The Sun.
London, England, 1857-12-26 00:00:00

THE EARTHQUAKES AT NAPLES.

The following letter, dated Naples, December
19, says :—" On Wednesday evening I was sitting
in a saloon in our residence here on the Chiata-
moue, situate on the immediate shore of the Bay,

when ono of our servants rushed into the room to
ask what was the matter, supposing that we had
knocked violently at the door of the room. Imme-
diately the windows and doo.s began to rattle in
the strangest manner. Imagining that it might
proceed from one of those sudden coups de vent so
frequent in this climate, I opened the windows and
walked out on the balcony. The atmosphere was
still, the most profound calm prevailed, not a cloud
could be seen. It was a splendid starlight night. I
returned into the saloon, and in a few seconds felt
the floor alternately sinking an 1 rising and affected
like that of the cabin of a vessel which rolls and
pitches. In the next room, where two young
ladies had just gone to bed, I heard that they
found it difficult to keep in the bed. The maid
who attended them said the walls were fulling. I
looked at a large bronze chandelier suspended from
the centre of the ceiling of the saloon, and, to my
astonishment, saw it swinging exactly like a lamp
suspended in the cabin of a vessel in a storm. The
character of the phenomena was no longer doubt-
ful. I looked at my , watch. The hour was a
quarter-past ten exactly. As the most exact means
of estimating the undulation, I observed the
movement of the large chandelier. This is a large
bronze lustre, weighing 4001 b. or 5001 h. The dis-
tance from its point ofsuspension to the lowest point
of its axis is &out 10 feet. Its motion at first
seemed to he that of a pendulum, the arc of vibra-
tion of the' lowest point being about two feet, but
this immediately changed to the motion of a cnuical
pendulum ; the lowest point of the axis described a
circle, or rather an ellipse the major axis of which
was about two feet. It appears, therefore; that thet
phenonymon began with a tremulous movenaet.t of
the foundation of the house, manifested by the
rattling of the doors and windows, and that this,
after a short interval, was succeeded by two undu-
. lations, propagated, as it would seem, by the coni-
oil swing of the lustre, in two different directions.
All that I have here taken so many lines to de-
scribe took place within two, or at the most three
minutes. Of course, the lustre once thrown into a
state of oscillation continued to swing for a much

more considerable time.
Such being what I witnessed personally, I ascer-
tained afterwards that similar phenomena were pre-

sented in other apartments of the hotel. The swing-
ing of the lustres was even greater, but this arose
no doubt from the circumstance of their being

smaller and their line of suspension shorter. The
bells of the hotel were all set a-ringing. The pendu-
lum of a large house clock standing in the hall rat-
tled against the clock-case. A gentleman lying
asleep upon a sofa on the ground-floor was flung off
upon the floor.
A man-servant of ours occupied a neighbouring
apartment with his wife and two children. The
bed of one of the children was overturned, and a
lamp standing on the table was thrown on the
floor. The population generally soon after the
shock went out into the squares, places, and other
open spaces. The wealthier classes ordered out
their carriages, in which they passed the chief
part of the night in driving on the Chiaja roa I,
which runs along the borders of the bay wide
enough to keep clear of falling houses. The people
who filled the squaresand other open spaces lighted
fires and passed the night around them. Many
families had chairs and benches brought from their
apartments into the Piazza Reale, the Largo de
Castello, the Santa Lucia, and other like places,
where they sat during the night awaiting a recur-
rence of the shocks.
In some houses the thin partitions which divide
room from room and the ceilings were cracked ;
some damage is also said to have been done to the
British Hospital.
On the night succeeding the phenomenon(Thurs-
day) the population, imagining that a repetition of
the shocks might be expected about the same hour,
crowded again into the squares and open spaces,
where they passed part of the night.
At the Royal Observatory on the Capo di Monte
two astronomical clocks, the pendulums of which
vibrate ill the plane of the prime vertical (that is,
east and west), were stopped. Other clocks in the
Observatory, however, continued to go regularly.
The employes of the Observatory estimated the con-
tinuance of the first shock to be 5, and that cf the
cons n: daredn .th to tnhoer e
Theyc ion
os second c
theo d
n2nsdsoeicaot
ns;
to They
le
from
roperceived two otherslight shocks at 3 and 5 o'clock
in the morning of Thursday.
Whether the state of the atino4pliere has any con-
nexion-with or dependence up, in this class of phe-
nomena is not certainly known. Herethe weather
for six weeks back has been like that of June in
London. The rain has fallen, and the sunshine has
been almost uninterrupted. The sirocco has alter-
nated with the yenta di terra, the one corr -,spond-
ing to our warm south-west wind, and the other to
our cold north-east. Vesuvius has been very active,
throwing up constantly showers of incandescent
matter which at night presents from time to time
the appearance of what is called the " bouquet" in
artificial fireworks. A slight eruption of lava
took place last weik ; and it has been observed that
the activity of the volcano was considerable abated
for two days before the shock.
It is unfortunate that here we are without the
benefits of the agency of journalism in such cases,
and have mainly to depend on the information
which is obtained by reports from mouth to mouth.
There is an official journal, but that gives only
such information as the Government chooses to
disclose, and the fear of excitement aming an'
ignorant, fanatical, and priest-ridden population
determines the Government as a general rule to
supply as little intelligence of what takes place as
possible. Such as it is, however, I wait the publi-
cation of the official journal, which I am told will
make known to-day so much of what has passed in
Calabria as the Government will allow to be pub-
lished. Before I despatch this letter to the post I
howevr
er,
has News,bc,
ee
a e, where
cracked
k veehae
r
walls
ed r, ;
town e
shall therefore be able to tell you more.
P. S. As I expected, a few particulars of the
disasters in Calabria are given in the official journal.
The visitation is undoubtedly far more grave than
is admitted. It appears that the telegraphic wire
has;been broke between Eboli and Sala both in the
li
nalrse beo
epfoei
rltsoee prison
countryaw f
t
irvi
seed r
enlot.
from
killed.aa vn e
b thea rr aAI
eatkAet indicated.ts t
ae
Sala, half the houses are reduced to rui •
n% In
Padula, another town in that district, more
than 100 houses have been thrown down,
with an unkucwn number of
persons buried
under them. In La Polla, another town of
that neighbourhood, the disastera hate been

