The Sun.
London, England, 1861-04-05 00:00:00

THE CAMPANA COLLECTIO.N.

The Giornale di Roma has an article referring
to a correspondence in the Perseveranza. The
Milan journal has spoken of the recent sale to Russia
of part of the Campana collection, which it deplored,
declaring it to be a " Vandalic outrage -on the
artistic genius of Italy." The Roman official
journal makes the following statement :—" It is
certain that the Monte di Pieta in Rome found
itself, two years ago, under the necessity of
receiving the collections made by Campana, and in
accepting them it certainly had not in view to
ornament with them the vast edifices in which they
are placed, nor any other palaces, but to compensate
itself for the large sums due to it from Cam-
pana. To indemnify itself, in part, for the losses
it had suffered, it did not hesitate to accept the offers
of Russia, which related only to the classes of sculp-
ture, vases, and bronzes r those of jewelry, terra-
cottas, glass, Etruscan paintings, works of the Re-
naissance, majolica, objects of curiosity, and almost
entirely that of pictures remaining untouched. It
is quite true that those collections comprise objects
of value, but, whatever that value may be, it Gan
never equal that of the masterpieces with which are
so abundantly enriched the Pontifical museums and
galleries, and those of private persons, which are the
artistic wealth of Rome and the admiration of the
universe. Moreover, in the condition to which the
Pontifical Exchequer has been reduced by the despo-
liation of the provinces, it is evident to all that
it would have ill employed the handsome sums
which the generosity of the faithful has put at its
disposal tfor the urgent wants of the Holy See,
had it applied them to the purpose of increasing
the number of the objects in its museums and gal-
leries. It is clear, then, that if the Campana col-
lections may redound to the splendour of foreign
cities, wh ere they will be placed to increase the
monuments of a grandeur which, proper to our
soil, is elsewhere the seed of civilisation and a spark
of that flam e which feeds the arts, in this our
country already covered with more considerable
riches, they are, we will not say, useless, but
assuredly superfluous. Campana himself, who
well knew the value of the objects collect ed,
and on which he had lavished enormous sums
robbed from the Monte, looked to foreign countries
for a market for them. Moreover, these collections,
whether they,belonged to Campana or belong to
the Monte which acquired them, constitute a
private property ; and it is absurd to make their
sale a charge against the Government, as it would
be absurd, in presence of what has been set forth,
and inopportune also, in the actual circumstances,
to pretend that the Government ought to have
purchased them. Therefore neither has the Monte
di Pieta acted wrongly in endeavouring by this
sale to realise a part of the important credit for
which it became possessor of the Campana objects,
nor has the seat of the fine arts been a loser by it ;
in like manner it will not suffer in the least if the
whole of the collections should be sold."

AFFAIRS OF iIURKEI.

