Each prisoner has a bag of musty straw, never changed, and generally swarming with vermin, for his bed, without any sort of covering. Of the internal arrangements of the cells we cannot allow ourselves to speak; suffice it to say, that anything more revolting to decency, more injurious to health, more disgusting in every respect, cannot be imagined. The most ferocious and hardened criminals in the cell make a point of assailing and stripping all new comers, and subjecting them to the most atrocious outrages, whilst the keepers themselves have frequently cruelly beaten, for pretended insubordination, the injured parties, who have cried to them for help; nay, murders have been committed within the very walls of the prison, and no notice taken of them.

The food of the prisoners is usually calculated at two pounds of bread, twelve ounces to the pound, nominally, but in reality eighteen or nineteen ounces in the whole, instead of twenty-four; a soup of paste, rice, or beans; three ounces of meat, of the most disgusting quality; and a foglietta, about a pint, of the commonest wine. This is the ration issued once in every twenty-four hours. The style of the prisoners' living may be appreciated by our readers, when we inform them that the original contract between the government and purveyors of the prisons, allows nine-and-a-half baiocchi (fourpence three farthings) per diem, for the food, clothing, and all other expenses of each prisoner. This contract is then taken by a sub-contractor, at only seven-and-a-half baiocchi per head; and in some of the provinces it is still lower. It is in speaking of the segreta that we mention meat, such as it is, being given every day; in many prisons it is only allowed twice a week.

With these seven baiocchi and a half, per diem, for each prisoner, the contractor has to pay all his underlings, besides the expenses of warehouses and carriage, and the interest of the capital he may employ in the speculation. He must, moreover, have all the keepers and inspectors accomplices in his frauds, because, if he were to abide honestly by the terms of his contract, he would be ruined, as far as his worldly interests might be concerned. These gentry must, consequently, be very highly bribed: we know of one keeper who receives from a contractor as much as thirty scudi a mouth, under various false pretences. It may easily be imagined what much larger sums the inspectors and superior officers are paid in proportion; and all these sums have to be deducted out of the miserable pittance allotted to the maintenance of the prisoners, whether

innocent or guilty, accused or condemned! But the badness of the diet, trying as it must be, even to the strongest constitution, is, perhaps, more supportable than the badness of the air; which, contaminated as it is at all times in the prison, by impure drains and other sources of pollution, becomes, under the oppressive heat of an Italian summer, a misery sufficient in itself to produce madness and suffocation. In the segreta, the prisoners are allowed to be shaved once a fortnight, and, the operation being performed outside the entry of the cell, it is eagerly anticipated by them, as affording them their only opportunity of inkaling for a few minutes a pure atmosphere. If any of them are indisposed, they are not allowed to see a medical man until the day after they have made their complaint; and a young man from Albano, in the month of August, 1851, was suffered to expire on his bed of straw, in presence of his fellow-prisoners, without the smallest bodily aid or spiritual consolation. Indeed, the religious observances, on which the priests lay so much stress, when anything is to be accomplished by the outward display of them, seem to be thought no way necessary for unhappy captives shut out from every other solace; and even among the medical men that attend the prisons, there are more who are cruel enough, like Dr. Valeri, to insult the sufferings of their patients, than to sooth them, as the humane and honourable Dr. Bacelli does, by the language of condolence, and an attentive inquiry into their maladies.

In proportion as the keepers are careless and brutal, with respect to the comfort and health of their victims, they are ferocious and vindictive in the exercise of the power put into their hands of punishing insubordination; by which term they almost exclusively understand any appeal made by a prisoner against the violence and injustice of the ruffians who may surround him. The modes of punishment which the keepers are allowed to use are the carolina, the stick, fetters (weight à discrétion), and segretino. The carolina is an instrument lately imported from Austria, resembling the stocks, in which the prisoner is fastened, whilst he receives a certain number of blows from a stick, according to the humour in which the keeper may find himself at the moment of pronouncing the sentence. A prisoner, who was condemned by the despotic will of one of these monsters to receive fifty blows every day, expired under the forty-fifth, on the second application.

