WHY ROMANS DETEST THE PAPACY.

FROM AN OCCASIONAL CORRESPONDENT.]

• Rome, March 20. I SIT down here in Rome to tell you, if I can, what the Papal Govern- ment really means to its people, besides mere political despotism. First, the Jurisprudence of the Papal States belongs to the dark ages. There is no trial by jury, no open trial at all, no Habeas Corpus, no inquests. The judges are all the creatures of the Government. The advocates are mostly utterly venal, and of a very low social rank. The police are notoriously greater robbers than the brigands themselves. Thus the personal liberty and property of the Romans is utterly un- safe. A man may be arrested-at any moment on the secret informa- tion of a spy or an enemy, and thrown into prison without examina- tion, there to wait for months or years for the chance of a trial, which will itself be a mockery of justice, since if he can bribe his judges he may escape punishment for the direst crimes, and if he cannot so bribe he may suffer the galleys for no crime at all. This does not apply merely to questions of political offence, for which the prison of San Michele is at this moment crowded with captives, many of whom have languished there since 1849, without trial of any kind, but to every other supposed crime. Those accused of murder, robbery, &e., are rarely tried in less than six or eight months, and often not for a year or two after their arrest. One woman was seven years in prison before she was executed for the murder of a cruel husband, while a man who murdered his unoffending wife was released on the presentation of a bribe of 150 scudi to his judge.

Such things are too common to attract notice. This last month a Maltese sailor (an English subject) was by accident heard of as shut up in the prison of Civita Vecchia. The Consul demanded his t and it then appeared that no one knew what offence he was suppose to have committed. He bad been a year in jail, and it was suggested that he had probably been guilty of getting drunk on landing from his ship ! These are not merely _practical mistakes, but the actual theory of Roman law at present is that the Government has unlimited right of arrest without alleging any crime. Last week a female spy, placed by Goyon about the person of the Queen of Naples, was arrested by order of De Morode, and Goyon's letters to her were seized at the same time. The French General indignantly demanded her release, to which De Merode replied that the state of siege in Rome had never been abolished, and martial law still prevailed. This De Merode has his own pollee, quite independently _of the regular chief, Matteucci, and he agaht of the French Prefet, M. Mangin, while beside them all there is the fourth system of the priestly tribunal, whose spies denounce all neglect of the sacraments, &o.

As to the security of property, it would be strange indeed if, while the Pope actually organizes the !Neapolitan brigandage, he was very hard on the ladroni in his own dominions. Highway robberies are as much the fashion in Rome in 1862 as on Blackheath in 1762. Last week an English gentleman was attacked in the broadest street in Rome, the

Via Due Maeelli, not 100 yards from the Piazza di Sp at at eight o'clock of a fine evening, and only saved his watch from the two mis- creants who seized it, by holding the dagger of one of them in his

hand till cut to the bone. When property is lost in Rome no one dreams of recovering it through the pollee. They have probably found it, indeed, and have it safe in their possession, but they will only restore it to the owner on payment of fees exceeding its value. If money has been taken they will not return it at all, but told lately a poor artist who had been robbed of his pictures and scudi together, that he might take back his pictures if he pleased (they being perfectly spoiled and valueless), but as to the smith found with them he must not expect to claim them. Who could identify scudi P In the performance of their arduous duties of domiciliary visits these sbirri are brutal and cruel in the highest degree. On the occasion of the arrests subsequent to the late demonstration in the Forum, they invaded one apartment at night, and broke up walls and floors around a poor lady dying of cancer, whose only son they carried off with them to prison, doubtless never to emerge therefrom during the brief remainder of her life. At one gentlemau's house they amused themselves by destroying the photo- graphs of Victor Emanuel, &e., found in the album, by covering them with saliva!

