Rome in 1860

by Edward Dicey

country, is reasonable in price, though poor in quality. In the country and the poorer parts of the city, the dearest cigar you can buy is only a baioccho, or under one halfpenny; and from this fact you may conclude what the price of the common cheap cigars is to a native. From all these causes, I feel no doubt that the cost of living for the poor is comparatively small, though of course the rate of wages is small in proportion. For ordinary unskilled labour, the day-wages, at the winter season, are about three pauls to three pauls and a half; in summer about five pauls; and in the height of the vintage as much as six or seven pauls, though this is only for a very few weeks. I should suppose, therefore, that from 1s. 6d. to 1s. 9d. a day, taking the paul at 5d., were the average wages of a good workman at Rome. From these wages, small as they are, there are several deductions to be made.

In the first place, the immense number of “festas” tells heavily on the workman’s receipts. On the more solemn feast-days all work is strictly forbidden by the priests; and either employer or labourer, who was detected in an infraction of the law, would be subject to heavy

fines. Even on the minor festivals, about the observance of which the Church is not so strict, labour is almost equally out of the question. The people have got so used to holiday keeping, that nothing but absolute necessity can induce them to work, except on working days. 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. About, in his remarkable work, always treats the malaria as if it was solely due to the inefficiency of the Papal Government, and would disappear with the deposition of the Pope. This unphilosophical view is generally adopted by liberal opponents of the Papacy, who lay the malaria to its doors, while Papal advocates, on the contrary, always treat the malaria as a mysterious scourge which can never be removed or even palliated; a view almost as unphilosophical as the other. For my own part, I have only been able to arrive at three isolated conclusions on the subject. First, that mere cultivation of the Campagna, as shown by Prince Borghese’s unsuccessful experiments, does not at any rate immediately affect the virulence of the miasma,

or whatever the malaria may be. Secondly, that the malaria can actually be built out, or, in other words, if the Campagna was covered with a stone pavement, the disease would disappear—a remedy obviously impracticable; and lastly, that though the existence of the malaria cannot be removed, as far I can see, yet that its evil effects might be immensely lessened by warm clothing, good food, and prompt medical aid at the commencement of the malady. Whatever tends to improve the general condition of the Roman peasantry will put these remedies more and more within their reach, and will therefore tend to check the ravages of the malaria. Thus, the inefficient and obstructive Government of the Vatican, which checks all material as well as all moral progress, increases indirectly the virulence of the fever-plague; but this, I think, is the most that can fairly be stated.

I trust that, considering the importance of the subject, this digression, unsatisfactory as it is, may be pardoned; and I now turn to the third curse, which eats up the wages of the working man at Rome—a curse even greater, I think, than the “festas” or the malaria—I mean, the universality of the middle-man system. If you

require any work done, from stone carving to digging, you seldom or never deal with the actual workman. If you are a farmer and want your harvest got in, you contract months beforehand with an agent, who agrees to supply you with harvest-men in certain numbers, at a certain price, out of which price he pockets as large a percentage as he can, and has probably commissions to pay himself to some sub-contractor. If you are a sculptor and wish a block of marble chiselled in the rough, the man you contract with to hew the block at certain day-wages brings a boy to do the work at half the above amount or less, and only looks in from time to time to see how the work is proceeding. It is the same in every branch of trade or business. If you wish to make a purchase, or effect a sale, or hire a servant, you have a whole series of commissions or brokerages to pay before you come into contact with the principal.

If you inquire why this system is not broken through, why the employer does not deal directly with his workmen, you are told that the custom of the country is against any other method; that amongst the workmen themselves there is so much terrorism and intimidation and espionnage, that

any single employer or labourer, who contracted for work independently, would run a risk of annoyance or actual injury; of having, for example, his block of marble split “by a slip of the hand,” or his tools destroyed, or a knife stuck into him as he went home at night, and, more than all, that, without the supervision of the actual overseer, your workmen would cheat you right and left, no matter what wages you paid. After all it is better to be cheated by one man than by a dozen, and being at Rome you must do as the Romans do.