In the middle of the
day, at street-corners and in sunny spots, you see groups of working-men
playing at pitch halfpenny, or gesticulating wildly over the mysterious
game of "Moro." Skittles and stone-throwing are the only popular
amusements which require any bodily exertion; and both of these, as
played here, are as much chance as skill. The lottery, too, is the great
national pastime.
This picture of the Roman people may not seem a very favourable or a very
promising one. I quite admit, that many persons, who have come much into
contact with them, speak highly of their general good humour, their
affectionate feelings and their sharpness of intellect. At the same
time, I have observed that these eulogists of the Roman populace are
either Papal partizans who, believing that "this is the best of all
possible worlds," wish to prove also that "everything here is for the
best," or else they are vehement friends of Italy, who are afraid of
damaging their beloved cause by an admission of the plain truth, that the
Romans are not as a people either honest, truthful or industrious. For
my own part, my faith is different. A bad government produces bad
subjects, and I am not surprised to find in the debasement and
degradation of a priest-ruled people the strongest condemnation of the
Papal system.
CHAPTER V.
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