The preparations for war advance, and a scene is presented
in Italy which makes even her enemies' hearts throb. Something like a voluntary levee en masse is going on there, and had the Government the means to arm or feed them, it might raise its army to a million strong. The instant the rolls were opened the offi- cials were borne down by the rush of applicants, fifty thousand men were enrolled in one day, 4,000 in the single city of Milan, and it was necessary to close them again. They were opened again, however, this week for 20,000 more, and then closed. In the North every class, from the oldest nobles, share the excitement, and in the South, though there is little enthusiasm, the conscrip- tion has been obeyed. Immense efforts will be made to cause an outbreak in Naples, but the Government is warned, and they will probably end in a wide extension of brigandage. The Italians are convinced, and on better grounds than Englishmen believe, that they are able to cope with the Austrians alone, while the Austrians in Venetia have informed their Italian subordinates that if the army is compelled to enter the fortresses the officials must follow, under penalty of death. Even dying, the Austrian eagle cannot resist the temptation of blood.
