The Sun.
London, England, 1861-05-16 00:00:00

RONAN AFFAIRS.

1,739

Madame Pantaleoni left Rome on Wednesday to
join her husband at Turin. Before obtaining her
passport she was required to sign a paper engaging
not to return to Rome, nor would she have been
allowed to leave without fulfilling this condition.
As the police authorities declined giving her a copy
of this engagement, she, with much calmness, wrote
a copy of it herself in the office. Madame Panta-
leoni's spiritual and medical advisers, Father Sapeto
and Dr. Leonardi, had proposed accompanying her
to Civita Vecchia, to see her on board the steamer,
but those gentlemen received private warning from
the police not to indulge their feelings of sympathy
to that extent, and Madame Pantaleoni was conse-
quently conducted to the railway station only by
Mr. Odo Russell and Mr. Pentland, to whose
friendly courtesies, as a British subject, she had
every rigb t.

The Pontifical Government has relapsed into its
periodic al state of inertness. Cardinal Antonelli is
satisfied that his place at the helm of power will be
preserved to him by French protection ; and Mon-
signor de Merode has been very much occupied
with the construction, or rather the grooving, of 12
pieces of cannon, at the arsenal behind the Vatican,
so that the Pontifical army also has now its rifled
artillery.

- i

But, although quiet at home, the Papal Govern-
ment is said to be active abroad, and the reactionary
distur'oances in the south are entirely attributed to
Papal and Bourbonic emanations. The last news
we have from the Neapolitan frontier represents a
body of 500 reactionists, brigands or Bourbonic sol-
diers, as hemmed in by the French on the north,
and the Piedmontese on the south of the border lime,
so that they must either surrender or be destroyed.
The presence of so many of these disbanded
soldiers and disorderly peasants in the Papal ter-
ritories renders the roads more insecure than
usual, and the cities and towns themselves, not
excepting the capital, suffer from the nefarious
exploits of art unusually large agglomeration of
marauders. The Marquis Bargagli, who continues
to represent at the Court of Rome the defunct Go-
vernment of the ex-Grand Duke of Tuscany, was
surprised the other morning before daybreak to find
a robber standing at his bedside, offering him the
disagreeable alternative of a thrust with a stiletto
or the immediate consignment of his escritoire. His
excellency chose the latter condition, and hande d
over about 540 scudi to the unwelcome visitor, who
nimbly made his exit by the window with his ill-
gotten booty.

3,80

On the following clay, as the marquis was pon-
dering over the successive ills which flesh and
diplomatists are heirs to, in walked the renowned
Jesuit confessor, Father Rossi; and without more
preamble than stating that a penitent of his had
resolved to regain his peace of conscience by restor-
ing the property which he had plundered, handed
the portfolio and money to the astounded minister,
and wrapping himself once more in his ample black
cloak, departed as expeditiously as he had come.
This same Father Rossi, some months ago, brought
back 300 scudi to a Roman money changer, which
the latter had given too much, by mistake, to a
customer who went to change a note.

THE LONDON UNIVERSITY.

