12 APRIL 1873, Page 3

There has been a discreditable row at Rome, in which

one of our own countrymen, Mr. Arthur Vansittart, an L"ltramontane, has either inflicted or suffered, or both inflicted and suffered, considerable injuries. It appears that the anti-Clerical party are in the habit of gathering in groups near the Church of the Gdsu, apparently for the purpose of quizzing the Clericals as they come out. On March 30 Mr. Vansittart and Signor Ante- nelli (a nephew of the Cardinal's) came out from mass and met the group of Liberals, when a struggle ensued, in which it is extremely difficult to say who was the aggressor, both parties maintaining that they were assaulted first. Mr. Vansittart declares that his friend Count Antonelli was insulted first by Signor Fornari, one of the Liberals, and that on turning to defend him he was himself struck five violent blows with a stick, was re- scued by the police, and that he has since been laid up with his wounds. On the other hand, one of the auti-Clericals, Dr. Barberi Borghini, declares that Fornari was first attacked, and that he, in turning to defend his friend, was set upon by five persons with loaded canes, one of which he wrenched from the hands of an antagonist and laid about with fury. Probably both accounts are tolerably true. The policy of Non-possumus " sounds rather like "Resist not evil," but experience shows that it is apt to lead not to turning your other cheek for your opponent's blow, but to the reciprocal giving and receiving of blows both on the right cheek and on the left.