WHAT KIND OF A LETTER THE SENATOR WROTE FOR THE "NEW ENGLAND PATRIOT,"
WHICH SHOWS A TRITE, LIBERAL, UNBIASED, PLAIN, UNVARNISHED VIEW OF
ROME.
"Dick," said the Senator, as he sat with him in his room, "I've been
thinking over your tone of mind, more particularly as it appears in
those letters which you write home, such as you read the other day.
It is a surprising thing to me how a young man with your usual good
sense, keenness of perception, and fine education, can allow yourself
to be so completely carried away by a mawkish sentiment. What is the
use of all these memories and fancies and hysterical emotions that
you talk about? In one place you call yourself by the absurd name of
'A Pensive Traveller.' Why not be honest? Be a sensible American,
exhibiting in your thoughts and in all your actions the effect of
democratic principles and stiff republican institutions. Now I'll
read you what I have written. I think the matter is a little nearer
the mark than your flights of fancy. But perhaps you don't care just
now about hearing it?"
"Indeed I do; so read on," said Dick.
"As I have travelled considerable in Italy," said the Senator,
reading from a paper which he drew from his pocket, "with my eyes
wide open, I have some idea of the country and of the general
condition of the farming class."
The Senator stopped. "I forgot to say that this is for the _New
England Patriot_, published in our village, you know."
Dick nodded. The Senator resumed:
"The soil is remarkably rich. Even where there are mountains they
are well wooded. So if the fields look well it is not surprising.
What is surprising is the cultivation. I saw ploughs such as Adam
might have used when forced for the first time to turn up the
ground outside the locality of Eden; harrows which were probably
invented by Numa Pompey, an old Roman that people talk about.
"They haven't any idea of draining clear. For here is a place called
the Pontine Marsh, beautiful soil, surrounded by a settled country,
and yet they let it go to waste almost entirely.
"The Italians are lazy. The secret of their bad farming lies in
this. For the men loll and smoke on the fences, leaving the poor
women to toil in the fields. A woman ploughing! And yet these people
want to be free.
"They wear leather leggins, short breeches, and jackets. Many of
them wear wooden shifts. The women of the south use a queer kind of
outlandish head-dress, which if they spent less time in fixing it
would be better for their own worldly prosperity.
"The cattle are fine: very broad in the chest, with splendid action.
I don't believe any other country can show such cattle. The pigs are
certainly the best I ever saw by a long chalk. Their chops beat all
creation. A friend of mine has made some sketches, which I will give
to the Lyceum on my return. They exhibit the Sorrento pig in
various attitudes.
[Illustration: Sketches By A Friend.]
"The horses, on the contrary, are poor affairs. I have yet to see
the first decent horse. The animals employed by travellers generally
are the lowest of their species. The shoes which the horses wear are
of a singular shape. I can't describe them in writing, but they look
more like a flat-iron than any thing else.
"I paid a visit to Pompeii, and on coming back I saw some of the carts
of the country. They gave one a deplorable idea of the state of the
useful arts in this place. Scientific farming is out of the question.
If fine plantations are seen it's Nature does it.
"Vineyards abound everywhere. Wine is a great staple of the country.
Yet they don't export much after all. In fact the foreign commerce
is comparatively trifling. Chestnuts and olives are raised in
immense quantities. The chestnut is as essential to the Italian as
the potato is to the Irishman. A failure in the crop is attended
with the same disastrous consequences. They dry the nuts, grind them
into a kind of flour, and make them into cakes. I tasted one and
found it abominable. Yet these people eat it with garlic, and grow
fat on it. Chestnut bread, oil instead of butter, wine instead of
tea, and you have an Italian meal.
"It's a fine country for fruit. I found Gaeta surrounded by orange
groves. The fig is an important article in the economy of an Italian
household.
"I have been in Rome three weeks. Many people take much interest in
this place, though quite unnecessarily. I do not think it is at all
equal to Boston. Yet I have taken great pains to examine the place.
The streets are narrow and crooked, like those of Boston. They are
extremely dirty. There are no sidewalks. The gutter is in the middle
of the street. The people empty their slops from their windows. The
pavements are bad and very slippery. The accumulation of filth about
the streets is immense. The drainage is not good. They actually use
one old drain which, they tell me, was made three thousand years ago.
"Gas has only been recently introduced. I understand that a year or
two ago the streets were lighted by miserable contrivances, consisting
of a mean oil lamp swung from the middle of a rope stretched across
the street.
"The shops are not worth mentioning. There are no magnificent
_Dry-goods Stores_, such as I have seen by the hundred in Boston;
no _Hardware Stores_; no palatial _Patent Medicine Edifices_; no
signs of enterprise, in fact, at all.
"The houses are very uncomfortable. They are large, and built in the
form of a square. People live on separate flats. If it is cold they
have to grin and bear it. There are no stoves. I have suffered more
from the cold on some evenings since I have been here than ever I
did in-doors at home. I have asked for a fire, but all they could
give me was a poisonous fire of charcoal in an earthen thing like
a basket.
"Some of their public buildings are good, but that can't make the
population comfortable. In fact, the people generally are ill-cared
for. Here are the wretched Jews, who live in a filthy quarter of
the city crowded together like pigs.