It is to the Austrians that Italy is indebted for the introduction of the stick, as an instru

ment of punishment; and in their merciless hands it frequently becomes the instrument of what an English jury would bring in wilful murder, as a certain number of blows are allowed to be given across the stomach, which is almost inevitable death. The Italians were horrified at a ferocity they had never before witnessed, and in some cases the display of it led to the most tragical results. One instance may suffice, though many might be given. A respectable man, a widower, at Forli, by trade a shoemaker, had an only child, a boy thirteen years of age, who, besides being the delight of his father's humble dwelling, industriously assisted him in his business. One day, the boy was walking along the road, accompanied by his little dog, when he unfortunately met an Austrian officer, who was taking an airing on horseback, and who was likewise accompanied by a dog, but of much larger breed; the big dog flew ferociously upon the little one, and the poor boy, alarmed at the peril of his canine friend, seized some stones, and struck the assailant so courageously and repeatedly over the head, as to kill him on the spot. The officer, enraged at this termination of a combat which he had before looked upon with considerable satisfaction, immediately had the boy seized, and condemned him to receive twenty-five strokes of the bastinado. It was urged to him that the youth, being slender and delicate, might not be able to sustain so severe a punishment; but he would hear of no mitigation of it, and the poor child expired under the seventeenth blow. The wretched father, frantic at the intelligence of his child's death, rushed the next morning into the coffee-house where the Austrian officer was composedly taking his breakfast, and stabbed him with seventeen wounds, leaving him lifeless, and himself quitting the horror-stricken circle without any one making an effort to detain him.

Nor is this cruel and degrading punishment confined to the humbler classes; the most respectable members of the community are not secure from it. A short time ago, a party, seventy-five in number, of the principal citizens of Jesi, a place we have already mentioned as rejoicing in Cardinal Cesari for its bishop, wished, in compliance, we would take the liberty of suggesting, with the most sacred inborn feelings of the human breast, to solemnize the anniversary of the day on which they had to mourn the fall of many of their nearest and dearest relatives and friends on the field of battle, in the vain endeavour to preserve the precious gift of liberty to their country, at the expense of their blood. These citizens, aware

as Hamlet would express it, should be construed by the self-installed ministers of a religion honoured by the precious tears of its Omnipotent Founder himself, who, in his human garb, sympathising with human sorrows, wept with the weeping sisters of Lazarus dead, though, in his omniscience, he knew that he should restore the same Lazarus to life, cre these precious tears upon his own sacred cheek were dried-would it be believed that this mere outward sign of mourning, adopted in all classes of civilized society, as t the natural expression of an interior sense of deprivation and regret, should be construed by these same ministers of "peace and good-will towards men" into a crime, subjecting those guilty of it to imprisonment and the stick! Yet so it was. Had but our readers seen, as we did, one of the most gifted, the most eloquent of Italian exiles in our land of refuge, turn pale, when he was apprised of this horrible treatment of his countrymen, they would have joined, as we did, in the exclamation, "not loud but deep,"

"Bastonáre i Italiani! ma il giorno verrá 1"

But we must return to the prisons. The punishment of the stick is usually inflicted in the court-yard, in sight of the other prisoners; Farini had put a stop to this abuse; since the restoration, however, of the priestly régime, it also has been restored, with more inhumanity than ever. After being thus beaten, almost to a mummy, at the pleasure of the keeper, the miserable prisoner is laden with fetters, sometimes to the weight of eighty pounds, and thrust into the hole called the segretino, where he is left to his fate. Last summer, an unhappy wretch in this condition, smarting under his lacerations, tortured by

thirst, and tormented by fever, shouted in vain for water, from an hour after dark until six in the morning, when, happily for him, he was found dead upon the floor of his cell! And where, among the thousand priests of Rome, where was his ghostly comforter? his spiritual adviser? without whom the death-bed of the rich man is considered neither holy nor safe! where the disciple of Christ, who, in visiting "the sick and in prison," is considered to visit his Blessed Master, who graciously identifies himself with all who are in suffering and sorrow!

