depressions which are the necessary incidents of the false system of
Industry and Trade which the leaders of Commercial opinion are bent on
fortifying and extending.--Here, at the confluence of the Rhone and the
Saone, is concentrated a population of nearly 200,000 souls, half of
whom attempt to live by spinning, weaving and dyeing Silks, while the
residue in good part busy themselves in collecting and buying the raw
material or in exporting and selling the product. But it is not best for
themselves nor for mankind that 100,000 Silk-workers should be clustered
on any square mile or two of earth; if they were distributed over the
world's surface, in communities of five to fifty thousand souls--if the
raw Silk were grown in the various countries wherein the fabrics are
required, where the climate and soil do not forbid, and taken there to
be manufactured where they do--the workers would have space, air,
activity, liberty, development, which are unattainable while they are
cooped within the walls of a single city. If those Silk-weavers, for
instance, whose fabrics are consumed in the United States, were now
located in Virginia, Tennessee, Missouri, &c. instead of being mainly
crowded into Lyons, they would there obtain many of the necessaries of
life at half the prices they now give for them, while the consumers of
their fabrics would pay for them in good part with Fruits, Vegetables,
Fuel, &c. which, because of their bulk or their perishable nature, they
cannot now sell at all, or can only sell at prices below the cost of
production. No matter if the Silks were held in money a fifth, a fourth,
or even a third higher than now, the great body of our consumers would
obtain them much cheaper, estimating the cost not in dollars but in
days' labor. The workers on both sides would be benefited, because they
would share between them at least three-fourths of the enormous tax
which Commerce now levies upon their Industry through the sale and
resale of its products, to distribute among its importers, shippers,
jobbers, retailers and lackeys of infinite variety. The bringing
together of Producer and Consumer, where Nature has interposed no
barrier, so that their diverse needs may be supplied by direct
interchange, or with the fewest possible intermediates, is the simple
and only remedy for one of the chief scourges under which Industry now
suffers throughout the world.
"Very true," says Vapid, "but this will regulate itself."--Will it,
indeed? Be good enough to tell me how! All the potent individual
agencies now affecting it are attached by self-interest to the wrong
side. The Capitalists, the Employers, the Exporters, engaged in the Silk
trade, all own property in Lyons, and are naturally anxious that the
manufacture shall be more and more concentrated there. The Shipper, the
Importer, the Jobber of our own country, has a like interest in keeping
the point of production as distant from their customers as possible.
Very often have I been told by wholesale merchants, "We prefer to sell
Foreign rather than Home-made fabrics, because the profit on the former
is usually much greater." This consideration is active and omnipresent
in Trade generally. The sole interest subserved by Direct and Simple
Exchanges is that of Labor; and this, though greatest of all, is
unorganized, inert, and individually impotent. These Silk-Weavers of
Lyons are no more capable of removing to Virginia or Missouri and
establishing their business there than the Alps are of making an
American tour. Our consumers of Silks, acting as individuals, cannot
bring them over and establish them among us. But the great body of
consumers, animated by Philanthropy and an enlightened Self-Interest,
acting through their single efficient organism, the State, can make it
the interest of Capital and Capacity to bring them over and plant them
in the most eligible localities among us, and ought immediately and
persistently to do so. The inconveniences of such a policy are partial
and transitory, while its blessings are permanent and universal.
A RIDE ACROSS THE ALPS.
Railroads are excellent contrivances for dispatch and economy;
Steamboats ditto, and better still for ease and observation or reading;
Steamships are to be endured when Necessity compels; but an
old-fashioned Coach-and-Four is by no means to be despised, even in
this age of Progress and Enlightenment. While I stay in Europe, I wish
to see as much land and to waste as little time on blue water as
possible. So I turned aside at Lyons from the general stream of
Italy-bound travellers--which flows down the Rhone to Avignon and
Marseilles, thence embarking for Genoa and Leghorn,--and booked myself
for a ride across the Lower Alps by diligence to Turin. And glad am I
that my early resolve to do so was not shaken.
