Evening Star Newspaper, July 1, 1923, Page 76

BY SIR PHILIP GIBBS. FTER the revolution in Portu- gal which led to the exile of King Manuel and the over- throw of the royalist regime m favor of a republicAinder the presi- dency of Affonso Costa, I was asked by Lord Lytton to go out and report upon the condition of the prisons in that country. They were packed with royalists and with all people, of whatever po- litical opinion, who disapproved of the principles and methods of the new. government, including large numbers of the poorest classes. Sin- tater stories had leaked through about the frightful' conditions of | these political prisoners, and public opinion in England was stirred when the Dowager Duchess of Bedford, who had visited Portugal, published jome sensational statements. I sus- pected that the dear old Duchess of Bedford was ml\urvu‘e% a good deal by sentiment for the Poyalist cause, althoush when I saw her she was emphatic in saying that she had never me' King Manuel and was moved to take action for purely hu- manitarian reasons. Lord Lytton, a man GT liberal and idewlistic mind, was certainly not ac- tuated by the desire for royalist or anti-republican paganda, and in | asking me to make_an investigation on behal? of a committee, he made it | clear that he wished to'have the facts, uncolored by prejudice. I found, before going, that the mov- ing spirit behind the accusations of eruelty s in the British press | again. rulers of Portgual, und be the Duchess of Bedford, | was a litt lady named M Tenison. “She has all the facts in her hands.! said Lord Lytton. “and you ought to | ave a talk with her. You will have o make a long jour : £ " 1ppear the 1d ew MADE remote part o the jo to a England, where 1 found a | ent litile house, unchanged | sing of time through many renturies 1 was shown into a low, | long room, haunted, I am certain, by the ghosts of Tudor and Stuart Eng- iand. Two elderly ladies, who intro- | duced themselve as Miss Tenison's at on each side of a medieval | ce. Presently Miss Tenison ap- d and for more than a moment— for all the time of my visit—I imag- ined myself in the presence of one of | those ghosts which should properly inhabit a house like this—a young | lady in an old-fashioned dress, so | delicate, so transparent so spiritual that I had the greatest difficulty in | accepting her as an inhabitant of this coarse and material world. | She was entircly absorbed In the | Portuguese affair, and her aunts told me that she dreamed at night about | the agony of the royalist prisoners In | thelr dungeons. She was in corre spondence with many royallst refu es, and with those still hiding in Portugal, from whom she obtained the latest news. She had a romantic admiration—though not knowing gim personally—for the Conte d’Almeida, who had led a counter-revolution and | had be captured sword in hand, before bLeing flung into prison and treated as a common convict. She hated Affonso, the president, as Rus- sian emigres afterward hated Lenin. It was from this little lady, ethe- veal in appeararce but as passionate in purpose as Lytton Strachey's Florence Nightingale, that I gained my first i sht into the Portuguese situation and my letters of introduc- tion to some great people still hiding in Lisbon. 1 t her house with the sense of having begun a romantic adventure, with this remarkable I tle lady in the first chapter. The second chapter of my adven- ture was fantast for 1 found my- self In the wilds of Spdin, suddenly responsibl for a German wife and six bandboxes filled with the lingerie of six Brazilian beauties. It sounds incredible, but it is true. 1t happened that a tunnel fell down on the en of a train immediately ahead of the one in which I was traveling through northern Spain on the way to Lisbon This brought our train to a standstill in a rather deso- late spot. There was vast excitement, and a babble of tongues. Most of the travelers were on their way to Lis- bon, to catch a boat to Brazil whic was leaving the following day. Among them was a stout little Ger- man, with a large, plump and sad- iooking wife. Neither of them could speak anything but German, but the | husband was almost apoplectic with rage and anxiety, seemed to divine by | intuition that a local train which had halted at the wayside station might €0 somewhere in the direction of Lis- | bon. Entirely forgetting his wife, or | thinking, perhaps, that she would| follow him whithersoever he went, | he sprang on to tho footboard of the | local train, and scrambled in just as | t steamed away. rney So there I was with the German wife, to whom T had previously ad- dressed a few words, and who now | appealed to me for advice, protection ! ’ REPUBLICAN TROOPS AT REST AFTER DEFEATING THE ROYALIST FORCES IN THE PORTUGUESE e ——— and something to eat. The poor lady was hungry, and her husband had the | money. 