The annual meeting for the conferring of degrees
and distribution of prizes to the students of this
university took place yesterday afternoon in the
Great Hall of the university at Burlington House.
A large company was assembled to witness the
ceremony; among those were—the Vice-Chan-
cellor, Sir J. Lefevre, Lord Overstone, Dr. Billing,
Sir James Clark, Professor Faraday, Dr. Hodgekin,
Mr. Kiernan, Sir Charles Locock, the Right Hon.
Robert Lowe, M.P., Mr. Grote, Sir E. Ryan, :C.8,,
Dr. Quain, Dr. Foster, Dr. Storrar, Dr. Sharpey,
and Dr. Angus. There were also present Lord
Camperdown, Lord Stratford de .Redcliffe, Lieut.-
Colonel Loyd-Lindsay, and Mr. A. Trollope.
A report of the proceedings of the past year was
read by Dr. Carpenter, the Registrar of the Uni-
versity, wherein it appeared that 215 candidates
offered themselves in July, 1860, for matriculation,
of whom 60 distinguished themselves in matheme-
tics, 9 in classics, 10 in chemistry, 2 in botany, 5
in zoology. In January, 1861, 71 matriculated, 7
of whom took mathematical and 3 classical honours;
and 2 distinguished themselves in chemistry, 2 in
botany, and lin zoology. Of the 88 who took the
degree of 8.A., 4 distinguished themselves in
mathematics, 7 in classics, 10 in English, 6 in
French, and 4in German. Of the 35 who passed
the first examination for the M.B. degree, 12 took
honours in anatomy and physiology, 8 in che-
mistry, 7in nzateria medica, and 4in botany. Nine
M.A. degrees were conferred, and an equal number
of M.D. degrees.
Earl GRANVILLE, (the Chancellor of the Univer-
sity) said that after having had the agreeable duty
of giving prizes and conferring degrees, he rose to
make some observations on the condition and pro-
spects of the university, in accordance with annual
custom. Though it was difficult to address many
who had been present on several previous similar
occasions, that difficulty was diminished by the fact
that not only was there deep interest taken in the i
welfare of the university by ts members and by
their friends and relatives, but also by many dis-
tinguished men who were present, and who were
not connected with the university. The other day
he read a work on the universities of England
written by an eminent man, and he was mortified
to find the London University dismissed with the
short saying that "it was only a board of manage-
ment." As to the senate, he was quite prepared to
admit that it might be called " a board of manage-
ment." He was embarrassed in speaking of that
body by the fact of his belonging to it himself; but
he had been a member of it for a very short time,
and he was quite out of the class of those men of
great merit and ability of whom it consisted. He
would not trouble them with a list ape names of
the members of the senate ; they were some of the
most eminent in politics, literature, and science. He
bad never known any body in which so many of such
eminent men had submitted so cheerfully to the de-
tailed drudgery so necessary to the practical work-
ing of the university. During the last short year
four historians had been lost to the world. One a
Frenchman, De Tocquevil/e ; one an American,
Prescott; and two
Englishmen, Macaulay and Hal-
lam. Both of the Englishmen had been associated
with this university, and the eminent historian
who was now left was always present in the senate
to assist others in promoting the advantage of the
institution. The London University laboured under
some disadvantages when compared with Oxford
and Cambridge. It was far from having their
magnificent buildings, and cloisters, and gardens.
But in every thing in this world there was com-
pensation. The very absence of those advantages
was in some respects an advantage. They had no
legal difficulties to deal with, and were left at liberty
to select their own curriculum, a curriculum superior
to that of any other university : other universities
were following in their steps, slowly indeed with
regard to their curriculum. The example set by
the University of London had been followed in Ire-
land and at Melbourne. At the latter a young man
had gained distinction, and had returned to this
country and won one of the first East India prizes.
He (the chairman) was sorry to have to point out
some deficiencies. The senate was deprived of the
services of distinguished members as classical
examiners. It was a subject of regret that no can-
didate for the office of classical examiner had come
from their own body. He hoped that would not
occur again. He also regretted that the ancient
languages were not studied more, as they tended, in
conjunction with other branches of learning, to
discipline and ofine Ow mind, Thom were pot

A letter from Rome, dated May 4, says :—The
quasi-official declaration of the indefinite prolonga-
tion of the French military occupation of Rome
has, of course, tranquillised the fears of the eccle-
siastical partisans in the same degree that it has
quenched the immediate hopes of the Liberals ; but
there is no doubt that the statement given in the
Patric affords a plausible view of the present posi-
tion of the Pope and Rome, and of the inevitable
hostilities between Austria and Italy which would
result from the unceremonious consignment of• the
Pontiff and his remaining shred of territory to the
safe keeping of Victor Emmanuel.
It may be accepted as a singular proof of secrecy
and unanimity amongst the Liberals here that
although more than 7,000 signatures have been
collected for the two addresses to the Emperor
Napoleon and Victor Emmanuel, the most indefa-
tigable exertions of the Roman spies and police
agents have not yet enabled them to pounce upon
either of these documents ; cafes, barbers' shops,
theatres, and other places of public meeting are
haunted in vain, and nocturnal invasions of private
domiciles are effected without the desired result;
nor have the more insinuatingly courteous modes of
research adopted by diplomatists and their agents
gained them a sight of the mysterious documents.

many degrees in law, and he suggested that It
would perhaps have been well if the inns of court
had combined to form a legal university. Their
mathematicians had shone at Cambridge, and their
medical students ranked the highest in England'
if not in the world. Convocation had been
a little stormy a year or two ago, but that Ivas
merely a proof of youthful vigour. With respect,
to the representation of the University, he was of
opinion that if any opposition were offered by the
Scottish Universities to the redistribution of seats
proposed in the small Reform Bill of this Year'
they ought modestly and firmly to claim one of the
seats for their own University. The noble OAT
man concluded with some appropriate remarks
ie
the successful and unsuccessful candidates. Ile
wished them all to feel that it was a duty the):
owed to God and to their friends not to negle'
their talents—that they owed it to the University
to endeavour to become not only learned and sclen
tific men, but worthy and good citizens, and real
and practical Christians.