The Press. — London, England, 1858-05-29 00:00:00

agr i cu lture, manufactures, climate, society, and characteristics of . the inhabitants are successively passed in interesting the one work forms a valuable and interesting supplement to the other. Those who have been led by recent political events to place Sardinia far above the rest of Italy, and to ex pect that her political freedom has already eliminated the characteristics to which the de gradation of other Italian countries is usually ascribed, will be somewhat disappointed by the very unfavourable picture which Signor Gallenga lays before them. Of the three classes into which the inhabitants may be divided--moun taineers, lowlanders, and dwellers in towns—the first appear to be most flourishing. They are industrious, even to the waste of labour on hope lessly sterile spots, but having, perhaps, some infusion of Teutonic blood, show great aptitude for business, and often emigrate and make large fortunes in foreign countries. These they always return home to enjoy, and though they may be counts or barons abroad, become in their native valleys on a democratic equality with the humblest cottager. The lowlanders seem to comprise only the poorest labourers, for none who can avoid it will live away from a town. These cultivators of the soil are generallymetayers, and share its produce with their landlord at a rate proportioned to its fertility—sometimes re ceiving half, sometimes only one-third. Mr. Mill, in his " Political Economy," has said much in defence of the metayer system in opposition to Adam Smith, and supports his views by re ference, among other countries, to Piedmont. Perhaps neither his authorities nor Signor Gallenga are competent to speak universally on the point, but the evidence of the latter, as fir as it goes, is most unfivourable to the system. "It would be an excellent plan," he says, were men all that they should be," but, from the absenteeism of owners, the ignorance of the labourers, and the want of connection and sym pathy between the two, the result is exaction on one side and constant cheating on the other ; so that the word mezzadro has been altered by a pun to "mezzo-ladro," to express the dishonest propensities it usually implies. Farming im plements are bought m the towns, either by a proprietor ignorant of farming, or by a rustic ignorant of the value of money—if by the latter, probably with money borrowed from the land lord, to whom he gradually becomes almost as completely a slave as a debtor, in the early ages of the Roman Republic, was to his creditor. He lives chiefly on polenta, and probably does not taste meat above once a fortnight. In the severe winters he steals all the fuel he can lay his hands on from the hedges of his neighbours, and possibly even the vine -stakes, and when these are consumed, must betake himself for warmth to the stable, where he and his family frequently spend all the time which is not actually employed out of doors. The facilities for such robberies are greatly in creased by the subdivision of land, giving a right of way throu g h th e pl o t o f a neighbour, gnei— ss Catullus and Landor tell us—" the blackest of grapes, with a footpath hard by," are hardly likely to escape during the transit. The popula tion, however, is scanty, for all who can do so crowd into the towns, partly for convenience of miPPlies, partly as a habit originating in anxiety for protection from banditti. The Italians have no real love for the country. What Horace says to his bailiff, —fornis tibi et uncta popina Incutiunt urbis desiderintn, seems to apply to them still : Leery man owns a vineyard, and every vineyard has a hut; but that hut is no man's abode, or only the luckless 111144 , who ditrs and prunes it : for the rest, no men deems it a pleasure to live in the country, unless there be herreta or vintage to be gathered iii. I remember a lady sith luxuriously fair, rich complexion, melting blue eyes, and a greet display of tender sentiment, whom I had one .14) tossed into a walk even beyond the Piece d'Arrnes, the world's end for the little world of Turin. It was in the W itching month of Mar, and I asked her if she would not at that season rather be in the country. " In the country! " ejaculated the fair one, with a half-astonished, half- Ivrritied look. " Whitt on earth should one go to the country for now ? surely there is no fruit to est.' In their ding, provincial towns they huddle together, land owners, farmers, and most of the labourers; and every town gives itself the airs, and revels in the light gossip of the capita ; every town has a café, or a score of cafes, to Mlle away time in, all with their tawdry, smoky, gilt and inimred rooms . Even Castellamonte, with i:s four tti nsand souls, if so many, rejoices in its six miles and a 1.84111 , - "411 Nails wily a bat ear, THE PRESS, MAY 29, 1858. theatre,---and has its play ones a week in the fine season, and, of all nights in the week, on the Sunday evening. The Italian irrigation, of which so much has been