1 knew not how long I should be In the company of this Germkn haus- trau, 1 provided her with some food | at the buffet. nnd endeavored to get ! . manner to ssch Lisbon. N7 | and the German wife to the German | cause of the HEN the second blow befell me. Six extraordinarily beautiful Bra- silian_girls, with large black eyes and flashing teeth, did exactly the same thing as the German gentleman. That is to say, they hurled them- selves into a local traln just as it was starting away. Six heads screamed out of the carriage window. They were screaming at me. It was a wild appeal that I should rescue the six enormous bandboxes which they. had left on the platform and bring them to a certain hotel in Lisbon. So there I was, with the bandboxes and the German wife. 1 duly arrived in Lisbon, after a nightmare journey, with all my re- sponsibilities, and handed over the bandboxes to the Brazillan beauties husband. 1 obtained no gratitude whatever in either case. In Lisbon I plunged straightway into a life of romance and tragedy, which was strangely reminiscent of all I had read about the French revo- lution. ‘With my letters of introduction 1 called at several grént houses of the old nobillty, which seemed to be ut- terly abandoned. At least, no lights showed through the shutters, and hey were all bolted and barred within their courtyards, At one house, In answer to my knocking. and the ringing’ of a, bell which jangled loudly, there came at last an answer. A little door in the wall was cautiously opened on a chain by an old man servant with a lantern. Upon mentioning my name, and word “Inglese,” which I hoped was good Portuguese for “English,” the door was opened wide made gn for me I was led into a great mansion, per- fectly dark, except for the lantern ahead, and 1 went up a marble stair- case, and then into & large salom, furnished in the style of the French empire, with portraits on the walls of eighteenth century ladies and gen- tlemen in silks and brocades. In such a room as this Marie Antoinette might have sat with her ladies before the: women of.the markets marched to Versallles. The old man servant touched a but- ton and flooded the room with the to follow him. { 1ight of the electric candelabra, mak- ing sure first that po gleam of it would get through "the heavy cur- tains over the shutters. Then he left the room, and soon afterward ap- peared an old lady in a blacly dress with & white shawl over her shoul- ders. She was the aunt of one of the| great famlles of Portugal, some of | whom had escaped to England, and | others of whom were in the prisons | of 'Lisbon. She spoke harshly, in French, of the base and corrupt character of the new Portuguese’re- public, and of the cruelties and indig- nities suffered by the political prison- | ers. She lived quite alone in the old mansion, not caring to go be- insults she would re- ceive in the streets, but otherwise | safe. So far, at least, Affonso Costa and his police had not threatened her liberty of her possessions. out REVOLUTION. In another house In the outskirts of | Lisbon, with @ beautiful garden, the | . and the man | ROYALIST PRISONERS OF THE PORTUGUESE REVOLUTIONISTS. Jo;xrnalist Meets Many Political Prisoners and Tells Their Stories in European Papers, With Result That the Government of the Revolution Institutes Reforms—Tale of the Little Woman in the Haunted House Who Was Not Satisficd Until anditions Had Been Investigated. use what influence T was my mission prisons conditlons { After frequent real journalist, men * % and to of captivity visits I had, as ar rescue those * x into were th the for. to get what to Eng- un- the the here. eign office I recelved permits to visit the penetenclaria and the limoero, which_most of the political pris were confined. with me told u nothing to hide | everything liked with the captive and The guide talk as in ners who went that the republic had and that_I could see much as I He was cer-{ tain that I should find the peneten- ciara, at least, a model prison. other was “rather old-fashioned."” The e On the whole, I preferred the old- fashioned prison. Highly embarrassed, because where the warm air was filled with on" seemed to The “modei pris- me specially and!released)them. GIBBS WENT T tem of the prison was Ingentously and, to my mind, devillishly con- structed to keep each prisoner, ex- cept a favored few, in perpetual soli- tude. Once put into one of those little white cells, down one of the long white corridors, and a man would never sec or talk with a fellow mortal again until his term of penal servitude expired, never again, if he had & lfe sentence. There were men !n that place who had already served ten, or fifteen, or