Execution of a criminal—Sympathy for his fate—The
Ghetto—Hardships of the Jews—The case of the Mortara child
not without precedent—Story of the merchant and his niece.
An event of no small importance in public estimation, which took
place during my stay in Ancona, the execution of a culprit condemned
according to the civil legislature, gave an insight into many curious
features of the national character. The criminal, who was a porter
employed in landing goods from vessels in the harbour, murdered his
master, a Jewish merchant, in revenge for having been discharged from
his employment, on account of his idle and insolent habits: watching
his opportunity, he came behind him at dusk, as he was walking in a
very narrow lane, and plunged a dagger into his heart. Contrary to
what occurs in nine cases out of ten in this country, the assassin was
captured, and, stranger still, convicted, after having been in prison
only six or seven months. Usually two or three years elapse between the
commission of the offence and the punishment awarded to it, so that
all recollection of the crime is well-nigh lost, and the predominant
feeling becomes one of sympathy for the prisoner.
The whole town was in commotion for two or three days preceding the
execution, and numerous were the inquiries as to the state of the
convict—whether he was sanguine in his hopes of a reprieve, whether
his health had suffered from imprisonment, and so forth; topics that
divided public attention with the expected arrival of the _boja_, the
dreaded functionary of the law, who was brought into the town in a
close carriage escorted by gendarmes—precautions always required to
protect him from the fury of the populace. Every one was interested:
the men pitied the criminal, the women prayed for him; while the Jewish
residents, fearful of incurring general odium, kept much within the
Ghetto, the quarter of the town especially assigned to them; moreover,
a deputation of some of their most influential members had gone up to
Rome to ask pardon for the murderer, so great was their apprehension
of the vengeance that might be visited upon the whole community if
the execution took place. But the offence had been too flagrant to be
passed over, the opportunity was also advantageous for a display of
justice and impartiality, and the Government held to their previous
decision.
The prisoner meantime was kept in uncertainty of his fate, until the
night before the day fixed upon for execution, when the officials,
entering his cell, informed him that his appeal for mercy had been
rejected, and bade him prepare for death the following morning.
According to long-established custom, he was allowed the singular boon
of selecting whatever he most fancied for his supper; no rarity was
denied him; and I remember hearing it announced that he had chosen some
particular kind of fish held in great esteem, which was with difficulty
procured. This meal over, a confraternity called the _Compagnia della
Buona Morte_—literally of the Good Death—comprising some of the old
nobles, merchants, and tradesmen—a relic of the countless religious
associations of the Middle Ages, still held together by a bond more
of custom and kindly feeling than of faith—entered upon the office of
ministering to the last hours of the condemned. Some remained with him
all night, accompanying him to the prison-chapel, where the appropriate
services were performed; and the others, dispersed about the town,
went from house to house collecting money to be applied in masses for
his soul. They did not proffer a word, but stood like spectres at the
door, completely enshrouded in their black robes and peaked cowls,
and rattling the box in which the alms were to be deposited, whereon a
death's-head and cross-bones were rudely painted. It was one of those
successful appeals to their senses, more especially to their terror
of aught connected with death, to which these people are so peculiarly
sensitive; and none, I verily believe, not even of the most determined
_increduli_, but turned pale, and hastened to make his offering. The
very existence of such a brotherhood, in the midst of so much unbelief,
is a paradox, and is one of those inconsistencies which meet one at
every step in attempting any analysis of the Italian character. As soon
as day broke, many women repaired to the churches to hear the first
mass, with the intention, as it is termed, of rendering it available to
the soul of the departing sinner—some remaining upon their knees until
they knew he was no more.
The good offices of the Buona Morte extended to the last; they
accompanied the criminal to the scaffold, besides a long train of
priests and friars, and then followed his remains to the place of
interment. As may be supposed, crowds of the populace flocked to the
execution; but from the common report, it would appear that far less
of that revolting ribaldry and indifference was displayed than has
been so loudly protested against as stigmatizing the English under
similar circumstances. As a means of enforcing the moral lesson, many
fathers took their children to the spot; and when all was over, and
the guillotine had done its ghastly office, beat them severely, to
impress upon them the fatal consequences of crime; yet, in spite of
this discipline, it seemed too probable that the unbounded interest
manifested for the departed, the praises lavished upon his penitence,
and upon his courage in encountering death, must completely have done
away with any salutary reflections the terrible spectacle had produced.
“Well, he died like an angel!” said one lady to us. “He was so obedient
to his confessor, that he took a cup of coffee at his request just
before leaving the prison, although he had previously declined any
refreshment.”
“Yes,” said another; “and he confessed everything, and seemed so
resigned! Certainly he had an edifying end!”
“He must have been a good man at heart,” remarked a third; “it was a
pity almost to sacrifice him under the circumstances. There was great
moderation, too, amongst the people; for they all felt _that_. Many
have thought it hard a Christian's life should suffer for having caused
the death of a Jew!”
