Note 37 — Chapter XV

Why have they such quantities of looking-glasses in Italy, and none in Scotland? The dirt in each country is equal; the finery not. Neither in Scotland do they call in the aid of the Fine Arts, of the upholsterer and tapissier, to multiply the images of the former in squalid decorations, and thus shew that the debasement is moral as well as physical. They write up on certain parts of Rome ‘Immondizia.’ A Florentine asked why it was not written on the gates of Rome? An Englishman might be tempted to ask, why it is not written on the gates of Calais, to serve for the rest of the Continent? If the people and houses in Italy are as dirty or dirtier than in France, the streets and towns are kept in infinitely better order.