Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1898-03-17
ABOUT SUNNY ITALY.
Flowers and Palms. and Beautiful
Parks.
REV.F. w. STRAW In ROME
Gives His Impressions Of the People
and Countries on the Two
Sides OF the Alps.
ROME, Italy, Feb. 26, 1898.


DEAR FRIENDS Remembering my
promise to you, made before leav-
ing home, | will take little time
from these busy days and try to put
on paper some of the things we have
noticed. In the first part Of January,
at the close of our stay in Germany,
/ wrote some Impressions of the people
and institutions of that country, to
The Tribune, so in this letter to you
and your readers | will contine myself
to some things we have noticed in
Italy.
We have been in this country about
six weeks, and early in March expect
to leave Naples for Egypt, to be gone
about two months, visiting Cairo,
Palestine and Athens: then returning
to Italy, where VIC may stay few
weeks longer, then set our faces toward
England, and, after that, towards
home.
between the countries and people on
the two sides of the Alps, and have
not been disappointed. The sunshine
has much to do with the countries. In
Germany we found considerable rain
and fog and raw, disagrecable weather;
to be followed later, they told us, by
snow. 1t was not, by any means,
what we would call hard winter in
Wisconsin, but very different from the
winter south of the Alps. Here it
rains some like our April showers:
the chilly north winds blow. then the
warm Italian sun coming out dries the
ground In little while, until along
the Railway, we saw the shepherds,
who were supposed to be watching the
sheep, stretched out on the ground
fast asleep; and in the towns men and
children aud sometimes women, crawl
ing out from the wrctched place they
call home, get II good warm nap in
some sheltered spot in the park or on
the sidewalk. Probably they have not
been warm since the sun shoce before
as heating stoves are almost unknown
In this country.
In this month, February, lowers
are blossoming everywhere. There
are great palms in the parks from 20
to 50 feet high. Fruit trees are load
ed with blossoms, and there are, liter
ally, bushels or bouquets OF every
color on many corner stands. A
friend told rs that 20 cents week
would keep an abundance Of the most
beautiful flowers in the house, fresh
daily, the year through.
This sunshine is of course answer
able, in some degree, for the habits of
laziness among the poorer people,
lust us Il makes u difference with us,
between the people Of the north and
south. But there Is II deeper differ
nnco yet. Let me emphasize the fact
that the better people of this land,
and of Germany as well, are rs fine
men and women as we ever met. They
are keen, courteous, kind, obliging,
and just as willing to go out OF their
way to assist II stranger, rs in the
same class with us. But in the fol-
lowing remarks | shall refer chiefly
to that great class called nowadays
the masses, and whom Lincoln said
the Lord must have especially loved,
because he made SO many of them.
In the first place they are poor. The
other day, caught by n shower, |
stepped under an arch of brickworlk
down by the Tiber, built perhaps IL
thousand years ago, and found myself
in an Italian home, There was the
mother and eight children living in II
place about 70 #. long and rs high J
and 10 IT, wide. The tloor was the
of paving stones, such as
our city streets were paved with fifty
years ago: the furniture we'll, with
the exception of some chairs and
called u bed theec wasn't
any. And this description will do for
thousands of houses here. In the
country we noticed that il the poorer
houses the cattle occupied one end,
and tho people the other, while the
hons occupied both ends.
We have been diligently inquiring
the rate OF wages, and find that in
Rome II laboring man earns from 30
to 10 cents per day, and II woman 30
cents; and probably wages are II little
higher here than elsewhere, The
farmer earns about l. cents per day,
besides II house and garden, the latter
often too small to supply his
own vegetables, And suppose that
very often this is all many laborrs
are worth. OF course the times are
hard, guess they always are, here: