SCHOOLMASTER PATRIOT

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 December 1934, Page 8

SCHOOLMASTER PATRIOT

LIBERATION OF ITALY The Dean of Durham (Very Rev. C. A. Alington. D.D.), wrote in the London “Daily Telegraph”, on November 3, last: — Of all the minor heroes of the Italian Risorgimento —a glorious band — there are few who are more attractive than Luigi Settembrini, who died on this day in 1877. He had lived to see the triumph of the cause for which he suffered much. It may be professional prejudice which attracts me to a schoolmaster, but I hope I am not wrong in thinking that the story of his life can still be read with interest. His earliest recollection was of seeing a man tied to the back of a donkey and flogged through the streets of Naples for his political opinions. This converted him to Liberalism, and in due coarse he and a friend founded a society of two to work for the freedom and unity of Italy; it is a queer coincidence that the name of his colleague should have been Benedetto Mussolini. By the time that Settembrini was 26 (by which time he was Professor of Eloquence—a charming title—in a Neapolitan college) he was enough of a conspirator to be kept two years in prison without trial.

SCANDALOUS TRIAL. | When he came cut. he had, of course, i lost his position, and found, as a I kindly gaoler had warned him, that ! the worst enemies of man were pen, I ink and paper. Writing was impossible. ! and he became a schoolmaster. The revelation of 18 z 8 in Naples improved [bis prospect for a time, but reaction j set in. and next year he was back in liis old prison. He and forty-one others were tried in a batch, and the trial was so scandalous that it roused the indignation of Mr Gladstone, who happened ’-to be present in court, with results that were to prove important both to Engi land and to Italy. He and two others were condemned to death, but his life was saved by an absurd accident. The King of Naples decided to pardon half of them, and as no one could divide three by two, they were all sent to prison for life—to an island near Naples, where the l&litical prisoners were herded with more than 700 thieves and murderers and worse. With these they lived night and day for four years. “My body and my clothes,” Settembrini wrote, “are soiled: it is of no use to try and keep clean: my spirit! is tainted: I feel as if my hands also! were foul with blood and theft.” He | kept his reason by laboriously trans- j lating Lucian into Italian. I

They had a chance of escape, but refused it because it meant letting seven hundred criminals loose on the world.

At last, after eight years, release i came, largely as a result of Mr Gladstone’s agitation. He lived to become ’(Professor of Italian Literature at Naples under the Government 01 United Italy, and to write his recollections. From them we get a c-arming picture of his character: “I conspired.” he says, “because I knew neither how i to hold my peace among the oppressed,! nor how to take my place among the I oppressors, and to do neither seemed to me cowardice.” Some other words which he wrote when he lay awaiting execution deserve a place in every patriotic anthology: “I leave to my children a name which I have tried to preserve unspotted. I leave them three percepts—to know and to adore God: to love work: to love their country. I 1 commend my country to God: may He 1

I give wisdom to them that rule it, and j grant that my blood may stay all party I wrath and hatred and be the last shed fin this unhappy land.”