The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-12-17
GRAF
CONTINUED from Page So

! Officially there were about $50 COZ
, paupers in Rome. Actually more than
100000 applied for the city dole of grain
and other food during Caesars time
, These beggars wandered from house
/ to house in troops. They occupied the
bridges and the public streets, crowd
ed the forum, covered in doorways and
begged openly. Among them We're many
thousands of free Romans, for the high
, rents and the speculation in foodstuffs
made homeless folk of many who would
have been quite well able to earn a
, living, had the cost of everything not
been so excessive.
This mob frankly and impudentiy de-
manded bread and games" from the
authorities, and the police became the
dispensers of the food. That made the
finest" of Rome as popular with the
mob as the police are today.
The streets were unlighted and all
sorts of Adventures from Algerian
. corsairs to Tartar savages, attracted
by the glamour of the mistress of the
world, found the darkness a welcome
field for their drunken orgies and their
thirst for money or blood.
The taverns of the imperial city were
famous over the earth, from Cathay to
Gibraltar. In the police records they
We're classed with the lists of thieves
and dicers. Their owners We're known
to be fences and panders. They Were
thick with filth and alive with insects.
The better classes never dreamed of
staying in a Roman tavern over night.
but went to the houses of friends.
Thieves. street bandits, crooked gam
blers AMI woman of all nations made
these tayerns their headquarters AMI
hiding places. Thus, with begsars 10
add TO the uncanny company. the socie-
~ to be found on Roman streets at
night was not exactly delightful.
OF course. the citizens spasmodically
demanded reforms and the police did
what they do to-day. They lat the
taverns and the crooks do what they
pleased until the agitation became too
strong. Then they made spectacular
raids and drove thousands of disorder
~ characters out, only to let them come
as soon as the excitement died.
At other times they had ''investiga-
lions" likeaour assembly Investigations.
One of these was into the begger nui-
sance, and it ended in endowing a lot
of Roman citizen-b eggars with public
land to give them new start. While
the other beggars became the slaves of
their denouncers-a regular city job
carried out in so B. c. under cover of
a great public reform just as in 1905,
a. D.
The taverns, being such free and easy
places, soon became very attractive to
the swell set of Rom . and the young
sprigs added the terrors of their giddy
and sportive pranks to the knife and
club of the professional criminals It
became quite a fad for persons of the
upper classes to go stunning and TO
Wend their drunken and riotous way
throughout the streets. insulting the
peaceable passers=by and licking them
thoroughly if they resented it.
This became a favorite relief from
the care OF government for Nero him
self, and he and his adjutant used TO
disguise themselves and go abroad to
annoy women rob peddlers and beat
dignified citizens. But one night
great big senator. whose daughter had
been insulted by the emperor. tackled
him with such success that the noble