Religion, when persecuted in any country, fails not to wreak vengeance on
the persecuting power. In such countries, virtue, generally, respect for
law, order and authority, as well as public security, rapidly diminish,
and the State discovers, although too late, that, in aiming at the Church,
it has struck against itself a deadly blow.
Since the inauguration of the much vaunted _Kulturkampf_, socialism has
increased to such a degree in Germany as to appal even Chancellor
Bismarck, whilst Italy, at the same time that it closed its convents and
Catholic colleges, was obliged to multiply not only its military barracks,
but also its prisons. In no part of Italian territory have these
preventives of crime, if, indeed, they may be so-called, proved
sufficient. So rapid has been the increase of crime, that, according to
official statistics, in the Province of Rome alone, seven thousand two
hundred and ninety-three cases were ascertained and brought before the
tribunals, in 1874. This is just double what appeared in the criminal
courts under the Pontifical government. In the whole kingdom there were
eighty-four thousand prisoners, or criminals under restraint. This is
thirty-five thousand more than in France, the general population of which
is greater by one-third, and four times more than in Great Britain, the
population of which is about the same as that of united Italy. This state
of crime is not surprising when it is considered that the rulers
themselves have never ceased to set the example of the most unscrupulous
and merciless theft and robbery. The new civil code, besides, appears to
have had no other object in view than to obliterate all idea of right, and
to legitimatize all robberies, past, present and future, in the
unfortunate kingdom of Italy. Article seven hundred and ten of this code
declares, plainly, _that property is acquired by possession_.
At Rome, barristers, judges, and even the most revolutionary journalists
are assassinated by private vengeance, in broad day, in the street, or in
their offices, and no one dare molest the murderers. In Romagna it was
found necessary to bring to justice an association of assassins, who were,
for the most part, persons of good education and men of property. In
Sicily matters were still worse. There, a society of Brigands, called
_Maffia_, holds the island in a state of perpetual terror. Numerous
Garibaldians who have been without employment since 1870, and were long
tolerated, on account of former complicity, added to the ranks of this
fraternity. The _Maffia_ rid themselves of another society, the _Kamorra_,
by the successive assassination at Palermo alone, of twenty-three of its
chiefs. All these crimes remain unpunished, none daring to bear witness
against the guilty.
In the departments of government there is not less moral disorder. The
finances are mismanaged and dilapidated. Notwithstanding the enormous and
oppressive increase of taxation, together with the forcible appropriation
of ecclesiastical property, deficits are the order of the day, and the
nation has been, more than once, and probably is still, on the verge of
bankruptcy. Truly, may the Italians, who are twenty-three to one, exclaim,
in their distress: _Quo usque tandem abuteris patientia nostra?_ “How
long, O disastrous revolution! wilt thou abuse our patience?”
Nor are the better thinking Italians without blame. Why did they not take
part—why do they not still take part in the elections, and return, as they
well may, a majority to the would-be constitutional parliament? Their
numbers would, undoubtedly, be imposing and influential. So much so,
indeed, that they must finally obtain admission, without burdening their
conscience with an obnoxious oath. What did not Daniel O’Connell,
Ireland’s liberator, accomplish, by causing himself alone to be elected
for an Irish constituency, and by proceeding to demand the seat to which
he was elected in the British parliament, without uttering an oath which
shocked his conscience?