te, and renders the price of these commodities
absurdly high. Again, when taxes are paid the process is even worse than
the unjust and exorbitant tax itself. No one is allowed to send a check
or postal order; no tax gatherer calls at the home or the office. Each
person must go himself or send a personal representative to a given
place between certain hours. Here stand a long procession, each person
in town going up, filling out pages of written formalities; talking of
each item and discussing it according to the national custom, until the
office hours are over for that day, and often not one-fourth of the
persons waiting have been served. All then must take their chances the
next day, and perhaps even a third or a fourth day,--a loss of time and
energy that in no other country would be tolerated for a moment. But
time has not yet any recognizable value in Italy. Every enterprise and
manufacture is taxed in Italy, and as the returns of these are
inevitably revealed so that no evasion is possible, and as the exactions
of the government consume nearly all the profits, the result is that all
business enterprises are discouraged and that Italy swarms with a great
idle population, while nearly all articles and supplies are imported
from other countries, with the payment of enormous duties, making their
cost far greater, proportionately, than their value.

There are great tracts of country in Southern Italy suitable for tobacco
raising, but (as it is one of the government monopolies) people are
forbidden to raise it; and in private gardens only three plants are
permitted. Again, all industries are crippled, if not paralyzed, by the
tax at the frontier, and also by the tax at every gate of every city. At
every _porta_ in Rome are stationed government officers who scrutinize
every box, basket, and package; and all fruit, eggs, garden stuff,
milk, and commodities of every kind are taxed as they are brought inside
the walls.

The railroads of Italy are, at present, very poor in all facilities of
transit. Within a year the Italian government has "taken over" these
roads and better conditions are promised, which are, alas! not yet in
sight. There are many "counts" to the indictment against the Italian
railroads which are only suitable to adorn the very lowest circles of
the Inferno described by Dante. They are uncleanly; the roadbeds are so
rough that the miserably built compartments jolt and jostle over the
tracks; the seats are s