Naples in.1888 . By Eustace Neville Rolfe and Holcombe Ingleby.
(Triibner and Co.)—This book is manifestly the outcome of long Naples in.1888 . By Eustace Neville Rolfe and Holcombe Ingleby. (Triibner and Co.)—This book is manifestly the outcome of long
and intimate acquaintance with Naples and its people. It is a commonplace to say that Naples is unlike the rest of Italy ; but one does not realise how true it is till after reading such an account as this. It has its virtues and its vices. There is the elaborate courtesy, which says, of course, much more than it means, but still means something. "If I am taken by brigands ?" says a foreigner to a Neapolitan. "If my modest patrimony will suffice," he answers, "it is at your service." Il Re Galantuomo, as a North Italian and not used to these ways, was not a little astonished when a Neapolitan mother, whose fine children he had been admiring, said,—" They are yours." Then there is, at least among some classes, much patient industry and endurance.
The fishermen, for instance, work very hard for a living. On the whole, one gets a favourable idea of the Neapolitans from this account of them. They are extraordinarily ignorant and super- stitious. Let any one read, for proofs of this, the curiously in- teresting chapter on "Dread Fascination." Not much has been done for them by Church or State. The "miracle of the blood of St. Januarius " would hardly be countenanced by the ecclesiastical authorities in any other city of Europe. The clergy are below the average of the Roman Church. And the State does its best to demoralise its subjects by the lottery. Nowhere is this kind of gambling so much in favour. The average produce in Naples is 13s. 4d. per head of the population, while the average of the whole country is 2s. ld. In Sardinia, we are told, there are no offices. The difference between money paid for tickets and money paid out to winners was, after deducting the tax, 4338,921 in the year 188C-87. It would be difficult to devise another tax which would do so much harm, though doubtless it is paid without a murmur, or even with pleasure.
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