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.
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