The European, but more especially French, diligence has often been
described. Ours consisted of a long carriage divided into the _coupe_ or
foremost apartment, directly under the driver, and with an outlook on
each side and in front over the backs of the horses; the middle
apartment, which is much like the interior of our ordinary stage-coach;
and the rumble or rear apartment, calculated for servants or other cheap
travelers. Two-thirds of the roof was covered with a tun or two of
baggage and merchandise; and in front of this, behind and above the
driver's seat, is the _banquette_, a single seat across the top,
calculated to hold four persons, with a chaise top to be thrown back in
fine weather and a glass front to be let down by night or in case of
rain. I chose my seat here, as affording the best possible view of the
country. At 8 P. M. precisely, the driver cracked his whip, and four
good horses started our lumbering vehicle at a lively pace on the road
to Turin, some two hundred miles away in the south-east.
The road from Lyons to the frontier is one of the best in the world, and
traverses a level, fertile, productive country. I should say that Grass,
Wheat and the Vine are the chief staples. A row of trees adorns either
side of the road most of the way, not the trim, gaunt, limbless
skeletons which are preferred throughout Central France, but
wide-spreading, thrifty shade-trees, which I judged in the darkness to
be mainly Black Walnut, with perhaps a sprinkling of Chestnut, &c.
Through this noble avenue, we rattled on at a glorious pace, a row of
small bells jingling from each horse, and no change of teams consuming
more than two minutes, until we reached the little village on the French
side of the boundary between France and Savoy, some fifty miles from
Lyons. Here our Passports were taken away for scrutiny and _vise_, and
we were compelled to wait from 2 1/2 till 5 o'clock, as the Sardinian
officers of customs would not begin to examine our baggage till the
latter hour. At 5 we crossed the little, rapid river (a tributary of the
Rhone) which here divides the two countries, a French and a Sardinian
sentinel standing at either end of the bridge. We drove into the court
of the custom-house, dismounted, had our baggage taken off and into the
rude building, where half a dozen officers and attendants soon appeared
and went at it. They searched rigidly, but promptly, carefully and like
gentlemen. In half an hour we were pronounced all right; our diligence
was reloaded, and, our passports having been returned, we rattled out of
the village and on our way, in the sunshine of as bright a June morning
as I ever hope to enjoy.
France is a land of plains, and glades, and gentle acclivities; Savoy is
a country of mountains. They rose before and around us from the moment
of our crossing the boundary--grim, rugged and precipitous, they formed
a striking contrast to all of Europe I had hitherto seen. Throughout the
day and night following, we were rarely or never out of sight of
snow-covered peaks; nay, I have not yet lost sight of them, since they
are distinctly visible in the clear Italian atmosphere from the streets
of this sunny metropolis, at a distance of some thirty miles north. Our
route lay through Savoy for about a hundred miles, and not one acre in
thirty within sight of it can ever be plowed. Yet the mountains are in
good part composed of limestone, so that the narrow, sheltered valleys
are decidedly fertile; and the Vine is often made to thrive on the
steep, rocky hill sides, where the plow could not be forced below the
surface, and where an ox could not keep his footing. Every inch of
ground that can be, is cultivated; little patches of Wheat, or Grass, or
Vines are got in wherever there is a speck of soil, though no larger
than a cart-body; and far up the sides of steep mountains, wherever a
spot is found so moderately inclined that soil will lie on it, there
Grass at least is grown.
Human Labor, in such a region, fully peopled, is very cheap and not very
efficient. The grape is the chief staple and Wine must be the principal
and probably is the only export, at least one third of the arable soil
being devoted to the Vine. Wheat is pretty extensively sown and is now
heading very thriftily, but I suspect the average size of the patches is
not above a quarter of an acre each. The Grass is good; and not much of
it cut yet. Indian Corn and Potatoes are generally cultivated, but in
deplorable ignorance of their nature. At least four times the proper
quantity of seed is put in the ground, neither Corn nor Potatoes being
allowed more than eighteen inches between the rows, making the labor of
cultivation very great and the chance of a good yield none at all.