said, is, according to our author, chiefly confined to the rice-grounds, which arc kept flooded great part of the year, and which breed malaria in all who are unfortunate enough to live within their pestilential influence. The natural inundations of the country, which are most destructive, and, as every traveller must have noticed, often overwhelm large tracts with nothing but unmanageable debris, arc stated to result in great measure from the stripping of the woods which formerly covered the mountains, and the roots of which bound the soil together. But these are constantly disappearing ; some Italians want fuel, others think the trees con sume too much oxygen ; and as they are too selfish and improvident to plant others, the sur face of the Alps and Apennines is sliding down year by year, choking up the rivers and desola ting the pastures they ought to fertilize. Owing to the scarcity of timber, it is customary to build houses of stone—spacious and dungeon like—the temperature of which becomes some thing like that of the "tank" in which Mr. Scrooge kept his clerk, unwarmed even by the " one coal" allotted to that functionary. A wood fire at a Turin hotel costs five francs a day, and those who cannot afford so expensive a luxury sit indoors wrapped in hats and cloaks. There is no alternative but a peat fire, and this expedient Signor Gallenga tried with but indifferent success. The great feature of the towns is the abun dance of cafés, which are frequented by all classes, from the peer to the peasant. They play as im portant a part as taverns did among ourselves in the last century, and with even worse results as regards domestic life : Of the Italians it may be said, not so much that they meet, as that they "pig together," in their cafés. The practice of smoking, so rife of late that the revenue arising from the tobacco monopoly has risen from five to fifteen millions within five or six t rare, and the still more abomi nable custom of spitting, on which unfortunately Govern ment has as yet found no means to raise a duty, render every place in Piedmont open to the public unconquerably disgusting. The contrast between gilt ceilings, varnished columns, and limned wainscots, with damp and slippery. and shockingly filthy doors, bears evidence against a nation so renowned of yore for its exquisite sense of propriety, and fastidious love of the beautiful : the wet from dripping umbrellas, the steam from dank cloaks, the mud from unseraped boots, mix,(l *ith the ashes and crushed stumps of cigars, and freshened up by the per petual shower from the throats of every man present, make the very ground thick and sticky under your feet. Add to this the close pestilential air, the clang of the door per petnodly abutting to, the din and clatter of the scullion knocking about cups, saucers, puts and trays, as if collision were to do duty for ablution, and the shunting of the waiters, determined, as it would seem, that every customer must either be deaf or should be made eo,—and you will have an idea of the best•regnlateil Turinese cater ; they are crowded from morning till late at night nevertheless ; they increase in number daily, and there is ample custom for them all. Living from home becomes a more and more univer-al practice : the whole city is little more than a town of taverns, eating and coffee houses: fathers, mothers, and whole families go to the cafes or cares restaurants for their breakfast and other meals ; and bachelors leave their lodgings unshaven, if not unwashed, and never revisit them till bed-time. The barber. the boot-black, as well as the conk, are all ready to wait upon them out of doors. .f he tire, in short, is being pot out in Italy, and with it the feelings of home and domestic affec tions become alt 'gether obsolete. The number of single men throngltout Italy is quite appalling; there is tio conutry in which "improvident marriages" are, more carefully eschewed The love of society, the imperfect education, the mental tameness and plainness of the generality of Italian women, the lack of entertaining books, prevailing custom, and, above all things, the p.iltry, scanty tires, and the nak-d cheerless apartments, drive the Italian husband from the sanctuary of home, and turn him into a mere Intingi.r, a frivolous talker, a pitiful idler at a care. The very best of men, the most affectionate of husbands and fathers (and I know Rome who are paragons) are no exceptions to the rule They have the strangest attachm au, the highest reser), the most implicit confidence in the portlier% of their homes; bat those horn, it with a few bouts' tete it tete in the evening, even for the short period of a honey moon, would be nnendnrable to the most exemplary Benedict. of them all A woman—at least one's own woman--teems to he no helpmate in this cnunirs: neither in workim; hours, nor during that time of relasition and repose which in hotter regulated societies is her peculiar province and domain. In the frequenters of these catZs Signor Gallenga notices a trait which will recall to readers