quent in date to the son's arrest, and therefore, probably, made
with a view to save his life. The plea is in consequence rejected.

No defence was attempted to the second count. Both charges are therefore
declared fully proved; and as the punishment for parricide is public
execution, and the penalty for having in one's possession (a lighter
offence by the way, than using) any weapon without special license,
consists of imprisonment from two to twelve months, and of a fine from
five to sixty scudi, therefore the court "condemns Luigi Bonci for the
first count, to be publicly executed in Cannara, and to make compensation
to the heirs of the murdered man, according to the valuation of the civil
tribunals, and to pay the cost of the trial; and on the second count, the
court" (with a pedantic mockery of mercy) "considers the first three
months of the incarceration the prisoner has already undergone to be
sufficient punishment, coupled with a fine of five scudi and the loss of
the weapon."

This summary will, I fear, give the reader too favourable an opinion of
the original sentence. In order to make the story at all intelligible, I
have had to pick out my facts, from a perfect labyrinth of sentences and
parentheses. All I, or any one else can state is, that these seem to be
the facts, which seem to have been proved by the witnesses. What the
character of the evidence was, or what was the relative credibility of
the witnesses, whose very names I know not, or how far their assertions
were borne out or contradicted by circumstantial proof, are all matters
on which (though the whole character of the crime depends on them) I can
form no opinion whatever.

The trial occupied but one day, and yet the above sentence, it appears,
was not communicated to the prisoner till the 15th of October, 1858, that
is, over five months afterwards. When the official announcement of the
sentence was made, the prisoner declared his intention of appealing
against its justice. By the Papal law, every person condemned for a
criminal offence, by the lay tribunals, has the right of appealing to the
Supreme Pontifical Court. It is, therefore, needless to say, that in all
cases where sentence of death is passed, an appeal is made on any ground,
however trivial, as the condemned culprit cannot lose by this step, and
may gain. The practical and obvious objection to this unqualified power
of appeal, is that the supreme ecclesiastical court is the r