The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-10-31
Italian Industry.

From the London Spectator.
1t is hard for the Englishman who ira
verses the Italy of to-day, and observes her
people with unprejudced eyes, to doubt that
she must at no distant period regain much OF
her ancient riches. The elements of wealth
are there in much abundance. We do not
speak of her soil, although that of France is
beside it but an ungenerous one, for some OF
the richest soils in the world belong to
poverty stricken races, and the owners of
Australasia never accumulated a months
supply of food. Nor do we speak of what
are called natural resources, the mines
and quarries and fruits and cereals in which
Italy is so rich, for countries like India and
Peru, which contain all the world contains
have often been filled with populations poor
to hunger, and the lavishness of nature too
often seems to paralyZe the energy of man.
We speak Of q source of wealth which we
have often heard mentioned by shrewd lta-
lians, and have recently watched closely for
ourselves, the rare industrial faculty of the
Italian people, a faculty which, once put
forth, must result in great accumulations.
The prejudice of Engishmen as to the lazi-
ness of Italians is a prejudice merely, though
it is one not very hard to understand. The
aristocracy was till lately indolent in the ex-
treme, and the well-to-do middle-class is so
still Cut off by their foreign oppressors
from all careers, except those connected with
tic OuuICu Of OllC DuOllC StrNlC0. uElN6u lGOul
commerce by ridiculous tariffs, habituated to
economy, and full Of that sense OF enjoyment
in existence which is felt to content
only by the men of the South,
and by them only when nature is
visibly gracious-Arabs, Bengalees, and Peru
vians, for example, are at heart melan-
choly people---the Italians with little took
to sauntering, to intrigue, and to half
humorous, half -satirical gossip, led lives with
interest h.
sence of cares compensation for their neglect
of duties. For the most part, the well-to-do
lead those lives still, though new crave for
wealth, and indeed a new necessity for it, is
gradually driving them out of their easy
| groove. Then the shop life of which the
| foreigner sees so much was, and in less de-
gree is, an apparently indolent one, Italians,
| like Turks, and indeed, all Asiatics except
the Chinese, excepting shop" mainly with
their heads, leaving work, as we regard it, to
| subordinates, and doing most even of their
| book-work after hours or in the early morn
ing. Finally, the restrictions placed upon
| enterprise were SO severe that it languished
or died-in Naples, for example, during two
| generations there was but one Investment
| for capital, State bonds, which rose, conse-
! quently, to 120-and work was almost un-
procurable, or, when procurable was paid for
| at rates which made industry seem waste of
time. 1t was pleasanter to lounge, or beg, or
work sharply an hour day, and very nearly
as profitable; and the Italian, who has no in
stinctve impatience of doing nothing, and
whose eyes, wherever he turns, are satisfied
with beauty, accepted the fate which seemed
| to him at once unavoidable and endurable.
| He was aided by Temperance which is
| wonder and almost a ridicule to men of the
more exacting North, and which, if we read
| Roman stories right, must at some time have
been forced on him by necessity. With food
4. ,l,nxA
Florentine, for example, can be well fed on
fourpence day-no Tuscan ever eats quite
enough for health, and with wine
almost for the asking, no Italian
! out of one or two occupations ever
drinks. There was no necessity
for labor, and no reward for it, and the Italian
is not an Englishman or a Chinese, to work
for works sake. Even then, however, agri-
| cultural labor went on, and the cultlvator
contrived, by marvellous industry, to extract
a crop so good that he could pay half to the
owner vet leave himself a sufficient subsist-
ence, terraced the hills and-tirst cause of
his beautiful climate necessarily repanted
the plains. In Italy alone the small culture
has not swept away the trees, for the trees
produce the rent.
Work came at last with the revival of en-
terprise, remunerative work, work with wages,
and the Italian, after his siesta of centuries
took to it with his old activity and his old
power of making the brain aid the hand
Everywhere the loungers without money dis
appeared. Milan, Florence, Ancona, Leg
horn, Genoa are as busy as Northern capitals;
and Naples, the city of the Lazzaroni, is a
hive of workmen, who, though they still sleep
, in the heat, work on tirelessly from five till
noon and from two till five at their occupa-
tions, and then again at home far into the
} night, work with will and an energy equal
, to that of any ordinary artisans, though
inferior, no doubt, to that of English nav
= vies Strange to say, too, the great curse
: of all Southern people-want Of fidelity
} to their works little felt in Italy. The
men take pride, as of artists, in their
labor, need little superintendent, and,
as rule, always do the very best, II
not the very utmost, they can, and then
best is very good As builders they are unap
proachable, by the testimony even OF Engilsh
engineers, while they display, wherever they
, get the chance, the faculties wanting to Eng
D lish workmen of all trades, innate taste ano
> capacity for invention. Nj. Hausgmann has
had to import Italian workmen for his operf
l house, and wherever anything beyond IN
s dustry is needed, Wherever the workmen are
a required to be originators, they are at once
! forthcoming. Given a trade like the silver
= smiths, OF the pearl casters, or any one de
G mandlng either an artists eye or special
+ slight-of hand and six weeks instruction
suffces to secure men whose touch is ia it
Z | way as perfect as that of n great sculptor