We have received Constantinople letters and
journals to the 27th March. The following sum-
mary of events is taken from the Levant Herald,
" His Excellency-General Durando, the Sardi-
nian Minister, hashed a conference with the French
ambassador with reference to the church of St.
Benedict, which having been originally founded
by the Genoese, the General represented that
Italy was perfectly willing to allow it to remain Gal-
lican under the protection of France, but not in the
hands of the Jesuits and Lazarists. Mr. Churchill,
H.M. Agent and Consul-General at Jassy, has re-
turned to his post from Galatz, whither he had been
ordered to superintend the embarkation of the
Sardinian arms on board the Banshee. Arif Pasha,
the new governor of Silistria, left on Saturday last
for his post via Varna. Before leaving he was deco-
rated with the Ist class of the Medjidieh, and was
invested with the military as well as civil command
of his new pashalic. He has the reputation of
being an upright and energetic man. A part of his
instructions is, to encourage cotton culture through
•
out his jurisdiction, and with this view to afford
every facility to farmers who may be disposed to
try the crop. The steam frigate Shaiki-Ghadi, and
a screw corvette left yesterday with troops for Mon-
tenegro. Owing, it is said, to the res augustac at
the Malieh, the fleet, which is already coaled and
provisioned for the coast of Dalmatia, will not
leave the inner Horn for 15 or 20 days. During
the past week 16 employes were despatched from
the Porte into Roumelia to superintend the applot-
ment of the taxes on the new system of perception
the particulars of which we recently described.
Twenty-four others will proceed in a few days into
the remaining districts of the province for a similar
purpose. Two officials have also been sent to
Salonica to regulate the cadestre of that
town and pashalic on Suby Bey's ...plan, the
details of which we have already also ex-
plained. Yesterday—the 15th day of Ramazan
the usual annual exhibition of the Prophet's Cloak
took place in Starubou I, at the beautiful little mosque
called Hiskie Cherif, where the precious relict is
preserved. His Majesty the Sultan and the whole
of the Ministers were present at the ceremony, as
were also all the chief civil and military dignitaries
of the capital.—On Saturday a funeral mass was
celebrated at St. Anthony's church, Pera, in honour
of the persons who perished in the recent affair at
Warsaw. The church was densely crowded by a
large audience, consisting of Poles, and numerous
deputations from other nationalities. The Italian
band was in attendance, and played numerous na-
tional airs.—Upwards of 800 workmen are now
employed in the imperial foundries and workshops
at Tophane and Zeitoun-bournou casting, boring,
and rifling cannon and muskets, which are to be
served out to the army as fast es finished.--
Mehemet-Effendi, law adviser to Fuad Pasha, ar-
rived from Beyrout a few days back on a special
mission to the Porte. He gives a very gloomy
picture of the state of affairs in Syria. Five thousand
piastres have been awarded for each house burned
in Damascus, but there the compensation stops,
money being wanting to pay the sums thus allotted.
Mehemet Effendi comes with urgent demands for
20,000 purses to be thus applied. Fuad Pasha
had himself gone to Aleppo to investigate the cases
of the chiefs of the late incipient fanatic out-
break in that town, and to find room fcr some
of the houseless Damascus Christians there and
at Alexandretta. It was said at Beyrout that a
petition to Fuad was in course of signature by a
large number of Christians for leave to emigrate to
Algiers.—The 3d Regiment of Cavalry of the Im-
perial Guard is under orders to proceed to Syria.
Four steamers carrying troops are to sail this week
for the same destination.—The Messageries Impe-
riales' steamer Amerique, Captain Somer, which
arrived on Saturday from Marseilles, ran down the
Prussian barque Seejungfer, Captain Marses, near
Gallipoli. The latter vessel was laden with barley
for the United Kingdom. The captain and crew
were fortunately able to save themselves in one of
the ship's boats, but the barque rapidly filled and
went down.—The brig Selina, of New Quay, Wales,
Capt. Jones, with a cargo of barley from Ibraila for
the United Kingdom, was run into on Wednesday
morning at one o'clock, in the Marmora, about 30
miles from the Bosphorus, by a Sardinian vessel, in
ballast, coining up. The shock was so great that
the brig instantly began to fill, and shortly after-
wards foundered, the captain arid men having only
time to escape by jumping on board the Sar-
dinian brig. The crew, nine in number, are now
at the Sailors' Home, Galata.—On Friday night,
the Greek brig Despina, Capt. D. Veralla, with
a cargo of wheat from Soulina for the
Mediterranean, foundered near the entrance of the
Bosphorus; the entire crew perished with the
exception of a boy who reached the shore on a
spar. The same night the Wallachian brig
Eftemia, Capt. Demetrio Georgidi, with a cargo
of Indian corn from Ibraila for Corfu, was totally
