convoy of armed and mounted travellers, a kind of kafila that would have been more in place in the opening chapter of one of James's romances than in the latter half of the nineteenth century.

This state of things was an old Sicilian heritage. As one of the pamphlets in our list says in substance, 'ours has been a malandrinesco country, as France has been a military country, or England a commercial country.' The whole country was corrupted by the tone of feeling so produced; and its peculiar ethics were embodied in a kind of decalogue of popular proverbs. As thus:

'A chi ti toglie il pane, e tu togliegli la vita!
Ciòche non ti appartiene nè male nè bene !
Quando ci è l'uomo morto deve pensarsi al vivo!

La testimonianza è buona, finchè non noccià al prossimo!'

*

The disease more or less affected all classes of society. Generally speaking, no one would prosecute; it was a point of honour not to give evidence against a criminal however atrocious; an assassin escaping from the scene of his crime could always count on popular aid; it has been possible to hire men to stab at a shilling a day, and men were so hired in numbers in a late notorious case still wrapped in mystery; persons robbed of large amounts of property denied the fact; dying men refused to name their murderers. Men of the highest rank in Palermo were known as the protectors of bands of ruffians, who stood to them in the relation of client to patron, and were ready to lend their arms for defence-not to say for vengeance-in any emergency, on condition of being shielded from the law, and receiving a certificate of character when needed.

Overt acts of outrage had been kept within bounds now and then for a season under the Bourbons by exceptional laws, or by systematic compacts with the criminal population, and less efficiently since the revolution by spasmodic military efforts. But the Austrian war had almost stript the island of her garrisons. What remained were untrained levies, raised since the war broke out; whilst the bands of malandrini were strengthened more than ever by the recusants from the conscription, whose numbers in this province and year alone amounted to much more than a thousand. Other causes during the last summer had tended to swell the ranks of disorder. Great drought had prevailed; the

That of the Pugnalatori, October 1st, 1862, when more than a dozen persons were stabbed almost simultaneously in the streets of Palermo. Three of the assassins were convicted and executed. But the persons who hired them have never been ascertained.

fall

fall of rain had been only about two-fifths of the average, and though the crops turned out somewhat better than was anticipated, the price of flour had been greatly raised by the stoppage of mills. The railway works had been suspended by the contractors on the introduction of inconvertible paper currency, five thousand labourers being thus thrown out of employment; and the abolition of the convents was imminent, and with it the probable loss of their present means of livelihood to great numbers of persons.*

These circumstances led to a rapid aggravation of the disorders of the province. Some idea of the extent to which they had grown may be gathered from the notes below, abstracted from one of the Palermo daily papers ('Amico del Popolo') for the whole of August and first twelve days of September.† Strange

* The Prefect Torelli, in his Report on the Province, published a few days before the outbreak, states the number of persons in Palermo who would suffer partial or total deprivation of existing subsistence by the abolition, at 5000; and the aggregate annual pay of servants and other dependents of nunneries in the city, which would so cease, at 327,475 fr. (upwards of 13,000l.).

(The dates are of the newspaper, not of the offences.)