Supposing, however, the police to behave with ordinary decency,

and the trial to take place without enormous delay, still the accused has no sort of security that he will be treated justly, or with any ap- proximation to justice. There is no code of modern Roman law extant, the old laws theoretically still in force are inapplicable to the present state of things, and thus it comes to pass that in each case the judge gives what is called a Declaratorio, that is, a sentence founded on his own judgment, and with less regard to any existing law than a Cadi of the "Arabian Nights."' Further yet, the absolute corruption of public morals renders it easy for any man to obtain witnesses to any amount to swear anything he pleases. A most ridiculous story to this purpose is current in Home. An English gentleman, Mr. F—, had a villa adjoining that of the Marchese A—. One morning the Marchese's servants discovered that a calf belonging to their master was killed. Suspicion fell on a pair of fine dogs kept by Mr. F—, and the latter immediately promised to make due restitution when he should have satisfied himself that his dogs were the culprits. Before evening, however, he found himself summoned in legal form to pay the damage_s for the calf, and indignant at the Marchese's want of courtesy, Mr. F— went to a Roman lawyer of eminence, and put the case into his hands. "Will you leave me to go quite my own way ?" inquired the advocate; "for, if otherwise, 1 fear there is no chance of your gaming your suit against so powerful a man." "I leave it all with do as you please," answered Mr. F—, "I am only anxious not to be cheated." The day of trial, after vast delay, at length arrived. Mr. F— was not a little amazed (considering the calf was killed at night, no one knew how) to find seven witnesses get up on the side of the prosecution, and swear that they had seen with their own eyes the calf killed by two black dogs, with rough hair and long tails—of course the description of Mr. F—'s unfortu- nate setters. Still greater was his astonishment when, at the call of the advocate for the defence, nine " good men and true" were called, who one and all deposed, with all imaginable solemnity, that they had seen the calf killed by two white dogs, with smooth hair and short tails, not bearing the remotest resemblance to the dogs of Mr. F—. The sequel of the story is almost as good as the beginning. The judge, after hearing the testimony of the witnesses, turned to the Marchese, and said, " I regret, Signor Marchese, that the majority of witnesses being against you, I cannot give the cause injour favour. All that I can do for you is this—I hereby fine Mr. F— thirty midi for keeping dogs di cattiva reputazione (of a bad reputation)." Again the commerce of Rome is so shackled and fettered by mono- polies, licenses, dotputas, and octrois, that it is probably at this mo- ment, notwithstanding the vast annual tide of wealthy foreigners, the most stagnant of the larger cities of Europe. It has been the custom for a long period for the Popes either to grant to their favourites or sell to the Highest bidder monopolies of trade in objects we can hardly conceive subject to such a process. There are monopolies of the right to manufacture candles, pins, soap, gas, ironworks, and a hundred other objects, There are also monopolies of the right to sell fish, snow, oil, Orvieto wine, &c. &c. Every one who trades in any of these things, or, as we may say, in anything at all, must obtain permission of the monopolists, of course by the payment of sufficient sums. The result is obvious. A certain number of things are made in Rome especially for the foreigner, to wit, jewellery, copies of pictures, bronzes, andRoman scarfs. Beyond these there is actually no

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manufacture in the whole city worthy to be mentioned. The com- monest china and glass, gloves, textile fabrics of nearly every species, are all imported. The result is that the price of living in Rome is ex- ceedingly high—a third more at least for the humbler class than in

Florence, while, at the same time, there is no possible path open to their industry. The one eternal temptation of the lottery at every corner alone offers itself, and this alone it would seem that the Government

really desires them to follow. If gambling be, indeed, as Archbishop Whately has well defined it, the sin of seeking to gain our neighbour's goods without giving him anything in return, then, Indeed, the Pontiff is double-dyed in the offence, for he gambles with the most absolute certainty of fleecing his foolish flock in a proportion of riches to chances quite unheard of. Next, the intellectual life of Rome is altogether stagnant beneath the pressure of political and religious tyranny. Hardly a book worth notice is published for years together on any subject whatever; for, who indeed could write under the censorship of the Propaganda, or find a publisher under the Papal Government ? The importation of

foreign books of science, of philosophy, or history, is forbidden, pre-

cisely in the ratio of the value of such works. The result is, that even for English visitors of studious habits reading becomes a rare and ex.

