arbitrarily driven from their situations by the police, although they were in the enjoyment of the entire confidence of the municipalities they served, and the esteem of the people among whom their lot had been cast. The order for men thus circumstanced to return to their native place is equivalent to the confiscation of the whole of their property; for, in most instances, their localities are either unfit for the exercise of their profession, or are already occupied by other practitioners. We could give hundreds of examples-nay, thousands might be adduced-of persons against whom no accusation was made, thus reduced to beggary and despair; but we will let the few which we have cited suffice.

Unfortunately, these acts of tyranny, however odious and detestable in themselves, are, to a certain degree, verbally legal, in the Roman states, because they are in conformity with the laws, or at least pretend to be so; but innumerable other iniquities are daily perpetrated by the police, which cannot be justified even by the shadow of legal excuse: and we may easily imagine the excesses they go to, when we bear in mind that most of the police directors are men who were discharged, during the liberal movement, on account of their unfitness or delinquencies; and who, consequently, on their replacement by the ecclesiastical government, are far more liable to be swayed by motives of servile deference to the party that has restored them, and vindictive feelings against those by whom they were removed, than by any considerations of truth and justice. Indeed, in the present state of affairs at Rome, the exercise of police functions is so detestable, and at the same time so dangerous, that none but men lost to every honourable and humane feeling can be found to undertake it; so that, in fact, the peace, safety, and liberty of the citizens are at the mercy of the most abandoned characters, to whom is entrusted the exercise of almost unbounded power, by a despotic clerical legislation. It may, indeed, appear incredible to Englishmen, that the very men at this time appointed by the restored government to the most important and responsible offices, are the identical individuals who were previously removed and punished for their crimes by the very same ecclesiastical authorities. Nardoni, the colonel of the police, was in 1847, condemned to the gallies, as a robber, by Pio Nono, and branded and exposed in the pillory at Ancona for the same crime. Albi, who fled from the vengeance of the laws, for the crimes he had committed even against his own father,

was made commissary extraordinary to his Holiness, during the Austrian intervention in 1849, and is now chief superintendent in the Custom-house; where also is to be found Biancana, well known for his dishonesty; and Vigna, equally noted for his peculations in the corps of carbineers, has been honoured with the dignity of cavaliere and director of the police at Ancona. Telarini, a man of notoriously bad character, and looked upon as such in the office of the Secretary of State, has nevertheless been appointed principal secretary of the province of Macerata, with unlimited power. Freddi, notorious for his immorality, oppression, and ferocity, although publicly disgraced by Pio Nono, is now restored to the favour of his Holiness, and entrusted with great power. The rapacious Bianconi is placed in the police in Romagna, where many of the police directors and other employés have been lately arrested, and condemned, as accomplices of the brigands who have long devastated the provinces. Farina, who was dismissed in 1846 or 1847, for dishonesty in the military department, is now minister of war; and Galli, formerly renowned for his ingenuity in smuggling pigs into the city, without giving himself the trouble to pay the duty on them, has been, with equal propriety, made minister of finance; in which capacity he is said to have already bettered himself, to the amount of a million of scudi!this, too, in the present exhausted and crippled state of the Roman Exchequer.

The extent, indeed, of this minister's speculations in landed purchases, transfer of rentes, and other little privileges secured to him by rescripts from his Holiness, at length began to excite surmises not very creditable to his honesty; and Signor Baldasseroni, the Tuscan minister, when he came to Rome on account of the projected railways, the state of the customs, and other public affairs, made such revelations concerning him, as not even his protector and sharer in the fruits of his ingenious schemes (Cardinal Antonelli) could affect to treat with indifference. His excellency, accordingly, assured the Pope that he would look into the matter himself; which he did with such marvellous precision that he was enabled to declare, he could find nothing amiss in the minister's administration. Unluckily, Baldasseroni had ample proofs to the contrary in his possession, and the cardinal sent to his house to take forcible possession of them. Baldasseroni, however, had wisely transferred the original documents into the keeping of another cardinal, somewhat more honest, and

