Lloyd's Romance

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 24, 18 June 1908, Page 23

Lloyd's Romance

SincjeLt^linls^o^.p^ lO.ofi this , issuer were, senj; to, press, Continental journals have come to hand giying.-

the sequel of the- Fumagalli affair. An attempt was made to implicate Don Longo, a priest now exercising . faculties, on." the Italian mission in New' York. He, bi~ his own accord, returned and faced his 'accusers. No evidence could be adduced " against him r and he' left . the court without even the breath of a •suspicion against l ' him. The ' Unione ', a leading secular paper of Milan, " strongly protests - against- the 'illegal procedure' that characterised' the -whole trial, and Calls upon the proper authority to see to the matter.' It maintains that" the sham ' nun ', .Fumagalli, was clearly,,. innoCent of complicity in „ thescandals, and holds that even in the_cjise of Riva, there are the gravest grounds for doubting the justice of his, conviction. There were (says Signor Meda, one of the most eminent advocates in Italy) no ' specific and certain evidence against him ' ; and he adduces testimony to show that (as happened < likewise in the Stoke cases) little witnesses, were tampered, with in the court itself and taught to repeat the stories that they should tell. The whole affair (says Signor Meda) has been exploited by ' two or three journals ' of anti-clerical hue and by ' a" few hundred persons accustomed to create tumults in the streets '. As already stated by us (p. 10) the affair in no way implicates the Church or any ecclesiastical person of good standing. But the Fumagalli woman is entitled to a statement of the extenuating circumstances mentioned in this paragraph.