The Express. — 1853-02-22 (London, England)

THE EXPRESS, TUESDAY EVENING. FEBRUARY 22, 1853  . FEli 14. The few sealed letters whichTUltlS have found their way to this city, and which arrived this morning from various parts of Italy. describe, in the most piercing terms, the honor excited all over the country by the situation Lombardy and Venice are now reduced to. The quietest of men have become violent, and the local governments are taking precautionary measures, particularly at Naples, Rome, and in Tuscany, to resist insurrections which they seem to consider as imminent. Numbers of people are arrested and imprisoned upon the slightest pretences. Troops are kept closed up hi their barracks that they may be ready to sally out on first notice. Others are forming strong patroles in the streets.  Let us hope that no ill-timed outbreak will take place. The provinces of Lombardy look us if animation, in every sense, had disappeared from them. A deadly calm prevails in the cities—people look pensive and mournful—the storm is gathering in silence and darkness.  As to Milan, in particular, we learn this mornin4 that four more men have been hanged, one of them a most respectable old man, a schoolmaster, who for ten days before the outbreak had been confined to his room by illness, but who on his first leaving the house was snapped up in the street with a handful 11 of insurgents who were going by at the time. The soldiers who, on the Gth, were panic-striehen, have taken eoun,gc since the issue of Gyulai's and Radetzsky's proclamations, and now insult, provoke, and injure young and old. The Hungarian military are closely watched by the Austrian officers introduced into their regiments. It is believed that many officers and men of the former nation have been secretly shot inside the Castle—the firing was heard daily by the people living in its neighbourhood. Almost all the gates of the city are still shut—no one can come in or go out of thu tout, without a special written permission from the military commander, to obtain which is no easy matter. so church bell is allowed to be rung. Most of the shops are still shut up, and will no doubt continue to be so, until the authorities compel the owners to open them. I The streets are deserted, for people are afraid to go out, now that the generals have given the common soldiers license to shoot down whom they please with the certainty of not being called to an account. The effect produced on the minds of the Lombards by the latest proclamation is represented in every letter as something indescribable. The first which was issued—that by Count Strassoldo—was moderate and reassuring. People recovered breath, took their shutters down, walked about the I streets and talked of the imprudence of M.l Mazzini. But the brutal manifesto of ltadetzsky has converted every feeling of patience and resignation into a deep and undying resolution of revenge. The tiger-like ferocity of this white-headed bandit in delivering up the people to murder and plunder has fused all Lombardy into one party, compacted to avenge Italy and expiate the criminal forbearance WI wards oppressors which marked the last revolution. I am now merely interpreting the sentiment which heaves in Italian breasts. You, accustomed to the blessings of regular government, cannot, however willing, measure all its justice.