nor children nor unarmed peasants, | own works; but they have to give so that, together with the horror felt by much to the government, that they the Sicilians at the spoliation of the have still to be subsidized, as before. religious bodies, will, it is to be feared, Not that this feeling of antagonism or foster disunion still more. contempt is confined to Sicily, it exists It is this lack of true knowledge of between one town and another, renderthe requirements of each portion of ing it difficult to curtail expenses by Italy, which threatens to land the doing away with the numerous small country in a thorough deadlock. Even (very small) universities, etc., and conthe prefects, who should watch over centrating learning in three or four. the interests of their provinces, are Thus the north speaks of the centre chosen either from another part, or, if and south as but poor creatures; the they belong to the province, their use- centre has the same opinion of the fulness is curtailed by their anxiety south, and both look on the Piedmontnot to be "lifted out of the saddle," ese as forestieri." And this in spite should they press on matters not pal- of Crispi's efforts to amalgamate and atable to those who have power to un- fuse the different elements by never seat them. The continual shifting and allowing the soldiers to be quartered in shunting has a most injurious effect, their own districts, with the result that as they "blow neither hot nor cold," misunderstandings are frequent. Some like the vicar of Bray. In fact, it is end fatally, where homesickness makes asserted that one change of prefects the man really ill. Thus Evangelista, does more harm to the affairs of the a recruit from Benevento, was quarnation at large, than a change of min- tered in the spring of 1894 in Padua ; istry. This is saying a great deal, for the officers considered he was foxing their term of office rarely exceeds when he was really unable to sit on his eighteen months, but then that of the horse through illness, and then ensued prefects may be still shorter. Under a series of sickening brutalities, termiGiolitti, during his term of eighteen nating with death. This gave rise to months, first four-fifths were changed, a hostile demonstration of the Paduan or sent out, and then a full third. A students against a Venetian editor, for stranger, such as a northerner still is to daring to publish it, and the love of the southerner, or vice versa, can be Benevento for Padua was certainly not scarcely expected to encourage the increased. growth of a feeling of unity, especially if, as was the case with many of the Romans, they never inclined to it.

The north looks down scornfully, or, at best, with condescending pity, on the south; which plaintively, or when roused by any especially galling measure, indignantly protests against being mulcted for the furthering, more often than not, of industries, or works, for the sole benefit and profit of the north. Such, for instance, were the works on the Agro Romano and the rectification of the bed of the Tiber, which have long since eaten up all the tremendous sums granted, and which still continue to form a drain on the whole nation, as, if the pumping is relaxed, all will go back into its original marshiness. Autonomy, granted some years ago, was to burden each province with its

Such mistakes were never made by the Germans in the case of the annexed provinces. Prussian officers were set over them, it is true, but the men were quartered in their own province. Of course, to assert that all misfortunes are the fault of the north were, to say the least of it, equally wide of the mark. The hot-headed, unbusiness-like, and sanguine south, has only herself to blame, when she has initiated gigantic schemes, and frittered away the public moneys without commensurate results. And all for want of careful and practical supervision of the work, undertaken in a moment of public elation or emulation.

The ambitious schemes inaugurated in Naples after the cholera scare in 1884 form a striking example. The new system of drainage is colossal in

conception. The sewerage is all to be was to be taken by aqueducts and tuncarried through huge pipes far away nels, which were to rival those of Old from the town, and emptied out into Rome, from Caposele on the Mediterthe Mediterranean beyond Baja. But ranean to the regions of Apulia round the works, as any one can see, in the Barletta and Foggia, the wine market town itself, are being done in a slov- of Italy. Utility and feasibility are not enly manner. Thus surface drainage always thought of in this craze for local is made to run away into the tufa (into or national effect or display. Thus the what we call soaks in some sandy parts Lake of Fusino was drained by Torof Surrey). The smells which arise lonia, and the fishermen reduced to thence, and which pollute the air after beggary; whilst the new ruins of the a downpour of rain, are terrible. And Prati di Castello, and around Rome, this, be it remarked, happens in the together with the crippled resources of new part of the town, built since 1870, the nobles, and of the banks, form one or later, where orchards and gardens monument the more of this unhappy formerly flourished. The work is only want of foresight and of a business-like half finished, whilst the moneys, es- faculty. The original purpose is not timated as sufficient to carry it out, seldom utterly lost sight of in this have long since been swallowed up by craving for display, as in the case the cormorants, bred from that noxious of the houses in Naples, which were

