The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-02-13 00:00:00

‘, THE AUSTRIAN DUNGEONS IN ITALY."

The name of Felice Orsini, author of the above named
work, has become one of historical celebrity. The work
in question, is a narrative of his fifteen months imprison.
meat, and final escape from the fortress of S. Giovie.
After a few introductory papers, in whieh Orsini advo-
cates the justice of the Italian cause, he proceeds with
his narrative, commencing with his , journey. from
Switzerland to Hungary, in October 1854. There is no
one who follows Orsini through the persecutions and
hardships to which he•was exposed, but must experience
a feeling of the deepest indignation against any govern.
n3ent capable of inflicting such refined cruelties upon t
supposed political offender. Let the reader but. peruse,
the following extract, " Criminal Prisons and cells,"
and we are certain he will coincide with us in the fore•
going opinion:—

- -
:When I was sent to the criminal prisons, I hoped to fare
better. I was put into cell 51, in company with five thieves ;
it was 24 feet by 12 ; it was the best in the whole prison
nevertheless, what with the cold, the filth, the vermin, and
the stench, any man accustomed to common decency must
have gone mad in a very' short space of time. I thought t
should have become an idiot, nor did I escape from a state of
the wildest irritation antil so prostrate with weakness and
fever that I was indifferent to everything around me. While
the five thieves slept and played dice, which they manufactured
out of their bread, 1 lay shiveriug on the straw with rheumatic
fever, never closing my eyes day or night. The food here
was wane than at the Polizei House, consisting chiefly of
water scarcely thickened with flour, called in Austria melte-
peisen. The water itself was too loathsome to drink—.
moreover, we had but one drinking cup among us, and that,
as often as not, was full of worms. The very air was poison-
ous to bteathe. The turnkeys were drunken, brutal wretches ;
they dealt out blows and kicks profusely, and on the least
provocation, would carry off a prisoner to the bastinado. Pass-
ing ;from my cell to the Examination Hall, I often saw a
poor victim stretched on the eavolietto, a bench about eight
feet in length, with his face downwards. By means of Is
moveable vice in the centre, the body is screwed dowii, so that
the patient cannot stir; the arms are stretched above the head,
and the wrist fastened by irons to either side the bench ; the
legs are stretched out, and likewise fastened with irons at the
ankle, so that the foot rcm 'ins beyond the bench. A corporal,
chosen for strength and brutality, stands to the left of the view
tim, and commences administering the torture thus : holding
the switch aloft in his right hand, he swings it across his victim
and up to his left with as much force as he can muster, saying
ein (one) ; returning to the rtght he says, ztoei (two); and
again to the left, drei (three) ; these three strokes are only
counted as one blow, whose number varies according to the
supposed crime of the sufferer. At this operation the inspector
ant two turnkeys, together with a surgeon and the
judge, p".; whose orders the bastinado is administered,
are present
Le the victim speaks, the flogging is sus-
pended to take own h depositions. At the conclusion of
the operation the surge ezunin es him, and he is borne
If he !as remained firm in his
back to his sack of straw,
refusal to confets, the punishment is rest wed on the following
day."
The " Austrian Dungeens in Italy,:'
.
amost interest-
ing book, and cannot fail to impart much information
respecting the mode in which that unhappy coti:.‘trY,t
ruled, as with a rod of iron. It is written in a pleastuu
and simple style, and tells the tale of a singular man,
who bas passed through singular times, and singular
trials,

Orsini will shortly deliver two lectures in Liverpool,
one on Austrian Tyranny in Italy, and the Papal Mis-
government of the Roman States. For the first time in
his lectures, Orsini will make known the contents of
several state papers, seized in 1849, at the Archieves of
the police in Rome.