Under the old Bourbon rule, all might be pardoned, except an offence against the throne. To the political criminal alone no grace could be extended. The people saw this, and were not slow to apply the lesson. Let it also be borne in mind, that the brigand himself often met a very different appreciation from those who knew him personally to that he received at the hands of the State. The assassin denounced in wordy proclamations, and for whose head a price was offered, was in his native village a “gran’ Galantuomo,” who had done scores of fine and generous actions. To revolutionise feeling in such a matter is not an easy task. Let any one, for instance, fashion to his mind how he would proceed to turn the sympathies of the Irish peasant against the Rockite and in favour of the landlord, to hunt down the criminal and to favour his victim. It would be a similar task to endeavour to dispose the peasant of the Abruzzi to look unfavourably on Brigandage. Brigandage was, in fact, but another exercise of that terrorism which they saw universally around them. Was the Capo Briganti more cruel than the tax-gatherer? was he not often more merciful? and did he ever press upon the poor? Were not his exactions solely from the rich? Was he not generous, too, when he was full-handed? How many a benevolent action could be recorded to his credit! If this great Government, which talked so largely of its enlightenment, really wished to benefit the people, why did it not lighten the imposts, cheapen bread, and diminish the conscription? instead of which we had the taxes quadrupled, food at famine prices, and the levies for the services more oppressive than ever. They denounced Brigandage; but there were evils far worse than Brigandage, which, after all, only pressed a little heavily on the rich, and took from them what they could spare well and easily. It is thus the Neapolitan reasons and speaks of that pestilence which is now eating like a cancer into the very heart of his country, and taxing the last energy of her wisest and best to meet with success. At this moment Southern Italy is no more under the control of the Italian Government than are the States of the Confederacy under the sway of President Lincoln, and all the powerful energies of the North are ineffectual to eradicate a disease which is not on the surface, but in the very heart of the people.