t a loss to themselves. Thence the
citizens of Rome came to depend entirely on foreign supplies of grain
for their daily food; and the consumption of the capital had no more
influence on the agriculture of the adjoining provinces, than it had on
that of Hindostan or China. Again, as in the days of Tacitus, the lives
of the Roman people were exposed to the chances of the winds and the
waves. As this proved a fluctuating and precarious source of supply, a
special board, styled the _Casa Annonaria_, was constituted by
government for the regular importation of foreign grain, and retailing
of it at a fixed and low price to the people. This board has been in
operation for nearly two hundred and fifty years; and it is the system
it has pursued which has prevented all attempts to cultivate the
Campagna, by rendering it impossible to do so at a profit. The details
of the proceedings of this board--this "_chamber of commerce_" of Rome,
are so extremely curious and instructive, that we must give them in the
authentic words of Sismondi.

"Having failed in all their attempts to bring about the cultivation of
the Campagna, the popes of the 17th and 18th centuries endeavoured to
secure abundance in the markets by other means. The motive was
legitimate and praiseworthy; but the means taken failed in producing the
desired effect, because they sacrificed the future to the present, and,
_in the anxiety to secure the subsistence of the people, compromised
those who raised food for them_. Pope Pius VI., who reigned from 1600 to
1621, instituted the _Casa Annonaria_ of the apostolic chamber, which
was charged with the duty of providing subsistence for the inhabitants
of Rome. This board being desirous, above all things, of avoiding
seditions and discontent, established it as a principle, that whatever
the cost of production was, or the price in a particular year, bread
should be sold at certain public bake-houses at a certain price. This
price was fixed at a Roman baiocco, a tenth more than the sous of
France, (1/2 d. English,) for eight ounces of bread. _This price has now
been maintained constantly the same for two hundred years_; and it is
still kept at the same level, with the difference only of a slight
diminution in the weight of the bread sold for the _baiocco_ in years of
scarcity.

"As a necessary consequence of this regulation, the apostolic chamber
soon found itself under the necessity of taking entire possession of the
commerce