The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1874-10-04
The Rome of To-Day.
THE SUPPRESSION OF RELIGIOUS HOUSES.
Correspondence of the n. Y. World
d. z. S
September 29M, 1874.


Correspondence of the n. Y. World
ROME, September 4.-Some interesting sta
tistics of Rome have Just been published. The
city contains 2is, 1907 inhabitants. who occupy
for more, as 800 apartments are standing va
can't Rome is divided into IA parishes, each
of which has its parish church. There are
besides these 303 other churches. There are
2c3 schools, of which 50 are private, "a rel-
gious, Sc mixed, and 80 municipal. Rome has
| always been Exceptionally we'll provided with
schools. 1 remember how / once surprised a
Scotchman many years ago by showing him
that Rome, with q population about equal to
that of Edinburg, had more than twice as
many schools. Rome has infant nsylums, 4
spacious hospitals municipal asylums, and q
number of other charitable houses. There are
. prisons. The police force consists of $40
municipal guards. 1877 excise guards, and 25
mounted rural police. There are $40 cafes and
restaurants.
Tho seizures and considerations of property
effected by the Italian Government in Rome
and throughout Italy have been enormous
One only wonders how it is that the Govern
ment remains poor. The number of pieces
of property seized and sold by the Government
between October 26, 1867, and July 81 1874,
was 102 Ol9 and the amount realized by these
sales was 1913, 430,9i2. In the province of Rome
alone, up to the 3lst of December last, and in
the space of six months, 267 ecclesiastical cor
poratious were seized. Among these seizures
were l3 bishoprics, IL Summaries, cathedral
chapters, SS canonries, and 16 colleges Alto
gether, the Government has come into posses
sion OF 4064 ecclesiastical institutes of one
kind or another, within the province of Rome
The real owners of these institutes, for the
most part, are the members of the Catholic
Church throughout the world. Il might be
imagined that after seizing and selling this
property, the Government could afford to re-
duce the taxes. On the contrary it increases
them Under the reign of the Pope the aver
age tax paid by the Romans was less than %
lire. This year it is % lire aud next year il
will be more.
State paper, printed by order of Parlia-
ment, gives some interesting information con.
corning the amount of the personal property
which was seized with the churches and the
religious houses, and of the disposition that
was made of it. This property embraced the
church ornaments, vessels, vestments, reliuua-
ries missals and libraries. The report comes
down only to the 31st of last December. Up
to that time, in Rome alone, the Government
had seized articles of this kind which it esti-
mated at 319, 303 lire-a sum far below their
real value. None of these articles have yet
been sold. In Turin the Government made
seizures of this kind amounting to % 14l lire
in Messina, 1881 lire in Palermo 2679 7o5
and so on through sixty-nine provinces The
total value of the articles thus taken was IL
SIT, 2to lire, or 81 907 COS. The money thus re-
alized hasdone the Government no apparent
good. 1t has vanished-who knows where
The entire amount of real and personal