Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-06-08
BAKERIES IN ITALY
THE GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHES
OVENS AND MAKES BREAD.
Success Of the Plan-Improvement in
Quantity and Quality
of Food.

Correspondence Of the New York Evening POST
All Italy is discussing an experiment in
what is called by the awkward title of the
'municipalization of bread"-that is, the
assumption on the part of local authorities
of the business of baking and distributing
to its inhabitants all the bread consumed
within it's limits. The Italian governments
monopoly of certain lines of enterprise, OF
which the cultivation and manufacture OF
tobacco is the most conspicuous example,
has made the logical transition to govern
mental control of other industries intelli-
gible to even the most ignorant and
thoughtless. In several of the small towns,
from time to time. the local authorities
have taken upon themselves, for longer or
shorter periods, the functions Of a public
bakery. This has usually been (as in the
little town of Postano, on the northern
shore of the bay of Salerno, three or four
years ago. temporary expedient during
strikes At that time, the bread manufac-
tured by the town was of better quality
and cost less than what the bakers had
provided. On the settlement of the strike
the municpio ceased its interference. AT
the present time Perugia owns and oper-
ates both a mill and bakery, and Forli a
bakery; but no large city of France or OF
Italy has undertaken such an enterprise
until, quite recently, Catania. The expert
ment of Catania has been watched far be-
yond the bounds of Sicily, and from Milan
to Naples people are measuring its success
and discussing the deSirability of following
her example.
Young Men Emigrate.
To show how vital this question of good
and cheap bread is, the condition of the
inhabitants of Positano may be taken as an
example. Like the greater part of the
towns of southern Italy, it has been left
behind in the march of the worlds prog
ress. It's young men leave their homes, the
guide books have been saying, and travel
through the ex kingdom of Naples as hawk
ers; but now 1t is nearer the truth to say
that of Its 5000 natural inhabitants more
than third are in New York. with the
exception of few boatmen, the population
therefore consists chiefly of old men. wo-
men and children" The old women, with
distaff and spindle and old hand looms.
make a coarse sacking from refuse hemp,
have been taught lace making In the public
school, and their cushions and pins may be
found in all the houses. Their work is
slower and more exacting, and they earn
even less than a Ira day. The shoe
maker works more than two days making
by hand pair of low shoes, walks to Sor-
rento, two hours distant, to buy his ma
terials,- for which he pays more than four
liras, and then asks seven liras for his
product-hardly more than Ira per diem.
The letter carrier, barefooted and ragged,
a span-new leather pouch his only badge of
ONCE, IS pd1u nail Il IRA Il Jay, ana re-
ceives a dole at the door when he brings
package or registered letter. How can he
live his wage? He doesn't! fortunate
man. he has a Woodworking son in New
York. But the women who bring down
large bundles of fagots on their shoulders
from the mountain villages do not seem to
earn more than the postman, If one may
judge from their bare feet and legs and
their patched, short calico dresses.
What the People Eat.
What do these people eat? 1t begs the
question to answer, as some one did, They
eat New York" For breakfast one eats
centimes' worth of bread-a cents worth;
at noon, more bread, a raw onion or to-
mato. or occasionally a piece of fish, and
this costs man 90 centimes. At night ne
may eat macaroni with vegetable, beans
or polenta (cornmeal mush), and bread and
perhaps a little wine and this costs him
60 centimes. If adds cents for con-
tngencies, rent, clothing, ct cetera, the
Ira day is consumed. Fuel to keep him
self warm he never has, rarely needs. HIS
home usually has but one or two rooms,
and, If he has not inherited it, he can hire
one of three or four rooms, rather weak in
doors and windows, yet habitable enough
in this climate for four cents a day. A
quart of wine, costing nine or ten cents
lasts a moderate man a week He may
choose bread and water for breakfast and
supper, and minestra, a meal of soup,
made of bread and water and vegetables
and little fat. few figs a little fruit,
an orange a medlar or two, may some
times afford a change of diet; all, perhaps,
grown just outside his door.
Fireless Houses
Bread, then, Is his mainstay-breadb bought
of the baker in the land of fireless houses.
Every soldo's worth of fuel is carefully
reckoned where such numbers of people live
in great misery. A few sticks kindled in a
he str is oh tn
the minestra, and few bricks taken from
the wall above let's the smoke out, if not so
successfully as most chimneys. In few
houses of the poor be found a stove
that will bake bread-at best there is only
a braZier. A few buy little flour, mix it
crudey, and take it to the bakers and pay
him much per kilo for baking it in his
oven. 1t is hard, unpalatable-looking
thing, which requires much soaking in water
before 1t is eaten. If these are the condi-
tions in which all but few in Positano
live, how can they be much better in
Naples, where half million people have
even less elbow room? Meat they rarely
can have except haply at Easter or Christ
mas. and eggs are air but unknown. No
I'd for