twenty vears. Through a hole In the door they recelved their food or thelr day's ration of work. To exercise them, a trap was opened at the end of their cell, so that they could walk out, ltke a captiye beast, Into a little strip of courtyard, divided by high walls from the strip on either side. Tp above was the open sk nd the cunlight fell aslant upon the whitg- coated walls, but It was a cramped apd barren space for a man's body and soul Perhaps it was no worse than other European prisons. possi- b much better. But it struck me with a cold horror, because of all those 1lving beings isolated, in life- long silence, entombed. One corridor was set apart for the political prisoners, and when I _saw them they were allowed to have their cell doors open, and to converse ®th each other for a short time. Other- wise they, too, were locked In thelr separate cells. I spoke with a num- . ber of them, all men of high-sound- ing names an titles, but a melan- choly, pale, miserable-looking crowd, whose spirits seemed quite hroken by their long captivity. They were mostly young men, and among them was the Count of Almeida, who had led the counter-revolutionary rising and had been captured by the re- publican troops. { They had one grievance, of which they all spoke passionately. ~The re- public might have shot them as rovalists. At least that would have enabled them to die likd gentlemen. But It had treated them like common eriminals and convicts, and had even forced them to wear convict garb, to have their heads shaved, and to wear | the hood with only eyeholes, which was part of the dress—horrible in. fts cruelty—of all long-gentence men. My conversation with most of them was in French, but two young broth- ers of very moble family spoke ex- cellent English. gard my visit as a kind of migacle, and it revived hopes in them which made me pitiful, because I had no great release. them, they |ana the steel | them. When T went away from doors clanked upon ok ok % N THE prison called the limoero there were different conditions of e, enormously preferable, I thought, to the penetenciaria, in spite of its filth and dirt and disease. There was so solitary confinement here, but crowds of men and women living (n » hugger-mugger way, with free Intercourse between thelr rooms. They were allowed to recelve visitors at stated times, and when I was there the wives of many of the prisonerd had come with thefr bables and par- jcels of food. The babies were crawl- ing on the floor, the food was being cooked on oil stoves, and there was a fearful stench of unwashed bodies, lfricnd onions, tobacco smoke, and other strong odors. The Fleet prison, as described by Charles Dickens, must have closely resembled this place In its general system of accommodation and social life, and I saw in many faces there the misery, the haggard lides, the despair which he depicts among those ‘'who have been long suffering inmates of that debtors' ‘jail. - Many of the men here were of the aristocratic and intellectual classes, among them editors and correspond- ents.of royalist papers, poets, ‘novel- ists and university professors. They had not been charged with any crime, they had not been brought up for trial, they had no idea how lomg their captivity would last—a few months, a few years. or until death But at least in equal the scent of flowers in masses of rich | beautifully designed to drive men |proportion to the royalists—I think mad and kill thelr humanity. It wau]ln a majority—were men of' poorer color, I mpt another lady of the old | regime, & beautiful_girl, living soli- ary, also, and agonized -because of the > imprisonment grnd Wi pelawves, She lm, spotlessly clean ‘and provided with | class—mechanics, ments, | shoemakers, kitchens exael! lent treatment | washhouses. ved ave 0 jand workshops, but the ywhole sys-jhaviig becn socieilMs, sanitary bakehous an / W printers, tallors, artisans ef all inds, were political prisomers, They. syndicalists, They seemed to re- | expectation of gaining their IT WAS IN THE INTEREST OF PRIS O PORTUGAL. !ana other types of advancea demo- | crats. | Some of the men told me that they | had no 1dea whatever why they were |lodged In limoero. They had been arrested without charge, ffung Into prison without trial, and kept there | without hope of release. Some of them had been imprisoned by the roy- alist regime in the time of the mon- archy, and the republic had not trou- | bled about them. They were just left to rot, year after | The political prisoners were allowed | to reveive food from their relative but many had no relatives able to provide for them, and they had noth- ing but prison fare, which was hard- |1y enough for life. They begged through the bars of the windows to passersby, as I saw them, with their hands