During the preceding century the city was really in a fairly peaceful and prosperous condition, but the many institutions of charity which flourished under Gregory XVI and Pius IX had not reached the point where they could provide night refuges for its many waifs and vagrants. There were numbers of poor boys—street arabs, as we should call them—who wandered about in the daytime, earning a little here and there but subsisting chiefly on charity and having no fixed dwelling-place of any kind. To these the broad steps and portico of the Pantheon offered at least shelter from the weather, and they used to gather there in crowds after dark and sleep—as boys can sleep—on the stones. Now there was in Rome, towards 1780 or thereabouts, a poor mason called Giovanni Borgi. He belonged to the “opera di San Pietro”: that is, he was one of the workmen engaged for life by the administration of St. Peter’s for the maintenance and repair of the Basilica, the Vatican Palace, and its many dependent buildings. The “opera” was a close corporation and included artisans of every necessary craft, from mosaic workers to bricklayers, plumbers, and carpenters. Of course the privileges were largely hereditary, the Italian traditions of Guilds leading the son to follow the trade or profession of his father whenever possible, but high character and a blameless record were also indispensable qualifications for every appointment. Giovanni Borgi, though poor and almost illiterate, had worked all his life in the holy places and was regarded by his fellows as very nearly a saint. While he worked he prayed, and when working hours were over he went regularly to the great Hospital of Santo Spirito in the “Borgo,” and sat up late into the night nursing the sick and comforting the dying. The only reproach ever addressed to him was that he sometimes got sleepy over his work the morning after some unusually long vigil by the bedside of some sufferer who had entreated him to remain with him. Everybody loved the queer little man, and he loved all the world but himself. To this person he never gave a thought. Heaven had made him short and stumpy—but he could walk as well as the youngest; he had but one eye—but its sight was perfect; a funny bald head—but somebody had given him an old wig to cover it with; what was there to complain about? So, being empty of itself, his heart had room for others, and he took his fellow-beings’ wants and sufferings very seriously.