hands. By the time a horse has passed through
twenty different hands, the Government has pocketed as much as the
breeder. When I say the Government, I am wrong; the horse-tax is not
included in the Budget. It is an ecclesiastical prebend. Cardinal
della Dateria throws it in with general episcopal revenues.

"The good shepherd should shear, and not flay his sheep." These are
the words of an Emperor, not a Pope, of Rome.

And now I dare not ask of the Holy Father certain protective measures
which could not fail to double the revenue of his crown and the number
of his subjects.

According to the statistical returns of 1857, the territorial wealth
of the Romans is estimated at L104,400,000. The gross produce of this
capital does not reach more than L116,563. 11s. 8d., or about ten per
cent. This is little. In Poland, and some other great agricultural
countries, the land pays a net revenue of twelve per cent., which
represents at least twenty per cent. gross. The Roman soil would
produce the same if the Roman government did its duty.

The country is divided into cultivated and uncultivated lands. The
former, that is to say those planted with useful trees, enriched by
manure, regularly submitted to manual labour, and sown every year, lie
chiefly in the provinces of the Adriatic, far beyond the ken of the
Pope. In this half of the States of the Church (the most worthy of
attention, and the least known) twenty years of French occupation have
left excellent traditions. The system of primogeniture is abolished,
if not by law, at least in practice. The equality of rights among the
children of the same father necessitates the subdivision of property
so favourable to agricultural progress. There are some large landed
proprietors here, as there are everywhere; but instead of abandoning
their estates to the rapacity of an intendant, they divide them into
different occupations, which they confide to the best farmers. The
landlord supplies the land, the buildings, and the cattle, and pays
the property-tax. The tenant supplies the labour, and pays the other
taxes, and the produce is equally shared between the landlord and the
tenant. The system answers well, and the Adriatic provinces would
hardly seem deserving of pity, if it were not for the brigands, the
inundations of the Po and the Reno, and the crushing taxation I have
described.

These taxes are lighter on the other side of the Apennines. There are
even in the neighbourhood