The Sun.
London, England, 1860-11-01 00:00:00

THE PAPAL PRISONS.

We have heard much, and are likely to hear
more, of the Neapolitan prisons. But the Papal
prisons have likewise their tales of horror to relate.
Much light has lately been thrown on them by a
small Italian work, entitled " The prisons of Pali-
ano." From the account of that work given in the
Florence Nazione, we here reproduce the following
details :
" Amidst the events which, during these last days of re-
volution, menaced the temporal authority of its State, many
things were forgotten by the Court of Rome. It omitted,
for example, to remove from the telegraph offices the regis-
ters of the despatches, at d thus Europe has had an oppor-
tunity of admiring the Mussulman orders exchanged be-
tween the foreign generals and the Monsignori, Italian and
non-Italian. But one thing it did not forget, namely, to
remove the political prisoners shut up in the fastness of
Paliano, and to bring them under safe custody to Rome,
lest their liberators should arrive in time to free them. The
pleasure of vengeance must be, indeed, a sublime one. It
must be quite inexhaustible. It must transcend all imagi-
nation when priests seek to gratify it with so much eager-
ness. But what an outrage is thus offered to the religion
of a God of peace and mercy. Whilst those who inhabit
the sacerdotal palaces of Rome take delight in tormenting,
in torturing, in prolonging the slavery of the prisoners of
Paliano, the Government of King Victor Emmanuel grants
all the honours of war to the cosmopolitan soldiers of the
Pope, sends them away perfectly free, and pardons the
ministers of the Church ox whom severe sentences have
been passed by the tribunals. Thus it is the King who
pardons, while the Pontiff strikes down his victims.
" Italy has now been made acquainted with the torments
inflicted on political prisoners, in the prisons of Medicina
and of Ferrara, by the turnkeys, and even by means of dogs;
and publicity has been given to the sentences passed by the
Papal tribunals themselves (though never executed by the
Government) on the political agents who in Bologna in-
flicted tortures surpassing the memories of the middle ages.
" We shall now hear the treatment pursued towards the
political prisoners of Paliano. The description which we
now publish has been written in the fortress itself, and came
into the hands of one of our friends. We give it without
any alteration, because its simplicity is not unimportant,
and because from that very simplicity it better represents
the truth respecting the Papal Spielberg. •--
"' In the fort of Paliano there are about 200 political
prisoners, dressed like the criminals condemned to the gal-
leys, and, like them, shaved. They are divided into five
sections. Those condemned for life are shut up in cells,
about nine spans wide and about sixteen long, including
the little table of brickwork. Other cells, about three spans
wider, contain three prisoners; and others, not much larger,
have 17 all huddled together. In the first of these there is
a small grating over and opposite the door, through which
the food is introduced. The other cells have ono window,
and sometimes two, with an opening of about four spans in
breadth and one in height, and through this the prisoners
are fired upon if it be necessary to keep them quiet.
" The food consists of two black loaves, a composition
of earth, rye, vetch, and insects of all kinds, villanously
baked, and weighing from 15 to 16 ounces. About half a
pint of wine, of which the composition is unknown. The
soup is made of French and common beans of the worst
quality that can be found. Of these there should be four
ounces, but there are scarcely six with the addition of the
water. The condiment for the same ought to be three ounces
of lard for every five portions of soup ; but there is not more
than the half, and that of a rancid quality. On Thursday
the soup is made with rice, of which there should be four
ounces raw, but there are not four ounces even when it is
boiled, and it is dressed in the same way. On Sunday macca-
roni is allowed, but very few are able to eat it. It is positively
noxious from its acid quality, and from the mixture of the
excrement of mice and also of insects. The room used as an
hospital is 65 spans in length and 30 in breadth, and only
10 spans from the floor to the ceiling, with two small
windows on one side overlooking the country, and a very
small loophole on the other, corresponding with the interior
of the fort. It contains 21 beds, with planks, on which there
are laid straw mattresses, containing some 301 b. weight of
the filthiest straw, which is changed once a-year. There
are likewise woollen mattresses, stuffed with from 201 b. to
251 b. of miserable wool. That also is cleaned only once a-
year. The bed-linen is very scanty and very bad. There
are one or two woollen coverlets weighing but a few pounds.
" ' When some wretched creature has been struck down

