Chapter 25

INFLUENCE OF ROMANISM ON TRADE.

The Church the Destroyer of the Country--The Pontifical Government just the Papacy in Action--That Government makes Men _Beggars_, _Slaves_, _Barbarians_--Influence of Pontifical Government on Trade--Iron--Great Agent of Civilization--Almost no Iron in Papal States--The Church has forbidden it--Prohibitive Duties on Iron--Machinery likewise prohibited--Antonelli's Extraordinary Note--Paucity of Iron-Workmen and Mechanics in the Papal States--Barbarous Aspect of the Country--Roman Ploughs--Roman Carts--How Grain is there Winnowed--Husbandry of Italy--Its Cabins--Its Ragged Population--Its Farms--Ruin of its Commerce--Isolation of Rome--Reasons why--Proposed Railway from Civita Vecchia to Ancona--Frustrated by the Government--Wretched Conveyance of Merchandise--Pope's Steam Navy--Papal Custom-houses--Bribery--Instances.

It is time to concentrate my observations, and to make their light converge around that evil system that sits enthroned in this old city. Of all the great ruins in Italy, the greatest by far is the Italians themselves. The ruin of the Italians I unhesitatingly lay at the door of the Church;--she is the nation's destroyer. When I first saw the Laocoon in the Vatican, I felt that I saw the symbol of the country;--there was Italy writhing in the folds of the great Cobra di Capella, the Papacy.

I cannot here go into the ceremonies practised at Rome, and which present so faithful a copy, both in their forms and in their spirit, of the pagan idolatry. Nor can I speak of the innumerable idols of gold and silver, wood and stone, with which their churches are crowded, and before which you may see votaries praying, and priests burning incense, all day long. Nor can I speak of the endless round of fetes and festivals which fill up the entire year, and by which the priests seek to dazzle, and, by dazzling, to delude and enthral, the Romans. Nor can I detain my readers with tales and wonders of Madonnas which have winked, and of the blind and halt which have been cured, which knaves invent and simpletons believe. Nor can I detail the innumerable frauds for fleecing the Romans;--money for indulgences,--money for the souls in purgatory,--money for eating flesh on Friday,--money for votive offerings to the saints. The church of the Jesuits is supposed to be worth a million sterling, in the shape of marbles, paintings, and statuary; and in this way the capital of the country is locked up, while not a penny can be had for making roads or repairing bridges, or promoting trade and agriculture. I cannot enter into these matters: I must confine my attention to one subject,--THE PONTIFICAL GOVERNMENT.

When I speak of the Pontifical Government, I just mean the Papacy. The working of the Papal Government is simply the working of the Papacy; for what is that Government, but just the principles of the Papacy put into judicial gear, and employed to govern mankind? It is the Church that governs the Papal States; and as she governs these States, so would she govern all the earth, would we let her. The Pontifical Government is therefore the fairest illustration that can be adduced of the practical tendency and influence of the system. I now arraign the system in the Government. I am prepared to maintain, both on general principles, and on facts that came under my own observation while in Rome, that the Pontifical Government is the most flagitiously unjust, the most inexorably cruel, the most essentially tyrannical Government, that ever existed under the sun. It is the necessary, the unchangeable, the eternal enemy of liberty. I say, looking at the essential principles of the Papacy, that it is a system claiming infallibility, and so laying reason and conscience under interdict,--that it is a system claiming to govern the world, not _by_ God, but _as_ God,--that it is a system claiming supreme authority in all things spiritual, and claiming the same supreme authority, though indirectly, in all things temporal,--that it sets no limits to its jurisdiction, but, on the contrary, makes that jurisdiction to range indiscriminately over heaven, earth, and hell. Looking at these principles, which no Papist can deny to be the fundamental and vital elements of his system, I maintain that, if there be any one thing more than another ascertained and indisputable within the compass of man's knowledge, it is this, that the domination of a system like the Papacy is utterly incompatible with the enjoyment of a single particle of liberty on the part of any human being. And I now proceed to show, that the conclusion to which one would come, reasoning from the essential principles of this system, is just the conclusion at which he would arrive by observing the workings of this system, as exhibited at this day in Italy.

