450 



ITALY. 



revolving turrets, each mounting 2 Armstrong 

 105-ton guns, are composed of sections of 80 

 tons weight, the whole weighing 1,800 tons. 

 The same system has been adopted for coast 

 defenses in Germany, Belgium, Holland, and 

 Austria. 



Railroads. The length of railroad lines open 

 to traffic on June 30, 1888, was 11,800 kilo- 

 metres or 6,375 miles. The receipts for the 

 preceding year amounted to 240,021,076 lire. 



The Post-Office. The number of letters, postal- 

 cards, and manuscripts, forwarded in 1886 was 

 203,635,675 ; of circulars and printed matter, 

 179,094,704; of postal money-orders, 4,752,- 

 363 for the aggregate sum of 491,389,758 lire. 

 The receipts of the post-office were 40,112,477 

 lire, and the expenses 34,068,912 lire. 



Telegraphs. The length of lines on June 30, 

 1886, was 30,573 kilometres, that of wires 

 108,908 kilometres, exclusive of 184 kilometres 

 of submarine cables. The number of dis- 

 patches in 1885 was 7,321,357, of which 5,896,- 

 306 were paid internal messages, 581,657 pri- 

 vate foreign dispatches, and 179,036 transit 

 dispatches. The receipts were 12,826,438 lire, 

 the expenses for service 10,213,159 lire, for 

 material and maintenance 184,470 lire, for ex- 

 traordinary purposes 553,820 lire. 



Church aud State. The conflict between the 

 Vatican and the Italian Government has become 

 more acute since the Government has been 

 dominated by the democratic element, and Pope 

 Leo has put forth positive assertions of the 

 temporal sovereignty, called on the clergy to 

 repeat and maintain his protest against the 

 usurpation of his kingdom, and striven to ob- 

 tain the intervention of external powers. The 

 new Italian law of communal and provincial 

 reform says that public officers, agents, aud 

 others who, directly or through persons de- 

 pendent on them, officially attempt to control 

 the votes of electors for or against formal can- 

 didatures, or to induce them to abstain from 

 voting, are punished by tines of from 500 to 

 1,000 lire, or according to the gravity of the 

 case, by imprisonment for from three months 

 to one year. The fine or imprisonment is ap- 

 plied to ministers of religion who attempt to 

 control the votes of electors in favor of or 

 against certain candidates, or to induce them 

 to abstain, by allusions or discourses in places 

 designed for worship, or in meetings of a relig- 

 ious character, with spiritual promises or men- 

 aces, or with instructions. The new penal code, 

 in which for the first time an attempt is made 

 to assimilate the penal procedure of all the 

 provinces of Italy and make a common crimi- 

 nal law for all the kingdom, has the same pro- 

 visions, intended to punish the assertion of the 

 Pope's right to Kome as a crime. As it passed 

 the Chamber of Deputies in the session of 

 1888, it applied special and aggravated penal- 

 ties to this offense when committed by the 

 priesthood. This drew out many protests, on 

 the ground that it made a discrimination against 

 the priest which was not justified by the recog- 



nition of the priest in his clerical capacity, he 

 being in the eyes of the law a simple citizen. 

 These protests were taken into account by the 

 Senate, and the bill was altered so as to read as 

 follows: 



The religious minister who, abusing his position, 

 provokes contempt or disobedience of the institutions 

 or laws of the state, or the acts of the authorities, or 

 even the transgression of the duties inherent in a pub- 

 lic office or service, is punished by fiom six months' 

 to three years' imprisonment, with a fine of from 500 

 lire to 3,000 lire, with temporary or perpetual interdic- 

 tion from the benefice. 



Subject to the same penalty is the minister 

 of any religion who urges or instigates anybody 

 to acts or declarations against the laws of the 

 state, or in prejudice of rights acquired by the 

 state. 



These stringent laws prevented the Italian 

 clergy from instituting public demonstrations 

 in favor of the restoration of the temporal 

 power of the Pope such as took place during 

 1888 in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, and 

 France. The tension between the Govern- 

 ment and the Vatican was partly due to the 

 aggressive attitude of the clericals in connection 

 with the fiftieth anniversary of Pope Leo's en- 

 trance into the priesthood. The congratulations 

 and homage from sovereigns and peoples of 

 which he was the recipient were interpreted as 

 demonstrations of sympathy for the sorrows 

 and wrongs of the "prisoner of the Vatican." 

 The Pope himself raised the question in reply- 

 ing to various deputations, especially in ad- 

 dressing the Italian bishops, to whom he said, 

 " You are among those who desire to see the 

 Papacy restored to that condition of true sov- 

 ereignty and independence which is in every 

 way its due." The Duke of Torlonia, Syndic 

 or Mayor of Rome, who requested the Cardinal 

 Vicar to present the congratulations of the city 

 to the Pope on the occasion of his .jubilee, was 

 dismissed from his post by the Government. 

 The Syndic was governed in his action by the 

 sentiments of the Municipal Council, in which 

 the clericals have a majority, although they 

 hold aloof from parliamentary elections. 



Disputes with France. Questions relating to 

 ex-territorial jurisdiction under the capitula- 

 tions in portions of the Turkish Empire that 

 have virtually been annexed by France and 

 Italy, arose - several times between the two 

 governments and were the subject of spirited 

 diplomatic controversies in 1888. In January 

 an incident occurred in Florence which was 

 the subject of considerable correspondence. 

 When Italy made a treaty with France in 1884, 

 by which she consented to the suspension of 

 the consular privileges in Tunis, France agreed 

 that Italy's previous conventions with the Bey 

 of Tunis should remain in force. The conven- 

 tion of 1868 provides that the estates of Tunis- 

 ian subjects who die in Italy shall be settled 

 according to Italian law. The French consul 

 in Florence took possession of the property 

 and papers of a Tunisian general, Hussein 

 Pasha, who died in that city, leaving a large 



