MORALITY OF THE CITY OF ROME.[18]

MORALITY OF THE CITY OF ROME.[18]

We promised in our last number to pay our respects to an infamous calumny about Rome, the capital of the Christian Church, and seat of the Sovereign Pontiffs, Vicars of our Lord Jesus Christ upon earth.

This calumny has been extensively circulated. We have found it in each one of the works at the head of this article, and we suppose it has been repeated in many others which have not fallen under our observation; for our "evangelical" journals, as they style themselves, and a large portion of the secular press, seem to have very loose notions of morality where the Catholic Church is concerned. Every story to her disadvantage will be sure to please their public, or to supply the want of argument, and therefore it is seized upon with eagerness and repeated over the length and breadth of the land. It matters little to them whether it be true or not, so long as it answers the purpose. It is enough for them that somebody or other has started it, without inquiring who it was, or whether he had any right to make such a statement. It is also quite immaterial how improbable the story may be, or what contradictions it may involve, or out of what ingenious inferences, by putting this and that together, it may be constructed; it suffices that it be something injurious to the Catholic religion, and at once the end sanctifies the means; and God, they seem to think, will easily wink at any breach of the commandment, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor," when that neighbor is only a papist. Besides, the appetite of the public for this sort of thing seems to be so insatiable that they are deemed ready to swallow any thing, however it may outrage common sense or probability; and therefore they do not fear any loss of reputation if they are detected in the circulation of the falsehood. Corporations are said to have no souls, and the reverend editor of a religious periodical easily seems to absolve himself from any obligation which Christian charity or even decency would seem to impose upon him, in regard to the papist, whom he readily classes with the infidel or the pagan.

The calumny we are about to refute furnishes us with an apt illustration of these remarks. It wears on its face an air of extreme improbability. It is to this effect: that in Rome nearly three fourths of all the children born are illegitimate.

This is simply incredible. When we read of half the children in Stockholm, in Protestant Sweden, or in Vienna, in Catholic Austria, being illegitimate, we can scarcely believe the naked statement. Without disputing the official figures, we look to see if there is no way of explaining this anomalous state of things—if the reality corresponds with the appearance. The large excess in the number of births in proportion to the population, and the existence of a large foundling hospital, as in Vienna, used by the poorer inhabitants of the country around even to a considerable distance, would lead us to a sounder conclusion in regard to its social state than the bare inspection of the figures. But the supposition that three fourths of all the children born in Rome or any other city, Protestant or Catholic, are illegitimate, is too exaggerated to be entertained for a moment. It seems to find ready credence, however; probably through some such mental process as this: "Catholics are corrupt and vicious. Rome is the chief of all Catholic cities, and therefore the most corrupt and vicious of all, and no story of its corruption is too big for belief. The more incredible for any other place, the more worthy of belief for Rome."

But let us come more to details about this statement in regard to Rome. We quote from Mr. Seymour's book:

"In the Italian statistics of Mittermaier we have the number of exposed infants received in Il S. Spirito, Il Conservatorio, and other establishments of this class. The number received during a series of ten years amounts to 31,689. This total distributed among the ten years gives as the mean, the number of 3160 infants exposed annually in the city of Rome."

He goes on to say that according to Bowring, an agent of the British government, the population of Rome was 153,678, and the total number of births was 4373. Hence we have,

Total number of births,4373

Total number of foundlings,3160

And we are left to infer that there were only 1213 lawful children born in Rome in that year.

To make a still closer deduction from his premises, we should take his remark that the population of Rome should be taken at the mean of 130,000, instead of 153,678. The mean number of births corresponding to this would be 3700; hence, in strictness, we should have,

Total number of births,3700

Total number of foundlings,3160

Total number of lawful children,540

This is indeed a state of things described by Mr. Seymour as indicating "a frightful number of illegitimate births, and a number without parallel of cruel and unnatural mothers." And we may add, it indicates an unparalleled amount of gullibility in any one who will entertain for a moment such an absurd statement. It would be more creditable to Rev. Mr. Seymour and his friend Rev. L. W. Bacon and The New Englander, before circulating the story, to inquire who Mittermaier is; whether he has said exactly what he is quoted to say; whether he was misled about his statements; whether some one else has not altered what he said; whether some word has not been used in a double sense, to carry a wrong impression, or some word slipped into the general statement to put the reader on the wrong track; in short, to pay great attention and be extremely cautious in a matter which wears so great an improbability on its face.

