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“Senatus Populusque Romanus.” The phrase sounds strangely, in my ears, like the accents of an unknown language or the burden of a half-forgotten melody. In those four initial letters there seems to me always to lie embodied an epitome of the world’s history—the rise and decline and fall of Rome. On the escutcheons of the Roman nobles, the S.P.Q.R. are still blazoned forth conspicuously, but where shall we look for the realities expressed by that world-famed symbol? It is true, the Senate is still represented by a single Senator, nominated by the Pope, who drives in a Lord Mayor’s state coach on solemn occasions; and regularly, on the first night of the opera season, sends round ices, as a present to the favoured occupants of the second and third tiers of boxes at the “Apollo.” This gentleman, by all the laws of senatorial succession, is the undoubted heir and representative of the old Roman Senate, who sat with their togas wrapped around them, waiting for the Gaul to strike; but alas, the “Populus Romanus” has left behind him neither heir nor descendant.

Yet surely, if anything of dead Rome be still left in the living city, it should be found in the Roman people. In the Mystères du Peuple of Eugêne Sue, there is a story, that to the Proletarian people, the sons of toil and labour, belong genealogies of their own, pedigrees of families, who from remote times have lived and died among the ranks of industry. These fabulous families, I have often thought, should have had their home in the Eternal City. Amongst the peasants that you meet, praying in the churches, or basking in the sun-light, or toiling in the deadly Campagna plains, there must be some, who, if they knew it, descend in direct lineage from the ancient “Plebs.” It may be so, or rather it must be so; but of the fact there is little outward evidence. You look in vain for the characteristic features of the old Roman face, such as you behold them when portrayed in ancient statues. The broad low brow, the depressed skull, the protruding under-jaw, and the thin compressed lips, are to be seen no longer. Indeed, though I make the remark with the fear of the artist-world before my eyes, I should hardly say myself, that the Romans of the present day were a very handsome race; and of their own type they are certainly inferior both to Tuscans and Neapolitans. The men are well formed and of good height, but not powerful in build or make, and their features are rather marked than regular. As for the women, when you have once perceived that hair may be black as coal and yet coarse as string, that bright sparkling eyes may be utterly devoid of expression, and that an olive complexion may be deepened by the absence of washing, you grow somewhat sceptical as to the reality of their vaunted beauty. All this, however, is a matter of personal taste, about which it is useless to express a decided opinion. I must content myself with the remark, that the Roman peasantry as depicted, year after year, on the walls of our academy, bear about the same resemblance to the article provided for home consumption, as the ladies in an ordinary London ball-room bear to the portraits in the “Book of Beauty.” The peasants’ costumes too, like the smock-frocks and scarlet cloaks of Old England, are dying out fast. On the steps in the “Piazza di Spagna,” and in the artists’ quarter above, you see some score or so of models with the braided boddices, and the head-dresses of folded linen, standing about for hire. The braid, it is true, is torn; the snow-white linen dirt-besmeared, and the brigand looks feeble and inoffensive, while the hoary patriarch plays at pitch and toss: but still they are the same figures that we know so well, the traditional Roman peasantry of the “Grecian” and the “Old Adelphi.” Unfortunately, they are the last of the Romans. In other parts of the city the peasants’ dresses are few and far between; the costume has become so uncommon, as to be now a fashionable dress for the Roman ladies at Carnival time and other holiday festivals. On Sundays and “Festas” in the mountain districts you can still find real peasants with real peasants’ dresses; but even there Manchester stuffs and cottons are making their way fast, and every year the old-fashioned costumes grow rarer and rarer. A grey serge jacket, coarse nondescript-coloured cloth trousers, and a brown felt hat, all more or less ragged and dusty, compose the ordinary dress of the Roman working man. Female dress, in any part of the world, is one of those mysteries which a wise man will avoid any attempt to explain; I can only say, therefore, that the dress of the common Roman women is much like that of other European countries, except that the colours used are somewhat gayer and gaudier than is common in the north.

Provisions are dear in Rome. Bread of the coarsest and mouldiest quality costs, according to the Government tariff, by which its price is regulated, from a penny to three halfpence for the English pound. Meat is about a third dearer than in London, and clothing, even of the poorest sort, is very high in price. On the other hand, lodgings, of the class used by the poor, are cheap enough. There is no outlay for firing, as even in the coldest weather (and I have known the temperature in Rome as low as eight degrees below freezing-point), even well-to-do Romans never think of lighting a fire; and then, in this climate, the actual quantity of victuals required by an able-bodied labourer is far smaller than in our northern countries, while, from the same cause, the use of strong liquors is almost unknown. Tobacco too, which is all made up in the Papal factories and chiefly grown in the country, is reasonable in price, though poor in quality. In the country and the poorer parts of the city, the dearest cigar you can buy is only a baioccho, or under one halfpenny; and from this fact you may conclude what the price of the common cheap cigars is to a native. From all these causes, I feel no doubt that the cost of living for the poor is comparatively small, though of course the rate of wages is small in proportion. For ordinary unskilled labour, the day-wages, at the winter season, are about three pauls to three pauls and a half; in summer about five pauls; and in the height of the vintage as much as six or seven pauls, though this is only for a very few weeks. I should suppose, therefore, that from 1s. 6d. to 1s. 9d. a day, taking the paul at 5d., were the average wages of a good workman at Rome. From these wages, small as they are, there are several deductions to be made.

