published. In capital cases, however, after the execution of the criminal has taken place a sort of Procès verbal of the case and of the trial is placarded on the walls of the chief towns.
During the period of my stay at Rome there were three executions in different parts of the Papal territory. Whether by accident or by design I cannot say, but all these executions occurred within a short period of each other, and, in consequence, three such statements were issued almost at the same time by the Government. With considerable difficulty I succeeded in obtaining copies of these statements, not, I am bound to say, because there seemed to be any reluctance in furnishing them, but because the fact of anybody wishing to obtain copies was so unusual, that there was no preparation made for supplying them; and, at last, I only succeeded in procuring them from a printer’s devil to the Stanperia Apostolica. The facts narrated in them, and the circumstances alluded to, seem to me to throw a strange light on the administration of justice, and the daily life of this priest-ruled country. It is as such that I wish to comment on them. In these statements, be it remembered, there is no question of political or clerical bias.
The facts stated are all facts, admitted by the authorities of their own free will and pleasure; and if, as I think, these facts tell most unfavourably on the judicial system of our clerical rulers, it is, at any rate, out of their own mouths they are convicted. All, therefore, that I propose to do is, having these official statements before me, to tell the stories that they contain, as shortly and as clearly as I can, adding no comment of my own but what is necessary to explain the facts in question. Let me take first the case, which is entitled “Cannara contro Luigi Bonci;” the township of Cannara, where the crime was committed, being what we should call in a civil suit the plaintiff, and the accused Bonci the defendant.
CHAPTER V.—continued. THE “BONCI” MURDER.
Some three years ago, then, there lived in the hamlet of Cannara, near Perugia, a family called Bonci. They belonged to the peasant class, and were poor, even among the Papal peasantry. The family consisted of the father and mother, and of their son and daughter, both grown up. Between the father and son there had long been ill-blood. The cause of this want of family harmony is but indistinctly stated, but apparently it was due to the irregular habits of the son, and to the severity of the father; while all this domestic misery was rendered doubly bitter by the almost abject want of the household. On the night of November the 9th, 1856, Venanzio Bonci, the father, Maria Rosa, his wife, and their daughter, Caterina, were at supper in the miserable room, which formed the whole of their dwelling, waiting for the return of the son,
Luigi, who had been absent ever since the morning. There had been frequent quarrels before between father and son about Luigi’s stopping out late, and now it was past midnight. There was no light in the room except a faint flicker from the embers, and the feeble glimmering of the starlight which entered through the open windows. A noise was heard in the stable underneath the room, and the father, thinking it was the son, called out three or four times, but got no answer. A few minutes after Luigi entered without the lantern, which he had left below in the stable, and although his sister bade him good night he made no reply. As he entered the room his father called to him, “A fine time of night to come home.” “What then?” was the only answer given by Luigi. “You have never been home since morning,” went on the father. “What then?” was still the only answer. The father then told the son to hold his tongue, and again received the same reply. At last Venanzio, losing his temper, called out, “Be quiet, or I’ll break your head;” or, according to the story, “I’ll murder you:” to which Luigi only answered, “I may as well die to-day as to-morrow.” After that there was a short scuffle heard, and Venanzio
suddenly cried out as if in pain, “My God! my God!” The mother and daughter screamed for help, but by the time the neighbours had come in with lights, Luigi had run off. Venanzio was found reeling to and fro, with blood pouring from several wounds, and, in spite of medical aid, he died in the course of a few hours. Almost immediately after the commission of the crime Luigi was found by the gendarmes in the cottage of an uncle, and arrested on the spot.
These, as far as I can learn from the very confused documents before me, are all the facts admitted without question; or, more strictly speaking, which the Government states to have been unquestioned. Luigi was arrested on the night of the murder. Such small evidence as there was could have been ascertained in twenty-four hours, and yet the prisoner was never brought to trial till the 3rd of May, 1858; that is, eighteen months afterwards. On that day Luigi Bonci was arraigned before the civil and criminal court of Perugia, on the two counts of parricide, and of having illegal arms in his possession. The Court was composed of the President, Judge, Assistant Judge, and Deputy Judge of the district. These gentlemen (all, I should state, lay officials) were
assisted by the public prosecutor and the Government counsel for the defence. The course of proceedings is stated to have been as follows: prayers were first offered up for the Divine guidance, the prisoner was introduced and identified, the written depositions were read over, a narrative of the facts was given by the president, the prisoner was called upon to reply to the charges alleged against him, the witnesses for the crown and for the prisoner were heard respectively, the counsel for the prosecution called upon the court to condemn the prisoner, and was replied to by the counsel for the defence; the discussion was then declared closed, and after the judges had retired and deliberated, their sentence was given.
All the facts I have been able to put together about the case are gathered from this sentence and from those of the courts of appeal. These sentences, however, are extremely lengthy, very indistinct, and encumbered with a great deal of legal phraseology. As they are all alike I may as well give an abstract of this one as a specimen of all. The sentence begins with the following moral remarks: “Frequent paternal admonitions, alleged scarcity of daily food, and the evil counsels of others, had alienated the heart of the