THE LABOURERS OF EUROPE.—No. 3.

In the province of Naples, or “Campania the blest,” as it is called, from the great fertility of its soil and its genial climate, the farms are generally small. The corn returns eight or ten for one, and the land is not left fallow occasionally for a year, but ploughed and sown with something else. Frequently after harvest it is immediately sown with the scarlet trefoil, which, when in flower, looks like a crimson carpet spread over the verdant field. Rows of elms and mulberry trees, festooned with branches of the vine, divide the various possessions; while the fig, the lemon, and the orange, grow in the gardens freely and to their full size. The high ridges of the mountains afford rich pastures, safe from the heat and drought of the plains; the sides are covered with forests of chesnut trees, which afford an important article of food to the poor; while the lower declivities are occupied by olive plantations yielding a valuable and easy harvest. In this favoured region the inhabitants, indolent as they are, can easily procure their daily subsistence. Their cabins exhibit in many instances the appearance of slovenliness, but seldom that of indigence. The farmer’s rent is paid sometimes in money, sometimes in kind, such as grain, oil, &c. The leases are generally renewed from generation to generation. The farmer is a peasant, with no capital; he works his farm chiefly with the assistance of his family. These people have some domestic comforts, good beds, coarse, but good linen, a table, a few chairs, and a large chest for their clothes. They eat with their fingers out of one dish, and all the family drink out of the same glass. They are hospitable, however, in their way, but they are coarse and uninformed, having not, like the Tuscan peasants, an opportunity of intercourse with the educated classes. Few know how to read or write, or cast accounts; they sometimes hardly know the name of their landlord. The women dress very showily on holidays, and they generally have gold ear-rings, necklace and cross. Daily labourers are paid about two carlins, or eight pence, a day, and somewhat more at harvest time. But they are engaged only a small part of the year, and they employ the rest of their time in cutting wood in the forests, in charcoal making, and other occasional jobs. They offer themselves as guides to travellers, assuming the absurd appellation of Cicerone; and sometimes, for lack of other employment, they join the banditti in some expedition just to try their fortune, after which they return quietly to their native village and resume their rural occupations. Pot-houses or wine-shops are very numerous, and to these the idlers resort on holidays, after mass, to play and drink. This was once a source of frequent quarrels, ending often in bloodshed and murder. But by the present laws (for the Neapolitan criminal justice has somewhat improved) the vintner is made answerable for any mischief that happens in his house, and there is no longer any asylum for criminals, in consequence of which blows are seldom given. The farmers, however, do not much frequent the wine-shops; they prefer selling their own wine, and remaining at home on Sundays to see their children dance the tarantella. Of this dance they are never tired.

The vintage is the season of universal rejoicing. The vines are planted thick, and allowed to grow luxuriantly, and to spread in high festoons from tree to tree, forming shady alleys into which the rays of the sun can hardly penetrate. At vintage time a man first cuts the middle branches between one tree and another, so as to make a lane for the cart to go through. The cart is drawn by a fine well-fed ox, and on it is a large tub; the men carry long narrow ladders, by which they ascend the trees, and having filled the baskets with grapes, they throw them down to the women below, who empty the contents into the tub. Jokes and joyous songs relieve the vintagers’ labours, while the farmer looks on in silence, watching the progress and calculating the produce of the ricolt. When the tub is full, the ox drags the cart reeling with grapes to the vats, the fruit is thrown in, and then being pressed under the feet of a man, the liquor descends into a lower vat, where it undergoes fermentation. These vats are square, built of brick or masonry, and uncovered. When the weather is dry the must is left to ferment five days,—if it should rain, one or two days more. The husks or dregs are then put into a press with water, and a sort of small wine is made, which is the common drink of the labourers. Another sort of wine is made by drawing some of the must or new wine out of the vat after four-and-twenty hours, and pouring it into canvass bags, which are suspended over another vat, into which the liquor distils. The wine thus made is called lambiccato; it is sweet and pale, does not keep, and, though not wholesome, it is agreeable to the taste of the people. They repeat the process several times in order to clear it and prevent any further fermentation. They use this wine to mix with the old wine, which has turned sour or musty. Some wines are also made by boiling a certain quantity of the must, and then mixing it with the rest: these wines keep longer. The vine bears fruit two years after it has been planted, and then continues to produce for sixty years or more.

In the other parts of the kingdom of Naples the condition of the rural population varies according to the climate, localities, and nature of the soil. In the mountains of Abruzzo the inhabitants are chiefly shepherds, who migrate every year with their flocks to the plains of Puglia. Their families accompany them, and assist them 291in making various kinds of cheese from sheep, cow, and buffalo milk, for which they are renowned. These mountaineers are an honest, frugal, industrious race: the men dress in sheepskins, and numbers of them are to be seen at Christmas time about the streets of Naples, playing their bagpipes in honour of the festivity.

The inhabitants of the large province of Calabria are another peculiar race. Brave, hardy, and proud, they work but little and live frugally. Although provisions are cheap, wages are too low to allow the labourers to buy animal food, cheese, or butter: a Calabrian peasant will make his dinner of a handful of lupines, a few chestnuts, and two ounces of bread. When he can afford to drink the common wine, he pays for it from one penny to two-pence a quart. The inhabitants near the coast live somewhat better. The Calabrian, however, disdains to beg; he will sooner rob on the high road.

The Sicilian peasantry, especially in the interior of the island, are still worse than the Calabrian. The towns and villages swarm with beggars, and the misery and consequent corruption of the poorer classes are almost incredible. While the coasts of the island abound with populous and luxurious towns, one half of whose inhabitants, however, are in a state of beggary or nearly so, the fertile valleys of the interior are left in great measure unproductive, the few farmers thinking only of getting what is absolutely necessary for their subsistence, and not of multiplying the produce of their lands, for which they have no market. The total want of roads or means of communication, the absence of capital, the indolence of the great proprietors, the injudicious trammels on exportation, and several other causes, contribute to the total prostration of Sicilian agriculture.

The land-tax in the kingdom of Naples is extremely heavy, amounting to about one-third of the estimated rent of the estates, whether cultivated or not.