Part 26 (1/2)
The dulness of such reasoning defeats its malice. And this is all the evidence for the charge procured by the bastinadoing of one hundred and twenty persons, in several instances to death. I think its meagreness proves the negative, viz., that the poor victims had nothing really to confess; and this in addition to the positive evidence of those who died under the torture, sealing their testimony with their blood.
But might not the accused have brought forward positive evidence in their favour? One person did come forward to prove that he had seen the Friar in another part of the town subsequently to the date of the supposed murder. He was bastinadoed to death--a consummation not likely to encourage other witnesses to come forward; and indeed the Jews a.s.sert that Moslems of the first rank in Damascus, if they dared speak, could have established an _alibi_ for them in many cases.
To have anything like an adequate idea of what these unfortunate people suffered, after the heads of their families had been thrown into prison, you must be on the spot to hear, as one of themselves expressed it, ”their hearts speaking.” Insults of all kinds heaped upon them by the refuse of mankind, their houses broken into and plundered with impunity, jewels torn from the persons of their female relatives, young children imprisoned and tortured with starvation, the son bastinadoed before the mother's eyes to make her betray her husband's place of concealment, the most exorbitant bribes demanded to permit the common necessaries of life to pa.s.s the gates of the prison for its bruised and wretched inhabitants. These, sir, were some of their sufferings, and of these I had undoubted evidence.
Surely the correspondent of the _Times_, to whom you allude, if he had not confined himself while in Damascus to Frank society, and that, too, of a particular caste, would have seen and heard enough to make him hesitate before he declared his belief in the guilt of the Jews, the mildness of their sufferings, and the mercy of their persecutors!
Had he gone to the house of David Arari, he would have learned that _women_ had been tortured, and in vain. He might have seen with his own eyes the heroic conduct of the poor negro girl, a Moslem and a slave, whom the torture could not force to bear false witness against the Jew, her master. He might there also have learned that if Madame Arari had consented to sacrifice her daughter's virtue, she might have preserved her husband's person from violence, his property from plunder, and her people from slander. He might have ascertained the amount of sympathy and mercy which Madame Lagnado received at the hands of a European functionary, when she visited him on behalf of her husband, who died under the torture. Had he visited Signor Merlato, the Austrian Consul, a man whom all Christendom must respect, he might have satisfied his eyes respecting the barbarity of the torture, and that the sufferers had not at that time recovered from its effects.
Long after that period I saw men who, after the lapse of five months from the infliction of the bastinado, had their feet and legs swelled to a form as if produced by elephantiasis. The correspondent of the _Times_, whose very just description of the state of Syria and Palestine lends an undue importance to his opinion on the case of the Jews, would have been persuaded that there were cases in which foreign influence was used with the Pasha to encourage the application of the torture when some old men, too feeble to survive for a moment the infliction of the bastinado, were subjected a second time to the torment of sleeplessness, under the bayonets of the Egyptian soldiers.
But it is indeed too unreasonable and unjust to lay on the Pasha of Damascus the whole blame of these proceedings, unequalled in atrocity since the days of the fourth Antiochus. The guilt must be equally shared by those who delivered up an innocent people into his hands; indeed, their share is greater. He may plead that he was obliged to do these things by the nature of his office. The persecutors of the Jews cannot even shelter themselves under such a plea as that. Indeed, if they be blameless, then is the Spanish Inquisition blameless also; the Auto-da-Fe being, in the last result, certainly the result of the civil power. In short, the charges and recommendations of the Jews against their persecutors are of such enormity as to make them, it is to be hoped, if they be conscious of their innocence, anxious that the whole matter should be sifted to the bottom by a process more rational than the bastinado, and before a judge less suspected of foreign influence than Sheriff Pasha. Although I trust you will persevere in your meritorious exertions for the sake of humanity and truth, yet, as you ask my opinion as to the practicability or prudence of proceeding at once to Damascus, I must say that I do not think it advisable. Though Damascus may have submitted to the Sultan, and the Emir Bes.h.i.+r would be happy to grant you, if necessary, an escort through the mountains, yet I am afraid a short time must elapse before the people of Damascus can be made aware of the important changes in their social condition, when the Hatti Sherif of Gulhane shall be no longer to them a dead letter, when violence shall no longer usurp the place of justice, nor men endanger their lives by bearing witness to the truth. You will be able to return to Syria in a few months under better auspices, and cover the slanderers of your people with confusion.
The example of Rhodes should give you encouragement. I was there last summer when the atrocious charge of the same malignity which was made against the Jews of that place, resulted in like violence, and which, if tried by a similar process, would have led to the same results as at Damascus.
