The Sun.
London, England, 1861-10-31 00:00:00

STATE OF ITALY•

The correspondent of the Times, in a letter dated
Turin, Oct. 28, says :—Father Passaglia arrived in
Turin last Saturday. I saw him this morning.
He is a striking, highly interesting-looking per-
sonage. He is a tall man, considerably above six.'
feet high, with great breadth of shoulders and
flat chest ; a spare, erect, imposing figure, with
an easy, dignified, refined bearing ; the most gen-
tlemanly priest I ever beheld. His forehead is
high, not massive, and rather slanting backwards;
the brow is sharp and prominent. He has a rich,
glossy head of hair, slightly silvered all over; he
may be 50 years old, certainly not more, and he
complains that deep study and care have oldened
him before his time. He has regular, deeply-
chiselled features, with a remarkably wide, proud,
firm, but by no means heavy under jaw. The eyes
are deeply set, light brown, vivid, wakeful. The
countenance is gifted with great mobility and sud-
den powers of expression. He is thin and pale, with
deep furrows on the forehead and round the mouth.
The habitual look is grave and thoughtful ; but the
face lightens up with occasional glimpses of great
shrewdness and humour. He is a Florentine,
I 'believe, or, at any rate, a Tuscan. His
language is pure, precise, flowing, elegant,
and his native accent has been softened
and mounded without effeminacy by long re-
sidence in Rome. Altogether, I felt I stood in
the presence of a high intelligence. The Father is
above all things a thinker; not much of an enthu-
siast, I should fancy, and the very reverse of a
fanatic. There is a slight touch of the Jesuit in the
tone of hitt voice, in his thorough courtesy, and
bland, well-bred manners ; but there is also a
strength of character by which the man of the world
visibly effaces and makes us forget the priest. He
professes great earnestness of purpose, nevertheless ;
professes to have a heart for his country, while his
whole soul is engrossed with the real interests of the
Church. He wishes the Papacy to be truly Catholic ;
hence he wishes it to abjure all that made it essen-
tially Italian. The Pope's character as a Roman
prince has wedded him to a narrow-minded local
policy, estranged him from his world-wide mission,
and limited the sphere of his humanitarian in-
fluence. Passaglia has no faith in Cardinals D'An-
drea or Marini, in none of the Italian members of
the Sacred College. The only Prelate who shared
his own views, and would have acted in concert
with him, is now dead ; it was Cardinal Santucci.
But he has allies in some of the Transalpine Cardi-
nals ; he named three of them—the Primate of Hun-
gary, he of Lisbon, I forget the third. Many of
the clergy of the second rank, even in Rome, are of
one mind with him. They are now daily speaking
out, and will be sent out one by one to join him in
his exile. Few days will elapse ere a nucleus of
these liberal-minded ecclesiastics will be assembled
in Turin. Many of the distinguished laymen whose
attachment to the Roman Catholic Church no one
can dispute—foremost among them the excellent
Marquis of Cavour, the late Count's elder brother
—will rally around them. The King's Govern-
ment will final it their interest to encourage their
efforts. The moment is supreme ; it could not be
more opportune. It is now very clearly stated
that " the Emperor of the French, for weighty and
mighty motives of his own, in the interest of the
Italian cause itself, will not allow that terrible ques-
tion of Rome to be touched upon." I thank my
stars I never gave in to the almost universal delu-
sion about the Emperor's eond intentions on that
subject. m..p.icuri-s weighty reasons for not with-
drawing his troops from Rome are, and always were,
purely personal. Rome was an instrument in his
hands for thwarticg the efforts of the Italians to-
wards their unity, for opposing that unity for ever,
or at least adjourning it till the Italians have either
aecepted his conditions or made themselves subser-
vient to some of his hidden views. In the teeth of
statesmen, newsmen, diplomatists, and reasoners of
every description who had different expectations,
who named the close of last February, of last March,
of every month of the calendar, as the epoch deter-
mined upon for the removal of the Roman gar-
rison, and who looked upon me as a maniac for my
incredulity, I adhered to my own faith, and it is
now only a meagre consolation to be told that I was
right all along,

The Italians cannot talk and write themselves
into Rome; they cannot fight themselves into it ;
we must now see whether they can baffle the Em-
peror and rout the Pope, notwithstanding. Father
Passaglia is in himself a host. Though he talks of
weariness and disgust; though he even reveals some

