The want of water led in pipes to the houses, entails another heavy department of labour on the humbler class of women. In the older part of Mentone, there are some public fountains, supplied from the hills, and from these all water has to be carried for domestic purposes. Subject to this inconvenience, the water so obtained is pure and wholesome, though yielding a slight limy deposit. In this respect, therefore, the inhabitants at the centre of the town are better off than the occupants of hotels and villas, which depend on pump wells. The Hôtel d’Angleterre has the advantage of being close to the fountain in the Place Napoléon, and of readily getting water from it. The husbanding of water does not seem to engage the attention of the authorities. During wet weather, there is such a profuse and wasteful overflow at the fountain situated at the end of the Quai Bonaparte, as to suggest that, by proper storage, supplies could be widely distributed. It is the destiny of every town, with any regard for health or decency, to have a ‘water question’ forced some day peremptorily on its attention. Mentone’s day is coming.
The custom of washing clothes in rivulets or pools leads to some difficulties in the profession of the blanchisseuse. It cannot be easy to wash when there is no water possessing washable qualities. Cheerful in this as in everything else, the women of Mentone are exemplary in making the best of things. They will wash clothes in a dub which a dog would not drink out of. Kneeling in a kind of basket, to keep their knees from the stones, and using square lumps of white soap streaked with green, like old Stilton cheese, they cluster in groups around pools in the Borigo or Carei, and there carry on their operations. The pools which have settled among the rubbish of the Carei, dirty and offensive though they be, are the recognised washing-tubs of the town. Around one favourite gutter, I one day reckoned as many as fifty-two washerwomen, all kneeling as close to each other as possible, and all using the same opaque frothy liquid. The sight of these bands of kneeling figures at the outlet of the Carei, where a pool accumulates, after having served the like purpose farther up the bed of rubbish, is about as extraordinary as can be witnessed. How clothes can be cleansed by washing in such puddles is somewhat incomprehensible. Persons knowing on the subject ascribe all to the force of soap, and the detergent power of fine air and sunshine in drying. The explanation is not very satisfactory.
In this as in other toilsome occupations, the women of Mentone exhibit a spirit of ceaseless and uncomplaining industry. Be the weather cold or hot, there they are at their work. When frost put a film of ice on the pools, they still continued their labours. Poor as the females evidently are, they shew uncommon skill in the patching and mending of clothes. The needle must be in frequent requisition, for nowhere is there to be seen a ragged garment on man or woman. It does not detract from the ingenuity of the needlewomen to say that, in patching, they do not concern themselves greatly as to harmony of colour. A light patch on a dark ground, or dark on a light ground, red upon blue, or any other incongruity as it may happen, answers every required purpose. A square patch of bright green on the back of a fisherman’s gray jacket, shews a fine indifference to public opinion, and is rather amusing than otherwise. The grand thing evidently is to overcome raggedness, no matter about colour, and the design is fully realised. By the mending process, garments of all sorts, masculine or feminine, are spun out to a respectable longevity—that is to say, as long as they will hold decently together. This thriftiness, I think, speaks well for the character of the humbler classes. There is poverty, but no squalor. The only unpleasing feature is street-begging. In all quarters we were beset by mendicants. Public begging is doubtless forbidden, but where there is no comprehensive method of succouring the necessitous, and no proper police, how is it to be prevented? The feeling we had about it was, that the sergents de ville benevolently winked at the practice. However this may be, the letting loose of beggars on the Colonie des Étrangers is not a very discreet procedure; neither is it very commendable to take so little trouble to enforce cleanliness in some of the highways and by-ways.
These blemishes, along with certain excesses in tobacco-smoking (which must drain the not over-enriched pocket of many a sou), and some carousing in a mild way in Cafés and Débits de Vin, constitute the leading social defects. An absence of crime of a serious, or it might almost be said of any, kind must be deemed a favourable characteristic. In this respect the surrounding district, whether nominally French or Italian, differs greatly from those southern parts of Italy which were colonised by Greeks. The ancient Ligurians, a brave but docile Celtic race, have left their impress on the inhabitants of the Riviera. All strangers concur in speaking well of their honesty, sobriety, and industry. The late Rev. Dr Robert Lee, who spent a season at St Dalmas di Tenda, and afterwards gave an account of his experiences, compliments them highly for these and other good qualities. In conversing with the abbé who occupies the house in the Rue Brea in which Bonaparte resided, I learned that the more odious vices common in our large (and some small) communities were next to unknown in Mentone; and this coincided with what I had often casually observed. The people, men and women, said this clergyman emphatically, were bon pour la morale. This good moral conduct is, I believe, greatly owing to a prevalent tone of courtesy and refinement among even the humbler classes. Coarseness of manners and low habits are at the root of much that we lament as evil.