whose name he refused to reveal; only copies, therefore, were to be found, which copies were instantly condemned to an auto da fe, and Baldasseroni himself was given to understand that he would be required to retract his assertions, and sign a written declaration to the purport of acknowledging that he had been guilty of slander and defamation, or submit to the incarceration due to the alleged crime. The Pope was at first considerably disgusted with the injustice of these proceedings; but, being assured that Galli was just then labouring under pious visitings, and intended to become a priest-a measure wise enough, as far as securing to himself the unmolested possession of his gains-Pio Nono, with the versatility that marks his character in every action of his life, suffered the whole affair to pass over without further inquiry.

"Mais revenons à nos moutons."

Giraud, coldly looked upon at the club on the Piazza Sciarra, on account of his lightfingeredness among the card money, has been appointed president of the Campo Marzo, probably in compliment to Madame Spaur, whose brother he is, out of gratitude for that lady's adventurously taking charge of his Holiness, in his hasty flight from the chair of St. Peter. But we are getting into high company: we must take care how we tread on tender ground; therefore we will not inquire how it happened that Monsignor Matteucci, who is now president of the supreme Consulta tribunal, and superintendent of the prisons, was disgraced by Gregory XVI. towards the end of his reign; nor will we seek too curiously into the peculiar merits that may have led to the promotion of Monsignor Savelli to the office of minister of the interior, seeing that that reverend dignitary stands conspicuous, in Farini's History, as having defrauded the widow of a decapitated criminal of fifty scudi, probably the only fifty she possessed-an act perfectly in keeping with his conduct when created governor of La Marca, 'in modestly absorbing the salaries of seven governors in his own person, and ordering that all government employés should be paid in paper money, then bearing a great loss, with the prospect of being subjected to a still greater; whilst he directed the cashier, Bandini, to pay him all his seven salaries in gold, or at any rate in good silver; but basta! as the Italians sayenough! and more than enough. We should blush to have dwelt so long upon this "Scandalous Chronicle," as it may appear to some of our readers, did we not feel acquitted to

ourselves, for thus affording a glance into its revolting pages, from the motives that have induced us to unfold them. We have already shown the unjust and evil principles on which the Roman laws are based; we felt ourselves called upon, also, to expose the characters o the parties by whom those laws are at this time administered, and we think we shall not have to proceed much further, ere we establish the fact that the Romans themselves, at this present moment, actually labour under greater hardships, injustice, and oppression, than any other people, not only in Europe, but in any part of the civilised globe.

In considering the state of the criminal legislation in Rome, we shall be more and more convinced of the fatal consequences of the canon laws under a clerical government. If equality of persons in the eye of the law is not admitted as a principle of the civil, still less is it acknowledged in the criminal legislation. The persons of priests are sacred, intangible, and therefore exempt from the proceedings of ordinary tribunals. Whatever crime a priest may have committed, he can only be tried for it by an ecclesiastical tribunal; nor can he be summoned as a witness, before a lay tribunal, without the authorisation of the bishop, and the presence and pro tection of another ecclesiastic; the implied necessity of which, as a precautionary measure, we may be allowed to observe, is no great compliment to the reverence in which, it ought to be believed, these same priestly persons are held by the laity. But to such a revolting excess are the privileges of these "chosen vessels" carried in the Roman states, that, instead of being held more strictly responsible for their moral actions, they enjoy, by a bull expressly framed for their benefit, a diminution of the penalty which would be awarded to a layman for the same offence they may have committed; and before being condemned to death, they must have perpetrated twice over the crimes usually found deserving of capital punishment. Another consequence of the precedence of canon over civil law is, that crimes, instead of being considered, in the usual way, as injuries to society, are regarded in a theological light, as offences against the church. Hence there are laws upon blasphemy, sacrilege, and abuse, directed against a priest, quite different from those upon the same offences directed against a layman.

