every street.  At six o’clock every evening, all Naples turns out to drive on the ‘Riviere di Chiaja’, (whatever that may mean;) and for two hours one may stand there and see the motliest and the worst mixed procession go by that ever eyes beheld.  Princes (there are more Princes than policemen in Naples—­the city is infested with them)—­Princes who live up seven flights of stairs and don’t own any principalities, will keep a carriage and go hungry; and clerks, mechanics, milliners and strumpets will go without their dinners and squander the money on a hack-ride in the Chiaja; the rag-tag and rubbish of the city stack themselves up, to the number of twenty or thirty, on a rickety little go-cart hauled by a donkey not much bigger than a cat, and they drive in the Chiaja; Dukes and bankers, in sumptuous carriages and with gorgeous drivers and footmen, turn out, also, and so the furious procession goes.  For two hours rank and wealth, and obscurity and poverty clatter along side by side in the wild procession, and then go home serene, happy, covered with glory!

I was looking at a magnificent marble staircase in the King’s palace, the other day, which, it was said, cost five million francs, and I suppose it did cost half a million, may be.  I felt as if it must be a fine thing to live in a country where there was such comfort and such luxury as this.  And then I stepped out musing, and almost walked over a vagabond who was eating his dinner on the curbstone—­a piece of bread and a bunch of grapes.  When I found that this mustang was clerking in a fruit establishment (he had the establishment along with him in a basket,) at two cents a day, and that he had no palace at home where he lived, I lost some of my enthusiasm concerning the happiness of living in Italy.

This naturally suggests to me a thought about wages here.  Lieutenants in the army get about a dollar a day, and common soldiers a couple of cents.  I only know one clerk—­he gets four dollars a month.  Printers get six dollars and a half a month, but I have heard of a foreman who gets thirteen.

To be growing suddenly and violently rich, as this man is, naturally makes him a bloated aristocrat.  The airs he puts on are insufferable.

And, speaking of wages, reminds me of prices of merchandise.  In Paris you pay twelve dollars a dozen for Jouvin’s best kid gloves; gloves of about as good quality sell here at three or four dollars a dozen.  You pay five and six dollars apiece for fine linen shirts in Paris; here and in Leghorn you pay two and a half.  In Marseilles you pay forty dollars for a first-class dress coat made by a good tailor, but in Leghorn you can get a full dress suit for the same money.  Here you get handsome business suits at from ten to twenty dollars, and in Leghorn you can get an overcoat for fifteen dollars that would cost you seventy in New York.  Fine kid boots are worth eight dollars in Marseilles and four dollars here.  Lyons velvets