I shall arrange the facts I have to state under three heads:--_First_, Those that relate to the TRADE of the Roman States: _second_, Those that relate to the administration of JUSTICE: and _third_, Those that relate to EDUCATION and KNOWLEDGE. I shall show that the Pontifical Government is so conducted as regards Trade, that it can have no other effect than to make the Romans _beggars_. I shall show, in the second place, that the Pontifical Government is so conducted as regards Justice, that it can have no other effect than to make the Romans _slaves_. And I shall show, in the third place, that the Pontifical Government is so conducted as regards Education, that it can have no other effect than to make the Romans _barbarians_. This is the threefold result that Government is fitted to work out: this is the threefold result it has wrought out. It has made the Romans beggars,--it has made the Romans slaves,--it has made the Romans barbarians. Observe, I do not touch the religious part of the question. I do not enter on any discussion respecting Purgatory, or Transubstantiation, or the worship of the Virgin. I look simply at the bearings of that system upon man's temporal interests; and I maintain that, though man had no hereafter to provide for, and no soul to be saved, he is bound by every consideration to resist a system so destructive to the whole of his interests and happiness in time.

I come now to trace the workings of the Papacy on the Trade of the Papal States. But here I am met, on the threshold of my subject, by this difficulty, that I am to speak of what scarce exists; for so effectually has the Pontifical Government developed its influence in this direction, that it has all but annihilated trade in the Papal States. If you except the manufacture of cameos, Roman mosaics, a little painting and statuary, there is really no more trade in the country than is absolutely necessary to keep the people from starvation. The trade and industry of the Roman States are crushed to death under a load of monopolies and restrictive tariffs, invented by infallible wisdom for protecting, but, as it seems to our merely fallible wisdom, for sacrificing, the industry of the country.

Let us take as our first instance the Iron Trade. We all know the importance of iron as regards civilization. Civilization may be said to have commenced with iron,--to have extended over the earth with iron; and so closely connected are the two, that where iron is not, there you can scarce imagine civilization to be. It is by iron in the form of the plough that man subjugates the soil; and it is by iron in the form of the sword that he subjugates kingdoms. What would our country be without its iron,--without its railroads, its steam-ships, its steam-looms, its cutlery, its domestic utensils? Almost all the comforts and conveniences of civilized life are obtained by iron. You may imagine, then, the condition of the Papal States, when I state that iron is all but unknown in them. It is about as rare and as dear as the gold of Uphaz. And why is it so? There is abundance of iron in our country; water-carriage is anything but expensive; and the iron manufacturers of Britain would be delighted to find so good a market as Italy for their produce. Why, then, is iron not imported into that country? For this simple reason, that the Church has forbidden its introduction. Strange, that it should forbid so useful a metal where it is so much needed. Yet the fact is, that the Pope has placed its importation under an as stringent prohibition almost as the importation of heresy: perhaps he smells heresy and civilization coming in the wake of iron. The duty on the introduction of bar-iron is two baiocchi la libbra, equivalent to fifty dollars, or L12 10s., per ton; which is about twice the price of bar-iron in this country. This duty is prohibitive of course.

The little iron which the Romans possess they import mostly from Britain, in the form of pig-iron; and the absurdity of importing it in this form appears from the fact that there is no coal in the States to smelt it,--at least none has as yet been discovered: wood-char is used in this process. When the pig-iron is wrought up into bar-iron, it is sold at the incredible price of thirty-eight Roman scudi the thousand pounds, which is equivalent, in English money, to L23 15s. per ton, or four times its price in Britain. The want of the steam-engine vastly augments the cost of its manufacture. There is a small iron-work at Terni, eighty miles from Rome, which is set down there for the advantage of water-power, which is employed to drive the works. The whole raw material has to be carted from Rome, and, when wrought up, carted back again, adding enormously to the expense. There is another at Tivoli, also moved by water-power. The whole raw material has, too, to be carted from Rome, and the manufactured article carted back, causing an outlay which would soon more than cover the expense of steam-engine and fuel. At Terni some sixty persons are employed, including boys and men. The manager is a Frenchman, and most of the workmen are Frenchmen, with wages averaging from forty to fifty baiocchi; labourers at the works have from twenty-five to thirty baiocchi per day,--from a shilling to fifteenpence.

