Giacomo Giannoli was a man of some education, and no ordinary degree of natural refinement and culture, one whom you would pronounce at first sight to be a gentleman. He was the son of a fairly well-to-do builder in a provincial town of Lombardy, and had received a good general education in boyhood. Early left an orphan by his father's death, he had inherited his business, and for some years he carried it on prosperously, living with his mother and sisters. But before he was two-and-twenty his naturally erratic disposition asserted itself, and he chafed under the restraints and monotony of life in a small provincial town. He sold up his business at a great loss, well-nigh ruining his family, had it not been for his mother's small private means; and with his share of the proceeds of the sale he travelled about for some years, leading a roving life, and devoting most of his time and cash to the Anarchist propaganda, constantly getting into troubles and bothers, at times in hiding, at others in prison, always in difficulties, growing harder and harder up as the months went by, and his moderate means slipped through his untenacious fingers. Two convergent factors had led up to this sudden change in his life. Firstly, an incident of a private nature which revolutionised his notions of individual morality, and secondly, the discovery of the Anarchist doctrines which gave form to his new views. The incident which was primarily responsible for his new views of life, he recounted to me not long after his arrival in London.