A KING'S ASSAILANT.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 77, 2 April 1910, Page 14

A KING'S ASSAILANT.

THIRTY-TWO YEARS IN PRISON. Giovanni Passanante, the insane chef who, on 17th November, 1878, attempted to murder King Humbert at Naples, died on 14th February in the criminal lunatic asylum of Montelupo, near Volterra. He would have succeeded in killing the King if tho Prime Minister, Benedetto Cairoh, the heroic companion of Garibaldi, who was seated beside the King, had not thrown him6elf forward and received in his breast the blow that was intended for the Sovereign. Pansanante had approached tho Royal carriage holding a dagger wrapped in paper, whjch was supposed to be a petition. Cairoli was seriously wounded. At that time capital punishment existed in Italy, and Passanante was condemned to death, but the King commuted the sentence to life-long imprisonment. The terrible prison regime in Italy — comprising complete isolation in a eell — caused him to loee his reason, which wa* already un*table. He was then transported to Montelupo, where (says the Telegraph's correspondent), he passed his time in filling sheets of paper with the mad ravings of his disordered brain.