CRIME IN ITALY.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1939, 12 May 1880, Page 3

CRIME IN ITALY.

Wo reed in a letter from Rome :—“ His Majesty tho King ot Italy having, in ance with the suggestions of his Radical Minister, commuted the death penalty in tho case of tho murderer of Captain Fadda, Cardinali now stands condemned to imprisonment with hard labour for- life. That such commutation should be granted was quite a foregone conclusion, and indeed a matter of course. The murder,' as • ybur readers will doubtless remember— for tho crime became a ‘ celebrated ’ one, and was chroniilod by all newspapers, both Italian and foreign—was in all its circumstances as atrocious, as premeditated, and as repulsive a murder as it is possible to conceive. The utter impossibility of finding or imagining any ‘ extenuating circumstance ’ was shown by the very unusual finding of tho jury, which hardly over in this country fails to discover such,

and in the very rarely pronounced sentence of death. Yet not only was it quite a matter of course that the extreme penalty should bo remitted ; but it is equally a matter of course that before many years have elapsed the Soverei n clemency will be again exerted in the murderer’s behalf, and he will be once more * restored to society.’ There is, or very lately was, a man in one of the Italian convict establishments whp was serving his sixth term of imprisonment tor life. Five times he had either broken prison or had been pardoned. And as imprisonment for life is never awarded save for murder of the worst description, five times he had again been guilty of murder, and five lives besides that of his first victim had been sacrificed to humanitarian theory. In another case, a man who had been sentenced to imprisonment for life for a very atrocious murder, within the first, month of his incarceration murdered a fellowprisoner. He was thereupon sentenced to imprisonment for life in solitary confinement. But a short time elapsed, however, before he contrived to kill the warder who attended upon him. On that he was again tried, and again sentenced to solitary imprisonment for life in heavy chains. This sentence was passed in the name of humanity. Of course, it will not bo carried out. = And it would be safe to predict that the subject of it will commit more murders before his course is run. We have here at all events at least seven lives sacrificed for the sake of saving the lives of these two abominable criminals. As might be expected, the natural result of such administration of penal justice makes itself manifest in growing proportions every day. The continual increase of crimes of violence is positively frightful. Not a day passes without fcha record in one or another of the Italian newspapers of some crime of exceptional atrocity. This morning it was the murder of a husband by a wife, at the instigation of her lover, who was found with the murderous ndultrees in the room adjacent to that in which the crime was committed, while the body of the murdered man was yet warm. For this woman no sovereign grace will be needed. The extenuating circumstances are too clear for any Italian jury to overlook them. It is obvious that the deed was done under the overmastering influence of a hapless lovepassion. The circumstances of the case show indeed, in the most striking manner, the allpowerful force of the master passion on one who loved not wisely, but too well! The advocate will have a tear in his eye. There will be loud applause in Court. The jury will not even retire. Imprisonment for a nominal fifteen years will be the utmost penalty, to ha terminated as soon as the victim of passion shall have exhibited signs of that ‘ piety ’ which the last murderess, Rafaolla Saraceni, is, we are told, manifesting in such exemplary sort that her immediate release is already demanded.”