thrust through the iron grat- {ings. Owing to the overcrowding and | insanitary conditions, disease was rife and prison fever ravaged them. * % k¥ HAD been told of one prison calleft Forte Mon Santo, on a hill some distance away from Lisbon, and as I could get no official pass to visit It, I decided to try and gain admission by other means. In the Black Horse { Square at Lisbon I hired a motor car trom “one of the street drivers, and | underatood from him that he was the | champion automobilist of Lisbon. | Certainly he drove ltke a madman and |a brute. He killed three dogs on the returned to their cells, | | | } THE QUEEN OF PORTUGAL, WIT! | | way, not by accldent, but by delib- eratély steering Into them, and ! Isughed uproariously at each kill. He drove through crowded streets with a screeching horn, and in the open countryside went like a flend, up hill and down dale. I was surprised to find myself alive on the top of the hill which, as I knew by private di- rections, was the prison of Mon Santo. But T could see mo prison. No building of any kind stood on the lonely hilltop or on its slopes, which were bare of all but grass. Al I could see was o circle of queer- looking objects like large metal mushrooms, Upon close inspection I saw that these things were venti- lators for a subterganean building. and walking further, I came to a steép, circular ditch, into which some steps were cut. At the top ‘of the steps stood a sentry with a rifie slung over his arm. 1 approached this man, Who re- garded me suspicousfy ana unsiung his rifie, but the glint of a gold sov- erefgn—we used to have such things before the era of paper money—per- suaded him that I was'an agreeable fellow. My brutal motor driver, who spoke = bit of French, so that he un- Aerstood my purpose, explalned to jthe wentry that I° was an Euglish 5 i ERS SUCH AS THESE THAT tourist who would like to see his ex- cellent prison. After some debate, and a roving eve over the surround- | ing landscape, the sentry nodded, and | made a sign for me to go down the steps, with the motor driver. I mo- ticed that during all the time of my visit he walked behind us, with his| rifle handy, lest there should be any | trick on our part. It was the most awful have ever seen, apart from dens disused since mediavel time: Completely underground, its dun- geons struck me with a chill even in the short time I was there. Its | walls oozed with water. No came direct through the narrow bars ancient of the cells in which poor wretches | lay llke beasts, bdt only indirectly from the surrounding ditch, so that they were almost in darkmess. In the center of this underground fort was a cavern in complete darkness, except, perhaps, for some faint gleam through a grating about two feet square, high up In the outer wall. It was just a hole in the rock, and | inside were five men with heavy chains about them. Once a day the jailers pushed some loaves of bread through the grating. What went on in that dark-dungeon, and in the darkness of those men's souls, it is better, perhaps, not to imagine. The crulety of men is not yet killed, and there are still, in the hearts of men | and of natiens, lurking devils worse the wildness and ferocity of .o than beasts. I went to other prisons in Lisbon and Oporto. They were not like that, but, generally, like the Limoero, un- clean, squalid, horrible, but with hu- may companionship, which alleviates all suffering, if there is any kind of comradeship. In these cases one could not ‘charge the Portuguese re- public with inflicting bodily suffer- ing upon their prisoners in any de- Aiberate way. The indictment against them was that, under the fair name | of lberty, they had overthrown the { monarchical regime and substituted {a new tyranny. For, among all the people I met, there were few who had been charged with any offense against the law, or given the right of defense in any trial. * % X ¥ QUEER fellow came into my life during this time in Mortugal, whose behavior ‘still baffles me by its mys- tery. The episode is like the begin: ning of = sensational detective story, without any clue to its solution. The firgt night of my arrival in Lisbon- I dined alone in the hotel, tand soon remarked a handsome well drossed. English-looking man kept | glancie in my direction.- ‘After din- Iner he vAme up fo me and said: “Ex- dungeon 1| light | 'H HER SON, LATER 'KING MANUEL, UPON THEIR ARRIVAL IN LONDON AFTER THE REVOLUTION. cuse me, but isn't your name Jones?