intentions of withdrawing from the contest, and

" looking for some obscure corner where he can pore
over his books and say a quiet mass ;" though he
has some vague designs of crossing the Alps, and
earning his bread in Germany, were it only as a
philosophical lecturer, turning to account those
studies which have been his delight—still one may
doubt whether he is the man to lay hand on the
plough and look backward. He must know that the
eyes of his country, and one may freely say of all
Europe, are upon him; and all his outward man
would belie him if he were to give up a game with
such promising odds on his side.
The ovations he received at Siena and Florence
have chagrined and sickened him. He is no man
for the clamour of a riotous multitude ; something
wide apart from the Reformers of the Gavazzi and
Pantaleo school. Though doubtless an eloquent
man, he would rather trust his powers as a writer.
He comes not to demolish, but to build. His appeal
must be, not to the passions of the rabble, but to
the understanding of thinking men, and especially
to the conscience, and the true interests of his
clerical brethren; The Papacy must fall, but the
Church must stand ; nay, it must be more strongly
united than it ever was ; the world must see that
file only clement of division and weakness in the
Church was the Papacy—the institution of a Pope-
King. The means for this momentous movement
are at hand. Lorenzo Valerio, formerly one of the
Parliamentary leaders of the Left, since 1859 Gover-
nor of the province of Como, for some time Royal
Lieutenant in the Marches, and now again at the
head of the province of Como, assures us that the
diocess of Como, from the bishop to the meanest
clerk, are stanchly and ardently attached to the
Italian cause, and freely organised into hostility
against the temporal power of the Roman Court.
Symptoms of the same good disposition are rife in
the diocess of Cremona, the bishop at the head of
-which was decided and outspoken from the begin-
ning. Throughout the whole of Lombardy the
rests are orderly and reasonable, and those prelates
who showed any to the country's cause, as
well as the vicars who took their places, have been
driven from their sees, more frequently by the atti-
tude of theirelergy•than by the outcry and violence
of the lay
flock, No onei has forgotten that in early
times and throu
ghoilof Milan, or, as itt e middle ages the archdiocese
was called, the diocess of Italy,
w-as not only independent and at variance with,
but often in a state of open hostility to the See of
*Rome. A certain amount of independent spirit, no
and
less than greater self-respectmorality, was at
all times observable in Lombardy, especially
among
the parochial clergy. Were the Bishops of Como
Or
Cremona, or the Chapters of Milan, Bergamo,
Brescia to call together their provincial synods, or
and
eventually to meet in a regional synod, to register
'their protest against the continuance of the temporal
sovereignty of the Pontiff, as opposed to the nature
and tendencies of Christianity, as chargeable with
most, if not all, the disorders which ever afflicted
or now afflict the Church, and fatal to, and incom-
patible with the interests of true religion for the
future ; were, at the same time, the theological
Vacuities of the several Italian universities and
divinity schools to come to the same conclusions—
what, one may ask, would be the result ? Why, the
example of one, two, three dioceses would soon
prove contagious, and the Papacy would lose ground
everywhere in Italy, till it would be hemmed in
within the narrow limits of the territory in which
Tench bayonets still uphold it. Against a perfect
accord and unanimity among the clergy, such as we
It:e told exists at Como and Cremona, it would not
2„„"taY for the Pope to invoke the aid of the
7'l3(3°'(/(1° of Catholics on whom he pretends to
field
Those
field to vin 2110.0,000,000 have not yet taken the
likelyhack his lost provinces. would not beThey
at long the fn a to draw the sword to enforce
armed Italians a creed which

they spontaneously repudiated. The Pope might 1
try the efficacy of spiritual weapons, and the excom-
munication and interdict may still have some power
among the ignorant masses so long as the lower, and
especially the parochial clergy, act up to their de-
crees. No doubt the Italian population, especially
in the country, must have masses and acraments,
and can neither be born, nor married, nor die with-
out the intervention of the Church. But if all
ecclesiastical functions and ceremonies continue to
be performed by the ministers of the altar, to whom
they have always looked up as their sure and un-
erring guides, they are not likely to trouble their
heads much about the distant and impotent wrath
of a Pope, who has treasured upon his head the
hatred of his disappointed countrymen, and who at
no time hesitated to make common cause with the
most ruthless foreign and domestic enemies, the
oppressors and assassins of Italy. His alliance
with the Bourbon and Chiavone has filled the
measure of Italian contempt and detestation to
Pius IX. and his Court. The priests will act as
conductors to screen their flock from the conse-
quefices of the Vatican thunders.
Only the question may arise—ls it truly possible,
is it easily practicable, to bring the mass of the Lom-
bard, or of any Italian, priesthood to act in this
matter with anything which may look like harmony
and unanimity ? The answer is—There are good
priests in sufficient number in Italy to drag the bad
ones after them. Whenever the clergy had to
choose between the Sing and the Pope, whenever
the test of a Te Deum, of a solemn mass or a
blessingof standards,compelled them to declare their
own mind, the immense majority, whether with a
good or ill grace, ended by performing their duties
as citizens and patriots. Some of the bishops and
other upper prelates, it is true, kicked against the
pricks ; but not only had they to decamp before
popular displeasure, but they were often strongly
opposed and loudly disavowed by most of their
priests, and even by those fat canons who cut so
heavy a slice out of the temporalities of Mother
Church ; and, be it observed, all this took place
when the fate of Italy hung still on the scales, when
opposition might still be of avail, and every man
was almost entitled to say yea and nay, as his con-
science dictated ; but now the new order of things
is firmly established, the clergy have directly or in-
directly, silently or openly, acquiesced in and given
sanction to it ; they are committed and sworn to it,
they cannot depart from it without open treason
and rebellion, and they expose themselves to the
vengeance of a Government which, even if it respect
their persons, can always lay hand on their livings.
Intimidation has gone and can go a great way with
those priests who might still have a hankering after
the old regime ; and the well-applied influence of
the Government, no less than the loud voice of the
people, will determine many whom weakness of
character or dread of unforeseen contingencies
might hold in suspense. Father Passaglia, Baron
Ricasoli's Government, and the patriotic party have
it in their power to put the screw on the Pope, in
spite of French protection, and the Emperor Napo-
leon is less likely to obtain fair terms for Pius IX.,
by the continuance of his garrison at Rome, than
if he left the Pope and his cardinals completely at
the discretion of the Italians.

