march 7.
The system of silent legal opposition which was carried on formerly at Milan, and now at Venice, is being organised here against the Papal rule. By one of those mystical compacts to which I have before alluded, it has been resolved to suppress smoking and lottery-gambling. Our anti-tobacconists, or our moral reformers, must not suppose that the Romans have suddenly become alive to the iniquity of either of these pursuits. I wish, indeed, with regard to the latter, I could conscientiously assert that the Liberal faction had decreed its extinction from any conviction of the degradation and corruption inflicted by it upon their country. I fear, however, from the extent to which lotteries are still encouraged by the Tuscan Government, that such is not the case. The reason of the movement is, indeed, a very simple and material one. From the lotteries and the tobacco monopoly the government derives a very large part of its revenues, and a part, too, which does not excite unpopularity in the same way as direct taxation. Any extinction, therefore, or indeed any serious diminution of these sources of revenue, would place the Holy See in great difficulties. The profits on the lottery go directly
into the pockets of the Government, who are also supplied with very extensive and important patronage by the vast number of petty posts which the system employed for collecting tickets places at their disposal. The tobacco monopoly is farmed out to a company, on whom any loss would fall in the first instance; but if the abstention from tobacco were continued long, the Government would soon feel the effects, through the inability of the company to keep up their present rate of payment.
Whether rightly or wrongly, an attempt to cut off the funds of the Papal exchequer in this manner is certainly being made. Strangers, of course, are not interfered with; but Italians are warned at the doors of the cigar-shops and the lottery-offices not to enter and buy. The sudden diminution in the number of people you meet smoking in the streets is quite remarkable, and, I am sure, would strike any observer who had never heard of the movement. There have been already several disturbances between smokers and non-smokers. The story goes, that in a quarrel arising out of this subject, a man was stabbed in the street the night before last; but in Rome it is almost impossible to make out
the truth in a matter of this kind. At several lottery-offices gendarmes have been placed to hinder purchasers of tickets from being molested; and a bitter feeling seems growing up on every side. How long the Romans may have strength of mind enough to abstain from their favourite amusements of smoking and gambling, it is impossible to say; but since I witnessed their resolute abstention from the delights of the Carnival, I think better of their courage than I did before.
On Sunday evening, when the great promenade takes place along the Corso, where, a week ago, there was hardly a male mouth without a cigar or cheroot or cigarette inserted in it, I only noticed four smokers in the Corso crowd, and they were all foreigners. The practice is suppressed not only in the streets but in the cafés. For the benefit of the weaker brethren, who cannot screw up their patriotism to total abstinence, pipes are allowed, as the Government profit on tobacco is very small compared with that on cigars. The Italians, however, are not much of pipe-smokers, and the tobacconists are in despair at the total absence of customers. Of course, the partisans of the Government
prophesy that the movement will end in smoke, but at present the laugh is on the other side.