system of sub-contracting, which nominally built to accommodate and

stretches over even governmental de- raise the moral tone of the very partments, such as the post, or the poor, after the cholera scare before levying of local or general taxes, and is alluded to. They are palatial, and the bane of everything in Italy. You splendidly arranged with a water may take, for instance, a parcel to the supply from the underground lake of general post-office, say in Naples, and Serino, and gas or electric light on go straight, as you would do in En- the stairs, all included in the rents, gland, to the parcels counter. But the which, unfortunately, are miles beyond official will send you to a room at the the means of those for whom they entrance, where a person (who farms were meant. Thus the poor wretches the post) will weigh it for you, and fill are crushed back into the still remainup your form, and often come back ing pest-laden piles, to utterly vanish from the official with the announce- when these follow the rest; besides ment that it is overweight and can't falling out of the range of that sympago. thetic help which was extended to them formerly by their neighbors, who now inhabit these palaces, and who were better off than they were, or who, if they couldn't help themselves, yet were in communication, through their work, with those who could. And Naples, the gay and bright, is sad; the people haven't a laugh left in them. Even their picturesqueness is a thing of the past, for they wear their formerly bright rags till there isn't a trace of color left in them, whilst the dull Manchester goods have conquered all the others. Is it strange that the dull mutterings of discontent all point at the government, and thus foster disunion?

For this spoilt form, if the parcel is for England, you have paid two francs seventy cents, and your polite helper requests a further donation for services which have been worse than useless In the matter of taxes the system works even worse, for the contractor and sub-contractor pares off his profit, till none remains for the poor.

Their schemes are nearly always characterized with a desire to surpass those of ancient Rome herself. As in the scheme, which British gold was to further, but which fortunately for Italy, with the millstone already round her neck of a deficit, which has run up from one hundred and seventy millions in the spring to two hundred millions of lire by the autumn of 1894 - has fallen through. By this scheme water

They have all, you have nothing take their place, is a doctrine only too

easily understood by even the most uneducated.

goes alone, it is only to prepare a place for the others to follow soon after.

Lowness of wages, and their meagre profits, made still smaller by the multifarious ways in which they are taxed, drive them out to seek their fortunes elsewhere. Why, even an infirm beggar's hut is taxed at twenty-nine lire a year, equal to 24s. 2d. This is the deservedly obnoxious focatico, or hearthtax, under which our poor no longer

Is it wonderful that the people look back longingly to times when, if taxation was sometimes heavy, they had processions, and pleasures provided, off and on, which kept them gay and contented? Patience, which the Church inculcated, has worn threadbare, and a settled gloom seems to brood over the city, which one has always been accustomed to consider as the most suffer. Even the industries which light-hearted in Europe. Taxes and monopolies weigh heavier and heavier all over the country, and always heaviest on those who can least afford it. Thus the government pays two centimes for each kilo of salt, and the poor pay thirty-five centimes. This, in a country where farinaceous food is the staple of consumption, and where it ought to be as cheap as with us! In consequence, many never use salt, or else only rock salt, such as is used for cattle, as being cheaper.

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have been established since 1870 do not serve to better their condition or enrich the nation. The foreigners, who established them, did so because wages were so low, and placed their earnings almost invariably out of the country.

monument of unfinished display, as many completed forts around Rome are rendered useless for want of provisions and of being properly joined with each other), received 1s. 5d. a day and their tools; but they, poor fellows, had no bribes to couut on.

