The Davenport daily gazette. [volume] (Davenport, Iowa) 1856-1869, 1856-10-25
THt. DAILY GAZETTE.
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POLITICAL PRISONS IN ITALY.

NNAaA% ASNs3 JN5t HIPNosN ~ 60 'NANs .
land, entitled .'The Austrian Dun
geons in Italy, which 10 attracting
considerable attention The author
is Felixce Orsini, a veil known ItaI.
ian Republican, who wss imprisoned
tor fifteen months III the fortress OF St.
Glorgio, at Mantua, and vas under
expectation OF a capital sentence, at
de time he made bis escape. Ii the
iaet OF this e8ca pc, as well as the
manner Of it. was not abundandy vel
flied, the public would be justified in
doubting it !; for no prisoner, not even
Baron Trenck, ever surnounted NOR e
obstacles. or achieved 9hat at first
sight would seem to be greater i'm
| probabilities. Il is sufficient to say
that Orsini was confined in tower
| l04 feet from the ground; that deep
fosse, often filled with water, surround
ed the tower, and that the only win
dow to his room had q double grating
OF iron. besides glazed easement set
in iron frames. Yet, from this dun
geon he made his escape, by saving
the bars and letting himself down by
sheets torn into strips, and all Mantna
crowded TO see. and dill see on the
day after, the broken grating, and
verified the fact
Orsini's description oI the Austrian
treatment Of political offenders fairly
makes the blood run cold. Women,
as well as men. are made the victims
In the same castle i'll which Orsiui
was confined, three females we're i'm.
prisoned for political ofences-two
for having concealed fugitiyes whom
the myrmydons Of tyranny had hunt
ed to their houses, and one for having
permitted her hotel to be used by
some eonspirators. Thirteen, times,
every day, the privacy Of these wo-
men had to be invaded by the turnkeys.
One Of these visits was at one O'clock,
in the dead oil night Besides this,
extraordinary visits could be made,
without notice, whenever the turnkeys
pleased men who, as class, spend
their lives in drinking, and should be
in Orsini's words. Secuted from the
face of the earth" The prison itself
is situated in a damp, unhealthy To-
cality, whose insalubrity its thick
stone walls increase, so that even the
strongest men, when incarcerated in
it, gradually suecumb to low fever,
apparcRtly OF an intermittent type
The fare is coarse and insufficient, and
It the victim Is without money to
purchase food, be runs great risk OF
starvation. Orsini would probably
have persisted Of hunger, in the earlier
weeks Of his imprisonment, aud be-
fore his family knew where he was,
If one of the officials, taking pity on
him, had not supplied him with bread.
OF course, with such treatment, hall
of those thrown into these dungeons
perish before the tardy court decides
on their innocence or guilt.
But the suferings Of these awaiting
their sentence are, after all, light
when compared with what falls to the
lot of persons condemned TO the gal
leys Galleys, of course, are no Ion
ger used. In old times the galley
slave spent his life chained to an oar,
exposed to heat and cold, to sun and
rain alike: always seantily fed, and
compelled by the whip to labor, and
in these floating hells, az they have
been forcibly called, martyrs and he
roes, the very salt of the earth, were
often doomed forllife, now by peIsecu-
tors, now by despots. Things are not
so bad in the abstract now, for pris-
oner sentenced to the galleys but
when we consider the progress OF man
kind, they are quite as much Sc rela-
lively. Forty or sixtyiare crowded to-
gether in one long dungeon their
hair is cut short aud their heads shaw
ed ; they are fastened to the wall with
chain ten feet long they sleep on
fiat hard bench, and the food is OIL
the worst description and very scanty.
In these earthly Pandemoniums hun
dreds. if not thousands of men OF edu
cation, refinement of exalted character
are now dying by inches, in the com
pany Of murderers and asssssins,
whose very breath is loathsome, for
no crime except that Of Wishing to see
Italy free and independent. This, too,
not in q barbarous land, not in one
which never knew what liberty was,
but in the centre Of what once was civ
ilization, and on the very soil whence
the Tarquins were expelled. Alasl it
is easier to loose freedom than to re-
cever it.-Philadeiphaa ledge