I think I saw quite as many women as men at work in the fields
throughout Savoy. A girl of fourteen driving a yoke of oxen attached to
a cart, walking barefoot beside the team and plying the goadstick, while
a boy of her own age lay idly at length in the cart, is one of my
liveliest recollections of Savoyard ways. Nut-brown, unbonneted women,
hoeing corn with an implement between an adze and a pick-axe (and not a
bad implement, either, for so rugged an unplowed soil), women driving
hogs, cows, &c., to or from market, we encountered at every turn. So
much hard, rough work and exposure are fatal to every trace of beauty,
and I do not remember to have seen a woman in Savoy even moderately
good-looking, while many were absolutely revolting. That this is not
Nature's fault is proved by the general aspect of the children, who,
though swarthy, have often good forms and features.
We drove down into CHAMBERY, the capital of ancient Savoy, about 9 A. M.
This is a town of some fifteen thousand inhabitants, pleasantly situated
in the valley of a much larger tributary of the Rhone than that we crossed
at the boundary, and with a breadth of arable soil of perhaps two miles
between the mountains. No where else in Savoy did we traverse a valley
even half a mile wide for any distance. Here is an old ducal palace, with
fine spacious grounds, shrubbery, &c. The road from Geneva and the Baths
of Aix to Turin comes down this valley and here intersects that from Lyons.
We were allowed twenty-five minutes for breakfast, which would have been
very well but that the time required for cooking most of the breakfast had
to come out of it.
There was enough and good enough to eat, and (as usual throughout all
this region) Wine in abundance without charge, but Tea, Coffee or
Chocolate must be ordered and paid for extra. Even so, I was unable to
obtain a cup of Chocolate, the excuse being that there was not time to
make it. I did not understand, therefore, why I was charged more than
others for breakfast; but to talk English against French or Italian is
to get a mile behind in no time, so I pocketed the change offered me and
came away. On the coach, however, with an Englishman near me who had
traveled this way before and spoke French and Italian, I ventured to
expose my ignorance as follows:
"Neighbor, why was I charged three francs for breakfast, and the rest of
you but two and a half?"
"Don't know--perhaps you had Tea or Coffee."
"No, Sir--don't drink either."
"Then perhaps you washed your face and hands."
"Well, it would be just like me."
"O, then, that's it! The half franc was for the basin and towel."
"Ah, _oui, oui_." So the milk in _that_ cocoa-nut was accounted for.
Our road, though winding constantly among mountains, was by no means a
rugged one. On the contrary, I was surprised to find it so nearly level.
Three or four times during the day we came to a hard hill, and usually a
yoke of oxen, an extra horse or span, stood at the foot, ready to hitch
on and help us up. Of course, we were steadily rising throughout, but so
gradually and on so capital a road as to offer little impediment to our
progress. A better road made of earth I never expect to see. Every mile
of it is plainly under constant supervision, and any defect is instantly
repaired. The only exception to its excellence is caused by the
villages, which occur at an average of ten miles apart, and consist each
of fifty to two hundred poor dwellings, mainly of stone, huddled
chaotically together along the two sides of the road, which is twisted
and turned by them in every direction, and often crowded into a width of
not more than eight or ten feet. It is absolutely impossible that two
carriages should pass each other in these narrow, crooked lanes, and
dangerous for even a pedestrian to stand outside of a house while the
diligence is threading one of these gorges.
There is no town except Chambery on the whole route from Lyons to Turin;
but we passed about noon through a village in which a Fair was
proceeding. I did not suspect that two thousand people could live within
ten miles of the spot; yet I think fully two thousand were here
collected, with half as many cows, asses, hogs, &c., which had been
brought hither for sale, and about which they were jabbering and
gesticulating. Dealers in coarse chip hats and a few kindred fabrics
were also present; but it looked as if sellers were more abundant and
eager than buyers. It was only by great effort and by the most
exemplary patience that our driver and guard were enabled to clear the
road so that we passed through without inflicting any injury.
Wilder and narrower was the gorge, nearer and bleaker rose the
mountains, steeper and more palpable became the ascent, keener and
crisper grew the air, as the evening fell upon us pursuing our devious
way. The valleys were not only insignificant but widely separated by
tracts through which the road had with difficulty and at much expense
been cut out of the mountain side without infringing on the impetuous
torrent that tumbled and foamed by our side; and even where little
valleys or glens still existed it was clear that Nature no longer
responded with alacrity and abundance to the summons of human industry.
