PORTUGUESE HEROINE.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1854, 13 September 1913, Page 13

PORTUGUESE HEROINE.

HELPING TH® ROYALISTS! Twice threatened with assassination, going in hourly danger of bodily harm, arrested and thrown into prison, where she was kept for almost eight months awaiting trial, reduced to her laßt penny iii her efforts to do the work she has marked out for herself, tho bravest woman in Portugal resolutely stands'her ground (writes a correspondent 'from Lisbon). While youthful King Manuel and his mother are living in tho safoty t their English home, while the arisracy of Portugal have fled to the four corners of the world before the avenging hand of the Republic, this lone woman, a daughter of 0110 of the greatest of titled Portuguese families, has refused to budgo. • Dona Oonstanca Telles da Gama is the daughter of tho Count of Cascaes and ■ the granddaughter of tho Marquis of Niza, and her family has more than its share of blue blood. In unbroken generations sho tracos her line back to Vasco da Gama, explorer of India, a hero of whom Portugal through all the ages since has been justly proud. Her family was intimately associated with tho Royal Family, mauy{pf them-holding ' appointments at Court. : One aunt was i 'Lady-in-Waiting to Queen Maria Pia. Tho Plight of the Political Prisoners. With tho cctnirj; ftf tho Republic, and especially with the coming ofl the two attempts that wero later made to ro- ' establish the monarchy, hundreds of prisoners were taken. These were thrown into tho only prisons available—in the majority of cases, dark, dank holes which, under years of monarchical negi lect, had long before ceased to be fit for human .'habitation. From these death traps tho political prisoners cried aloud for help. To make matters worse tho machinery of justice, none too easy working under tho monarchy,' disorganised by the political upheaval and the unexpected wcreaso of cases awaiting trial, became clogged, so that scores or prisoners against whom thorp was little or no ovidenco wore kept months in foul . prisons.