King Ilumbert of Italy has narrowly escaped death. On Sunday,
as the King was entering Naples in an open car- riage, from a railway-station, a cook, named Passanente, aged twenty-three, advanced, apparently to present a petition. He held a small flag in his hand, and as the King leant forward struck at him through the flag with a knife or dagger. The weapon struck the King on the arm, inflicting a slight wound ; and the King, rising, banged the assassin on the head with his sheathed sword. Passanente, however, sprang forward to repeat the blow, when S. Cairoli, the Premier—who, with the Queen, was in the carriage—flung himself between them, and received rather a serious wound in the thigh, the knife just missing the great crural artery. He bled very much, and is in danger. Passanente was then arrested, and appears to be a man made savage by poverty, who had studied the pro- gramme of the International, which was found in his room, and had come to the conclusion that he hated Kings. The demon- stration in the King's favour in all the towns of Italy was over- whelming, and as usual, the attempt has increased the Royal authority. Rumours are circulated everywhere of a society which intends to kill all Kings, but they appear to be based on nothing better than spies' reports of wild talk in Socialist meeting-rooms. It is a pity that would-be regicides, like the Irish patriots of 1848, cannot be condemned to a few years' prosperity. Nothing would daunt them so completely.
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