THE HORRIBLE DISCOVERY AT CRACOW.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 13, Issue 1097, 2 November 1869, Page 3

THE HORRIBLE DISCOVERY AT CRACOW.

(From an Austrian correspondent of the "Times.") July 27. The Austrian Press is crowded with the incidents of a horrible discovery just made at Cracow. The event is one which will powerfully influence the relations of Austria and Some, and will certainly make a final end of the Concordat, the principles of which embodied an unjust aggression on the civil power. But now let me narrate the circumstances of this discovery. The police magistracy of Cracow lately received an anonymous letter stating that a nun had been immured in a neighbouring cloister since 1848, and begging that justice might be done to her. The name of the nun is Barbara Abryk. She was born in 1817, joined the cloister of bare-footed Carmelite nuns in 1841, whether as a nun or as an extern is not yet judicially ascertained, and in 1848 was confined in the cell where she was found. The nunnery where she was immured lies in one of the prettiest faubourgs of Cracow, near the Botanical Gardens, a favourite resort of the citizens. Little did they fancy that within these cloisters a scene was being enacted which, if described by one of our sensational romance writers, we should regard as the offspring of a diseased fancy, but which here was a frightful reality. The magistracy, being informed, immediately took active steps to ascertain the truth. Whether they were bound to apply to the Bishop to aid them I do not know. Under the Concordat they would, but I think scarcely now. However, they thought ifc best to have his aid, which was granted, while at the same time he suggested that it might prove a mystification. , With Dr. Gebhardt, the representative of the magistracy, he sent also a reverend prelate, Dr. Spital. On arriving at the cloister they had some difficulty in obtaining an entrance, but this was overcome by the presence of the prelate and the sanction of the Bishop to their admission. When the magistrate informed the sister who received them that he had come here to see and to speak with the nun Barbara Abryl, she shrunk back, and replied that it was not possible. She would then have hastily retired with another sister, but was prevented, Dr. Gebhardt, the magistrate, ordering her, in the name of the law, not to move. Accompanied, then, by the niins, the Commissioners ascended to the upper corridor, where betwixt the dining-room and the cloaca they were shown the cell of the nun, with its strongly fastened double door. On entering the cell, a spectacle met them scarcely to be described, and yet it ought to be told, for it shows what fearful wrongs may be perpetrated if mdi 1 viduals are handed over to the tender mercies of Concordats, and to arbitrary, irresponsible rule. The cell was some 7ft. in length by 6ft. in breadth. The window was walled up, and only through a narrow clink a ray of sunlight could penetrate. There were no tables nor chairs, and no stove to furnish heat in the inclement winter. The stench of the cell was hardly supportable. In a corner, lying on rotten, stinking straw, lay the poor crouching creature, "halb Mensch, halb TJiier, half human, half a brute, half savage, half mad, utterly naked," her body filthy, for she had not been washed for years. Her lean bones hanging loose, her cheeks sunken, her hair dishevelled and dirty — a fearful being, whom even Dante, with his amazing imaginative force, could not have portrayed. This poor skeleton of a woman at the sight of her visitors shook herself up, and, folding her hands and bitterly weeping, said, "I am hungry, have pity on me, give me food (Fleisch) and I will be obedient." The magistrate immediately sent for the Bishop, who, to do him justice, showed as strong indignation as any other. Let the name of Bishop Guleski be honoured for it. He called the abbess, the nuns, and the father confessor into his presence, and reproached them with the utmost severity for their inhuman conduct. The wretched abbess he commanded to conduct the nun Barbara into another cell to be clothed and cared for. As the poor nun retired she asked if " she was to be led back to her grave again." The abbess seemed quite unwilling to obey the ecclesiastical order. She evidently thought that in sparing the nunnery a scandal she had done a work pleasing to God. The father confessor of the cloister ventured to say that the immuring of the nun had been known by the Church authorities, which both the Bishop and the prelate indignantly denied as an utter falsehood, and the former suspended both him and the abbess at once from their offices. The nuns tried in their turn to excuse themselves, but with as little success. "Is this," he said, "your love of your neighbour ? Will you reach heaven in this way, you (fflirien, nicht Weiberj furies, not women?" And when they attempted to answer — " Be silent," he thundered out ; "go out of my sight, you who have scandalized religion. Away with you." The poor nun was asked why she had been immured. She answered, " I have broken the vow of purity ;" but then added, with a fearful gesture and a wild spring, "These nuns also are not pure; they are no angels." Then she sprang on the confessor, crying "Thou beast." The following day the nun was visited by the medical authorities. In their opinion she is rather " verwildert," become wild and savage, than deranged, and they hold out hopes of her recovery. As to her confession of misconduct, it still remains to be seen whether this be not a delusion of the brain. The abbess does not seem to have accused her of anything but madness, if we can, indeed, count that an accusation. Barbara, the nun, has since been taken to an asylum for the insane, and she seemed a little revived by the fresh air, but she trembled on entering the institution, and finding that she was to be under the care of the " Gray Sisterhood." The Vienna journals comment on this extraordinary arrangement, which perfectly astonishes them, as well it may. Justice is now following its course, but there are great impediments thrown in the way. The cause may be shipwrecked by the obstacles made by the ecclesiastical authorities in regard to the testimony of nuns. The nuns wear thick veils when examined by the magistrate, so that he cannot tell who is the witness before him. The Concordat is still a cause of entanglement in Austria, but this deplorable incident will clear up the relations of Church and State. It is said that the immuring of the nun was known even some ten years ago at Cracow, but that the Concordat and the Imperial policy opposed invincible obstacles to inquiry. Several hundreds of the citizens attempted to seize and destroy the nunnery and expel the nuns. Military force alone prevented the accomplishment of their purpose. They afterwards attacked a Jesuit institution where there is a rumour that great cruelties have also prevailed. The moral we draw from this horrible story is that monasteries and nunneries must be thrown open to the free inspection of the civil power.