or next month, or next year, Government
will shut up shop and move off to another city.
The subjects of Victor Emmanuel will come by their
own, Parliament will meet on the Capitol, the Court
be lodged in the Quirinal, and grass grow in the
streets of Turin, as it does in those of Ferrara.
Mr. Marsh. the American Minister, an accom-
plished and amiable gentleman, after running the
round of the few vacant lodgings in the city, is off
to Pegli, or some other place in the neighbourhood
of Genoa, in the utter impossibility of conveni-
ently housing his family near the Government
to which' he is accredited. Sir James Hudson, the
highly respected and universally beloved English
Minister, has been compelled to give up his splendid
residence at the Palazzo Sangiorgio, in Ambassa-
dors'-street, because his landlord wanted to pin
him down to a nine years' lease, and the sanguine
friend of Italy thinks he may have to pack up and
be off to some mansion in the Corso long before one
ninth of that period is out. A third diplomatic
gentleman is too happy to rusticate at a villa near
Alpignano, at an hour's railway distance from his
office, because the inhospitable town has not a roof
to offer him to shelter his head. And now winter is
closing in, Parliament is to be re-opened, and more
than 400 deputies, with above 200 senators, are
wandering about the streets, carpet-bag in hand,
some of them with wife and children at their heels,
and lucky are they who can get a third floor at
1,0001 (X4O) a month and who are able to affordit!
Up to the year 1859 Turin, though a place rising
at a tremendous rate, strove hard, and successfully,
to meet the demand for accommodation with ade-
quate supply. A town which at the close of the last
century harboured 100,000 souls within the two
English miles' compass of its walls and bastions,
very naturally took a sudden and considerable
spread the moment the French republicans of 1796
pulled down its fortifications and gave breathing
Ilroom to the pent-up inhabitants. Since that time
street has been added to street and island (as a
Iblock of buildings is here called) to island. The old
symmetrical design of the cheesebaard was not in-
terfered with, but every straight line was stretched
out for several furlongs in every direction—room
was left for a square at every second or third turn-
ing at right angles, and when the municipal cor-
poration bethought themselves of girding the town
with a new cinta daziaria, or octroi wall, they took
in a good mile all round beyond the present habi-
tations, providing space to be filled up in several
hundreds of years. Up to 1859, I said, the num-
b.er of hearths kept up with that of the increasing
families. The town was beautified as it widened,
and the new quarters, spacious, neat, and cheer-
ful, by degrees thinned the multitude unwhole-
somely thronged together in the lanes and alleys
of the old centre. But 1860 came and 1861 fol-
lowed, and of the town, which had been a small
but suitable scat of government for about five mil-
lions of Piedmontese, became the 'Metropolis, first
of as many Lombards, then of 'milians and Tus-
cans, finally of Neapolitans and Sicilians. The old
House of Deputies had to make room for a now
wooden structure three times its size; the former
Ministerial offices stretched out right and left, or
rose heavenwards to receive thrice the number of
their ancient functionaries, or had to migrate, one
to this, another to that out-of-the-way tenement
about town, too lucky when they had not
o
ot tor
when
reara
new edifice altogether from the ground,
',hey were not compelled to
split tova\rviohuersedvee-r
nents, to be located here and there,
practicable,
at any
Wiles and miles away
Lech other. Room for the Government,
, the town supplied. But what about the govern-
ing classes ? As annexation followed upon fusion,
and union ripener} into unity, as new subjects were
attracted to the Sovereign city by business, by am-
bition, by curiosity, it was found that the building
activity of the Turinese slackened, that the demand
for room and more room was met by the bricklayer
with arms akimbo, and by the householder with
outrageous demands and unconscionable conditions.
The word went forth that Piedmont, and with it
Turin, had ceased to be; them was but one Italy,
and the old robber-nest of Romulus was to be its
capital. Yet one month, one season may be, and the
last of the &naves will turn his back upon the
Eternal City, Victor Emmanuel will build his home
on the
Palatine, the Carignano Palace will be
moved to the Piazza di Venezia, grass will grow on
shut, and. Turin wil
tthaellrs,
spectre cities, like
the Via di
u the shops in Dora Grosse will be
Reavbeennaad:led to the number 'of
rumblingPaavavia4
anddesnsl
desolation
imona npya
hope of recovers, e
among
Ferrara, Pisa,
Hence was there in silence and
building craft in Turin. The fine
palaces (Via della Cernaia), leading to the Piazza
d'Ami, was left unfinished==iiiter blank on the
left side, a heap of rubbish and scaffolding
Streets the