The condemned have the relief of knowing
the exact term of their imprisonment. The
accused—although by the law of Naples
theoretically innocent—have not the benefit
of knowing in how many years they may be
tried, and how they may be sentenced; so
that imprisonment to them is of indefinite
duration. Imprisonment on suspicion is an
every-day occurrence, and takes place at the
instigation of gentlemen belonging to a licensed
body of the most infamous men in Europe;
whose trade is in human suffering,—who are
petted, patronised, and, what is more to their
purpose, who are paid by the authorities.

I saw a party of the condannati arrived
at their place of exile, and presented, by the
sbirro, with the formal papers to the local
judge. Their names having been called over,
they were dismissed to find for themselves
food and lodging: such prisoners are allowed
fourpence a-day to provide for themselves
subsistence. These men will spend their
time according to their habits and their
inclinations; but it very frequently, indeed,
occurs, that one of the harder criminals, who
does not care at all who suffers so that he
effects his own escape, intimates that he can
make revelations. He is at once released,
and sent to Naples. Some of the better
disposed prisoners, uniting for the consolation of
a more congenial society, have been observed
to meet together. The rascal is thanked for
his news, and set at liberty. Soldiers and
ammunition are sent down to break up the
secret societies of the conspirators.

The prisons around Naples contain
numbers of men belonging to all ranks, who are
imprisoned, untried, on political suspicion.
Whatever ruffian wishes to remove an
obstacle to lust, or avarice, or ambition, has
only to send a tale to the authorities, in
which his victim figures as "a liberal
philosopher." Justice here is a very glutton after
garbage; and a hint at dangerous opinions,
from the lips of a rogue, will drag an honest
man out of his bed. A poor ignorant man,
who had thus unexpectedly been torn from
home, and caught in the confusion but a
whisper of his crime—Opinions, "Opinioni,"
—said to me lately, "Sir, I am punished for
Pirioni, when I don't so much as know what
Pirioni means."

How many men swept away thus, untried,
to the prisons, lie forgotten there, or whether
any die away, forgotten and untried, I do not
know. I know, however, that a new judge,
appointed lately to a small provincial town,
finding in gaol some prisoners whose case he
did not understand, considered it a matter of
course to write to the government, describing
them, and ask whether they might not be
men who had been imprisoned on accusation,
and forgotten? The question was suggestive.

Among the political prisoners are a class
called the crociati—people who went to
Lombardy with crosses on their breasts, to repel
the Austrians, accompanied with the applause
of their fellow-citizens, and their sovereign's
consent. Venice fell; and, with passports,
the crociati were sent to Pescara; but neither
there nor at Ancona did they find rest for
their feet. An Austrian brig finally escorted
them to Naples, where they were distributed
among the various places of detention.
Numbers of these crociati went out in the heat
and enthusiasm of the greenest youth, and
would have revered a government which had
restored them gently to their relatives. I
have stood by the death-bed of one of these
conspirators, who must have been about fourteen
when he took the cross, and died a
political prisoner, crying for his mother.
The child's companions clubbed a trifle from
their miserable allowance to procure him
decent burial; and this act was stigmatised
as a combination, and set down against them
as a crime.

One day I saw, sitting on a rock, a miserable
object grinding his teeth and raving. Two
soldiers were approaching, to bind him, and
take him before a judge. I asked the reason.
They replied—"We cannot endure his cursing
and his blasphemy." By his dialect, the man
appeared to be a Piedmontese. The expression
or—rather the no-expression—in his eye
and in his voice betrayed too clearly what
was the matter. "This," I said, "is a case
for the hospital, and not for the judge. God
has visited him heavily, and to-morrow, in
like manner, may visit you." I found, upon
inquiry, that this being, whom every mob
hooted and pelted, had been a gentleman in
Genoa. When the governments of Italy
were sending all strangers to their respective
countries, he had been denounced as a
Neapolitan, stripped of his property, and sent to
Naples. At Naples, his accent betrayed him
to be a Piedmontese, and every Piedmontese
was a man to suspect of liberal opinions. He
was therefore placed, as possibly dangerous,
in charge of the police. He soon became only
too harmless, for his mind gave way under
his trouble.

The friends of detained prisoners exert
themselves to procure their liberation, or the
comparative mercy of a trial. I do not know
whether authorities are influenced by bribes,
but I know well that they take them freely.
A poor man was dilating to me upon his
wrong the other day, inasmuch as he had
sent to an influential character ten ducats
worth of cheese and ham, which had been
duly taken, while the required favour had
not been returned for it.

Little or no attempt is made in the prisons
to classify offenders. There is an offence
called blasphemy, which is a convenient pouch,
into which many curious items of offence are
thrust, such as breaking the king's image,
refusing to serve in the militia, and entering on
portions of common ground which had been
allotted in the general disturbance, but
never had been cultivated. In the same
prison, then, side by side, sharing one fate,