Mrs. G. Gretton

Execution of a criminal—Sympathy for his fate—The Ghetto—Hardships of the Jews—The case of the Mortara child not without precedent—Story of the merchant and his niece.

An event of no small importance in public estimation, which took place during my stay in Ancona, the execution of a culprit condemned according to the civil legislature, gave an insight into many curious features of the national character. The criminal, who was a porter employed in landing goods from vessels in the harbour, murdered his master, a Jewish merchant, in revenge for having been discharged from his employment, on account of his idle and insolent habits: watching his opportunity, he came behind him at dusk, as he was walking in a very narrow lane, and plunged a dagger into his heart. Contrary to what occurs in nine cases out of ten in this country, the assassin was captured, and, stranger still, convicted, after having been in prison only six or seven months. Usually two or three years elapse between the commission of the offence and the punishment awarded to it, so that all recollection of the crime is well-nigh lost, and the predominant feeling becomes one of sympathy for the prisoner.

The whole town was in commotion for two or three days preceding the execution, and numerous were the inquiries as to the state of the convict—whether he was sanguine in his hopes of a reprieve, whether his health had suffered from imprisonment, and so forth; topics that divided public attention with the expected arrival of the boja, the dreaded functionary of the law, who was brought into the town in a close carriage escorted by gendarmes—precautions always required to protect him from the fury of the populace. Every one was interested: the men pitied the criminal, the women prayed for him; while the Jewish residents, fearful of incurring general odium, kept much within the Ghetto, the quarter of the town especially assigned to them; moreover, a deputation of some of their most influential members had gone up to Rome to ask pardon for the murderer, so great was their apprehension of the vengeance that might be visited upon the whole community if the execution took place. But the offence had been too flagrant to be passed over, the opportunity was also advantageous for a display of justice and impartiality, and the Government held to their previous decision.

The prisoner meantime was kept in uncertainty of his fate, until the night before the day fixed upon for execution, when the officials, entering his cell, informed him that his appeal for mercy had been rejected, and bade him prepare for death the following morning. According to long-established custom, he was allowed the singular boon of selecting whatever he most fancied for his supper; no rarity was denied him; and I remember hearing it announced that he had chosen some particular kind of fish held in great esteem, which was with difficulty procured. This meal over, a confraternity called the Compagnia della Buona Morte—literally of the Good Death—comprising some of the old nobles, merchants, and tradesmen—a relic of the countless religious associations of the Middle Ages, still held together by a bond more of custom and kindly feeling than of faith—entered upon the office of ministering to the last hours of the condemned. Some remained with him all night, accompanying him to the prison-chapel, where the appropriate services were performed; and the others, dispersed about the town, went from house to house collecting money to be applied in masses for his soul. They did not proffer a word, but stood like spectres at the door, completely enshrouded in their black robes and peaked cowls, and rattling the box in which the alms were to be deposited, whereon a death's-head and cross-bones were rudely painted. It was one of those successful appeals to their senses, more especially to their terror of aught connected with death, to which these people are so peculiarly sensitive; and none, I verily believe, not even of the most determined increduli, but turned pale, and hastened to make his offering. The very existence of such a brotherhood, in the midst of so much unbelief, is a paradox, and is one of those inconsistencies which meet one at every step in attempting any analysis of the Italian character. As soon as day broke, many women repaired to the churches to hear the first mass, with the intention, as it is termed, of rendering it available to the soul of the departing sinner—some remaining upon their knees until they knew he was no more.

The good offices of the Buona Morte extended to the last; they accompanied the criminal to the scaffold, besides a long train of priests and friars, and then followed his remains to the place of interment. As may be supposed, crowds of the populace flocked to the execution; but from the common report, it would appear that far less of that revolting ribaldry and indifference was displayed than has been so loudly protested against as stigmatizing the English under similar circumstances. As a means of enforcing the moral lesson, many fathers took their children to the spot; and when all was over, and the guillotine had done its ghastly office, beat them severely, to impress upon them the fatal consequences of crime; yet, in spite of this discipline, it seemed too probable that the unbounded interest manifested for the departed, the praises lavished upon his penitence, and upon his courage in encountering death, must completely have done away with any salutary reflections the terrible spectacle had produced.

“Well, he died like an angel!” said one lady to us. “He was so obedient to his confessor, that he took a cup of coffee at his request just before leaving the prison, although he had previously declined any refreshment.”

“Yes,” said another; “and he confessed everything, and seemed so resigned! Certainly he had an edifying end!”

“He must have been a good man at heart,” remarked a third; “it was a pity almost to sacrifice him under the circumstances. There was great moderation, too, amongst the people; for they all felt that. Many have thought it hard a Christian's life should suffer for having caused the death of a Jew!”

