THE CITY OF MESSINA.

Feilding Star, Volume III, Issue 766, 31 December 1908, Page 3

THE CITY OF MESSINA.

, The city of Messina, picturesquely situated on the shores" of the Btrait nf tiliA Mini flMflfti illM in,thfl Jiortbfc

east corner of Sicily, in tha centr« of an active volcanic zone. , It ,, w reputed to have been founded by the Greeks in 740 8.C., it became Roman in 241 8.C., was conquered by the Saracens in 831, ruled by the Normans from 1061 to 1194, and from 1282 to 1713 was a Spanish pos- ] session. Subsequently it was annexed to the Kingdom of Naples. In the troublous times of '48 unsuccessful attempts were made to shake off the Neapolitan yoke, and during one insurrection Messuia was bombarded and. captured, but finally, in 1860 the islanders, with Garibaldiat their head, defeated the Neapo 7 litan troops at Palermo and other places in Sicily, and annexed the island to the new kingdom of lta% under Victor-Emmanuel I. The population at the last census was about 150,000. ... « . Messina, in connection with L.atania and other places in Sicily, and with the province of Calabria across the straits, has been several tunes ravaged by earthquakes The most severe was probably that of 1/&5, when Messina and other towns were overthrown, and thousands of persons perished. Calabria suffered from disastrous visitations in 1835, when some villages were destroyed and 1000 persons buried; in 1857, when 10,000 lives were lost, and . in 1905 when the deathroll was estimated at 200 U. These are but a few of many disastrous shocks. . Reggio di Calabria, which, it is feared, has been destroyed, is a cathedral city on the Straits of Messina, with extensive manufactures, and having a fine cathedral and a musum. It was almost entirely i;ebuilt after the earthquake of 1783.