The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1859-06-04
[ From The LOndn,, .Suecfntnn. l

to get rid oil Austria. The Italians are not $50 i'm
patient; the wonder is that they have borne the
1ncton OF repression, terror, suffering loss anC
ulshOnor so long: but since Englshmen have for
gotten how the misery has come home to individu
ais, we will give few passages of the old story
We have lately received those Neapolitan exile,
who could eXempliy in their own persons the treat
ment that they had experienced under govern.
ment which daily violates the constitutional law OF
lts own EXISTENCE government against which our
own had made vain demonstration ;" professedy v
to carry out the policy of 1856. At the other eS
tIemlty OF italy the endurance of the natives was
| OF an equally practical kind Englishmen can have
little idea of the annoyance which poisons the lif,
OF an ltallan-say in Lombardy; but very few
lacts may possibly exempify the habitual condition
| OF the people. The police of Milan NAV be said I,
consist OF an Austrian sOldiery-a police armed
WIN the SABRE, holding the authority of a conauer
ing race, and exasperated by inevitable alienation
| Inc Austrlans, as the reader will presently under
stand, have rendered themselves so intolerable that
Italians cannot associate with them: and if Won ON
Ter the PIT OF theatre you will see the first few
| seats taken by Austrians, while the Italians whc
are driven to the back leave one seat entirely va
cant between themselves and the aliens If an En-
gish officer in the Austrian service discovers rela
| tlyes OF his own amongst the Italians in Milan he
forbears to notice them, lest they should becom,
suspected and be driven from Italian society. w,
pursue the narrative in the language of an esteem
ed correspondent, who knows the country we'll, ane
travelled it in recent years:
In recent paper on occupation in Italy, it is OBJ
served: "lf England upholds such a system it is
only from Ignorance ofits enormities'' In order
to aid in enlightenng this ignorance NAV ask YOU
to insert the following extracts from the Austrian
renal Code, established in the Lombardo- Venetian
provinces in 1915, with which few of your readers
are lKely to be acquainted, together with certain
lacts Whlch may serve to modify the admiration,
occasionally, expressed for the "paterna" rule of
Austria. L could have added many more from nav
personal know ledge during prolonged residence in
different parts of Italy in lS53-54-55, but have
preferred Offering such as can be authenticated by
evidence which the most violent enemies of Italian
independence cannot call in question, the Official
Gazette of Milan.
To begin with the Penal Code. What do Eng
hsnmen say to this? l. The proceedings are to be
strictly secret The defence of the accused IN ho
given In writing; the prisoner claim no defend
err nor can he demand that the charges brought
against him should be communicated to him. Ar
tice 337.
Corporeal chastsement forms a fundamental mart
of the Code High and low, rich and pooor, man
and woman are subjected to this degrading treat
ment-as degrading to the full in the eyes of an
ltaiian as IN those OF an EngiShman. True, "not
more than fifty blows are to be administered at one
time" In the of Youths under eighteen, and
younger women, rods to be substituted for the
stick. Article 20.
When the sentence has been pronounced, the
punishment may be augmented by the addition OF
tasting and the bastinado. Article 272l
Imprisonment is of three descriptions-d,tro min
duro, durssimo. The latter is thus described in the
Penal Code, article a. ''The prisoner is to be con-
lined IN dungeon, shut out from all external com
municaton, with Just air and light sufficient to sus.
tam existence. He is to be loaded with fetters
hand and foot, day and night and to be fastened by
chain to an iron ring riveted round his waist.
except during the hours OF work. His food is to be
Dreaa ana water soup once in in two DAYS no meat
his bed is to be formed of bare planks, and it is
forbidden to speak to any one even his iailers -
1t was to this treatment that the iustrous natros
confined IN the Spieiburg were subjected it is be-
heath similar treatment that some of the best and
nODleSt Italians are now writhing The Penal Code
section 377, commands "that in everything reIatino
to the State, the ,oife shall denounce the husband, /,
the husband the 'Cye, the child the father the father
me M c@"d, on pam Of punishment occomplices." +"
Almost all political offences are still bronrbt
before what is called the "TrbunaIo Stadario. y
lsectons 5OO-501 of the Penal Code This tri-
bunal Is composed of military officers Germans
Croats and Bohemians, who scarcely understand a
WORD OF Italian, and who, from habit education
and national prejudice, detest and scorn the italian
people. They speak German to each other: the
witnesses are questioned in German, of which. if
ltalans, theY, IN their turn, seldom comprehend a
syllable while, If otherwise they are sure to give
their testimony against the prisoner. Thus saws
flown, the learned author of Austria in Italia
the accused having no one to defend him, NAV be
condemned almost without knowing his crime, and
learn 1t only when he is informed .that in half an
hour the rope will be around his neck" The
slightest demonstration of popular feeling is Wis
lted by the most summary and brutal punishment
mus IN lS49, on the birthday of the Emperor GER
tain Kisses having been heard issuing from the
midst OF the crowd in of the most freouented
streets OF Milan in front of the Cafe di Mazza of
which the object was apparently the Austrian flag
holsted IN the balcony of a well-known courtesan
call the passers by were seized, draoped before
military tribunal, and condemned to different de-
grees OF corporeal punishment according to the
degree of their offence" says the Gazette O6icae of
Milan, 24th August, lS49. Among the accused
were men of high standing and irreproachabe char
pglIfIo,
probably were utterly ignorant of the whole affair."
