degree than any other. Letters from Croatia state that
the peasantry are reduced almost to despair.

By the intelligence from Berlin, it appears that the
tariff question, between Prussia, as the head of the
Zollverein, and of the German free-traders, and Austria,
as patron of the Coalition States and the German
protectionists, is at length approaching a crisis. The
Coalition States are unwilling to carry on the negotiations
any longer in the Berlin Conference, which has been
sitting since May, as they differ with the Prussian
ultimatum on vital points. But the Zollverein treaties have
more than a year to run, not expiring until January,
1854. A note from the Coalition, or Steuerverein, not
yet officially presented, appears in the journals; and
Baron Manteuffel, writing on that information, definitively
states that Prussia is willing to negotiate with the
Coalition States, if they will only place him in a condition
to do so by agreeing to the Prussian notions of the
tariff, as contained in the declaration of the 30th August.

Accounts from the Roman States state that twenty-
four persons have been executed at Sinigaglia, who had
been sentenced to death by the Sacra Consulta at Rome,
for political offences committed in 1848. The total
number of prisoners implicated in the affair was sixty-
five, of whom thirteen have succeeded in making their
escape, and twenty-eight have been condemned to the
galleys for life. The remainder, who were executed,
underwent their punishment with great fortitude, crying
"Viva Mazzini," and singing the Marsellaise. There
was but one person among them belonging to the
educated classes, Simoncelli, the merchant, who was first
lieutenant of the civic guard, and had been nominated
president of the Secret Tribunal, or Vehme. He had
expected to the last that he would be pardoned. Some
relatives of the Pope interested themselves in his behalf,
but in vain. Before his death he requested the officer
in command to order the soldiers to fire at his breast,
and not his head. These sentences were executed, not
by Austrian soldiers, but by Swiss troops of the Papal
army.

The sentences on the persons tried at Naples, accused
of being engaged in the insurrection of May, 1848, have
been published. Seven have been condemned to death,
six to be imprisoned in irons for periods of from thirty to
twenty-five years, and twelve to various terms of
imprisonment, from nine to two years. Thirty-seven more
still remained in prison.

Archdeacon Cagnazzi, one of the accused in Naples,
for the events of May, 1848, died a few days since in
that city. He is known to Italian literature by several
esteemed works on finance and political economy. The
archdeacon left Naples when the reaction commenced,
but from an invitation of the government returned.
The police authorities then took him in charge, allowing
him to remain in his own house, guarded night and day.
The religious congregation to which he belonged refused
to bury him, fearing to incur the displeasure of the
authorities. To such a point is intimidation carried in
Naples.

The Neapolitan Minister of Police, Peccheneda, and
principal agent of the present government, is dead. He
left the scene of his cruelty, detested and despised, on
the 2nd of this month. He held a subordinate employment
under government from his youth, and was once
imprisoned for his liberal opinions. Peccheneda
appeared whenever a government wanted an instrument
of persecution. He was called to the councils of the
king when the reaction took place, after 1848, and
entrusted with the portfolio of minister of police. From
that period, although at a very advanced age, he
vigorously employed himself in persecuting the
constitutional party; on the simple word of his spies, he has
thrown thousands into prison, and ruined hundreds of
families, besides doing infinite harm to the king and
the monarchy. He had enriched himself by the spoils
of his victims, and has left a fortune of 120,000 ducats.
He had great influence with his Sicilian Majesty, whom
he kept in perpetual fear of his life, by inventing plots
which were too readily believed in.

The case of the Madiais, a man and his wife, who have
been condemned at Florence to four years' imprisonment
with hard labour for having read the Bible, has excited
a great sensation. They are described as an honest and
industrious couple. Madiai had been a travelling
courier; his wife a lady's-maid, many years in the service
of English families. In the summer of 1851 they had
set up, with a little capital saved out of their wages, a
boarding-house in the Piazza Santa Maria Novella.
There, from their English connexions, being suspected
of a Protestant bias, they were suddenly arrested on the
charge of heresy, and their little establishment broken
up. A Bible was found under a sofa-pillow, and for
presuming to have read it to others, after a mock trial, they
have been condemned. There was no suspicion, charge,
or implication of moral or political criminality attaching
to the case. The public prosecutor frankly declared at
the trial that there was no such accusation whatever,
and that the prosecution was wholly and avowedly for
the religion of the Established Church of Tuscany.

The Shah of Persia has narrowly escaped assassination.
While he was hunting near Tehran, on the loth of
August, six ill-dressed Persians, belonging to the sect of
Babi, a religious chief put to death some time since,
approached the Shah with petitions. Having presented
them, they demanded redress for the insult to their
religion. Two seized the bridle of his horse; and before
the attendants, who, according to the Persian custom,
were waiting at a distance, came up, two of the assassins
fired their pistols. The Shah was slightly wounded
in the cheek and thigh, but retained his seat. His
servants arrived at a gallop, cut down two of the
assassins, and pursued and captured one. Three
escaped; but they were afterwards found in a well, and
cut to pieces. Next day, thanks were offered up in the
grand Mosque of Tehran for the escape of the Shah,
and in the evening the city was illuminated. All the
Corps Diplomatique waited on the Shah to congratulate
him. Hajee Suleiman Khan, accused as the instigator
of the crime, was seized, his body carefully drilled with
a knife in parts which would not at the moment cause
death; pieces of lighted candles were then introduced
into the holes, and, thus illuminated, carried in
procession through the bazaar, and finally conveyed to the
town gates, and there cleft in twain, like a fat ram.

The Swedish journals publish the following narrative.
About ten days ago, a Madame Nilssen, wife of a brewer
of the highest respectability, at Odesta, feeling that she
was about to die, sent for Mr. Ringk, the Lutheran
clergyman of the parish, and, having caused every one
to leave the room, confessed, with much anguish of
mind, that about twenty-five years ago she and her
husband had murdered their infant child. She said that
Nilssen had seduced her, and that they subsequently
married contrary to the wish of their parents. As in
Sweden a young unmarried woman who has acted
improperly with a man is profoundly despised, even
though she marry before a child be born, her husband
proposed to her to kill the infant. She received the
proposition with horror; but he insisted, and she at last
consented. They retired to an isolated house, at some
distance from the town, and there she was delivered.
Her husband suffocated the child, and buried the body
in a field. She described the precise spot where the
interment took place. A few hours after stating these
facts, she died. As in the Lutheran Church confessions
are not considered inviolably secret, M. Ringk informed
the authorities of what Madame Nilssen had said. A
search was made in the field, and the skeleton of the
child was found. Thereupon M. Nilssen was arrested.
He has filled the highest municipal offices in the town,
and has always been noted for his benevolence.

New York papers have been received to the 9th inst.
They are chiefly occupied with questions of domestic
politics, especially the approaching presidential election.
The candidates are General Scott, Mr. Webster, and
General Pierce. General Scott appears to have the
most favourable prospects.