g offices, and attempt even outrages on their person, which
propriety leaves without a name. Their sufferings are indescribable. The
consequence of this accumulation of horrors,--foul air, insufficient
food, and the fearful society with which the walls and chains of their
prison compel them to mingle,--is, that a great many of the prisoners
have died, some have sought to terminate their woe by suicide, while
others have been carried raving to a madhouse. Mr Freeborn assured me
that several of his Roman acquaintances had been carried to these places
sane men, as well as innocent men, and, after a short confinement, they
had been brought out maniacs and madmen. He would have preferred to have
seen them shot at once. It is a prelate who has charge of these prisons.

I have described the higher machinery which the Pope employs,--the
tribunals,--judges,--the secret process,--the tyrannous Gregorian Code;
let me next bring into view the inferior machinery of the Pontifical
Government. The Roman _sbirri_ have an European reputation. One must be
no ordinary villain,--he must be, in short, a perfected and finished
scoundrel,--to merit a place in this honourable corps. The _sbirri_ are
chiefly from the kingdom of Naples. They dress in plain clothes, go in
twos and threes, are easily distinguished, and are permitted to carry
larger walking-sticks than the Romans, whom the French commandant has
forbidden to come abroad with any but the merest twig. Some of these
spies wear spurs, the better to deceive and to succeed in their fiendish
work. No disguise, however, can conceal the _sbirro_. His look, so
unmistakeably villanous, proclaims the spy. These fellows will not be
defeated in their purposes. They carry, it is said, _articles of
conviction_, that is, political papers, on their person, which they use,
in lack of other material, to compass the ruin of their victim. They can
stop any one they please on the street, compel him to produce his
papers, and, when they choose not to be satisfied with them, march him
off to prison. When they visit a house where they have resolved to make
a seizure, they search it; and if they do not find what may criminate
the man, they drop the papers they have brought with them, and swear
that they found them in the house. What can solemn protestations do
against armed ruffians, backed by hireling judges, who, like Impaccianti
and Belli, have been taken from the bagnio and the galleys, thrust into
orders,