The Sun.
London, England, 1860-10-11 00:00:00

Venetia to Italy ;be would liberate half her army,
and get perhaps ten millions sterling for the
exchequer. -

At a superficial glance the sudden and utter col-
lapse of the Neapolitan monarchy might appear to

be a wholly inexplicable phenomenon. Among
the Powers of the earth it was one by no means

contemptible in its dimensions, or in its capabilities.
In mere territory it comprised an area equivalent to
one half of Great Britain. Its population numbered
very little short of 10,000,000—the latest census
giving a return of fully 9,500,000. The inhabi-
tants of its capital alone approximated to half a
million, or, to be precise, yielded a return of 420,000

altogether. The royal army consisted in round
numbers of some 80,000 men of all arms, nominally
well-disciplined and always particularly well

cared for by a despotism situated in a climate
of exquisite salubrity. The machinery of its
police, moreover, was organised with the

most scrupulous and cautious elaboration
—its working being conducted always with inflexi-
ble determination. The civil part of the population
awed into subjection by the police and ground
down to the dust under the heels of the military—
might not unreasonably have been regarded, but a
few months back, as altogether too emasculated
and effeminated ever to attempt vigorously to relieve
themselves from the thraldom of this detested

Government. Yet it is this armed, pitiless, inexor
able system of tyranny that has abruptly fallen to
pieces ! It is this depressed and enervated race
that has suddenly thrown off the yoke—thrown it
off at the first summons—thrown it off (merely with
the assistance of that summons)—themselves ! The
greatest Adventurer of modern times—call him
whateveryou please,Condottieri,B uccaneer,Brigand,
Revolutionist—still,in no invidious sense of the word
the greatest and the most heroic Adventurer of
modern times—GARIBALDI—a Soldier of Fortune,
having scarcely any more worldly possession than the
sword slung by his thigh—lands with a handful of
men on the shores of Sicily, marches inland, and
lo ! at his mere coming, at the mere terror of his
name 25,000 soldiers lay down their arms ! He is
master of Palermo—master of Messina—master of
Sicily. Shortly afterwards he crosses, without
much hesitation, his Rubicon—the Straits of Mes-
sina. At his appearance all Calabria rises in revolt
—it is like one of those fires we read of sweeping
upon the wings of the hurricane over the surface of
an American prairie—a spark, and the whole land
is in conflagration. GARIBALDI has landed—not
even 5,000 or 10,000 men have landed, but GARI-
BALDI has Ianded—GARIBALDI is advancing upon
the capital ! Down goes the whole fabric of Nea-
politan despotism at a crash. The terrible, übi-
quitous, inscrutable Police are (like the ruck on
the Derby day) nowhere ! The royal troops
desert by regiments, by battalions. The
residue retreat en masse, with the KING
himself, from the capital upon which GARI-
BALDI is advancing. The Liberator is advancing,
not by forced marches at the head of his armed
followers. He is hastening on to Naples almost
alone—now in a common post carriage—now in the
public train upon the railway—like any ordinary
passenger. One fine morning General GARIBALDI
rides into Naples attended simply by his Staff—no
brilliant uniforms, no drums and trumpets, none of
the " pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious
war" that SHAKESPEARE sings of—his sombrero is
dusty and travel-stained, he has his old red shirt
on, his grey breeches are said to be darned—yet is
he in mere external aspect " every inch a Kin g"—
a King of Men—a Hero—a Conqueror. At the
sound of his name the whole monarchy of the Two
Sicilies has gone down, and vanished from the
capital—as literally and absolutely as the solid
battlements of Jericho fell before the clangour of
the trumpets of the Israelites. FERDINAND 11. has
gone off hurriedly in the direction of Gaeta, with his
40,000 or 50,000 men, beating a hasty retreat be-
hind the line of the Volturno.
A spectacle so astounding as all this might be
presumed we say to be, at a superficial glance,
altogether inexplicable. But it is not. The pheno-
menon, wonderful though it is, admits very readily
indeed of explanation. It is within the grasp of
the most ordinary comprehension: It is a problem
the solution of which was given nine years ago by
anticipation. Who has forgotten Mr. GLADSTONE'S
letters to the Earl of ABERDEEN ? Letters about
the prisons of Naples printed and published, and
read, far and wide, with horror, and by many with
incredulity as long ago as 1851—letters that have
since run through fourteen editions, and that yet
remain in all essential particulars unanswered !
Recently, as will have been remarked, Lord
LLAN OVER—and yet more recently Mr. EDWIN
JAMES, M.P. for Marylebone—each in turn has
said " Ditto to Mr. BURKE ;" has, in the matter of
these Prisons of Naples, explicitly, formally, deli-
berately corroborated the fearful accounts fur-
nished to England, to all Europe, fully nine long
years ago by Mr. GLADSTONE. On Tuesday even-
ing we gave Lord LLAN OVER'S painful but deeply
interesting communication. -Yesterday we gave
Mr. E. JAMES'S less detailed but no less categorical
enforcement of Mr. GLADSTONE'S appalling state-
ments. Our readers have, doubtless, like ourselves
read through these terrible records of monarchical
cruelty with the heart sickening during the perusal,
sickening with mingled disgust and abhorrence.
Any recapitulation here of the loathsome particu-
lars were, of course, superfluous. We may happily
content ourselves with referring those who may not
yet have fully acquainted themselves with the facts
thus brought to our knowledge, to the record of those
facts, as given by the hon. and learned gentleman
the member for Marylebone, by the noble lord late
the Minister of Public Works, and years and years
back by the right hon. gentleman the Chancellor
of her MAJESTY'S Exchequer. Remembering those
facts—no wonder, we may exclaim, no wonder the
Neapolitan Monarchy has collapsed thus utterly, and
suddenly, and ignominiously. Undermined by
those rotten and half-decomposing dungeons of
cruelty—it is surely no marvel in the wo,rld that,
at the resounding footsteps of GARIBALDI, it has
sank with a crash in ruins to its very foundations.