It is worth noting that now, for the first time, the leaders of Italian political movements began to consider the special grievances of the poor. As Mazzini had roused the working men to care for the liberty and unity of their country, so a common suffering had gradually taught the wealthier leaders to care for the troubles of their poorer neighbours; and these petitions enumerate a number of taxes which specially weighed on the poor. The tax on salt was the material burden most generally felt; while the lottery, with its deliberate encouragement of the spirit of gambling, increased the moral loathing of the Lombards for the Austrian rule. But the crushing out of national feeling and intellectual life were still the two main complaints of these petitioners; and, besides the more general proofs of these mentioned above, the petitioners dwelt with great emphasis on the conscription which carried off the youth of the country for eight years. And they finally demand that the representatives of the people should ask for "A complete and irrevocable separation in every branch of the administration; that they should be governed by a person, not by a foreign people;" and that "their own nationality, history, language, and brotherhood with other Italians should not be considered as crime and rebellion." They finally close with the words, "To-day you can still speak of peace. The future is in the hands of the God of Justice." The petition of Nazari had, as already mentioned, produced effects in the Lombard provinces; but it had also called out sympathy, though a little more slowly, in the neighbouring province of Venetia. There the hand of Austria seemed to have weighed more heavily than even in Milan. Perhaps the absence of old traditions of internal freedom, and the terrible corruption which had hastened the fall of its independence, may have had something to do with the silence of Venice. Perhaps, too, the sense of the singular baseness of the crime, by which they had become possessed of the Venetian district, may have goaded the Austrians into greater tyranny than even that which they exercised in their other dominions. But, whatever was the cause, there seems to be no doubt, as one of the historians of the time puts it, that Venice was then reckoned "the least sturdy city in the kingdom, and the one least disposed to movement." But even Venice could not be shut out from the influence of the Italian spirit, and the first sign of awakening life was called out, curiously enough, by a Buonaparte. The Prince of Canino, who had already succeeded in turning Scientific Congresses at Genoa and Milan into opportunities for political demonstrations, had come, in September, 1847, to Venice to preside in the Geological Section of the Congress. There he had introduced a discourse on Pius IX., which was received with loud applause; and when the Austrian police compelled him to leave the State, people followed him on his road with cheers of sympathy.