The Sun.
London, England, 1859-03-19 00:00:00

refugees, or of persons variously concealed, lira':
greater than the number actually imprisoned. It
very large proportion of those prisoners belong to
the middle classes ; very few of them have jade"'
pendent means of support for their families ; not to
mention that, as Mr. Gladstone was informed,
confiscation or sequestration upon arrest was fre-
quent; so that generally each case of a prisoner or,
refugee becomes the centre of a separate circle
human misery, and the system bears on wl'°.„.le
classes—on those claSses upon which the health
solidity and progress of a nation mainly delwe •
He then makes the following precise statement:-."
" Nearly all those who formed the opposition 1!
the Chamber of Deputies under the constitution are
iii prison or in exile. The Chamber had brit
elected twice over, and with very little change, but
that little in favour of the opposition. Not one °
the body had been brought to trial, although °nac
of them had been assassinated by a priest named
Peluso, well known in the streets of Naples wh,,e;
I was there, but who was never questioned I`).,
the act, and said to . receive a pension fr°,,„-,
the . Government. The full complement of t'
Chamber of Deputies was 164, elected by a c,,IP
stituency which brought, to the poll about 117,v
voters. Of these about 140 was the greatest litu;
ber that came to Naples to exercise the funeti°,lls
of the Chamber. An absolute majority of
number, or 76, besides some others who had beee
deprived of office, had been arrested or had s
•
into exile ; so that after the regular formation °J.,,e
representative Chamber, and its suppression in
teeth of the law, the Government of Naples h>
consummated its audacity by putting into prison,
or driving into banishment for the sake of eseaP":
prison, an actual majority of the representative'
the people."
So the constitutional parliament has been • '
posed of en masse. Now let us see how, according
to Mr. Gladstone's report, the individual citizend
fares under this paternal despotism. The law;
Naples—he means the old law, anterior to and hill
pendent of the constitution—requires that person ,
liberty shall be inviolable, except under a watt
from a court of justice ; the warrant must proetio
upon actual depositions, and the nature of
charge be stated. "In utter defiance of this ,
the Government, of which the prefect of police t
an important member, through the agents of til°.
department, watches and dogs the people, PI;
domiciliary visits, very commonly at night, rano' „
the houses, seizing papers and effects, and tearl.'`;
up floors at pleasure, under pretence of searehl,',,j7,
for arms ; it imprisons men by the score, by l't
hundred, by the thousand, without any War,',.lino
whatever, sometimes without even any wr"'iLl
authority at all, or anything beyond the word °I. t
policeman, constantly without any statement
ever of the nature of the.offenee. Nor is this ire,.
fact wonderful; men are arrested, not because tu ja,
have committed or are believed to have comraitteit
any offence, but because they are persons when', of,
is thought convenient to confine or to get lit' bp'
And against whom, therefore, some charge' DIU'S' •
found or fabricated." . •
the
.Mr.. Gladstone then describes ParticularlY
:mode in :whiCh the .seeret examinations of the se,
soner are conduct&l, in order "to tretite:a ehal
which as yet does •not in fact exist." 'He teL
how the man is insulted and annoyed on P or,
pose to make him lose his temper and utter 7,c•
expression which may be construed into disa"Bis:4
tion or, disapproval of the Government—which
even be taken as expressing some intentions 0'
volution or regicide. " Thoughts are forged," stlij,
Mr. Gladstone, " in order that they may be pun fshied
I here speak of what I know to have happened,
I have imagined or heightened nothing." ,y
g
The next portion of his subject is the long de es
tion usually inflicted before trial. "I do not harroi
to have heard," he significantly observes, "of 11,e5e
' one tried at Naples on a political charge in i„rtis
last timeswith less than sixteen or eighteen la°lltill
of previous imprisonment. I have seen wells sis
waiting who had been confined for twenty pot
months—and this confinement begun by an ae'
of law, but of force, in defiance of law. There.;,
be cases of arrest under warrant, after depositl°fo;
but they are entirely exceptional. So muel` the
the principle which we prize in England under
title of our habeas Corpus! .00
With regard now to the conduct of proseent'-not
let us see what Mr. Gladstone says :—" I d°,,,e'
scruple to assert that when every effort has "-r
used to concoct a charge, if possible, out of the ti,io
version and partial prodUction of real evidence, a to
often fails, and then the resort is, to perjury an io
forgery: The miserable creatures to be foun'the
, most communities,-but especially in this, where,ol
~
Government is the great agent of corruption Troto
. the people—the wretches who are ready to sel'attl,
. liberty and life of fellow-subjects for gold, an
throw their own souls into the bargain—are del gee;
rately employed by the executive power to del'hooi
according to their inventions, against the men W,,55
it is thought desirable to ruin. These depoOest
