Litchfield enquirer., 1881-05-19
Mans Inhumanity to Man

1 heVolutIon-tne outcome or centuries oi HOT rhle oppressiotA-can have no parallel in mod ern history and that thetyrauny which pro- duce;. such terrible results is without example 1 in onr own times. True. the temper which Set the chateals of the old nobility burning all over France. is still prevalent in Catholic Ireland, nor is the oppression in the one case 50 very much more galling than in the other. ] Itis on the Continent, however, and in country long suffering from atrocieas misgov- ernment, that we must look for the extreme of =Rretehedaess which an unfortunate people 1 can endure and live--if to toll as they toll for insufficient housing, insufficient clothing, in- l sufficient food, can be called living. An. article in the Edinburgh Review for April sets out in all it's naked deformity the oppression which brings upon considerable proportion of the peasantry of Northern Italy a lingering death, through loa:hsome disease peculiar to that and to some other parts Of Southern Europe where the like hard labor. and the like insufficient food, produce like disease. The facts collected in this article are largely taken from local report to the Cham Der of Commerce of Pavia, published by the Italian Government.
 Most of the land in the district of Pavia is titled by laborers who, counting the produce also of their wives field labor, receive in cash aud produce but an average of % cents day, out of which tohouse, clothe, and feed an entire family The work they do says the reviewer, ''is labor compared with which long day at the plough tail or at hedging and ditchlng IS mere play and pleasant exercise The off1- eial report above referred to describes the food on which the peasant lives. It is meal made in most cases from damaged Indian corn.
 He takes his wretched and unwholesome maize meal, and mixes with water sufficient quantity to last the family for eight days or more He divides this into lOaves of immense size, and puts them into an oven very insufh ciently heated with probably wet wood, and withdraws them after very insufficient time, burned on the outside and wet and nearly raw in the inside. In two or three days this hor rible mass becames acid and mouldy. But as the reporter says, 'hunger is stronger than disgust and the poor peasants are constrained Q can be conceived more foul aud pernicious; and, 'ln one of the most fertile districts of Italy" those who cultivate it are ''compelled to live almost exclusively on a bread so abom. inable that in general the very pigs refuse It"
 The official report goes on to say.
 The dwellings are squalid and unwhoe- some, to a degree which ne imagination could paint, and which must effect with horror every human mind. In truth. if any visitor should enter any one of the habitations of our labour- ers even of the ''salaried" class we would wae CT that the impression he would received would reu.ain with him to the latest day of nis life He soouM see, in the midst cf the rich est fields of Italy, amidst cultiUation achtch brings the proprietor laryer 2'7oft MGn tdt of ang other district ia. the perainsulG, q cuHa- oation phich, for amount cf production. may De compared to the best English or F9emtsh morally reduced to the condition Cf 6rutes, and physic0lN ruined 6y the inhunaan seuertty of its labour. .6y its intansous food, and the shanaeful condition cf cts daoetttags.
 The pay and allowances of these laborers has been constantly diminishing during the past twenty years; and says the report, ''as result of, these facts, at least l9 500 families Of fixed peasants are compelled, if not to suffer the bangs of hunger habitually, yet issuredly to make use of ailments unfit and insufficient to restore the vital energies worn out by excessive labour, or to invigorate an organism continually struggling against un- healthy and deleterious agencies"
 The result of this brutal oppression is 8 hor- rible disease called pellagra which affects from three to six per cent Ain one district eight per cent-of the entire rurals population of the Northern half of Italy. In some of the poorer Southern districts of France the propor-
 ion affected reaches as high as three per cent. and the disease is also found in certain districts of Spain and Roumania.
 The disease itself is described as beginning with symptoms like those of erysipelas. This is rapidly followed by a disappearance of everything like fat, and the diminution in vol ume of the entire body of the patient.
 The angular and protruding parts ot the person become markedly prominent. The skin becomes abnormally thin, wrinkled, dark yellow, and often blackiSh in colour, and covered with scales to greater or lesser de- gree. The atrophy and wasting away of the entire body soon become visible also in the nilscular tissues, which are rapidly reduced ln volume. The pulse becomes continually more and more rapid. already, and evanescent. The temperature declines, the nails grow iEto the flesh, all the movements of the body are slow and langud the sensihllity is notably diminished, sometimes to such degree as to allow of the introduction of a needle without it's being perceived by the patient Finally, | writes the author from whose description the the above has been taken, 'the patient, dried up hard to the touch, inert, apathetiC, mo. i0nless, lnsentient, with sunken eyes and deadened look, becomes mere mummy un- consciously awaiting the opening of his grave"
 This awful disease, as is clearly shown in the article in question: is the result Of over work and of bad, scanty diet It disappears with improvement in diet and in one district where the wages of the peasants have been increased, the ravages of the ''pellagra" have greatly diminished. The effect of thls dis ease on the general condition of the people is shown by the examinations for military ser vice. In Lombardy Where this scourge is most prevalent. the rejections of youth con- scripted into the military service are nearly a third of those examined; while h Naples they are less than one-ffth.
 That such grinding oppression can exist in a christian country one can hardly believe, yet the greed of the landlord, often dealing through middlemen, seems to know no bounds. Even Southern slavery, ''the sum of human villainies," as we delight to call it, afforded the humble tiller of the soil a protection of which the unfortunate Italian tenant might be glad. The self-interest which makes men care for the beast of the field winch they own, while grinding out the life of the man who is nominally free is thus sternly commented on in the official report whose plain. speaking is the best indication of an awakening spirit of | reform.
 '.The managers of these estates" he says,