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."