Barbarous Treatment of a Political Prisoner
“Amongst the many cases of brutal and illegal imprisonment which have been brought before the public during the last ten days, none has been worse than that of Francisco Casanova, calling himself an American. He was confined in San Francisco, and some young men who had formerly been placed in the same prison, though not in the same room, remembering his case, went, on the amnesty being proclaimed, to deliver him; but he was all but naked, and he could not leave until an advocate called Arene, who has acted with great benevolence, sent him some clothes, and has since received him in his house and fed him. Last night I went to see him, and I cannot tell you whether indignation against this most Christian government or compassion for the victim was the strongest feeling. ‘When he entered my house,’ said Arene, ‘he was supported by two persons, for he was unable to walk. He looked like a ghost.’ ‘Where am I?’ he exclaimed, as he looked confusedly around; and well he might, after six years and a half of confinement from all intercourse with man. But I give you his own description of his sufferings, as nearly as possible in his own words, premising merely that there were witnesses of all that I relate, in Arene himself, a Neapolitan friend, and a foreign consul.
“I landed in Genoa from Boston some time in 1853, and wishing to see the south of Italy, travelled till I came near to Viterbo, when I was cautioned not to go to Rome; but I still persevered in my intention of doing so, when I was arrested as not having a passport, and carried to the Eternal City, where I was placed in the Carcere Nuova. Not satisfied with the report I gave of myself, I was tortured for three months as follows. My hands and arms were bound together, and then, by ropes tied round the upper part of the arms, they were drawn back till my breast protruded, and my bones sounded, ‘crick, crick.’ There was another species of torture practised upon me, which was this: At night, whilst sleeping, the door was secretly opened, and buckets of water were thrown over my body. How I survived it I cannot tell; the keepers were astonished, and said they never had such an instance; ‘but you will never get out alive,’ I was told. I replied that I never expected to do so, and prayed for the angel of death to come. The worst torture of all, however, was the prison itself—a room into which a few rays of light struggled from above, and the stench of which was as bad as death. For three months I suffered thus, and then, without any reason assigned, was taken from it and placed, always alone, in a room called ‘Salon del Preti,’ a large airy room, and was well fed and well treated for twenty-one months more. I was a prisoner of the Cardinal Secretary Antonelli. About the middle of 1855 again, without any reason being given, I was sent off to Naples, was placed first in the Vicaria and afterward in San Francisco, in a small, close room, where I was detained for four years and a half. I was questioned on several occasions, and at last refused to answer, saying that my persecutors already knew what I had to say, that I was unjustly and illegally confined, and nothing could compel me to utter another word. On another occasion I was called before Bianchini, the director of police, who interrogated me. I appealed against my sufferings, and all the reply I received was, ‘Va bene, va bene,’ from a Christian man to one suffering as I was, but my invariable answer was, I will die first; never will I ask anything of this government. When first I arrived here I had a little money, which for a short time procured me better food than prison fare, and then by degrees I sold my clothes. At last I sold my black bread to have a little salt to sprinkle over my beans, and sometimes to procure some incense to relieve the horrid stench of my prison. As for water for purposes of cleanliness, it was never supplied me, and all that I could do, was to dip one of my own rags in a jug of drinking water, and wash some portions of my body. During the day I could repose, but at night I was covered with black beetles, fleas, lice, and every conceivable species of vermin. I expected death, and desired and prayed for it as a relief, but it never came. My clothes were at last so reduced, that I was all but naked, and so I have passed four summers and winters, pacing up and down my narrow chamber.
“‘I will show you my prison-dress,’ said he; and going out, returned in a few moments. He might have stood as a model for Lazarus risen from the tomb. The lower part of his body was covered with a thin pair of linen drawers, nothing more. On his feet was a pair of shoes, with soles and upper leather all in holes. He had no shirt, but over the upper part of his body, was thrown a rag, something like a common kitchen-towel, one corner of which he had placed on his head, as the long elfin locks which had not been cut, for many years hung down over his neck and shoulders. He appeared more like a brute than a Christian man. ‘See this rag,’ said he, ‘how I have botched it. This was my dress, and so clad, I paced up and down my solitary den.’
“There is much that Casanova reports of himself that I do not repeat, for it is so mysterious that I require further evidence of its correctness. There can, however, be no doubt of his sufferings and imprisonment in Naples. It has long been whispered about here that an unknown individual was lying in the prisons of San Francisco, but nothing was known of him. He was one of the mysteries of the dungeon, and even now there is much to unravel. Who is he?—what secret motives led to his double confinement here and in Rome?—why was he transferred from the hands of a Christian cardinal to the mercies of De Spagnoli? What he said I report, and time must unravel his story; but the world will know how to appreciate the influence of a priesthood under whose eye such enormities have been committed.”
