“Well, boys, we had better settle down and live here for about ten years until we learn a few tricks and then start business, or we had better give these chaps all we have at once and save them the trouble of taking it away from us.” From Frosinone south to the valley of the Sele and back as far as Ariano we found even the simple-minded peasants to have that touch of Neapolitanism, which is, to say the least, an undesirable characteristic. In the city itself it is so serious that not many years since the organized ruffians of the Cammora, recruited from all stations of society, were a power of terror, and since then men more polite, but just as criminal, bankrupted the city and brought general conditions to such a pass that the national government was forced to step in and take control till municipal and provincial affairs could be put on an honest and paying basis. The people are more noisy, more gross in their habits, and more irresponsible in their conduct than any class in any part of Italy. Constant change of government in the past, lack of things of an institutional nature and the focusing of all the bad in the south of Italy may have had the degenerating effect; but, whatever the cause, the effect exists, and the social virus seems to have poisoned many a man I know who, but for his brief stays in Naples, would be a very decent citizen, either in his native town, in other provinces, or in his new home in America. The bad Italians in the United States are in clusters, and the heads of the majority of these groups are men trained in theft, trickery and crime in the excellent schools of Naples and Palermo. In the city there are few factories, though the government is bringing every influence to bear to promote industries in Naples, and under the new municipal plan a large tract of the side of the city that lies towards Vesuvius is arranged for factory sites; but there are three important things lacking: raw material, skilled labor and confident capital. Even the excellent street-car system is controlled by Belgians. The north of Italy continues to be the industrial section. The business that emigration engenders is first in importance. Vesuvius, Pompeii, the Bay and the climate form the next important asset, and the exportation of agricultural products and wholesale business of all sorts the third. Two hundred thousand people in the city live on so little a year that the statement of the amount would sound ridiculous. [Illustration: Mangling Hemp]