no Depretis as Pro-Dictator. Of the
many decrees formulated and measures adopted at this period,
Garibaldi, who had many other things to think of, was personally
responsible only for those of a philanthropic nature. Busy as he was,
he found time to inquire minutely into the State of the population of
Palermo, and he was horrified at the ignorance and misery in which the
poorer classes were plunged. Forthwith, out came a bushel-basket of
edicts and appeals on behalf of these poor children of the sun. He
visited the orphan asylum and found that eighty per cent. of the
inmates died of starvation. One nurse had to provide for the wants of
four infants. Garibaldi wrote off an address to the ladies of Palermo,
in which he implored them to interest themselves in the wretched
little beings created in the image of God, at the sight of whose
wasted and puny bodies he, an old soldier, had wept. He had money and
food distributed every morning to the most destitute, at the gates of
the royal palace, where he lived with a frugality that scandalised the
aged servants of royalty whom he kept, out of kindness, at their
posts. Theoretically, he disapproved of indiscriminate almsgiving, but
in the misery caused by the recent bombardment, such theories could
not be strictly applied, or, at any rate, Garibaldi was not the man to
so apply them; whence it happened that though, as _de facto_ head of
the State, he allowed himself a civil list of eight francs a day, the
morning had never far advanced before his pockets were empty, and he
had to borrow small sums from his friends, which next morning were
faithfully repaid.

When he walked about the town, the women pressed forward to touch the
hem of his _poncho_, and made their children kneel to receive his
blessing. On one occasion a convent of nuns, from the youngest novice
to the elderly abbess, insisted on giving him the kiss of peace. An
idolatry which would have made anyone else ridiculous; but Garibaldi,
being altogether simple and unselfconscious, was above ridicule. One
of the good works that he initiated was the transformation of the
Foundling Hospital, of which the large funds were turned to little
account, into a Military School under the direction of his best
officers. In less than a month the school could turn out two smart
battalions, and there were few mornings that the Dictator did not go
to watch the boys at their drill. He encouraged them with the promise
that before long he w