r ranks of the priesthood,
and to a considerable degree their distinctions, such as they are, and
their temporal prospects are bound up with the Popedom. Moreover, in
this rank of the social scale the private and personal influence of the
priests, through the women of the family, is very powerful. The more
active, however, and ambitious amongst the aristocracy feel deeply the
exclusion from public life, the absence of any opening for ambition, and
the gradual impoverishment of their property, which are the necessary
evils of an absolute ecclesiastical government.

The "Bourgeoisie" stand on a very different footing. They have neither
the moral influence of the priesthood nor the material wealth of the
nobility to console them for the loss of liberty; they form indeed the
"Pariahs" of Roman society. "In other countries," a Roman once said to
me, "you have one man who lives in wealth and a thousand who live in
comfort. Here the one man lives in comfort, and the thousand live in
misery." I believe this picture is only too true. The middle classes,
who live by trade or mental labour, must have a hard time of it. The
professions of Rome are overstocked and underpaid. The large class of
government officials or "impiegati," to whom admirers of the Papacy point
with such pride as evidence of the secular character of the
administration, are paid on the most niggardly scale; while all the
lucrative and influential posts are reserved for the priestly
administrators. The avowed venality of the courts of justice is a proof
that lawyers are too poorly remunerated to find honesty their best
policy, while the extent to which barbers are still employed as surgeons
shows that the medical profession is not of sufficient repute to be
prosperous. There is no native patronage for art, no public for
literature. The very theatres, which flourish in other despotic states,
are here but losing speculations, owing to the interference of clerical
regulations. There are no commerce and no manufactures in the Eternal
city. In a back street near the Capitol, over a gloomy, stable-looking
door, you may see written up "Borsa di Roma," but I never could discover
any credible evidence of business being transacted on the Roman change.
There is but one private factory in Rome, the Anglo-Roman Gas Company.
What trade there is is huckstering, not commerce. In fact, so Romans
have told me, you may safely conclude that every native you meet walkin