lost at Amondis, all hands saved. Letters from
Birejik on the Euphrates report that on the 23d of
February that river was frozen nearly half over.
No similar degree of cold was remembered to have
ever before occurred at Mesopotamia."
The Levant Berald has the followng article on the
financial situation of Turkey :
" The financial condition of the country is, in
effect, this :—There is a revenue of about
£10,500,000, and an expenditure of about
£15,000,000. This can only be safely and per-
manently balanced by finding new resources, by
regulating the outlay, and by improving the mode
of collecting the revenue already in existence. It
requires but little acquaintance with the financial
state and capabilities of the country to understand
how easily all three of these objects may be
achieved, without in the least oppressively adding
to the burthens of the population ; how, in fact, an
economy of fully two and a half, or three, millions
sterling may be effected by most easy retrench-
ments, and an equal addition to actual revenue be
made with the very readiest facility. We have
ourselves more than once explained in detail how
this may be accomplished. The first necessity,
however, is the preparation of a budget,—the
second, the appointment of a commission empowered
to reorganise and control the whole financial ad-
ministration of the country. The former of these
is said to be in progress ; the latter must be
formed if the Augean stable at the Malich is ever
to be cleared out. /n Undue a debt of about ten
millions sterling—including pay due to the troops,
arrears of salaries of civil employes, local depart-
mental debts, and the remainder of the outstanding
caimes—is to be grappled with ; and how is this to
be done ? Evidently, it cannot be done at present
out of revenue. But it may easily be done by con-
solidating a portion of these obligations, and by
adopting the suggestions long ago thrown out by
Sir H. Bulwer, and now again by the author of the
pamphlet above referred to—of issuing five or six
millions of guaranteed paper money. The objec-
tions to this latter are, we grant, neither few nor
trifling; but, as compared with any other form of
remedy immediately at the command of the Porte,
it is, we think, at once the most practicable and the
most efficient that could be essayed. The precise
amount to be put into circulation would depend on
the wants of the country for the current purposes
of local trade ; and, to give notes a value at all com-
parable with metallic, they must be exchangeable
for metallic under conditions and within a term
which would induce general confidence in their con-
vertibility. One of these conditions would be such
a commission of control as we have above referred
to, to which might be assigned say four or five
hundred thousand pounds sterling per annum of
revenue for the payment off at par of so much of the
paper money in circulation. To ensure this pay-
ment, two, three, or four years' quotas of revenue
might be guaranteed to such a Caisse before-
hand; and, with that and a personnel deserving
of confidence, the Commission should have no
difficulty in keeping the notes at a value in the
market little below their nominal worth. Or, by
a statesmanlike dealing with the Crown lands,
many times more than this amount might not only
be guaranteed, but be actually realised, and by an
investment in the English or French funds, of the
sum thus raised such a credit might be at once
given to these notes as would render them little, if
at all, inferior to metallic in the general estimate of
the people. And not only would this give local
confidence, but it would raise the credit of the
Porte abroad, which is hardly, if at all, less neces-
sary than the resuscitation of faith in its solvency
at home. But, after all, this is only one of the
many obviously facile means by
_f from its whichmone-
tary the Govern-
ment may, if it will, extricate itself
tary difficulties and infuse a new life into the trade
to an y with whom whom thee
whole, or
of the country. We have al ready pointed out
ioniathiterst
ve lies, l,lhtv the Grand
Vizier,will he permit a continuance for a single month
iWeiah recourse
longer of the status quo Y If he does, the conse-
quences can hardly fail to be disastrous not merely
to his own political fortunes, but to the gravest in-
terests of every class—native and foreign—of tile
population of the country."

A VICTIM TO ROUTINE.—A certain society lately
gave a grant to build a parsonage-house. Among other
things a well was to be dug, and the society had a regula-
tion depth for their wells. Long before this
reached, depth was
a perpetual spring of excellent water was found,
but found in, vain. The regulation depth must be reached,
and was reached. The water was not very good, but the
unhappy parson was obliged to drink it. After a time he
became seriously unwell, when it was discovered that the
well-sinkers had dug into a spring of mineral water, and
the poor man had been drinking a tonic every day of his
life, because his benefactors . were two conservatives—Ara.
tionai I?eview, for April,