with ague he has no means of covering himself. The hos-
pital food, when on full allowance, consists of two loaves,
which ought to weigh 120 z., but are seldom more than
10oz. ; as to the meat—Heaven only knows from what ani-
mal it is furnished—the weight of the same is not more
than 30z., including skin and gristle. The broth is like
dish-water. The soup is of maccaroni, rice, and semolina,
these being of the quality which you would give to poultry,
and also of straw. The weight of the said soup is 3oz. for
two portions, and half a pint of wine of the mysterious
quality aforesaid. The half allowance in the hospital con-
sists of two small loaves of scarcely Boz., half the wine, and
half the meat. The strict diet consists of a soup in the
morning, and another in the evening, of the quality of that
just described. After dinner each invalid bas en egg. The
treatment is homoeopathic. The physician, Carlo Rosilli,
is a homoeopathist. The surgeon, Luigi Riguinot, a Cor-
sican, is an. allopathist. They visit the sick alternately.
The patients are neglected and ill-treated. The meth
all
attendants will hardly ever send a patient to the hospit
and when they do send him they almost always keep him
on strict diet. Perhaps they, have a secret understanding
with those who contract for the food. The hospital keeper
is a certain Raffaele Revetti, who has been condemned for
peculation—the worthy guardian of such a place of deten-
tion. There are 24 gaolers ; the chief one Giuseppe Pacifici,
from whom all iniquities spring.
" ' Of the persons thus imprisoned very few are in
health. Many are suffering from complaints of the chest,
or are scorbutic or feverish, and almost all are affected with
hernia. They are allowed to take exercise for an hour and
a half in the morning and in the evening; during winter
for an hour only ; when it rains never. When a sick per-
son asks for the physician he is rarely removed to the hos-

pital, but shut up in his cell, deprived of air. One day the
physician visits him ; the next day the surgeon ; sometimes
neither of the two. Thus patients have been left for nine
days in the last stage of illness, af6r they have been given
up by the doctors. One day, when some complaints were
made on account of the bad soup in the hospital, the person
who made the complaints was taken by two keepers, and
by dint of blows and kicks was forcibly thrust along into
the darkest dungeons, and there detained many days by
• •
order of the governor. •
The governor, Signor Trasmondo, has the supreme com-
mand over all, and exercises his authority tyrannically.
Inflexible, and deaf to the complaints of suffering humanity,
he expects an audience to be asked of him as if he were a
sovereign. He does not always grant it, and even when the
audience is granted the request is generally refused, When
some prisoner at the point of death refuses to receive a con-
fessor he is removed into a solitary cell, and there, after
having heaped on hint a thousand outrages, orders are given
to one of the lowest turnkeys to kill him by, suffocation.
The fact is known from, the confession of the turnkey him-
self, who on one occasion refused to be a party to this bar-
barity. The corpse is interred in the interior of the fort,
and the governor is present at the funeral. Sometimes he
gives a kick et the head of the corpse, and commits similar
outrages. Before the nomination of the present governor
there was a Captain Savini, a mild and humane man, and
thq prisoners at that period were allowed to take the air
during the whole day, and obtained what was needful for
their wants; and those who had no means of their own
were allowed to work in order to procure a little money.'

" So far the account which has been transmitted to
us. We desire, however, to complete it by other facts
which another prisoner of Fallen° has mad. public, in
order that an the severity of a blind and revolting persecu-
tion may be denounced before the tribunal of public opinion
—before that tribunal which was able, even in less fortu-
nate times, to destroy Spielberg. Let us quote various
passages :

" ' There exists in the fortress of Paliano a "parlatorio,"
or place set apart for the interviews of the prisoners with
their friends, consisting of three rooms, one adjoining the
other, and arranged in the following way :—the first room
looks through a window, with a thick iron grating, into the
second or middle room, to which also the third room cor-
responds by means of another window, also protected by
an iron grating just like that of the room opposite. These
holes serve for the transmission of the voices of those who,
from the first room, speak across to the persons in the third.
Into the third room (whilst the middle one always remains
empty) there is conducted the prisoner, having at his side
the head gaoler and the clerk of the for ress ; into the first
room there are admitted those who have obtained permis-
sion to see their friends in the company of the governor ;
and all these listeners hear every word, and interrupt every
word when not agreeable to them. The gratings and the
distance between the two windows completely prevent the
speakers from seeing and even from hearing one another,
unless they raise their voices very high. Besides, the time
allowed for the conversation is extremely short. On its ex-
piry the prisoner is• taken back to his cell, and the visitors
are dismissed. Is it possible to imagine a more painful
trial ? But such is the refinement of clerical vengeance.
Having premised these necessary explanations, I now pass
to special facts :
" Whilst I was an inmate of this den of horrors, a wife
with her little boy, obtained permission to see her husband.
It was ten years since the Papal Government had torn her
husband from her embrace ; the boy had never known his
father, for he was born after the arrest. Neither the
prayers of the afflicted wife, nor the tears of the tender
child, nor the sobbings and despair of the unhappy father,
could induce the governor to allow them but one embrace
—to let them mingle their tears together. Such are the
consolations which the mercy of the Papal Sovereign and
of his Ministers grant to a bereaved spouse, to an innocent
son, to a despairing father and husband. Surely such
favours should rather be regarded in the light of a now and
of a more cruel martyrdom to torment the spirits of the
victims immolated, and to more cruel hatred. It would be
impossible to describe the rigours and the tortures, always
new and increasing, which have been invented to augment
the sufferings of the prisoners after the last fatal attempt at
I flight. The following fact will show of what the Papal
Government is capable when it wishes to torture by way
of precaution,
" ' In order to prevent the political prisoners from holding
the slightest communication with the outer world, recourse
was even had to the very strange and absurd expedient of
forbidding the physician (although an individual com-
pletely subservient to the Government) from personally
visiting the sick in the prison. He was to treat them on
the report of a oreature who but a short time before had
been in the galleys, and was transferred thence to perform
the office of an hospital attendant. This liberated galley-
slave felt the pulse, made his diagnosis, drew his conclu-
sions, and the physician meanwhile waited in thciroom of
the governor for the report of the attendant, and, according
to the character of that report, prescribed remedies to
patients whom he had never seen. Representation on re-
presentation was necessary before the Papal Government
could be induced to abandon this singular mode of proceed-
ing ; and it was only after some time that the physician
obtained permission to appioach the bed of his patients ;
but even then only in the company of the turnkeys, who
wore placed as spies over his movements, his words, and
the very expression of pity which his countenance might
betray. Nothing more thoroughly demonstrates the utter
barbarity and immorality of the Court of Rome, which is
unable to treat its political prisoners with a less degree of
inhumanity even when they are stricken down by sickness,
or stretched on a death-bed.