The prisons termed Alla Larga, or at large, are certainly more humanely organized, especially the new ones of Monte Citorio, the prisoners in them being allowed to receive clothes and money from their relatives and friends, but it is on the condition of bribing their keepers heavily; and the cells are subject to a very unhealthy degree of humidity.

The prison of San Michele, which occupies no inconsiderable part of that immense building, is solely devoted to political prisoners, and is at this time as full as it can hold. The keeper is one of the most ruffianly fellows in Rome, and the prisoners are treated with the most atrocious barbarity-nay, even their relatives and friends, anybody, in short, connected with them, who may present themselves at the gate, in the hope of seeing or procuring tidings of them, are subjected to every insult that the cruelty of a bad heart, joined to "the insolence of office," can suggest. One instance may suffice of the behaviour which is suffered on these occasions, and we will select it from many of a similar nature that occurred last year, when Signor Marco Evangelisti was superintendent of the prison. A young man, of the name of Apollonj, the son of a respectable advocate, was seized, on some political pretext, and dragged to the prison of San Michele, where he languished week after week, month after month, denied any communication with his family. His father, an aged man, repeatedly petitioned Evangelisti for leave to see him, but was always sternly refused; at length, after eight months, he took courage to address Monsignor Giannagi, who, more merciful, granted him permission to pay the young man a visit, accompanied by his wife and daughters. They accordingly set out for the prison; but when they arrived there, they were most brutally received by the keeper and his agents, and some time elapsed before the prisoner was allowed to be brought out. At last he came; but when he stood before them, pale, emaciated, loaded with fetters, and co

vered with filth and vermin-an inevitable consequence in an Italian prison-the unhappy father was so agonized at the sight, that he fell to the ground in an apoplectic fit, to the horror of the son, and bewildered terror of his mother and sisters, whose shrieks and cries for help filled the air. At that moment, Evangelisti, as naturally attracted by sounds of distress as the tiger by the scent of blood, came to the spot, and instantly ordered the young man back to his cell, and the father to be dragged into the streets; which he actually was, in his unconscious and apparently lifeless state, by the feet; and we state this upon the information of a gentleman of the highest respectability in Rome, and of considerable official importance, who was an eye-witness of the fact. Signor Evangelisti then turned round to the distracted females, and told them they "must not stay there to act their farces,” and actually threatened them with personal violence, if they did not instantly depart. Shortly after, this man, who, as chancellor of the Sacra Consulta, and secretary of the Council of Censure, had caused misery and death to hundreds, himself fell, under the stroke of an assassin.

We now come to the places of confinement for convicts, of which the principal is the Carcere de Termini, intended originally solely for galley-slaves, but into which the uncondemned are often thrust, at the tyrannical caprice of the authorities, as was the case with our unhappy countryman, Edward Murray, who, in a letter which he was fortunate enough to get conveyed from his prison, in Ancona, to this country, thus describes his situation at the time :

"The epoch of my judgment_now approaching, Mr. Moore advised me to go to Rome, in order to go in person before my judges, and he obtained that for me.

"Fresh sufferings were continually added to the old ones. Often they refused to give me some wood, under pretence there was no order from the government. When at Spoleto, the chief of the gendarmerie-a man of the most ferocious temperloaded my hands and my feet with heavy iron chains. When in Rome, I was confined in the horrible galley of Termini. While still uncondemned, had they the right to stamp a mark of infamy on my name, associating my existence to that of robbers and murderers? My process had been completed a year ago; since a year I had no more been kept up in a solitary dungeon, but in a common prison. Consequently, according to what laws could they shut me up again in so horrible a prison, or, I should rather say, in so horrible a grave! For such it was. A very damp-looking place, seven feet long, and four wide; unwholesome, and com pletely dark; no breath of air penetrating into it, for there was no window at all. My physician de

;

clared half-an-hour's walking, every day, to be indispensable to me; but they refused it constantly. "Were I to mention my several sufferings, I should say they were far beyond physical tortures I was innocent, but unable to prove it to the world; I had no means to remove from my face the stamp of ignominy, the vengeance of men I never offended had stamped upon it-of men who, by an extraordinary refinement of cruelty, granted me to see my family, but only in the presence of ignoble spies, who were there to catch every word, to interpret every sigh of the afflicted soul!"

