The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1893-01-27
ITALIANS AT HOME.
A Land That Is Overaowin9 with
Poor People.
Immense Emigration to This Country
occasioned by = Lack of Employment
In Italy - Large Sums of
Money Sent Back.

The great masses of the people barely
make out to live They are poorly fed.
scantily clothed and badly housed In
dian meal Italian chestnuts and rice,
with a little inferior fruit, constitute
the staple diet of the majority of the
Italian peasantry. In thousands of
homes in this Heaven-favored land.
meat and wheat bread are unknown.
1t is said that the great ma jority of the
poor people eat meat but three or four
times a year at the most.
Christmas and Easter are hailed as
meat days rather than as holy DAYS
For those who have eyes for anything
but the beauties of art and the glories
of nature, there are no sadder sights
than can be seen in the streets of any
Italian city. Multitudes of human be-
ings, with pale faces. hungry eyes and
detected looks, throng all the highways
of travel, and though begging is for
hidden by law 1T is almost universally
practiced. Old women and little chill
dren. the lame, the halt and the blind,
and even able-bodied men, besiege
the stranger at almost every step.
1t is generally admitted that there is
no remunerative employment in Italy,
and, as a consequence, there is annual
Brazil and the Argentine Republic. The
cmigrants are poor, sometimes ignor-
ant, and often vicious. There are two
classes of emigrants from Italy, the
permanent and the temporary. The
temporary are those who leave in the
early spring and go north in search of
labor, and late in the year return to
their native land. Statistics show that
about one hundred thousand laborers
migrate in this way every year
1t Is estimated that those Italians
who have sought homes in America So nd
back to their poor relatives no less than
twenty million dollars every year Italy
is losing by emigration about two hun
dred thousand of its population annual
ly, but the natural increase of this pro-
life race more than makes good the
loss. While in France deaths are in ex-
cess of births, in Italy the increase OF
population is rapid in spite of the ever
increasing exodus What can be done
to relieve the suffering masses is
problem of the greatest gravity.
Fortunately, the climate does much
to diminish the hardships of poverty.
The short, sunny winters, the long,
pleasant summers, enable the multi
tudes TO live on comparatively little.
Except in cooking their scanty meal,
the poor Italians seldom have fire,
even in the severestweather. An Ameri-
can family will consume more wood
and coal in one week than the average
Italian family uses in whole winter
The cost of fuel is SO great that a fire is
considered an expensive luxury. But
there are days. and even weeks, during
the winter, in all parts of Italy, when
the weather is quite cold, and at such
times the suffering is something fearful.
When people have neither food nor fire
on a cold day, their condition is truly
lamcntable.
But il must be said to the praise of
the Italians that, notwithstanding all
their burdens of taxation, of poverty,
and of sickness, they are still cheerful
and a patient race They are sober by
habit, they are idle from necessity, if
If not from choice. While this is true
it is also true that the comforts, pleas
ures and enjoyments of life are far
greater in this country than they are in
Italy