OUTRAGE AT FLORENCE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LI, Issue 5598, 3 February 1879, Page 5

OUTRAGE AT FLORENCE.

(From a Comspondentofths Times.) Fiobjshcb, Nov. 19. Last night a torchlight profession with banner and music, part of the enthusiastic outburst of Florentine loyalty occasioned by the attempt against the life of the King, was passing down the Via Nazionale, when, as it passed the Via Guelfa a small loaded shell, with slow match, was thrown from the bystreet, over the heads of the crowd of spectators which blocked the entrance of the street into the Corps of Veterans forming part of the procession, and exploded In the air near the banner, crushing the skulls of two men, fracturing that of another so that he has died today, and wounding, mostly slightly, seven others, including a child of five and an old woman, among the spectators. The crowd, persuaded that the shell was thrown from a house near the angle of the street, was disposed to assault it and inflict summary and extreme penalty on all in it, but a police agent, with praiseworthy energy and promptness, occupied the door until a reinforcement came, when a search in the house showed that there was no ground, of..suspicion against it, and subsequent investigation showed that the facts were as above stated. ‘ This is aU that is positively known as to the affair, up to, this dale. Several arrests have beer* made, apd ,among them of two or three.,‘persona, suspected in connection with the similar crime perpetrated on the occasion of the demonstration at the death of Victor Emmanuel-last year, and whoare said to have been also at this event. The authorities assume me that they have reason for confidence in the discovery of the perpetrators of the and it is to be hoped that it is a?,-hutis<umy.be permitted to doubt till the tottmao°f it toriheoauiug* Tha,only.facts to guide the investigation are.,these shell was one of a number madefoi! the Mentj«a expedition, and said to have been given to various persons, among whom some areknown to be connected with the Internatiog^i|ts t and some Republicans. The Corps of ’ Veteraps is the same as that-i attacked by tire.; assassins of,,the formef 0Oc»W»> apu the manner of . the, attack such as jtpTeaye np probabilitythat it wasintendei for that body of , men-rqld; soldiers., The fact that, among 9f. pohtfcal. belief, .even I.>ehevo,lnto*?WtiQnalifltaftnd Eopub-, •S™■ )W>*a to.have, •Jit? ' believed to have immediately rejoined his comrade the thrower, who, unable to see the effect of the shell from the point where he threw it, vu in the shelter of the angle of

the building, and thus the two, sheltered from the effecls of the explosion, were able to walk away tranquilly in any direction, while the fury of the populace was engaged on the house, it could not, therefore, hare been aimed at an individual, and was most pro* bably a purely political assault on the men who had most effectively contributed to the establishment of the present state of things, i.e., a reactionary vengeance.