Page:The Martyrdom of Ferrer.djvu/63

Rh In 1892 there was a small rising of the peasants in Andalusia, with loss of life. An Anarchist was arrested, and, under threat of excruciating torture, gave a number of names to the authorities. It was the beginning of the reaction of the corrupt powers on the rising insurgence. Without trial, with gross pretence of military justice, several men were executed. They were known in the district to be innocent, but obnoxious to Church or State. In any case, they had no trial. Worst of all, in order to wring fresh names from the prisoners, the most revolting tortures were inflicted on them. The specific accounts of these tortures were published in the Madrid and Barcelona press. It was the beginning of the Anarchist "propaganda by deeds." On evidence thus obtained by horrible torture men were shot, or sentenced to ten or fifteen years in prison.

A fierce anger blazed through the non-clerical workers of Spain. In the following year a bomb was thrown at, and wounded the commanding officer at Barcelona. The author acknowledged the crime, and was executed, calling for vengeance. A companion Anarchist—Salvador—then threw a bomb in the theatre, with horrible effect, in 1893. He escaped, and a large number of arrests were made at once, and the constitutional guarantees were conveniently suspended—as the police could find no evidence.

In Montjuich, the grim prison-fortress that commands Barcelona, there are certain cells known as the "zero," "double zero," and "counter-zero." These cells now witnessed tortures as infamous and brutal as ever medieval jail had witnessed. For five or six days and nights (consecutive) the men were forced by the whips of their jailers to keep on the move, without resting or sleeping. During that time the only food given them was bread and dried fish, without a drop of water. They were flogged until their bodies were a livid mass. Cords were tied to their genital organs, and were pulled by the Civil Guards, inflicting the most exquisite torture conceivable. One man committed suicide. Several died. Some yielded, and were into the next cell, where a lieutenant of the Civil Guard wrote down their denunciation of the men he wanted. Several were shot, and many imprisoned on that evidence. After some weeks of this