!Afire h .w lefeg it has been coining d w,i to es.
To say tie truth, the inves igatiou rnisht involve
an amount of antiquarian research which we st ould
lack the skill to pursue, and certainly our readers
the patience to follow. We will therefore go
direct to the point, and show how once upon a
time, on the Surrey side of the Thames, facing
Chelsea, there existed, Ikees the najiasApf Batter-
sea fields, a dreary west ' tll3o4.;44llfrater. It was
above all other spots that crouched along the river's
margin the moat wretched and unfinished-looking,
compared with which the very Isle of Dogs it-elf
seemed popelous and cheerful. It was one large
expanse of dust-heaps, ditches, cabbage-gardens,
ponds, piles of weeds, oyster-shells, and filthy re-
fuse, offensive to both sight and smell. Here and
there, in the centre of the ooze, existed crazy tene-
ments, where bargemen caroused or pigeon-matches
were hot, end where the accomplished backers of
some minor luminary of the ring always retired
with their battered hero after his contest in the ad-
joining marshes. Day by day and year by year
this natural and artificial dilapidation of the place
progressed more and more steadily. The literature
congenial to the spot was posted on the trunk of
stunted trees in " Found Drowned" bills, or pla-
cards offering rewards for the discovery of robbe-
ries; its only inhabitants were lonesome slouching
individuals, whose presence at once accounted for
that of the last-named affiches. Gradually and by
slow degrees, like fungi creeping over some un-
wholesome spot, wretched develings as noisome and
unwholesome as the fields themselves began to
overspread their surface. Cottages, it was found,
paid better than ditches, and mieerable sties wore
built and let to struggling families who could find
no homes so cheap elsewhere. It became the sanc-
tuary and abiding-place for all occup Ltions teo foul
and pestilential to be attempted nearer the metro-
polis. As the whole place lay below Trinity high-
water mark, drainage was out of the qu,sion, and
the "fields" soon attained a gloomy notoriety for
an amount of death and sickness out of all proper-
tion to its- populetion. These facts together with
the degraded condition of the inhabitant-, the Sun-
day evening faire, wh;ch outraged every sense of
decency, the poisonous trades carried on iu all di-
rections, soon pointed out the fields as the future
moral and physical plague spot of the me. ropolia
Under these unfavourable auspices it attracted the
notice of several influential gentlemen, who, as the
only mode of dealing wish the rapidly-extending
evils of the locality, prt.posed a plan for the con-
version of the entire fields into a south park. Tho
plan wee submitted to the Metropolitan Improve-
ment Commissioners, who forthwith warmly re.om-
mended it to the consideration and support of the
Government. The Government ace irdingly took
the matter up, and this was the first great danger
which the infant scheme had to struggle against.
Considering that the park is only just finished,
these events, as we have intimated, took place at a
rather remote period of our history. When Govern-
ment adopted the plan the whole thing stuck fast
for a long time. Ftrst, the Government appre-
hended difficulties, and could not spare the money ;
next, they were in actual difficulties, and could not
think of money ; and, lastly, the Government
were getting out of difficulties and wanted tire
money mo e than ever. At all events, for long,
long years the money did not come, If the oaks
and elms of the park were only planted when. the
Government first suppor,ed the idea, what a shade
they would now afford, and what a contrast they
would now present to the delicate vegetables that
are struggling for existence on the banks of new
made earth at Chelsea! The Government wanted
to purchase in all 320 acres of lard, which was
scattered among a numerous proprietary iu quanti-
ties varying from three or four acres to half aperch
or even a few cubic yards. Impartial surveyors
wero called in, who valued this 320 acres at
