home. I have asked for a fire, but all they could
give me was a poisonous fire of charcoal in an earthen thing like
a basket.

"Some of their public buildings are good, but that can't make the
population comfortable. In fact, the people generally are ill-cared
for. Here are the wretched Jews, who live in a filthy quarter of
the city crowded together like pigs.

"The people pass the most of their time in coffee-houses. They are
an idle set--have nothing in the world to do. It is still a mystery
to me how they live.

"The fact is, there are too many soldiers and priests. Now it is
evident that these gentry, being non-producers, must be supported
directly or indirectly by the producers. This is the cause, I suppose,
of the poverty of a great part of the population.

"Begging is reduced to a science. In this I confess the Italian beats
the American all to pieces. The American eye has not seen, nor ear
heard, the devices of an Italian beggar to get along.

"I have seen them in great crowds waiting outside of a monastery for
their dinner, which consists of huge bowls of porridge given by the
monks. Can any thing be more ruinous to a people?

"The only trade that I could discover after a long and patient search
was the trade in brooches and toys which are bought as curiosities by
travellers.

"There are nothing but churches and palaces wherever you go. Some
of these palaces are queer-looking concerns. There isn't one in the
whole lot equal to some of the Fifth Avenue houses in New York in
point of real genuine style.

"There has been too much money spent in churches, and too little
on houses. If it amounted to any thing it would not be so bad, but
the only effect has been to promote an idle fondness for music
and pictures and such like. If they tore down nine-tenths of their
churches and turned them into school-houses on the New England
system, it would not be bad for the rising generation.

"The newspapers which they have are miserable things-wretched
little sheets, full of lies--no advertisements, no news, no nothing.
I got a friend to translate what pretended to be the latest American
news. It was a collection of murders, duels, railway accidents, and
steamboat explosions.

"I don't see what hope there is for this unfortunate country; I don't
really. The people have gone on so long in their present course that
they are now about incorrigible. If the entire population were to
emigrate to the Western States, and