The Sun.
London, England, 1860-12-13 00:00:00

NORTH ITALY.

(Front the Times' .Correspondent.)
GENOA, DEC. 10.
I came to this place to aftend the anniversary of
the expulsion of the Austrians from Genoa, on the
10th of December, 1746, a festival known among
the common people of the country as Balilla-day,
from the name of the young popular hero, the
mason's boy, or whatever else was his trade, who
threw the first stone at the' German invader,
thereby giving the signal for that outburst of
genuine Italian passion which reproduced the
achievements of the Sicilian Vespers, unstained by
the atrocities of those ancient and yet better known
massacres.

The centenary celebration of that ever memo-
rable event, on the 10th of December, 1846, after
the Sardinian Government, under the influence of
its powerful Austrian ally, had long hushed up the
very recollection and forbidden even the remotest
allusion to it ; the revival of that tradition, so glo-
rious in Genoese annals, at a time when Charles
Albert was coquetting with the newly-spreading
idea of Italian nationality, at a time in which a
young benevolent Pontiff, and most other Italian
Sovereigns, were showing some disposition to com-
promise with and encourage that idea, was one of
the boldest steps marking the progress of Italy
to wards her emancipation. On that day, and that
year, the Genoese, always an excitable people,
raised the first cry, " Out with the foreigner !" The
cry was caught up by Romagna and Tuscany ; a
thousand bonfires gleamed in the night along the
crest and on all the ridges of the Apennines; and
a thrill of almost frantic hope ran through the
veins of the crushed Lombards and Venetians.
Austria stormed, and her despotic allies protested.
But Charles Albert owed his overbearing neighbour
more than one grudge ; the breach widened between
the two Powers, bordering on one another on the
Ticino ; displeasure heightened into hostility, and
led to that unequal struggle in which the Savoyard
Monarch succumbed, but by his noble death re-
deemed no less his country than his same, and
prepared the ground for the elevation of his race.

Since that time Balilla's day has invariably been
honoured in Genoa, and in days of especial patriotic
excitement, as on the eve of the new Lombard war
of 1859, it was made the occasion of noisy popular
demonstrations. This year it will be made the pre-
text for a Garibaldian movement. We had here
yesterday and the day before no less than 3,800
red-shirted .Reduci, returning heroes just landed
from Naples. A word was circulated among
them and among the people that on this day
loud preals should resound in honour of their adven-
turous leader. Already, on Saturday evening, the
performance in two or three of the Genoa theatres
came to naught in compliance with the demands of
these disbanded volunteers, who, renewing here the
exploits by which they had distinguished them-
selves at Naples, again and again, and even 10 and
12 times, called for the Garibaldi hymn. In the
course of yesterday, last night, and even this morn-
ing, heavy trains, laden with hundreds of these
patriot warriors, were, by the prudent and provi-
dential Government authorities, sent into the in-
land provinces of Lombardy and tEmilia to which
they belonged, and great was the riot and racket,
with which these home-bound worthies filled the
railway station and its approaches. The streets of
Genoa are, however, still swarming with scarlet-
clad, more or less dingy and tattered, man. We are
curious to see to what extent they are still bent on
mischief, and to what extent they will be allowed
to perpetrate it.

Already, early in the morning, I read, stuck up
at every street-corner, the following piti,y Inscrip-
tion

'Leitorl di Calatifimi ! W.
' W. Garibaldi! W. I Vi

Gli eroi del Toturno 1*

" Genoes,,,,This day brings round the anniver-
sary cll. the 10th of December, 1746 ; it is a day
',sacred to every Italian heart. The Genoese will
not fail to attend the ceremony at the sanctuary of
Oregina. The meeting is appointed at 2 o'clock in
the Piazza dell' Acquaverde. Let this year our
cry be Rome and Venice!'"
Another inscription by Barilli, going the round
of the halfpenny papers, thus closes:—

" Italians ! Celebrate this glorious day with
your oath shortly to engrave its remembrance on
the marbles of the Capitol of Rome, your city !"
There is certainly no harm in these volunteers and
the Genoese people giving vent to their admiration
for Garibaldi and the Garibaldians, or even utter-
ance to their warm wishes that Rome and Venice
may soon be made to share with their sister cities
the blessings of national freedom and independence.
But the singing of Garibaldi's hymn does not
imply the necessity of hissing the King's anthem, as
was repeatedly done at Naples, or of preventing
the performance of any ether musical piece.
" This hymn," says a Neapolitan correspondence,
"is here repeated 15 and even 20 times in one
evening, and every time hailed 'with storms of
rapturous applause. The affair may in the long run
uTS and tedious ; but what
become rather monotor
if it so pleases the Neapolituu people 'What, in-
deed ? one might answer ; but the question is
whether those who bawl the loudest lilt the hymn
in question are really the Neapolitan people, and if
these latter are not, on the contrary, greatly an-
noyed by the noise of a few mischief-Makers, bent
on spoiling their ordinary amusement. Perhaps
these were the considerations which induced the
Lieutenancy and the Director of the Police, Silvio
Spaventa, to close the theatre in which these dis-
orders were carried on with the west outrageous
recklessness; but, unfortunately, the Go"
and the police reckoned
the troops. -
on the Arm behaviour of
,t• • , we are now informed that a captain
rernmett
.... infantry of the line 'winked at the forcibly open-
ing the theatre, and his troops fraternized with the
people. Surely a man most be a Very staunch
Garibaldian indeed to deny that this is not as it
should be ?

Again I repeat there is no harm in crying loudly
for thA speedy deliverance of Rome and Venetia,
But the enemies of public order, here as wen as at
Naples, are perfectly aware of the rupture between
Garibaldi—who would have gone to war with the
French for Rome, and with the Austrians for
Venice, long before he had settled his differences
with the Bourbon at Capita and Gaeta.— tied
Cavour, who still hopes for the liberation of those
cities and provinces by peaceful means, and Who at
all events, thinks that the country should not
voluntarily venture on such gigaotie wars as must
ensue before it has fully organised and armed itself
for ithem, But, " Garibaldi, Rome, and Venice"
make a capital party-cry; and, although it is not
likely the country will ever agree in deposing
Count Cavour in order to substitute for him at the
head •of the Government, agreeably to the
suggestion in Garibaldi's last proclamation, the
" far preferable" Cattaneo, still it is just possible
that this cry may be used to create disturbances
here and there in the Northern no less than in the

,
* The mark " W." in Italy is used by way of a sign,
instead of Viva, Evvivar—aiurrah !