"In Italy, With The Exception Of Milan, The
Death-Penalty Is The Preface Of All Civilization." (To This Day, The
Proportion Of Murders Is Still 13 Per Cent Higher In Palermo Than In
Milan.)
Speak to the wisest judges of the horrors of cellular confinement such
as Musolino was enduring up to a short time ago, as opposed to capital
punishment, and you will learn that they invoke the humanitarian
Beccaria in justification of it.
Theorists!
For less formidable criminals there exists that wondrous institution of
domicilio coatto, which I have studied in the islands of Lipari and
Ponza. These evil-doers seldom try to escape; life is far too
comfortable, and the wine good and cheap; often, on completing their
sentences, they get themselves condemned anew, in order to return. The
hard-working man may well envy their lot, for they recuve free lodging
from the Government, a daily allowance of money, and two new suits of
clothes a year - they are not asked to do a stroke of work in return, but
may lie in bed all day long, if so disposed. The law-abiding citizen,
meanwhile, pays for the upkeep of this horde of malefactors, as well as
for the army of officials who are deputed to attend to their wants. This
institution of domicilio coatto is one of those things which would be
incredible, were it not actually in existence. It is a school, a
State-fostered school, for the promotion of criminality.
But what shall be expected? Where judges sob like children, and jurors
swoon away with emotionalism; where floods of bombast - go to the courts,
and listen! - take the place of cross-examination and duly-sworn
affidavits; where perjury is a humanly venial and almost praiseworthy
failing - how shall the code, defective as it is, be administered?
Rhetoric, and rhetoric alone, sways the decision of the courts. Scholars
are only now beginning to realize to what an extent the ancient sense of
veracity was tainted with this vice - how deeply all classical history is
permeated with elegant partisan non-truth. And this evil legacy from
Greco-Roman days has been augmented by the more recent teachings of
Jesuitry and the Catholic theory of "peccato veniale." Rhetoric alone
counts; rhetoric alone is "art." The rest is mere facts; and your
"penalista" has a constitutional horror of a bald fact, because there
it is, and there is nothing to be done with it. It is too crude a thing
for cultured men to handle. If a local barrister were forced to state in
court a plain fact, without varnish, he would die of cerebral
congestion; the judge, of boredom.
In early times, these provinces had a rough-and-ready cowboy justice
which answered simple needs, and when, in Bourbon days, things became
more centralized, there was still a never-failing expedient: each judge
having a fixed and publicly acknowledged tariff, the village elders, in
deserving cases, subscribed the requisite sum and released their
prisoner. But Italy is now paying the penalty of ambition.
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