A singular idea this, to the English untravelled reader at least; but
if he will accompany me into the Ghetto of Ancona, and take a glance
at the condition of the inhabitants he will find greater cause for
surprise at discovering, in the middle of the nineteenth century,
so many of the remains of the oppression and tyranny under which the
Hebrew race once universally groaned. The Jewish community in Ancona
comprehends upwards of 3000 persons—a large proportion where the entire
population does not exceed 30,000,—and these are by law restricted to
a small and densely-crowded part of the town, in which the streets are
so narrow that two people literally cannot walk abreast; and the marvel
is how the process of construction could ever have been carried on, or
such massive buildings erected, in such extraordinary proximity. The
want of cleanliness, of light, of air, in this miserable region, is
indescribable; yet great as are these evils, they seem mere trifles in
comparison with the contempt and vexatious enactments and privations by
which its occupants are perpetually harassed.
They cannot carry out their dead for interment in the wild desolate
burying-ground beyond the gates by day, as they would inevitably be
exposed to the taunts and hisses of the populace, who have been known
to throw stones at the coffin as it passed: it is under favour of the
dusk alone that the Hebrews venture forth to consign their departed
brethren to the grave. They cannot go from one town of the State to
another without a permission from the Inquisition, in addition to the
usual police formalities common to their Christian fellow-subjects.
Their lives are embittered by perpetual fear and distrust. The incident
of the secret baptism of the Mortara child by a Christian maid-servant,
and his seizure by the ecclesiastical authorities, which has made
such noise throughout Europe, is by no means the first of a similar
description. But some years ago there was no free press in Piedmont to
bring such facts to light, and hold them up to public condemnation. The
story which I shall briefly relate, and for the perfect truth of which
I can vouch, seems to me even sadder than that of Edgar Mortara.
About twenty years since, a Jewish merchant and his wife, being
childless, adopted a niece, who grew up beautiful, affectionate,
and the delight of their old age. Like many other children of
the community, she had been sent in her infancy to be nursed by a
peasant-woman in the country, whose extreme poverty alone induced her
to stoop to what is considered the degradation of rearing a Jewish
child. This woman, dying when the girl was about eighteen, divulged
to the priest who attended her death-bed that she had baptized her
nursling, then an infant of only a few months old; but had ever since
kept the secret shut up in her own heart, where it gnawed and preyed
upon her. The confessor applauded her for her zeal, declaring that by
her instrumentality a soul was rescued from perdition; and scarcely had
she breathed her last, when he hastened to the Inquisition in Ancona,
and announced the discovery he had made.
Without a moment's delay, a body of Dominican monks, the implacable
enemies of the Jews, accompanied by the requisite officials of the
police, repaired to the merchant's house, and peremptorily demanded
that his niece, as a Christian convert, baptized in infancy by her
nurse, should be given up to them. The most frantic remonstrances
proved unavailing; she was torn from her adopted parents, and placed
in a convent, as well for the purpose of religious instruction, as to
secure her from all intercourse with her family.
Meantime, the poor uncle took the most energetic measures for her
liberation, and secretly wrote, exhorting her to hold firm, with the
promise of 10,000 dollars for her dowry, if she succeeded in returning
to him. The letter was intercepted, and fell into the hands of the
priests, who did not, however, bring it forward until their plans
were matured. He was kept for some months in suspense, being in total
ignorance of his niece's proceedings, and denied all correspondence
with her; when it was at length intimated to him that she had readily
imbibed the tenets of her religion, was happy at her miraculous
deliverance, and willing to receive a husband at the hands of her
spiritual directors: in furtherance of which desirable end, the sum of
money he had proffered in the event of her restoration to him, was now
claimed as her marriage-portion. Inexpressibly mortified and indignant,
he yet had no alternative but to submit, and the dowry was made over to
the ecclesiastical authorities.
From the day on which she had been borne shrieking from their home,
the merchant and his wife never again set eyes upon their child, never
learned whether old affections yet stirred within her, and never knew
whether she ever became really satisfied with her lot. The youth to
whom she had been united was an obscure _impiegato_ in some little town
of the interior, where, I believe, she still resides. The aunt, quite
heart-broken, quitted the scene of so many agonizing recollections,
and removed to Tuscany, where greater religious liberty was at that
time enjoyed; while the old man divided his time between his wife
and Florence and his business in Ancona, to which he still clung with
characteristic eagerness: but the charm of life was gone, and he moved
about his accustomed haunts a changed and sorrow-stricken man.
With the possibility of a similar fate awaiting their
children;—continually threatened with the revival of certain old laws
which treated Jews as the very pariahs of society, and which were
actually repromulgated seven or eight years ago, although the energetic
proceedings of the Rothschilds, who held the needy Roman government
in their grasp, caused them to be suddenly withdrawn;—excluded from
all social intercourse with the Christian population;—looked down upon
even by the lowest, who consider they lose caste by acting as their
servants,—it seems wonderful to find this persecuted race holding
merry-makings in the Ghetto, and seemingly indifferent to their
degraded position.