Page:The Martyrdom of Ferrer.djvu/67

Rh those unfortunate people who think that words will ever lead to a practical result."

Ferrer offered himself to the authorities, who at once detained him, closed his schools, and sought to confiscate his funds. But the constitutional guarantees were not suspended. They were forced to grant him a civil trial. How he had to be acquitted, after thirteen month's detention, is still remembered. But there are features of the trial which have the greatest interest in connection with the later and fatal charge against him, and I will briefly discuss them.

The Madrid magistrate, before whom he was first brought, declared that he could see no valid ground for keeping him in custody. The fact, which Ferrer fully recognised, that Morral had done some work for him, could hardly influence a civil judge, and there was not the least particle of "evidence" beyond this. The Fiscal (Attorney General) intervened, however, and there ensued a long and extraordinary struggle. Becerra del Toro, the Fiscal, demanded that Ferrer should be garrotted for complicity. The civil court required evidence. All Europe was by this time watching the struggle, and Ferrer's admirers in every country educated the public to see that no injustice was done. For twelve months Ferrer was detained in prison to give time for the "discovery" of evidence. At length, in the month of June, he was brought before the civil judges at Madrid—brought handcuffed every day into court—and Becerra del Toro unfolded the case he had prepared.

Two things are chiefly noteworthy in connection with this trial. One is that the clergy, through their Press and pulpits, as well as through the reactionary Becerra del Toro, were making frantic efforts to secure the condemnation of Ferrer. Writers like Mr. G. K. Chesterton, whose literary faculty has the fullest and most entertaining play when they refrain entirely from studying the facts of the case they discuss, assure you that this introduction of the clergy is unjustified. The Spanish papers of the time were full of clerical comments on the case, pendente lite, and published broadcast the evidence to be used against Ferrer; but I need give only one instance. Before me lies a picture post-card issued at the time by the clergy. In the upper part it represents Morral