In Naples, on the 26th of June, assemblages of the population commenced. The populace shouted “Garibaldi forever!” “Annexation forever!” “Death to the police!” The following day a panic took place; the police were maltreated, and disappeared as soon as the same cries were raised by the populace.
The king had twice sent Signor Aquila to Baron Brenier, and had promised to make a strict investigation.
On the 28th of June all the police stations were pillaged in open day; forty of the agents were surprised, and either killed or wounded. The archives were burnt. The spoils were carried about in triumph by the populace.
The king had arrived at Naples, and had ordered the immediate formation of a national guard.
A proclamation was issued, prohibiting seditious shouts, and recommending the military to disperse assemblages of the population with moderation.
As the successes of Garibaldi in Calabria became known in the city of Naples, and his unimpeded advance toward that capital, the excitement daily increased. A letter, dated there on the 5th of September, said:
“Seven-league boots must be in fashion again, and Garibaldi must have a pair. It was but yesterday he was at Faro; then we find him at Pezzo, Tiriola, Nicastro, Paolo, until, by a series of gigantic strides, by last reports he was at Campagna, the capital of one of the four districts of Salerno. I shall expect at any hour to meet the great dictator in the Toledo. His march has been a continual triumph—war in its severer aspects he has not seen in the kingdom of Naples, but wreathed with flowers scattering confections and weeping tears of welcome and joy. Apart from a hatred of the Bourbons, Garibaldi is worshipped as a demi-god, and I believe that the veriest reactionist in the kingdom would sheathe his sword to look at him. It is hero-worship which has smoothed the passage of the dictator rather than anything more definite or settled in principle.”
The priests, the same letter declared, were much connected with the two last revolutionary attempts:
“For that of Prince Luigi (Count of Aquila), the vicars of some parishes, just before the outbreak was to have occurred, placarded the doors of the houses of their faithful followers with little bills, one of which is in my possession, bearing this inscription:
“‘Viva Jesu Christo!
Viva la Madonna Immacolata!
Viva San Francesco!’
“This was to protect those houses.
“Naples is in a state of the greatest excitement. It is one great heart without a head, and the most singular contrasts present themselves at every step. I left a scene of wild confusion in the Toledo late last night, when the names only of Garibaldi and Victor Emanuel were heard, and, going down to Santa Lucia, I found every house illuminated, torches burning, and fagots borne by a crowd of rabble, a small bell tinkling, and a priest bearing the host, surrounded by hundreds of devotees. They stop, and the vast crowd fall upon their knees. Silence! not a sound was heard, except the indistinct roar of voices from the Toledo. On the walls close behind were the cannon of the Bourbons, and in the offing the fleets of many nations, all brought out as distinctly as possible by the gorgeous moonlight of our southern sky. What a host of conflicting ideas were here brought into juxtaposition and contrast!
“Last night it was decided that the king should leave immediately; at midnight it was deferred, but only deferred. The throne has well nigh fallen.”
The following Address to the Clergy of the Kingdom was issued by the Ecclesiastical Committee of Union:
“THE CLERGY OF THE KINGDOM.
“Viva Italian Independence!
“Viva Victor Emanuel!
“Viva Giuseppe Garibaldi!
“PROGRAMME.
“Italianism, Activity, Catholicity—these are the duties demanded of every good Neapolitan Christian, whether priest or layman; these he is called upon to practise both in thought and action for the benefit of the country. Such, in fact, is the speculative and practical principle which in Naples animates the Union Ecclesiastical Committee in order to arrive at the most holy object of independence, in the noble undertaking of Italian redemption. For these reasons the committee are intent on the union of ideas with facts; they profess it to be their indispensable duty to labor unweariedly, so as not to go in opposition to the orthodox faith, which rests in Christ and his vicar on earth—in Christ as God-man, in his vicar as the first religious and the first civil power of the world. Hence, taking its stand on these axioms, the committee declares its intention of realizing the evangelical maxim that spiritually the state is in the church, as temporarily the church is in the state; and so it labors to establish the unity of Italy in the order of religion and civilization; in the order of religion, of which the pontiff of Rome is the œcumenical moderator; in the order of civilization, of which Victor Emanuel is the only regulator in the Italian kingdom.”