"To heal the south, we require an honest, intelligent and
sagacious government, which we have not got." And Lombroso: "In the
south it is necessary to introduce justice, which does not exist, save
in favour of certain classes."
I am tempted to linger on this subject, not without reason. These people
and their attitude towards life will remain an enigma to the traveller,
until he has acquainted himself with the law of the land and seen with
his own eyes something of the atrocious misery which its administration
involves. A murderer like Musolino, crowned with an aureole of
saintliness, would be an anomaly in England. 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.
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