of his, a druggist, was one day
dragged summarily from his business, and lodged in jail, where he was
detained a whole month, although to this hour he has not been told what
he had done, or said, or thought amiss. During the Constitution this man
had been called in, in his scientific capacity simply, to superintend an
electric telegraph which ran, if I mistake not, betwixt the Capitol and
St Peter's. But beyond this he had taken no political action and
expressed no political sentiment whatever. He knew well that this would
avail him nothing; and glad he was to escape from incarceration with the
remark, _meno male, alias_, it might have been worse.

They say that the Inquisition was an affair of the sixteenth century;
that its fires are cold; its racks and screws are rusted; and that it
would be just as impossible to bring back the Inquisition as to bring
back the centuries in which it flourished. That is fine talking; and
there are simpletons who believe it. But look at Rome. What is the
Government of the Papal States, but just the Government of the
Inquisition? There there are midnight apprehensions, secret trials,
familiars, torture by flogging, by loading with irons, and other yet
more refined modes of cruelty,--in short, all the machinery of the Holy
Office. The canon law, whose full blessing Italy now enjoys, is the
Inquisition; for wherever the one comes, there the other will follow it.
Let me describe the secresy and terror with which apprehensions are made
at Rome. The forms of the Inquisition are closely followed herein. The
deed is one of darkness, and the darkest hours of the twenty-four,
namely, from twelve till two of the morning, are taken for its
perpetration. At midnight half a dozen _sbirri_ proceed to the house of
the unhappy man marked out for arrest. Two take their place at the
door, two at the windows, and two at the back-door, to make all sure.
They knock gently at the door. If it is opened, well; if not, they knock
a second time. If still it is not opened, it is driven in by force. The
_sbirri_ rush in; they seize the man; they drag him from his bed; there
is no time for parting adieus with his family; they hurry him through
the streets to prison. That very night, or the next, his trial is
proceeded with,--that is, when it is intended that there shall be
further proceedings; for many, as we have said, are imprisoned for long
months, without either accusation or trial. But what a mockery is the
tr