A singular idea this, to the English untravelled reader at least; but if he will accompany me into the Ghetto of Ancona, and take a glance at the condition of the inhabitants he will find greater cause for surprise at discovering, in the middle of the nineteenth century, so many of the remains of the oppression and tyranny under which the Hebrew race once universally groaned. The Jewish community in Ancona comprehends upwards of 3000 persons—a large proportion where the entire population does not exceed 30,000,—and these are by law restricted to a small and densely-crowded part of the town, in which the streets are so narrow that two people literally cannot walk abreast; and the marvel is how the process of construction could ever have been carried on, or such massive buildings erected, in such extraordinary proximity. The want of cleanliness, of light, of air, in this miserable region, is indescribable; yet great as are these evils, they seem mere trifles in comparison with the contempt and vexatious enactments and privations by which its occupants are perpetually harassed.

They cannot carry out their dead for interment in the wild desolate burying-ground beyond the gates by day, as they would inevitably be exposed to the taunts and hisses of the populace, who have been known to throw stones at the coffin as it passed: it is under favour of the dusk alone that the Hebrews venture forth to consign their departed brethren to the grave. They cannot go from one town of the State to another without a permission from the Inquisition, in addition to the usual police formalities common to their Christian fellow-subjects. Their lives are embittered by perpetual fear and distrust. The incident of the secret baptism of the Mortara child by a Christian maid-servant, and his seizure by the ecclesiastical authorities, which has made such noise throughout Europe, is by no means the first of a similar description. But some years ago there was no free press in Piedmont to bring such facts to light, and hold them up to public condemnation. The story which I shall briefly relate, and for the perfect truth of which I can vouch, seems to me even sadder than that of Edgar Mortara.

About twenty years since, a Jewish merchant and his wife, being childless, adopted a niece, who grew up beautiful, affectionate, and the delight of their old age. Like many other children of the community, she had been sent in her infancy to be nursed by a peasant-woman in the country, whose extreme poverty alone induced her to stoop to what is considered the degradation of rearing a Jewish child. This woman, dying when the girl was about eighteen, divulged to the priest who attended her death-bed that she had baptized her nursling, then an infant of only a few months old; but had ever since kept the secret shut up in her own heart, where it gnawed and preyed upon her. The confessor applauded her for her zeal, declaring that by her instrumentality a soul was rescued from perdition; and scarcely had she breathed her last, when he hastened to the Inquisition in Ancona, and announced the discovery he had made.

Without a moment's delay, a body of Dominican monks, the implacable enemies of the Jews, accompanied by the requisite officials of the police, repaired to the merchant's house, and peremptorily demanded that his niece, as a Christian convert, baptized in infancy by her nurse, should be given up to them. The most frantic remonstrances proved unavailing; she was torn from her adopted parents, and placed in a convent, as well for the purpose of religious instruction, as to secure her from all intercourse with her family.

Meantime, the poor uncle took the most energetic measures for her liberation, and secretly wrote, exhorting her to hold firm, with the promise of 10,000 dollars for her dowry, if she succeeded in returning to him. The letter was intercepted, and fell into the hands of the priests, who did not, however, bring it forward until their plans were matured. He was kept for some months in suspense, being in total ignorance of his niece's proceedings, and denied all correspondence with her; when it was at length intimated to him that she had readily imbibed the tenets of her religion, was happy at her miraculous deliverance, and willing to receive a husband at the hands of her spiritual directors: in furtherance of which desirable end, the sum of money he had proffered in the event of her restoration to him, was now claimed as her marriage-portion. Inexpressibly mortified and indignant, he yet had no alternative but to submit, and the dowry was made over to the ecclesiastical authorities.

From the day on which she had been borne shrieking from their home, the merchant and his wife never again set eyes upon their child, never learned whether old affections yet stirred within her, and never knew whether she ever became really satisfied with her lot. The youth to whom she had been united was an obscure impiegato in some little town of the interior, where, I believe, she still resides. The aunt, quite heart-broken, quitted the scene of so many agonizing recollections, and removed to Tuscany, where greater religious liberty was at that time enjoyed; while the old man divided his time between his wife and Florence and his business in Ancona, to which he still clung with characteristic eagerness: but the charm of life was gone, and he moved about his accustomed haunts a changed and sorrow-stricken man.

With the possibility of a similar fate awaiting their children;—continually threatened with the revival of certain old laws which treated Jews as the very pariahs of society, and which were actually repromulgated seven or eight years ago, although the energetic proceedings of the Rothschilds, who held the needy Roman government in their grasp, caused them to be suddenly withdrawn;—excluded from all social intercourse with the Christian population;—looked down upon even by the lowest, who consider they lose caste by acting as their servants,—it seems wonderful to find this persecuted race holding merry-makings in the Ghetto, and seemingly indifferent to their degraded position.