Italy is labouring under a difficulty which, it has been
sus- pected, troubled Munoo. The great Indian lawgiver, or the rulers whose ideas he embodied, appear to have appre- hended either that cattle would be slain in war or eaten in peace till the supply of draught and agricultural beasts would be insufficient, and therefore tabooed them, or made them sacred alike to soldier and to hungry peasant. The Northern Italian apparently requires a similar protection, for the magnificent beasts with which he ploughs are in such demand at high prices that he is selling them off too rapidly, and now stands with the money in his hand meditating what to do. He will either have to take to horses, or buy inferior cattle and gradually feed and breed them up to his mark, or apply to the machinists for aid, the latter quite as likely a course as any. An Italian, unlike our stupider countrymen, is generally quite ready to let a machine do his work.
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