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

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