of the Spectator the diary of that " sober citizen " who divided the energies of his mind between the recollection of his dinner and the fluctuations of very foreign affairs. For such trivial domestic -••••K • r 513 matters as the trial of Dr. Sacheverell or the projected bridge at Blackfriars he probably did not much care. But that " the grand vizier was strangled ;" that he dreamt about him; that " the grand vizier was not only strangled, but beheaded ;" and " Mr. Nisby's account of the Grand Turk," are entries of real importance, and worthy of being placed on the same footing with his consumption of " Brooks and Haler," and the deficiency of " sprouts " to his veal and bacon. The loungers of Turin are remarkable for a similar discursiveness of sympathy, and Signor Gallenga makes the following com plaint of their indifference to the matters which most nearly concern them:— As soon as I am seated the discussion of the great topics of the 11.1 y, which had been dropped as fully ex hausted before I made my appearance, begins afresh. It is, ma)hap, the eternal question about the Danubian Principalities, or very knowing conjPctures respecting the secret intentions of the Czar of All the RU4llitie, or of the Great Khan of Tanury, or of Prest-r John of Abyssinia, l'he remotest and most abstrike subject, I grieve to say, is ever the uppermost in the thoughts sod speeches of people living iu out-of-the way corners. It used to be matter of necessity under the absolute regime, when home topics were excluded from the budget de omnibus rebus supplied by the one Gazette circulating throughout the State; and it continues to be the case now, under a free Government and a multitudinous press, from mere habit, from aeliknesa of intellect, from that inertners and supine ness which finds it extremely Illtllettlt to o iiiceive how it has now become a duty as well as a right fur freemen to mind their own business. This kind of conversation is diversified by cards, which form the amusement of all classes, who waste whole evenings in playing for some incon siderable stake. There was no pnvate society to be had in Castellamonte during the winter of Signor Gallenga's residence there; nor in Turin was the case much better. The proportion of ladies to gentlemen at a soiree was about one to twenty; and it was understood that the conversation of these solitary specimens of their sex was to be divided as impartially as possible among the cavaliers who surrounded them. The author explains this alarming scarcity by explaining that very few 'Turinese ladies are presentable—that is to say, their characters are well enough, but they are not sufficiently educated to talk or be talked to. At the theatre or opera, where they can take refuge in silence or in pretended admiration for something passing on the stage, they appear in much greater numbers. As, u nder i these circum stances, evening parties are not particularly at tractive, the ruder sex are bribed to attend them by being allowed to smoke—a practice in which the few ladies present occasionally join. Cicisbeiarn is uni versal, and every lady who "receives" has her train of faithful attendants, whose devotion is satisfied by reciprocitl of sentiments of a purely Platonic character. Celibacy naturally flourishes, and thus many families continue in the same dwelling all their lives. Literature is at a low ebb, and is confined to French novels, commentaries on standard authors, and a certain amount of archeological research. No books are to be seen scattered about in a house, and the want of them is not felt. Signor Gallenga was at considerable trouble to get a friend to translate RuffinTs novels (" Doctor Antonio" and "Lorenzo Benoni"), but they had not even success enough to remunerate their publisher. Even the language is allowed to de cline, and in the capital it is common to hear patois spoken in the best society.* As regards the physique of the Piedmontese, it is, we are told, a mistake to consider that they, or any Italians, are sober and abstemious. They do not eat often, but, having weakened their digestion by long fasting, fill themselves to reple tion at dinner with a mass of innutritious food. Hence they all have a tendency to grow fat and melancholy, have a great indisposition to take exercise, and become old at forty years of age. With all this, they believe themselves to be " too sanguine" in temperament, and—as was the case at Naples after the late earthquake—get them selves bled on the slightest provocation. The children are enervated by high living, and be come precociously developed into effeminate young men, who shrink from everything like manly exertion, refuse to quit the shelter of the porticos which line the streets of Turin, and "do the high" day after day with monotonous pertinacity. They are not fond of riding, and have a proverb that a man's grave opens when he mounts a • Other am horilies state that rie,irnontese is not a" patois." but a diatinat langusga. holding an interiseillst. place betweca the Yrovainal sad tlig A