During the reign of Gregory XVI. machinery was admitted into the Papal States at a nominal duty, or one baiocchi the hundred Roman pounds. It is not in a day that a country like Italy can be taught the advantage of mechanical power. The Romans, like every primitive people, are apt to cleave to the rude, unhandy modes which they and their fathers have practised, and to view with suspicion and dislike inventions which are new and strange. But they were beginning to see the superiority of machinery, and to avail themselves of its use. A large number of hydraulic presses, printing presses, one or two steam-engines, a few threshing-mills, and other agricultural implements, were introduced under this nominal duty; and, had a little longer time been allowed, the country would have begun to assume somewhat of a civilized look. But Gregory died; and, as if to show the utter hopelessness of anything like progress on the part of the Pontifical Government, it was the present Pope who took the retrograde step of restoring the law shutting out machines. Cardinal Tosti, the Treasurer to Gregory's Government, was succeeded by his Excellenza Monsignor (now Cardinal) Antonelli, one of the earliest official acts of whom was the appending a note to the tariff on machinery, which subjected machines, all and sundry, to the duty imposed in the tariff on their component parts. For example, a machine composed of iron, brass, steel, and wood, according to Antonelli's note, would have to pay separate duty on each of the materials composing it. The way in which the thing was done is a fine sample of the spirit and style of papal legislation, and shows how the same subtle but perverted ingenuity, the same specious but hypocritical pretexts, with which the theological part of the system abounds, are extended also to its political and civil managements. Antonelli did not rescind the tariff; he but appended a note, the quiet but sure effect of which was to render it null. He did not tax machines as a whole; they were still free, viewed in their corporate capacity: he but taxed their individual parts. This ingenious legislator, by a saving clause, exempted from the operation of his note _machines of new invention_, which, after being proved to be such, were to be admitted at the nominal duty! What machines would not be of new invention in the Roman States, where there is absolutely no machinery, saving--with all reverence for the apostolic chamber--the guillotine?

But farther, Antonelli, to show at once his ingenuity and philanthropy, enacted that machines which had never before been introduced into the States should be admitted at the nominal duty. Mark the extent of the boon herein conferred on Italy. We shall suppose that one of each of the industrial and agricultural machines in use in Britain is admitted into the Roman States under this law. It is admitted duty-free. Well, but the second plough, or the second loom, or the second steam-engine, arrives. It must pay a prohibitive duty. It is not a new machine. You can make as many as you please from the one already introduced, says Antonelli. But who is to make them? There are no mechanics deserving the name in Rome; who, by the way, are the very people Antonelli said he meant to benefit. But, apart from the want of mechanical skill, there is the dearth of the raw material; for maleable iron was selling in Rome at upwards of L21 per ton, at a time when the cost of bar-iron in this country was only from L6 to L7 per ton. Such insane legislation on the part of the sacerdotal Government could not be committed through ignorance or stupidity. There must be some strong reason that does not appear at first sight for this wholesale sacrifice of the interests of the country. We shall speak of this anon: meanwhile we pursue our statement.

