ITALY. 



413 



(.unlit inns. The number of students varies from 

 I!) in the Five l'iii\n>iiy of Fcrraru to 4,074 in 

 i he I'uiverMty of Naples, tin- numlxir of |>ro- 

 fessors f rom 4 at Macerata !< tin at Naples. Die 

 whole continental port ion of the former Kingdom 

 <if I lie Two Sicilies has only tins one university, 

 while the island of Sicily has one at 1'ulenno 

 with l,rj"> students, another at Catania with 

 |."il. and a third at Messina with 'J(K{. The Uni- 

 versity of Rome, with 82 professors and tutors 

 and 1,297 students, serves for the rest of southern 

 Italy. Tuscany has the Universities of Pisa, with 

 590, and Siena, with 169, and the Institute of 

 Florence, with 434 students; Umbria has the 

 Free University of Perugia, with 119 students; 

 in the Marches, Macerata has 91 students, and 

 the free universities of Camerino and Urbino 

 98 and 79 respectively ; in Emilia, besides Bo- 

 logna, with 1,245 students, there are the Universi- 

 ties of Parma, with 238, Modena, with 319, and 

 the insignificant free university at Ferrara. In 

 the north of Italy, Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy, 

 and Venetia have each a well-visited Government 

 university, Turin having over 1,400, Genoa 940, 

 Pavia some 1,100, and Padua 1,201) students. On 

 the island of Sardinia, where education is so 

 backward that 66 per cent, of the recruits are 

 unable to read, there are 2 universities one at 

 Sassari, with 136, and one at Cagliare, with 119 

 students. Minister Martini's plan of organic re- 

 form, which included the granting of corporate 

 rights to the universities, the improvement of 

 the official status of the professors, and the ex- 

 tension of the live universities by amalgamating 

 some of the weak ones with them, roused such 

 opposition particularly in Messina, Sassari, 

 Siena, and Modena that the reform was once 

 more put off for fear of offending local pride. 



Bank Scandals. There are 6 banks in Italy 

 authorized by statute to issue bank notes. Their 

 notes constitute the main currency of the coun- 

 try, the only other money being small bills issued 

 by the Government, amounting in 1891 to 341,- 

 949,000 lire, the silver and bronze subsidiary cur- 

 rency, and whatever gold is retained with the 

 paper at a heavy discount. The amount of bank 

 notes in circulation at the beginning of 1892 was 

 returned as 1,121,601,000 lire. The assets of the 

 6 issue banks at that date were officially stated 

 to be 3,363,297,000 lire, and the liabilities 3,355,- 

 357,000 lire. Before calling for a decision on 

 the question of renewing the privileges of 

 these banks for six years more, the Government 

 ordered an official inquiry into their condition 

 and management. 



The fact that the Banca Romana had exceeded 

 its legal issue of bank notes by 62,000,000 lire 

 was known after the arrest of its president, who 

 was charged furthermore with publishing false 

 balance sheets, and with counterfeiting in having 

 manufactured in London 40,000,000 lire more of 

 bank notes, with which he intended to cover up 

 the cash deficit of the bank, and putting some 

 of the bills in circulation. On Jan. 27, Antonio 

 Mon/illi, director of the credit office in the Min- 

 i>t iv of Agriculture and Commerce, was arrested 

 on the charge of embezzlement and falsification. 

 The judicial inquiry showed that a conspicuous 

 member of the Right, the Deputy Rocco de Zer- 

 bi, had at various times received money from the 

 Roman Bank, amounting to 400,000 lire. On 



application being made for the Chamber to per- 

 mit his arrest, he declared that he courted a crim- 

 inal trial: but before fie could IM- am. -ted h.: 

 died, it was Mippo.-ed, by his own hand. Huron 

 Michele La//aroni, a man of reputed wealth, 

 popular among Romans, and a favorite at court, 

 was arrested as an accomplice of his uncle, Ce- 

 sare La/./aroni, and was accused also of having 

 opened false current accounts and fraudulently 

 obtaining large sums in the name of an artist 

 named Peralta, who was arrested afterwaid. l'n- 

 tro Tanlongo, until he too was arrested, carried 

 on a clandestine correspondence with his impii>- 

 oncd father, and instructed him in the pretend- 

 ed revelations that he made in 1 is answers to the 

 judge. The letters were concealed in loaves of 

 bread sent to the prisoner, and as soon as he be- 

 gan to receive them Bernardo became loquacious 

 and told of giving Depretis 3,000,000 lire for 

 electoral purposes in 1887, and 152,000 lire to 

 Giolitti, Lacava, and Grimaldi in the last elec- 

 tions. When, besides Giolitti and the Marquis di 

 Rudini, he implicated Crispi, the latter joined in 

 the demand for a parliamentary inquiry. A 

 budget of incriminating documents, which was 

 called Tanlongo's /tiro d'oro (" golden book "), 

 was found by the police. Crispi's name was in- 

 volved not only in the Panamino ("little Pana- 

 ma "), as the Italian scandal was humorously 

 named, but at the same time in the French Pana- 

 ma, as his name was found in one of Reinach's 

 lists as the recipient of a check for 50,000 francs 

 in March, 1891. This was explained satisfacto- 

 rily by the fact that he was the attorney of 

 Reinach's firm and trustee of property in Italy 

 belonging to the Reinachs. It came out that 

 among the unpaid acceptances of the Banca Na- 

 zionale was a note of his for 175,000 lire, which 

 he had borrowed as proprietor of the " Riforma" 

 newspaper. This note was eventually taken up 

 with money given by King Umberto, who was 

 believed to have sacrificed 4,000,000 lire of his 

 private fortune for the purpose of releasing pub- 

 lic men from similar debts to the banks. J^ico- 

 tera, who is honored as one of the heroes of the 

 war of independence, found himself in a more 

 embarrassing situation than Crispi. Tanlongo 

 had letters from him asking for monev, which he 

 would fetch himself, and in the banker's hand- 

 writing was a remark about 150,000 lire obtained 

 from the bank, and alleged to have been paid 

 out by Nicotera for the Government. The ex- 

 minister explained that he had borrowed 44,000 

 lire from the Banca Romana, and 135.000 from 

 the Banca Nazionale, to aid an institution in 

 which his sister was interested, and had redeemed 

 his notes on entering the Rudini Cabinet out of 

 a loan obtained from his friend, the Marquis de 

 Medici, whom he owed also 50.000 lire. 



( irsini, who conducted the official examination 

 of the banks, reported that the Banca Romana 

 had issued 64,500,000 lire of bank notes beyond 

 the legal limit of 73,000,000 lire. Four fifths of 

 the commercial paper held by the bank was over- 

 due and unsecured. There was a cash deficit of 

 28,600,000 lire unaccounted for except by ficti- 

 tious accounts current recently opened in the 

 names of unknown individuals, Tanlongo's ac- 

 count being represented as overdrawn by over 

 4.000,000 lire. Lazzaroni's by an equal sum, and 

 that of Prince Torlonia to a large amount. 



