The morning journal-courier., 1908-01-16

with his jokes and by showing a little mouse that he keeps in a cage. A Neapolitan acts as hawker, and of fers to the public with his native gayety a variety of objects; an electri- cal umbrella, kitchen utensils. hats, but especially he deals in the shoes which have been given to the prison CTS that they may not go barefoot, but which they sell regularly every three months. Another interesting figure is a native of the Abruzzi. He is a schoolmaster, but quite deaf. For the modest sum of one franc per month he teaches reading and writing to those boys who wish to learn. He is said to be unsurpassed in the as- Ntenesa with which, he plans clever financial strokes, but always patient, and gentle he spends his days in kind of cell under a flight of steps, putting through the elementary class es p little boys who profit by his deafness to make frightful noise un- checked.
 Other prisoners are employed as
 
 in the houses of the numerous French men who come to work the pumice quarries; others are barbers, shoe- makers, bakers, laborers or fishermen, and are dispersed through the streets, doing their work amidst the contempt and distrust of the islanders. avoided l by all, and never hearing a loving voice or a word of kindness. They are only familiar with commands and reproofs, and the invectives of their companions. Barefoot, dirty, ill-clad, with fierce eyes and rough hair, they work but with hatred and wrath, and almost fury. In the evening when work is over, they nearly all drink and gamble until at the hour of Ave Maria, when reeling along, imprecat- ing and swearing, they go to the cas- tie. where they pass the night on a sack filled with straw.
 In the midst of such horrible sur
 roundings the result of evil deeds and
 moral misery, passions and vices flourish with a repulsive luxuriance, Here the usurer and swindler thrive, living on the evil gains they make from the devoteesof games of chance. For every six sold that they advance
 to the infatuated victims they extort
 four, and for every ten they charge six So that the gamblers, mostly
 quarrymen and mill workers, have
 generally lost all their weekly earnings
 before they are due.
 Statistics of the various depart
 ments show that the Venetians are the
 most peaceable; they work no more
 toxicated, then they throw themselves
 on their beds and stay there quietly
 until they are sober again.
 The Calabrians and Sicilians are the
 worst as regards thieving, stealing
 whatever they can, so that 1t is all
 ways among them that the police first make search when anything Is missing from the dormitories or infirmaries. The Romans and the people of the
 Romagna are the most violent; the
 knife is to them what brandy is to the l Venetian. On holiday afternoons many
 of the mare arrested on the glacis whither they resort for fencing witt knives, an exercise in which they dis. play amazing dexterity
 The Neapolitans organize bands fol petty theft. cheating, etc, and they : practice the camorra with boldness l and authority that win for them tho respect of their companions. They are generally lazy, yet they lavishly , spend their ill-gotten gains. Some dt no work whatever, proating by theii , low speculations and tfc exaction of { , species of blackmaii Slovcnly, dirty II , the extreme, they l,unge In the sun ? shine, in the streets and on th'
 benches at the port, or they lie in lethargy on the heaped up stones ot / the old fortress, only rou3Gg them ) selves for fight ar a quarrel Ihi crew, collected within the narr ov : bounds of that ruined castle whicl presents such q melancholy contras with the enchanting 1anar,ma sprca, [ by nature at its foot ,nis deGener
 ate, unwashed crew kept at the cx pense of the state, now and then mak merry, especially when ure of it l members marries.
 The free inhabitants of Llpari ar l constantly on the watch against th t "coatti' Gas the prisoners are oalled) f they are never weary of protestin } against such sojourners being sen ) among them, and they instill into tn l minds of their sons and daughter l contempt for these intruders Ye ! from Calabria and Sicily there com f to this beautiful Island many unfor s tunate women in the expectation o s hope of finding husbands in some Q
 the younger prisoners who are per mitted to marry and have families . provided they are always in the for e tress at night. When such unions talk place they are celebrated with muc i. noisy mirth No marriage could h E more sad and humiliatng than one q \ these, without any bond of sentimen E or morality-a marriage contracte amid jeers, sarcasms and noisy joke { that might have emanated from on ? of the circles of Dante's Inferno, tra gic and yet not without coroic sid, h N'tS'S biiipiiH SNlhODl ldSt lDDR. IH E when the husband has finished hi E term he goes away, abandoning hi wife, thus proving his great depravit, Here" said the officer who accom- panied me, lis a university for crim z for besides their daily and isolated dc i linquencies, these men are continual ! thinking of and concocting the luck | hits they will make when their tim here has expired" They nearly all r, . lapse; after a short time among the
 fellow men they fall again into erin
 and the law sends them here agaii
 condemned under a new sentence.
 Can nothing be done to rescue tr
 young men of from 20 to 30 years ,
 age, who are contaminated by the ev
 example of old men hardened in vic
 and wickedness? Why should all the