SIGNOR CRISPI.
[To THE ED/TOR OF THE SPECTATOR:] Si,—Will you permit me to point out that your critic, in the Spectator of January 5th, in writing of an article of mine which appeared in the January number of the Nine- teenth Century, mentions Signor Crispi's "first marriage" and his "divorce from his first wife," and adds that "the enemies of Crispi, when they called him a bigamist, had plenty of ground to go upon." The reference is, of course, to Crispi's relations with Rosalie lltIontfasson, and not to his first wife, who died long before he met Rosalia. Now, to speak of Crispi's "marriage" to the latter woman, and of his ," divorce" from her, is to beg the whole question. He was never divorced from Rosalie, for the simple reason that a Court of Law found that no marriage had ever taken place,— the priest who professed to have married Crispi and Rosalia having had no authority to perform such a ceremony. After the decision of the Court, it was open to Crispi either to marry the woman with whom he bad found life intolerable, or to marry the woman whom he loved, and who deserved his love, That he chose the latter course most assuredly did not make him guilty of bigamy, and I fail to see that it made him guilty of anything to which the strictest moralist need take exception. Very possibly, as your critic re- marks, the alleged marriage at Malta was legal "according to Roman Catholic ideas." Bat we have to deal with facts and not with Roman Catholic ideas, and the facts prove that Crispi did not commit bigamy. One word more. Your critic says that Crispi, "according to Mr. Alden, 'manufactured' the despatches which induced Garibaldi to invade Sicily." I did not say that Crispi " manu- factured " the deep atches in question. I said that he " pre- pared " them. He had received despatches in cipher from General Fa.brizi, and he read into those despatches a meaning which they did not contain. This was a deception, a ruse de guerre; but if your critic justifies the civil war, with its slaughter of thousands, which set free Naples and Sicily, why does he strain at the deception which made that war possible ? Without that deception there would have been no Expedition of the Thousand; the two Sicilies would perhaps still be under the infamous rule of the Bourbons, and United Italy would still be a dream. It was Crispi's act which made the glorious campaign of Garibaldi possible, and I admire, and bless, and love him for it —I am, Sir, &c., 61 Cloudesdale Road, January 7th. W. L. ALDEN.
[Mr. Alden omits to notice the very point of our criticism, which is that both Crispi and his second wife intended their marriage to be legal, and thought it was so. " Preparing " despatches and " manufacturing " despatches seem to us much the same thing, though we were in error in thinking that Mr. Alden used the latter word. We are no enemies of Signor Crispi, who is a great, though an unscrupulous, man; but he certainly needs to be delivered from his friends. —ED. Spectator.]
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