On Sundays and "Festas" in the mountain districts you can still find real
peasants with real peasants' dresses; but even there Manchester stuffs
and cottons are making their way fast, and every year the old-fashioned
costumes grow rarer and rarer. A grey serge jacket, coarse nondescript-
coloured cloth trousers, and a brown felt hat, all more or less ragged
and dusty, compose the ordinary dress of the Roman working man. Female
dress, in any part of the world, is one of those mysteries which a wise
man will avoid any attempt to explain; I can only say, therefore, that
the dress of the common Roman women is much like that of other European
countries, except that the colours used are somewhat gayer and gaudier
than is common in the north.
Provisions are dear in Rome. Bread of the coarsest and mouldiest quality
costs, according to the Government tariff, by which its price is
regulated, from a penny to three halfpence for the English pound. Meat
is about a third dearer than in London, and clothing, even of the poorest
sort, is very high in price. On the other hand, lodgings, of the class
used by the poor, are cheap enough. There is no outlay for firing, as
even in the coldest weather (and I have known the temperature in Rome as
low as eight degrees below freezing-point), even well-to-do Romans never
think of lighting a fire; and then, in this climate, the actual quantity
of victuals required by an able-bodied labourer is far smaller than in
our northern countries, while, from the same cause, the use of strong
liquors is almost unknown. Tobacco too, which is all made up in the
Papal factories and chiefly grown in the country, is reasonable in price,
though poor in quality. In the country and the poorer parts of the city,
the dearest cigar you can buy is only a baioccho, or under one halfpenny;
and from this fact you may conclude what the price of the common cheap
cigars is to a native. From all these causes, I feel no doubt that the
cost of living for the poor is comparatively small, though of course the
rate of wages is small in proportion. For ordinary unskilled labour, the
day-wages, at the winter season, are about three pauls to three pauls and
a half; in summer about five pauls; and in the height of the vintage as
much as six or seven pauls, though this is only for a very few weeks. I
should suppose, therefore, that from 1_s_. 6_d_. to 1_s_. 9_d_. a day,
taking the paul at 5_d_., were the average wages of a good workman at
Rome. From these wages, small as they are, there are several deductions
to be made.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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