The National Register.
London, England, 1821-11-18 00:00:00

TILE LISBON INQUISITIO.V.

LISBON, OCT. 24.—0 n the Bth of October the
Palace of the Holy-office iv.:s opened to the people.
—The number which crowded to see it during the
four first days rendered it extremely difficult and
even dangerous to attempt an entrance. The edifice
is extensive, and has the form of an oblong square,
with a garden in the middle. It is three stories
high, and has several vaulted galleries, along which
are situated a number of dungeons, of six, seven,
eight, and nine feet square. Those on the ground
fluor and in the first story, having no windows, are
deprived of both air and light when the door is shut.
—The dungeons of the next story have a kind of
breathing hole in the form of a chimney, through
which the sky may be seen. These apartments
were allotted to prisoners who, it was supposed,
might be set at liberty. In the vaulted wall of each
dungeon there is a hole of about an inch in diameter,
which communicates with a secret corridor running
along by each tier of dungeons. By this means the
agents of the Inquisition could at any moment ob-
serve the conduct of the prisoners without being seen
by them; and when two persons were confined in
the same dungeon could hear their conversation.—
In these corridors were seats so placed, that a spy
could observe what was passing in two dungeons,
by merely turning his eves from right to left in
order to look into either of the holes between which
he might be stationed. The spies wore list shoes
that they might make no noise in walking over the
vaults of the dungeons. A familiar of the Inquisi-
tion was often shut up in the same dungeon with
a prisoner from whom it was wished to draw con-
fessions to be used afterwards against him. Human
skulls and other hones have been found in several of
the dungeons. On the walls of these frightful
holes are carved the names of some of the unfortu-
nate victims buried in them, accompanied with lines
or notches, indicating the number of days of their
captivity. One name has beside it the date 1809,
and 500 lines, which marks a confinement of more
then' twelve months, terminated probably by the
execution of the prisoner. The doors of certain
dungeons which had not been used for some years
still remained shut, but the people soon forced them
open. In nearly all of them human bones were
found, and among these melancholy remains were,
in one dungeon, fragments of the garments of a
monk and his girdle. In some of these dungeons
the chimney-shaped air-hole was walled up, which
is a certain sign of the murder of the prisoner.—ln
such cases the unfortunate victim was compelled to
go into the air-hole, the lower extremity of which
was immediately closed by masonry. Quick lime
was afterwards thrown down on him, which extin-
guished life ant destroyed the body. In several of
these dens of misery mattresses were found, some
old, others almost new,--a circumstance which
proves, whatever may be said to the contrary, that
the Inquisition in these latter times was something
more than a scarecrow. The ground on which this
palace of tae Inquisition stands was covered with
private houses before 1755, whence it is plain that
the victims who have suffered here must all have
been slerificed within less than sixty years. Besides
the dungeons which the people have already visited,
there are subterraneous vaults which have not yet
been opened.

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