" ' One of the patients, a certain M—, of Bologna, begged
to see the governor, to implore in the name of his com-
panions, the permission to have the period for exercise ex-
tended for half an hour. The only reply he received was
an order from Trasmondo that he should be put in chains
weighing 80 pounds, and thrown into the tower. The tower,
situated in the centre of the citadel, is the most horrible of
prisons—damp, isolated, with an opening at the roof, leav-
ing the prisoner exposed to all the inclemency of the weather.
It is the worst den in this abode of grief and of despair. Into
this the patient was thrown, weighed down by the terrible
burden of his fetters. Be it summer or winter the inmate
of the tower has no bed save the bare ground—no covering
save his own apparel—no food save bread and water. Many
through that punishment alone have been stricken with
disease, and if you once lose your health in that dungeon it
is your death-warrant. When I left the fort to be conveyed
as an exile across the frontier a poor prisoner had just died
in consequence of illness caused by the repetition of this
punishment, from which more than one prisoner has died
whom the Government perhaps wished to get out of the way.
" 'A certain P—, of Ascoli, on returning from the
chapel to his own cell, happened, when he reached the
court-yard of the fortress, to turn back and salute a con-
demned prisoner belonging to another section, who was
looking through the grating. For that offence the head
gaoler, after beating him, had the usual chains put on, and
then sent him to the tower. It was in March, on an Easter
Sunday. After three days of suffering, he was found
stretched out, almost frozen, on the ground. Then ho was
removed to the hospital, and thanks to a strong constitution,
after some time he recovered. How many most Virtuous
mon have suffered similar torments when they had once
become a prey to the vengeance of the priests.

- _
" ' Many amongst the political prisoners, in consequence
of the treatment they have received, from the moral
and physical tortures endured, have become insane. They
howl in their prisons; sometimes mingling with the other
victims, at other times alone, but without any differ-
ence of treatment. And yet even the least civilised
Governments employ special cares and special relief for the
insane ; but priestly hatred has no bounds ; and could it
follow its victims even beyond the tomb, it would gladly do
so, though at the r;sk of outraging the Deity himself.
" Ono of those wretched maniacs committed ono day an
insane act. The head gaoler beat him so cruelly asw tohoh leave
him almost lifeless on the ground. Young
C—, ap-
pened to be in the same cell, indignant at the outrage,
called out that they were murdering the man. Thereupon
the gaoler departed, but immediately returned with a band
of turnkeys, who at once fell upon the youth, removed himto another prison, and there, with sticks and ropes, merci-
lessly belaboured him. Another poor fellow, whose intel-
lect was temporarily wandering, A. M--, having
made
some complaint about his food, was dragged out of his bed
and kicked and thrashed back to his old cell—there left
without attendance, without the visit of the physician, and
with the coarsest diet. Thanks to his strong constitution,
he recovered from his mental illness ; but now, owing to
the length of the imprisonment, of the sufferings endured
and to the treatment to which he has been subjected, his
health has suffered to such an extent, that his
him again on this side the friendsavhe.a've
no hope of ever seeing
" As we had occasion to observe in the
commencement,
the prisoners were transported to the prison of San Michele
in Rome. It happened thus. We employ the words.of one
of the inmates of San Michele, whose imprisonmentFl has been
in
changed into exile, and who is now7e is a
most respectable young man, and has allowed Florence.
give his
name—Signor Tommaso Saracini, of Rome. He says that
' on one of the evenings of last December, after the priso-
ners of San Michele had been shut up in their cells, Mon-
signor Pila came to inspect tha whole place ; next morning
orders were given for the immediate clearing out of that
part occupied by the younger prisoners condemned for
common offences, and called the house of correction. Some
reports united with these arrangements led us to believe
that something extraordinary was to happen; and infect one
evening, about ten o'clock, we heard the arrival of the large
prison vans, then the gates were opened, and there entered
40 prisoners, just arrived from Paliano. If you could edalY
have seen them. They scarcely preserved the trace of man.
IThey were all clothed in the dress of common galler°laves"
Ivißn most respectable by their social position, beheld by 1129