The soldiers form the most respectable and the only disciplined part of the male population in a city like Rome. One often sees, of course, battalions of men from all the Italian provinces, youths of twenty just enrolled, and among them there is seldom a vicious face. For these are the mothers' sons, and they compare very favourably with our "Tommies." The same cannot be said of the other youths who throng the city. Perhaps seven-tenths of the crime is committed by lads in their teens and early twenties; I have heard a Senator declare that there are boys of twelve in the prisons who are already _perfetti criminali_; and surely nowhere in Europe are boys and youths worse trained. The most appalling phenomenon, however, is the existence of a degraded type, of all and every age, usually belonging to the decently-clothed classes, whose outrages on decency were described by an Italian in a Roman newspaper as "enough to sicken the coarsest navvy." These practices, according to some old Romans, are one of the results of the French occupation, but such an explanation of occurrences which are to be met with nowhere else in Europe or out of it, must be taken with all reserve. Gaolbirds like these molest women with impunity; and the _amor proprio_ of the vile nature awakes just in time to heap further outrage when this molestation is resented. Women have always been hustled in the Roman streets, and as Italian ladies are only now beginning to walk unaccompanied, the foreign visitors bear the brunt of the amiable practice still in vogue of not moving on the narrow pavements, but leaving the lady to take the gutter. Such conduct from men to women contrasts strangely with the courtesy so often extended even to beggars; and a woman of the people, a servant or a porteress, will invite the beggar who is interrupting your conversation to desist, with such phrases as: "Move aside a little; Do me this pleasure." _Courtship and Marriage_ It will be astonishing to many, no doubt, to hear that courtship in Italy is a prosaic affair. Of passion there is plenty and to spare, but the tragic element does not enter every day, and then no sentiment comes in to disturb matters. After the first _etiquette_ of the situation is over, and the letters vowing that you have _il paradiso nel cuor_--which are duly discounted by the peasant _fiancee_--have been written, things run uneventfully enough. A young Abruzzese servant--from the most saving population of Italy--became enthusiastic when recounting the virtues of his proposed bride to his mistress, which culminated with: "Signorina mia, _e piena di biancheria_"--"she is full of house linen."