children, with nine days in which to answer it. At the expiration of this time, on September 14th, the fiscal accused the further rebeldia and concluded; the inquisitors received the case to proof and assigned thirty days for it. On October 20th, the fiscal presented four witnesses, who were separately and secretly examined by the inquisitors, the testimony consisting of the usual details of observing the Sabbath by lighting candles and wearing clean linen, with an intimation of having chickens killed by decapitation. Then followed an interval, until January 18, 1485, when the fiscal asked for publication of evidence. The inquisitors granted this, ordering copies given to him and to the children if they ask for it, and assigning a term of six days for concluding. On January 24th the fiscal accuses the persistent rebeldia and concludes; the inquisitors hold the children to be contumacious and conclude the case, assigning for sentence the third or any following day. All this was in preparation for the great auto de fe of March 15th, where the sentence was read, condemning in mass a large number of the dead, confiscating their property and ordering their bones to be dug up and burnt.[225] This was the procedure under which thousands of the dead were condemned and their properties seized from the existing owners; the forms of justice were comfortably preserved; no heirs or children ventured to appear in defence, and the condemnation might as well have been pronounced at the beginning. This facility offered temptations to act on insufficient evidence and occasionally, when persons of importance were concerned, there was a contest, as at Saragossa where, on March 10, 1491, the fiscal presented his _clamosa_ against a number of the dead, whose representatives defended them with persistent energy until December, 1499, when there were eight condemnations and three acquittals.[226] Some check on the abuses inevitable to the system was attempted, in the reformatory Instructions of 1498, which order that no prosecution of the dead is to be commenced unless there is proof sufficiently complete for condemnation; the practice of suspending cases where proof is imperfect is prohibited, in view of the hardship endured by the heirs, who are unable to marry or to dispose of their property and, under such circumstances, acquittal is ordered. Procrastination and delay are also forbidden, and cases must be determined speedily.[227] [Sidenote: _PROSECUTION OF THE DEAD_]