The story is an absurd fabrication, and very clumsily put together at that. "The number of exposed infants in Il S. Spirito, Il Conservatorio, and other establishments of this class, according to Mittermaier, amounts to 31,689 in ten years." Mittermaier, or whoever else wrote this, proves conclusively that he knew very little of what he was writing about. There is no such establishment as Il Conservatorio in Rome. This is not the name of a particular place, but a general term signifying about what we mean by the term "asylum." There are more than a dozen asylums for children in Rome, but only one is a foundling hospital, that of Il S. Spirito. The conservatorios or asylums are not "of this class," but of a different class altogether. There may have been 3160 children provided for, annually, in Il S. Spirito and all the different establishments for children, for what we know, and we see no reason to dispute the statement; but this is the aggregate of children of all ages and all sorts, of the sick and destitute, and by no means the number of foundlings received, or even the number of orphans received within a single year.

There are over 400 children in one orphan asylum in Fiftieth street in this city, and the aggregate for ten years would be over 4000, but to say that over 4000 children were received there in ten years would be an outrageous statement. To obtain the real number, we should also ascertain the average number of years each child remains in the institution.

The hospital of Il S. Spirito is the only "foundling hospital" in Rome. It receives all the infants brought there, and if the person who brings them is unwilling to answer, he can refuse to do so. It is amply sufficient to accommodate all left there; has revenue enough, and, in short, renders the existence of "any other establishment of the sort" entirely superfluous. There are branches of this institution to which "foundlings" are transferred as they grow older. The institution looks out for them until they can look out for themselves; but there is only one place where they are received.

The total number of foundlings received in Rome is about 900 annually.[19] Maguire says:

"The number of 900 may seem very great as representing the annual average received; but it should be stated that the hospital of Santo Spirito affords an asylum not only to the foundlings of Rome, but to those of the provinces of Sabina, Frosinone, Velletri, and the Comarca, and also districts on the borders of Naples."

This number of foundlings does not represent the amount of illegitimacy, for very many of the foundlings are lawful children. Maguire says:

"If it happen, as it often does with people in the humblest condition of life, that their family exceed their means of support, one of the children is committed to the wheel of the foundling hospital of Santo Spirito—it might be, with some mark on its dress by which its identity would be afterward proved and it be reclaimed by its parents, a thing of no uncommon occurrence. Another frequent cause of having recourse to this institution is the delicacy of the mother, or of the child. The mother has no nourishment to give the infant, and she bears it to the hospital to be provided for. Or it is a rickety, miserable thing from its birth, stunted, malformed, or so delicate that in the rude hut of its parents it has no chance of ever doing well; then too, in its case, the wheel of the hospital is a safe recourse, and with parents of hard hearts takes the place of many an evil suggestion, such as is often present in the homes and the breasts of the destitute. Frequently the parent is known to argue that the infirm or malformed child, who is thus got rid of, has the best chance of recovery, and certainty of being provided for, where eminent medical attendance is always to be had, and where the greatest care is taken of the training and future interests of the foundling. It may be said that this facility of getting rid of legitimate offspring leads to a disregard of the manifest obligations of a parent's duty; but to this fair objection I can only offer a preponderating advantage, that it does away with that awful proneness to infanticide which distinguishes other countries, but pre-eminently England."

This estimate of Maguire's is confirmed by a statement taken from the records of the hospital for May, June, and July, 1868, and transmitted to us by an American clergyman residing in Rome. Of the total number, some were of legitimate births, as shown by authentic parish certificates; others of doubtful or uncertain birth; as follows:

Foundlings received. Of legitimate birth. Uncertain.

In May, 38 46

In June, 25 51

In July, 29 49

92 146

This would give us an aggregate of 952 for the year, of which 584 would be of uncertain birth. A large proportion came from the provinces around Rome, and there is no reason to suppose all the uncertain births to be illegitimate; therefore we shall make a liberal allowance if we take the total number of foundlings of illegitimate birth, belonging to Rome itself, at 400. The real number is quite as likely to be below as above it.

When Mittermaier, whoever he was, stated the annual number of foundlings in Rome to be 3160, the mean population of that city was stated to be 130,000. It is now 215,573. By Mittermaier's proportion the annual number of foundlings should now be 5226. Are we called on to believe this, and to hang our heads in shame at this enormous number of 5226 illegitimates each year in the capital of the Catholic world? And this, when we know that the actual number of foundlings from Rome is not over 900, and the actual number of illegitimate children is about 400.