It is true, that, at first sight, it seems strained to trace disunion to lowness of wages, but it is difficult to be patriotic, or bless one's rulers on thirty lire (25s.) a month. Now this is the pay received by a man of thirty-one in the governGrants towards the developments of ment's employ, Agostinelli by name, "sport," such as racing, are given and the son of a man whose position, by Parliament, but a grant towards the one would have thought, should have stamping out of the dread disease of procured him something better, had it pellagra, which the want of salt accen- been procurable. The navvies, who tuates, is begrudged altogether. By went out on strike in the spring of this short-sighted policy the population | 1894, and who were working on the foris depleted as much as by the emigra- tifications at Monte Mario (yet another tion, of which SO many complain. Hence the land, which is so fruitful that it can carry three crops at a time, and yields two crops of corn, lies partially, or wholly, untilled for lack of hands to till it, and Italy, the former supplier of corn to other nations, has to depend for her main supply on heav- Indirectly, the government, paradoxily taxed corn from outside. Whilst, ical as it may appear, have much to do as if in bitter irony, the proposal was with the lowness of wages given by actually made to levy a tax on "terra other employers. The weight of the incolte," i.e., on land capable of culti- taxes, levied to meet the outlay on two vation, and yet, for the above reasons, hundred and forty-six ships-of-war not cultivated by the owner! The undermanned, it is true-given to state of the country is, indeed, going Italy since 1871, when she had but a from bad to worse, as to workers, for handful, together with those necessary the northerner goes off with child, to make her, not only a first-class wife, parents, and grandparents, -a power, but one of the double first-class, fact which of itself shows no intention to return; and, though the southerner 1 The corn or vegetables, and the vines with the

fruit trees which support them.

hampers every one so much that they, as is only natural, screw down wages as low as they can. Were it not for the natural or acquired abstemiousness of

the Italians, helped by the climate, the ileges unmolested, such as cutting poor laborers would simply die of rushes and bamboos, which helped to starvation; as it is, the physique of the eke out their pittance. These the recruits shows how underfed they have Communes have taken from them, and been. Whilst, with a winter like last punish their transgression by mulcts year's, which covered the plains of and fines, which, as they can only be Piedmont with deep snow, and whose levied under the seal of the provincial severity was felt even in the south, giunta's approval, are all laid to the deaths from insufficient food and cloth- door of the rulers. These mulcts and ing are only too frequent. fines end, as a rule, in prison, where the unhappy offender, who often doesn't even know the cause, consorts with real criminals or anarchists, who in his sorely tried, hitherto dumbly suffering soul sow the seeds of discord and danger. These local oppressions are to the poor, in fact, the worst of his burdens. For his donkey- even if it be but a coster's - he must pay 2s. 6d. .; for a horse or mule, however dilapidated, 4s. duty (these go to the Communes), and at Pian' dei Greci the duty is 4s. and 8s. For a cow, 2s. 6d. ; for a calf, 1s. 3d. (hence many are killed off at once to the manifest detriment of cattle breeding); and for a sheep or goat, 10d.

The butteri and vergi, who attend to the cattle and horses, and to the sheep and goats, ou the Roman Campagna, are considered tolerably well off, as compared to the salt-workers or sulphur-miners, or to the men who come down from the Abruzzi for short spells somewhat as the Irish used to do for the haymaking and harvest in Lancashire. But our hinds would think they were going straight to the dogs, even on this comparative well-being.

Not only this, but he must pay duty on entering a "closed Commune " for the, as yet, unmilked milk. The effect on the milk is, of course, disastrous, as though, in the case of goats, they browse during the night and early morning, they pick up all sorts of garbage whilst wandering about all day in the town, as their owner stays there till the second milking to avoid a second payment. Voices, and those not merely of the reactionaries, have been heard wishing for the old fatherly ways back again, which were less expensive if so much less free!

