In the time of the Medicis, public policy and private benevolence became copartners in founding a self-supporting pawnbroking shop on a large scale, to be kept under the supervision of Government. To a people who, whenever they begin to be pinched in circumstances, try to economise but never attempt to work, and exert themselves rather to save than to make money, it is no small object to have a public pawnbroking establishment where money is allowed at a fixed scale. If a Florentine have a bracelet too much, and bread too little, he has but to give the bracelet in pawn to the Government. In the same way, if he be troubled with a child too many, he proceeds to the infant asylum, rings the bell, and in the cradle which forthwith opens, he deposits the child for the Government to feed. Under the Governments which have prevailed in Tuscany for the last three hundred years, this is precisely the kind of political institution which the Florentines have learnt to value and appreciate. The proper supervision of the pawnbroking shop, the maintenance of the foundling asylums and the hospitals (with which Florence is, in proportion, better provided than London), the grant made to the opera—these and other such questions are the matters of government in which a Florentine takes interest. To politics, in an Englishman’s sense of the word, they pay little or no attention. In the election of representatives to the Chambers at Turin the people appear to take little or no part. For instance: M. Peruzzi, the present Minister for the Interior, is one of the representatives of Florence. On accepting office he was of course obliged to appeal to his constituents. The seat was contested. On the day appointed for the election I had occasion to ask my way to the place where it was being held: several respectable citizens did not know that any election was to take place whatever. At last one man, better informed than the rest, had heard something about an election that week, but did not know where the elections were held. The election proved invalid for want of the legal complement of voters—namely, one-half the whole number. This is the general result of elections in Tuscany on the first trial. The second election is valid, provided only the same number of voters are present as attended the first. This is fortunate, otherwise it might occur that there would be a lack of representatives from Tuscany in the Parliament at Turin. The fact is, and it needs repetition, the Florentines do not care about politics. They have accepted the revolution that was made for them, and on the whole are well contented with the change; at least we ought in justice to ascribe their general listlessness in political affairs to contentment and not to indifference.