GARIBALDI'S EMBARRASSMENTS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 4020, 6 January 1875, Page 6 (Supplement)

GARIBALDI'S EMBARRASSMENTS.

M. Erdan, writing from .Rome to the Temps, says :— •' The entire Italian press, and especially tho Moderate and Ministerial papers, are deeply moved by the revelations just' made respecting Garibaldi's financial embarrassments. The hero's poverty was known. It has been, steadily growing, especially since 1870, when presents in kind from England, tho United States, &c, began to get insignificant. Pearly all the Italian Prime .Ministers since 1860 have wished to relieve this honourable poverty, and various meaii3 have been tried of inducing him to accept assistance, one plan being to treat him as a general on half-pay. Members of the Advanced party, personal friends of Garibaldi, were commissioned to make*'overtures ; but everything was rejected with a kind of anger. The only thing to be done— a Parliamentary aud National Act—was nofc thought of, or was little thought, of, either by the Eight or the Left. In September last, Garibaldi, reduced to an extremity, intimated afc Genoa that he wished to sell the yacht given him by the Duke, of Sutherland, which was lying in that port. No purchaser presented himself except an envoy from the Royal household, who asked Garibaldi's agent the prico, and agreed at once, it is said, to pay the BO,OOOf. demanded. To whom should the sum be paid 1 Garibaldi ordered it to be paid, not to a bank—such precautions, alas ! are unknown to the hero—but to this good friend, this agent who had concluded tlie bargain. The Royal envoy, acting under his inscruc tions, paid the money. The good friend took to his heels, and is,' it is said, in America. But' on this point there are only stories which have a legendary air, and fuller information must be awaited. Garibaldi's secretary — that good, stout man called General or Colonel Bassi— writes tliat, perhaps, the whole sum will not be lost In the midst of the troubles, the Nev,' York Tribune was informed of the hero's embarassments. Tli3 Tribune, under the title of "A Second Belisarius," published a letter by Garibaldi to a Dr Ross, iv which he acknowledged his distress, and said thafc if the offers of help made to him from the United States were to be realised, the best plan would be to send a draft on an Italian banker or merchant. The Tribune added that a Mr Anderson had settled on Garibaldi 5,000f. a year. Tlie Opiniono was the iirst paper to publish an extract from the Tribune. It added fchat if Garibaldi was so embarrassed ifc could not be. imputed to the King, the Government, or the nation, s\,nd that in any case Italy ifcsglf by an Acfc of Parliament must "assist the national hero, whose resolute political adversary people might ba witliont forgetting what the country owes him. That is how the matter now stands." A telegram from Rome, says :— " The directors of several Italian newspapers have hold a meeting at which ifc was proposed to raise a snin of money, which would yield an annual income of 50,000 francs, to bo presented to General Garibaldi as a national offering."