The Sun.
London, England, 1860-06-25 00:00:00

NEAPOLITAN ATROCITIES IN SICILY.

-d---

A writer in a contemporary says :—Reluctant
though I am to enter further upon the subject of
Neapolitan outrages in Sicily—atrocities committed
under a reign of terror which is now in such a fair

way of being put an end to, yet sceptics and in-
quirers so overwhelm me that I would fain leave it
to your better judgment to decide on the propriety
of admitting these lines into your columns.
Three summers passed on Mount Etna, with fre-
quent visits throughout other portions of the island,
extending frond Syracuse to Palermo, between the
years 1842 and -1851, afforded me some knowledge
of the people in that paradise of Europe, of their
amiability, of their sufferings, and of their naturally
indolent habits of life, though volcanic excitability
of temperament, all so admirably described by one
who has probably seen less of them, yet with far
more acute discernment—l mean your inimitable

correspondent there at this moment.
In the year 1847 I had visited the crowded
under-sea dungeons of the notorious prison-fortress
at Ischia, led through them repeatedly by the
well-known and excellent Dr. Monti, who had
been more than 40 years. the official M.D. there,
and beneath whose care and eventual cure I was
then taking advantage of the extraordinary vol-
canic baths of Cassamieciola. He there, with ill-
concealed though officially restrained disgust, called
my attention significantly to certain dark charnel
corners and Mysterious appliances, all evidently so
arranged as to strike terror into the unfortunate
prisoners from whom it might be thought necessary
to extort political confessions. Such were the sights
which afterwards made those chambers at Palermo
somewhat familiar to me, although my report of
them, even at the time, seemed scarcely credited by
some, and could be fully corroborated only by those
who had visited them in their first-opened, un-
touched condition ; as, in fact, they had been hastily
bricked up and concealed when the revolution
took a sudden turn against the Royal cause in
February, 1848.
I was at that moment on a visit to Mr. Marston,
the American Consul there., whose influence among
the Sicilians was almost equal to that of our own
venerable; talented, and highly-respected Consul,
Mr. Goodwin, and adjoining whose house was the
prison into which we had seen the 48 sbirri, the
hated spies and torturers under the Neapolitan sys-
tem of police, just then humanely brought to save
them from the raging vengeance of the infuriate
mob. With that gentleman I immediately joined
the returning crowd, curious to see the place where
they had been captured, which was at the distance
of some streets; and when we reached it we found
the excited populace venting their harmless indig-
nation by merely throwing from its windows the
papers, books, and furniture, until their attention
seemed to be drawn to a portion of the building
into which they had not penetrated—had not, in
fact, discovered any visible entrance. It was soon,
however, found and forced, as has been described,
and the scene then disclosed within excited such a
fresh outbreak of quite uncontrollable fury as
threatened that foul and horrible outrage which
actually ensued, and which, for our own safety,.
called us homeward, past the prison where the sbirri
were secured, but 'not before we had time to realise
the astounding scene before us, which impressed us
with the idea that the ill-fated apologist for the
bodies affixed to the wall spoke false in the vain
hope of saving his life, inasmuch as they hung
there loosely, and crouching almost on the floor,
their flexible weight bearing them down far below
the points of suspension, in writhing attitudes such
as expiring sufferers might be supposed to die in,
and which would not, we imagined, be the case
had they been nailed up as rigid corpses.
We noticed, moreover, that some of the rooms,
all opening into each other, appeared to have been
used as mere charnel chambers—not uncommon in
Sicilian houses and convents—their tiers of stone
shelves mostly piled with bones and rags ; others,
especially the largest, seemed adapted to living
subjects, for there stood vessels or the remains of
them, evidently used for food and water—sufficient
proof of what had been so long transacting there !
However, wo hastened homewards, soon heard the
volleys of musketry which disposed of the wretched
sbirri, and met the shrieking mob of men and,
alas ! women, triumphantly bearing on poles and
bayonets their bleeding heads and dissevered limbs,
with wild expressions of the most savage execra-
tion—admitting certainly of no palliation except
in the frightful provocation—the maddening, the
overpowering conviction that they were thus
avenging the blood of their own parents, children,
or relatives, who had so long been missing, and
whose fate had been till now a mystery.
I have reason to believe that the last sad act of
this frightful tragedy rather injured the immediate
cause of Sicily—so utterly disgusted some whose
high position might have enabled them to servo it,
and whose sympathies had hitherto been with the
revolutionists, but who had not actually witnessed
the intense provocation in those fearful chambers,
or visited them until they had been somewhat
cleansed from their foul contents and their worst
features so effaced, that their ears were thenceforth
almost closed against the popular report of them,
and their reputed horrors appeared only as one of
those hideous tales with which the streets of Pa-
lermo are confessedly too often rife.