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.