The Grit-advocate., 1901-09-06
ARE PITIABLE SERFS
AWFUL CONDITION OF THE PEAS
ANTS IN ITALY.
No Wonder the Country is the Fruitful
Mother of Anarchy and socialism
Long Working Days and No Sundays
Off Duty.

from sunny Italy came the An
archists who slew the Empress Eliza
beth, President Carnot, Prime Minis
ter Canovas and finally humbert him
self. In sunny Italy is probably the
rankest growth of Anarchy and So
cialism in all Europe. And in the
sunny plains and valleys of northern
Italy is what perhaps is the worst
condition of serfdom that exists in
Europe today. Here in the provinces
that border on the river Po-Lom-
hardy, Venetia and Emila-the peas
antry stagger under burdens SO de-
pressing and unending that it is no
wonder that the extract from this hu-
man press is Anarchy and Socialism.
1t is in these provinces that the fer
ment of Socialism has worked the
most. Here the peasants are organ
lied more or less completely into So
cialistic groups. Whatever ot worth
there was in the old system of labor
In these provinces disappeared 20 years
ago when many of the old nObies were
forced to give up their landed estates
because of the fall in price of wheat
competition. With the ruin of the
mobiles came that of many of the ten
ant farmers and small proprietors,
who were compelled to leave the fertile
and smiling country and go into the
towns for work, or else emgrate to
America, there to begin life anew. The
field laborers of Italy are divided into
cIa hp oh h~
hired by the year, and the disobbli-
gait, who are employed by the day.
The former class, of course, are little
better off than the latter, for their con-
tract runs longer. and they can look
further ahead. But in either class the
outlook is miserable enough. For not
only does the peasant bind himself to
work for his owner, but he binds his
whole family, with the possible ex-
ception of babes who would be in
clu1ed, except that they can produce
Eotning, and therefore are left in the
corners of the fields. For this reason,
thai an employer can get the services
of an entire family for the price of
one man, an unmarried man, or the
man with a wife and no children, is
at great disadvantage. for work for
him is not to be had as long as there
nre unemployed families at hand. Yet
another hard feature of this system is
that the head of the family must stip-
ulate if he has unmarried daughters,
that they shall not marry for the pc
rlOd of time which the contract has to
run. A days work in this part of
sunny Italy is from 4 in the morning
to 8 at night-that is, from the first
flush of dawn to the last light to be
had from the setting sun. There is
no Sunday in the calendar of the Ital-
Ian peasant. On the day of the week
which all Christendom observes, as
on other days, he is in the field at
4 O'Clock in the morning, and between
Z and 8 has his breakfast; he gets an
hour at midday and half an hour at
5 or O'Clock and then he works on
till he no longer can see. The women
go into the fields with the men. They
hoe in the maize fields, feed the cattle
and cultivate the flax. If the children
are babes they can do nothing-to the
great sorrow of the employer for they
eat, II ever So little, but do not pro-
duce. But when they get to be few
years old they are useful in looking
after the pigs, ETC., and as soon as pos
sble they are sent to work with their
parents. The wages of the peasants
family are partly in money and partly
in kind, and he has the privilege of