and two young girls, also perfectly respectable
The latter were condemned to forty strokes each
Ihe sentence was executed instantly after being
pronounced on the public place before the castle,
in the presence of troop of Austrian officers who
laughed with contemptuous cyncism at the indie
cent exposure and the cries of the victims So far
for the tale. Now for the episode. The military
commandant of Milan sent the municipality bill
for SO forins kreuzers, (f2 19s CD for the ex-
pense of ice applied to the swollen larcerated flesh
to prevent gangrene, and for the sticks and rods
broken and consumed in the punishment of the Sc
ditious in the revolt of the 10th of August In ad-
dition the Marshal commanded the town to ndem-
nifty the cOurtesan who had been Eterrifed by the
scene," with the sum of 10000 livres (f6OO). How
touching is the care of such paternal government
1t may be objected that these disgraceful barba-
rites were committed only Immediately after the
revolution OF l64S 40, at period of great irrita-
ton Did space permit, could present you with
countless wel-authenticae6 cases to prove that this
system OF tyranny ana brutality commenced from
the very moment that Italy was handed over in
l845 to the mercy of her Austrian masters that it
is one from which Austria has never deviated and
which she imposes wherever she is mistress. What
scenes have not beheld at Leghnrn, Bologna, An
coma, Ferrara, wherever the Austrians had estab-
ished garrisons Under pretext of defending Plus
IN, they have taken justice vengeance into their
own hands, condemning to a summary and igno-
mnious death, often without trial, hundreds of men,
many completely innocent; levyng enormous taxes
in he of the POnp who
farthing of them; living in free quarters on the un-
fortunate inhabitants, and rewarding them by the
bastinado, administered literally at pleasure with
out distinction OF rank or sex. recent f'reform'
appoints women to bastinado women.)
The following will be found in the Auqsburq Uni
uerSdL Gazette, January 20, lS52-a paper not un-
duly partial to the Italians:
Captain l., commanding officer of the 2Ist Aus
trian regiment of the line, posted at Perouse, has
commanded forty blows to be administered in the
public place to estimable citizen, NJ. Monganelli,
simply because he refused to receive a second Aus
trian officer when he had one already duartered on
him. (There were only ten to be divided among
all the Inhabitants This arbitrary sentence was
preceded neither by inquiry formaty. The
officer, few days before, inflicted forty blows
on a poor peasant, who happened to have a cotton
handkerchief round his neck which once had been
of three colors, though they were nearly obliter-
ated by repeated washings."
Not less deplorable is the universal venality of
the Austrian administrators, civil and military, in
W
be pundered dd Hbitum. This will account for
these enormous fortunes which So many have accu-
mulated. Nowhere is this exhibited so unblush-
ingly in the conscription, where youths utterly
unfit by bodily inrmities for military services are
ascribed fit, merely for the purpose of extorting
money to obtain their release. If they are suspected
of patriotic or liberal sentiment different course
is adopted; they are first permitted to pay for sub
stitute, and then seized and compelled by threats
and blows to enrol in an Austrian regiment to be
sent to the marshes of Croatia to be forced to
fight against their own flesh and blood. 1t is said
that the Lombard soldiers have returned with ala
Gritty to their regiments. If So the reason ies doubt
less, in the fact that the communes to which they
belong are heavily fined for every soldier missing;
that in addition, their relatives are liable to the
most cruel treatment in case of their desertion
Several eases of this description came under my
own observation. Austria appeals to the treaties
of 1915. Even supposng that any treaty can be
sacred in which one nation is reckessly sacrificed,
bound hand and foot to the ambition of another,
how can Austria dare to invoke them Did she
remember them when she annexed the republic OF
Cracow to her dominions, in defiance OF the pro-
estations of Europe, under pretext that the tran
guilty of Poland demanded that annexation ?
Dares she invoke them that the peace and Sc
curty of Europe, the best and hoiest interests of
humanity, at stake? Surely the time is at
! hand when Europe will perceive that, even in an
interested point of view, an Italy, strong, tranquil
| and independent is preferable to perpetually
! agitated by the convulsons of agony and de.
! spar, and in its turn agitating all surrounding
| nations.
| 1t must be remembered that the police, as we
have said, armed soldiery characterized by tn,
manners of a common sodiery; the Italians are
very sober people. They abstain from going nea,
the Austrian canteen not only because the specta
cles there intoerable, almost unimaginable 4
the Italian, but because the proximity is actuall