can shrug one's shoulders with a certain amount
of philosophy, but I much doubt whether I
shall be able to quit the prison without leaving
my mark on jailer No. 3. This monster is in
the habit of drinking rather freely in the evening,
and at such times he unburthens himself of
certain records of his former atrocities under
the good old Papal rule. Many of these are too
disgusting to repeat, but I cannot refrain from
telling you of one of his feats while jailer at
Bologna, which he himself related to me with a
circumstantiality of detail and cynical indifference
which made my blood run cold. It appears
he had under his care a prisoner, accused of I
know not what crime, who had contrived to
displease him, and the tormenting of whom,
consequently, afforded him an endless source of
gratification and amusement. Every time the
wretched prisoner was taken before the tribunal
for examination, he was—according to the custom
in the Papal States—accompanied by an
armed escort and led by the jailer, who held in
his hand a chain, the other end of which was
fastened to the throat and round the wrists of
the victim. The fiend who related the story
described to me, grinning all the time at the
recollection of his own prowess, how he had, on
one of these occasions, pulled and jerked away at
the chain by the road, until he had drawn blood
from the wretched prisoner's wrists and throat.
No sooner, however, had he unfastened the
chain on reconducting the poor wretch to his
cell, than he flew upon his tormentor like a wild
animal, and would have killed him in his rage,
had not his cries brought the other jailers
quickly to his assistance, who, as a punishment,
once more fastened the instrument of torture to
the prisoner's throat, and chained him to the
wall of his cell. But the brutal Bolognese was
determined to be quits with the obnoxious
prisoner who had so severely mauled him, and that
same night he returned to the cell, accompanied
by an under-jailer, and they beat him about the
head and chest with their heavy keys till they
left him senseless .....
"Next morning they found him dead. A
little embarrassed by this result, they consulted
together as to what was to be done, and hit upon
the ingenious scheme of hanging him by his
handkerchief to the bars of his grated window,
and reporting to the governor of the prison that
he had committed suicide. 'But,' said I, 'did
no one examine the body—was there no doctor
to the prison? Even if the governor could be
deceived, no medical man would believe your
story.' 'Oh!' said the brute, laughing, 'the
prisoners so often destroyed themselves! And
the doctor only came once a week, and of course
he could not examine those who were buried
before he came! But the joke of the thing,'
he concluded, 'the joke of the thing was, that
of course no priest would bury him in holy
ground, so he was just carted away, and buried
in a field as a suicide. And you see I had my
revenge on his soul as well as on his body!'
"Imagine the cheering effect of such
conversations as these—shut up night and day
within the same four walls, and waited upon by
the chief actor in the sickening drama!" ....
" 25th.
"As I was taking my morning's walk up and
down the corridor to-day, I saw a poor lad of
about eighteen—a prisoner—being dragged along
by the jailers, and crying bitterly. I inquired
the cause of his grief, and was told he was crying
because they were removing him to another part
of the prison. It is, as far as I can learn, simply
at the caprice of the jailers that such changes
are made. ' Why does he not like to change his
cell?' I asked. ' Oh,' said the jailer, laughing,
the fool does not want to leave his birds.' It
seems this was the second time the poor lad had
been moved, and I could never get the jailers to
give me any reason for it. He was at first confined
in the same room with a Garibaldino, to whom
he attached himself so strongly, that when he was
separated from him, he fell seriously ill. After
a while, when he grew better, he found a solace
and amusement in taming birds, and had quite
a little colony of friends, who visited him night
and morning, perching on his shoulders, eating
out of his hand, and bearing him cheerful
company in his loneliness. His tears this morning
were shed because the cell to which he is now
removed is on a low floor of the prison, looking out
upon a north wall, where he has no hope that his
little pensioners will ever fly down to seek him." . .
" 29th.
"The Aspromontini (who were amnestied
early in last October) are still lingering here,
half fed, less than half clothed, and lying
crowded together on dirty straw; yet I am told
their condition is less wretched than that of
their companions in arms imprisoned in Sicily.
Here, the director has not given himself the
trouble to learn their names,* and my jailer tells
me that letters are continually arriving by post,
which he has no doubt are for some of these
unfortunates, but which are coolly sent back by
the officials, with 'Not known in St. Andrea,'
scrawled upon them.
"There are prisoners here, who, like myself,
have never been informed of the motive of their
arrest. A day or two after I was imprisoned,
the Giudice Istruttore, producing a bundle of
sequestrated letters, none of which were either
written by or addressed to me, asked me—for
form's sake, I suppose—a few questions about
them: and, finding that I had nothing to say
about the affairs of other people, left me. I saw
him only once again, during one of my wife's
visits. He then informed us, in the presence of
the jailer, that there was nothing against me;
that he considered my being there an 'infamia;'
and could only attribute it to Rattazzi's personal
spite against all known friends of Mazzini.
He advised my wife to go to Turin, and see the
minister on the subject. She did so; but it was
without result."
Here end the scattered MSS. I smuggled
* We learn that, since the above was written, the
evil of not keeping correct lists of the prisoners
confined in St. Andrea has been remedied.
Dickens Journals Online