ntal capacity. How else could a swarming tribe of useless
non-producers like the priesthood be supported in well-fed, sensual
idleness, and the costly ornamentation and ceremonies of the church be
maintained? There is said to be a priest for every thirty families in
the group, men who are intensely bigoted and ridiculously ignorant
outside of their professional routine, but who are the apt tools of more
able personages who hold higher positions in the church. They are ever
ready to show their credulous parishioners pieces of the true cross and
other sham relics "to whet their almost blunted appetite." Yet it may be
doubted if these cunning Maltese agents of the Romish church could go
any further in this direction than was lately done by a priest of the
same denomination in the city of New York, who pretended to exhibit for
worship a bone from the body of St. Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary,
which anxious hundreds of deluded people were "permitted" to kneel down
and kiss!

Do not let us talk any more about idol worship among the Fiji tribes or
the people of "Darkest Africa," while we have in our midst such
barefaced trickery under the veil of religion.

The humble owners of the land in Malta, as we have tried to show, are
naturally a thrifty, hard-working people, neither rich nor poor. The
reader would be surprised to see how much of seeming plenty, comfort,
and contentment exists among these sturdy natives under such adverse
circumstances. Notwithstanding their uncultured condition, the lowly
country people have a genius for poetry; indeed, all Eastern tribes who
speak the Arabic tongue are thus endowed. This talent finds expression
in a sort of improvisation, by which means two persons will hold earnest
converse with each other, asserting and denying in something very like
epic poetry. They chant their words in a wild, Maltese sing-song, which
appear exactly to accord one with the other, though the music seems to
be equally improvised with the ideas of the singer. However
unconventional the words and the music may be, there is still a certain
rude harmony in both, evidently animated now and then by gorgeous gleams
of fancy.

These Maltese are a prolific race, marry quite young, rear large
families, and are very fond of their children. Brides only thirteen
years of age are common among the working classes. It is a touching
sight to watch these childlike mothers with a crude instinct gently
fondling their tiny babes,-