A small discrepancy, no doubt; a little peccadillo in the figures! We hope we have not shown any undue warmth in exposing it; for who knows, our "evangelic" friends may feel themselves insulted, and entirely absolved from any obligation of refuting us; our unchristian warmth of temper and vituperative manner being enough—to use the expression of Rev. L. W. Bacon, in The New Englander—"to discredit without any particular refutation" whatever we assert in this article.

But whence come the three thousand one hundred and sixty foundlings of "Mittermaier" annually received in Rome? Without doubt, from adding up all the inmates of the different asylums for children in Rome, and the foundlings of S. Spirito, and representing the total as an aggregate of foundlings received.

"Il Conservatorio and other establishments of this class" in Rome are as follows:

Asylums for children of all ages, with schools attached:

S. Maria, in Aguiro, 50

S. Michael, 200 boys.

S. Michael, 240 girls.

Divine Providence, 100 girls.

S. Mary of Refuge, 50 girls.

S. Euphemia, 40 girls.

Tata Giovanni, over 100 boys.

Quatro SS. Giovanni, 12 girls.

Zoccoletti, 60 girls.

S. Maria del Angeli, number not stated. boys and girls.

S. Caterina, " girls.

Trinitarians, " girls.

St. Pietro, " girls.

Il Borromeo, " girls.

Mother of Sorrows, " girls.

These are institutions of which Dr. Neligan, who visited them, gives an account in his Rome, published by Messrs. Sadlier; and to these must be added the department of S. Spirito, where female foundlings, after being nursed, are received back—if not otherwise provided for—and taken care of for life, or until they marry or get a situation; this numbers about six hundred, according to Maguire. If we add all the numbers together, and also the children under the care of the foundling hospital out at nurse, or being brought up in private families; in short, all the recipients of charity of the different institutions of Rome, we might approach a number corresponding to the three thousand one hundred and sixty of Mittermaier.

We can see by this "how the noble and Christian charity of Rome, excelling that of any other city of its size on the earth, is," by a base and groundless falsehood, sought to be turned into a means of holding her up to the scorn and indignation of the whole world.

We can show, also, in an entirely different way, by the official census of Rome, the absurdity of the statement of Seymour, and that in the most conclusive manner. In the Civilta Cattolica of 21st of December, 1867, we have the census of the population and the number of births for the year 1866; also a tabular statement of those for a period of ten years, ending 21st of April, 1867.

From these we find the present population to be 215,573; the number of the legitimate births for the year from Easter, 1866, to Easter, 1867, was 5739, and adding thereto the still-born, 6120. The average annual number of births in an average population of 197,737, excluding the still-born, was 5657 legitimate, for the decennial period. Adding the still-born, we have an annual average of over 6000 legitimate births.

Now, if we consider that in Rome there is a large class of the population who belong to the clergy, who do not marry; a large body of military; the Jews, whose children of course do not appear in any baptismal register, from which the number of annual births is made out; we may set down the average productive part of the population, corresponding to the population of any other city, at an average of not more than 175,000. From this number, according to the general vital statistics of the civilized world, we must look for from 6300 to 6400 annual births. Take from this the number of annual legitimate births stated above, and there remains no margin for any large number of illegitimate births. Any one can see that it is a moral impossibility that they should exceed three or four hundred.

The same thing can be made out by means of the number of the married, which is accurately taken every year. In April, 1867, there were 30,471 married women in Rome. Now, how many children could be expected to be born annually from that number? We can approximate very nearly to this by considering the census of the kingdom of Italy, as given in the Civilta Cattolica of 20th of June, 1868. From this we find that for about 4,297,346 married women there were about 900,000 births, which gives us one yearly for every five married women, very nearly. Applying this proportion to Rome, we should have of 30,471 married women, 6094 births. The actual number, including still-born, was, as we have seen, 6120.

The Civilta Cattolica says, "This proportion of 28.3 of legitimate births for every one thousand of the population speaks very well for a capital city." And so it does; it shows, what we have always understood them to be, that the Romans are as virtuous and moral as any people of the world.

In passing, we commend to the Rev. Mr. Bacon the figures of the official census of the kingdom of Italy, from which we find the percentage of illegitimacy for 1863 to have been 4.8; for 1864, 5. It is to be observed that there is somewhat of a deterioration in this last year, perhaps owing to the success of the efforts of the Bible and tract societies to throw the pure light of "gospel truth" on this hitherto benighted land. The rate of illegitimacy in Scotland, which Mr. Laing, in his Notes of a Traveller, calls the most religious Protestant country in Europe, is double that of Italy, the country most thoroughly Catholic.

