INQUISITION TORTURE

Evening Star, Issue 22144, 26 September 1935, Page 1

INQUISITION TORTURE

A mto REMINDER _ Visitoi's to the 402-year-old “ heroio city ” 'of the Spanish Main are seeing for the first time this season a gaping hole in an inner wall of the House of Inquisition, which tells .. a grim story, says the ‘New York Times’ Cartagena correspondent. Like the weathered fortresses, the buff-domed Metropolitan Cathedral and the Museum of Historical Objects, the Inquisition Building has become a regular stop for tourists on cruises to Colombia. A yellowish-white edifice, with fine arches scalloping the shadows in a cool patio, it was built in 1770, when the Tribunal of the Inquisition had already passed the peak of its power. The house came into the hands of an influential family whose descendants now own it and use part of the property as their’ business headquarters. Several months ago, to improve storeroom facilities, the firm decided to connect two ground-floor units by cutting' a passage-way through a sixfoot wall. Workmen attacked the partition. Crumbly plaster and brick ■flew in chips and flakes. The hole deepened. Suddenly one labourer cried out, dropped his pick, and ran through the adjacent central courtyard to ilia front office. The others followed.

Officials investigated . and found a human skeleton, in standing position, coming into view like a fixed spectre in the chalky recesses of the wall. It was recalled that the records of the two centuriesof the Inquisition in Cartagena (beginning in 1610) included mention of persons sentenced to be plastered alive into the 1 - building. Geronomo Martinez, a member of the family that owns the records as well as the property, was convinced that the- remains were of someone so''condemned.

The skeleton was removed carefully from the wall and the partly-crushed hones were taken to the tunnel connecting- the torture chamber with the cathedral. Prisoners had been led through the tunnel after final prayers for their souls. The present Archbishop, Pedro Adan Briosche, gave permission for the digging of a pitlike grave in the dim passage. There was no burial ceremony. . The Inquisition records, written in Spanish and including names of victims, have been assembled and bound in leather. Several cases of death by suffocation id plaster are listed, but only this skeleton has come to light. After the discovery work on the prospective passage-way stopped and ■ the jagged-edge apcrature remains as a reminder of one of the 667 torture sentences, which included provision for 60 burnings at the stake, recorded in Cartagena. The spot in the wall where the skeleton was found is almost exactly above the torture chamber entrance to the tunnel. The entrance to the cathedral, covered, with grey board with black metal handles, is just to the right of the altar. Those who doubt the story have little to back up their insistence that there is probably a catch to it. Certainly there is no, commercial connection; there'is not even a postcard stand on the premises. The Martinez partner* keep busy in their office when visitors arrive, and even if they should try. to profit by the tourist they would very likely try in vain. They are wholesale hardware merchants.