August 1st. Attack on mail at Pianotto de' Vicari; courier murdered. Carabineer murdered at Portella di Mare. 2nd. Armed band of twenty-five men attack farm at La Grazia; proprietor murdered. 3rd. Three carabineers fired on near Partinico; one killed, another wounded. In Marineo a band of thirty-six malandrini attacked the house of a notary, and carried him off to be held to ransom. In Aleamo one Patti murdered by robbers. 8th. Mail from Marsala attacked at Fiume Freddo; one passenger murdered, all robbed and stripped. 10th. Band seen near Lercara; supposed authors of an unsuccessful attack on the Girgenti mail. 11th. The communes of Isnello, Polizzi, Coilesano, and Gratteri infested by a band who in fifteen days have made two sequestri on heavy ransom. 12th. Two proprietors near Pianotto de' Vicari sequestrated. Carabineers near Trabia met with armed resistance. 15th. Armed resistance to carabineers near Monreale. 16th. In the S. Polo suburb of Palermo a rich proprietor sequestrated. 17th. Threatening letters demanding money have been numerous. An armed caravan of travellers fired on between Alcamo and Partinico; one killed and one wounded. 19th. Farmer of Borgetto murdered in returning from his fields; shot and throat cut. Two priests attacked on way from Gibellina to Palermo. 21st. Same party that attacked the priests killed two soldiers of the line and one of the police, mangled the bodies. A gentleman attacked by an armed party near the Villa Giulia (Palermo). Two parties of National Guards and others attacked the sequestrators of the 12th without success. 23rd. A volley fired by a strong band on carabineers near Parco. 25th. Two carters murdered on high road near Sta. Caterina Villarmoza. 26th. Robbers attacked train of wine-carts in Pianotto de Vicari, but driven off by carabineers after some firing. Two monks attacked between Aspra and Bagheria. 28th. Robbery and brutal murder of two persons in a house in outskirts of Palermo. An old shepherd murdered near Termini. A house attacked at Acqua de' Corsari, and the highway there held against all comers. Musketry heard for three hours above Misilmeri. 29th. Incendiary fire in State Forest of Ficuzzo. 30th. A lively conflict with a large body of outlaws on the hills over Portella della Paglia. The brigands shouted Viva la Republica. (We can find only one of all the preceding in the Giornale di Sicilia.)

September 1st. Officer of carabineers shot in the Piazza at Monreale by an unknown hand. Near Misilmeri a young fellow, himself well known to belong to the banditti, shot by an unknown hand. Attempt to fire a house in MezzoMonreale

Strange to say, such notices seldom or never appeared in the official paper (Giornale di Sicilia'); whilst in the chief Florentine papers, at least in those which support the Government, they seemed to be systematically suppressed. In fact it looked as if the Italian Government were determined steadily to keep its eyes shut to an evil which it was not at leisure or not disposed to deal with. And the first intimations of the outbreak itself which were published, attempted in a measure the same delusive system.

Like blindness, inveterate or wilful, attached to the local authorities of Palermo, if not as to the facts of the disorder, at least as to what they threatened. The body of the citizens seeing them unalarmed took no alarm themselves. After the outbreak, indeed, circumstances became generally known which showed that some considerable part of the community, besides those implicated, had been in a state of expectancy, whilst others had received hints to which they attached no importance. Many of the lower class, well used to the indications of the revolutionary barometer, crowded the markets on the 15th to lay in stores of bread and maccaroni; whilst General Camozzi, the head of the National Guard, as early as the 12th, had proposed to the Prefect Torelli a general summons of that body, a proposal which he repeated three or four times up to the moment of the explosion without shaking the Prefect's incredulity.* And a letter, ad

dressed

Monreale (suburb of Palermo). Road between Palermo and Parco held against all comers; many robbed, beaten, and wounded. 4th. Numerous bands reported on hills of Canavero near Monreale. Near Corleone encounter between police and armed band; one of the latter killed. 5th. Lengthened encounter at Caltavuturo with fifteen mounted outlaws. In the contrada Brancaccio two shots fired at Zappato, ex-cavalry soldier, since dead. (6th. Rich proprietor of Palma near Girgenti carried off in broad day, in presence of many labourers. A few days before a man shot and stabbed to death on high road in same neighbourhood.) 7th. Numerous armed bands seen in vicinity of Palermo. Two carters shot near Solunto. Bagheria become a great resort of malandrini; no day passes without a murder or robbery; a man and his wife murdered the day before. 8th. More sequestrations. 11th. Engagement with a band of a hundred outlaws on Monte Cuccio (about 6 miles from Palermo). Doings of a band between Porazzi and Pagliarelli. Six outlaws held the pass' near Alcamo, robbing all who passed. 12th. Twelve armed men attacked a carriage near Bagheria; passengers robbed and maltreated.

