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  • April 1, 1856
  • Page 21
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The Freemasons' Monthly Magazine, April 1, 1856: Page 21

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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.

Untitled Article

plicity as that ever-fresh story of the Vicar of Wakefield . ¥ e extract the following morceaux as interesting in the topics they treat of , and also as exponent of the writer ' s style .

ITALIANS AT HOME . a Facts are stubborn things , Miss Davenne , and observation of facts will show you that amongst us there is scarcely an example of wives and daughters bearing the marks of the brutality of their husbands and fathers ! that drunkenness is a very rare thing , and so is crime ; that there are whole provinces —that of San Bemo is one—in which no murder has been committed within the

memory of man . Property is so divided , that the two extremes of great riches and great poverty are almost unknown , and so , fortunately , are most of the evils arising out of them , —beggary for instance . I am not speaking of the great towns of course , but of the country districts , in which nearly every man owns his little bit of land , which he cultivates as well as he can . The small proprietor , who has

time to spare , hires his services to the neighbour , who , possessing more land , requires more hands ; but both employer and employed deal and converse with each other on a footing of perfect equality . The hired labourer no more considers himself the inferior of his employer because he takes money from him , than the employer thinks himself the labourer ' s superior for paying it . " " You are describing a real Arcadia , " said laicy .

"I wish it were so , " continued Antonio , shaking his head ; " but there are deep shades to the picture . The baneful action of despotism makes itself felt here , as everywhere else in Italy . The state of utter ignorance in which the populations I am speaking of are left by a government systematically hostile to all sorts of instruction : the worship of the dead letter in lieu of the spirit that vivifies , in

which they are nursed and kept by their priests ; the habits of dissembling grievances , for which there is no possible redress , and which it would be dangerous to resent ;—all these deleterious influences combine to keep the standard of morality rather low . The man who would not for the world eat a morsel of meat on Friday , or miss hearing a mass on a saint ' s day , will not scruple to cheat his master of an hour ' s work , or to say the thing that is not , to obtain an abatement

in the rent he pays to his landlord . "

HOW TO TREAT PATKIOTS ,, " On the names of the prisoners being called over , one of them , Margherita ( a custom-house officer ) , rises to retract his former declaration , extorted , he says-, through physical and moral coercion , and suggested by the Judge Inquisitore himself . Another , Pittera ( a writing-master ) , declares , that when taken out of a criminate ( an underground cell , almost or wholly without light ) to be examined in the Castello ( dell' Uovo ) , he was , in consequence of constant privations and

repeated menaces , overcome by mental stupor . A third , Antonietti ( a customhouse agent ) , follows , saying that , when interrogated , he was so exhausted in mind and body he would willingly have signed his own sentence of death . If any wish to know more distinctly what kind of pressure it was that could thus unnerve and unman far from sensitive weakly persons , Pironto and many besides him , will tell us the particulars . Pironto , a late deputy and magistrate , relates having been in solitary confinement in a dungeon , where he had to lie on the naked

ground , amid every sort of vermin , for forty-two days . His hair and beard , by special orders , were shaved by a galley-slave . He then underwent an insidious examination from the commandant of the castle , who tried first threats , then wheedling promising him the royal clemency , to induce him to make revelations , i . e . turn king's evidence . De Simone , a perfumer , was threatened with two

hundred blows of sticks soaked in water , Paucitano ( a contract-builder , he of the explosive bottle ) was dragged to the Prefecture of Police by twenty Swiss guards , aix police-inspectors , and twelve sbirri , who beat him , spat on him , tore lus clothes , hair , and board . Ho was kept for two hours at the police-ofncc bound with wet ropes , then conducted to the castle , thrust down into a dark , damp criminalc , without even a handful of straw to lie on , and detained there for nine