Alas! how many could tell a similar tale! The places of confinement for criminals, or those pronounced by the tribunals to be such, exhibit the same disorders and abuses as the prisons of detention, with the addition of others peculiar to themselves. Here, also, the keepers beat the prisoners, and rob them likewise, but according to a particular system; the keeper acts as a check on the contractor, and the capostanza, or chief of the room, who is always one of the oldest and most wicked of the prisoners, as a check on the keeper. What are the consequences of this system? The contractor hands over to the keeper, wine, broth, or soup, which passes through the hands of other officials, and, finally, through those of the capo-stanza, or distributing prisoner; so that before it reaches the mouths of the prisoners, en masse, the food becomes strangely diminished in quantity, and the wine as strangely diluted in quality. These facts can be proved by certificates drawn up in the time of Farini, in consequence of which Pietro Peretti, the chief keeper was removed, along with some others, since restored to favour and to office.

The consequence of these connivances is, that the chief keeper is obliged to wink at the excesses of the capo-stanza, who is generally the tyrant of the whole room, and ill-treats and strikes the rest of the prisoners, particularly any that may have belonged to the Civic Guard, which body was noted for its activity against robbers. The capo-stanza, Antonio Sabbatini, was an accomplice in the frauds of the chief keeper we have just mentioned, Pietro Peretti, who, in return, screened him, when he not only cruelly beat and wounded many of the prisoners, but even outraged one of them, in a manner too revolting to describe. If any of the prisoners complained to the headkeeper of the tyranny and brutality of this man, he paid no attention to them whatever; and at this present time, if they do so, they are placed in the stocks and beaten.

A keeper in the fortress of Narni, named Carticoni, has so frequently and so cruelly administered the bastinado in this manner, that several prisoners have died under his

blows. The attention of the authorities was at last called to the case, and he was removed, but not deprived of the power he so much abused, as he is at this time in office, in the prisons of Civita Vecchia; so little regard does the Papal government pay to the lives of the unfortunates whom they are called upon, at any rate, to protect as fellow-creatures, if not as sheep, even though stray ones, of that fold of which the Pope professes to be the true and only shepherd. But it is not only directly that the head-keepers and capo-stanza rob the prisoners, many indirect means of accomplishing the same end are open to them. The head-keeper is generally the proprietor of a depôt, or shop, at which he sells whatever articles the prisoners may require such as tobacco, wine, or spirits-of course at an exhorbitant rate. In the prisons of Monte Citorio, this trade is carried on by a man of the name of Fevri; now a sbirro, or police ruffian, instead of following his former occupation, one, if possible, more base.

The capo-stanza frequently buys up beforehand, for a mere trifle, the rations of improvident prisoners, who, in some cases, have actually expired of hunger afterwards; indeed, in the month of August, 1851, six were found dead in their cells from this cause. This insane folly is generally the consequence of gambling; and the profitting by it, though strictly forbidden, is constantly connived at. Indeed, all these abuses are well-known to the authorities; but when men so closely connected with the ruling powers as Monsignor Savelli, and the brothers of Cardinal Antonelli, have an interest in the contracts, no wonder that the contractors should rarely become the subjects of judicial inquiry.

On the same ground of peculation, it becomes an important point to the peculators to keep as great a number of persons as possible in the prisons; and many are detained in them, under various false and fraudulent pretences, long after their term of imprisonment is expired. This abuse, also, Farini had in a great measure done away with; and in one year he prevented the infliction of 16,000 extra days of imprisonment on various prisoners, thus saving the government 1500 scudi, which it must otherwise have paid the contractors for their maintenance. The abuse is now, however, revived in full vigour.

