Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1874-06-06

reside; but there is no permanent
shelter provided for the shepherds
and laborers. Their habitations
consists of mud huts on the hillsides
near springs, often in a decayed, an
cient tomb, or in stone or natural
caverns which abound in the volcan-
ic rocks. Some of them hive, with
their families, in covered carts,
drawn by a donkey, or mule, which
are moved about from one part of
the vast estate to another.
But all the ground is not under
pasture. Perhaps one tenth of it Is
in cultivation,
CHIEFLY IN WHEAT,
of which it produces a very large
yield. The ground is plowed by
white, long horned oxen, and the
wheat is sown in October and har-
vested in June. When the grain is
nearly ripe, messengers are dispatch
ed into the neighboring mountains,
who hire an abundance of hands of
both sexes, to cut down with the
sickle. The employer furnishes food
and wine, but no shelter. The work
begins at early dawn, and continues
till night, with two hours rest at
noon. The overseer rides up and
down the fields to stimulate and en-
courge the toll with flask or oath.
The reapers and binders at night
throw themselves down beside their
sheaves, their bodies bathed in per-
spiration, and exhausted by fatigue
and fierce heat of the day The
chill winds blow and heavy dews fall
soon after sundown. The daily NAL
aria begins to rise from the plain,
and the poison of fever passes
through their veins. Before the
first week ends. half the harvesters
are sick, and drag their weak and
weary legs to then mountain homes,
where
MANY OF THEM DIE.
Before the second week closes half
the remaining hands are stricken
down with the same remorseless dis
ease, and are happy if they have
strength to crawl home-perchance
to die at their own doors. Such are
the ways and conditions on which
the Campagna is cultivated. The
poor wretches who cut down the
grain receive for thus risking their
lives for two weeks the miserable
pittance of three francs a day for
reapers and two for binders-6O and
40 cents each2 The beauty of the
Campagna to the eye of humanity,
becomes loathsome and hateful. The
poisonous malaria which oyerspreads
the Campagna is as deadly to physi-
cal health as the mental nightshade
of the Dark Ages was the intelectu-
al powers. ttDl-- -tizA
Many argue that the unhealthiness
of the Campagna is attributable to
the want of cultivation and the des-
titution of trees. But the treeless
rolling prairies of the Western States
which it so strikingly resembles,
are not unhealthy before they are
cultivated, and why should these
plains be insalubrious? Some say
that the soil holds water, which
evaporating through the rich vege-
table loan, sends up q malarious ex-
halation. But the loan is not as
deep, rich, or humid, as the soil of
Illinois or Iowa prairies There are
no marshes or stagDant water any
where visible. The streams run low
in summer; many of the springs go
dry; the Yerdure wits for want of
moisture, and the earth is parched
for lack of rain. The herds and
HOcks have to be driven up into
valleys and hill sides to
find water and pasturage. Still, in
the face of this summer drought,
the fever-breeding malaria lays low
nearly all who breath it after sun
down. Those who do not flee to the
mountains take refuge within the
walls of the city, and the hospitals
IF Rome are filled every summer
With
THE VICTIMS OF THE CAAIPAGNA.
Since Rome became the capital of
italy, the Government has appointed
! Board of medical experts and
,killful chemists to investigate
he causes of the summer sickenss
If the Campagna, and to devise
Iome relief therefrom, if remedy can
be found. 1t is known that, in
ancient times, the Campagna was
not healthy; that there was consid-
.rable sickness; but it was not ac-
counted TO be plague spot. 1t was
lensley populated, and dotted over
With towns and village, as the other
olains of Italy are at the present
lime. If the Roman Campagna
we're populated as thickly as the
olains of the Peninsula, it would
contain million and half of in
iabitants; whereas there are but a
'ew thousand herdsmen, shepherds.
md overseers scattered over it,
Compared with all other proportions
# the Kingdom, swarming with busy
ife, it looks like Goldsmith's De
erted Village. 1t is a gloomy soil
.ude, with the silence of death brood
ng upon it.
AMONG the various schemes for
lisinfecting the Campagna of its
ummel malaria, the Roman news
,apers are actively discussing the
anitary proprieties of
THE AUSTRALIAN EUCALYPTUs-
in evergreen gum-tree which grows
With extraordinary rapidity. 1t is
illeged that it possesses the power of
the poisonous gases from
he air, and rendering healthy the
districts in which it is planted. Its
llleged wonderful sanitary effect in
districts of Algeria, where
t has been planted, is cited in proof
If its value as disinfecting tree. It's |
caves possess the same effect as qui-
line in the cure of chill fevers. Mad |
lme Bodichon, who introduced the
,ree into Algeria a few years ago,
nus writes to an English gentleman
n Rome; eff you could see the fra
grant forests of Eucalyptus here
where fever breeding plains former