| I think I had the pleasure of meeting | you in London, some,months ago “A milstake,” 1 said, civilly; “my | | name is not’Jones.” H | He looked disappointed when I showed no signs of desiring further | conversation, and went away. But| | presently, after studying the hotel’ |lst (as I have no doubt), he re- | turned, and with # very genlal smile, | said: “Oh, forgive me! I made a | mistake in the name. You are Philip | Gibbs, 1 belleve. T met vou the | | savage Crub.” | at 1 knew he was lying, for I seldom | forget a face, and not such a face as | his, very powerful and arresting, but |as I was bored with my own com- | | pany, I gave him a little rope. We took coffee together, and taiked about the affairs of the world and the countriés in which we had wan- dered. He had been to South Amer- ica and other countries, and told me {some very amusing yarns. I was | much taken with this man, who was certainly well educated and & bril- Hant talker. The mystery appeared when he tapped at my door next morning and | sald he desired to ask a favor. | | M1 expected him to borrow money, but what he wanted was less expen- sive and more extraordinary. He nted me to go to the seashore near Cascaes apd bring back to him a handful of pebbles. As he could not pay for such a service from a man in my position, he would gladly make me a friendly gift of anything that might strike my fancy the shops of Lisbon. . No questioning of mine as to w the | story. “Surely you can get them yourself,” I answered. But he shook his head and said that was impossible. \ Woe were again followed down the streets of Oporto. My companion drew my attention to the fact and then sidestepped into an umbrella shop. But he did not buy an um- brella. He bought a very neat and rather expensive sword stick and of- fered to give me another llke it. “It may be useful” he remarked I declined the sword stick, but ac- cepted the thick cudgel which he had been carrying since I knew him. That is practically the end of the He left Oporto two days later, and before going made one last re- quest. Jt was that I should send & | telegram which he had written out to an address in South Kensingtor It was to the following effe “Arriving in London Saturday, Can- not get the pebbles. What {s the meaning of that mys- tery? I cannot give a guess and have sometimes thought of offering the problem to Conan Doyle. * % * % OMETIMES, also, T have wondered whether it s in any way con nected with an incident that took place In the abandoned palace. of | King Manuei, or, rather, in his garden From the newspaper reports it ap peared that some of the royal jewels had been burfed before the filght of King Manuel. Pefhaps it was for the purpose of digging for them that three men, of whom one was belleve: | to be an Englishman, had entered the meaning of this extraordinary re- quest brougit any explanation. He regretted that he could not enlighten but for him the was of vital importanc 1 utterly refused 1o fetch the pebbles or to go anywherc ndar the seashore. It flashed across my mind that this very handsome, English-looking gen- | tleman ght be = police spy sget to dog my footsteps. He certainly dogged me all right. I could hardly get away from him, wherever I went, and he pressed me to take yine with him at the open-air cafes One night when we sat together in Black Horse Square, he became un- easy, and kept glancing over his 1shoulder at the crowded tables. Presently he rose and sald: “Let us | take a strqll” I agreed, | quickly aware that we were béing followed by three men. I spoke to him. “One of us is being shadowed. you or me?” “Me.” he said with me, I am safe. this place.” He pushed open a wine shop, and we went inside. | ordered a bottie of cheap wine, and | before it had been brought, three men ntered and sat near the door * xox % ‘\ Y strange acquaintance sipped & «V1 1ittie wine, spoke to me loudly in English about the weather, and whis- pered the words, “Follow me quickly!" He rose from the table and went rapldly out of the back door of the restaurant into the courtyard, and out through a side door into the street by which we had entered. It was dark, but as weo walked we saw, at the end of the street, under a lantern, three men standing motion- | less. “Helll” sald my acquaintance. | He plunged into & narrow alley and then through a labyrinth of little streets until suddenly we emerged on the square opposite our hotel “How's that for geograpnical knowl- edge?” he asked. “Good! I sald. “But after this I do not desire your company. I don't understand why these men followed you, and T don't like the game, ajy- how." | me matter as to his reason, Is it s long as you stay Let us slip into swing door of ! i | | |and would do so { stranger looks for some very | and was | He | palace garden on the night of my ar rival in Lisbor sentry hed covered them . The fired back sentry wounded befora they escaped o | wall, Was that | Englishma quaintance 50, yet I e ats- man “belfeved to be w my sterfous 1 am tempted to thin nnot provide & theory fo the pebbles from the seasiiore, thc jewel box, the