Rome in 1860

by Edward Dicey

It may possibly have been observed that, in the foregoing paragraph, I have spoken of the “workmen at Rome,” not of the Roman workmen. The difference, though slight verbally, is an all-important one. The workmen in Rome are not Romans, for the Romans proper never work. The Campagna is tilled in winter by groups of peasants, who come from the Marches, in long straggling files, headed by the “Pifferari,” those most inharmonious of pipers. In summer-time the harvest is reaped and the vintage gathered in by labourers, whose homes lie far away in the Abruzzi mountains. In many ways these mountaineers bear a decided resemblance to the swarms

of Irish labourers who come across to England in harvest-time. They are frugal, good-humoured, and, compared to the native Romans, honest and hard-working. A very small proportion too of the working-men in Rome itself are Romans. Certain trades, as that of the cooks for instance, are almost confined to the inhabitants of particular outlying districts. The masons, carpenters, carvers, and other mechanical trades, are filled by men who do not belong to the city, and who are called and considered foreigners. Of course the rule is not without exceptions, and you will find genuine Romans amongst the common workmen, but amongst the skilled workmen hardly ever. There is a very large, poor, I might almost say, pauper population in Rome, and in some form or other these poor must work for their living, but their principle is to do as little work as possible. There still exists amongst the Romans a sort of debased, imperial pride, a belief that a Roman is per se superior to all other Italians. For manual work, or labour under others, they have an equal contempt and dislike. All the semi-independent trades, like those of cab-drivers, street-vendors, petty shopkeepers, &c. are eagerly sought after and monopolized by Romans. The

extent to which small trades are carried on by persons utterly without capital and inevitably embarrassed with debt, is one of the chief evils in the social system which prevails here. If the Romans also, like the unjust steward, are too proud to dig, unlike that worthy, to beg they are not ashamed. Begging is a recognized and a respected profession, and if other trades fail there is always this left. The cardinal principle of Papal rule is to teach its subjects to rely on charity rather than industry. In order to relieve in some measure the fearful distress that existed among the poor of Rome in the early spring, the Government took some thousand persons into their employment, and set them to work on excavating the Forum. The sight of these men working, or, more correctly speaking, idling at work, used to be reckoned one of the stock jokes of the season. Six men were regularly employed in conveying a wheelbarrow filled with two spadefuls of soil. There was one man to each handle, two in front to pull when the road rose, and one on each side to give a helping hand and keep the barrow steady. You could see any day long files of such barrows, so escorted, creeping to and from the Forum. It is hardly necessary to say

that little progress was ever made in the excavations, or, for that matter, intended to be made. Yet the majority of these workmen were able-bodied fellows, who received tenpence a day for doing nothing. Much less injury would have been inflicted on their self-respect by giving them the money outright than in return for this mockery of labour. Moreover the poor in Rome, as I have mentioned elsewhere, are not afraid of actual starvation. “Well-disposed” persons, with a good word from the priests, can obtain food at the convents of the mendicant friars. I am not saying there is no good in this custom; in fact, it is almost the one good feature I know of connected with the priestly system of government; but still, on an indolent and demoralised population like that of Rome, the benefit of this sort of charity, which destroys the last and the strongest motive for exertion, is by no means an unmixed one.

The amusements of the people are much what might be expected from their occupations. To do them justice, they drink but moderately; but whenever they can spare the time and money, they crowd out into the roadside “Osterias,” and spend hours, smoking and sipping

the red wine lazily. Walking is especially distasteful to them; and on a Sunday and festa-day you will see hundreds of carriages filled with working people, though the fares are by no means cheap. Whole families will starve themselves for weeks before the Carnival, and leave themselves penniless at the end, to get costumes and carriages to drive down the “Corso” with on the gala days. The Romans, too, are a nation of gamblers. Their chief amusement, not to say their chief occupation, is gambling. 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. TRIALS FOR MURDER.

The idler about the streets of Rome may, from time to time, catch sight, on blank walls and dead corners, of long white strips of paper, covered with close-printed lines of most uninviting looking type, and headed with the Papal arms—the cross-keys and tiara. If, being like myself afflicted with an inquisitive turn of mind, he takes the trouble of deciphering these hieroglyphic documents, his labour would not be altogether thrown away. Those straggling strips, stuck up in out-of-the-way places, glanced at by a few idle passers-by, and torn down by the prowling vagabonds of the streets after a day or two for the sake of the paper, are the sole public records of justice issued, or allowed to be issued, under the Pontifical government. Trials are carried on here with closed doors; no spectators are admitted; no reports of the proceedings are