Meanwhile, the Bergamot mill-hands around Reggio which suffered so frightfully from the recent earthquakes -are glad to get 1s. for a day of seventeen hours, and only have two meals a day; consisting of a pod or two of pimento, soaked in oil, and black bread, for the first meal, and a purely vegetable soup for the evening. The women dance during the vintage in Sicily, it is true (they get 6d. a day of twelve hours under the tropical sun), but it is to scudari li guai, to forget their misery, and their song done into English runs thus: "And now that he has eaten, and that he has drunk, my master has given a sardine unto me; Oh, God, he has eaten, and drunk wine, whilst he's prepared but a sardine for me." Truly one marvels how they can dance at all - not that the spirit of disThe increase in the expenses of content and disunion is strongest where living, in a measure, force the officials the people are worst off. The districts to be corrupt in order to live. Thus which have known better days and cane-sugar is 10d. a pound and beetsuffer a sudden depression, as around sugar 84d.; whilst petroleum is sold at Trapani and Palermo, whose cargoes of 2s. 4d. a gallon, and rectified spirits for lemons and oranges had been ruthlessly burning 1s. 11d. a pint! Coffee costs refused by America because of the 3s. 6d. an Italian pound, equal to cholera, were the ones where the rising three-quarters of a pound English, and was most serious and widespread. all other not purely agricultural foods

The old governments were fatherly are equally dear. In fact, even the despots, as often as not, under whom | latter are dearer than formerly. The the poor enjoyed certain meagre priv- same reasons bring about commercial

laxity; witness the case of Pinto, a Novarese merchant, who had got the government to refund the duties, which he had paid on certain rice, which he pretended had lain all the time in bond. And he was helped to perpetrate the fraud by well-administered bribes to Gallina, an official, and to Chauvet, a journalist, who had great power in ministerial circles; boasting, in fact, that he often kept ministers kicking their heels in his ante-room!

Galli, the minister of that department, barely escaped being implicated as well in this scandalous affair.

Another, and by no means the smallest, source of disuniou, lies in the attitude towards the Church, to which the hot-headed first representatives of the new kingdom pledged their successors. The same hot-headed ones have, it is true, toned down since then, and many can say with Ruggiero Bonghi, that: "Nothing can be done without religion;" or with Crispi, formerly the most antagonistic of all: "Let us tight shoulder to shoulder against anarchy, with God for king and country!"

still feel bound to obey, though many doubtless eat their hearts out at their inability to help their country. In Pio Nono, such a course was only to be expected; he had suffered too much at the hands of the victors of the 20th September. The remembrance of the mad, bad days during the Triumvirate in 1848, when the priests were buried to the waist in the ground and stoned to death, and the way in which his more liberal efforts had been met with the murder of Count Rossi, was still fresh in his mind. The mere fact that when he appeared at one of the Vatican windows, many of those who merely cheered him (the Liberal press itself said there was nothing illegal in their greeting) and waved their handkerchiefs to him, were arrested, and some of them banished the country, showed that he was a prisoner in deed. When his successor, however, ascended the papal throne, the hopes of those who loved their country, and yet who loved their religion as well, centred in his taking a different line.

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In fact it was confidently expected In Piedmont, those who are good sons that he would give the blessing from of the Church, and there are many, the balcony of St. Peter's; so confifeel their best efforts paralyzed by dently, indeed, that the royal pair sat their feeling that the excommunication waiting in their carriage at the Quirinal, still rests on the king and on the min-ready to hasten down for a share isters. Either the excommunication Esau of old in his blessing. means something or nothing. If something, then the less we obey the king or the powers that be, so argues the Roman and the southerner, the better. Hence the work done for the government by those who, for the sake of daily bread alone serve it, is done in a half-hearted way, and done badly. Whilst, on the other hand, if it means nothing, then the power for good of religion is weakened, and from thence there is a quick, short transition to total throwing off of all restraints, whether of morals or of authority, legitimate or oppressive.

In the old papal dominions matters are even worse than elsewhere, for the old noble families are attached both by affection and tradition to the Holy See. They were forbidden to take the oath necessary for entering Parliament, and

Reprisals, caused by baffled wishes, were the inevitable corollary, and the royal assent was again refused for vacant bishoprics. Many dioceses have thus been long widowed of their pastors, to the manifest detriment of souls, and the further widening of a breach which, though off and on, outsiders fancy will be bridged, invariably remains the same as before.

Thus discord and disunion have flourished apace; many who could help have been perforce silent, and the lives of those who dared to lift up their voices for the good of the people have been rendered a misery by banishment, domicilio coatto (forced residence where it is considered best for them) or strict. police supervision. Indeed a return to Absolutism without the "fatherly " seems inevitable. What would our