THE LABOURERS OF EUROPE.—No. 1.

[ITALY.]

The condition of the Italian labourers varies in the different states. The following accounts are from the best authorities:—

“The labourers in Lombardy (the most fruitful region in Italy) have remained, throughout all the changes of government, what they were before 1796, the servants of those whose lands they work; none have become proprietors. Before the revolution of 1796 the greater part of the land was in the hands of the high nobility and the clergy. Now it is partly in the possession of a small number of shrewd speculators who have known how to take advantages of political changes to enrich themselves. But the peasants have not been benefited by the change. They are still, not by law but by necessity, bound to the soil, in a state of degradation, all their food consisting of a sort of bread made of Indian corn flour, of beans and weak sour wine; they seldom taste meat. Those who are employed on the rice-grounds are still more wretched. They are obliged to remain for hours with their legs in marshy water, and this engenders a cutaneous disease known by the name of pellagra, which they generally neglect until they lose the use of their limbs and are obliged at last to go to the hospital where many of them die^[2].”

In the ‘Letters from the North of Italy,’ by Mr. S. Rose, the writer describes the following scene of misery,—one out of a thousand:—“A few days ago I saw a poor infant lying under a sack in the convulsions of an ague fit, and the next morning meeting another child whom I knew to be his brother, I asked him ‘How does your brother do?’ to which he answered; ‘Which brother, sir?’—‘Your brother that has the fever.’—‘There are five of us with the fever, sir.’—‘Where do you sleep?’—‘In an empty stable, sir.’—‘Where are your father and mother?’—‘Our mother is dead, and our father begs or does such little chance jobs as offer in the hotel.’—‘And what do you do?’—‘I get up the trees here and pick vine leaves for the waiters to stop the decanters with, and they give us our panada.’ This is bread boiled in water with an infusion of oil or butter. Had my pecuniary means been adequate to my desire to diminish this mass of misery, how was the thing to be accomplished? I do not believe that I could have found a family that would have boarded these melancholy little mendicants, and am quite sure that no one would have had the patience to bear with the waywardness of sickly childhood. In England the parish workhouse, or some neighbouring hospital, would have offered a ready resource. There are hospitals indeed here, but these are so thinly scattered (except those in the Roman States which are both numerous and magnificent), and are administered on such narrow principles, exclusive of particular diseases and particular ages, and always turning upon some miserable question of habitancy, within very confined limits, that they are usually insufficient to the purposes I have mentioned.” This was written from the Venetian States some twelve years ago, since which time workhouses have been introduced into some of the principal towns.

In Tuscany the peasantry are much better off. Labourers’ wages are there between ninepence and a shilling a day, which, considering the low price of provisions, and the mildness of the climate, is comparatively a good remuneration. The women earn money by plaiting straw, out of which the Leghorn hats are made. The farmers are either small proprietors themselves, or, if tenants, share the produce with their landlord, who stocks the farm and provides half the seeds and implements. This mode of holding land by persons not possessing capital is very ancient;—and is now called by writers on political economy, “Metayer Rent.”

Of the peasantry of the provinces of Bologna and Romagna, commonly called the Legations, and placed under the sovereignty of the Pope, we have the following interesting account in Simond’s Travels in Italy:—“The peasants are not proprietors and have not even a lease of their farms, but hold them from father to son by a tacit understanding most faithfully observed. The same roof often contains thirty or forty persons,—different branches of the same family, with one common interest, and governed by a chief who is chosen by themselves and is the sole person responsible to the landlord. He directs all without doors and his wife all within; one or two other women take care of all the children that the fathers and mothers may go to work. We have lost a 143child during the night, said one of them who was not herself a mother. There reigns in general a most perfect harmony in this patriarchal family. When the chief becomes too old, or otherwise incapable, another is chosen who succeeds alike to the engagements and power of his predecessor. He gives half the produce to the landlord, and pays half the taxes. The landlord seldom takes the trouble to inspect the divisions; he chooses only between the heaps laid out by the tenant, and the grain is carried home. The same plan is observed with the hemp, which is not divided till it is pounded and put up into packets. As to the grapes, they are picked into large barrels, and an equal number sent to the farm-house and to the landlord, an operation generally intrusted wholly to the farmer. There are few villages, each farm-house being on the farm. These family associations live much at their ease, but have little money; they consume much of their own produce and buy and sell very little. They have a great deal of poultry for home consumption. The women spin and plait and can even dye. The country diversions go little beyond the game of bowls: they have no dances and no merry-meetings, but in lieu they have fine processions with music, discharge of cannon, and sometimes horse-races. Though wine is very plentiful, a drunken man is a rarity; there are few bloody quarrels, and few thefts, at least domestic ones. The roads are safer here than in the Milanese, notwithstanding the Austrian police of the latter, for there the farms are large and the work is done by poor labourers who have no tie; while here the tenants work for themselves, are at ease, and have no temptation. The education of the people is intrusted to the priests, who give themselves little trouble, and very few peasants can read or write. Each large family generally consecrates a son to the Church; they call him priest Don Peter, Augustin, &c., and he becomes the oracle of the family, but all intimate ties with him are broken and he is called ‘brother’ no more.”

The hardy natives of the Genoese coast, hemmed in between the mountains and the sea, resort mostly to maritime occupations, in order to better their fortunes. Their voyages are generally short, being chiefly confined to the Mediterranean. By strict economy and frugality they save the best part of their earnings which they bring home to their families; who, during their absence, are employed in cultivating their gardens and lemon-trees, or in fishing. By these joint exertions, a numerous population is thriving on a barren soil; and the whole line of the Riviera, or shore, for hundreds of miles, presents a succession of handsome bustling towns and villages, inhabited by a cheerful, healthy, and active race.

Of the peasantry of Southern Italy and their condition we shall speak on a future occasion.