But even for ordinary offences, the Roman law is neither clear nor fixed. The penal regulations of Gregory XVI. leave still in existence, with some few exceptions, the

famous bandi generali, or general proclamations, forming a real Lex orrendi carminis, which punishes a hiss with ten years of the galleys; swearing with perforation of the tongue; and which, in the enumeration of the penalties, always concludes with the expression and more also, at the good pleasure of his excellency."

In many countries, the wholesome institution of juries has remedied the defects of legislative codes, whilst, in others they are modified, by trials being conducted in public; by the open cross-examination of witnesses; the freedom allowed to defence, and the wording of sentences. But none of the ameliorations, which form the fundamental principles of European legislation, are to be found in Rome. There, trials are carried on in the inquisitorial fashion. The accusation is secretly drawn up by a functionary called giudice processante, who is paid little more than a common servant, except in cases of extraordinary political prosecution, when he receives something additional; consequently, on all exciting occasions, it is his interest to add fuel to the flame, and prolong and mystify the matter as much as may come within his power. Witnesses are examined solely by this processante, who dictates their evidence according to his own view of the matter, or the motive he may have for giving it any particular colour. In ordinary cases, such as robbery or theft, the evidence is seldom falsified by the processante, except the delinquent happen to be rich enough to purchase his good opinion; but in political trials, the falsification of statements perpetually occurs; more especially in the present posture of affairs, when nine times out of ten the processante himself would be suspected, should the person submitted to his examination not be condemned; whilst, on the other hand, honour and promotion await him, if he succeeds in making any one appear guilty who is looked upon with an evil eye by the government. As to the trials, they are conducted with the greatest secrecy, especially political ones. Witnesses are not confronted with the prisoner, and, in political cases, their names are never revealed. It may easily be imagined how many sources of enmity, hatred and revenge are thus opened against the unfortunate prisoner, generally to his ruin, even supposing the processante to be uninfluenced, in his report, by any motive of animosity towards him, or any view towards his own interest. But there is yet another, and a still greater abuse, in the Roman criminal tribunals; after an accusation is compiled by the processante,

the same functionary is intrusted to make an abstract of it, for the convenience of the judges, whose opinion and sentence are based upon this document. To what arbitrary decisions, and even involuntary errors, must such a system give rise! How can the exact weight be given to the evidence of a witness without hearing his words! The processante naturally forms his own opinion, before hand, as to the guilt of the prisoner, and, in his examination of him, and of the witnesses, this pre-conceived opinion constantly shows itself; influencing the whole compilation, and the still more important abstract, from which the judges derive their knowledge of the case; and this opinion is, of course, somewhat biased by the processante's interior conviction, that the more crime he demonstrates in his victims, the more he ensures the interest of his own future

career.

We appeal to any sincere practical person, to say, if a just or equitable result can be expected from such a course? But as if this course was not in itself sufficiently subversive of justice, the Roman government, moreover, deprives prisoners of the power of demonstrating the fallacies of the charges against them; the freedom of making an independent defence is one of a man's most important rights, but in the Roman States, in political trials, no prisoner is allowed actually to choose his own advocate. He can only select one from among a certain number appointed to the office by the government, and, consequently, to disgrace and dismission by the same power, whenever the views he may take happen to oppose its wishes. Thus the advocate Pantoli, of Forli, where he was held in universal estimation, who died lately, was disgraced by government, although previously in favour with it, because he conscientiously defended some persons accused of political offences; and in the same manner, Dr. Barbien became an object of suspicion, in consequence of the courageous honesty he displayed in defending. some prisoners at Ravenna. With such examples before their eyes, how can the advocates appointed to defend political prisoners be expected to do their duty, and to turn all their energy and abilities towards procuring the acquittal of their client, when they know their own interests will be so much more effectually served by working out his condemnation ?

