All anarchistic (one might almost say all revolutionary) Europe honestly believes—whether rightly or wrongly history has yet, perhaps, to decide—that the Chicago hanging was as flagrant a violation of human rights, and the preceding trial as disgraceful a travesty of justice, as the worst absolute monarchy has ever had the audacity to perpetrate. Whatever the influence of this dramatic execution may have been in America, it was highly inflammatory in Europe. Under a practically free immigration system, America will be indeed fortunate if she does not, sooner or later, import long-stored-up rancour, originating from this event.
In the rest of Europe, as in France; in Russia, Germany, and Austria, in Italy and Spain, the violent anarchist acts of the last twenty-five years have been, broadly speaking, so many reprisals for real or fancied injuries suffered at the hands of government or society.
It is as nearly proved as a thing that is not susceptible of mathematical proof well can be that the almost complete immunity of England from anarchist violence (the Fenian attempts can hardly be so classed) has been due, in part at least, to the relative liberty of speech, press, and assemblage she has accorded,—accorded with an almost heroic consistency, in view of the pressure European governments have brought to bear upon her to change her policy. And it is surely something other than mere chance that so large a proportion of the propagandists par le fait hail from Italy. The unconcerned fashion in which the Italian peasants and labourers—at Milan, at Carrara, in Sicily—have been given cold lead when they have had the effrontery to ask for bread, and the mediæval tortures, a hundred times worse than death, inflicted on Passanante[44] and his successors, under the hypocritical guise of clemency and humanity, have acted naturally enough as provocations toward anarchism rather than restraints against it.
The following account of the fate which awaited Bresci appeared in the Paris Matin immediately after his condemnation had been pronounced:—
“The penalty of imprisonment for life which has fallen upon Bresci is very rigorous, and will be aggravated by solitary confinement day and night.
“The condemned man will probably be taken to the bagne of St. Etienne, where he will be clothed in the black and yellow striped prison uniform. During the first years he will occupy a cell two and a half metres long and one metre wide, which has never more than a half-light. Later he will be transferred to a cell a little larger and fully lighted. A table, slightly inclined, half a metre wide, will serve him for bed and furniture. His food will be bread and water once a day only. The jailers will hand it in to him through a hole covered with coloured glass, which permits them to see the prisoner without being seen by him.
“The days must pass in absolute silence. The punishments which threaten the prisoner who does not submit to this terrible régime are: I. The “strait-jacket” (chemise de force). II. Irons which bind the hands to the feet, holding the body bent forward. III. The lit de force, a wooden box exactly like a coffin, pierced at the lower end with two holes for the feet. The legs cannot be moved, and the arms are held motionless by the chemise de force.
“After ten years of this régime the prisoner is allowed to work during the day; but at night he returns to isolation and silence. Neither visits nor letters—nothing—can penetrate this tomb till the day when death or madness comes to deliver him who inhabits it.”
The above is given for what it is worth without a guarantee of the strict accuracy of every detail. But the Matin is not a revolutionary sheet, and would seem to have no good reason for misrepresentation. If only one-half of what it reveals is true, the crime of the Italian government will seem to many more heinous than the worst thing the anarchists have ever done or been accused of doing. No wonder Bresci contrived to put himself out of the way before a year had elapsed, and little wonder that the friends of Bresci have threatened reprisals.
The folly of taking official cognisance of the expression of incendiary views was signally demonstrated at the time of the last visit of the czar to France, when the poet Laurent Tailhade was sentenced to a year of prison and a 1,000-franc fine for a prose-poem glorifying regicide, published in Le Libertaire. This article would have been seen, had the authorities but had the tact to ignore it, only by the few regular readers of Le Libertaire, and would have been read through, it is safe to say, only by a small and unexcitable minority of these; for M. Tailhade is characterised by a style that is incomprehensible, save to the lettrés. But the author must needs be haled into court;[45] and, presto! Paris and the provinces are in an uproar. Well-known literary and artistic personalities—Zola, Gustave Kahn, Frantz Jourdain, E. Ledrain, and Jean Marestan among them—testify for their brother craftsman in person, and Mirbeau, De Hérédia, and Anatole France by letter. The auditors applaud the culprit’s utterances, bear him away, after the announcement of the verdict, in triumph, and hold banquets in his honour. The dangerous article, or at least its incriminated passages, and the proceedings of the court are published, in spite of the fact that such publication is expressly forbidden by law, throughout the length and breadth of France; and all the papers teem with chroniques, leading articles, and skits upon Tailhade or anarchism. Indignation meetings are held in every corner of Paris, and resolutions of protest are passed by socialists, free thinkers, and simple republicans, and even by Masonic lodges.