e
crowded,--crowded to suffocation with choking, despairing victims. In
the midst of this congeries of dungeons, surrounded by clanking chains
and weeping captives, stands the chair of the "Holy Father."

Let us take a look into these prisons, as described to me by reputable
and well-informed parties in Rome. These prisons are of three classes.
The first class consists of cells of from seven to eight feet square.
The space is little more than a man's height when he stands erect, and a
man's length when he stretches himself on the floor, and can contain
only that amount of atmospheric air necessary for the consumption of one
person. These cells are now made to receive two prisoners, who are
compelled to divide betwixt them the air adequate for only one. The
second class consists of cells constructed to hold ten persons each. In
the present great demand for prison-room these are held to afford ample
accommodation for a little crowd of twenty persons. Their one window is
so high in the wall, that the wretched men who are shut in here are
obliged to mount by turns on each other's shoulders, to obtain a breath
of air. Last of all comes the common prison. It is a spacious place,
containing from forty to fifty persons, who lie day and night on straw
too foul for a stable. It matters not what the means of the prisoner may
be; he must wear the prison dress, and live on the prison diet. The
jailor is empowered, should the slightest provocation be offered, to
flog the prisoner, or to load his limbs so heavily with irons, that he
scarce can move. And who are they who tenant these places? Violators of
the law,--brigands, murderers? No! Those who have been dragged thither
are the very _elite_ of the Roman population. There many of them lie for
years, without being brought to trial; and if they thus escape the
scaffold, they perish more slowly, but not less surely, and much more
miserably, by the pestilential air, the unwholesome food, and the
horrible treatment of the jail. Nor is this the worst of it. I was told
by those in Rome who had the best opportunities of knowing, but whose
names I do not here choose to mention, that the sufferings of the
prisoners had been much aggravated,--indeed, made unendurable,--by the
expedient of the Government which confines malefactors and desperadoes
along with them. These characters are permitted to have their own way in
the prisons; they lord it over the rest, compel them to do the most
disgustin