In the case of our countryman, Edward Murray, still pending, after between three and four years suspense, between life and death, to the lengthened misery of his wife and

mother, the Papal government, roused by the murmurs of the British Lion, predictive of his ancient roar in cases of tyranny or injustice, has condescended to put forth a vindication of its penal code, which it describes as "the fruit of long study by men of great learning, well acquainted with all other codes that have ever been brought to light,” adding, in an admirable spirit of self-satisfaction, "this code is such as to make us certainly never wish for the regulations of other countries." This assertion we fully believe, as far as the administrators of the code are concerned, but we may be permitted to remain somewhat sceptical, as to the coincidence in it of those who are submitted to the "certain methods, not variable according to the pleasure of the judge," which, this same veracious statement assures us, "lead to the discovery of truth, and, shutting the doors to fraud on every side, afford the prisoner a certain way of exculpating himself, and proving his innocence" (?). The document, curious enough in itself, as a picture of legal prevarication, then goes on to say that Murray had the privilege of choosing his own advocate; subject, be it understood, to the approval of the head of the Supreme Tribunal; a clause taken no notice of in the dwelling upon the privilege, and that he accordingly chose the advocate Olimpiade Dionisi, "a most learned professor of the Roman University, and a most acute and eloquent orator;" to which we may add, as the "vindication" does not, a salaried functionary of the government, and, moreover, one of the judges of the Commission of Censure, a political, secret, and exceptional tribunal, formed for the express purpose of depriving of their offices all government and municipal employés, whose conduct, during the revolution, was not strictly satisfactory to the restored régime. Even the judges themselves are liable to be removed at the pleasure of the government, and as they are chiefly young prelates, anxious for advancement, they are entirely devoted to the ruling powers.

Besides the Rota Tribunal, and the Sacra Consulta, there are two other tribunals, equally, or even more arbitrary, in the Roman States. The first of these is the Inquisition, or, as it is mis-called, the Holy Office, of which little remains to be told in the present day, with which the English public is not already acqainted: it is but justice, however, to state, that its persecutions have been for some time limited and exceptional, and its zeal directed much more actively towards political than religious offenders. Still, it opens a wide field

for anonymous accusations and groundless calumnies, and even the secrets of the confessional are too often betrayed within its walls to serve party purposes. But the other tribunal to which we have alluded, that of the Cardinal Vicar, in Rome, and of the bishops in the provinces, has the power to carry on oppression and injustice on a much more extended scale. Exercising, as it claims to do, the censorship over the habits and morals of the inhabitants, the honour and tranquility of whole families are placed at the mercy of jealous intolerance, or vindictive malignancy. Marriage being considered, in the Roman States, by the Canon law, as a sacrament, all domestic life comes under the scrutiny and jurisdiction of this most insolent and arbitrary tribunal, the flagrant abuses of which we cannot sully our pages by recording. Let it suffice to say, that Farina, whom we have already mentioned, as noted for his want of honour, and Ferrini, a common jailor, dismissed from his situation by Gregory XVI., for mal-practices, were among the members of a tribunal which claims the privilege of entering private houses at any hour, night or day, and tearing wives from the arms of their husbands, or husbands from their wives, on the pretended accusation of some immorality committed, it may be, years before, and of which the charge is generally a mere instrument of extortion. To the tribunals we have already mentioned, another was, however, added, after the restoration, termed the Council of Censure, the object of which is to pry into the conduct of all government employés, magistrates, military men, provincial and municipal officers, administrators of pious congregations, hospitals, &c., with the faculty of suspending them from their functions, degrading them from their rank, or dismissing them altogether. This has been effected, by an inquisitorial system, without communicating any accusation, without properly examining or confronting witnesses, and consequently without allowing a chance of vindication! The exhorbitant excesses of this tribunal have surpassed any that have hitherto existed; even the Septembrists of atrocious memory, in a kind of tribunal of their own organizing, required an accusation to be regularly made out, and allowed the proper means of defence; but this Roman Council of Censure, by a single stroke of the pen, subjected sixty thousand persons, chiefly of the middle classes, to a secret persecution, not limited to the partizans of the republic, but comprising many who refused service under the revolutionary authori

ties.