of all sinecures.  There are many mysteries indeed about the Papal Press.  Who writes or composes the papers is a mystery; who reads or purchases them is perhaps a greater mystery; but the bare fact of their existence is the greatest mystery of all.  Even the genius of Mr Dickens was never able to explain satisfactorily to the readers of Nicholas Nickleby, why Squeers, who never taught anything at Dotheboys Hall, and never intended anything to be taught there, should have thought it necessary to engage an usher to teach nothing; and exactly in the same way, it is an insoluble problem why the Pontifical Government, which never tells anything and never intends anything to be told, should publish papers, in order to tell nothing.  The greatest minds, however, are not exempt from error; and it must be to some hidden flaw in the otherwise perfect Papal system, that the existence of newspapers in the sacred city is to be ascribed.  The marvel of his own being must be to the Roman journalist a subject of constant contemplation.

The Press of Rome boasts of three papers.  There is the Giornale di Roma, the Diario Romano, and, last and least, the Vero Amico del Popolo.  The three organs of Papal opinion bear a suspicious resemblance to each other.  The Diary is a feeble reproduction of the Journal, and the Peoples True Friend, which I never met with, save in one obscure cafe, is a yet feebler compound of the two; in fact, the Giornale di Roma is the only one of the lot that has the least pretence to the name of a newspaper; it is, indeed, the official paper, the London Gazette of Rome.  It consists of four pages, a little larger in size than those of the Examiner, and with about as much matter as is contained in two pages of the English journal.  The type is delightfully large, and the spaces between the lines are really pleasant to look at; next to a Roman editor, the position of a Roman compositor must be one of the easiest berths in the newspaper-world.  Things are taken very easily here, and the Giornale never appears till six o’clock at night, so that writers and printers can take their pleasure and be in bed betimes.  There is no issue on Sundays and Feast-days, which occur with delightful frequency.  This ideal journal, too, has no fixed price.  The case of any one being impatient enough about news to buy a single number seems hardly to be contemplated.  The yearly subscription is seven scudi, which comes to between a penny and five farthings a number; but for a single copy you are asked half a paul, or twopence halfpenny.  This however must be regarded as a fancy price, as single copies are not an article on demand; they can only be obtained, by the way, at the office of the Gazette in the Via della Stamperia, and this office is closed from noon, I think, to sunset.