The "Bourgeoisie" stand on a very different footing. They have neither the moral influence of the priesthood nor the material wealth of the nobility to console them for the loss of liberty; they form indeed the "Pariahs" of Roman society. "In other countries," a Roman once said to me, "you have one man who lives in wealth and a thousand who live in comfort. Here the one man lives in comfort, and the thousand live in misery." I believe this picture is only too true. The middle classes, who live by trade or mental labour, must have a hard time of it. The professions of Rome are overstocked and underpaid. The large class of government officials or "impiegati," to whom admirers of the Papacy point with such pride as evidence of the secular character of the administration, are paid on the most niggardly scale; while all the lucrative and influential posts are reserved for the priestly administrators. The avowed venality of the courts of justice is a proof that lawyers are too poorly remunerated to find honesty their best policy, while the extent to which barbers are still employed as surgeons shows that the medical profession is not of sufficient repute to be prosperous. There is no native patronage for art, no public for literature. The very theatres, which flourish in other despotic states, are here but losing speculations, owing to the interference of clerical regulations. There are no commerce and no manufactures in the Eternal city. In a back street near the Capitol, over a gloomy, stable-looking door, you may see written up "Borsa di Roma," but I never could discover any credible evidence of business being transacted on the Roman change. There is but one private factory in Rome, the Anglo-Roman Gas Company. What trade there is is huckstering, not commerce. In fact, so Romans have told me, you may safely conclude that every native you meet walking in the streets here, in a broadcloth coat, lives from hand to mouth, and you may pretty surely guess that his next month's salary is already overdrawn. The crowds of respectably-dressed persons, clerks and shopkeepers and artizans, whom you see in the lottery offices the night before the drawing, prove the general existence not only of improvidence but of distress.