Antonelli supported his note,--that note which ratified the banishment of the arts from Italy, and gave barbarism an eternal infeftment in the soil,--by affirming that it was passed in order to encourage l'industria dello Stato; which is as if one should say that he had cut his neighbour's throat to protect his life; for certainly Antonelli's note cut the throat of industry. Well, one would think, seeing this legislation was meant to protect the industry of the State and the interests of the iron-workmen, that these iron-workmen must be a large body. How many iron-workmen are there in the Papal States? An hundred thousand? One thousand? There are not more in all than one hundred and fifty! And for these one hundred and fifty iron-workmen (to which we may add the seventy cardinals, the most of whom are speculators in iron), the rest of the community is put beyond the pale of civilization, the ordinary arts and utensils are proscribed, improvement is at a stand-still, and the country is doomed to remain from age to age in barbarism.

And what is the aspect of the country? It is decidedly that of a barbarous land. Everything has an old-world look, as if it belonged to the era of the Flood. Iron being so enormously dear, its use is dispensed with wherever it is possible. Almost all implements of agriculture, of carriage, almost all domestic utensils, and many tools of trade, are made of wood. In consequence, they do very little work; and that little but indifferently well. Nothing could be more primitive than the _plough_ of the Romans. It consists of a single stick or lever, fixed to a block having the form of a sock or coulter, with a projection behind, on which the ploughman puts his foot, and assists the bullocks over a difficulty. The work done by this implement we would not call ploughing: it simply scratches the surface to the depth of some three or four inches, with which the poor husbandman is content. The soil is in general light, but it might be otherwise tilled; and, were it so, would yield far other harvests than those now known in Italy. Their _carts_, too, are of the rudest construction, and may be regarded as ingenious models of the form which should combine the largest bulk with the least possible use. They have high wheels, and as wide-set as those in our country, with nothing to fill the dreary space between but an uncouth-looking nut-shell of a box. The infallible Government of the Pope has not judged it beneath it to legislate in reference to them. They must be made of a certain prescribed capacity, and stamped for the purchase and sale of lime and pozzolano. In this happy country, all things, from the Immaculate Conception down to the pozzolano cart, are cared for by the sacerdotal Government. The open-bodied carts have bars (the length and distance apart of which are also regulated by the pontiff) placed on the trams, and are licensed for the sale of green wood, which must be sold at from three and a half to four dollars a load. The barozza is another open-bodied cart, with bars placed around the trams, and contains about twelve sacks of wood-char, which is sold at from eight to ten dollars. This is the fuel of the country, and, when kindled, does well enough for cooking. It gives considerable heat and but little smoke, but lacks the cheerfulness and comfort of an English fire-side, which is unknown in Rome.

Every agricultural process is conducted in the same rude and slovenly way. And how can it be otherwise, when the Church, for reasons best known to itself, denies the people the use of the indispensable instruments? It solemnly legislates that one British plough may be imported; and graciously permits its subjects, in a land where there are no mechanics, to make as many additional ploughs as they need. Is it not peculiarly modest in these men, who show so little wisdom in temporal matters, to ask the entire world to surrender its belief to them in things spiritual and divine?

Every one knows how we winnow corn in Britain. How do they conduct that process at Rome? A cart-load of grain is poured out on the barn-floor; some dozen or score of women squat down around it, and with the hand separate the chaff from the wheat, pickle by pickle. In this way a score of women may do in a week what a farmer in our country could do easily in a couple of hours. An effort was made to persuade the predecessor of the present Pontiff, Gregory XVI., to sanction the admission into Rome of a winnowing-machine. Its mode of working and uses were explained to the Pontiff. Gregory shook his head; for Infallibility indicates its doubts at times, just as mortals do, by a shake of the head. It was a dangerous thing to introduce into Rome, said the infallible Gregory. Perhaps it was; for if the Romans had begun to winnow grain, they might have learned to winnow other things besides grain.