“The Freemasons' Monthly Magazine: 1856-04-01, Page 21” Masonic Periodicals Online, Library and Museum of Freemasonry, 7 July 2025, django:8000/periodicals/mmr/issues/frm_01041856/page/21/.
  • List
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Title Category Page
LODGES IN THE WEST AND SOUTH, CANADA, MALTA, TRINIDAD-OUR DUTY. Article 1
FREEMASONRY IN GREAT BRITAIN. Article 7
NOTES OF A YACHT'S CRUISE TO BALAKLAVA. Article 11
THE WONDERS OF NATURE. Article 14
REVIEWS OF NEW BOOKS. Article 19
FACES IN THE EIRE. Article 25
CORRESPONDENCE. Article 26
TO THE EDITOR OF THE FREEMASONS' MAGAZIN AND MASONIC MIRROR. Article 27
MASONIC CHARITIES. Article 29
NOTES AND QUERIES. Article 30
FINE ARTS. Article 30
THE MASONIC MIRROR. MASONIC REFORM Article 31
NOTICES OF MOTION. Article 36
THE BOYS' SCHOOL. Article 37
METROPOLITAN. Article 41
INSTRUCTION. Article 47
PROVINCIAL. Article 47
ROYAL ARCH. Article 54
KNIGHTS TEMPLAR. Article 55
SCOTLAND. Article 56
COLONIAL. Article 60
SWITZERLAND. Article 62
SUMMARY OF NEWS FOR MARCH. Article 62
Obituary. Article 65
NOTICE. Article 68
TO COEEESPONDENTS. Article 68
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.

Untitled Article

plicity as that ever-fresh story of the Vicar of Wakefield . ¥ e extract the following morceaux as interesting in the topics they treat of , and also as exponent of the writer ' s style .

ITALIANS AT HOME . a Facts are stubborn things , Miss Davenne , and observation of facts will show you that amongst us there is scarcely an example of wives and daughters bearing the marks of the brutality of their husbands and fathers ! that drunkenness is a very rare thing , and so is crime ; that there are whole provinces —that of San Bemo is one—in which no murder has been committed within the

memory of man . Property is so divided , that the two extremes of great riches and great poverty are almost unknown , and so , fortunately , are most of the evils arising out of them , —beggary for instance . I am not speaking of the great towns of course , but of the country districts , in which nearly every man owns his little bit of land , which he cultivates as well as he can . The small proprietor , who has

time to spare , hires his services to the neighbour , who , possessing more land , requires more hands ; but both employer and employed deal and converse with each other on a footing of perfect equality . The hired labourer no more considers himself the inferior of his employer because he takes money from him , than the employer thinks himself the labourer ' s superior for paying it . " " You are describing a real Arcadia , " said laicy .

"I wish it were so , " continued Antonio , shaking his head ; " but there are deep shades to the picture . The baneful action of despotism makes itself felt here , as everywhere else in Italy . The state of utter ignorance in which the populations I am speaking of are left by a government systematically hostile to all sorts of instruction : the worship of the dead letter in lieu of the spirit that vivifies , in

which they are nursed and kept by their priests ; the habits of dissembling grievances , for which there is no possible redress , and which it would be dangerous to resent ;—all these deleterious influences combine to keep the standard of morality rather low . The man who would not for the world eat a morsel of meat on Friday , or miss hearing a mass on a saint ' s day , will not scruple to cheat his master of an hour ' s work , or to say the thing that is not , to obtain an abatement

in the rent he pays to his landlord . "

HOW TO TREAT PATKIOTS ,, " On the names of the prisoners being called over , one of them , Margherita ( a custom-house officer ) , rises to retract his former declaration , extorted , he says-, through physical and moral coercion , and suggested by the Judge Inquisitore himself . Another , Pittera ( a writing-master ) , declares , that when taken out of a criminate ( an underground cell , almost or wholly without light ) to be examined in the Castello ( dell' Uovo ) , he was , in consequence of constant privations and

repeated menaces , overcome by mental stupor . A third , Antonietti ( a customhouse agent ) , follows , saying that , when interrogated , he was so exhausted in mind and body he would willingly have signed his own sentence of death . If any wish to know more distinctly what kind of pressure it was that could thus unnerve and unman far from sensitive weakly persons , Pironto and many besides him , will tell us the particulars . Pironto , a late deputy and magistrate , relates having been in solitary confinement in a dungeon , where he had to lie on the naked

ground , amid every sort of vermin , for forty-two days . His hair and beard , by special orders , were shaved by a galley-slave . He then underwent an insidious examination from the commandant of the castle , who tried first threats , then wheedling promising him the royal clemency , to induce him to make revelations , i . e . turn king's evidence . De Simone , a perfumer , was threatened with two

hundred blows of sticks soaked in water , Paucitano ( a contract-builder , he of the explosive bottle ) was dragged to the Prefecture of Police by twenty Swiss guards , aix police-inspectors , and twelve sbirri , who beat him , spat on him , tore lus clothes , hair , and board . Ho was kept for two hours at the police-ofncc bound with wet ropes , then conducted to the castle , thrust down into a dark , damp criminalc , without even a handful of straw to lie on , and detained there for nine

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