In view of the wide difference between the people of Sicily and the Negroes in America, so far as concerns the external side of their religious life, it struck me as curious that I should hear almost exactly the same criticism of the people in Sicily, in respect to their religion, that I have frequently heard of the Negroes in America. A very large number of the popular superstitions of Sicily, what we sometimes call the folklore of a country, are very much like many of the notions that the Negroes are supposed to have imported to America from Africa. Any one who has listened to any of the older generation of coloured people tell of the various ways of "working the roots," as they call it, will learn a great many things that can be almost exactly duplicated in the popular notions about drugs and philters among the people of Sicily. It is said of the Sicilians, among other things, that their Christianity is saturated with pagan superstitions and that, for the average Sicilian, religion has no connection with moral life. In many cases it seems as if the image of the Virgin has become, among the lower class of people, little more than a fetish, a thing to conjure with. For example, the peasant who, in order to revenge himself upon his landlord, and perhaps to compensate himself for what he believes has been taken from him by fraud or extortion, determines to rob his landlord's field or flock, will pray before one of these images, before starting out, for success. If he is really "pious" he may offer to the saints, in case he is successful, a portion of what he has stolen. If, however, he fails and is merely superstitious, he will sometimes curse and revile, or even spit upon, the image to which he previously prayed. I have heard that the savages in Africa will sometimes behave in the same way toward the object of which they have made a fetish, but I have never heard of anything like that among my own people in the South. The Negro is frequently superstitious, as most other ignorant people are, but he is not cynical, and never scoffs at anything which has a religious significance. One thing that indicates the large part that religion plays in the lives of the Sicilian people is the fact that out of the 365 days in the year 104 are sacred to the Church. The large amounts of money expended annually by the different cities of Sicily upon processions and celebrations in honour of the local saints is one of the sources of complaint made by those who are urging reforms in the local administrations. They say that the money expended in this way might better be used in improving the sanitary condition of the cities.