The husbandry of Italy, as a system, is in a most backward state. Its cultivation is the cultivation of Ireland. And yet Italy is excelled by few countries on earth, perhaps by none, in point of its external defences, and its inexhaustible internal resources; which, however, under its present Government, are utterly wasted. On the north it is defended by the wall of the Alps, and on all its other sides by the ocean, whose bays offer boundless facilities for commerce. The plains of Lombardy are eternally covered with flowers and fruit. The valleys of Tuscany still boast the olive, the orange, and the vine. The wide waste of the Campagna di Roma is of the richest soil, and, spread out beneath the warm sun, might mingle on its surface the fruits of the torrid with those of the temperate zones. Instead of this, Italy presents to the traveller's eye a deplorable spectacle of wretched cabins, untilled fields, and a population oppressed by sloth and covered with rags. The towns are filled mostly with idlers and beggars. With all my inquiries, I could never get a clear idea of how they live. The alms-houses are numerous; for when a Government puts down trade, it must build hospitals and poor's-houses, or see its subjects die of starvation. In Rome, for example, besides the convents, where a number of poor people get a meal a day,--a sufficiently meagre one,--there is the government _Beneficenza_, which the more intelligent part account a great curse. Some fifteen hundred or two thousand persons, many of them able-bodied men, receive fifteen baiocchi,--sevenpence half-penny,--per day, in return for which they pouter about with barrows, removing earth from the old ruins, or cleaning the streets, which are none the cleaner, or picking grass in the square of the Vatican. Many deplorable tales are told in Rome of these people, and of the dire sacrifice made of the female portion of their families. But the grand resource is beggary, especially from foreigners; and if a beggar earn a penny a day, he will make a shift to live. He will purchase half a pound of excellent macaroni with the one baiocchi, and a few apples or grapes with the other; and thus he is provided for for the day. The inhabitants of these countries do not eat so substantially as we do. Should he earn nothing, he has it in his choice to steal or starve. This is the prolific source of brigandage and vagabondism.

In the country, the peasants (and there almost all are peasants) live by cultivating a small patch of land. The farms, like those in Ireland, are mere crofts. The proprietor, who lives in the city, provides not only the land, but the implements and cattle also, and in return receives a stipulated portion of the fruits. His share is often as high as a half, never lower than a fourth. The farmer is a tenant-at-will most commonly, but removals are rare; and sometimes, as in Ireland, the same lands remain in the occupation of the same families for generations. Their conical little hills, with their peasant villages a-top, are curiously ribbed with a particoloured vegetation, each family cultivating their couple of acres after their own fashion; while the plain is not unfrequently abandoned to marshes, or ruins, or wild herbage. To dig drains, to clear out the substructions, to re-open the ancient water-courses, or to follow any improved system of cropping, is far beyond the enterprise of the poor farmer. He has neither skill, nor capital, nor savings. If nature takes the matter into her own hand, well; if not, one bad harvest irretrievably lands him in famine. Thus, with a soil and climate not excelled perhaps in the world, the husbandman drags out his life in poverty, and is often on the very brink of starvation. Whatever beauty and fertility that land still retains, it owes to nature, not to man. Indeed, it is now only the skeleton of Italy that exists, with here and there patches of its former covering,--nooks of exquisite beauty, which strike one the more from the desolation that surrounds them. But its cultivated portions are every year diminishing. Its woods and olives are fast disappearing; and by and by the very beasts of the field will be compelled to leave it, and the King of the Seven Hills, could we conceive of his remaining behind, will be left to reign in undisputed and unenvied supremacy over the storks and frogs, and other animals, that breed and swarm in its marshes.

The commerce of Italy, too, is extinct. How can it be otherwise? Under their terrible stagnation and death of mind, the Italians produce nothing for export. In that country there are no factories, no mining operations, no ship-building, no public works, no printing presses, no tools of trade. In short, they create nothing but a few articles of vertu; and even in those arts in which alone their genius is allowed to exert itself, foreigners excel them. The best sculptors and painters at Rome are Englishmen. And as regards their soil, which might send its wheat, and wine, and olives, all delicious naturally, to every part of the world, its harvests are now able but to feed the few men who live in the country. As to imports, both raw and manufactured, which the Romans need so much, we have seen how the sacerdotal Government takes effectual means to prevent these reaching the population. The Pontiff has enclosed his territory with a triple wall of protective duties and monopolies, to keep out the foreign merchant; and thus not only are the Romans forbidden to labour for themselves, but they are prevented profiting by the labour of others. There is a monopoly of sugar-refining, a monopoly of salt-making, and, in short, of every thing which the Romans most need. These monopolies are held by the favourites of the Government; and though generally the houses that hold them are either unwilling or unable to make more than a tithe of what the Romans would require, no other establishment can produce these articles, and they cannot be imported but at a ruinous duty.

