the
Pope has not judged it beneath it to legislate in reference to them.
They must be made of a certain prescribed capacity, and stamped for the
purchase and sale of lime and pozzolano. In this happy country, all
things, from the Immaculate Conception down to the pozzolano cart, are
cared for by the sacerdotal Government. The open-bodied carts have bars
(the length and distance apart of which are also regulated by the
pontiff) placed on the trams, and are licensed for the sale of green
wood, which must be sold at from three and a half to four dollars a
load. The barozza is another open-bodied cart, with bars placed around
the trams, and contains about twelve sacks of wood-char, which is sold
at from eight to ten dollars. This is the fuel of the country, and, when
kindled, does well enough for cooking. It gives considerable heat and
but little smoke, but lacks the cheerfulness and comfort of an English
fire-side, which is unknown in Rome.

Every agricultural process is conducted in the same rude and slovenly
way. And how can it be otherwise, when the Church, for reasons best
known to itself, denies the people the use of the indispensable
instruments? It solemnly legislates that one British plough may be
imported; and graciously permits its subjects, in a land where there are
no mechanics, to make as many additional ploughs as they need. Is it not
peculiarly modest in these men, who show so little wisdom in temporal
matters, to ask the entire world to surrender its belief to them in
things spiritual and divine?

Every one knows how we winnow corn in Britain. How do they conduct that
process at Rome? A cart-load of grain is poured out on the barn-floor;
some dozen or score of women squat down around it, and with the hand
separate the chaff from the wheat, pickle by pickle. In this way a score
of women may do in a week what a farmer in our country could do easily
in a couple of hours. An effort was made to persuade the predecessor of
the present Pontiff, Gregory XVI., to sanction the admission into Rome
of a winnowing-machine. Its mode of working and uses were explained to
the Pontiff. Gregory shook his head; for Infallibility indicates its
doubts at times, just as mortals do, by a shake of the head. It was a
dangerous thing to introduce into Rome, said the infallible Gregory.
Perhaps it was; for if the Romans had begun to winnow grain, they might
have learned to winnow other things besides grain.

The husbandry of Ital