ew of justice, and the identity between the court and the
prosecution, the abuse of the unlimited power of appeal, and the extent
to which this appeal from a lay to a clerical court places justice
virtually in the hands of the priesthood; and finally, the secret and
private character of the whole investigation, coupled with the utter
absence of any check on injustice through publicity, are all matters
patent even to a casual observer. If such, I ask, is Papal justice, when
it has no reason for concealment and has right upon its side, what would
it be in a case where injustice was sought to be perpetrated and
concealed?
CHAPTER V.--continued. THE "SANTURRI" MURDER.
Some months after I had written the question which closes the last
chapter, I was fortunate enough to obtain a partial answer to it. During
the present year the Cavaliere Gennarelli, a Roman barrister, and a
member of the Roman parliament in 1848, has published a series of
official documents issued by the Papal authorities during the last ten
years; the most damning indictment, by the way, that was ever recorded
against a Government. Amongst those documents there appears the official
sentence which, as usual, was published after the execution of a certain
Romulo Salvatori in 1851. The trial possesses a peculiar momentary
interest from the fact that Garibaldi is one of the persons implicated in
the charge, and that the gallant general, if captured on Roman territory,
would be liable to the judgment passed on him in default. It is,
however, rather with a view to show how the Papal system of justice
works, when political bias comes into play, that I propose to narrate
this story as a sequel to the others. The words between inverted commas
are, as before, verbal translations from the sentence. From that
sentence I have endeavoured to extract first the modicum of facts which
seem to have been admitted without dispute.
During the death-struggle of the Roman Republic, when the Neapolitan
troops had entered the Papal territory on their fruitless crusade, the
country round Velletri was occupied by Garibaldi's soldiery. Near
Velletri there is a little town called Giulianello, of which a certain
Don Dominico Santurri was the head priest. Justly or unjustly, this
priest, and two inhabitants of the town, named De Angelis and Latini,
were accused of plotting against the Republic; arrested by order of one
of Garibaldi's officers; imprisoned for a couple
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