Pawtucket Gazette And Chronicle

THE OUTRAGES AT ROME.
The London Times of the 7th inst., has an article on the outrages perpetrated in the prisons of Rome. It says:
Rome is at present governed by a bishop and priests who derive their temporal power from French bayonets and Austrian guarantees. Into the several departments of this administration we forbear from entering at present, as our narrative applies solely to one of them-the distribution of justice. Arrests are made at Rome, as in other countries, upon information, and the accused person is allowed to defend himself by counsel, but the advocate must be approved by the Judge, who may substitute at pleasure a nominee of his own. The prisoner is served with what we call a copy of the indictment, but he is not confronted either with his accuser or with the impeaching witnesses, and the case is despatched in secret. Under these conditions of trial it may be reasonably expected that convictions frequently ensue, and the convict undergoes or awaits his sentence in abodes of the description following:
The Roman jails are divided into cells of between 7 and 8 feet square, or, as it may be desirable to state the exact proportions, of 8 feet 11 inches in length, 7 feet 7 inches breadth, and 7 feet 10 inches in height. In each of these are shut two prisoners, who are thus placed on an allowance of air little greater than that required for the consumption of one. But this separate incarceration is a privilege to be earned only by formidable guilt or purchased by considerable bribes. For the common class of prisoners there is a common room, where they lie day and night, like negroes in a slave ship, on straw too foul for a stable. On provocation given or assumed, the jailor has the power of inflicting severe flogging, or of attaching to the legs of his victims a weight of iron so great as almost to incapacitate them from moving. Beside these apartments there are others designed to hold ten prisoners each but for which twenty is now considered a fitter complement, and in these the single window is so high from the ground that the inmates can only obtain a breath of air by mounting upon each other's shoulders in turn. Once a month only is any visit allowed from friends or relatives, and then in the presence of the jailors and with a double iron grating intervening.
We have confined ourselves to a simple statement of facts without any comment, but the reader will not probably be surprised when we add, that within the space of a few days, as credibly reported, six prisoners had died of starvation, two had been put in irons for attempting suicide, and two had been carried raving to a mad-house. Even this, however, is but an imperfect sketch of the horrors prevailing. So frightful are the practices of these rooms, where the very vilest of desperadoes are herded together without any effectual supervision, that the political prisoners are glad to provoke solitary confinement by any broach of discipline, as an escape from inexpressible pollution. Those who remember the stories of convict life which almost terrified our government from the system of transportation, will be able to imagine the enormities of these infamous abodes, and to conclude how completely even all that we have described is outdone by that which is indescribable.
Such, in one of its most essential departments, is the administration of a Government which is violently imposed by foreign arms upon a reluctant people. Such is the Government of a Court which is endeavoring by subtlety and scheming to engraft the fundamental principles of its own policy on the constitution of other lands. It is no matter of wonder that there should be criminals at Rome, or that extraordinary severity should be exercised by rulers who within the last few months have been fugitives and exiles. But it is precisely under such circumstances that the capacity of a government for its duties is most clearly shown, and when we find the subjects of a political restoration indulging in vindictive cruelties, and unable either to moderate their own passions or to control the proceedings of their servants, we may assume them as convicted by their own misdeeds. We are inclined, indeed, to attribute these monstrous barbarities no less to the inherent vices of an ecclesiastical regime than to the deliberate emotions of tyranny and malice, for it is impossible to doubt that what was always bad in the Roman States has now become much worse under the aggravation of rebellion and the temptations of impunity. The Papal Government, like others in those parts, always combined a practical disregard of human sufferings with an ostensible respect for human life. Executions are spectacles of rare occurrence, but punishments compared with which execution would be a mercy, are adjudged without scruple, inflicted without pity, and protracted without remorse, through all the stages of such torture as we have described. We sicken involuntarily at the sight of blood, but capital penalties are not always the most severe. When prisons are like the Abbaye and the Conciergerie the guillotine is rather a relief than a climax, and the sacrifice of life indeed is often far sharper under the horrors of a jail than under the merciful axe of the headsman.
Those who have ever breathed the atmosphere of Rome will be able to appreciate the suffocation of a prison at such a season as this, when appliances of even luxury are needed to make the noon and night endurable. Yet in one jail there are four hundred and in another two hundred victims now incarcerated over and above the ordinary contingent of malefactors, who, never rare in these ill-governed States, have naturally multiplied under the favorable conditions of insurrection and anarchy. What renders these abominations the more revolting is the fact that they are perpetrated under a spiritual rule-under a Government professing to be regulated in all its functions by the precepts of Christianity and actually administered by preachers of the gospel. The Directors of the prisons are two prelates of the Church, who are personally cognizant of the proceedings related, and who are responsible to other prelates for the due performance of their functions. Such, however, is the spirit now animating reverend councillors that, if we may believe what is distinctly reported, the Christian duty of visiting and succoring all prisoners and captives has been suspended by an order of State, and the alms bequeathed in perpetuity for the relief of these unfortunate creatures have been diverted from their destination and transferred to the service of the Propaganda.