In the first place, the immense number of “festas” tells heavily on the workman’s receipts. On the more solemn feast-days all work is strictly forbidden by the priests; and either employer or labourer, who was detected in an infraction of the law, would be subject to heavy fines. Even on the minor festivals, about the observance of which the Church is not so strict, labour is almost equally out of the question. The people have got so used to holiday keeping, that nothing but absolute necessity can induce them to work, except on working days. All over Italy this is too much the case. I was told by a large manufacturer in Florence, that having a great number of orders on hand, and knowing extreme distress to prevail among his workmen’s families, he offered double wages to any one who came to work on a “festa” day, but that only two out of a hundred responded to his offer. I merely mention this fact, as one out of many such I have heard, to show how this abuse must prevail in Rome, where every moral influence is exerted in favour of idleness against industry, and where the observance of holy days is practised most religiously.

Then, too, the higher rate of wages paid in summer is counterbalanced by the extra risk to which the labourer is exposed. The ravages created by the malaria fevers amongst the ill-bred, ill-clothed, and ill-cared-for labourers, are really fearful. Indeed it is hardly an exaggeration to say, that the whole working population of Rome is eaten up with malaria. I feel myself convinced that the misery and degradation of the Papal States are to be attributed to two causes, the enormous burden of the priesthood, and the ravages of the malaria. How far these two causes are in any way connected with each other, I have never been able to determine. It is one of the rhetorical exaggerations which have impaired the utility of the Question Romaine, that M. About, in his remarkable work, always treats the malaria as if it was solely due to the inefficiency of the Papal Government, and would disappear with the deposition of the Pope. This unphilosophical view is generally adopted by liberal opponents of the Papacy, who lay the malaria to its doors, while Papal advocates, on the contrary, always treat the malaria as a mysterious scourge which can never be removed or even palliated; a view almost as unphilosophical as the other. For my own part, I have only been able to arrive at three isolated conclusions on the subject. First, that mere cultivation of the Campagna, as shown by Prince Borghese’s unsuccessful experiments, does not at any rate immediately affect the virulence of the miasma, or whatever the malaria may be. Secondly, that the malaria can actually be built out, or, in other words, if the Campagna was covered with a stone pavement, the disease would disappear—a remedy obviously impracticable; and lastly, that though the existence of the malaria cannot be removed, as far I can see, yet that its evil effects might be immensely lessened by warm clothing, good food, and prompt medical aid at the commencement of the malady. Whatever tends to improve the general condition of the Roman peasantry will put these remedies more and more within their reach, and will therefore tend to check the ravages of the malaria. Thus, the inefficient and obstructive Government of the Vatican, which checks all material as well as all moral progress, increases indirectly the virulence of the fever-plague; but this, I think, is the most that can fairly be stated.

I trust that, considering the importance of the subject, this digression, unsatisfactory as it is, may be pardoned; and I now turn to the third curse, which eats up the wages of the working man at Rome—a curse even greater, I think, than the “festas” or the malaria—I mean, the universality of the middle-man system. If you require any work done, from stone carving to digging, you seldom or never deal with the actual workman. If you are a farmer and want your harvest got in, you contract months beforehand with an agent, who agrees to supply you with harvest-men in certain numbers, at a certain price, out of which price he pockets as large a percentage as he can, and has probably commissions to pay himself to some sub-contractor. If you are a sculptor and wish a block of marble chiselled in the rough, the man you contract with to hew the block at certain day-wages brings a boy to do the work at half the above amount or less, and only looks in from time to time to see how the work is proceeding. It is the same in every branch of trade or business. If you wish to make a purchase, or effect a sale, or hire a servant, you have a whole series of commissions or brokerages to pay before you come into contact with the principal.

If you inquire why this system is not broken through, why the employer does not deal directly with his workmen, you are told that the custom of the country is against any other method; that amongst the workmen themselves there is so much terrorism and intimidation and espionnage, that any single employer or labourer, who contracted for work independently, would run a risk of annoyance or actual injury; of having, for example, his block of marble split “by a slip of the hand,” or his tools destroyed, or a knife stuck into him as he went home at night, and, more than all, that, without the supervision of the actual overseer, your workmen would cheat you right and left, no matter what wages you paid. After all it is better to be cheated by one man than by a dozen, and being at Rome you must do as the Romans do.

