Back of these conditions lies the contempt which these people have come to hold, in the Roman zone, for both Church and State, and the reason is that to them both St. Peter’s and the Quirinal and all they represent are things far more ordinary and less impressive than to the populace of the remoter provinces. Political and religious skepticism is growing to be as dangerously common among the poor people in and about Rome as it was in France early last century. Many social conditions are accurately reproduced, and there are wise patriots who dread a repetition in Italy of what followed the 14th of July, 1789, in France. These things really concern the people of the great northern provinces but little. They are busy and prosperous, educated and advanced, and, though within the boundaries of the same nation, they are very distinctly apart. I can easily understand the attitude of the common people in the Roman zone toward the aristocracy. The representatives of this class were returning in full force to Rome only about the time we left it, but we had abundant opportunity in both Naples and Rome for getting something near the proper measure of these idling, pleasure-seeking, self-sufficient landholders. Having their position by right of birth, and given every advantage of the European civilization as a result of rent-rolls from huge inherited estates, we found them to be, nevertheless, insolent, shallow, degenerate physically, vicious and so thoroughly unfit as a class for the responsibilities of the rich and high-placed that, if I had the choice between admitting to the United States a wealthy educated Roman nobleman and a poor Calabrese contract laborer unable to read or write, I should choose the laborer every time. Though the numbers of the middle class are lamentably small even in Rome, there is a greater and more deplorable paucity farther south. In the agricultural districts a man is either a laboring tenant or a landholder, except for those few who are village artisans, tradesmen, or are in the liberal professions. It requires well-divided ownership of land or diversified industries, as in the United States, to create that sturdy enlightened and independent middle class which is the strength of any nation. The army of returned emigrants are the nearest approach to a middle class to be found in many of the southern communes.