We Should Think It Rather
Paradoxical To Hear A Respectable Old Farmer Recommending His Boys To
Shoot A Policeman, Whenever They Safely Can.
On the spot, things begin
to wear a different aspect.
Musolino is no more to be blamed than a
child who has been systematically misguided by his parents; and if these
people, much as they love their homes and families, are all potential
Musolinos, they have good reasons for it - excellent reasons.
No south Italian living at this present moment, be he of what social
class you please - be he of the gentlest blood or most refined
culture - is a priori on the side of the policeman. No; not a
priori. The abuses of the executive are too terrific to warrant such an
attitude. Has not the entire police force of Naples, up to its very
head, been lately proved to be in the pay of the camorra; to say nothing
of its connection with what Messrs. King and Okey euphemistically call
"the unseen hand at Rome" - a hand which is held out for blackmail, and
not vainly, from the highest ministerial benches? Under such conditions,
the populace becomes profoundly distrustful of the powers that be, and
such distrust breeds bad citizens. But so things will remain, until the
bag-and-baggage policy is applied to the whole code of criminal
procedure, and to a good half of its present administrators.
The best of law-systems, no doubt, is but a compromise. Science being
one thing, and public order another, the most enlightened of legislators
may well tremble to engraft the fruits of modern psychological research
upon the tree of law, lest the scion prove too vigorous for the aged
vegetable. But some compromises are better than others; and the Italian
code, which reads like a fairy tale and works like a Fury, is as bad a
one as human ingenuity can devise. If a prisoner escape punishment, it
is due not so much to his innocence as to some access of sanity or
benevolence on the part of the judge, who courageously twists the law in
his favour. Fortunately, such humane exponents of the code are common
enough; were it otherwise, the prisons, extensive as they are, would
have to be considerably enlarged. But that ideal judge who shall be paid
as befits his grave calling, who shall combine the honesty and common
sense of the north with the analytical acumen of the south, has yet to
be evolved. What interests the student of history is that things
hereabouts have not changed by a hair since the days of Demosthenes and
those preposterous old Hellenic tribunals. Not by a single hair! On the
one hand, we have a deluge of subtle disquisitions on "jurisprudence,"
"personal responsibility" and so forth; on the other, the sinister
tomfoolery known as law - that is, babble, corruption, palaeolithic
ideas of what constitutes evidence, and a court-procedure that reminds
one of Gilbert and Sullivan at their best.
There was a report in the papers not long ago of the trial of an old
married couple, on the charge of murdering a young girl. The bench
dismissed the case, remarking that there was not a particle of evidence
against them; they had plainly been exemplary citizens all their long
lives. They had spent five years in prison awaiting trial. Five years,
and innocent! It stands to reason that such abuses disorganize the
family, especially in Italy, where the "family" means much more than it
does in England; the land lies barren, and savings are wasted in paying
lawyers and bribing greedy court officials. What are this worthy couple
to think of Avanti, Savoia! once they have issued from their dungeon?
I read, in yesterday's Parliamentary Proceedings, of an honourable
member (Aprile) rising to ask the Minister of Justice (Gallini) whether
the time has not come to proceed with the trial of "Signori Camerano and
their co-accused," who have been in prison for six years, charged with
voluntary homicide. Whereto His Excellency sagely replies that "la
magistratura ha avuto i suoi motivi" - the magistrates have had their
reasons. Six years in confinement, and perhaps innocent! Can one wonder,
under such circumstances, at the anarchist schools of Prato and
elsewhere? Can one wonder if even a vindictive and corrupt rag like the
socialistic "Avanti" occasionally prints frantic protests of
quasi-righteous indignation? And not a hundredth part of such accused
persons can cause a Minister of the Crown to be interpellated on their
behalf. The others suffer silently and often die, forgotten, in their
cells.
And yet - how seriously we take this nation! Almost as seriously as we
take ourselves. The reason is that most of us come to Italy too
undiscerning, too reverent; in the pre-critical and pre-humorous stages.
We arrive here, stuffed with Renaissance ideals or classical lore, and
viewing the present through coloured spectacles. We arrive here, above
all things, too young; for youth loves to lean on tradition and to draw
inspiration from what has gone before; youth finds nothing more
difficult than to follow Goethe's advice about grasping that living life
which shifts and fluctuates about us. Few writers are sufficiently
detached to laugh at these people as they, together with ourselves, so
often and so richly deserve. I spoke of the buffoonery of Italian law; I
might have called it a burlesque. The trial of the ex-minister Nasi:
here was a cause celebre conducted by the highest tribunal of the
land; and if it was not a burlesque - why, we must coin a new word for
what is.
XXXIV
MALARIA
A black snake of alarming dimensions, one of the monsters that still
infest the Calabrian lowlands, glided across the roadway while I was
waiting for the post carriage to drive me to Caulonia from its
railway-station. Auspicious omen! It carried my thoughts from old
Aesculapius to his modern representatives - to that school of wise and
disinterested healers who are ridding these regions of their curse, and
with whom I was soon to have some nearer acquaintance.
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