That the Italians have an uncommon share of natural sagacity and acuteness, is pretty generally allowed; but they are accused of being deceitful, perfidious, and revengeful; and the frequent assassinations and murders which happen in the streets of the great towns in Italy, are brought as proofs of this charge. I have not remained a sufficient length of time in Italy, supposing I were, in all other respects, qualified to decide on the character of the inhabitants; but from the opportunities I have had, my idea of the Italians is, that they are an ingenious sober people, with quick feelings, and therefore irritable; but when unprovoked, of a mild and obliging disposition, and less subject to avarice, envy, or repining at the narrowness of their own circumstances, and the comparative wealth of others, than most other nations. The murders which occasionally happen, proceed from a deplorable want of police, and some very impolitic customs, which have, from various causes, crept among them, and would produce more frequent examples of the same kind, if they prevailed to the same degree, in some other countries. I beg you will keep in your mind, that the assassinations which disgrace Italy, whatever may have been the case formerly, are now entirely confined to the accidental squabbles which occur among the rabble. No such thing has been known for many years past among people of condition, or the middle rank of citizens; and with regard to the stabbings which happen among the vulgar, they almost always proceed from an immediate impulse of wrath, and are seldom the effect of previous malice, or a premeditated plan of revenge. I do not know whether the stories we have of mercenary bravos, men who formerly are supposed to have made it their profession to assassinate, and live by the murders they committed, are founded in truth; but I am certain, that at present there is no such trade in this country. That the horrid practice of drawing the knife and stabbing each other, still subsists among the Italian vulgar, I am persuaded, is owing to the scandalous impunity with which it is treated. The asylum which churches and convents offer to criminals, operates against the peace of society, and tends to the encouragement of this shocking custom in two different manners: First, it increases the criminal’s hopes of escaping; secondly, it diminishes, in vulgar minds, the idea of the atrocity of the crime. When the populace see a murderer lodged within the sacred walls of a church, protected and fed by men who are revered on account of their profession, and the supposed sanctity of their lives; must not this weaken the horror which mankind naturally have for such a crime, and which it ought to be the aim of every government to augment?