187,4331. But some of the broad principles of free
trade had evidently penetrated as far as the remote
regions of Battersea, since the owners of the land
modestly claimed no less a sum for it than
532,6241. - though after considerable haggling they
consented to take 232,687/., or just 300,000/. less
than they declared was its fair value. Of
the32oacres thus purchased 200 have been enclosed
and planted for the park, 110 set out for houses,
villas, and wharfs, and 26 acres in public roads.
In 1854 the work of forming the park commenced.
Perhaps, instead of forming, we might with mere
propriety have used the word building, for nearly
three-fourths of the park is of made earth. More
than 500,000 cartloads of earth were required to
bring the average level of the park above that of
high water mark. In some places the made earth
is more than 12 feet thick. Nearly 700,000 cubic
yards of eat th have been used in all, for 1 000 cubic
yards were daily landed at the works for 'upwards
of two years. The greater part of this earth was
obtained from the new cock making at the London
Docks, the remainder from all corners of the me-
tropolis. The whole of this area of 200 acres has
been laid out with fair taste and. skill, and planted
with a fine collection of trees, shrubs, and ever-
greens of all kinds. There is au unusually fineiselec-
tion of thorns, rhododendrons, azaleas, aud ever-
green oaks, w;th a quantity of hardy American
plants with very long names, but marvellously like
all other trees notwithstanding. Iu 10 years hence
the park should be a fine and umbrageous enclosure
—and in 20 years it ought to bear comparison with
any of the ornamental grounds round London.
The total cost from first to last has been
315,0001.—viz , 232,0001. in purchasing the land,
61,300/. in laying it out, making the roads, Aso.,
and 33,0001. in contiugen des.lthas been calcu-
lated by the benevolent promoters of the scheme
that during the summer months the park will be
largely visited by persons who will avail themselves
of the easy means of communication afforded by
the river steamboats. This' however, is not only
mere than problematical, but as faros can be judged
unlikely. Peoplewill not pay to visit and walk about a
new park at. present inferior in every respect to the
parks which are almost at their doors iu the metro-
polis. The originator sof the idea oar t rest content
with havin transformed a place which was fast be-
cowing a hot-bed of vice and disease into a source
of health and recreation. If not a dozen persons
ever visited the park, this great result would still
remain the same. It was supposed that the rents
derived from the 110 acres of building land which
surround the Park would provide for the repay-
ment df the money advanced for its purchase. This
chance, however, has been diminished to an almost
nominal amount by a toll being levied on passen-
gers over the new bridge, which is the only route
by which the park can be approached from the Mid-
dlesex side of the river. Could anything be more
shortsighted or injurious than such an arrangement,
which is certain to render both bridge and park in-
solvent speculations to the country within a twelve-
month 1

NORWICH MUSICAL FESTIVAL—The accounts of this
festival will exhibit a surplus of 430/.,'but it is recom-
mended that a portion of this surplus should be applied
to the payment of debts on account of the meeting of
1854, when there was a deficiency of 1031.

MUTINY IN THE MERSEY.—LIVEIIPOOL, Friday.—Last
night a mutiny broke out amongst the seamen on board
the emigrant ship J. J. Boyd, lying in the river, bound
for New York. The alarm was given to the police-office
by some of the passengers who escaped in a tug-boat,
and on Inspector Horner arriving, he found all the crew
armed (27 in number), and refusing to put to sea. They
were all arrested, according to the instructions of the
master (Captain Thomm,), and will be brought before
the magistrates to-morrow. The cause of the mutiny
is said to be bad provisions.
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