It is thought now, not without good reason, that
the Emperor relies on the co-operation of Italy in
the furtherance of vast hidden designs which he is
slowly maturing in his mind. He is certainly not
pursuing the best policy to engage the Italians in
his service. Already to those who throw in these
people's teeth the charge of ingratitude, answer is
made that the Emperor's good deeds to Italy ended
at Villafranca, and that ever since that peace Napo-
leon 111. has done, or attempted and endeavoured
to do them infinitely more harm than good; that,
independent even of their will, he has deprived and
is even now depriving them of the power of giving
him efficient aid ; that while, by upholding Pius
IX., Francis 11., and Chiavone, he divides their
forces and drains their means and resources, it 5s
idle on his part to expect that they may be able to
muster up 300,000 combatants, to be ready in the
spring to attack the Po and Mincio, when he thinks
the time ripe for his long-meditated onset on the
Rhine. Left to themselves since July, 1859, the
Italians have fought their way, they have marche
to their goal with a success which perhaps entered
not in the Emperor's calculation. They will now
bring to bear on the emancipation of their national
church and their abjuration of the Papacy that real
concord and wisdom which enabled them to achieve
their annexation; and when they have, no thanks
to France, morally rid themselves of the PopQ, as
they have materially freed themselves from the
Lorraine and Bourbon Princes, they will choose
their allies with a view to their own interests, not
in obedience to feelings of gratitude which the
benefactor himself has done his utmost to nip in
the bud.

LICENSES TO MAKE AND SELL FIRE.

WORKS.

Yesterday a numerous bench of Magistrates held
a special session at the Court-house, Newington, for
the purpose of hearing applications for licenses to
make and to sell fireworks. T. Tilson, Esq., pre-
sided, and the following cases were disposed of :
ST. GEORGE.—There were three applications in
respect of premises in this parish, viz., those of
Susanna Drewell, 6, Hatfield-place, Westminster-
road ; Henry Austin Gibson, 3, Lees-place, West-
minster-road ; and Joseph Wells, 17, Pitt-street, St.
George's-road. All the applications were for leave
to sell only, and not to manufacture, and the first
applicant asked to be allowed to keep as much as
1001bs. of explosive material upon the premises,
whilst in the two other cases the quantity was only
301bs.

Mr. Day, the vestry-clerk of the parish, attended,
and said that the parochia l authorities would rather
that no license of the kind were granted at all, but
as no doubt such licenses would be granted under
the new law, they must content themselves with
expressing a hope that the Bench would place the
limit as to quantity as low as possible, so as not
unnecessarily to endanger life and property
Several neighbours appeared to oppose, stating
that if licenses were granted it would cause great
alarm in the neighbourhood, there having been in
time past several severe explosions, especially the
fatal one when Madame Coton's premises were
blown up. Property also would be deteriorated,
for tenants would leave as soon as the licenses were
granted, and should a fire occur in consequence of
an explosion the fire offices stipulated that they
would not be responsible. Even if the greatest care
were used by sellers, still there would be much ran-
ger from the carelessness of purchasers, for persons
had been seen to purchase large quantities of fire-
works, put them into a vehicle, take their seats
over them, light a pipe or a cigar, and drive away.
(Laughter.)
The chairman said that hitherto it had been ille-
gal for any one to sell fireworks, but that being a
harsh law had not been enforced, Now, no doubt,
it would be very different.
One of the neighbours complained that large
quantities of powder had bean kept on the spot,
and stated that when the explosion took place at
Madame Coton's there were four barrels of powder
next door but one. _

__
The Rev._ Mr. Howell, the incumbent of the
parish, without altogether opposing the applica-
tions, entreated the magistrates to limit as much as
possible the quantity of the explosive material to
be kept ; for, in addition to the ordinary elements
of danger, there was a school close by Mrs.
Drewell's premises, and he believed that if she were
allowed to keep more than 101bs. of explosive
matter there would be very great danger. He must
add that to his knowledge Mrs. Drewell was a very
respectable person, and he had no doubt that she
wouldi strictly adhere to the terms of her licence.
Drewell, supported the application of Mrs.
who, with her late husband, had carried
on the firework business for 38' years ; and 24 of
her immediate neighbours
memorial.
The supported her applica-
tioTnhbey
othersign ing he
applicants addressed the Bench, and
it appeared that they had both been in the business
all theirThe c lives.haimr
Chairman, after some discussion, saidl that a
a license to keep 201hs. of explosivemateriar
be granted to Mrs. Drewell and to Mr. Wells, but
the application of Mr. Gibson was refused.

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