They say that the Inquisition was an affair of the sixteenth century; that its fires are cold; its racks and screws are rusted; and that it would be just as impossible to bring back the Inquisition as to bring back the centuries in which it flourished. That is fine talking; and there are simpletons who believe it. But look at Rome. What is the Government of the Papal States, but just the Government of the Inquisition? There there are midnight apprehensions, secret trials, familiars, torture by flogging, by loading with irons, and other yet more refined modes of cruelty,--in short, all the machinery of the Holy Office. The canon law, whose full blessing Italy now enjoys, is the Inquisition; for wherever the one comes, there the other will follow it. Let me describe the secresy and terror with which apprehensions are made at Rome. The forms of the Inquisition are closely followed herein. The deed is one of darkness, and the darkest hours of the twenty-four, namely, from twelve till two of the morning, are taken for its perpetration. At midnight half a dozen _sbirri_ proceed to the house of the unhappy man marked out for arrest. Two take their place at the door, two at the windows, and two at the back-door, to make all sure. They knock gently at the door. If it is opened, well; if not, they knock a second time. If still it is not opened, it is driven in by force. The _sbirri_ rush in; they seize the man; they drag him from his bed; there is no time for parting adieus with his family; they hurry him through the streets to prison. That very night, or the next, his trial is proceeded with,--that is, when it is intended that there shall be further proceedings; for many, as we have said, are imprisoned for long months, without either accusation or trial. But what a mockery is the trial! The prisoner is never confronted with his accuser, or with the impeaching witnesses. He is allowed no opportunity of disproving the charge; sometimes he is not even informed what that charge is. He has no means of defending his life. He has no doubt an advocate to defend him; but the advocate is always nominated by the court, and is usually taken from the partizans of the Government; and nothing would astonish him more than that he should succeed in bringing off his prisoner. And even when he honestly wishes to serve him, what can he do? He has no exculpatory witnesses; he has had no time to expiscate facts; the evidence for the prosecution is handed to him in court; and he can make only such observations as occur at the moment, knowing all the while that the prisoner's fate is already determined on. Sometimes the prisoner, I was told, is not even produced in court, but remains in his cell while his liberty and life are hanging in the balance. At day-break his prison-door opens, and the jailor enters, holding in his hand a little slip of paper. Ah! well does the prisoner know what that is. He snatches it hastily from the jailor's hands, hurries with it to his