Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1851-08-29


a fluid for the very purpose-Carbonic Gas Oceans
can be produced it abounds every where on earth.'
To the language of gentleman on Pearl street,
when the dreadful conhagraion was spreading,
rying dsmay and desolation in its track. Our fire
engines were dumb, costly fire apparatus USE
less pageant. We did not extinguish spark for
the water it escaped fell dead, frozen mass to
the EARTH"
This gave the first impulse to my thoughts. The
VIM. A. GRAHAM
:. Horrid Crueltes Rome.
The New York Tribune contains long translation from
e French of Emile Grardin editor of La Prose- Paris
The Tribune says its hord details confirmed by other
advices from Rome. We make the following extracts:
Justice is administered at Rome with closed DOORS
and after a simple method. The accused is permit
ted to choose his defender but if the defender is not
to the taste of the judges, the prisoner must choose
another, or accept the one whom the President of
the Tribunal may please to designate. Then the
grounds OF complaint are communicated to the de-
fender but neither he the accused is allowed to
confront the complainants or their witnesses, who
are never made known to the defence.
With this obscure method of administering Justice
it is evident that no easily prove his inno-
cence. and that on the contrary, hatred, revenge
and anonymous charges hold their power over every
man who has enemies
Still in spite of the power of condemning at plea
sure every person with whom they are displeased
these petty nquisitors afraid to brave the force
OF public opinion, which shudders at human sacrii-
ces; hence they rarely sentence to capital punish
ment But though the prisoners escape the axe of
| the executoner, and the auto-da-fe in the public
square, they do not escape the moral and physical
fortunes OF prisons and dungeons, where gloomy
authority under the pretext of hearing more of the
case, has ght of OBTAINING them for an indefinite
period, of booming them to taste drop by dron
all the agonies of painful death All these acts of
barbarty are performed the fanatics say, for the
glory OF God and the good of the Church.
The prisoners at Rome have common apartment,
where the vile multitude of prisoners" as the hon
orable M. Theirs would say, are conined-that is
all who have money to pay for admission into 9TH
er rooms, where each prisoner is allowed pallet or
poor mattress in place of the rotten straw which is
thrown to them in the Segretta piana This is the
name OF the common apartment-that hideous den
Of infection, of misery, of desolaton-where men are
piled together, in the midst of uncleanness like foul
animals and if unfortunate dares to express his
despair too strongly, heavy iron weight is attached
to his feet after he has been tied to post and been
beaten with a club on his back
This last punishment, called the Carelett0 which
is no less humilating than cruel. was formerly in
iicted for certain offences. in the most public man.
ner. both on men and women, in state of entire
nudity.
If they no longer dare to make public exhibition
of this revolving punishment the modest governors
of Rome make ample amends to themselves by daily
lntilctng it on unhappy prisoners. Nothing better
has been found to alleviate the fate of the latter than
to restore this punishment to put the feet in irons
both of which infections were suppressed bv the
late Republican Government of Rome at the same
time with the death penalty.
Only before this republican reg ime the weight of
iron placed upon the feet of prisoner but 81
lbs, while now it is increased to 1859.
Nothing can give just idea of this horrible spec
tacle, which exhibits all the suffering of humanity
when reduced to despair Inundated, degraded de- |
based by the most ignominious treatment and in the
midst of this room or rather cave of mephitic and
SutfOcatn0 ortp
coed to the cell, we find two prisoners in each of
them.
These cells are two metres Is centmetres in length
(about I'll feet 2m. 33c. in width, and Pm 60c in
height. Not more than II cubt metres of air can
penetrate these cells Now, it is we'll known by sci
entlc that IA cubic metres of air are required
for the respiration of single person. and two unfor-
Inmates are buried alive in each of these dungeons
where they lie deprived of air and devoured by fe-
yer and the most detestable vermin: MANY, indeed,
have their feet cruelty torn by the irons that the
worms have already attacked the wounds of their
living corpses. 1t is thus that government of
priests tears the life out of men whom they dare not
destroy in public by the hand of the executoner
AS to the rooms appropriated to the prisoners at
large, that is to those who are only shut up at night
and who during the day are permitted to go out into
the courtyard, they constructed for ten prison
ers, but contain twenty.
1t is evident how much must be suffered during
the parching heats of q Roman summer bv these
unfortunates who are thus confined in room which
is shut out from both light and air. except that
which enters from small window placed more than
six feet from the ground the only refreshment
which can be procured in this pestent furnace is
go to the window where each prisoner breathes for
few moments they mount by turns on the Shout
1ers of a comrade s
The prisoners allowed 16 ounces of bread a a
lay p ounces of meat weighed raw, ID ounces of
soup for the meat and soup fast days. vegetables
Ire substituted, cooked in salt and water fl
Visits from their relations and friends are permit
ed only once month, with whom they are not al
owed to converse except through double crate and
n the presence of two turkeys. ,
Within few days six prisoners have literally
starved to death in their cells two have attempted a
% commit suicide, and for this have been put in Il
rons, and will be condemned two have become in II
ane, and have been placed in the hospital at La ~
4Ongara. f.
The prison at st. Michael contains more than 400
political prisoners; the Thermoe prison and the new
prison contain 200 in this last prison the DO
itica offenders are mixed up with thieves and assas
ins
Bernardino Federc of Monte-Rotondo, advocate, S
vas arrested and condemned five years at the gal
eys as guilty of sacrege, because having a bad al
odd he coughed and spit in his parish church du in
ing the of the priest Now as he passed for
Liberal, his cough imputed to him as an insult p
God and his minister, and was the only cause of
lis outrageous sentence A
Sllvestre Campetti, of Rome has been in prison ii
or more than year; he is kept in close confine c
nent, with irons his feet and has been made to tie
ufer all the agonies of hunger by deprving him of sc
Ill tood but just bread and water enough to keen
Inn alive All this, because it is suspected that he hi
an give information in regard to nretended renuh-