The Barrow Herald and Furness Advertiser. — 1866-06-09 (Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England)

MIRACLE.  THE VIRGIN MARY SAVING A MURDERER.  A Rome correspondent of the "Pall Mall Gazette" gives the following details of another attempt to impose'upon the credulity of the priest-ridden Romans. The facts will best speak for themselves, and but one feeling can be entertained towArds the murderer—that of regret that 80 blood-stained a monster should under any circumstances escape the just penalty of his deeds. From an authentic narrative we learn that Felix and Antonio di Guiseppe, or Ventura, brothers, originally of Capitignano, in the Neapolitan provinces, were stained with every crime. By turns brigands on the highway and adroit sharpers in the towns, they follo‘Ved their vocation in every part of the pontificial territory, committing felonies without number. Filially they were both arrested, and were tried and condemned to death by the Supreme Tribunal of the Council. The Pope 'emitted the capital sentence on Felix. the least guilty, commuting his punishment to hard labour for life. It was impossible to extend the same clemency to Antonio di Guiseppe. He was accused of eleven murders, committed in 23 sears ; he confessed to five. He had cut off the breasts of a young girl : and, nore dreadful still, he was suspected of having assassinated his own mother. The sentence was that he should be beheaded at Bracciatio, the scene of his latest crime—the murder of Pietro Paohni, a herdsman. In the prison of the town Antonio began to evince great contrition, confessed to the priest, and devoted himself to religious duties, celebrating especially every day in his dungeon the service of the "month of Mary," in hor-jar of the Holy -Virgin. 91) the ve of 'le day appointed for his execution! he -Lnformed his con: fessor, with an air of n;:otound conviction, that the Madonna had.. appeared to him and announced that ste accepted his repentence. and that he Should not die on the scaffold, but live to expiate his crimes, and become one of her servants. This statement he repeated when the officers came to read his condemnation to him, at the same time declaring that he riehly deserved his sentence, to which he listened without the least discomposure. He asked permission to walk to the scaffold barefoot ; and on his way thither, and even as he mounted to the platform, he reiterated his conviction that he should not be executed. He made the same statement to the assembled crowd, asking their pardon for his crimes, but adding that he would not bid them . adieu. The people listened in silence, thinking him mad, and they were confirmed in his opinion by the composed manner' in which he knelt down and offered his neck to the axe. The executioner seized the handle of the guillotine, which had been tried in the night and found to act effectively. The cleaver, loaded with enormous weights, now descended, but, wonderful to relate, it stopped abruptly two fingers' length from the neck of the malefactor. The executioner, resolute in his duty, reset the apparatus ; again the blade fell, but it was again arrested at the same point, as by an invisible Meanwhile the spectators became excited beyond control, and shouted "Pardon ! pardon r while many leaped on the scaffold and released the culprit by force. A courier was despatched to obtain his pardon of the Pope, and it is confidently stated that the Minister of the Interior has ordered an inquiry as a step in this direction. The miracle has, in the in terim, made such rapid progress as an article of faith that it has been recognised by the popular poets, and this morning they were singing a recital of it at the corners of the streets, and exhibiting in illustration pictures coarsely daubed on linen, which represented Antonio receiving a visit from the Madonna in his dungeon, and then his miraculous deliverance on the scaffold. Such is the incident which now absorbs the attention of Rome, and which has been adroitly planned to catch the popular fancy, to raise the courage of the brigands, who behold one of their number specially protected by the Madonna, and, finally, to fill the coffers of thc Government.  The papers contain accounts of violent thunder storms in different parts of the country. In Gloucestershire a terrific hailstorm is reported.  The Austrian authorities at Cracow ,have received instructions from Vienna to prepare valuations of upwards of 200 houses in the town which it is proposed to pull down in case Cracow should be Gesieged by the enemy.