The Sun.
London, England, 1866-10-11 00:00:00

State of Affairs at Palermo.

The following are some extracts from a letter
dated Palermo, Sept. 24 :
"My dear Father,—l have just received your
letter with the enclosed one from —; but now the
Government have had to turn their attention to
Sicily with a vengeance. I hope you got the letter I
wrote to you from the steamer, telling you that we
were quite safe; but it has been a most dreadful time.
has written a long account of it, and I should
think he has done it very well. The first three days
were the most dreadful I ever spent. There were
bullets flying about in every direction, and shells
bursting quite close to thehouse, and every moment
we expected one to be in the house; and on Wednes-
day morning, at 6 o'clock, we thought anything
better than staying here, so we got away, and hap-
pily arrived safely on board the steamer. Troops
were arriving every day from all directions—Ancona,
Taranto, Ravenna, &c., and a; number of ships. For
the first few days the rebels got decidedly the best of
it, as there were not enough soldiers, and the rebels
had got possession of nearly the whole town, but on
Friday such a number of troops had arrived that I
suppose the wretches got frightened, for numbers of
those from the country sneaked away in the night,
and the townspeople got rid of their arms somehow,
and pretended they had never done anything at all.
Oh, it does make one so angry ! Those horrid
cowards who a few days ago were fighting against
the soldiers are now calling out ' Viva l'ltalia !
Viva Vittorio Emanuele !' and putting out the
Italian flag just because they are too frightened to
do anything else. If I had anything to do with the
Government I would give up Sicily altogether, and
not own such a set of rascals as they all are, every
one. I hate the very sight of our own servants ;
they are just as bad as the rest. When they were
robbing the Garibaldi School, we saw our own
groom go in and get a musket. William went and
took it from him, and has just now gone with him
and made him take it back. I wonder how he likes
that ? Yesterday we went to see the poor;Garibaldi
School, and it is too shocking ; they have not left one
thing except the walls, even torn out the very gas-
pipes to make bullets, and anything they hadnot time
to take away they have broken to bits, and such a
nice place it must have been. At the hospital it is
just the same. They even took the mattresses and
beds from under the sick soldiers. These Sicilians
are not like human beings, they are more like beasts.
But I don't think they will try this again. There
are 20,000 soldiers here now, and there are to be
60,000 quartered in Sicily. None of the higher
classes of the Sicilians had anything to do with it ;
but fancy what these wretches did --they took a
number of gentlemen here prisoners, and made them
go about with them, so as to mix them up in it,
when they had nothing to do with it. The few
poor soldiers who were here at the beginning held
out very well, but they were so few. Their princi-
pal care was to guard the prisons, because the wretches
tried hard to let the prisoners loose. There are 2,400
people in prison, and fancy if they had escaped !
But the soldiers managed to keep the prisons,
though they were nearly starved, and the
Palace, where the Prefect, the General, and all the
authorities,w ere glad to eat horses ! The poor Syndic,
they took everything out of his house and burnt it
in a heap, made barricades of his carriages, and
killed his horses. It is something awful the state
the town is in ; you could not imagine it without
seeing it—barricades everywhere, the pavement
torn up, numbers of houses half ruined by cannon
balls and shells. What could the poor soldiers do.
They marched up a street which looked quite de-
serted, not a creature to be seen; when all at once
from the windows on each side, through the green
shutters, volleys were fired down on them, and they
could see no one, and of course very few of the
rebels were killed ; but they will catch it still, it is to
be hoped. There are plenty of people who will recog-
nise them ; they will have no pity shown them, and,
indeed, they don't deserve it. I have no pity for
any of them. Yesterday there was a state of siege
proclaimed ; no one is allowed to be out of doors
after dark, and any persons found with arms on
them are shot within 12 hours. They deserve it all.
Some officers said to us Italy only wanted this to
complete this year 1866's disgrace. Some people
say that they are ashamed to say they live in
Palermo.

" The soldiers are searching every house now to
try to get back some of the stolen things, but I am
afraid they will get back very few, though people
are afraid now of keeping things which will be re-
cognised, and they throw things away about the
streets. There was a sofa standing in the middle
of the Maqueda yesterday. The cholera has broken
out among the troops, but it is to be hoped it
won't spread, though the town is in such a
filthy state I am afraid it is most probable. The
Prefect and the General have both been sent for to
Florence. People blame the Prefect. They all say he
is a most excellent man, but not fitted for his place.
They say he ought to have sent for troops long ago,
for he knew what a state the country was in, and
they must have been preparing this for mouths ; but
you know he did send.
"We have not had much damage done to our
house, happily. We have got a good many bullets
in the drawing-room and sitting-room, but nothing
broken which cannot easily be mended, such as
windows, shutters, &c. There are some pretty big
holes in the wall, which is tiresome, as it has just
been all newly papered, but we ought to be very
thankful that it is not worse, and that we are all
alive, for these bullets all came in the very day we
left. The house is dreadfully damaged, but luckily
it is the bed-rooms, not the drawing-rooms. Five of
those horrid things of a triangular shape—they call
them ' granat' here, I don't know what they are in
English (grenades?)—went into one house, and
have spoilt a great deal. One room they say will
have to be newly roofed. I wonder some English
ships don't come here. Last week the Victoria,
Prince Consort, Gibraltar, and Royal Oak were
all at Syracuse ; but, then, they knew nothing of
this; still I wonder they don't come now, unless
the cholera keeps them away. The English Go-
vernment had information of our state long ago—
of something brewing. Mr. and Mrs. stayed
in their house all the time, because they could not
get away, and escaped wonderfully—only one bullet
in the house; but they were dreadfully frightened.
Every cannon shot fired from the castle seemed to
whizz close past them—which, indeed, it did, but
their house was not touched. The hospital protected
them a little. The Sisters of Charity from the hos-
pital took refuge at the French Consul's. When
they told us on Saturday that it was all over and
that we could go back to our houses we could hardly
believe it. We came back on Saturday evening ; it
is so delightful to feel safe again. The whole place
is swarming with soldiers and sailors.

" Just as I was writing this - arrived. lam
So sorry for him, Ffe did not say any Thing about