It is not to the encouragement given by public charity that the great number of premature and improvident marriages contracted in this country is to be imputed. With the exception of those between professional beggars, we owe the greater part of them, first, to the natural disposition of ignorant and rude persons to follow, without reflection, the passions of the moment, and, secondly, to the blind zeal with which the clergy and bigotted people encourage all kinds of marriages, with the erroneous idea of thus preventing the immorality and scandal of illegitimate connexions. Nor are family ties affected by the charitable institutions. Whatever those may be, the poor man ever considers his relations as his sole support against adversity. Besides, as the Roman law with respect to paternal authority has been preserved among us unimpaired, family union is more easy and common than anywhere else. Though some individuals, skilled in working on the public compassion, may gain more than the average wages of labour, we cannot compare the results of the honest and independent labourer’s industry with the mendicant’s profits: so immense is the difference between the honourable existence of the one, and the humiliation, debasement, and moral degradation of the other. GENOA. 1. Public mendicity not being at present forbidden, it is difficult to ascertain the number of professed mendicants. Those on the town of Genoa may however be estimated at, at least, 200. If we add to these their families, or at least those members of their families who exist on the profit of their begging, the whole mendicant population may amount to from 600 to 700[20]. 2. The unemployed poor, not being mendicants, are relieved at their own homes by the “magistrat de misèricorde,” the “dames de misèricorde,” and by other governors of charities, out of the revenue of many pious bequests, with the administration of which they are charged. 3. The children of the poor, to whatever class they may belong, are gratuitously instructed in the primary public schools, under the direction of the municipal authorities. Six of these schools are for boys, and two for girls. 4. There is a mont de piété in Genoa, from which the poor can borrow on pledge; at 8 per cent. interest. 5. The poor of all ages, from the earliest childhood, who are natives of the town of Genoa, are gratuitously received, lodged, and fed, in the poor hospital, as far as the means of that establishment will go. The poor of the other parts of the duchy are also received there on payment of a small allowance.