We are reminded of another grievance under which the Romans groan. The few articles that are landed on their coast have to encounter tedious and almost insuperable delays before they can find their way to the capital. This is owing to the wretched state of the communication, which is kept purposely wretched in order to isolate Rome and the Romans from the rest of the world. That Church likes to sit apart and keep intact her venerable prestige, which would be apt to be contemned were it looked at close at hand. She dreads, too, to let her people come in contact with the population of other States. A few thousands of English aristocracy she can afford to admit annually within her territory. Their money she needs, and their indifference gives her no uneasiness. But to have the mass of a free people circulating through her capital would be a death-blow to her influence. She deems it, then, a wise policy, indeed a necessary safeguard, to make the access such as only money and time can overcome, though at the sacrifice of the trade and comforts of the people. Repeated attempts have been made to connect Rome with the rest of Europe; but hitherto, through the singularly adroit management of the Government, all such attempts have been fruitless.

In 1851 the long talked of concession for railways in the Roman States was obtained by Count Montalembert. The railways were to be constructed by foreign money and foreign agency, of course. A line from Rome to Ancona, and another from Rome to Civita Vecchia, were talked of, which would have put the Eternal City in immediate communication with the Adriatic and the Mediterranean. _Che belle cose!_ the Italians might be heard uttering wherever grouped. It looked too well; an extravagant guarantee was offered to the Intraprendenti (contractors) by the Roman Government. The Parisian Count was to procure capitalists for the undertaking. The general opinion at the time was, that the Government was insincere in their extravagant guarantee; and they stipulated with the Count a condition as to time, calculated, as was supposed, to frustrate the undertaking. In this, however, the Government was outwitted; for capitalists were found within the prescribed time, engineers appointed, and contracts entered into. The iron-works of Terni and Tivoli amalgamated, in the hope of doing an extensive business by manufacturing the rails, &c.; and announced in their prospectus the intention of working the La Tolfa ironstone near Civita Vecchia. Many were induced to sink money in this amalgamated concern, and there it fruitlessly remains. The affray at Ferrara put the scutch upon the mighty railway scheme.

Were the Government in earnest on the subject of railways, sufficient capital might easily be raised to construct a line between Rome and Civita Vecchia, which would be of incalculable benefit to Rome. Vessels of heavy burden can discharge at the port of Civita Vecchia. Merchandise could thence be transmitted by rail to Rome, where its arrival could be calculated on to half an hour; and of what immense advantage would this be, contrasted with the present maritime conveyance, which keeps merchants in expectation of goods for days and weeks, and not unfrequently for a whole month, with bills of lading in hand from Marseilles, Genoa, Leghorn, Naples, and Sicily, by vessels carrying from fifty to a hundred and fifty tons! The entrance to the mouth of the Tiber at Fuma-Cina is both difficult and dangerous; so much so, that sailing masters will not hazard the attempt if the weather is in the least degree stormy. They are obliged frequently to return to Civita Vecchia or Leghorn, until the weather will permit their entering the river at Fuma-Cina. There their vessels require to be lightened, or partly discharged into barges, there not being sufficient water in the Tiber to allow them to ascend to Rome; the average depth of water throughout the year being from four to five feet, which is only sufficient for the Pope's navy force, employed in tugging barges from Fuma-Cina to Rome. It is not the least important part of the Roman merchants' business to know that their long-expected goods have entered the river. This is ascertained at the custom-house at Ripa Grande, where the intelligence is chronicled every evening, on return of the navy force.