Pinna (the Questor or Director of Police), on whom lay the immediate responsibility in this matter, carried his resistance to all warning to such a pitch, that some of the citizens, in their resentment, have expressed suspicion of his connivance a suspicion which, of course, we do not for a moment partake.

The incredulity, however, was anything but universal in Palermo on the Saturday evening which preceded that memorable Sunday. The word Revolution, no stranger in Palermo, passed from mouth to mouth. The fact is not far off when the word is heard in that city, and it has a meaning of its own there. With the rabble of Palermo revolution means the great Saturnalia of their order; ad this they saw at hand. The initiated made ready their arms; decent folks took

thought

dressed from Palermo to the 'Perseveranza' of Milan the day before the outbreak, speaks of the general uneasiness and expectation, of the laying in of provisions and ammunition, &c. Indeed this last goes so far beyond any common prevision in the matter, that one is half inclined to suspect that the writer spoke from precise knowledge of what was brewing, rather than from what he observed of public agitation. Certain, however, it is, that none of the English residents, nor of the other families, foreign or Sicilian, with whom the English usually came in contact, had any anticipation of what was about to occur; nor do we believe that any such anticipation was general among the middle or higher classes of the citizens. In fact, when, on the 8th of the month, it had been reported that handbills were spread about announcing the inauguration of the Republic next day, the intimation was simply laughed at. Was not Palermo a city of 200,000 inhabitants, with a garrison, reduced certainly, but still numbering more than 2000 soldiers, with two generals covered with decorations, with a Prefect and a Mayor of reputation for energy, a considerable force of gens-d'armes and other police, and a National Guard mustering some 10,000, not very zealous, it is. true, in ordinary duties, but capable of easily crushing any concentrated movement by the gangs of starving ruffians who had been murdering carters and policemen from behind orchard-walls. and cane-brakes? The storm without might roar and rustle,' but surely the city itself was safe enough.

A week later the same reports were renewed. If they were not laughed at this time, it was because the jest was stale.

This was on Saturday, the 15th. Next morning, about halfpast seven, were heard discharges of musketry, which seemed to have the ring of ball-cartridge; and, on going downstairs, the residents were told that a 6 'spezie di rivoluzione' had broken out. So the Republic was no joke after all! The bands had entered before daylight, and the firing had disturbed lighter sleepers at a much earlier hour than has been named.

The story will not be intelligible without a plan, or such poor substitute as can be given in words. (See p. 106.)

Palermo lies on the west side of its bay, forming nearly a rectangle, of which one of the shorter sides follows the shore. From Porta Felice, at the middle of this seaward face, the Toledo, a handsome street, straight as an arrow, runs westward (or more nearly south-westward) with a gradual rise through the

thought for the provision of their families; but still the mass of the middle class found it hard to believe that with all this excited expectation there was anything really coming.'-Anarchia di Palermo e Governo d'Italia. We have been obliged to condense a good deal in translating extracts from this paper.

in close contact with the royal palace. This last is a heterogeneous cluster of buildings of all ages, from the lofty Saracenic donjon of King Roger to the pastry-cook's Gothic of the later Bourbons, and having on its front towards the city a vast open square, called Piazza Reale,

Another street, similar to the Toledo, but somewhat inferior in length and character, crosses it at right angles in the heart of the city, where the intersection is formed into a handsome architectural circus, adorned with fountains and statues of the Spanish kings, known as the Quattro Cantoni. The street itself is called Maqueda, and runs from Porta Maqueda, at the north, to Porta S. Antonino, at the south. At the Quattro Cantoni is the family residence of Marquis Rudini, the Sindaco or mayor of the city, and within a few yards of it are the Town-hall, the University, the Post-office, and two or three of the great city churches.

In the Toledo, not far from the sea, stands the Palace of the Finanze, a huge block of building, containing the Bank and public Treasury, and facing an irregular square, called Piazza Marina.

On a promontory jutting into the sea, at the north-east angle

of