"Some of their public buildings are good, but that can't make the population comfortable. In fact, the people generally are ill-cared for. Here are the wretched Jews, who live in a filthy quarter of the city crowded together like pigs.
"The people pass the most of their time in coffee-houses. They are an idle set--have nothing in the world to do. It is still a mystery to me how they live.
"The fact is, there are too many soldiers and priests. Now it is evident that these gentry, being non-producers, must be supported directly or indirectly by the producers. This is the cause, I suppose, of the poverty of a great part of the population.
"Begging is reduced to a science. In this I confess the Italian beats the American all to pieces. The American eye has not seen, nor ear heard, the devices of an Italian beggar to get along.
"I have seen them in great crowds waiting outside of a monastery for their dinner, which consists of huge bowls of porridge given by the monks. Can any thing be more ruinous to a people?
"The only trade that I could discover after a long and patient search was the trade in brooches and toys which are bought as curiosities by travellers.
"There are nothing but churches and palaces wherever you go. Some of these palaces are queer-looking concerns. There isn't one in the whole lot equal to some of the Fifth Avenue houses in New York in point of real genuine style.
"There has been too much money spent in churches, and too little on houses. If it amounted to any thing it would not be so bad, but the only effect has been to promote an idle fondness for music and pictures and such like. If they tore down nine-tenths of their churches and turned them into school-houses on the New England system, it would not be bad for the rising generation.
"The newspapers which they have are miserable things-wretched little sheets, full of lies--no advertisements, no news, no nothing. I got a friend to translate what pretended to be the latest American news. It was a collection of murders, duels, railway accidents, and steamboat explosions.
"I don't see what hope there is for this unfortunate country; I don't really. The people have gone on so long in their present course that they are now about incorrigible. If the entire population were to emigrate to the Western States, and mix up with the people there, it might be possible for their descendants in the course of time to amount to something.