The Vine no longer clung to the steep acclivities; the summer foliage of
the lower valleys had given place to dark evergreens where shrubbery
could still find foot-hold and sustenance. The snow no longer skulked
timorously behind the peaks of distant mountains, showing itself only on
their northern declivities, but stood out boldly, unblenchingly on all
sides, and seemed within a musket-shot of our path. From slight
depressions in the brows of the overhanging cliffs, streamlets leaped
hundreds of feet in silvery recklessness, falling in feathery foam by
our side. I think I saw half a dozen of these cascades within a distance
of three miles.
At length, near ten o'clock, we reached the foot of Mount Cenis, where
sinuosity of course could avail us no further. We must now face the
music. Our five tired horses were exchanged for eight fresh ones, and we
commenced the slow, laborious ascent of some six or eight miles. Human
habitations had already become scattered and infrequent; but we passed
three or four in ascending the mountain. Their inmates of course live
upon the travel, in one way or another, for Sterility is here the
inexorable law. Yet our ascent was not so steep as might be expected,
being modified, when necessary, by zig-zags from one direction or one
side of the chasm we followed to the other. The horses were stopped to
breathe but once only; elsewhere for three hours or more they pursued
their firm, deliberate, decided, though slow advance. The shrubbery
dwindled as we ascended and at length disappeared, save in the sheltered
gorges; the snow came nearer and spread over still larger spaces; at
length, it lay in heavy beds or masses, half melted into ice, just by
the side of the road and on its edge, though I think there was none
actually under the wheels. Finally, a little before one o'clock, we
reached the summit, and the moon from behind the neighboring cliff burst
upon us fully two hours high. Two or three houses stood here for the use
of travelers; around them nothing but snow and the naked planet. Before
us lay the valley of the Po, the great plain of Upper Italy.
Six of our horses were here detached and sent back to the Savoy base of
the mountain, while with the two remaining we commenced our rapid and
dashing descent. Mount Cenis is decidedly steeper on this side than on
the other; it is only surmounted by a succession of zig-zags so near
each other that I think we traveled three miles in making a direct
progress of one, during which we must have descended some 1,500 feet.
Daylight found us at the foot with the level plain before us, and at 8
o'clock, A. M. we were in Turin.
XXI.
SARDINIA--ITALY--FREEDOM.
GENOA (Italy), June 22, 1851.
The Kingdom of Sardinia was formed, after the overthrow of Napoleon, by
the union of Genoa and its dependencies, with the former Kingdom of
Piedmont and Savoy including the island of Sardinia, to whose long
exiled Royal house was restored a dominion thus extended. That dominion
has since stood unchanged, and may be roughly said to embrace the
North-Western fourth of Italy, including Savoy, which belongs
geographically to Switzerland, but which forms a very strong barrier
against invasion from the side of France. Savoy is almost entirely
watered by tributaries of the Rhone, and so might be said to belong
naturally to France rather than to Italy, regarding the crests of the
Alps as the proper line of demarcation between them. Its trade, small at
any rate, is of necessity mainly with France; very slightly, save on the
immediate sea-coast, with Genoa or Piedmont. Its language is French.
Though peopled nearly to the limit of its capacity, the whole number of
its inhabitants can hardly exceed Half a Million, nine-tenths of its
entire surface being covered with sterile, intractable mountains. Savoy
must always be a poor country, with inconsiderable commerce or
manufactures (for though its water-power is inexhaustible, its means of
communication must ever be among the worst), and seems to have been
created mainly as a barrier against that guilty ambition which impels
rulers and chieftains to covet and invade territories which reject and
resist their sway. Alas that the Providential design, though so
palpable, should be so often disregarded! Doubtless, the lives lost from
age to age by mere hardship, privation and exposure, during the passage
of invading armies through Savoy, would outnumber the whole present
population of the country.
Descending the Alps to the east or south into PIEDMONT, a new world lies
around and before you. You have passed in two hours from the Arctic
circle to the Tropics--from Lapland to Cuba. The snow-crested mountains
are still in sight, and seem in the clear atmosphere to be very near you
even when forty or fifty miles distant, but you are traversing a spacious
plain which slopes imperceptibly to the Po, and is matched by one nearly
as level on the other side. This great plain of upper Italy, with the Po
in its center, commences at the foot of the lower Alps very near the
Mediterranean, far west of Turin and of Genoa, and stretches across the
widest portion of the peninsula till it is lost in the Adriatic. The
western half of this great valley is Piedmont; the eastern is Lombardy.
