day, in the street, or in
their offices, and no one dare molest the murderers. In Romagna it was
found necessary to bring to justice an association of assassins, who were,
for the most part, persons of good education and men of property. In
Sicily matters were still worse. There, a society of Brigands, called
_Maffia_, holds the island in a state of perpetual terror. Numerous
Garibaldians who have been without employment since 1870, and were long
tolerated, on account of former complicity, added to the ranks of this
fraternity. The _Maffia_ rid themselves of another society, the _Kamorra_,
by the successive assassination at Palermo alone, of twenty-three of its
chiefs. All these crimes remain unpunished, none daring to bear witness
against the guilty.

In the departments of government there is not less moral disorder. The
finances are mismanaged and dilapidated. Notwithstanding the enormous and
oppressive increase of taxation, together with the forcible appropriation
of ecclesiastical property, deficits are the order of the day, and the
nation has been, more than once, and probably is still, on the verge of
bankruptcy. Truly, may the Italians, who are twenty-three to one, exclaim,
in their distress: _Quo usque tandem abuteris patientia nostra?_ "How
long, O disastrous revolution! wilt thou abuse our patience?"

Nor are the better thinking Italians without blame. Why did they not take
part--why do they not still take part in the elections, and return, as they
well may, a majority to the would-be constitutional parliament? Their
numbers would, undoubtedly, be imposing and influential. So much so,
indeed, that they must finally obtain admission, without burdening their
conscience with an obnoxious oath. What did not Daniel O'Connell,
Ireland's liberator, accomplish, by causing himself alone to be elected
for an Irish constituency, and by proceeding to demand the seat to which
he was elected in the British parliament, without uttering an oath which
shocked his conscience?

RUSSIA AND THE EAST.

The cruel and sanguinary persecution of Catholics in the Russian Empire
was a cause of intense sorrow to Pius IX. He could do nothing towards
alleviating the sufferings of those unfortunate people. The Tsar,
Alexander II., shows in his treatment of his Ruthenian subjects of the
united Greek Church, that he is wholly unworthy of the reputation for
enlightenment and benevolence with which he has been credited. The
Empress, indeed,