And we ask, moreover, of Mr. Bacon, the direct question, What is the honesty of representing the relative chastity of England and Italy as 5 to 21, when the real proportions are 6.4 to 5? It may do very well to charge Brother Hatfield and Brother Prime, when you have your own good name to vindicate against their charges, with gross unfairness in controversy; but we consider your adroit shirking of all the statements of The Catholic World, on the plea of an error found in a quotation from The Church and World, as quite as dishonorable as any thing you have charged against them. Your persistence in repeating calumnious statements, and spreading them out as you do among readers who will not see the refutation, will give you and your friend, Mr. M. Hobart Seymour, an unenviable notoriety among the worst calumniators of the Catholic religion who have as yet appeared. You have repeated, some time ago, that most infamous calumny of the Tax-book of the Roman Chancery, so amply refuted by Bishop England; but although it has been called to your notice, you have never had the grace to apologize. The old maxim seems to have been, "Lie as hard as you can, and lay it on thick, for it will all be believed," and hence we had our Maria Monks and our Brownlees. Now the tactics are to be changed, and the maxim seems to be, "Let there be some semblance of truth mixed with the lie, so that it may sink deeper; let the calumny be sugared over with professions of 'fair play,' and it will work with better effect;" and hence come such things as the Moral Results of Romanism, by Messrs. Seymour and Bacon, the "model controversialists."

To come back to Rome. The Civilta Cattolica tells us that the census has been taken in the same way since the sixteenth century. The total number of births, 4373, of Bowring, were then the total of legitimate births, not the absolute total. The number of 3160 foundlings received turns out to be the number of orphans—some of them 80 years old, for all we know; for some are cared for as long as they live—and other destitute or abandoned children. And thus this beautiful piece of "mosaic work," intended to exhibit the horrible vice of Rome to the gaze of an admiring and astonished public, falls to pieces. Instead of the anomalous state of things in which each married couple in Rome would have on an average one child in the space of 25 years, they are found to be quite as prolific as other people, and quite as virtuous. Rome, in respect to offences against chastity, is probably the most orderly and decent city of its size in the world. Maguire says:[20]

"The returns (criminal) embrace all kinds of crime.... And among the rest they comprehend a class of offenders who, in some countries—for instance, in France—are under the control as well as sanctioned by the police authorities, and in others defy almost all authority or restraint whatsoever. I allude to women of depraved character, not one of whom is to be met with in the streets of Rome, which may accordingly be traversed with impunity at any hour of the evening or night by a modest female without the risk of having her eyes and ears offended, as they are in too many cities of our highly civilized empire. Offenders of this class are at once made amenable to the law, and committed either to the Termini, or to the institution of the Good Shepherd, where the most effectual means of reformation are adopted, and in very many instances with success—both institutions being specially under the care and control of religious communities."

It is the fashion to decry Rome—to represent her population as cowed down and discontented with their government; to this the reception which Garibaldi with his war-cry of "Rome or death"—though he lived to see another day, after all—met with from the Roman people, is a sufficient reply: or to say that they are miserably poor or degraded; to this, Count de Reyneval, in his report to the French minister for foreign affairs, says:

"The condition of the population is one of comparative ease.... An appearance of prosperity strikes the eyes of the least observant. Gaiety of the most expansive kind is to be traced in the faces of all. It may be asked whether this can be the people whose miseries excite to such a degree the commiseration of Europe?"[21]

Rome, then, with a garrison of over 7000 soldiers, and with an immense influx of visitors from all parts of the world, and particularly of wealthy pleasure-seekers from England and America; with a stern suppression of prostitution and public vice, still shows a rate of illegitimacy less than six per cent; a rate lower than that of England, or any Protestant country which has published statistics on the subject.

We have thus given this matter as thorough and complete an investigation as has been possible under the circumstances. We have given the reasons for all we have stated, and the reader can see for himself the force of our arguments. We neither desire to misrepresent nor to be misrepresented; and we would not make one misstatement to the disadvantage of any one, be he Protestant or any thing else; or conceal any thing which has a bearing on the question, even if it should put our side of it in an unfavorable light. If we have done any of these things, it is unconsciously to ourselves; and therefore we feel, perhaps too warmly and indignantly, this trickery, when it is attempted to make us the victims of it.

From our previous experience, we look for a more active circulation of this calumny, from our refutation of it; but we console ourselves with the reflection that there is a God in heaven who watches over all, and who will make the truth apparent in due time. At any rate, no such consideration shall hinder us a moment from exposing error and deception, so far as our occupations and duties shall afford us the leisure to do so.