The Sun.
London, England, 1857-07-09 00:00:00

BOMBA AND 111 S BANDITTI.

(From the Morning Post.)
The desperate measure adopted by the Neapoli-
tan King and his sanguinary Commissary of Police,
Campagna, of putting arms into the hands of the
Lazzaroni, is one of the most indefensible that could

be resorted to, and it plainly indicates the straits

to which the Monarch of the Two Stcilies is re•

duced. Distrusting the native army, and not fee:

ing that even fifteen thousand or twenty thousand
mercenary Swiss are sufficient to protect him from
his own.people, Ferdinand has caused arms to be
distributed to the fifty thousand or sixty thousand
Lazzaroni who live in the heart of Naple.., and who

daily line the Piazza, the Chiaga, the Mole, and
the Strada di Toledo. These grinning, shouting,
lazy, roaring vagabonds, who act -as fishermen,
porters, messengers, bravi, brigands, and some-
times even in worse callings, and who are ready to
do any work. however vile or infamous, for which
they are paid, have ever been the ready instra
ments of the most superstitious of priests, and of
the most despotic and tyrannical of kings ; and
there is not a man or woman in Naples obnoxious
to the Government who is not at the mercy of this
race, who are as wild and reckless as savages, and
who are, in addition, steeped in the worst vices of
a putria civilisation. -What the Lazzarami were in
1799, at the time of the sanguinary Cardinal Ruffo,
they are still. Their cruelties and atroci'ies, when
they were had arms in their hands 58 years ago, so

great that the French General .Champi-ormet was
obliged to disarm them at all hazards, for the life of
no man, woman, or child was safe so long as they
had weapons at command. Semi-savages, who let
themselves out for hire, either to take or swear away
a life, either to perjure or to murder to order, can
have no moral sense. They only acknowledge the
party paying and the priest absolving, and in this
way sinning, and being shrivel for the sin, they
pass away their hideous lives. These savage mon are
now the fifty thousand chosen body-guard of King
Ferdinand, to whom he has confided bayonets anti
muskets, and we may be pretty sure that their
deeds during this month of July will give abundant
occupation to the three thousand four hundred and
one secular clergy and the one thousand seven
hundred and sixty-four monks which Naples is said
to contain within its walls.
A number of our countrymen and women, as well
as Americans, Frenchmen, Russians, and Germans,
are now at Naples. These strangers, it appears, ac-
cording to our Correspondent, are ordered to write
their names on the doors of their apartments, as a
measure of necessary precaution, though we do not
ourselves very well see how the mere writing of
names, which the Lazzaroni cannot read, can secure
strangers from the violence of this lawless, ignorant,
and superstitious banditti. From our Correspondent
on the spot, we know the City of Naples was tran-
quil on the 4th, so that it would appear any
attempt at disturbance at Naple,, if suth there
were, was put down. But we have accounts from
Leoce, Reggio, Corolla, Calabria, and Sicily, which
show that the state of things in these localities was
very serious indeed. It is openly stated that the
Neapolitan army cannot be depended on, and that
even the much-boasted Swiss regiments, which the
King has taken such costly pains to procure, have
shown an unwillingness to be separated from each
other. The Neapolitan army, never at any tone
highly efficient or disciplined, has been of late dis-
gusted by unheard-of-severities, and a harassing,
system of delation and espionage. Even in one of
the cavalry regiments, usually filled by a better
class of officers and men, desertions have taken
place ; and officers who were counted on as most
stanch have been found wavering in their fidelity.
If this be so thirty or forty miles from Naples,. in
the Principate-Ultra, what must be the condition
of affairs in Sicily, separated from the Italian Pen-
insula, and inhabited by races much more hostile
to the King's Government ? Though this Govern-
ment has exhibited on the present occasion mor•
energy and vigour than we inked for, yet if the
native army be unfaithful, and the Swiss wavering
and uncertain, there is no saying to what extent
the insurrection may spread. Should the insur-
gents in any locality gain the upper hand, the
flame of rebel on is likely to spread to the con-
tinental kingdom and to the States of the Church.
The people of the Legations, and of the Cornaccio,
and indeed of Rome itself, are deeply discontented ;
and, if it were not for the presence of fen eign troops,
would long ago have revolted. The subjects of
the Pope are now very well aware that the Liberal
movement initiated by Pius IX., eleven years ago,
was a proceeding in which the heart or cell-
viction of the Pontiff had no concern. It was
politic in 1846 and 1847 to follow the harsh,
abominable, and rigorous measures of Gregory
XVI. by an amnesty and a change of councillors,
and by this Pius IX. gained a wonde, fill popularity.
But when it was known that in 1848 the Pontiff
held one language on public affairs in secret, and
another and a diametrically opposite language in
public, the. most intelligent subjects of the Papacy
became aware that the Liberalism of Pius IX.
neither arose from conviction nor from far-sighted
statesmanship. Of statesmanship, indeed, the
Pontiff is wholly incapable ; and though, from the
facility of his character and his desire for popularity,
he promised much to his subjects in his days of
trouble, yet none of these promises have been rea-
lised. In truth, notwithstanding his affable man-
ners, gracious deportment, and conciliating cha-
racter, Pius IX., in all the pretensions of the
Pontificate, entertains the notions of the most ab-
solute Churchmen, end not consent to surren-
der any portion of his sovereign or ecclesiastical
power. In all that relates to the religious part of
the question, he is as narrow a bigot as the most
ultra of the cardinals, and in the secular affairs of
Government he is the mere instrument and dupe of
the jobber of the Sacred College, Cardiel ntonelli,
as Leo XII. arid yin., in 1828, 1829, and
1830, were said to be the instruments and dupes of
its dancer, the late Cardinal Albani. Notwithstand-
ing, then, the journeys and dramatico-religious ex-
hibitions of the Pontiff in the provincial govern-
ments, he will leave behind him large deposits of
discontent in his provinces, and if the insurrection
gains any head in Sicily, or in the continental
dominions of Ferdinand, it is certain to extend to
the States of the Church. In truth, there is only
one portion of the Italian Peninsula likely to escape
the conflagration, and that portion is the kingdom
of Sardinia. It is not the pardon of 20 prisoners
that can render the Pope popular, but a general
amnesty, the secularisation of the Government, a
responsible Ministry, the introduction of the Code
Napoleon, and the abolition of ecciesiaitioal judges