the President of the Criminal Court are reduced to still smaller quarters. The magistrates, functionaries, and officials are suffering a similar or greater degree of discomfort, and yet amid this penury of habitation there are two large well-constructed sheds, suitably fitted up, in which the poor are gratuitously lodged. It is pleasant to record that at such a time of confusion the people of Potenza passed these days of affliction and distress, solely occupied in acts of devotion or humanity, whilst in two other communes of the province, which were the most desolated and afflicted, sordid avarice prevailed over piety. In Potenza it was delightful to observe the multitude which collected round the altars and portable chapels, erected in the square {largo) before the Intendente's house and other places, hearing the divine offices, and praying like the early Christians; and to this we must attribute the strength of mind which they evinced amid scenes of distress and mourning. On the 23rd January, a prisoner from the province of Salerno was brought into the chapel condemned to death for the murder of his sister; the scaflfold was erected, the rites of religion about to be administered, and the brethren of the congregation were begging for masses for his soul, when Monsignor D. Michel Angelo Pieramico, a man of great learning and kindness of heart, perceiving that the duty of intercession devolved upon him, communicated by telegraph with the King, and a message of pardon was returned, confirmed, on the following day, by the arrival of a courier, bearing the royal command.
3.
Of the Signs which preceded and accompanied and followed the Earthquake.
Many affirm that before the occurrence aerial sounds were distinctly audible; but during past years I have frequently heard similar noises which were not followed by an earthquake, and which were attributed either to Vesuvius, or to discharges of cannon, the echo of which, when the air is still, or when only a light breeze prevails, extends as far as Potenza. Noises and explosions subsequent to the earthquake were heard in Matera up to the early part of January, and by me and my family on the 8th and 29th of the same month in a small house in the environs of
