The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1890-05-18

IHE DAILY IND
soil the son of heaven shines on. No land
would be sold to the peasantry, on any
terms. This is an unwritten but in
exorable law. We're it possible for any
single peasant. or any combination Of peas
chase tract of land. a score of combina-
tions on the part of titled aristocratic or &C.
clesiastlc landholders would be ready to pur-
chase at any price, to keep it out of the lowly
mans hands. Why. there is even no
equivalent in the Italian language for the
as "afitto," "allogamento," "villa,' etc.
The very essence Of the first two of these
words is something fixed. fastened, retained,
but hired out. A score of times have
endeavored to make italian peasants under
stand that there were portions of Gods
such as they could absolutely own, solely
possess, irrevocably hold, tho home above
them and the soil on which it stood. Their
lips parted; a drawn, sad smile came into
their parchment-like faces; and their eyes
rolled upward expressive of the hopeless
ness of their effort at comprehension. The
black men Of the south. twenty-five years
before the war. were clearer on sociology
than these. Tho serfs of Hannibal, the
helots of the olden Celtic septs, had quick
er, keener spirit of men and more Of the
virile blood which demands and commands
possession.
Again. were not these absolutely remorse-
less combinations of landed capital an in
surmountable bar to the requirement Of
any portion of the soil by the lowly Italian
rustico, his condition would still be equally
as hopeless. No human being who labors in
the fields of Italy could, by any manner of
deprivation approaching starvation, save
sufficient money in the course Of his entire
natural life to purchase enough land in
which to deoently lay the bones of his own
family. The government, or the church,
provides in the campo santo OF every vii
and quicklime to consume them; because.
presume. the government. the church and
all manner of land-holding task-mas-
ters have kept him in such an equable and
notwithstanding condition Of poverty
that this sort of an equivalent is regarded
measure of final justice. One 1talian
soldo is equal to one-ffth of an American
cent. Throughout all southern Italy the
wages of shepherds, cartmen, vine-dressers,
grape-gatherers.. ploughmen. and every
soldi, or 16 cents, per day! Out Of this l6
cents per day, which is not securable for
more than half the days of the year, the
Italian rustioo pays the rent of his capanna,
or hovel, feeds and clothes his family, pays
all manner Of outrageous petty imposizione
Or taxation, and, asesegatlvely' muniaoent;
tween the peasantry of Ireland and
of Italy is this: The Irish are . superior
race despoiled of glorious originally
possessed hereditaments, writhing under
sodden, implacable, unredressed wrong.
than serfs and whatever exceptional
individual heart-burnings may be, as
class are incapable of resenting the loss of
conditions and heritage OF which they have
never been deprived. A Masaniello or
Garii55sldi fred BY sleaminRsof the 20 cute.
three centuries, rise from among fisher
men, sailors or city lazzaroni and oavort
about for time as "iberator;" but these
poor cattle upon two legs have come to
know, have ever stood and will ever stand
still in their Italian fields and howell
managers, and, with radiant, grateful eyes,
lick the hands which dole them husks-the
only fruit of their labors they were ever
allowed to know.
All southern Italy is extraordinarily pas
toral in landscape and character of husband
ry, and outside few of the coast cities the
borers, Shepherds, vineyard laborers and
workers in the fields. The olive. orange,
grape and date-palm are cultivated every
where at the edges of villages, and on sun
ny mountain slopes; but the larger portion
OF the land is employed in the growing Of
small grains and corn. have yet to dis
cover, save in the north, where the landscape
partakes of Alpine diversity and ruggedness,
those splendid and poetical combinations
with which so many word painting enthusi-
asts seem Impressed. In detail it is no
where 10 enjoyable as that of old England,
New England, or any of thousand locali-
ties We know in our own loved land. Here
and there, as in Spain, are little spots of sur
passing loneliness; but still, as In Spain, the
general face of the country hints of sadness
and dreariness; impels a feeling that it is
worn out, burned out. lived out: forces q con-
away; and one is pursued by a brooding,
ominous, indefinable conviction that, with
the eternal fires beneath and the ever-blaz-
ing sun above, that the arid crust must
shortly give out, and with it the vacuous
life of the insensate humans who scratch
1900 years ago. The rivers are far apart
and are all turbid, ocherish wash of seorise
and mountain mud. There are no meadows;
no shaded lanes; no cooling covert and
copse. The endless avenues of short-crop-
ped vineyards are never beautiful, but are
cropped and gashed and clipped like pugil-
lists head. The formal rows of Expresses are
damp, dank, funereal, sad. There are no
forests; few trees are larger than the sQuatty
olive; and all trees look shriveled, knotted,
dusty, worn. 1taly's mountains are TOO
bare. All her outlines are insufficient,
acute, unsatisfying. All told, as one writer
has aptly put it, all Italian landscape has
"a certain hardtaste in the mouth"
The utter absence of homes. and espec-
tally of farm homes, in all Apulia. intensi-
fes the sadness of the landscape. There ia
| not farm house, as we know it, in Italy.
There are, miles apart, huge, low, prison.
| like stone structures called "masserie,'
where the landowners superintendent, an
| ignorant, lily -paid, bestial fellow himself,
cares for a number of the animals needed in
the fields and where the mascara literally,
feld-house woman) cooks the little needed
for the laborers. These ''masserie" are the
ugliest e-story stone building imaginable.
They are invariably set on an elevation to
escape as much as possible the universal
malaria. Quadrilateral stone walls perhaps
30 feet square rise seven or eight feet high.
A portion Of the front will be covered with
an almost fat metal or slate roof.
Then from the rear wall vaulted arches
extend towards the front. These usually
contain three compartments. One, the best
of all, is provided with stone managers ex-
tending all around it for oxen, horses OF
donkeys; in another, the mascara warns
] the slop given the laborers; and in the last,