The Arizona sentinel., 1885-12-19
ITALIAN IDLERS.
Two Distinct Glasses of Fashionable Social
 Drones.

ITALIAN IOIERS.
 Two Distinct Glasses of Fashionable Sociai
 Drones.
 The idle classes in Italy, the true rep resentatives of the dolce tar rie''te sentf ment, are the sons of the old nobles, or of fathers in Rome or Naples who have money which the sons are now spend ing. It is unfortunate for this class that the commendable simplicity of Italian life permits his money to go long way, for it maintains them in decent though not extravagant inactivity, and, perhaps. if they marry, small amount of money enables them to transmit enough to their offspring to allow the latter to continue the same useless mode of existence. This is not the case with large fortuneS in England or America, where the ex- travagant habits of the gilded youth lead to the dissipation of the entire pat; rimony in a few years, reducing the young man to the primitive condition of work or starve, which leads to his dis appearance from this mundane sphere ii he is of no account, or to his becoming an honorable citizen if he has manly stuff in him. This class is large in Ma ples Its members do nothing them selves, nor do they use their capital in manner to give en- ployment to others. They are generally handsome, they dress well, and they usually act like gentlemen, but as they have little else to do than care for their persons, read the newspapers in the cafes, or saunter up and down the Toledo, the one fashionable and the only tolerable thoroughfare, life, were they not Italian gentlemen, would hang rather heavy on their hands. As it is, it appears to agree with them, and their contentment is only paralleled by that of the Southern negro luXuriating in 8 watermelon, or of a Neapolitan boat man devouring his dish of ropy, garlic. favored maccaroni. There are less oi these idlers as you go toward the north, and there will be still less when Italy in all its parts shares that commercial ac. tivity which is already making itself for cibly felt in Tuscany and Lombardy.
 But it will take at least half century to eradicate from the Italian mind the idea that there is in the blood, bones and tissue of certain class something that distinguishes them and renders them by a sort of divine right superior to a cer- tain other class inferior by heredity The time must come when the word peasant will disappear from the social vocabulary, but that time is not yet. The officers of the Italian army are spoken of by their fellow-citizens as gentlemen, that is, in the conventional sense, and not in that which requires merely a good disposition, good manners and courteous behavior. They are as class good looking, polite, well-behaved and asSuredly well dressed, the artistic feeling of the Italians, as elsewhere sug- gested, insisting on this tribute to the military art. But they constitute caste seperate from the soldiers, which is not always for the good of either, and is de- cidedly contrary to the practice of both France and England. They come from the better classes, their education is thorough, and, although they are too pretty to be killed, it is believed that they are as gallant as they are amiable and good looking. There is an esprit de corps already developed in the army which keeps pace with the national sen timent, but unless war comes soon in a form that will try the mettle of officers and men, it is to be feared that the vicious aristocratic system and the habit of simply playing at war through this handsome military display, will be a source of weakness when serious trouble really comes, as it must eventually come in the complicated international rela- tions of Europe.-Venice Cor. San Fran, cisco Chronicle.