not

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comes the question,-"Did you give him a jar of this deadly ointment, telling him to smear it on the walls of the said street, and promising him a handful of money." And Mora exclaims with eagerness," Signor, no! never, never! I do such a thing!" It was replied to him: "What would you say if the said Gugliemo Piazza sustains this fact to your face?" "I would say," rejoins Mora, "that he is a lying scoundrel; that he cansay this because I have never never spoken to him on such a subject, so help me God!" Piazza is now confronted with the barber, and repeats his accusations in full; the miserable barber cries,-" Oh, merciful God; did ever any one hear such infamy as this?" he denies that Piazza was ever a friend of his, and that he was ever inside his house; but Piazza rejoins: The barber has said that I never was in his house; let your excellency examine Baldassar Litta, who lives in the house of Antiano in the street San Bernardino, and Stephano Buzzo, near S. Ambrogio, both of whom know very well that I have been often in the house of the barber." These two persons, afterwards examined, declare they know nothing whatever about it. At the next examination Mora confesses that Piazza has been in his shop as a customer, "but never in his house." This is considered as contrary to his former evidence, and also contrary to the statement of other witnesses, and so it is intimated to the prisoner, with menaces of torture, that he had better say the whole truth on this matter; and he replies:-" I have already told you the truth, and the commissioner may say what he likes, for he is a lying scoundrel." In virtue of many improbabilities, discerned by the acuteness of the judges, Mora is subjected to the most severe tortures. First, with cries and heartrending supplications, he asserts that he is innocent of any evil; but at length in his agony demands,—"What is it you wish me to say?" and eventually he crics: "Yes, yes, I gave him a jar full of ointment, and told him to smear the walls with it. Oh, for the love of God, let me down! release me from this torture, and I will tell all the truth!" He is let down, and in his subsequent examination is asked, "Who are those companions that Piazza has spoken of as your friends and accomplices?" Mora replies: "I don't know their names," but when threatened with the torture he names various people at random-all of whom are of course arrested. Some days pass, and during this interval of repose the miserable barber, evidently struck by a remorse stronger than the fear of new torments, denies all his previous accusations, says he never had anything to do with any poisonous ointment, and that what he said was caused by the torture; before being taken again to be put on the cords he entreats to be allowed to repeat an Ave Maria, and he is permitted to pray for some time before a crucifix. Arising from his knees, he says calmly: "Before God in heaven and my own conscience, all I have told you under the torture is false." However, under new torments to which he is subjected, he again confesses that all is true, and seems, like Piazza, to become hardened; he says it was his interest to keep up the plague in order to sell more of his ointment; he further particularizes the ingredients of the supposed pestilential substance,

and confesses that the viscous sediment found in the copper was one of them—the principal ingredient however, he says, was "the foam collected from the mouths of those who had died from the plague." However, the motive he gives for his infamous conduct is not considered sufficiently strong, and as the whole current of his invented story differs largely from that given by Piazza, the latter is informed that the promise of impunity is null and void, it having been clearly proved that some of his evidence is false. The ingenuity and depravity of this wretched man now reaches its climax. He evidently thinks if he can only succeed in drawing into the net some prodigiously large fish, the efforts of this monster to escape might make a hole big enough for him to slip through. Accordingly he begins throwing out hints about some great people who are mixed up in a very large conspiracy, and ultimately he declares that the chief person in the whole business-and from whom Mora received large sums of money to distribute to the others-was no less a personage than the son of the great Signor Castellano of Milan, a captain of a cavalry regiment, and one of the most rising men in the city. Here was a poser for the authorities. However, the barber Mora, after some time, is tortured into a confession that a very great person was at the head of all, but (naturally enough) he does not know who the great person is, until the judges themselves, in the course of a private examination, let out the name, and then the barber, as boldly as Piazza, asserts that they were both paid by Capitano Padilla, son of the castellano of Milan. After some time and much hesitation, Padilla is arrested, and his trial extends over two years, when he is acquitted; but long before this both Piazza and Mora suffer the penalty due to their atrocious crimes. Their sentence was as follows:-That they should be taken on a cart to the place of execution, and their bodies burnt with hot irons; in front of the shop of the barber their right hands were to be cut off, their backs broken, and their bodies twisted on the wheel; they were then to be suspended in the air for six hours, when their bodies were to be burned to ashes, and thrown into the river. It was further decreed that the house of Giangiancomo Mora, barber, was to be pulled down, and on the space occupied by it was to be erected a column to be called 'Infame," and in perpetuity it was forbidden to any man to build on that spot. There is no exact account of the actual number of victims who suffered the same cruel penalties in consequence of the testimony of the commissioner and the barber Mora, but Verri computes them as at least sixty. It is almost a pity that the "Colonna Infame" should have been pulled down in 1778; it should have been allowed to remain still as a monument of infamy-as a monument to the fallibility of human laws, and of the inhuman cruelty and wilful imbecility of the judges who so administered justice.

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him there an thee canst, and come on i' th' morning. Tak' my cloak about thee, and a sup o' elder wine."

The lad took a lantern and the cape, and went off on his doleful quest. When he reached the valley, however, no one had seen or heard of Ashford at the few houses near the road, and it was nearly ten o'clock when he reached the toll-bar.

"Nay, I've seen none of thy feyther, more shame for him. Come in and dry thysen," said the man. "Thou canstna miss him here. Why, thee'lt melt away to nothing, thee'rt so wet!"

German looked wistfully at the warm fire within-he had been on his feet ever since five that morning. He pulled off his wet blouse and trousers, which he hung up before the fire, and then lay down on the settle while they dried. In a moment he was fast asleep.

Meanwhile the two women watched and waited. The ruddy light of the fire played over the wide old kitchen, touching a bright point here and