Justice was done to them at Constantinople, and they triumphed. In the same way will you find the cloud clearing away from Damascus. Indeed, there exists not at present the shadow of evidence against them, except you so call a most unnatural and suspicious ident.i.ty of confession, to be found in all false accusations where torture has been applied, such as in trials for witchcraft. A remarkable instance of this you may have seen recorded in _Chambers' Journal_ a few months ago. It happened in the reign of James I. of England. The accused, if I rightly remember, was the ”wise wife of Kent.” In the meantime, if this testimony of mine can be of any service in comforting your distressed people, I shall not consider I have visited Damascus in vain.
Accept, Sir, my best wishes and esteem, and believe me to be your very obedient servant, Joseph Marshall.
To Sir Moses Montefiore, Bart, &c., &c., &c.
_Copy of a Letter addressed to Sir Moses Montefiore by Lieutenant Shadwell of H.M.S. ”Castor.”_
H.M.S. _Castor_, Malta, _December 5th, 1840_.
Sir,--In compliance with your request, I beg leave to submit to you some observations relative to the affairs of the Jews at Damascus, which I was enabled to make in my recent visit to that city, and also to lay before you the general impression on my mind at that time, as to the weight and credibility of the evidence addressed in support of the charges which have been advanced against them.
My visit to Damascus took place in the early part of the month of August of the present year, my fellow-travellers being the Rev. Mr Marshall, Chaplain of H.M.S. _Castor_, and the Rev. Mr Schlientz, of Malta, and his lady.
On the 10th of August, soon after my arrival at Damascus, accompanied by Mr Marshall, I went to the Jewish quarter of that city, and proceeded in the first instance to the house of David Arari, one of the accused persons, who was then in confinement, and at whose house the Father Tommaso is said to have been murdered. We were shown into an apartment where the atrocious deed is said to have been committed. It is a small room to the left of the Divan, with windows in front looking into the interior court, and high windows behind looking into the street. The latter circ.u.mstance is important as tending to throw doubts on the credibility of the accusation, as it is scarcely possible to conceive that any person could submit quietly to the pains of death without uttering cries for a.s.sistance, and that, if those cries had been uttered, they should not have been heard in the street outside.
In the corresponding apartment on the other side of the Divan, we were shown a stain of dirt upon the wall, which the zeal of the accusers branded with the imputation of being blood. This room was in a dismantled state, all the furniture having been removed, and the marble flooring torn up in order to search for bones or other remains of the supposed crime.
We afterwards visited the house of Mourad Farki, Mayer Farki, and Solomon Farki. The two former, being accused of partic.i.p.ating in the murder, were in confinement. We were shown the room where the murder of Tommaso's servant is said to have been perpetrated, and saw the privy and the sewer in the street where the remains of the two are alleged to have been thrown.
We also went to the house of Halil Said Naivi, one of the accusers, and saw that individual. He is the keeper of a low grog-shop of disreputable character. It must be admitted that the nature of the man's calling does not afford any guarantee for the credibility of his testimony.
On the following day, August 11, we went to visit the Latin Convent of the Capuchins, of which Father Tommaso was an inmate. In the chapel is a tomb with an inscription to the following effect:--
”Qui reposano le ossa de Pre. Tommaso da Sardegna Missionano Cappuccino a.s.sa.s.sinato dagli Ebrei il giorno 5 di Febrajo 1840.”
I will not be exactly certain whether the above is a literal copy of the inscription, having written it down from memory after my return home, but I can confidently state that it is substantially correct, especially in so far as concerns the use of the obnoxious word ”a.s.sa.s.sinato.”
By this it will be seen that these enlightened Capuchins, following the example of popular credulity, a.s.sume the murder of their colleague as a fact before it has been proved judicially.
On the same day, in company with Mr and Mrs Schlientz, we repeated our visit to the Jewish quarter, and afterwards, having obtained permission from Sheriff Pasha through the British Consul, Mr Werry, went to the Seraglio to see the Jewish prisoners.
Sixteen individuals were implicated in the charge of murder; of these, two had died under torture, four had absconded. One, Mr Picchioto, being, fortunately for himself, an Austrian subject, was under the protection of the Imperial Consulate, the remaining nine were then in prison, and also a venerable Rabbi.
We were accompanied on our visit by the British Consul's dragoman and a writer in the service of the Pasha. The rooms in which the prisoners were confined were in the second floor of a large exterior building attached to the Pasha's palace, princ.i.p.ally used as a barrack.