Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1884-11-20

AWFUL POVERTY IN NAPLES.

The Misery and Distress, to which the
Horrors of Epidemic Cholera Are
Added.
The great problem with the Govern
ment now is how to disembowel Naples,
or to spread around the shores and the
neighboring hills the surplus popula-
ton which overcrowds the Easements
of the city. The basement is a dirty
institution of Naples. In single rooms
on the ground floors or in the cellars
whole families live together with don
keys, goats, chickens, and pigs. They
are so poor they can not pay for better
quarters. 1t is not a depraved taste
which makes them crowd in these dark
and dirty holes and keep their little
ones in the gutter, it is only need. The
Neapolitans are not brutes. They like
music, bright colors, and light. How
can they pay high rents when the best
wages are scarcely one franc day?
There is no city in Italy where wages
are so low as in Naples. The best
skilled workmen-thc taiIors, shoe
makers, type-setters. job printers, ma
sons, and carpenters in the
busiest seasons scarcely get thirty
cents a day, while the second-rate
workingmen must get along with ten
cents a day less.
It IS therefore impossible for Nea-
politan to pay more than one dollar a
month for his rent The condition of
the women is simply dreadful. A poor
mother is obliged to get work outside
of her home for her bread and for that
of the children. Hat makers, dress
makers and flower girls make only 80
or q month The great majority of
the women are obliged to go out to SER
vice as domesties. A servant girl gets
ten francs month, without any din
ner Some have two or three houses
in which to do homework for one dol
lar at each house every month They
are constantly running from one house
to another, and scolded and threatened
in each place they CO. Many OF these
miserable creatures have children to
nurse when they go home at night, a
baby, perhaps, that has been left the
whole day in the arms of a little sister.
The poor mother, going home without
sufficient food and half exhausted, has
to nurse the little one, and at thirty
wears of age looks as old as if she had
suffered the wear of sixty winters.
dOWs very, very uldus VI tnCAAA nave
fallen victims of the eholeras
Children in Naples are considered q
sort of burden or hindrance. When 3
boss takes q boy to work merely to pay
him his daily bread. q mother is happy,
and when little girl makes 1--WE cents
week by hard daily work. the work of
q regular servant girl. the mother Is
equally delighted. No wonder that the
Governnaent is taking up for serious
consideration the question how TO lodge
little better this immense crowd o
human beings, swarmlng ike ants in
the filthy. dark cellars and rooms of the
Neapolitan Easements.
The financial condition of the city is
terrible. No vegetables or fish are al
allowed to be exported from the city,
and the prohibition stops the work of
many thousands of persons
The situation, rs regards the cholera.
Has improved little, vet the figures OF
deaths reach greater proportions. in
aouparison with the number of cholera
cases, than in the beginning of the epi-
t1emic. The generous Israelite. Signor
Schiiizzi, who accompanied the Cardi-
raj 81 one of his visits. and who has so
genetously contributed for the cholera
lind, has been attacked by the plague
Tke sympathy of all Naples is extended
to hin. Cardinal San Felice has visit
"a him. The measure adopted by the
Govcrnment IN regard to process
sions Is very unpopular. They |
have been htely dispersed by force. |