The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1899-08-14
TORTuREs OF MoNTJuIo.
INFAMOUS PROCEEDINGS AT
BARCELONA, SPAIN.
Most Horrible Cruelties Since the
Days of the Spanish In
QUESTION.

QUESTION.
Another prisoner has just been tor
tured at barcelona, Spain, and the
whole city is in a state of indignation
that would require little further cause
to become rebellion. SO dangerous mas
the temper OF the people become that
the authorities were frightened and
hurriedly convened a court-martial
which has sentenced the two officers
who had ordered the torture to six
months Imprisonment.
The episode has reopened the old af-
fair of the torture of the persons who
had been suspected of being implicated
in the Anarchist bomb throwing of
June q, 1896. Demands are becoming
more insistent every day that the en-
tire trial be revised and that the men
who are suffering now in Africa be
brought home for chance to fight in
their defense publicly.
Coupled with this demand was one for
the punishment of the officers who were
responsible for the nameless cruelties
that were perpetrated on the Anarch-
lists and on the suspected persons and
this demand has brought out an Off
cial reply in which, quite without the
desire of the Government, the truth of
the torture stories was admitted un-
equivocally.
AS result the exact facts about this,
perhaps the most horrible official cruel
ty since the days of the Inquisition,
have been made public, and the details
have appalled, the people. How deep
hea Of
be judged from the fact that mass
meeting was held here Immediately
after the story was told, to demand
that the gloomy fortress of Montjuio
be RACED. Speakers demanded that
every vestige of it be destroyed, and
that the soil be plowed, that no human
eye ever might see again the scene of
such deviltries.
Montjuio rises almost 600 feet from
the sea and towers east of Barcelona,
commanding that city. 1t was from
this immense fortress that the Cas-
lillian King Philip V. subdued the
proud city and reduced it to shameful
bondage. Again Spain stands guilty
of that charge put by Tennyson into
the mouth of Richard Grenville-
These Inquisition dogs and the devildoms
VI S)dln-
The tortures of 1896 were not a whit
less terrible than were those of the
days of the Inquisition Indeed some
of the instruments used on the unhappy
prisoners were relics of those dark
days. There were tortures in 1896 that
were so awful that they cannot be re-
corded in print, and men only whisper
of them to each other. Several of
these forms of pain punishment were
worse than any tortureS recorded of
the ancient executioners.
1t was eighty-five days after the vile
and wicked affair of the bombs when
certain of the Spanish officers, desper-
ate because they had not been able to
apprehend the assassins, goaded by
the criticisms of the public that clam
ored properly for swift punishment of
the wretched murderers, decided on the
torture to discover who had planned
and carried out the great crime. Just
then the Government offered a reward
of 10000 pesetas mot quite $4,000.
That added the incentive of cupidity to
the incentive of official duty and made
the men still more keen after informal
ton. Accordingly Narcisco Portas.
Lieutenant of gendarmes, and Corporal
Botas Cthe latter is one of the torturers
of the prisoners mentioned in the intro
ductiPn to this article) and five sub
ordinttes began to arrest men and wo-
men right and left. In the deepest
classmates of Montjuio seven under
ground cells had been specially pre-
pared for what was to follow. They
were wet, scarcely ventilated, with
arched ceilings, built exactly on the
plan of \ tomb. The worst was one
that bore the appropriate figure of 8
on its iron door Into these cells were
taken one after the other those among
the prisoners who We're considered the
most likely to be able to tell something
about the plot. And then began the
torture of these men according to all
the rules of the ancient art.
TORTURED BY NIGHT.
Every evening Lieutenant Portas
climbed to Montjuio, where he was met
by the general Governor of the fortress.
Then they descended into the subter-
ranean vaults to conduct what one of
the officials has described as opera
tons" All night long these men direct
ed fortunes of the prisoners. At dawn
they would ascend to daylight and eat
Jolly breakfast, leaving the moaning
and bleeding wrecks of humanity under
the lashes of new relay of wardens.
The night of August 4. 1896, wit
messed the beginning of these almost
incredible happenings. Remember that
what is told here has been gathered,
not from the lips of the prisoners them
selves, many of whom might with JUS
tice be suspected of exaggeration, but
from official records, having been col
lected bit by bit as we received OPP
portunity to investigate. 1t was de-
cided both to facilitate Operations"
and to terrorize one prisoner by the
sight of the sufferings of the others, to
examine" them three at time. The
first three were strong, young work
men. When they We're brought down
the corridor they looked alarmed, but