That navy consists of three small steamers, thirty horse power, and a dredging boat. Two of the steamers are kept for the traffic between Fuma-Cina and the custom-house at Rome. The other is employed on the upper part of the river, starting from the Ripetta in Rome for the Sabina country, going up about forty miles, and returning with wine, oil, Indian corn, and wood for fuel, green and charred. The dredging boat is scarcely ever used. The constantly filthy state of the river causes so much deposit, that the machine is unable to overcome it.

There are custom-houses, of course, on all the frontiers. A very respectable amount of bribery is done in these places: indeed, I never could see that much business of any other sort was transacted in them. I have already stated, that the first thing I was compelled to do on entering Rome was to give a bribe, in order to escape from the old temple of Antoninus, in which I unexpectedly found myself locked up. I met an intelligent Scotchman in Rome, who had newly returned from Naples, and who had to endure a half-day's detention at Terra Cina because he refused to pay the ransom of six scudi put upon his trunks, and insisted on their being searched. Corruption pervades all classes of functionaries. In Rome itself there are two custom-houses; one for merchandise imported by sea, and the other for overland goods. The hours for business are from nine o'clock till twelve o'clock. Declarations for relieving goods must be made betwixt nine and eleven, the other hour being appropriated to winding up the business of the preceding two hours. Almost everything which the country produces, whether for man or for beast, on entering the city has to pay duty at the gate. This is termed _Dazio di Consumo_. This department of the revenue is farmed out to an officer, whose servants are stationed at the gates for the purpose of uplifting the duty; and there, as in all the other Government custom-houses, much systematic cheating goes on. As an example, I may relate what happened to my friend Mr Stewart, whose acquaintance I had the good fortune to make in Rome, and whose information on all matters of trade in the Roman States, well known to him from long practical experience, was not only of the highest value, but was the means of affording me an insight into the workings of Romanism on the temporal condition of its subjects, such as few travellers have an opportunity of attaining. Mr Stewart was engaged to take charge of the one little iron-work in the city; and the transaction I am about to relate in his own words took place when he was entering the gates. "Along with my furniture," says he, "I had a trunk containing wearing-apparel and two _pocket-pistols_. The latter, I knew, were prohibited, and made the agent employed to pass the articles acquainted with the dilemma, which he heartily laughed at,--by way, I suppose, of having a bone to pick. 'Leave the matter to me,' said he, adding, 'the officials must be recompensed, you know.' That of course; and, to be reasonable, he inquired if I would give three dollars, for which sum he would guarantee their safety. I consented to this in preference to losing them, or being obliged to send them out of the country. Notwithstanding the agent's assurance, I felt naturally anxious at the barefaced transaction, which was coolly gone about. When the trunk should have been examined, the attention of the officials was voluntarily directed to some other article, while the agent's porters turned the trunk upside down, chalked it, and replied to the query, that it had been examined, and was not even opened, which the officials well knew, and for the consideration of three dollars they betrayed trust. The trunk might have contained jewellery, or even _screw-nails_,--both pay a high duty. The latter especially, being made at Tivoli, are prohibited, or admitted at the prohibitive duty of twenty-five baiocchi the Roman pound,--sufficient to illustrate what might have been the result of this transaction in a mercantile point of view, not to speak of the opportunity afforded for introducing the _Bible_. The officials are all indifferently remunerated, and thus do business for themselves at the cost of the Government. They are also very incapable for the discharge of their duty. For example, the _Governor_ of the custom-house seriously asked me, preparatory to making a declaration for a _steam-boiler_, whether it was made of _wood_ or of _iron_. The boiler was not before him; but the idea of a steam-boiler of wood from the lips of the Governor of a custom-house was astounding."

"Books of all kinds are taken to the land custom-house, where the _Revisore_ is stationed for books alone. The _Revisore_ speaks English tolerably well."