| Testimonies
of the Agronomist
The penal colony of Castiadas was compared, by many inmates,
to an  authentic
French Cayenne, according to the testimonies of the Agronomist
Dr. Cusman. For the convicts there was no better solution than
to serve time in the open air. We recount for you several verses
written by the Agronomist and included in the book, “The
Farming Penal Colony of Castiadas”, published in 1903 in
the Farming Gazette:
- This collection of country houses, cultivated fields, animals
pasturing in peace, gives the idea, not only of a place to serve
a sentence, but of a delightful countryside dwelling where the
soul finds comfort and calm. What a transformation work can bring
about, even from the hand of a delinquent! At the same time, what
a price is paid for this work of charitable revolution.
- The existence of the prisoners in Castiadas and its cultivations,
would be a problem without the thick vegetation obscuring the
mountains, which mark out the boundaries of the territory. The
biggest spring, Baccu sa Figu, wells up, in fact, in the wood
and gives life to it; without its water, there would not be such
a mass of men and beast. The extensive covering of evergreen foliage
makes the air breathable and allows the cultivation of the nearby
plain, protecting it from the wind, which would otherwise pass
through unimpeded, and the heat, which would be reflected by the
bare cliffs. This wood, which, for Castiadas, is life, defence
and health, should therefore be respected as something sacred.
-  Those
who know the territory of the penal colony of Castiadas, where
I have been since 1879, are perhaps few. For this reason, I know
for certain that malaria has always existed in the area and I
will describe to you an event occuring in 1880: “One Autumn
day, a prison officer struck down in the country by pernicious
malaria, was taken to hospital on a stretcher of branches and
boughs by the five prisoners assigned to him, one of whom carried
his cartridge pouch, dagger and carbine. I had to leave Castiadas
because of the fever which afflicted me on alternate days.
In this account, the sensitivity of the prisoners is shown, even
towards those who represented the law. It is tempting to think
that this would have been a perfect opportunity to escape and
reach calmer climes.
This is not how it turned out, however. Whoever spent years in
prison in Castiadas, knows that work was the best therapy for
the law-breaker; ideologically, the best way for the inmate to
regain his public values. Where once the man had been excluded,
now, though in a punitive setting, he lived a community committed
to valuing and improving the area.
(Texts taken from the farming journal of Milan, 1903)
 INDIETRO
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