"The people pass the most of their time in coffee-houses. They are
an idle set--have nothing in the world to do. It is still a mystery
to me how they live.
"The fact is, there are too many soldiers and priests. Now it is
evident that these gentry, being non-producers, must be supported
directly or indirectly by the producers. This is the cause, I suppose,
of the poverty of a great part of the population.
"Begging is reduced to a science. In this I confess the Italian beats
the American all to pieces. The American eye has not seen, nor ear
heard, the devices of an Italian beggar to get along.
"I have seen them in great crowds waiting outside of a monastery for
their dinner, which consists of huge bowls of porridge given by the
monks. Can any thing be more ruinous to a people?
"The only trade that I could discover after a long and patient search
was the trade in brooches and toys which are bought as curiosities by
travellers.
"There are nothing but churches and palaces wherever you go. Some
of these palaces are queer-looking concerns. There isn't one in the
whole lot equal to some of the Fifth Avenue houses in New York in
point of real genuine style.
"There has been too much money spent in churches, and too little
on houses. If it amounted to any thing it would not be so bad, but
the only effect has been to promote an idle fondness for music
and pictures and such like. If they tore down nine-tenths of their
churches and turned them into school-houses on the New England
system, it would not be bad for the rising generation.
"The newspapers which they have are miserable things-wretched
little sheets, full of lies--no advertisements, no news, no nothing.
I got a friend to translate what pretended to be the latest American
news. It was a collection of murders, duels, railway accidents, and
steamboat explosions.
"I don't see what hope there is for this unfortunate country; I don't
really. The people have gone on so long in their present course that
they are now about incorrigible. If the entire population were to
emigrate to the Western States, and mix up with the people there,
it might be possible for their descendants in the course of time to
amount to something.
"I don't see any hope except perhaps in one plan, which would be no
doubt impossible for these lazy and dreamy Italians to carry out.
It is this: Let this poor, brokendown, bankrupt Government make an
inventory of its whole stock of jewels, gold, gems, pictures, and
statues. I understand that the nobility throughout Europe would
be willing to pay immense sums of money for these ornaments. If they
are fools enough to do so, then in Heaven's name let them have the
chance. Clear out the whole stock of rubbish, and let the hard cash
come in to replace it. That would be a good beginning, with something
tangible to start from. I am told that the ornaments of St. Peter's
Cathedral cost ever so many millions of dollars. In the name of
goodness why not sell out the stock and realize instead of issuing
those ragged notes for twenty-five cents, which circulate among
the people here at a discount of about seventy-five per cent?
"Then let them run a railroad north to Florence and south to Naples.
It would open up a fine tract of county which is capable of growing
grain; it would tap the great olive-growing districts, and originate
a vast trade of oil, wine, and dried fruits.
"The country around Rome is uninhabited, but not barren. It is sickly
in summer-time, but if there was a population on it who would
cultivate it property I calculate the malaria would vanish, just as
the fever and ague do from many Western districts in our country by
the same agencies. I calculate that region could be made one of the
most fertile on this round earth if occupied by an industrious class
of emigrants.
"But there is a large space inside the walls of the city which could
be turned to the best of purposes.
"The place which used to be the Roman Forum is exactly calculated
to be the terminus of the railroad which I have suggested. A
commodious depot could be made, and the door-way might be worked up
out of the arch of Titus, which now stands blocking up the way, and
is of no earthly use.
"The amount of crumbling stones and old mined walls that they
leave about this quarter of the city is astonishing. It ought not
to be so.
"What the Government ought to do after being put in funds by the
process mentioned above is this:
"The Government ought to tear down all those unsightly heaps of
stone and erect factories and industrial schools. There is plenty
of material to do it with. For instance, take the old ruin called
the Coliseum. It is a fact, arrived at by elaborate calculation,
that the entire contents of that concern are amply sufficient
to construct no less than one hundred and fifty handsome
factories, each two hundred feet by seventy-five.
"The factories being built, they could be devoted to the
production of the finer tissues. Silks and velvets could be produced
here. Glass-ware of all kinds could be made. There is a fine Italian
clay that makes nice cups and crocks.
"I could also suggest the famous Roman cement as an additional
article of export. The Catacombs under the city could be put to
some direct practical use.
"I have hastily put out these few ideas to show what a liberal
and enlightened policy might effect even in such an unpromising
place as Rome. It is not probable, however, that my scheme would
meet with favor here. The leading classes in this city are such
an incurable get of old fogies that, I verily believe, rather
than do what I have suggested, they would choose to have the
earth open beneath them and swallow them up forever--city, churches,
statues, pictures, museums, palaces, ruins and all.
"I've got a few other ideas, some of which will work some day.
Suppose Russia should sell us her part of America. Spain sell us
Cuba, Italy give us Rome, Turkey an island or two--then what? But
I'll keep this for another letter."
"That's all," said the Senator.
Dick's face was drawn up into the strangest expression. He did not
say any thing, however. The Senator calmly folded up his paper, and
with a thoughtful air took up his hat.
"I'm going to that Coliseum again to measure a place I forgot,"
said he.
Upon which he retired, leaving Dick alone.