Under such regulations, the morals of the prisoners, in general, may be pretty well imagined. In no other country do offenders so almost invariably relapse into crime, after their release; for, even if they were disposed

to remain honest, it is next to an impossibility for them to do so, no lawful means of getting their living being available to them, after having once been in the galleys. Of course, we except men of honourable character-honour not to be tarnished by the breath of calumny-men who have been the mere victims of tyranny, such as the brave and unimpeachable Calendrelli. We have already made mention of this ill-used man, but we will now lay some further particulars of his case before our readers, as a specimen of the mode in which justice is administered by the Consulta Tribunal

in Rome.

Alexander Calandrelli was many years an officer in the Engineers, esteemed by all who knew him for his acquirements, probity, moral character, and religious feelings. He it was who prevented the firing of cannon, on the 16th November, 1848, against the pontifical palace, in a moment of popular indignation, when the vaccillating character of Pio Nono, since too clearly made manifest, first began to be suspected by his subjects. He was also greatly instrumental in preserving sacred the libraries, palaces, and villas of Rome; and he saved the lives of the few soldiers who endeavoured, during the revolution, to raise again the Papal banner. He was made minister of war during the republic; he afterwards resigned that office, though he continued to serve the cause of liberty by every exertion of his courage and military knowledge. After the resignation of Mazzini, who refused to sign the capitulation of Rome, Calendrelli was made triumvir, and in that capacity he held stores in the artillery, and a great deal of property elsewhere, which had been exacted by the republican government for the necessities of the state. On the entrance of the French, he, as member of the triumvirate, consigned to the restored authorities 200,000 scudi in paper, and 60,000 in gold and silver-a fact proved by incontestible documents. He remained in Rome purposely to give an account of his administration, although he well knew that he endangered his head by so doing. He repaired to the municipality, and stated what articles where in his possession. He also declared to the Commission of Recovery the quantity of copper and other articles he had, and assisted in restoring them to their owners. He sent three cart-loads of books, belonging to the ecclesiastical library, to the librarian, Abate Saliceti, and several basketsfull to Monsignor Cardona, superior of that institution; and on Saliceti's stating that some works were yet wanting, he exerted

himself to the utmost to recover them from various quarters where they had been dispersed. The Abate Saliceti still, however, dissatisfied, applied to a commission, instituted by General Oudinot, for the recovery of books, manuscripts, and other objects of science or art; but his application was rejected, because he could in nowise prove his previous possession of the books he claimed. Notwithstanding this ungenerous conduct on the part of Saliceti, Calendrelli again exerted himself to satisfy his demands, as far as he could, by purchasing some of the required books from the shops of different booksellers, and giving up others belonging to himself, from his own library. For these Saliceti promised to send, but he delayed doing so, with an inertness singular enough, as contrasting with his previous eagerness on the subject, and in the meantime, Calendrelli's house was invaded by sbirri, who carried off all the books, and also a number of works of art, as well as some arms, which he had been a long time in collecting. This seizure was made without any legal intimation or warrant of tribunal; without the presence of a legal appraiser, without drawing up an inventory, in short, without the observance of any of the formalities of the law. It was executed by one Domenico Farina, by trade a pawnbroker, in the Borgo; a man of notoriously bad character, which, however, had not prevented him being made secretary of the commission of recovery; probably, in illustration of the popular adage, apparently a very favourite one with the clerical government, "set & thief," &c. In his official capacity this Farina found, from Calendrelli's own deposition, that he had in his possession certain books belonging to the ecclesiastical academy; the man was a bitter enemy to Calendrelli, and is generally believed to have been the principal instigator of the iniquitous legal proceedings against him.

The articles thus taken from Calendrelli's house were publicly exposed, under pretence of their being identified; but, during that exposure, many of them were stolen away, and it is by no means improbable that many others were secretly added, in order to work the ruin of the party accused.

Several months after his arrest, Calendrelli was accused of theft on various counts. The processante, or conductor of the accusation, was Signor Manzoni, and to him were consigned the written testimonials in favour of Calendrelli, to which we have already alluded. Manzoni constantly affirmed that he had reported these documents, as was his duty, and