Nashville daily patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1855-1857, 1856-11-07
Poll,leal prison. IN nay.

volume has just appeared IN England, emit
tied "The Austrian Dungeons in Italy" which Is
attracting considerable attention. The author is
Felix Orsini, well known Italian Republican,
who was imprisoned for fifteen months in the for
tress Of St Gorgio, at Msntua. and was under ex
pectaton OF capital sentence, at the time be made
his escape. II the fact of this escape, as well as
the manner of IT, was not sbundantly verified, the
public would be justified in doubling il; for no pris
oner, not even Baron Trenck, ever surmouDted
more obstacles or achieved what first sight would
seem TO be greater improbabites II is sufficient
70 say that Orsini confined in a tower l04 feet
from the ground that deep fosse, often filed with
water, surrounded the tower, and that the only
window to his room had double grating Of iron,
besides glazed easement set in iron frames. Yet,
from this dungeon be made his escape, by saving
the bars and letting himself down by sheets torn
into strips and all Mantua crowded to see and did
see the day after, the broken grating, and veri
fed the fact.
Orsihi's description Of the Austrian treatment of
political offenders fiirly makes the blood cold
Women, as well men, are made the victims. In
the same castle in which 0rsini confined, three
females were imprisoned for political offences-two
for having concealed fugitives whom the myrm:dons
OF tyranny had hunted to their houses, and one for
having permitted her hotel TO be used by some con-
spiratOrs. Thirteen times every day, the privacy
OF these women had TO be invaded by the turkeys
One Of these visits was at one o'clock in the dead
OF night. Besides this, extraordinary visits could
/ be made, without notice, whenever the turnkey IS
I pleased; who a. a clsss, spend their lives in
drinking, and should be, in 0rsini's words secuted
from the face O. the earth" The prison itself is
situated in damp, unhealthy locality, whose insa
lubTity its thick stone walls increase, that even
the strong men, when incsrcerated 10 it, gradually
sUccumb 70 low fever, apparently OF an intermit
tent type The fare is coarse and insufficient, and
II the victim is without money TO purchase food he
runs great risk of starvation. 0rsini would proba
bly, have persisted of hunger, in the earlier weeks
Of bis Imprisonment, and before his family knew
\ where be was if one Of the official, taking pity on
him, had not supplied him with bread. OF course,
with such treatment, half of those thrown into these
dungeons perish, before the tardy court decides on
their innocence or guilt.
But the suffeIings OF those awaiting their seu-
tenee are, after all, light when compared with what
falls TO the lot of persons condemned to the gaeys.
Galleys, OF course, are no longer used. In old
times the galley slave spent his life chained to al
oar exposed TO heat and cold to and rain alike;
always scaDtily fed, and compelled by the whip to
labor, and ia these floating hells," as they have
been fOrcibly called, martyrs and heroes the very
salt OF the earth, often doomed for lie, now
by prosecutors, now by despots. Things are not so
bad in the abstract now for prisoner sentenced 10
the galleys; but when we consider the progress oil
mankind, they quite as much so relatively
I Forty or sixty crowded together in one long
dungeons; their hair is cut short and their beads
shaved; they fastened TO the wall with a chain
ten feet long; they sleep on a hard Fat bench, and
the food is of the worst description and very scsnty
In these earthly pandemonums, hundreds if not
!. thousands of men of education, refinement and
allied character, are now dying by inches in the
company of murderers and sssassins, whose very
breath is OatbsOme, for no crime except that Of
| wishing to see Italy free and independent. I his,
too not in a barbarous land not in one which never
knew what liberty was. but 10 the center Of what
once civilization, ard on the very soil whence
the Tarquins were expelled. Alas! it is easier to
lose freedom than to recover Philadelphia Led
ger.