"The profession of the law is considered by the higher classes to be a base pursuit: no man of family would degrade himself by engaging in it. A younger son of the poorest noble would famish rather than earn his livelihood in an employment considered vile. The advocate is seldom if ever admitted into high society in Rome; nor can the princes (so called) or nobles comprehend the position of a barrister in England. They would as soon permit a facchino as an advocate to enter their palaces; and they have been known to ask with disdain (when accidentally apprised that a younger son of an English nobleman had embraced the profession of the law), what could induce his family to suffer the degradation? Priests, bishops, and cardinals, the poor nobles or their impoverished descendants, will become,—advocates or judges, never. The solution of this apparent inconsistency is to be found in the fact, that in most despotic countries the profession of the law is contemptible. In Rome it is particularly so, because no person places confidence in the administration of the law, the salaries of the judges are small, the remuneration of the advocate miserable, and all the great offices grasped by the ecclesiastics. Pure justice not existing, everybody concerned in the administration of what is substituted for it is despised, often most unjustly, as being a participator in the imposture."
[6] See book vii., chap. x.
[7] Monsignor Marini, who was head of the police under Gregory XVI., and the infamous tool in all the arrests and cruelties of Lambruschini, was made a cardinal by the present Pope. All Rome said, let the next cardinal be the public executioner. Talent, certainly, has fair play at Rome, when a policeman, and even the hangman, may aspire to the chair of Peter.
[8] WHAT THE ROMAN RELIGION COSTS.
The following statistics of the wealth of the clergy in the Roman States are taken from the American Crusader:—
"The clergy in the Roman States realize from the funds a clear income of two millions two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. From the cattle they have another income of one hundred thousand dollars; from the canons, three hundred thousand dollars; from the public debt another income of one million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars; from the priests' individual estates, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars; from the portions assigned by law to nuns, five hundred thousand dollars; from the celebration of masses, two millions one hundred and fifty thousand dollars; from taxes on baptisms, forty-five thousand dollars; from the tax on the Sacrament of Confirmation, eighteen thousand dollars; from the celebration of marriages, twenty-five thousand dollars; from the attestations of births, nine thousand dollars; from other attestations, such as births, marriages, deaths, &c. &c., nine thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars; from funerals, six hundred thousand dollars; from the gifts to begging-orders, one million eight hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars; from the gifts for motives of benevolence or festivities, or maintenance of altars and lights, or for celebrating mass for the souls in purgatory, two hundred thousand dollars; from the tithes exacted in several parts of the Roman States according to the ancient rigour, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars; from preaching and panegyrics, according to the regular taxes, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars; from seminaries for entrance taxes and other rights belonging to the students, besides the boarding, fifteen thousand dollars; from the chancery for ecclesiastical provisions, for matrimonial licenses, for sanatives, &c. &c., fifty thousand dollars; from benedictions during Easter, thirty thousand dollars; from offerings to the miraculous images of Virgin Marys and Saints, seventy-five thousand dollars; from triduums for the sick, or for prayers, five hundred thousand dollars; from benedictions to fields, cattle, nuptial-beds, &c. &c., nine thousand dollars.
"All these incomes, which amount to ten million five hundred and ten thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars, are realized and enjoyed by the secular and regular clergy, composed in all of sixty thousand individuals, including nuns, without mentioning the incomes allowed them from foreign countries, for the chancery and other cosmopolite congregations.
"It is further to be observed, that in this calculation are not comprised the portions which the Romans call passatore, which the laity pay to the clergy; such as purchase, permutation, resignation, and ordination taxes; patents for confessions, preaching, holy oils, privileged altars, professors' chairs, and the like, which will make up another amount of a million of dollars; nor those other taxes called pretatico, which are paid by the Jews to the parish priest for permission to dwell without the Jews' quarter; nor those for the ringing of bells for dying persons, or those who are in agony; nor those which cripples pay for receiving in Rome the visit of the wooden child of the celestial altar, who must always go out in a carriage, accompanied by friars called minori observanti, Franciscan friars, whose incomes they collect and govern. The value of charitable edifices (which are not registered, being exempt from all dative) is not comprised either; and the same exemption is extended to churches; although all these buildings cost the inhabitants of the State several millions of expense for provisional possession, and displays of ceremonies and feasts which are celebrated in them."
WHAT THE ROMAN RELIGION YIELDS.
A distinguished English gentleman, who has spent many years as a resident or in travelling in various papal countries in Europe, in a recent speech in London has presented some deeply interesting facts concerning vice and crime in Papal and Protestant countries. He possessed himself of the Government returns of every Romanist Government on the Continent. We have condensed and will state its results.