advertisement; perhaps some article has deeply interested him. Phaugh! waste not your compassion or your speculation upon him--he is a Spy! he has been taking notes, and woe be to you if you have been betrayed into any thoughtless expression of opinion; for every word is registered. What corner of the city, or the country, what class of society is free from this pest! Nor is all this merely imaginary. I paint from the life, and could adduce instances of betrayal in the belle of high society, or in the shopman at the counter, in the caburan who takes your paltry _buonamancia_, or the friend you have cherished in your bosom. For even private friendship is not held sacred. There was living in Naples, upwards of a year since, a Count Montinona, who appeared to have no particular object in view except the pursuit of pleasure. For many years he had lavished his bounty and his friendship on another, who was at length discovered to have made somewhat free with the Count’s property; accusations ensued, and, though compassion and a certain lingering recollection of the past did not permit the Count to cast the villain entirely off; yet he so far restricted his intimacy as to put it out of his power to rob him--“he was poor, and the temptation had been too great!” But what ensued?--This man denounced his friend as having concealed arms, and as entertaining free and dangerous opinions. Straightway the Count was arrested--his house and papers were examined, though nothing could be found to implicate him or to prove the charge; yet for many, many months he pined away in prison. I never heard when he was released, or if he is yet at liberty. All that time the informer ranged about at his own sweet will, to entrap as many new jail victims as he could make.