A SHAM GARIBALDI.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3502, 27 September 1882, Page 4

A SHAM GARIBALDI.

The Italian nation bas, it is now alleged, been wasting its hero worship for many years past upon a sham Garibaldi, falsely and fraudulently invested with the name and honours of the real patriot, who in point of fact was killed at Asprotnonte. The Sentinelle dv Midi has divulged the secret to the world, and an official Italian paper, the Fanfalla, thinks fit, while contradicting the story, to reproduce il at length in its columns. Various circumstances are mentioned in support of this novel tale, and amongst others the supposed fact that the real Garibaldi had small hands and feet, and wrote clumsily and with difficulty, whereas the impersonator of the defunct hero, who was mourned with such enthusiasm the other day, had large clumsy hands, but weilded the pen of a ready writer. As the story will no doubt now deeply impress the popular mind in Italy, it is perhaps fortunate that the original intention of burning the so-called Garibaldi was not carried into effect, for if will now be possible to exhume the body and ascertain, at any rate, whether the hands are the hands of the true patriot or not. Considering, however, the long time during which tho Guribaldian character was successfully sustained by the person whose identity with him is now impeached, it may pei'haps be doubted whether he is not as much entitled to the honours he has worn as the original would have been.