All over Italy this is
too much the case. I was told by a large manufacturer in Florence, that
having a great number of orders on hand, and knowing extreme distress to
prevail among his workmen's families, he offered double wages to any one
who came to work on a "festa" day, but that only two out of a hundred
responded to his offer. I merely mention this fact, as one out of many
such I have heard, to show how this abuse must prevail in Rome, where
every moral influence is exerted in favour of idleness against industry,
and where the observance of holy days is practised most religiously.
Then, too, the higher rate of wages paid in summer is counterbalanced by
the extra risk to which the labourer is exposed. The ravages created by
the malaria fevers amongst the ill-bred, ill-clothed, and ill-cared-for
labourers, are really fearful. Indeed it is hardly an exaggeration to
say, that the whole working population of Rome is eaten up with malaria.
I feel myself convinced that the misery and degradation of the Papal
States are to be attributed to two causes, the enormous burden of the
priesthood, and the ravages of the malaria. How far these two causes are
in any way connected with each other, I have never been able to
determine. It is one of the rhetorical exaggerations which have impaired
the utility of the _Question Romaine_, that M.
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