In capital cases, however, _after_ the execution of the criminal has taken place a sort of _Proces verbal_ of the case and of the trial is placarded on the walls of the chief towns.
During the period of my stay at Rome there were three executions in different parts of the Papal territory.

Whether by accident or by design I cannot say, but all these executions occurred within a short period of each other, and, in consequence, three such statements were issued almost at the same time by the Government.

With considerable difficulty I succeeded in obtaining copies of these statements, not, I am bound to say, because there seemed to be any reluctance in furnishing them, but because the fact of anybody wishing to obtain copies was so unusual, that there was no preparation made for supplying them; and, at last, I only succeeded in procuring them from a printer's devil to the Stanperia Apostolica.

The facts narrated in them, and the circumstances alluded to, seem to me to throw a strange light on the administration of justice, and the daily life of this priest-ruled country.

It is as such that I wish to comment on them.