Its fertility and facility of cultivation are such that even Italian
unthrift and ignorance of Agriculture are unable to destroy the former
or nullify the latter. I never saw better Wheat, Grass, and Barley, than
in my journey of a hundred miles across this noble valley of the Po, or
Piedmont, and the Indian Corn, Potatoes, &c., are less promising only
because of the amazing ignorance of their requirements evinced by
nine-tenths of the cultivators. In the first place, the land is not plowed
half deep enough; next, most of it is seldom or never manured; thirdly, it
is planted too late; and fourthly, three or four times as much seed is
planted as should be. I should judge that twenty seed potatoes, or kernels
of corn, to each square yard is about the average, while five of either is
quite enough. Then both, but especially Corn, are hilled up, sugar-loaf
fashion, until the height of each hill is about equal to its breadth at
the base, so that two days' hot sun dries the hill completely through,
while there is no soil a foot from each stalk for its roots to run in.
From such perverse cultivation, a good yield is impossible. There has been
no rain of consequence here for some weeks, whence Wheat and Barley are
ripening too rapidly, while Corn, Potatoes and Vegetables suffer severely
from drouth, when with deeper plowing and rational culture everything
would have been verdant and flourishing. Yet this great plain in some
parts is and in most might be easily and bountifully irrigated from the
innumerable mountain streams which traverse it on their way to the Po. I
never saw another region wherein a few Sub-soil Plows, with men qualified
to use them and to set forth the nature and advantages of skillful
cultivation generally, are so much wanted as in Piedmont.
The Vine is of course extensively cultivated in Piedmont, as everywhere
in Italy, but not so universally as in the hilly, rocky region extending
from the great valley to this city (some thirty or forty miles). This
has a warm though a thin soil, which must be highly favorable to the
Vine to induce so exclusive a devotion to it. I think half of the arable
soil I saw between this and Arquata, where the plain and (for the
present) the Railroad stop, and the hills and the diligence begin, was
devoted to the Grape; while from the steeple of the Carignani Church,
which I ascended last evening, the semi-circle of towering, receding
hill-sides which invests Genoa landward, seems covered with the Vine,
and even the Gardens within the town are nearly given up to it. The Fig,
the Orange, the Almond, are also native here or in the vicinity.
This kingdom is to-day, after France, the chief point of interest in
continental Europe for lovers of Human Liberty. Three years ago, under
the impulse of the general uprising of the Nations, its rulers entered
upon a course of policy in accordance with the wants and demands of the
age, and that policy is still adhered to, though meantime the general
aspect of affairs is sadly changed, and Sardinia herself has experienced
the sorest reverses. The weak, unstable King whose ambition first
conspired to throw her into the current of the movement for the
liberation of Italy, has died defeated and broken-hearted, but his wiser
son and heir has taken his stand deliberately and firmly on the liberal
side, and cannot be driven from his course. His policy, as proclaimed in
his memorable Speech from the Throne on the assembling of the present
Chambers, is "to rear Free Institutions in the midst of surrounding
ruins." A popular Assembly, in which the Ministry have seats, directs
and supervises the National Policy, which is avowedly and efficiently
directed toward the vigorous prosecution of Reforms in every department.
Absolute Freedom in matters of Religion has already been established,
and the long crushed and persecuted Vaudois or Waldenses rejoice in the
brighter day now opening before them. Their simple worship is not only
authorized and protected in their narrow, secluded Alpine valleys, but
it is openly and regularly conducted also in Turin, the metropolis,
where they are now endeavoring to erect a temple which shall fitly set
forth the changed position of Protestantism in Northern Italy. They are
still few and poor, and will apply to their brethren in America for
pecuniary aid, which I trust will be granted expressly on condition that
the church thus erected shall be open, when not otherwise required, to
any Protestant clergyman who produces ample testimonials of his good
standing with his own denomination at home. Such a church in Turin would
be of incalculable service to the cause of Human Emancipation from the
shackles of Force, Prescription and Tradition throughout Italy and the
Eastern World.