It may possibly have been observed that, in the foregoing paragraph, I have spoken of the “workmen at Rome,” not of the Roman workmen. The difference, though slight verbally, is an all-important one. The workmen in Rome are not Romans, for the Romans proper never work. The Campagna is tilled in winter by groups of peasants, who come from the Marches, in long straggling files, headed by the “Pifferari,” those most inharmonious of pipers. In summer-time the harvest is reaped and the vintage gathered in by labourers, whose homes lie far away in the Abruzzi mountains. In many ways these mountaineers bear a decided resemblance to the swarms of Irish labourers who come across to England in harvest-time. They are frugal, good-humoured, and, compared to the native Romans, honest and hard-working. A very small proportion too of the working-men in Rome itself are Romans. Certain trades, as that of the cooks for instance, are almost confined to the inhabitants of particular outlying districts. The masons, carpenters, carvers, and other mechanical trades, are filled by men who do not belong to the city, and who are called and considered foreigners. Of course the rule is not without exceptions, and you will find genuine Romans amongst the common workmen, but amongst the skilled workmen hardly ever. There is a very large, poor, I might almost say, pauper population in Rome, and in some form or other these poor must work for their living, but their principle is to do as little work as possible. There still exists amongst the Romans a sort of debased, imperial pride, a belief that a Roman is per se superior to all other Italians. For manual work, or labour under others, they have an equal contempt and dislike. All the semi-independent trades, like those of cab-drivers, street-vendors, petty shopkeepers, &c. are eagerly sought after and monopolized by Romans. The extent to which small trades are carried on by persons utterly without capital and inevitably embarrassed with debt, is one of the chief evils in the social system which prevails here. If the Romans also, like the unjust steward, are too proud to dig, unlike that worthy, to beg they are not ashamed. Begging is a recognized and a respected profession, and if other trades fail there is always this left. The cardinal principle of Papal rule is to teach its subjects to rely on charity rather than industry. In order to relieve in some measure the fearful distress that existed among the poor of Rome in the early spring, the Government took some thousand persons into their employment, and set them to work on excavating the Forum. The sight of these men working, or, more correctly speaking, idling at work, used to be reckoned one of the stock jokes of the season. Six men were regularly employed in conveying a wheelbarrow filled with two spadefuls of soil. There was one man to each handle, two in front to pull when the road rose, and one on each side to give a helping hand and keep the barrow steady. You could see any day long files of such barrows, so escorted, creeping to and from the Forum. It is hardly necessary to say that little progress was ever made in the excavations, or, for that matter, intended to be made. Yet the majority of these workmen were able-bodied fellows, who received tenpence a day for doing nothing. Much less injury would have been inflicted on their self-respect by giving them the money outright than in return for this mockery of labour. Moreover the poor in Rome, as I have mentioned elsewhere, are not afraid of actual starvation. “Well-disposed” persons, with a good word from the priests, can obtain food at the convents of the mendicant friars. I am not saying there is no good in this custom; in fact, it is almost the one good feature I know of connected with the priestly system of government; but still, on an indolent and demoralised population like that of Rome, the benefit of this sort of charity, which destroys the last and the strongest motive for exertion, is by no means an unmixed one.

The amusements of the people are much what might be expected from their occupations. To do them justice, they drink but moderately; but whenever they can spare the time and money, they crowd out into the roadside “Osterias,” and spend hours, smoking and sipping the red wine lazily. Walking is especially distasteful to them; and on a Sunday and festa-day you will see hundreds of carriages filled with working people, though the fares are by no means cheap. Whole families will starve themselves for weeks before the Carnival, and leave themselves penniless at the end, to get costumes and carriages to drive down the “Corso” with on the gala days. The Romans, too, are a nation of gamblers. Their chief amusement, not to say their chief occupation, is gambling. In the middle of the day, at street-corners and in sunny spots, you see groups of working-men playing at pitch halfpenny, or gesticulating wildly over the mysterious game of “Moro.” Skittles and stone-throwing are the only popular amusements which require any bodily exertion; and both of these, as played here, are as much chance as skill. The lottery, too, is the great national pastime.

This picture of the Roman people may not seem a very favourable or a very promising one. I quite admit, that many persons, who have come much into contact with them, speak highly of their general good humour, their affectionate feelings and their sharpness of intellect. At the same time, I have observed that these eulogists of the Roman populace are either Papal partizans who, believing that “this is the best of all possible worlds,” wish to prove also that “everything here is for the best,” or else they are vehement friends of Italy, who are afraid of damaging their beloved cause by an admission of the plain truth, that the Romans are not as a people either honest, truthful or industrious. For my own part, my faith is different. A bad government produces bad subjects, and I am not surprised to find in the debasement and degradation of a priest-ruled people the strongest condemnation of the Papal system.