pensive pleasure, and for the Romans themselves it is an exceptional action to take up a book at all. Not in one house in twenty belonging to any class of Italian society will the signs of a volume or a magazine relieve the monotonous nick-nackery of their drawing-rooms. The

three wretched little newspapers which exist are merely such official rechaufee of foreign intelligence as the paternal Government sees fit

to offer to the digestion of its subjects, and it is small marvel that few care to read them at all. Only from one class of literature does the embargo seem practically removed, and that is French novels and their

translations. It would probably be a very exaggerated caloulation that fifty modern Romans possess the most moderate acquaintance with the literature of Palestine, of Greece, of Germany, or of Eng. land. On the other hand, it is to be doubted whether any who can read at all have not read the Dame aux Camelia& Lastly, there are the morals of Rome, in which, above all other things, the corruption of the present system is manifest. We English

have not reason, God knows, to make any special boast in these matters. Yet there are peculiar horrors attached to the state of manners in Rome which surpass all that we know, either among ourselves, or even among the lax moralities of Florence and Paris. These are not subjects which can be treated in letters like the present ; I can, therefore, only state a few broad facts, and leave the reader to draw his conclusions. The population of the city of Rome is some- what under 200,000 souls. Of these less than 100,000, of course, are males, and less than 70,000 adult males. Of these 70,000 marriageable men, t5,000 are French soldiers, 12,000 Pontifical troops of all kinds, and about 23,000 ecclesiastics bound by vows of celibacy. Here are actually 50,000 men restrained from marriage in a city which only contains 70,000 in all, and where there are 70,000 women. It is needless to point the moral of such an unnatural condition of society. The inevitable disastrous results have but been made worse by the prudery of the Papal Government, assuming an outside of extraor- dinary purity, and forbidding those obvious forms of vice visible in other cities. In a word, there is no lost class in Rome, as in England,

but all domestic life is polluted. There are few lapses due to love, like those of Northern Italy, but the temptations of gain are recog- nized on all hands with cynical depravity. As to the convents, so far

as anything can be known concerning them, they are abysses of vice; and the discovery made a year ago, at St. Duofrio, that a series of hapless girls had been first seduced by their directors (one of whom, Monsignor B., holds still a high office about the Pope), and then poisoned, when the consequences became visible—this discovery, we say, only created excitement because the priestly offenders had gone beyond their usual prey of nuns who have taken the veil, and had wronged the hapless pupils sent to them only for education. Thus, then, for civil rights and security of person and property, for sanitary safety, for commerce, for intellectual life and for moral purity, the Roman must struggle for the overthrow of the priestly despotism which supports all forms of wrong. Political enfranchisement is not to him the power of voting for this or that representative, or the call,

ing a Sing or Pope sovereign. It is, first, the security of his life and liberty from corrupt judges,perjured spies, and brutal police; it is the establishment of a code of fixed laws, and the consequent assurance that he will not suffer death, exile, or confiscation without a crime, while the man who robs or assassinates him will be set free, and per. haps rewarded for his bandit services. Secondly, it is the preserva- tion of his health, and that of those dear to him, from the diseases en- gendered by the neglect of the commonest sanitary regulations. 'Thirdly, it is the release of commerce from restrictions and unjust interferences which harass and rob him at every turn. And it is the substitution in the place of such wrongs of a state of great mercantile prosperity, to which it cannot be doubted that Rome will attain when it becomes the capital of a free and united Italy, and the seat of the national Government and Parliament. Fourthly, it is the escape from a mental bondage more galling than any civil injustice; the bond- age which shuts out from the Roman the literature of the rest of the world, while it has strangled that of his own country to death,—a bondage which closes his own lips from the expression of his thoughts even among his friends, and spreads an atmosphere of dis- trust and dissimulation over the whole of the society in which he moves. Fifthly, and lastly, it is the removal of those causes of im- morality which keep Rome a sink of corruption, the presence of an inordinate army, and above all the celibacy of the 23,000 clergy, who are at once the sole teachers of religion, and the chief masters in every Vice. This is the "Itoatlif QUESTION "—a question of which Political Inde- pendence, albeit necessarily the symbol, is in itself the smallest of the interests concerned. It is the question of civil, commercial, mental and moral life or death to the people of Rome,