WOMEN POLITICALS IN ITALY [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—Information of a grave character has reached us from reliable sources regarding the position of women politicals in Italy. It is to the following effect : (1) Innocent women are being arrested in considerable numbers and kept a long time in confinement in the hope of getting from them incriminating evidence against others.
(2) Women prisoners are conveyed from place to place under most exacting physical conditions.
(3) The Prison of Trani and the Camp for Deportees at Ponza are such as to engender tuberculosis from which several of the women who entered in good health arc now suffering.
(4) Alleged breaches of prison discipline are punished with the utmost rigour including weeks and sometimes months of solitary confinement. This is we believe contrary to the Italian Penal Code.
(5) Women have been compelled to get up during the night to show themselves at the door of their cells to the blaekshirts.
(6) Women have been stripped to discover possible iner* '- mating documents in the presence of male police.
(7) Several of the women are dangerously ill ; mention in particular is made of Camilla Ravena, Giorgina Rossetti, Lea Giaccaglia, and Maria Baroncini.
We rely on the traditional friendship between our two coun- tries to procure for this statement the careful consideration of the Italian Government ; and we trust that as a result the abuses to which we have called attention will be speedily remedied.—We are, Sir, &c., ARNOLD ; HARRISON BARROW ; VERA BRITTAIN ; HEWLETT JOHNSON ; EMMELINE PETHICIC- LAWRENCE ; EVELYN SHARP.
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