Quoting from Dr Bottini on the medical statistics of Mentone, Dr Siordet states that among the native population ‘epidemic diseases do not occur to any great extent,’ and that some other diseases are very rare. This may be true. I was informed, however, on what seemed good authority, that the death-rate of the settled inhabitants of the commune was as high as 26 per 1000 per annum, which is 6 or 7 above what it ought to be. Assuming that I was correctly informed, the comparatively high rate of mortality might be explained by hard work, poor living, and overcrowding of dwellings, with perhaps other insanitary conditions.
Hard grinding labour in all states of the weather might alone account for much. It would be a great mistake to imagine that the French, with all their light-heartedness, are an idly-disposed people. Taking them all in all, they work too much; for as there is no law in France against working or transacting business on Sunday, many who are so inclined labour seven days a week. The blanchisseuse knows no recurring weekly Sabbath—not because she is irreligious, for she is frequently seen popping into the churches to go through some devotional exercises; but that a regard for a periodical day of rest is not part of her spiritual system. As in the case of the humbler orders generally, her reverence for Sunday is merged in the great solemnities of Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter, at which times alone do we observe that there is a scrupulous laying aside of ordinary occupations. Such a constant round of drudging labour cannot have a beneficial effect. The sight of it gives one the heart-ache. We feel that an error is committed, not only in a religious point of view, but in social economics, and in all that tends to elevate and adorn humanity. A residence abroad convinces me more powerfully than any argument, that a due and reasonable observance of a weekly rest on Sunday is one of the noblest attributes of civilisation. I am glad to observe that a change for the better is in this respect creeping over France. At Mentone, from whatever cause, there is a growing abstinence from work on Sundays. The practice of closing the shops is more common than it was some years ago; comparatively few loaded carts are seen in the streets; building operations are for the most part suspended; and scarcely any donkeys with their burdens are observed trooping in from the country. These may be deemed gratifying symptoms of an improved tone of feeling, the more creditable for being spontaneous, at least without legal obligation.
It might perhaps be argued that the cessation of donkey-traffic on Sundays is as much due to commercial as to religious scruples. I am not aware that any animals are kept ready for hire at the Stations des Anes. These establishments are only dépôts for ass-saddles, where orders can be executed. The donkeys come from the hills in the morning laden with fruits or other articles, in charge of a female; and having done what might be thought a fair day’s work, are ready for hire at the Stations, to go on excursions with invalids on their backs to and from places in the neighbourhood. As few visitors employ them on Sunday, it may seem advantageous not to bring them to town on that day. If so, the donkeys have reason to be thankful. These docile creatures, contriving ‘a double debt to pay,’ might be styled the true bread-winners of the peasant proprietary. Travelling by pathways wholly inaccessible to wheeled carriages, they are seen not only bringing down loads of native produce, but carrying up stones, lime, and other building-materials to places two thousand feet above the sea-level. But for these useful animals, the hilly region would be in a great measure valueless. So far as the Riviera is concerned, the ass must be considered to be a beneficent gift of Nature.
CHAPTER VII.
In making excursions in the neighbourhood it is advisable not to attempt too much in one day. During the season there is plenty time to take things deliberately. A good beginning may be made by a forenoon walk to the Monastery of the Annonciade, or Annunciata. It is situated on the high ridge of the hill between the Carei and Borigo—that hill the front promontory of which is defaced by the buff-coloured, box-like villa dignified with the name of the Château Partouneaux. The pathway to the monastery leads off from the Route de Turin, a short way beyond the railway viaduct, and will be found a curious zigzag lane, fit only for pedestrians or donkeys. To relieve the steepness, the path is formed like a series of steps four to five feet broad, cut in a rude way in the sandstone rock, and now much worn. Winding upward among olive and orange trees, and passing some dwellings, the road has an antiquated broken-down look, significant of the misfortunes of the religious establishment to which it leads.