; are generally made in the coarsest and cluofkr
•, manner, and they bear upon. the evidence of 13,ir
hood, in absurdities' and self-coptradictions, 101:
mulated even to nausea. But what then ? 14,se
the calculation. If there be plenty of it,
of it, according to the vulgar phrase, will 001
Mr. Gladstone dwells somewhat upon this infeLst
principle of obtaining a conviction by the
ept
quantity of charges broUght against an ine°ce
prisoner, who may after nine-tenths of those char
have fallen to the ground, be destroyed hieley
remnant of accusation which he cannot foro •
refute. To quote our author, " the whole pr°c,fi
ing is linked together, from first to last. The,
soner may have counter-evidence mountains '',ils
but he is not allowed to bring it ; I know thLissl
hardly credible, but it is true. The very men
' while I was at Naples named and appealed to the
counter-evidence of scores and hundreds of nieljrlr
all
.classes and.profesSions, military, clergy, g(rietf
ment functionaries, and the rest ; but in e'
the
instance with, I believe, one single exception,' sea
s-
court—the grand criminal court of justicerelllloo
to hear it ; and in that one case the person, 11'nes
called, fully bore out the statement of the pris°",it
Of course the assertion of the accused, how ter,
supported by the evidence of station and chara,cis
goes for nothing against the small remainitigit;t
ment, not self-destroyed of the fictions of the lest
wretches, however such a fragment be brousg,
beneath presumption of falsehood ; and this fares
ment, being thus secured from* confutation, letes,
the pillow on which the consciences of the ja(i101
after their work of condemnation, calmly /do
quietly repose." In another place he says,
not allege that the judges of Naples are all 11l
stem, but they are slaves. They are very nuiner°.r:
very ill-paid, and they hold their offices darlo 0 f
'pleasure. Perhaps the eight judges who are flies
trying political prisoners by the hundred atlsT°,l)4
may have amongst them about. one-half the sli-tio
.of an English pursue judge." He refers also tol jo
tyrannical severity with which they are treateloo
case of their deciding against the accusal Ili,
brought by Government—" not that it aetet/iicl
signifies much, as the Government arrest 5.4
imprison without any warrant, and think netbirst
of keeping' men' in prison, after they have been R
nt
punished by two or three years of imprisonra s,"
and terror, and -then solemnly declared guiltlo.o;
He then specifies six cases of men- who, after ber
acquitted, still remained in prison. r orr
Reverting, however, to the earlier stages of
seeution, we are 'told how, after'a person has ,4t•
arrested without any warrant, without .6:11Y
nesses against him, " when the forged testiOosi,
has been procured, the Government are in a Pant
Lion to present it to the court, obtain a warrant,' ii,"" (l.
so far to legalise the imprisonment." Mr. uheso
stone then proceeds to inquire " how are t',iotl
detenatilreated during the long and awful Pe,..0.01
of apprehension and dismay between their ills o 0
seizure and their illegal trial ?" This investige,ow
leads him into details which are physically re,soo
ing, almost beyond imagination to conceive. ipo
prisons of Naples are another term for the extre.g
-of, filth and horror. I have really seen sometili'oi
of them, but not the worst. This I have seen'
lord—the official doctors not going to the skis Po
soners, but the sick prisoners, men almost Wlot
death on their faces, toiling upstairs to them, at ti
re,
charnel-house of the Vicaria, because the lower
;;ions of such a place of darkness are too foul tifes,
loath Some to allow it to be expected that Pr°l.es'
sional men should consent to earn bread by.rol'ibo
ing them. As to diet, I must speak a word i•or the
bread I have seen. Though black and coarse to
00
last degree, it was sound. The soup, which Oro;
the only other element of subsistence, is so nause°,
as I was assured, that nothing but the extreme , to
hunger could overcome the repugnance of nateiii.'
it ; I had not the means of tasting it. The fli`,;istl
the prisons is beastly ; the officers, except at gig
hardly ever enter them."
We cannot find space on this occasion for de-
further extract's, and must leave this general lir•
scription to speak for itself. The details whiell
Gladstone subsequently gives us of the dre°ttlie
state of the several prisons, and especiallYaios
Baguio of Nisida, in which Poerio wore his el'!001,
so long, completely bear out, and even go beY tics
the foregoing account. We must defer these tle o
tations, however, and the narrative of the efts to
Poerio and, • his companions in misfortune. •
another occasion.

THE CONDEMNED CONVICTBIBTiI;TT.---Thesell
tence •of death passed at the late assizes at Nottinitti:o
upon Thomas Brown Birkett, farmer, for the murder ooelo
gamekeeper Watmough, at Barnley-M-the-Willow' orts'
Newark in all probability be commuted to transP
tion for the Home Secretary having advised hertPeeo
jesty to that effect. In the meantime the convict has A
respited .until her Majesty's pleasure shall be kn°.`sel,../0
letter fe the Sheriff.of Nottittglift,m, this ,11-,t
tion, was received from the I-lonic-office on Wednesua/'
conveyinK