TRIALS FOR MURDER.
The idler about the streets of Rome may, from time to time, catch sight,
on blank walls and dead corners, of long white strips of paper, covered
with close-printed lines of most uninviting looking type, and headed with
the Papal arms--the cross-keys and tiara. If, being like myself
afflicted with an inquisitive turn of mind, he takes the trouble of
deciphering these hieroglyphic documents, his labour would not be
altogether thrown away. Those straggling strips, stuck up in out-of-the-
way places, glanced at by a few idle passers-by, and torn down by the
prowling vagabonds of the streets after a day or two for the sake of the
paper, are the sole public records of justice issued, or allowed to be
issued, under the Pontifical government. Trials are carried on here with
closed doors; no spectators are admitted; no reports of the proceedings
are published. In capital cases, however, _after_ the execution of the
criminal has taken place a sort of _Proces 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.
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