The Sun.
London, England, 1861-09-28 00:00:00

A ROMAN EXECUTION.

The execution at Rome, for the murder of a pon-
fical gendarme in a fight, of Locatelli, whose inno•
cence is established by the Telegram which we pub.
lished yesterday, is described in a letter from Rome
of the 21st :—" Locatelli had all along denied hav-
ing caused the gendarme's death, but the evidence
against him, chiefly that of French soldiers and
gendarmes, seems to place it beyond doubt that he
stabbed him during the fight, in which he himself
was also severely wounded. He maintained this
point obstinately, and when informed last night
that he was to be executed this morning he merely
replied, Very well; I die an innocent man. I re-
quest that no one may be admitted to disturb me.'
Nor could any of the priests, Passionist monks, or
official confortatori, who exert themselves on such
occasions to induce criminals to confess and receive
the sacrament before submitting to death, prevail
upon Locatelli to accept of the last consolatory
offices of religion. At half-past 7, half an hour's
grace
having been ineffectually granted for the
prisoner to repent in, he was led to the scaffold,
the rolling of drums drowning his shouts of
' Viva l'ltalia !" Viva Vittorio i manuele P and
similar political rallying cries. Courageous to the
last, Locatelli firmly ascended the scaffold steps,
whence he would fain have spoken to the crowd had
he been permitted, resisted the last efforts to con-
vert him made by a Capuchin monk on one side and
a Passionist on the other, averted his head from the
crucifix, and resigned himself calmly to the hands
of the veteran headsman, Mastro Titta, who, assisted
by two stout Adjutants, was so rapid in his office
that the gasping exclamations of the spectators,' B
fatto ." seemed rather one of surprise than of horror.
Locatelli was a fine man of 37 years of age, with a
black beard, rendered more conspicuous by his white
dress and cap. His social condition was that of a
railway porter, and he figured somewhat disadvan -
tageously in the police reports. Having got their
fill of horrors, and muttered their curses after the
three executioners, who slunk off, with hats slouched
over their eyes, by the temples of Vesta and Fortuna
Virilis and across the Ponte Rotto to their official
residence on the other side of the Tiber, the crowds
of spectators dispersed quietly, the troops marched
off with drums and trumpets, and the rustics, who
had stopped their ox-carts or buffalo waggons to
gaze astounded on the unexpected scene of blood,
shut their mouths at last, and, striking their goads
into their ponderous teams, resumed their road to
wards the Porta San Sebastiano and the Appian Way.
To do justice to the humane feelings of the softer
sex in Rome, it must be observed that women, al-
though sufficiently fierce when passion stirs the
ancestral blood in their veins, are very rarely to be
seen among the lookers-on at such spectacles as I
have described. The vengeance of the Ecclesiastical
Government pursues such criminals as refuse to be
reconciled to the Church even after their deaths, for
their corpses are merely corded up in sacking, and
thrown by night in some remote, unconsecrated spot
outside the city walls, with a barrowful of lime over
them to ensure a rapid decomposition."

''''DEATII OF MR. WILLIAM FARREN.—This
emi-
nent comedian, who died on Tuesday, at Ws residence in
Brompton-square, was born towards the close of 1786, and
was consequently at the time of his deceased in his 75th
year. While he was playing Old Parr at the Haymarket
in May, 1845, he was seized with a fit which, through inju-
dicious treatment, culminated in a severe stroke of paralysis,
and for some time it was thought that he was lost to the
stage for ever. Perhaps it would have been better for his
reputation if he had never reappeared ; for his articulation
was rendered so indistinct, and, his physical and mental
powers were so materially impaired by the shock which his
constitution had sustained, that those who saw him only in
the closing epoch of his career could form no idea of the
ability which he displayed when in his prime, He remained
for 10 years longer before the public as an actor at the Hay-
market, and as manager and actor at the Strand and the
Olympic ; and his last appearance was at the Haymarket,
where, on July 16, 1855, he played Lori Ogleby on the
occasion of his farewell benefit.