Not so with many other women who come under the ban: though equally innocent, though victims of spite, of distorted circumstances, they fail to support the blow and _do_ become abandoned. The natural current is toward the cities, where they may hide from all who ever knew them in the village. It must not be forgotten that this system has been going on in a greater or less degree for centuries, and it has forced the natural attitude of the fathers, husbands, and brothers of the women into one of the utmost watchfulness and jealousy. I have often heard philanthropically inclined Americans who went into the Italian quarters seeking to do good, complain that the men were exceedingly averse to allowing their wives or daughters to meet strangers, or to have any of the usual liberties of American women. This jealousy is traditional, and is the result of the system outlined above. Another point on which this system may have some bearing is the devotion of the Italian women to the Church compared with the indifference of the men. In most civilized countries the women are more inclined to be religious than the men, but in Italy this is accentuated, and the separation is growing, as the skepticism to which I have referred spreads. All over southern Italy one hears a bitter reference to the _decime_, the one-tenth of a man’s money which is claimed by the Church each year; and though this often works out as not a literal allotment of one-tenth, there are many parishes, where the principal priests are keen business men, that more than one-tenth is extracted, and the tithes take form in labor, vegetables, wine, fruit, fees, etc., but are nevertheless valuable. It is not a matter of economics and does not pertain to this consideration, if the peasantry of southern Italy are such good Christians as to give to the use of God one-tenth of their all; but it certainly comes within the scope of this study when that enormous fund goes to support that portion of the priesthood which is unworthy and is nothing but an army of hypocritical parasites. Before leaving the subject of conditions in and about Rome, the _vagabondi_ should be mentioned. As I have said, the government considers no man a pauper so long as he is able to beg, and the tourist centres have gradually drawn a great collection of professional beggars, who are really artistic in their methods of appeal. They are not satisfied, as is the beggar of Naples, with a crust of bread, a sip of wine, and a stone treasuring sun-warmth on which to stretch at night, but go in for better things. At all the points of interest in the way of ruins and the like, which lie in the Roman zone, their representatives will be found. The liberality and apparent great wealth of the American tourists have inspired many of these to save enough to emigrate to America, but they have found begging a very poor occupation here, and in several instances of which I have heard have gone to work and are prospering.