been laid over them, to prevent pestilential exhalations, by hastening the decomposition of the infected corpses. This custom was continued, some years ago, in the cemeteries of Naples, and especially in the daily burial of the poor. Therefore, the skeletons found in the Inquisition of Rome could not belong to persons who had died a natural death in a hospital; nor could any one, under such a supposition, explain the mystery of all the bodies being buried in lime except the head. It remains, then, beyond a doubt, that that subterranean vault contained the victims of one of the many secret martyrdoms of the butcherly tribunal. The following is the most probable opinion, if it be not rather the history of a fact: "The condemned were immersed in a bath of slaked lime, gradually filled up to their necks. The lime by little and little enclosed the sufferers, or walled them up alive. The torment was extreme but slow. As the lime rose higher and higher, the respiration became more and more painful, because more difficult. So that what with the suffocation of the smoke, and the anguish of the compressed breathing, they died in a manner most horrible and desperate. Some time after their death the heads would naturally separate from the bodies, and roll away into the hollows made by the shrinking of the lime. Any other explanation of the feet that may be attempted will be found improbable and unnatural. You may make what use you please of these notes of mine, since I can warrant their truth. I wish that writers, speaking of this infamous tribunal of the Inquisition, would derive their information from pure history, unmingled with romance; for so great and so many the historical atrocities of the Inquisition, that they would more than suffice to arouse the detestation of a thousand worlds. I know that the popish impostor-priests go about saying that the Inquisition was never an ecclesiastical tribunal, but a laic. But you will have shown the contrary in your work, and may also add, in order quite to unmask these lying preachers, that the palace of the Inquisition at Rome is under the shadow of the palace of the Vatican; that the keepers are to this day, Dominican friars; and that the prefect of the Inquisition at Rome is the Pope in person. "I have the honor to be your affectionate Servant, "ALESSANDRA GAVAZZI."