shadowing in th streets of Lisbon, the purchase of tho sword stlck, and the eugerness my company. All that has nothing to do with t | political prisoners and mission o inquiry. The #%d of that story ! | that after th. lcation of m |cles in the Dally Chronicle, many papers the continent |fonso Costa declared a gemeral an:- | nesty and the prison doors were ur |1ocked for = great -deltvery’ | royaltsts. How far my articles had any |ence toward that actlon I do not know. Certainiy I received som share in the credit, and for mo: atterward ere re Portuguese visitors at my little house in Hollan {wtreet to kiss mr hand—as the de- liverer of their relatives and fri ~much to the am: ment of my wife. | But the real deliverer of the pris- |oners was Iittle Miss Tenison, who |had pulled al t res from | haunted house. | {Copyright, 1928, ‘by Sir ThLip Gibbe g’ served.) on e th | Hunting in Portugal. | AN Amertcan as spent so time in Portugal, was tmpress:d Wy the contras Portugues tunting and sporting customs those in the English-speaking cous- tries. In England, Instan ‘hunt g 1a tal seriously obtain three f shooting { small fortu: eepers and | watchers people | shockea =t ecessary slaug er. | In Portugs | elaborate | there 1s no L pleasant rival bag to carry walking. to bring the! pack of thirt Another dozen ances join the m; men only six ght carry guus; the rest are armed with sticks. In a long and vociferous line they r1enge through t oods. The duxs runt a lttle, wrangle a good desl still more but for the occasional flight of o well-almed cow-stick among tr An owl, mis taken for & woodcock, is broug down by 2 short-sighted gentlemar who holds up his glass planation of his mistake. Another enthusiast stops elgner suddenly, pressng with so much emphasis for e Is & and it o contrary, are macs, pense, no 13 1o heavy gm fter a long da; gentlemen agres dogs together and orty 1s collecte ds and acquat the gentla- pre or that large game. Tho Portuguese points holly tree. “What is 1t7" the stranger aske “Hush!" says the Portuguese, with his finger across his lps and mouth at the foreigner's e Plackbird:" Now thls gentleman to a sclentific “stalk,” i proceedlng but the dig- | ity of the occasion Is too gre: the pursult of such small deer. companions remonstrate and blackbird takes wing. Meantime there is 2 great commo. tion in the middle of the line. Ever: man shouts “Rabbit:” every dog glves tongue and every stick fs waved In the air. Several guns aro fired. Nothing is not even & dog Everybcdy runs to and fro; the; charge and jostle one another; they scratch thelr faces in the bushe: they entangle thelr feet In the briers | end fall head over heels. They laugh | h) | and shout by turns. | He regretted my annoyance and was so polite and amusing that I relented toward him, especially as he told me he was going to Vigo next| day. | He wished me good-by that night | when, he went to bed. But next morn- ing when I left Lisbon for Oporto, he was on the platform, and said that | he had changed\|his plans and was golng to the same place as myself. 1 was not convinced that he was not really shadowing me, and told | him so. But he shook his head and | laughed, “Nothing of the kind. I like your company because you're| the only Englishman In this land of dagoes. | Also & want you to get me that hand- tul of pebbles.” He returned again to the subject of those ridiculous pebbles. 1 could get theg: easily for him on the seashore by Oporto. It would give me very little trouble. It would be an enor- mous favor to him. * * ¢ I re fused to copsider the ldea. n Operto he took me into a jewel- | jcaped: After o time one makes out = Portuguese rabbit cantering in leasurely way toward two gentle with guns, stationed on a neighboring knoll. They cock their pleces, alm apparently at the toes of their boots and fire simultaneously. Everybody cuns up and looks for the body of the rabbit. The ground {s stlil smoking, but they find nothing but the hole of the burrqw over which the gentlemen were mounting guard and into which the rabbit hes ec- Heat From Rain. MUNTZ and Gaudechon, French fn- vestigators, have conducted cx- periments with reference to the heat imparted to the soil by rain, which, it is thought, may play & part hitherto unrecognized in the phenomens of vegetation. b It appears that when the soll has reached a certain degree of dryness the application of moisture produces a rise of temperature which is er's shop and bought a little cedar- wood box about five inches square. “T want emough pebbles to fill this box,” bhe sal ‘Surely yon' can’ get them for me? greater in proportion to the fineness of the materials. Coarse, sandy so!l Is not heated by contact with motis- ture, while soll composed of humus is specially subject to such induenc: